*LAST YEAR ON ART ISN'T EASY, I said the following:
"2021 was simply not the greatest year for film and I am very pensive about what 2022 will bring. If it is any worse or about equal to this year, I might just have another slump at caring about movies like I did for the first half of the 2010s.
Time will soon tell."
After I wrote that, I did end up feeling better about the potential prospects of 2022's film output...and then...I settled into a strong malaise.
Unfortunately, 2022 turned out to be (IN MY OPINION, OF COURSE) a weaker year than 2021.
In fact, I will even take it a step further.
I would go as far to say that 2022 is the weakest year for film since 2015, which also happens to be the last year in which I did not give a single film a 5-star rating...and even then, I would say that 2015 is still a little better.
I do feel like I am less involved in knowing a lot of the big films coming out in 2023, although some of them were actually meant to come out in 2022 that got delayed releases. I am going to be taking a very casual approach in the film watch this year, but I am not fully out of the loop yet. I am still holding out hope that 2023 will be the "savior of film" that many thought 2022 would be.
I am going to be listing my top 10 films along with some Honorable Mentions.
The sad truth is that I ended up giving none of these films a 5-star rating...and in fact, the only one that I even feel like might eventually get bumped up to that honor would be my #1 selection.
And for the first time in quite a while, I had even so few films I gave a 4.5 rating to that all of my honorable mentions plus a couple from my top 10 were only 4 stars.
Now, this may sound like I am being harsh to these films, but I did enjoy them. In the end, they ended up being what I liked the most out of what 2022 had to offer.
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SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS:
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EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
(The Daniels)
Here is the honest truth. I admire a lot of what The Daniels do as filmmakers. They are bold and they have a lot of ideas...and I also appreciate that a film so original and bold in its storytelling is going to potentially win more Oscars in one night than has happened in over a decade.
I personally just didn't connect with a lot of the film, but I did enjoy multiple aspects from it. I think Michelle Yeoh is a powerhouse, Ke Huy Kuan is absolutely delightful, and as much fun as Film Twitter seems to be bashing her, Jamie Lee Curtis is also fun as the peculiar auditor Deirdre.
Do I think Curtis is Oscar worthy though? No. And the woman is THIRSTY. She is such a thirsty campaigner.
I am going to be giving this film another chance soon, but I think this was just an unfortunate case of the hype just not living up to the final product.
I just decided to give it an honorable mention because I do have to admit that the creativity and originality and the effort put into the film are hard to ignore.
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GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY
(Rian Johnson)
Even though I will admit some of the sheen has worn off since I first viewed this around the holiday season, I very much enjoyed the follow up to Knives Out.
I think that there was enough different about the plotting and the mystery that kept me very intrigued the whole time, and I do love how the major final blow all came down to a certain famous Italian painting.
I think I wasn't as overly enamored with the ensemble for this film as I was with the first film, but I still think there was a lot to really like about Glass Onion. I will be eagerly awaiting the third installment!
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NOPE
(Jordan Peele)
With his third film, Jordan Peele managed to divide people a little bit...which is sort of similar to the response that his second film Us had received.
I think the thing about Nope was that it truly showed his skill as a director of grandeur: the sweeping landscapes and visual effects and more of an attempt at horror through sci-fi which seems like a darker version of Spielberg film.
I also have to give a shout-out to the infamous monkey scene, which was truly tense work from Peele and also the moment in which we as an audience realize the truth behind the spaceship in the sky.
I still think Peele is 3 for 3. Hopefully his fourth effort doesn't break the trend...I certainly wouldn't want him to become the next M. Night Shyamalan.
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AFTERSUN
(Charlotte Wells)
I have been going back and forth on Aftersun from the moment I saw it.
On one hand, I found the way it was presented to be very interesting and unique and that the message it was trying to convey was strong.
However, it also left me feeling surprisingly disconnected for a film that was supposed to aim straight for the heart.
Maybe this is one that will need another viewing in the future, but I do admire a lot of what Wells was trying to do and I do think Paul Mescal was very good and a great highlight.
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ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
(Edward Berger)
I certainly felt like the idea of remaking All Quiet on the Western Front was a little bit much...but then again, the original film was made in 1930 and I also think having it done in German gives the film a certain edge that the original one didn't have.
