It's Oscar season, so let's dive into my favorite place: the past. you're invited to disagree and show me how proud you are of caring about Johnny Belinda or whatever. Today, we begin with the best of Best Actresses. Ready to rank? Let's go.
10. Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Under-discussed fact: Though the character of Martha is a crucial and brutal part of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, George is a far more interesting character. It's almost easy to root against Liz for that fact, but her rancor and timing are so electric and natural that she's a shoo-in for this list. What a flop those other actresses are!
9. Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
La Vie En Rose tries to be intriguing with its out-of-sequence storytelling but nearly succumbs to Boilerplate Biopic Syndrome (see: Walk the Line). Fortunately, its star gives one of the most convincing and stunning impersonations I've ever seen. Cotillard is alive as Edith Piaf, and her zeal and wide-eyed charisma make The Little Sparrow a cinematic treat for the eye.
8. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry
Gotta love when an unknown sweeps in to rule the Oscars, particularly for a role that's far more culturally important than the competition. (Sorry, Annette Bening!) Hilary Swank not only looks a hell of a lot like Brandon Teena, she embodies the Nebraskan transgendered man's essence from start to finish -- even if it's Chloe Sevigny who truly ropes us into this story.
7. Faye Dunaway, Network
I was just singing Faye's praises the other day, but let's review: Diana Christensen is the toughest, beigest, most frightening exec you'll ever see on the big screen, and she's made all the more ferocious by that curious mix of enigma and affectation that Dunaway traditionally brings to the silver screen. She is ruthless -- which is usually a one-note characteristic -- but Dunaway crackles in the role. By the way, when I give you an audience feedback report, you better read it or I'll sack the f*cking lot of you, is that clear?
6. Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
She toppled Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson at the 1950 Oscars, but you can't call Judy Holliday overpraised. In the classic comedy Born Yesterday, she turns the part of feisty naif Billie Dawn into a brilliantly funny, convincingly cerebral character with a spine. It helps that Holliday was rumored to have an IQ of 162, but it's all acting skill that propels her through cinema's finest gin rummy scene. (Take that, The Apartment!)
5. Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress
It is pure pleasure to watch Joan Fontaine's sister fan herself and fall for a fortune-hunting gent in The Heiress. Every look on de Havilland's face beams with intelligence and nerve; maybe Jessica Chastain achieves this in its newest Broadway revival, but de Havilland's charisma is the stuff of legend. Hard not to sympathize with a woman who gets a little dazed in the face of Montgomery Clift
4. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
You know Eleanor of Aquitaine will come back in some 2025 Sofia Coppola jam, but for the time being, let's acknowledge the sheer profundity and irreplaceable gravitas of Katharine Hepburn's strong, ferocious work in The Lion in Winter. Will we ever get another Hepburn, an actress who manages to use her obvious idiosyncrasies to illuminate historical roles successfully? Probably not. What a desolation! What a life's work!
3. Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice
Mysteriously, I find the movie Sophie's Choice somehow underrated among film buffs, who mostly cite the '82 movie to tout Meryl's work, but I'll concede when public opinion is correct: Meryl is spellbinding here, conveying a quaint, yet endlessly complex woman whose wartime traumas have left her in a perpetual state of melancholy limbo between life and death. Dare you to watch that train scene without letting Meryl ruin you with her horror. Those are some Mother Courage chops right there.
2. Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind
As far as I can tell, there is only one Brit who Southerners have approved of representing their Civil War ancestors, and that woman is Vivien Leigh. Scarlett O'Hara's heroic, yet frustrating nature is one of the all time great cinematic treasures, and the astonishing Leigh renews the film's vitality with her every commanding glance.
1. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
Hard to believe Scarlett O'Hara would only be the second-ranked achievement of Vivien Leigh's career, but here you have it. Blanche DuBois is not just a labyrinthine character with plenty of wacky and frightening layers; in the hands of Leigh, she becomes a stinging indictment of the mannered actresses of the '30s and '40s. When the monstrously under-mannered Stanley unravels her mystery and she's forced into crushing vulnerability before our eyes, Leigh evolves from a shrinking Joan Fontaine type to an eerie shell of a human being. She is the absolute best, and because I just watched this movie again last week, I can assure you Leigh's work is still mesmerizing over 60 years later.
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