My Ranking of the 87 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Winners - Vol. 4 (20 - 1)

We have now reached the top 20!

I honestly don't have anything negative to say about any of these performances. At worst, maybe I did prefer another nominee to them, but strictly based on their work, I find these all to be very worthy of Oscar recognition. 

In fact, most of them would've been my choice from the nominees selected and, a good amount of them were my personal choice on my own ballot for each of their respective years.

I will save my remaining thoughts for the end.

For now, let's begin the top 20 with a performance from a truly underrated Irish actress.

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#20 - Brenda Fricker, My Left Foot

This one of those cases where a performer will be recognizable more by her face than by her name to many millennials like myself.

Brenda Fricker will always be The Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York along with Maggie, the very warm foster mom in Angels in the Outfield.

It is very funny that a lot of Fricker's most famous roles link her as being a very warm and maternal figure, because she herself has often said she is the least maternal person possible.

And in My Left Foot, she plays Mrs. Brown, a woman who gave birth to TWENTY-TWO CHILDREN. This was such a stark number that when Fricker won, she said in her speech that "a woman who gives birth 22 times deserves [an Oscar]".

The warm supportive mother is another one of those Supporting Actress staple performances, but I think Fricker manages to be one of the finest examples of this.

Keep in mind, she is acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, who is truly taking up the screen with his commitment to playing the real life Christy Brown, who suffered from Cerebral Palsy. 

Her devotion to him is so compelling and you can feel her warmth and care in every frame...and how proud she is of him. 

This is a woman who tells her son: "If you could have my legs, I would gladly take yours"...and it is one of the most honest and genuine expressions of motherly love you can find in a film.

A truly lovely performance.

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#19 - Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker

I am going to get one thing out of the way first.

Patty Duke shouldn't have won the Oscar. I firmly believe that Angela Lansbury gave one of the best performances in the history of cinema as Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate and she had every right to feel that she was robbed.

However...

This is a prime example of how just because someone was more deserving doesn't mean that the winner was necessarily undeserving.

This was a performance that was full of strong commitment and great physical work, which is only more impressive when you factor in her young age and the fact she originated this role on the Broadway stage eight times a week.

The one-two punch of Duke and Anne Bancroft make for a truly iconic cinematic duo, and I think that Duke winning here is something that is worth celebrating...but it will always go down as a prime example of how the awards process can also hurt a film or a performance simply because it is deemed less worthy when being put next to another product.

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#18 - Vanessa Redgrave, Julia 

I had the privilege of seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a play back in 2011...sadly it was Driving Miss Daisy but hey, getting the trio of Redgrave, James Earl Jones, and Boyd Gaines is nothing to scoff at in the slightest.

I admire Vanessa Redgrave a great deal for how she approaches her work and also for her political beliefs. Even though this role doesn't exactly give her as much screentime, she kind of dominates the film as its main catalyst...which I suppose would make sense considering she actually plays the titular Julia.

Supposedly a real-life figure (check out the history of writer Lillian Hellman to see why that is probably not exactly the case), Julia is a woman who is fighting against the Nazis during the rise leading to WWII.

Jane Fonda plays Hellman, who was a childhood friend of Julia, who had gone off to study at Oxford but ended up living the university to go to Vienna with the hopes to mentor under Sigmund Freud. 

However, Julia gets swept up in the anti-Nazi movement (because it is always good to punch Nazis in the face), and then she inquires help from her friend Lillian in the resistance cause.

Redgrave's presence is sparse but felt so strongly throughout the film, and then when we get to the famous cafe scene in which Hellman and Julia have their final encounter, Redgrave is luminous without even really doing or saying much of anything. 

Julia is a film that has its moments of being compelling but does suffer at times due to sluggish pacing and an erratic screenplay (which still won the Oscar) but I think Fonda and Redgrave do make the film worth seeing.

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#17 - Dianne Wiest, Bullets over Broadway

When Woody Allen decided to cast Dianne Wiest as the diva Helen Sinclair, his late writing partner Douglas McGrath said "All right, kill your picture then."

Wiest was known for her kooky and sort of neurotic roles, one of which we already discussed in my last volume...and sure, Helen Sinclair is a kook in her own way but this is a woman of a certain strength and narcissism that many felt Wiest couldn't pull off.

She also didn't seem to get a handle on the role at first until she experimented with lowering her voice an octave...and that is where she found the character and swept the award season.

I actually consider Bullets over Broadway to be a solid film, but it also occurs at a time in Woody Allen's career where I feel his true steady decline began.

A lot of what saves the film is its ensemble, which is fantastic and also includes John Cusack, Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly, and Tracey Ullman. 

Wiest is certainly a major highlight and, frankly, who on earth could ever forget her telling Cusack to "Don't speak!!"?

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#16 - Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind

I have said before that I have never been the biggest fan of Gone with the Wind, and that even dates back to before I even realized how problematic the material was in of itself.

Even this character is problematic...hell, she is simply credited as "Mammy". 

Still though, McDaniel's win here is historic as she was the first person of color to win an Oscar...then you take into account that the forced her to sit in the back of the room next to the kitchen and they made her recite a speech that was written for her rather than her own words.

Truly disgusting.

Overlooking those truly abhorrent issues, I think McDaniel is undoubtedly iconic and is truly such a strong presence in this film. At the young age in which I first saw the film, I didn't even know or take into account the Oscar win so I viewed the performance on simply being very memorable and enjoyed her energy and chemistry with Vivien Leigh.

Hattie McDaniel paved the way and while she won for the most offensive type of role she could've won for...I can't argue that she was simply just too good.

I do want to say that I wish Margaret Hamilton had gotten a nomination for The Wizard of Oz. Talk about another truly iconic performance!

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#15 - Josephine Hull, Harvey 

This is another performance I saw at a very young age, but I was old enough to have been aware of the Oscars. The only difference was I hadn't really studied the history enough to know that Josephine Hull had actually won.

What I can recall was what an absolute riot I found Hull to be, and I remembered thinking "It would've been nice for a truly hilarious comedic performance like this to win an Oscar" and then I was thrilled to see that she actually pulled it off.

She was able to turn even the most banal of lines into comic gold, but even if a line was written for comic effect, she somehow made it even better. I think of her delivery of:

"Oh, Myrtle. It's a wonderful feeling to have your relative out of the house before company comes!"

She is so desperate to hide her brother Harvey (whose best friend is a 6-foot tall imaginary rabbit) that we can't help but love her despite the fact she is being so cold to her brother...and it all comes down to the comedic element and how she ends up getting herself committed all by accident when a psychiatrist thinks her character Veta is the mental case.

And then, through all the comedy, Hull pulls through with a touching dramatic turn when she realizes she actually doesn't want her brother to change.

This was one of those rare examples where the Academy acknowledged a comedic performance and got it right.

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#14 - Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Not really related to the performance itself, but I can remember being very proud when I predicted that Tilda Swinton would win this Oscar. 

That season, the Supporting Actress category was divided as Amy Ryan won the Critics' Choice; Cate Blanchett won the Globe, Ruby Dee won the SAG, and Tilda Swinton won the BAFTA.