However, I still actually prefer the original film which stayed very true to the Remarque book. I also think the original film is still rather potent and visually impressive even for its time...and sure, it does look very dated but if you were to go back and check out other films from that era, you would be amazed at how seamless of a job Lewis Milestone did.
Berger does also do a splendid job with this version and the lead, Felix Kammerer, was very good and worthy of award nominations.
I think what really hurt the film was its final act and the film not always landing its emotional punches...although when it did, I was moved (such as the crater scene).
I am also not overly fond of the score and its repetitive use of the 3-note horn motif.
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THE BATMAN
(Matt Reeves)
To be completely honest, I am just as surprised as some of you that I enjoyed this version as much as I did...but here we are!
Frankly, I am almost wondering if this was a mistake and if I should put it in my top 10.
I decided to give a smaller film its due in my #10 slot, but I was definitely very pleased with how striking and dark this trip into Gotham was.
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CAUSEWAY
(Lila Neugebauer)
Such a quiet and genteel film that contained one of my favorite duos in a film in recent years. A lot has been said about the wonderful performance by Brian Tyree Henry, who managed to eek out an Oscar nomination...but I do want to shed some light on Jennifer Lawrence, too.
I do think she is a better actress than many give her credit for...but she got so caught up in the whole Hunger Games franchise, not to mention the bombastic and shrill world of David O'Russell.
And yes, the Weinstein connection is also rough too.
I do think BTH was the film standout, but I do think Lawrence gave us some of her best work in years. Such a lovely and subtle performance.
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And now...THE TOP 10:
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#10 - Women Talking
(Sarah Polley)
When it comes to screenplays this year, I feel like so many people have raved about what a splendid job Sarah Polley did with bringing Women Talking to the screen.
And yet all season, it seemed as though many voting bodies kept shafting the film in a lot of ways.
I have admittedly not read the book so I cannot comment on how well the adaptation is. However, I have seen the ads that show how Polley incorporated a lot of the Miriam Toews dialogue into the script and that Toews herself was over-the-moon with the adaptation.
I do think that the film deserved more than what it got in terms of nominations.
Polley would've made for a worthy Director nomination, and I also feel that the trio of Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, and the absolutely lovely and underrated Judith Ivey (where has she been lately?!) were all more worthy of Supporting Actress nods than some of the contenders that made it in.
I do feel like maybe the film played it a little too safe at times, and perhaps the claustrophobic nature of the setting made it have moments where it seemed to drag...but those were very fleeting.
I would be curious to see how well this one fares as more people see it in the years to come.
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#9 - Living
(Oliver Hermanus)
Why?
Is there really any purpose in adapting the iconic 1953 Kurosawa film Ikiru?
Living doesn't really compare with Ikiru, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone...but in a year like 2022 where I didn't connect with as many films as I wish I had, I did respond very well to the story and also how well it adapted to the handsome setting of London in 1953.
I am going to reiterate the word "handsome" because under the direction of Oliver Hermanus (a director I actually had no knowledge of prior), Living is a very handsome and gorgeous film to look at. You could sort of compare it to Phantom Thread in terms of the aesthetic.
And the English language adaptation was done by the renowned Japanese British author Kazuo Ishiguro, who splendidly captures the whimsical polite stuffiness of fairly well-off Londoners.
The film also contains what may be Bill Nighy's best work as the humorless civil servant who realizes that his life is coming to an end and that he wished he had done more for himself and for others.
So yes, I think this adaptation was worth tackling and it was done with as much tender loving care that could've been given.
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#8 - White Noise
(Noah Baumbach)
This will be, perhaps, the most divisive and controversial selection on my list.
Aside from a few select critics, like Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, very few people responded well to Noah Baumbach's film adaptation of Dom DeLillo's sardonic satire White Noise.
The tone is very bizarre, the characters are just as bizarre, the situations feel brash and cartoonish at times, but a lot of that stems directly from how DeLillo's material was written.
Sure, maybe it wasn't the perfect adaptation but I was honestly very pleased and impressed with what Baumbach...a filmmaker who has never really tackled anything on this scale before...was able to achieve here.
Driver proves that he is still one of the most versatile actors working today, but I think one of the best things about this movie is that it reminds all of us how good of an actress Greta Gerwig is.
