Best Actress Ranking - Update

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

My winning performances are higlighted in red.

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. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
9. Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise (1991)
10. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)

11. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)
12. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
13. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
14. Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998)
15. Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
16. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
17. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)
18. Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958)
19. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
20. Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

21. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
22. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
23. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)
24. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
25. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)
26. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
27. Anne Baxter in All about Eve (1950)
28. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)
29. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)
30. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

31. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
32. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
33. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)
34. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)
35. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)
36. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)
37. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
38. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
39. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
40. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)

41. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
42. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)
43. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
44. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
45. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)
46. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)
47. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
48. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)

Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington in All about Eve

Few performances in the Best Actress category are as difficult to evaluate for me as Anne Baxter’s turn as an aspiring but also scheming actress in All about Eve. It’s hard to deny that the part itself is a true showcase, written to perfection like almost everything else in this classic Best Picture winner. And Anne Baxter does find various great moments in her performance – but as my ranking shows, I am not completely convinced that her approach was overall successful or that she was even the right actress for the part.

I do have to say what I find very interesting that, despite my reservations about Anne Baxter’s performance, there is never a moment in All about Eve where I think that she is actually hurting the movie or threatens to destroy its flow. Instead, she completely integrates herself into the outstanding ensemble and contributes to the success of the story – but looking back on it, I think this has mostly to do with the fact that the remaining actors possess the necessary aliveness to compensate for her often stoic acting choices. I get that Eve is an outsider, even when she is welcomed into this group of theatre folks – but I still don’t think that Anne Baxter got everything out of the role that was possible. And I think that it is Anne Baxter’s sometimes lacking acting style that is responsible for one of the most discussed questions around this movie: leading or supporting? To this day, movie fans debate if Anne Baxter’s choice to compete in the Best Actress category is the reason that Bette Davis lost the award for her iconic role as Margo Channing, thus paving the way for Judy Holliday’s win for Born Yesterday. Personally, I agree with Anne Baxter – Eve is a leading role. But somehow, Anne Baxter’s performance doesn’t feel the same. What I mean is that both Eve and Margo were given the same chances by screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz – both are given an intriguing arc, both are dominating the story and both are given material that can easily lead to performances that are proclaimed “all-time great”. But only Bette Davis fulfilled this. Her performance is so dominating, so effortless and so memorable that she made Margo Channing naturally the center of attention. All about Eve became all about Margo, as also the later musical version Applause demonstrated. But as I said, this was a result of casting – if an actress who could have held her own against Bette Davis had been cast as Eve, then history might have been very different but Anne Baxter simply too much disappears next to Bette Davis, even with a role that, on paper, has the same potential.

Maybe the part of Eve actually had even more potential than Margo – the apparently innocent and devoted fan who turns out to be a scheming manipulator, trying to take everything away from her idol (her parts, her friends, her lover) is a dream role that demands an actress to do a complete turnaround in her performance and constantly act on different levels for different targets. And I won’t deny that Anne Baxter possessed the instinct for this – she knows when to appear innocent, when to crack an evil smile and when to completely let go of her carefully constructed protection. But still, the outcome does not convince me. First of all, what I think, is that Anne Baxter quite simply was too mature for the role of Eve. I realize that she was only 26 years old when she played the role but something about her was too “grown-up”. She simply lacks that quality that would make Margo Channing say that she feels an urge to protect her, she never really comes across as that devoted, wide-eyed fan who only lives for her idol. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to come up with an actress who might have been more suited for the part – I just think that an actress with more spark and youth could have portrayed the naivety of the character better. Because of her maturity, Anne Baxter, at least for me, destroys her entrance completely – she feels much too secure when talking to Karen (does anyone really think that it took all her courage?) and her scene in the dressing room also feels too calculated. I get that Eve is acting at this point but she unfortunately doesn’t do it convincingly. Barbara Bates later gives a much more believable performance of the same character as Phoebe at the end of the movie – I am not saying that Barbara Bates would have been a better Eve but I can imagine that she would have given her opening scenes the needed charm and plausibility.

This acting style of Anne Baxter in my opinion also ruins the effect when she finally turns out to be something completely different. Anne Baxter never seems to hide her true intentions. I know that by now we are all aware of Eve’s true plans but watching the movie, there is no reason to immediately assume just how far Eve went to get to that award show. The beginning of the movie is intriguing and makes you wonder just what happened between these characters and if Eve had been a more likeable and sympathetic character, the question would have been going on for much longer (even when she tries to seduce Bill, she does it with such a clearly evil agenda in mind that it's surprising she would think that anyone would fall for it). But Anne Baxter’s acting style and Bette Davis’s performance don’t make it very difficult to side with Margo right away and begin to expect the worst.