In recent years, divided races have come down to BAFTA being the deciding factor. Recent wins by Frances McDormand and Anthony Hopkins are prime examples of this...even if the latter had been expected by most to be Chadwick Boseman.

I felt at the time that Swinton would benefit not just from having something of the "recency" of her BAFTA win, but also building up respect as an actress, the fact that Blanchett already had an Oscar, and it would be a great way to reward BP nominee Michael Clayton with an Oscar.

And, it must be said, it is a great performance.

As Karen Crowder, Swinton plays one of those villains that is simply just so pathetic and nothing but a true weasel. I almost think of her as a more dramatic female version of William H. Macy's Jerry Lundegaard from Fargo in that respect.

The whole movie, Swinton tries to play a tough and no-nonsense lawyer but instead, she is completely drowning in anxieties. 

All of it builds up to a truly exquisite final scene where her whole world comes crashing down and you can't help but just chuckle at the justice at play...and also maybe pity her more just because Swinton's details in the scene are just so exquisite.

She is simply falling apart and when Clooney states he wants $10 million, her almost stunned and petrified laugh as she chokes out "Where do you think I’m going to get $10 million?!" is an absolutely brilliant line delivery.

Another great line delivery, one that is almost comical as she realizes she just got owned by Clooney, is "You don't want the money?" is simply just a savory cherry on top of the scene. Speaking of Clooney, this movie contains some of his best work and this scene in particular might be the finest moment of his career, and she is able to give him EXACTLY what he needs to soar.

You know what? Watch the scene. It is fantastic.

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#13 - Meryl Streep, Kramer vs. Kramer

When Kramer vs. Kramer begins, our first shot is of Meryl Streep.

She looks tired and flustered and despondent. This is a woman who simply has had enough and within minutes, she leaves her husband (Dustin Hoffman) and we are off to the races.

We watch as Hoffman tries to raise his son (Justin Henry) on his own and how disconnected he actually was from his life and then, when we least expect it, Streep appears from a distance watching them and it is almost like we've seen a ghost.

A lot has been said about how Hoffman treated Streep in this movie, such as slapping her to get her into a place of despair for the first scene, or how he broke a wine glass within inches of her head without prompting her (leading to the stilted surprised reaction we see from her in the film), or trying to milk her to cry by hanging the death of her partner John Cazale over her head before shooting the final courtroom scene.

Hoffman is a great actor but can be very problematic to say the least.

I have to say that it seems truly laughable that any performer would feel like an actress the caliber of Meryl Streep would need help getting to a certain emotional state. I get that this was early in her career but COME ON! She was already a respected stage actress who graduated with a Masters from the Yale School of Drama AND had an Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter the previous year.

Regardless of that, NO ACTOR OR DIRECTOR OR ANYONE should feel compelled to put a performer through that kind of turmoil...and while I am on that topic, that goes for how Stanley Kubrick treated Shelley Duvall during The Shining as well. 

At any rate, I feel like Streep gives the role of Joanna what it needs because we could simply just hate this woman for walking out on her son and leaving him with his distant father...but a lot of what Streep brings to the table is just that this is a woman who was missing something in her life, and she had to try to find herself.

In lesser hands, I think this role would've been a failure. 

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#12 - Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

Another black actress winning for playing a slave...sigh...

But hey, what a strong debut this was for Lupita Nyong'o!

12 Years a Slave is a brutal film and it is truly difficult to watch Nyong'o as Patsey as she is frequently raped by her owner played by Michael Fassbender and a source of abuse and ridicule by the wife, played by Sarah Paulson in a performance that truly shows how wasted she has been in Ryan Murphy projects.

It could be easy to write off Nyong'o's performance as being successful due to how hard it is to separate the brutal tragic nature of it; the whole "swept by a character rather than the performance" motif.

That would, undoubtedly, be selling Nyong'o short. 

She simply just gives herself emotionally over to this role and while I originally thought that a lot of the success of her performance was due to the character rather than the actress, I was simply wrong.

Nyong'o has also proven how stellar she of an actress she is outside of this role, and she was royally robbed of a nomination and potential win for her work in Jordan Peele's Us.

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#11 - Youn Yuh-jung, Minari

Leading up to the 2021 Academy Awards, it seemed that film buffs were bemoaning that a performance by Youn Yuh-jung would probably be forgotten because it was a Korean-language performance...even though Minari was receiving a lot of extensive awards attention.

It was also just the year following the rather egregious snubbing of any of the performers from Parasite despite that film breaking the glass ceiling of becoming the first foreign film to win Best Picture.

However, Youn did win...and I find it a glorious moment. She also became only the second woman of East Asian descent to win an Oscar...and the first to win for an Asian-language role.

As Soon-ja, Youn gets to be the film's comic relief but also the film's eventual heart. She is loving grandmother, but she is also a grandmother who doesn't always act like the stereotypical grandmother: particularly with her swearing and her fascination with watching wrestling on TV with great awe.

When she eventually ends up being severely affected by a physical ailment, you honestly feel deeply sad by it because she was such a source of light and love in the movie. 

ALSO - her Oscar speech was quite possibly the highlight of that rather horrible ceremony...aside from Glenn Close's staged bit where she talks about the song "Da Butt".

Shout out to the ensemble of Minari, led by Oscar nominee Steven Yeun and the overlooked Han Ye-ri.

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#10 - Maggie Smith, California Suite

Diana: "Which category did we miss?"

Sidney: "The Best Documentary Short Subject"

Diana: "...oh damnit...my favorite category".

Maggie Smith is Diana Barren, an actress who has flown in from London to attend to the Academy Awards as she is up for a nomination.

She is not exactly thrilled to be there, but deep down, she certainly wouldn't mind winning.

And she doesn't.

But Dame Maggie did.

I adore this win so much and it doesn't even have to deal with the juicy fact that she won for playing an Oscar loser. Smith is just so freaking good at comedy and her chemistry with Michael Caine is absolutely delicious.

California Suite, however, is not a good movie. While the movie does tell 4 different stories, none of the others are worthwhile in the slightest (basically Neil Simon at his most banal...but I am also not exactly a huge champion of Neil Simon so perhaps I am negatively biased). It all comes down to Smith and Caine to salvage some form of comic dignity to the proceedings and they succeed in spades.

Smith's regal nature all played to deadpanned glory is a true masterclass in how to sell comedy in the driest way possible for maximum effect.

This was Smith's second Oscar win following her lead actress win for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which also made my top 10 for that category. 

Smith manages to be one of the few actresses to win multiple Oscars that were actually richly deserved. Having said that though, I do want to give a shout-out to Maureen Stapleton, who managed to give Woody Allen's Interiors, a film that is at constant battle with an aloof pretentiousness, a sense of life and vitality.

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#9 - Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek

I don't remember a lot about Zorba the Greek. I haven't watched the film in over 15 years at this point, but if anything does stand out in my mind from it, it is Lila Kedrova.

That wasn't to say that the film was bad by any means, but I suppose I just wasn't as overly enamored with it as some of the other offerings from 1964 like Dr. Strangelove, Woman in the Dunes, and Mary Poppins.

Kedrova plays Madame Hortense, and her win in this category was actually seen as something of a surprise that night...but the only surprise in hindsight is that this was ever considered a surprise win to begin with.

