I originally posted a version of this list in early 2012. Mostly because I like making lists. There was no real methodology to it. I looked back at it at some point in the past four months and saw it skewed heavily toward personal preference. The performances I liked the best went to the top, and the performances I thought were terrible winners went straight to the bottom.
Since the Oscar Quest, Version 2 that I’ve been doing, I noticed the point of it was more to reflect what my thoughts were now five years later from the completion/posting of all the original articles. I tried to stay away from redoing everything I did the first time, because a lot of it felt like it begat negativity on my part. I really don’t want to shit on things now so much as I’d want to openly discuss what is or isn’t a good choice historically.
Because that’s now where I’m at, I think redoing these lists is something I can get away with. If only to give myself a marker for where my head is at now.
I’m not putting any stock into these whatsoever. I don’t even really want to make these easily findable for people, though I guess I should, if only to track changes over the years. I was going to write up actual opinions for each one, justifying its position, but that’s a fool’s errand. That’s for people looking for extra clicks and people writing in the comments. I don’t want that. This is purely for me.
The first time I wrote this up, I specified that the rankings were not me attempting to make a list for everyone to follow. It was just my favorites. This time, I think what I ended up doing was trying to factor in everything into the decision. How iconic the performance/film is, how good of a choice it was in its year (extremely strong choices get slight bumps, and extremely weak choices get slight deductions), and also how I feel about them.
So here’s where my head is at now on all the Best Actress winners:
1. Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind
2. Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice
3. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
4. Elizabeth Taylor, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
5. Julie Christie, Darling
6. Liza Minnelli, Cabaret
7. Charlize Theron, Monster
8. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
9. Sally Field, Norma Rae
10. Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday
11. Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress
12. Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
13. Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs
14. Frances McDormand, Fargo
15. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
16. Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda
17. Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
18. Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
19. Anne Bancroft, The Miracle Worker
20. Kathy Bates, Misery
21. Patricia Neal, Hud
22. Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl
23. Faye Dunaway, Network
24. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
25. Brie Larson, Room
26. Simone Signoret, Room at the Top
27. Janet Gaynor, Seventh Heaven & Street Angel & Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
28. Jodie Foster, The Accused
29. Jane Fonda, Klute
30. Holly Hunter, The Piano
31. Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry
32. Helen Mirren, The Queen
33. Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins
34. Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner’s Daughter
35. Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve
36. Sophia Loren, Two Women
37. Ellen Burstyn, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
38. Cher, Moonstruck
39. Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver
40. Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
41. Helen Hunt, As Good as It Gets
42. Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment
43. Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich
44. Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
45. Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight
46. Jane Fonda, Coming Home
47. Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God
48. Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo
49. Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
50. Katharine Hepburn, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
51. Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
52. Julianne Moore, Still Alice
53. Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking
54. Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
55. Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
56. Shirley Booth, Come Back, Little Sheba
57. Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce
58 Emma Thompson, Howards End
59. Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball
60. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
61. Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own
62. Susan Hayward, I Want to Live!
63. Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette
64. Kate Winslet, The Reader
65. Emma Stone, La La Land
66. Luise Rainer, The Good Earth
67. Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night
68. Glenda Jackson, A Touch of Class
69. Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
70. Joan Fontaine, Suspicion
71. Bette Davis, Jezebel
72. Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
73. Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond
74. Luise Rainer, The Great Ziegfeld
75. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
76. Sally Field, Places in the Heart
77. Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia
78. Ginger Rogers, Kitty Foyle
79. Norma Shearer, The Divorcee
80. Glenda Jackson, Women in Love
81. Helen Hayes, The Sin of Madelon Claudet
82. Nicole Kidman, The Hours
83. Loretta Young, The Farmer’s Daughter
84. Geraldine Page, The Trip to Bountiful
85. Elizabeth Taylor, BUtterfield 8
86. Bette Davis, Dangerous
87. Katharine Hepburn, Morning Glory
88. Marie Dressler, Min and Bill
89. Mary Pickford, Coquette
90. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