Considering we have only really heard about her writing/directing prospects as of late with Ladybird, Little Women, and the upcoming Barbie movie (that she co-wrote with Baumbach, who happens to be her boyfriend), I loved getting to see Gerwig tackle a role like Babette...and to be fair, Babette was written in the book as being larger and frumpier. I think that regardless of that, I loved what Gerwig brought to the table.
It'll be interesting to see if this movie develops more of a positive following over time, because I honestly found it to be thoroughly well done and entertaining.
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#7 - Top Gun: Maverick
(Joseph Kosinski)
I went into this film ready to complain.
I kept saying to myself "There is no way in hell that a fucking sequel to Top Gun is worth this much praise!"
Well, that crunching sound you hear is me eating my hat.
I am not saying that there is necessarily anything revelatory about the writing or how anything evolves in this film...but this is simply a prime example of how a classic movie formula can truly just be an amazing breath of fresh air when done to its absolute best potential.
With a reliance on actual physical planes and less on CGI affects, it was hard not to marvel at the craftsmanship at play.
I had made a comment when I first saw the film that I couldn't believe that I enjoyed it more than some of the "prestige" films I had already seen that are always built up to be the Oscar bait offerings.
And I would rank it as my second favorite of the Best Picture nominees, which I have to admit, I really wasn't expecting it to be that high. I have already mentioned one Best Picture nominee on this list (Women Talking), and I still have my favorite of the nominees coming up.
Even though I liked 2022 less than 2021, the fact that 3 of my top 10 selections made the actual Best Picture lineup is a solid win considering only one of my list made it last year (Drive My Car).
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#6 - The Novelist's Film
(Hong Sang-soo)
I decided to give a shout-out to The Novelist's Film to also shine a light on the work of South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo.
For anyone who might have read my Top 10 List of 2021, I did single out Hong's In Front of Your Face as an honorable mention.
Hong's work is often somewhat experimental and smaller scale. If you compare him to the widely known Korean directors like Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook, that would make Hong Sang-soo the low budget indie guy...someone who has more of a tie-in with a filmmaker like Mike Leigh or the one director he really reminds me of: Yosujiro Ozu.
Ozu's films always revolved around domestic realism and often told stories from the point of view of similar characters each films (and in some cases, the same actress playing the same role in different scenarios). Hong's approach is he loves to write about artistic people, such as performers and writers and directors, and puts them in very menial settings and lets a very naturalistic story grow from there.
I feel like The Novelist's Film manages to take that same formula but gives more of a whimsical twist that felt very alive and refreshing.
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#5 - Argentina, 1985
(Santiago Mitre)
The political history of Argentina has always been fascinating...I mean...need I mention Eva and Juan Peron?
I was very intrigued when I learned about the existence of Argentina, 1985 as it follows the trials in the wake of a bloody military dictatorship within the country. This is the same era in which the 1985 film The Official Story covers and I found that film to be truly fantastic and a film that deserves more attention today.
I have heard some criticisms that Argentina, 1985 sort of takes too much of a slick and stylish approach that makes it seem a little more generic...maybe along the lines of The Trial of the Chicago 7 or The Post.
I personally didn't really think that, at least to that extreme of an extent.
I appreciated that the film dealt with such a truly horrific event but managed to find ways to not make the tone truly bleak and horrific at all times. I thought that the film handled the moments of levity rather well and it gave the film a bit of a boost without sacrificing the importance of the story at hand...which was truly heinous at its basic core.
Argentina, 1985 is one of two films on my top 10 that managed to get a nomination for Best International Feature. I think that award seems very likely to go to one of my honorable mentions: All Quiet on the Western Front.
However, there is one other film that was nominated that is going to get a mention couple of slots higher.
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#4 - Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
(Dean Fleischer Kamp)
In a world that often makes me want to scream and throw a large bulky tape dispenser at many people around me, I guess you could say I find myself also being a bit of a pessimist.
Deep down though, I would like to think that there is some warmth...and a sense of hope.
I may be a bit of a cynic, but I think it is nearly impossible to not fall under the spell of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
This is easily one of the cutest films ever made with such a strong heart and a unique premise.
I wouldn't even say that the film flirted with the idea of being TOO cute or too cloying. I actually think it was immensely successful at managing a very precarious tightrope walk between being too cute or slight or fluffy.
Wonderful stop-motion animation and a truly clever and ingenious script.
