Best Actress 1985 - The resolution

After having watched and reviewed all five nominated performances, it's time to pick the winner!

5. Anne Bancroft in Agnes of God

Anne Bancroft gives a competent and sometimes very appealing performance that unfortunately never becomes truly memorable or outstanding because of both the writing and the acting which tends to let too many chances go by.

4. Meryl Streep in Out of Africa

                     

One could say that Meryl Streep gives a ‘standard’ performance but for a woman of her talents, this still means high quality work. Combined with the interesting part of Karen Blixen in a beautiful and moving epic, she was able to give a multidimensional and thoughtful performance that catches a lot of different angles of her character without feeling too forced or dominating.

3. Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams

Jessica Lange may not really become Patsy Cline but she creates an image of a well-known artist and brings it to a captivating life and that way is able to expand the fascination of the real Patsy Cline – she doesn’t completely satisfy the viewer but she awakes an interest about the true Patsy Cline, her life and her work which results in a performance that seems to be more a tribute than a biography but she achieves this goal on a high level. 

2. Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple

Whoopi Goldberg creates an always growing woman, a flowing character who seems steady and withdrawn but grows scene by scene which Whoopi Goldberg underlines with an intelligent and heartbreaking performances that brings all the tragedies of Celie's existence to life without letting them appear too sentimental.

1. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful

Like few others, this performance is able to move the viewer with things that are never seen – it’s only an elderly woman and her dreams of the past, there are no heartbreaking images except the ones that Geraldine Page displays on her face. She has only herself to carry the story and create these images and she succeeded completely without ever making everything too corny or exaggerated. In her performance, she perfectly balanced her own experiences as an actress and the experiences of Carrie Watts to heartbreaking results.