Madame Hortense is a character who has a truly eccentric woman who longs for the days of her youth and seeks the love of another man, but instead, she seems to be the source of ridicule.

When she ends up contracting pneumonia and is on her deathbed, we watch her quietly praying and hallucinating as if she was finally receiving the attention to hoped to receive from men much like the oft mentioned "four admirals" of her past.

This is a performance that is brimming with such strong quiet desperation and devastation...and you truly can't help but feel such remorse for the character. 

It is no wonder that for the 1984 revival of the 1969 Broadway musical, they nabbed Kedrova to join the cast and she took the Tony.

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#8 - Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire

When one thinks about Streetcar, many think of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh... and particularly the famous moment where Brando's Stanley yells for his wife: "Hey STELLA! HEY STELLA!!!!"

Well, Kim Hunter is the one who portrays Stella...and she is truly just as fantastic as her two leading co-stars and the other member of that famous quartet: Karl Malden.

Kim Hunter is an actress that I feel isn't as known nowadays beyond her work in this film, which does seem like a shame.

However, I think you can truly see the depths of her talent with this role, because even though Stella is certainly not a bad role, it is an easy one to make potentially dull.

Hunter's screen presence is very scintillating and her chemistry with Brando is absolutely powerful.

After Brando calls for her, the descent down the stairs is dripping with so much sexual tension that I feel like I might have to take up a nasty cigarette habit.

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#7 - Linda Hunt, The Year of Living Dangerously

I truly wondered how I would rank this performance as it is technically "yellowface". 

In fact, the "yellowface" aspect aside, this is a performance that is truly unique because we have a white woman playing a Chinese-Australian man.

I might've knocked this down a couple of points strictly for the "yellowface", but I have to admit, this is a truly compelling performance in what is, once again, the best thing about a relatively middling film.

Linda Hunt is mostly known these days for being a part of the NCIS franchise, for being the model of the Edna Mode character from The Incredibles, and perhaps for what I remember her from the most: Ms. Schlowsky in Kindergarten Cop.

This was not a case of an actress playing a man simply because of a gimmick. This was director Peter Weir auditioning multiple men (including Wallace Shawn, which...imagine that casting for a moment...) and just not finding the right fit until he stumbled across Hunt, who was mostly working as a NY Theatre actress at the time.

Hunt is thoroughly convincing as Billy Kwan and she plays the role with a lot of dignity and respect. Her final moments of the film when she confronts Guy (Mel Gibson) and she just quietly digs into him: "I thought you were a man of light...I gave you my trust...I created you...", it is just chilling to say the least.

I just can't help but commend this performance for the majority of what it is able to pull off.

However, I do want to give a shout-out to Cher, whose work in Silkwood seemed to prove to the world that perhaps the lady who wore bombastic Bob Mackie costumes and starred on her own cheesy variety series was actually an actress worth watching.

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#6 - Jane Darwell, The Grapes of Wrath

Jane Darwell's final film role was playing the famous bird lady that Julie Andrews sings about in Mary Poppins...and sure, it was nice that Walt Disney saw to give Darwell the work and to treat her like royalty through the process...but it is also a shame that an actress like her seemingly couldn't get her career to take off despite an Oscar win. 

Darwell as Ma Joad is one of the warmest and most captivating characters ever captured on film (by way of Steinbeck's novel, of course). 

She is a source of strength and resilience and provides a strong rock for the Joad family to lean on. 

Also, it must be said that the even if it is the most famous scene, her moment with the earrings is a true class act in film acting...and she is also very vital as the main audience during Henry Fonda's iconic "I'll be there" monologue.

A truly epic performance that finds such power in such simmering subtlety and determination.

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#5 - Cloris Leachman, The Last Picture Show

Very few performances build to such a furioso finale quite like that of Cloris Leachman's Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show.

And right after that burst of energy, it settles into a warm and quiet peace.

It must've been interesting for audiences at the time considering Leachman was primarily known for playing Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and it wasn't as common for TV stars to easily turn into Oscar winners (even though Goldie Hawn had down it just two years prior).

It also seemed as if Leachman, at least from the standpoint of reading about the season, wasn't exactly a shoo-in to win, plus she had strong competition from her co-star Ellen Burstyn who had something of a flashier role.

Leachman's Ruth Popper is the wife to the local high school football coach who is neglected by him...and she starts sleeping with the teenaged Bobby (Timothy Bottoms), who is on her husband's team.

What I find interesting about his portrayal is how they make Ruth out to be, essentially, a middle-aged girl next door. She isn't what you'd call a "knock-out" so to speak, but you can see the beauty there...and when she starts to get the attention from Bobby, you can see her coming alive.

Although, by film's end, she is depressed and truly shutting herself out from the world and when Bobby comes back seeking solace in her arms, she will have none of it.

And with that, I will just leave this here.

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#4 - Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock

    Oh look! Here comes another borderline leading suffering wife performance!

Nevertheless, I am judging these performances based on their quality and how much I found them to be effective in their films, and I have absolutely adored this performance from the moment I saw it.

I also think this is such a truly remarkable Oscar win if only for the fact that it seems to be one of those rare times where a dark horse candidate who managed to slip into race actually got seen enough for people to realize she was so clearly the best.

Harden benefitted from it being a divided race, as well. Kate Hudson won the Globe, Judi Dench won SAG, Julie Walters won BAFTA, and Frances McDormand won CCA.

Of those 4, only Dench was in a BP nominee...which was Chocolat...and what a terrible film. Even though Dench had just won an Oscar two years prior, at the time I sort of thought she had enough clout to pull off a second win. Hudson seemed to be considered the tentative frontrunner, but I would've rather McDormand win over Hudson. 

This just simply turned out to be one of those rare instances where it felt like the Academy just seemed to know that someone was far above the rest and they didn't vote for anyone that was crowned by the major televised precursors. Keep in mind, Harden was not nominated for any other major award and had only won the NY Film Critics Circle Award.

I am focusing too much on the awards aspect, but I am just impressed that she pulled this off because she legitimately did deserve it and a lot of key stats were broken for her to pull it off!

Her and Ed Harris smolder together in this film and I think her fire and passion matches his so brilliantly. To be honest, I think he should've won that night too, but he also had stiff competition from Javier Bardem.

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#3 - Viola Davis, Fences 

I approached the idea of seeing Fences as a film with pretty steady confidence that it would be good...and it was, indeed, good.

I do think it lost something from the stage, but we did still get those performances...especially that of Viola Davis.

I have an immense fondness for the work of August Wilson and I do think that Fences is easily one of his best plays despite the fact it might be a cliche to say that. The character of Rose Maxson is very intriguing because she gets to play the oft-seen suffering housewife, but Wilson wrote her as a means for her to have a strong backbone. On top of that, after she learns of her husband's betrayal, he allows her a chance to take him down and then eventually cut him out of her life when he has the gall to ask her the raise the child he had with his now dead mistress.

I think the fact that Rose ends up raising the child as her own was an interesting choice because it could come off as her being a doormat, and it certainly doesn't. 

That is both praise to the writing of Wilson and the acting of Davis.

I could go on and on about the quality of this performance, but I do want to share the clip of her famous "I gave 18 years of my life!" monologue before I got to my next point of topic:

So, I talk about category fraud occurring somewhat often...and this is one of the more egregious examples. Granted, the actress Mary Alice won a Featured Tony Award for the original production of Fences while Davis won a Lead Tony when her and Denzel Washington revived the play back in the early 2010s.

I still say this is a lead role...but Davis sadly knew how to play the game and asked to be campaigned for the Supporting Actress Oscar for what was essentially an easy win.

I do have to wonder: if Davis actually campaigned in Lead, would she have seriously still lost the Oscar to freaking Emma Stone in La La Land? I would hope not, but then again, Emma Stone was honestly the weakest in that category and if she could beat the likes of Natalie Portman and Isabelle f'n Huppert then I have lost hope for the world of "artistic integrity".

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#2 - Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

When talking about character arcs and how it seems like certain roles may not have enough to truly give an actress much to do, it might seem a little shocking that I would rank Sandy Dennis as my #2.

For those who followed my Best Actress ranking, you know that I ranked Elizabeth Taylor #1 and that I have a strong love for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as both a play and a film.

With all of that love in mind, I guess ranking Dennis this high isn't so shocking.

The role of Honey is very deceptive. She is a rather meek and mousy housewife, but she is also neurotic and easily susceptible to pressure.

Considering you have the characters of George and Martha dominating over the proceedings and then a sterling character like Nick (Honey's husband) sort of acting as the closest example to the material's "straight man/audience stand-in", Honey is almost always in the background but gets these carefully placed bits where she will chime in and steal the moment right out from under Taylor, Burton, and Segal.

Like, who can forget her yelling "Hump the hostess!" or when they go out to the desolate restaurant and she is twirling around like she is some psychotic Twyla Tharp dancer singing "I dance like the WIND!"? 

This is really a performance/role that is truly remarkable in how much can be mined out of what is actually fairly sparse text. A lot of it comes down to the characteristics that writer Edward Albee used to describe her in the text, because honestly, this role could be played fairly straight for the most part and end up not being that remarkable.

It is also an amazing example of how strongly effective a true Supporting performance can be.

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#1 - Mo'Nique, Precious

I think this selection is sort of anticlimactic in some ways because it isn't exactly an "out of the box" choice...but I suppose you can't ignore when something is just that impressive.

I also strictly mean that in relation to Mo'Nique's performance because why not end my ranking with the ultimate example of a Supporting Actress winner being the best thing about her movie?

I was not a fan of Precious and I think a lot of that has to do with Lee Daniels as a director, but I just didn't take to a lot of the film either. I am still rather surprised it managed to win Adapted Screenplay that year.

Mo'Nique plays Mary Jones, the mother of Claireece (or Precious) who is played by Gabourey Sidibe who, if I am being honest, is also very good doesn't deserve to be roped into the negative comments about the film.

Mary Jones is a vile, despicable, and truly horrific person who abuses her daughter and uses her daughter's child (who lives with Precious' grandmother) as a means to hoard welfare checks.

Precious' child Mongo is the result of incest and her own father raped her and it is that scenario that truly sets off Mary into thinking that somehow Precious stole her husband away.

This is a performance that truly could've backfired as it could've been played one-note or come off as pure camp (see: Shelley Winters in A Patch of Blue), but Mo'Nique herself was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and you can tell she understands this woman on some dark level.

She doesn't come at her with any judgement and the results are horrific. This isn't even a one-note performance either...because at the end, when she finally airs her real grievances but also seems to accept her heinous actions, you almost feel bad for her but are thrilled when she is abandoned by Precious and the social worker Mrs. Weiss, who is played by Mariah Carey of all people and her quiet anguish at watching this unfold in front of her is very well done.

Watch a clip from the scene below, because Mo'Nique manages to truly reveal so many layers within this truly vile but complicated woman.

I do want to say that I think it is an absolute shame that Mo'Nique seemed to get shafted by the Hollywood scene following her Oscar win.

Mo'Nique famously called out the hypocrisy and lunacy of the Oscar campaigning process and refused to truly participate in it. 

Based strictly on the power of her performance, she still won but you sort of got the sense that powerful people in Hollywood resented that a (black) woman refused to play the game...and because of that, she got passed over for Octavia Spencer's eventual Oscar winning role in The Help and her dream of brining Hattie McDaniel's story to the screen never materialized.

Honestly, after this performance, I was ready to watch Mo'Nique star in every movie for the next decade...and I hope that someday, she will get another chance.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

It has truly been a joy for me to be able to talk about these performances because they are all truly remarkable in their own ways...and a lot of these actresses deserved better careers than they got...particularly with what I just said about Mo'Nique.

I do love being able to discuss these performers and their work, because a lot of these performances often aren't discussed enough in the manner in which they should be...or in the case of those I ranked rather low, I reveled in calling out the fact that they never should've been close to a nomination. 

I don't mean to truly knock on any of these actresses, because I truly don't think there is a bad actress on this list...I mean, even Jennifer Hudson has her good moments and did a solid job in Respect. 

I have also been rather overwhelmed by the volume of readership these rankings have gotten, and I am grateful for the support!

I will be continuing with the Actor categories but these may take me some time as I don't often have the same sense of interest in the male categories as I do with the women. I might even revisit some of the films to get a better sense of how I want to try to rank them.

We will see how it goes, because I am sure I will have some movie reviews coming up plus my predictions post for the upcoming 95th Annual Academy Awards. 

I do know that I will be aiming to do Supporting Actor next.

Thank you all again for reading and below are direct links to the previous volumes in this ranking:

BSActress: #86 - 66

BSActress: #65 - 45

BSActress: #44-21

My Ranking of the 87 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Winners - Vol. 3 (44 - 21)

Welcome to Volume 3 of my Best Supporting Actress ranking!

As I hinted in the last volume, this will be where we start to see a shift in the quality of the winners. The first few of these do have an erratic nature about them, but once we start to hit the top 40, I feel like everything will become far more positive with not as many negative comments. 

The variety of performances we see here is still far more eclectic than the Best Actress race.

Let's dive right into the list and I will save additional thoughts for the end.

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#44 - Cate Blanchett, The Aviator

I think that my love of Blanchett might be slightly clouding my judgement here, because I might honestly consider ranking this performance a little lower.

In truth, The Aviator is a film I do like despite its bloated nature...but I have to admit that once Blanchett departs the film (aside from a small scene towards the end), it loses something.

Blanchett gets to play Katharine Hepburn, the current reigning champion of acting Oscar winners. Oscar voters always love a good impersonation/transformation...but I suppose what may hurt Blanchett here is that her take of Hepburn borders on caricature/cartoon rather than necessarily creating a real human being.

Having said that, she does have her great moments...particularly the scene where she leaves Howard. She does have wonderful chemistry with DiCaprio, who I still think gives one of his finest performances in this film and would've been a worthy winner. 

Blanchett gives the film such a vibrant and entertaining edge for a lot of the first half, but I do wish more had been done to polish off more of the cartoonish edges.

Of the nominees, I think this should've gone to either Virginia Madsen in Sideways or Laura Linney in Kinsey.

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#43 - Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry

When discussing the Best Actress winners, I talked about how Sally Field defied the odds and managed to become a respected actress after having been known for her TV work on the frivolous sitcoms Gidget and The Flying Nun.

Shirley Jones is, I think, a more precarious case.

Jones' career began almost as a fluke. She had no intentions of being a performer but a chance encounter with a pianist friend in NY led her to getting to audition at an open casting call for Richard Rodgers. If you haven't heard the story, it is worth checking out.

This led to Jones getting to play two of the big female roles in the R&H canon for their film adaptations: Laurey in Oklahoma! and Julie in Carousel. 

No one really viewed Jones as being a serious actress and she couldn't find work in more dramatic fare...so she turned to TV and managed to impress Burt Lancaster with her performance on a Playhouse 90 special called The Big Slide. 

Lancaster was going to co-produce and star in the film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel Elmer Gantry and felt Jones could pull off the small but pivotal role of Lulu Baines, a prostitute who has a steamy connection to the titular character that Lancaster would play.

Despite writer/director Richard Brooks originally having reservations about Jones for the part, Lancaster fought for her and Brooks admitted that she was the right choice.

Many these days tend to forget that Jones is an Oscar winner because despite the clout of the win, she seems to be better remembered for being Shirley Partridge on The Partridge Family.

Film historians also seem to bemoan the fact she beat Janet Leigh for Psycho...but I have to admit that I think Jones does prove her worth as an actress here.

She may be a little too performative at times, but the scene in which she tries to con Gantry with photographers outside the window is actually very well done. This is a scene where we don't know what she is going to do because SHE doesn't know what she is going to do...and every moment, you see that doubt in her. 

Honestly, I think I would've liked to have seen more of this side of Shirley Jones as an actress.

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#42 - Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

The young girl who played Marla Gibbs' daughter on 227 does good!

In the last 25 years, Regina King has grown into being a truly wonderful actress, not to mention showing relatively good promise behind the camera when she directed One Night in Miami. 

If Beale Street Could Talk, adapted from a James Baldwin novel, was Barry Jenkins' follow-up film to Moonlight and while it would've been hard for a lot of films to live up to a masterpiece like Moonlight, I do think he did a great job with this adaptation.

King plays Sharon Rivers, the mother to the film's protagonist Tish. 

While King's screentime isn't much, and many have bemoaned that she doesn't do anything to warrant such recognition, I actually find her work here to be sterling and effective.

When Sharon goes to Puerto Rico to confront Victoria, the woman who is falsely accusing Tish's boyfriend Fonny of rape, King excels in this scene which is also incredibly infuriating due to blatant lie that Victoria is telling. 

*Side note: Victoria is played by Emily Rios, who played the tragic Andrea on Breaking Bad. She does well playing such a despicable character here.

If Beale Street Could Talk is very bleak but oddly hopeful all at once...and I think that King's work in it might be minimal, but she is effective.

However, I still might've given my vote to Rachel Weisz for The Favourite in this case.

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#41 - Allison Janney - I, Tonya

I remember when The West Wing premiered and how it seemed like the entire country was in awe of Allison Janney and wondering where she had been. 

And then she won 1,530 Emmys for it.

Janney has managed to sustain a solid career as a character actress, and it doesn't surprise me that Hollywood really took the opportunity to coronate her during that awards season. 

As the irascible and bitter LaVona, the mother of Tonya Harding, Janney is certainly a force to be reckoned with. She dominates the first third of the movie and is truly indelible...especially when you factor in her pet parrot.

I think my only issue with the character/performance is that it relies so much on that irascible tone the whole time. She obviously does it extremely well and on its own terms, I do find it to be a very entertaining performance. 

I think this is just one of those cases where I can't help but feel bummed out that there was another performance that year by an actress who is also mostly known for TV who played a bit of an irascible mother but got the chance to add layers to it: Laurie Metcalf in Ladybird.

This happens several times for me on these rankings, because I do really want to base these strictly on the performance within the confines of who actually won this category.

On that basis, I do think Janney did exactly what she needed to do...and it is a pretty solid win on its own. I just wasn't a GREAT win. It mostly just served a purpose of giving a truly beloved actress an Oscar to go with her house full of Emmys.

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#40 - Estelle Parsons, Bonnie & Clyde

When I think of a performance that tends to divide people right down the middle, my mind often goes to Estelle Parsons' work as Blanche in Bonnie & Clyde. 

You can't ignore that Blanche Barrow is an absolute horror in this movie. She is a whiny, petulant child who shrieks and screams her way throughout the story...and then at the end, you may revel in the dose of karma she is given.

Blanche Barrow is absolutely annoying and a terror...but I think Parsons gave the role what it required. 

I suppose the only downside might be that most of the role is presented in such a manner that is hard to find a lot of layers there, but it is really in her final moments once she realizes her husband ("Daddy") is going to die and that she is about to go blind that the performance manages to hit its peak. 

It is kind of crazy to think that Parsons became one of the only aspects of the film to win an Oscar that night considering the only other award it won was for Cinematography. 

I do think Gene Hackman, who played Clyde's brother and Blanche's husband Buck, should've won in Supporting Actor too. I think this was a tough year though as I would've been more inclined to vote for The Graduate in a lot of other categories.

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#39 - Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl 

Around the time of the ceremony in which Alicia Vikander won the Oscar, I was not actively following the Oscar scene. I had just moved to New York City about a year and a half before and with the chaos of that...plus just a sense that I was not overly as enamored with the movies of the time, I just felt disconnected from it all.

This is just one of those wins that I find fascinating if only for the fact that, as of 2023, it seems as if Vikander's win didn't actually translate into any kind of major career. Even that year's Best Actress winner Brie Larson was sort of affected by that...if you ignore the whole Marvel aspect, but whatever.

Vikander's work in The Danish Girl is certainly worthy of recognition and I think a lot of that has to do with what she was able to do with such weak and regressive material that seemed to not truly care much about the concept of someone coming out as transgender.

The film aged poorly rather quickly with the casting of Eddie Redmayne at the titular girl, but I do think Vikander was the only source of strong work in the film.

Having said that, this is a true category fraud selection. I think Vikander could've easily won this award for Ex Machina instead and I actually think it would've been a little more worthy.

She deserves better roles and a comeback.

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#38 - Katina Paxinou, For Whom the Bell Tolls

I can't really say I am a fan of For Whom the Bell Tolls...but yet again, Katina Paxinou gets the honor of joining the list of supporting actresses who are the best thing about their movie.

Paxinou gets to play Pilar, a very strong and masculine woman living in the mountains of Spain during a civil war.

As a character and actress, both Pilar and Paxinou seem so unique to the era in which they are currently in. This was the 1940s in Hollywood, when the idea of the perfect actress in terms of talent and looks would've been Ingrid Bergman who, coincidentally, happens to be in this very movie.

Paxinou's Pilar is a dynamic creation.

She is loud and domineering, but also very warm and loving and caring. This is a woman who says that she "would have made a good man" and is actually referred to by other men as someone who can "fight like a bull". 

Perhaps one of her best moments in the film is her "ugly" monologue, where her vulnerability comes out with a dash of confidence still mixed in when she says:

"How it is to be ugly your whole life and to feel in here that you are beautiful".

It is a very intriguing and even refreshing performance when you add in the fact that it is from a film that turns 80 years old as of 2023.

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#37 - Maureen Stapleton, Reds

I have always had a bit of a fascination with Emma Goldman as a historical figure, which stemmed from my introduction to her as a character in the E.L. Doctorow novel Ragtime and its musical adaptation.

She was a strong and feisty figure who did a lot for the cause of immigrant works and for pushing leftist values...so much so that the United States deported her.

Typical nonsense from a capitalist country...

So yes...a 3+ hour long film about the 1917 Russian Revolution might not excite everyone, but I am actually of the belief that Reds would've been a much better epic film for the Academy to embrace than other sluggish efforts like, say, Out of Africa or The English Patient.

Reds is a very long film and Stapleton's screentime isn't that much...but she truly makes an indelible impression as Goldman. It also doesn't hurt that she was considered rather overdue for an Oscar, and she managed to win for some of her finest work. 

Stapleton gives the role the strong, wise, and feisty nature it needs. No better moment captures her personality than when Warren Beatty offers to walk her home late at night so she is safe, but her response is: "Why? I won't hurt anybody?!"

A truly wonderful win by a truly charismatic character actress.

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#36 - Dianne Wiest, Hannah & Her Sisters

Speaking of charismatic character actresses, what an absolute delight it always is to see Dianne Wiest pop up in any project.

I remember a few years ago, Wiest performed selections of Samuel Beckett for free in the Murray Hill Section of Manhattan. She stood in a fake rock reciting monologues by Beckett for anyone who cared to listen as they passed by. I managed to go see her briefly one of the afternoons she did it and I felt as though it was one of those moments, I truly couldn't believe I lived in this crazy city.

Wiest has such a sweet and neurotic energy that does seem prime for the world of Woody Allen...so it comes as no surprise that after her small but memorable supporting role as a prostitute in The Purple Rose of Cairo, Allen offered her the more substantial supporting role of Holly, one of the "her sisters" in Hannah & Her Sisters.

The dynamic portrayed between the three sisters has Holly as the kooky one who just simply doesn't have her life together, and while she doesn't get the same kind of arc that the other two do (aside from being one of the many women from the catalog of Woody Allen who is forced to act like she has fallen in love with him), Wiest just has such a unique and intriguing screen presence that you can't help but feel like you are watching an actress that is so singularly herself.

I do want to give a shout-out to her co-star Barbara Hershey, who plays sister Lee. Her work as the sister who is being pursued by Hannah's (Mia Farrow) husband Elliot (Michael Caine) should've been nominated for an Oscar as well.

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#35 - Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

As a musical theatre afficionado of sorts...which has been hard to be lately with the overall state of that genre...I suppose I had a strong interest in seeing the remake of West Side Story.

The only issue is that...well...I am not the biggest fan of West Side Story.

Sure, it has its strong moments and songs and the choreography is iconic, but I just felt like I was never able to buy the full arc of Tony and Maria...and that she would be so willing to just quickly move on from the fact that he...well...killed her brother Bernardo. 

AND...that Maria would have the gall to say to Anita, the girlfriend of Bernardo, that she should know better because SHE was in love.

YEAH. SHE WAS. WITH YOUR BROTHER. WHO WAS JUST KILLED BY THE BOY YOU JUST FUCKED.

So yeah...I have problems...

Anita as a character, however, is easily my favorite thing about West Side Story. Technically playing something of a counterpart to the Nurse character from Romeo & Juliet, Anita gives this musical so much life and when I heard that Broadway actress Ariana DeBose had been cast, I felt it was a truly inspiring and wonderful choice.

She certainly didn't disappoint, but I do sort of hate that they really sidelined her during the America sequence which would've really been a great way to truly give her a more bombastic moment to shine.

I honestly thought she was nearly as good as Rita Moreno, who also happened to win for the original movie...and she will be coming up shortly!

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#34 - Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

It is always nice when a performer manages a comeback and then is able to sustain a strong career surge that lasts for quite a while.

Patricia Arquette always seemed to sort of be quietly in the background until she ended up winning a surprise Emmy Award for her work on the NBC drama Medium and then her work on Richard Linklater's passion project Boyhood led to an Oscar win and a slew of projects to follow.

I feel like Arquette may be the one to give the best performance in the film...although I am sort of inclined to say that Ethan Hawke also does as well...but Arquette manages to sell her role very well.

Arquette's Olivia is a single mother, and we basically get to watch her cope with raising a son all by herself...but for anyone who has seen or heard of Boyhood, you know the gimmick here is that Richard Linklater chose to film Boyhood over a period of 12 years as we watched young actor Ellar Coltrane naturally grow up over time. 

Arquette never misses a beat with this motif...can't say the same for Coltrane but I will refrain being a jackass for right now. 

;-)

Arquette is a truly wonderful actress with great vulnerability and it was nice to see her get this kind of recognition.

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#33 - Mercedes Ruehl, The Fisher King

In some ways that are a little identical to Alicia Vikander, I feel like Mercedes Ruehl never exactly had a massive surge of popularity or major roles after her Oscar win...but she managed to work steadily and had great successes onstage in plays such as The Goat: or Who is Sylvia? and a memorable recurring stint on the show Fraser. 

Ruehl is one of those performers, much like F. Murray Abraham, who really used their Oscar win to focus more on-stage endeavors. I honestly do wish more people had cast her in films over the years though because Ruehl is such a distinctive and truly captivating performer.

Think of her in something like 1988's Married to the Mob (for which she should've been nominated for an Oscar) and even that same year in Big, where she has the thankless role of playing Tom Hanks' mom and only gets a few scant scenes but somehow manages to create such a lived-in character.

Ruehl has been accused by some as being an actress who is normally a bit too broad in her acting approach...which probably extends to her being more comfortable as a stage performer...but I think a lot of what she does on film does work for the medium.

The Fisher King is an interesting film, and she is, to continue a frequent trend with these winning performances, one of the best things about it.

Her character of Anne is very blunt and has an edge, but she is also sort of warm and down-to-earth. She is never one to judge others and she has a very strong sense of self.

I suppose you could say she is a true fast-talking New Yorker through and through...and it is infectious. I just remember her scene where she is talking to Jeff Bridges about how women and God are so closely connected because both can create life...but then she admits: "the devil is a lot more interesting".

Ruehl herself is a lot more interesting an actress than a lot of others can claim to be.

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#32 - Mercedes McCambridge, All the Kings Men

I swear, I didn't put the two actresses named Mercedes together to try to be cheeky...but it just happened. 

Mercedes McCambridge might be best known these days as being the actual voice of Pazuzu, the demon that possesses Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Her work went uncredited at the time and many actually assumed that Linda Blair did the vocal work herself which...looking back on it...seems far-fetched. 

McCambridge's voice is very well suited for voiceover work...and just acting in general. It is deep and rich and very vibrant and she is used to strong effect in All the King's Men, a film that I can't say I love as a whole but does have its good qualities. 

McCambridge gets to play Sadie, the secretary to Broderick Crawford's Willie Stark...and eventually she will become his mistress.

I should say ONE OF his mistresses, because Willie is a man-whore.

Sadie is no demure lady, however. I think it is that quality that truly makes McCambridge stand out because if this role had been played by an actress with a meeker stature such as Gloria Grahame or even a Celeste Holm, it might not have had the same brash and captivating effect that McCambridge was able to provide.

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#31 - Rita Moreno, West Side Story 

Since I went so much into my issues with West Side Story as a musical while discussing DeBose, I won't really go into it here. 

What I WILL say is that I actually like this version of the film a lot less despite the legendary status it has...and a lot of that has to do with the rather horrible casting of Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood as Tony and Maria.

This doesn't even have to do with the fact their singing is dubbed. Wood manages fine is some moments, but she is also...you know...in brownface since she is lily white.

Beymer, on the other hand, is so wooden and lifeless that I truly can't believe this is the guy who would go on to be the truly charismatic and problematic Benjamin Horne on Twin Peaks.

Moreno simply saves this movie and her ensemble from themselves.

Aside from them choosing for her to be dubbed during "A Boy Like That" as the song wouldn't quite sit well in her range, she did her own singing and dancing and she did a marvelous job with the assault scene (as did DeBose as well).

I do have to admit though that I would've been equally as happy if Judy Garland had won that year for her brief but immensely captivating work in Judgement at Nuremburg. That woman was a much better actress than many gave her credit for.

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#30 - Celeste Holm, Gentleman's Agreement

I have always found Celeste Holm to be a truly wonderful character actress who was so adept at nailing comedy and drama.

In Gentleman's Agreement, she plays Anne, a NY Fashion Editor who manages to provide the film with moments of wit and charm...and she also steals the movie quite handily with her relatively minimal screentime. 

As a film, Gentleman's Agreement does tend to teeter on the line of being a little too preachy and the ideas that Moss Hart tries to execute in his script (which revolves around a reporter posing a Jewish man to expose antisemitism in a post-WWII era) just don't truly seem to work as well he and director Elia Kazan might've liked to believe...and Kazan, of course, had his own bigoted prejudices but I will sort of address that when I discuss the win of Eva Marie Saint coming up.

Holm's Anne brings so much light into the film, especially because her two leading co-stars Gregory Peck and Dorothy Maguire have little to no chemistry or life in any of them.

The success of Anne as a character is also the film's greatest success because the "message" of the movie doesn't become as preachy through her words/actions. When Holm has a chance to shoot down antisemitic comments, it comes off as a genuine expression whereas the rest of the film could be considered something of a "ethnic savior" film...or as "Stevie" on Letterboxd called it: "a gentile savior film" that simply needed maybe another rewrite.

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#29 - Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny

"Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along. You get thirsty. You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water....BAM! A fucking bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask ya...would you give a FUCK what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot ya was wearing?!"

And THAT, my friends, is comic gold and this is one of the most inspiring choices for an Oscar win ever.

It seemed so inspired and so out of left field that snarky film critic Rex Reed (that bitch...) was thoroughly convinced that actor Jack Palance somehow read the wrong name...and this theory wasn't helped by the fact that Jack Palance was acting like a freaking space cadet the whole time leading up to him opening the envelope.

As evidenced in more recent years with the La La Land/Moonlight debacle, the accountants from Price Waterhouse Coopers WILL step forward if something is incorrectly announced as the winner. 

This was a case where Tomei benefitted from competing against 4 mostly dramatic performances from 3 British actresses and 1 Australian actress making her the only American. On top of that, she had received no prior precursor support...so this seemed like a win that truly did come out of nowhere and I still think it is one of the most baffling.

Even though I MIGHT have voted for Judy Davis over her, I have to commend the Academy for this selection as Tomei is an absolute riot in My Cousin Vinny. 

It is certainly a performance that is remembered today and despite the age difference, she and Pesci work surprisingly well together.

My Cousin Vinny is a solid comedy film, but there is something to be said for the delicious comedic work done here by Tomei and she manages to make the film even better.

Thankfully, she has proven her worth as an actress in the years since with dramatic work in movies like In the Bedroom and The Wrestler.

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#28 - Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck

There are certain actresses I have a fondness for because they just seemed to pop up in a lot of things I either watched or saw my mother watching as a kid.

Olympia Dukakis is one of those actresses...and aside from her work in movies like Mr. Holland's Opus, Steel Magnolias, and Look Who's Talking, I remember my grandmother really being obsessed with Moonstruck. It was one of her all-time favorite movies and, I have to admit, I do feel very fond of it, too.

Dukakis' Rose gets to be the doting and dry-witted mother to Cher, but she also has to deal with her wandering husband at the same time. In a way, John Patrick Shanley including this plot point for Dukakis was a masterstroke as it gave her so much more to play.

Her scenes with John Mahoney at the restaurant are perhaps what really drive her performance home for me, and by the end, you admire and respect her decision when she decides to give her husband another chance.

I had the chance to meet Ms. Dukakis not long before her passing. She lived in the West Village where I worked at the time, and I had developed a friendship with a fellow actress who worked with her on Tales of the City.

She, despite approaching 90, was sharp as a tack and so appreciative of how much I wanted to talk to her about her work. I will always feel sentimental about this performance and her as an actress and as a person. 

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#27 - Juliette Binoche, The English Patient

When Kevin Spacey opened up the envelope, it seemed as if the whole world was practically ready to put a crown onto Lauren Bacall's head and call her "Queen of Acting".

But hold on...the envelope said Juliette Binoche in The English Patient.

Bacall was PISSED off...and it was such a "lock" that Binoche even said from the stage that "I thought Lauren was going to get it...and I think she deserves it".

In hindsight, Bacall really truly wasn't that great in the even lesser film that was The Mirror Has Two Faces...but considering how The English Patient swept that night, it doesn't come as a shock that Oscar voters would've wanted to honor it with an acting win.

Frankly...I would go as far to say that Binoche is (and I have said this about many of these performances) the best thing about her movie.

The English Patient is a chore of a movie. It looks beautiful, it has a good ensemble of actors, but it still remains the only movie I managed to fall asleep during TWICE...and during broad daylight.

I like to think of myself as someone with a strong attention span...hell, I love Ingmar Bergman movies! Still though, my vitriol for The English Patient isn't as intense as it used to be...and even when it was, I always acknowledged that Binoche was truly the heart of the film.

Her scenes caring for the severely burned Ralph Fiennes are very touching and I still often think of her delivery of the line as she reads from one of Fiennes' books: "The heart is an organ of fire...I like that...I believe that".

It also doesn't hurt that I think she is owed an Oscar after being snubbed for far superior work in movies like Blue and Certified Copy.

I do want to give a shout-out one other person in her category though whom I felt would've been an equally worthy winner (who also happened to be more of a lead like Binoche), and that was Marianne Jean-Baptiste from Secrets & Lies.

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#26 - Tatum O'Neal, Paper Moon

I decided to give O'Neal more credit in this case, because if I am being honest, I am not even sure how I feel about her winning this.

O'Neal holds the distinction for being the younger performer of any gender to win an Oscar...and it is also in strong contention of being the biggest case of category fraud in Oscar history, too.

It has also been heavily documented that this was a performance that was heavily coached and influenced by its director Peter Bogdanovich to the point where it was truly staged to every last detail.

I will admit that despite that aspect, the role comes off a lot more natural than it could have...and she does manage to steal the movie from her own father who...it must be said...isn't exactly the finest actor to have come out of Hollywood.

Considering the rather rocky relationship those two have had, I do find it kind of hilarious that she was able to show him up at such a young age.

If I am being honest though, I kind of wish O'Neal's co-star Madeline Kahn would've taken this win.

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#25 - Ruth Gordon, Rosemary's Baby 

"I can't tell you how encouraging a thing like this is!" - Ruth Gordon during her acceptance speech

After years of fleeting moments of success as a character actress and also working with her husband Garson Kanin as a screenwriter, Ruth Gordon managed to win an Oscar for a role in a horror film.

Even those who hated Rosemary's Baby had expressed in their reviews that they supported the idea of her winning...but I certainly didn't hate this movie.

In fact, I love this movie and think it was robbed of nominations for Best Picture, Director, and Actress for Mia Farrow.

Gordon's role of Minnie Castavet is something of comic relief for the movie and her energy is certainly a lot of fun in its own busybody way, but it becomes all the creepier when you realize she and her husband are wanting Rosemary to bear the antichrist into the world. 

It was an inspired choice to take the Oscar and I am glad it allowed Gordon to have such a strong resurgence in her career which led to her other amazing performance in the 1971 cult classic Harold & Maude.

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#24 - Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront

Winning for her film debut, a pregnant Eva Marie Saint approached the Oscar stage and told the audience: 

"I may have the baby right here!"

Definitely one of the best quips from an Oscar speech, for sure.

This was also a truly wonderful win for a performance that, admittedly, also treads on the borderline lead threshold. It doesn't matter much to me, because Eva Marie Saint gave one of the best debut performances in cinematic history.

As Edie Doyle, she is in a despondent state over the death of her brother, which sets off the main plot of the film.

On the Waterfront is a fascinating film in that the final product is truly one of the highlights of Hollywood cinema of the supposed Golden Age, but its take on the Unions is very problematic. 

And sure, I know that not all Unions from history were saintly groups but perhaps I won't necessarily trust the lens being used by the rat that was Elia Kazan.

Kazan may have been one of the ultimate "Actor Directors" in history, but the man was a traitor who ruined the lives of many in the industry by naming names to HUAC. 

At any rate, this still manages to be a very well-made film with, perhaps, the greatest performance of Marlon Brando's career...and the remarkable thing is how well and effortlessly Eva Marie Saint manages to keep up the pace with him on her film debut.

And as of this writing in 2023, she is still alive at 98! 

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#23 - Anna Paquin, The Piano

After Tatum O'Neal, the second youngest performer to win an Oscar was Anna Paquin...and sure, this is a case where Paquin was obvious far too young to understand what was going on around her...but whatever Jane Campion did with her was magical.

Unlike O'Neal, Paquin is truly a supporting player in the film and is often in the background of many scenes...but she provides such a fascinating energy whenever she is brought to the forefront.

The moment when she speaks of her mother's mute nature is a particular highlight. The lyrical nature of which she delivers this monologue gives off a "wise beyond her years" vibe when she talks about how her mother witnessed the death of her husband: "At the same moment my father was struck dead, my mother was struck dumb...she never spoke another word." 

There is something so haunting about her, and she is even something of a villain to the piece as she seems to set in motion the potential demise of her mother's dreams.

Going into Oscar night, many expected that Winona Ryder would win for The Age of Innocence, but I think the Academy made the right choice in this case. 

Paquin gives one of the greatest child performances ever captured on film...and it is a truly dark one at that.

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#22 - Peggy Ashcroft, A Passage to India

I am not saying that A Passage to India should've won the Oscar for Best Picture, but I do find it kind of hilarious to the Academy only seems to honor overlong bloated epics when they are normally more of a chore to sit through (see Out of Africa winning the following year).

I do remember liking A Passage to India even if it did feel like something of a lesser film in the canon of David Lean...a pretty tall order when you are in a filmography that includes Brief Encounter, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia.

Peggy Ashcroft was the beacon of the film and sadly, I feel like no one really discusses her these days.  She passed away in 1991, but I think the real reason for this is that her career had been mostly confined to the UK and was spent on the London stage doing everything from Shakespeare to Brecht to Pinter to Beckett. 

Even my knowledge and familiarity with Ashcroft is fairly limited and I haven't seen her in much of anything...but I think her work in A Passage to India shows that she could've easily translated to a reputable film career had she wanted it.

I actually feel that Ashcroft should've been placed in the Lead category, which that year was very weak and allowed for Sally Field to win a second Oscar for relatively middling work in a middling film. 

With Ashcroft in lead, I would've dreamed for one candidate to slip into the race to win for Supporting Actress: Nastassja Kinski for Paris, Texas.

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#21 - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago 

The film adaptation of Chicago came along at a time when movie musicals were simply not in vogue...but the year prior to its opening, Moulin Rouge more or less paved the way for the musical genre to make a comeback.

Chicago has had an interesting history as a stage show. When it opened in 1975 on Broadway, it got eclipsed by A Chorus Line which would go on to become the longest running musical in Broadway history when it closed in 1990. Chicago, on the other hand, closed in 1977.

Fast forward to 2002 when the film version of Chicago opens.

By now, Chicago has a scaled down revival on Broadway that had been open for 6 years and a movie version was now in the works. At first glance, the casting of Zellweger and Zeta-Jones as Roxie and Velma, respectively, does seem a little strange.

They are both younger than the characters were originally written and neither were known for being musical performers...but the reality is that Zeta-Jones had the experience in doing musical work on the stage and IT SHOWS.

Upon rewatching Chicago a couple of years ago having not seen it in over a decade, I did find myself still impressed by how well the film had up (even if I don't think as highly of it as I used to) and a lot of that power was due to Zeta-Jones.

She gives a performance that is truly electrifying pretty much every single moment she is onscreen. While you can say she starts off the film on a high note with "All That Jazz" or stands out as part of the "Cell Block Tango" ensemble, I always come back to her showcase "I Can't Do It Alone". 

A truly legendary film musical performance that is worthy of all the acclaim it has received.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

I am kind of amazed a little bit, because I had fully expected my last volume would've been the one where I struggled to drum up the passion (whether it be admiration or vitriol) for the performances.

It was actually THIS volume where I struggled because I fully expected to have this volume up over a week ago.

As it stands, I do feel like most of these performances are genuinely good and even if I might not have voted for them or even nominated a lot of them in certain cases, I truly acknowledge that they are a good selection of performances, nevertheless.

I am very excited to start the ranking for the top 20!

I actually already have the list made, but it is very possible that once I start writing about them, I will feel compelled to swap some around. It only really happened once on this particular volume (I decided to bump up Katina Paxinou a few slots), but I think my top 20 is going to be a slight bloodbath. 

Hopefully, I will be back soon with that!

TO SEE THE OTHER RANKINGS, GO HERE:

Ranking: #86 - 66

Ranking: #65 - 45

Ranking: #20 - 1