Jenny Slate and Isabella Rossellini give wonderful voiceover performances here, and I do think it is nice to see Slate have more of a career these days after it seemed like she got screwed over on SNL.
A truly charming film to the absolute NTH degree, and probably the biggest surprise of the year for me...although I suppose it may battle Top Gun: Maverick for that title.
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#3 - The Banshees of Inisherin
(Martin McDonagh)
Martin McDonagh's fourth film would also get my vote for Best Picture of the movies that actually got nominated...and that doesn't really surprise me.
I have always been a fan of McDonagh, which began first due to his success as a playwright. Some of his best works in that regard included The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
I also quite love his film output so far, which has included 2008's In Bruges (which also featured Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson), Seven Psychopaths (featuring Farrell again), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.
Farrell and Gleeson are back again in The Banshess of Inisherin which might not rank as my favorite of his works, but I was rather fond of it nonetheless.
This film still has a lot of his snappy and quippy dialogue (something he excels at) along with some gruesome details at times, but this is easily him at his most genteel.
The scene between Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon by the water is easily one of the most beautiful scenes of his career either as a writer or director...and it is performed to perfection by those too.
Farrell and Gleeson are also absolutely splendid opposite one another and I have to admit that in my world, the entire core cast is Oscar worthy.
The whole result is a truly feckin' good time...if not, also one that is feckin' bleak...and filled with a truly picturesque Irish landscape.
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#2 - The Quiet Girl
(Colm Bairead)
We aren't leaving Ireland yet!
Strangely enough, the quirky and stormy world of Banshees isn't the last we are seeing of Ireland on this list, as I was quite enchanted by this sweet story of a young 9-year-old girl named Cait who is sent to live with distant relatives in rural Ireland during the summer of 1981.
The film was only 90 minutes long, but it was paced very delicately. It is one of those films that sadly will fall into that trap of being a "nothing happens in this" film.
And admittedly, I can understand the sentiment...even if I feel like the film worked for me.
The Quiet Girl is a coming-of-age film...and those can often be rather divisive as one person might find the film to be treacly and cloying while the other views it as being emotional and powerful.
I think a lot of what makes a film like this work comes down to the ensemble, the script, and how it is directed.
Colm Bairead was able to capture a truly enchanting performance by the young Catherine Clinch in her film debut...and her screen presence is very charming.
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#1 - Decision to Leave
(Park Chan-wook)
The simple truth is that no other film from 2022 managed to have that certain quality that made me think, "Oh yes, this is going to contend strongly with for my top slot".
Considering how prolific films (and all media) from South Korea have been in the last few years, it still surprises me that Decision to Leave seemingly got shafted from the actual final list of nominees...and some, ironically, felt it got kicked off by the likes of The Quiet Girl.
I did write an actual review for Decision to Leave, which I will link here:
I will let my review speak for itself for the most part, but I do want to stress that I admire so much what this film was able to achieve in its tone and how it was structured.
The film managed to take the concept of a suspenseful romantic drama but also gave it a bit of a sly and slinky edge...and then as it progressed, it felt truly dark and tragic as if it came straight from the world of Ingmar Bergman.
And my next thought will lead me to the CONCLUSION:
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As I stated at the beginning, I was not too pleased with 2022 in terms of its film output.
The real truth is that aside from Decision to Leave, I don't think any of these films would have a chance of joining any of my top 10 lists from previous years.
Maybe some of these films will improve upon a second viewing and I will feel compelled to give them a little more credit...but as it stands, the passion for most of these films is simply not as strong as it has been in other years.
When it came to 2021, I was so critical of the output, but I STILL found three films worthy of my 5-star rating: C'mon C'mon, Drive My Car, and The Worst Person in the World.
The same can be said for 2020 as well, in which I gave 5-star ratings to Quo Vadis, Aida?, The Father, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always.
Looking back on 2020, I am actually kind of sad that it got a bad rap as it was a fairly solid year. 2021 has aged a little better, but I think it mostly suffered from the wrong films getting major awards attention.
I think we simply live in a world know where we are finding the best kind of creativity and content in the television medium...and while film does still provide its moments of greatness, I feel like the great films are often less seen at the expense of the bigger and more populist fare (do I even have to say Marvel? I guess I did...oh well...)
I am even more pensive about 2023 than I was about 2022. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised when I start to write this post for next year.
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:
