My current Top 5

My current Top 5

3/31/2016

Best Actress Ranking - Update


Here is a new update. The newly added performance is highlighted in bold. 

1. Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939)
2. Jessica Lange in Frances (1982)
3. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
4. Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949)
5. Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
6. Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven (1927-1928)   
7. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
8. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)
9. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)
10. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)

11. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
12. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
13. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)
14. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
15. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
16. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)
17. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
18. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
19. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
20. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)

21. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
22. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)
23. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)
24. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
25. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
26. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
27. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
28. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)
29. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
30. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)

31. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)
32. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
33. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)



5 comments:

GM said...

Hum, you still love her the same apparently. I wish the same happened to me. After a rewatch, her performance downgrade for me. Love her in the first half, but then she was asked to be over-the-top and wasn't up to the task in my book. Actually Jessica Lange rarely does something for me, and when she overacts, she really annoys me.

Giuseppe Fadda said...

I haven't seen her yet but I can't wait too. Lange can be quite a mixed bag sometimes but when she's good, she really is. Love her in American Horror Story.

Allen said...

I saw this so long ago - thought she was great at the time, but I feel like most folks are really crazy about her here and I thought she had moments where she was a bit OTT (not in a good way).

I'm curious how I'd feel upon a rewatch!

Anonymous said...

She's way too high imo.

Fritz said...

Thanks for all your comments! It seems that the reactions to Lange in this are either "best of all time" or "don't see the big deal". Well, I'm clearly in the first camp. For me, this is one of the most explosive performances ever nominated in this category. Lange totally abandons herself in this part. I agree that she can be very over-the-top in many performances but everything comes together amazingly in Frances. She really tears her heart in this part, leaving me physically exhausted every time I watch her. But it is not only her loud moments, she can be just as devastating in her quiet ones, telling her mother that she does not love her anymore right to her final moments when Lange so brilliantly shows that Frances is still the same person - even if she somehow turned into someone completely different.