But as I said, the acting of Anne Baxter does not diminish the success of All about Eve – I just think the movie and the role could have succeeded on a more intriguing level. Other scenes when Eve is fooling (or trying to) those around her also suffer from her melodramatic acting style, from convincing Karen to make her Margo’s new understudy to lying to Addison about what happened in the ladies’ room. But I would expect that a woman whose acting style is called “fire and music” would be more convincing in her schemes. Anne Baxter mostly puts on a melodramatic whisper and turns her head away from her scene partners to look into the open space which makes it impossible to imagine that she can seriously rival Bette Davis’s Margo on the stage – or off.

This was a lot of negative talk so far which could pose the question why Anne Baxter is then not lower on my list. Well, first of all, as I said, despite her acting choices she does not harm the movie but still fits into it and still manages to make her journey captivating. But most of all, Anne Baxter succeeds when Eve finally drops her niceties and shows her true self. She is absolutely mesmerizing in the scene with Celeste Holm in the ladies’ room and later when she is defeated by Addison in her hotel room. Again, I wish her approach in these scenes would have been a bit deeper (just how true is her love for the theatre? Is it only about awards and fame? Or about acting, too? Just what is her true personality in the end anyway?) but it works to bring her performance full circle.

So, there remains a certain frustration as the role itself certainly had the potential to become a 5 star performance but I think that Anne Baxter was not the right actress to do so. Still, it’s a captivating performance that works within the structure of the picture.  

And a hint to the next performance that will be ranked:

Number 29: Anne Baxter as Sophie Nelson Macdonald in "The Razor’s Edge" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Another performance that dropped out of the my Top 20. Anne Baxter is an actress that can annoy me very easily with a very exaggerated acting style. In The Razor’s Edge, the had the advantage of playing a very desperate and moving character which made her over-the-top acting often less noticeable and she also turned her performance into a true masterpiece in some scenes but at the same time she has some extremely unsatisfying moments which are also the reason why she went down a few spots.  

At the beginning, Anne Baxter succeeds in showing Sophie as a lovely, care-free girl whose joy and happiness contrast very sharply and very effectively with her later scenes. But she also displayed that annoying, constantly gasping for air-acting style that I already disliked in her more famous work in All about Eve. When she tells her best friend Isabelle how much she loves her boyfriend Bob, Anne Baxter delivers her line like this: ‘He’s no more crazy about me than I am about him. (Deep breath) I don’t think anyone has ever loved anyone as I love him. (Deep breath).’ But even with those little flaws, Anne Baxter still manages to be very natural and stand out among the cast right from the beginning.

Later Anne Baxter uses another short scene to display the happiness in her life and her love for her husband and her new-born babie. All this happiness may seem a bit exaggerated but Anne Baxter was wise to play these scenes like this because they build the foundation for her later much more dramatic work.

Later, Anne Baxter showed her talent for high-class drama when Sophie, injured in a car accident, learns that her husband and her baby did not survive. Anne Baxter knows how to milk that scene for every possible dramatic effect and she is fantastic at it. She’s absolutely heartbreaking when she asks with a trembling voice ‘Is Bob dead? Is he dead?’ and then with fear and disbelief ‘And the baby, too?’ It’s an unforgettable scene and Anne Baxter is able to keep her usual love for over-acting under control.

But Anne Baxter was even able to top that scene later when Sophie’s friends meet her again in a cheap Parisian bar where she spends her time drinking and giving her love to everyone who wants it. This single scene is easily among the greatest scenes this category provides. Anne Baxter plays it with so much subtlety that it’s just heartbreaking. That look on her face when she recognizes her old friends who suddenly came back into her life is worth an Oscar alone. In this scene, Sophie doesn’t even pretend to be anything else than a broken human being with no more spirit left inside her.   

Later, when Larry wants to marry Sophie to put her out of her misery, Anne Baxter has less showy moments but she is excellent in a scene when she meets all her old friends again. This scene contrasts sharply with her first appearance – back then, she was very relaxed around her friends but now it’s obvious how uneasy Sophie feels, how embarrassed and how out-of-place. Anne Baxter again proves that she is an actress with great instincts for her parts.

Unfortunately, Anne Baxter now loses some of her excellence. In another scene when she thinks about her baby and starts to cry, Anne Baxter wrinkles up her face in so many ways that you wonder if it will ever get back again in its old position. And when she talks with Isabel about how hard it is for her to stop drinking, she dramatically declares “Sometimes when I’ve been alone…I wanted to shake the house down’, to which she bang’s her fist against the wall – this is a scene that is so over-the-top in its attempt to be melodramatic that you can’t help but laugh about it. But Anne Baxter can still find room for some good moments, when she talks about Larry and says ‘He’s really good, Isabel. I was gone. Lost. Gone. This is my one chance, I know that!’

Her final scene is, unfortunately, also her worst when she is drunk and turns her character into a caricature by talking in a strange Clint-Eastwood-voice and again wrinkling up her face as if she tries to scare some children. 

But despite some flaws this is still an extremely powerful and heartbreaking performance.

YOUR Best Actress of 1950!

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Gloria Swanson - Sunset Boulevard (28 votes)

2. Bette Davis - All about Eve (16 votes)

3. Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday (9 votes)

4. Anne Baxter - All about Eve & Eleanor Parker - Caged (2 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1950 - The resolution

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

5. Anne Baxter in All about Eve

Anne Baxter wants to do everything right but unfortunately does a lot wrong in her performance but is nonetheless still able to create an interesting character thanks to the brilliant writing. She shows the differences between the fake Eve, the evil Eve, the manipulating Eve, the scared Eve and the real Eve but her limited talent prevents her from combining her instincts with a truly great performance.

4. Eleanor Parker in Caged

                     

Eleanor Parker shows Marie like a deer caught in the spotlight – frightened, unable to do anything. This way, she is wonderfully able to distance Marie’s character from the other, more experienced inmates and give an extremely moving performance that shows how innocence and goodness can be turned into hardness, bitterness and insubordination.

3. Bette Davis in All about Eve

Bette Davis is able to show all the weak and strong sides of Margo and mixes them with wonderful sarcastic humor and so creates one of the most fascinating characters in movie history. In a very private portrayal of a larger-than-life woman, Bette flawlessly demonstrates the self-assurance of Margo without ever overshadowing any of her co-stars.

2. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

Gloria Swanson gives a pitch-perfect performance as she completely understands both the character and the movie style: it’s a mix of satire and realism, a dark comedy and a shocking drama and Gloria Swanson fitted her performance to this – stylized to the maximum, over-the-top and larger-than-life but always real and Gloria Swanson never crosses the line to unconvincing.

1. Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday

Judy Holliday delivered a comedic tour-de-force in Born Yesterday that carries this movie and turns it into one of the great comedies while never forgetting to show also more serious sides of the character. It’s an incredibly multidimensional and deep characterization that is done in the most subtle way because Judy Holliday never draws any attention to her performance itself. Instead, she understands how to maximize the comedy aspect while slowly creating a character that is so much more than visible on the first look.

Best Actress 1950: Anne Baxter in "All about Eve"

After having won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar a couple of years earlier, Anne Baxter received her only Best Actress nomination for her performance as the title character in All about Eve – a young and shy aspiring actress who turns out to be a scheming manipulator.

Among movie fans, Anne Baxter is generally considered to be the reason why Bette Davis didn’t win the Best Actress Oscar for All about Eve – Anne Baxter’s decision to go lead instead of supporting reputedly resulted in vote splitting and cost Bette the award. But this simply overlooks the fact that Anne Baxter’s Eve is clearly a leading character in All about Eve.

Anne Baxter was a rather limited and artificial actress with a tendency for overacting and that melodramatic acting style from the 40s. This all worked in her Oscar winning role in The Razor’s Edge because this part gave her a lot of emotional and heartbreaking scenes where her acting style either fitted the situation or wasn’t so noticeable because of the character’s miseries. But in All about Eve, Anne Baxter didn’t have the luxury of obvious tragedy but only had herself and the dialogue to rely on. And while she was able to use that wonderful dialogue wisely, her shortcomings as an actress become too obvious in this part.

As mentioned before, there is always something artificial about Anne Baxter’s acting. This does not refer to the fact that Eve is a character who is always pretending and acting herself, but simply to Anne Baxter’s entire performance. All about Eve is filled with performances that are alive and real and Anne Baxter can never keep up with them. When Eve meets Karen Richards for the first time outside the theatre, Anne Baxter moves like a robot, positioning herself in front of Celeste in the right angle for the camera which results in completely unnatural movements and line deliveries.

The biggest problem of Anne Baxter’s performances lies in her early misinterpretation of the character. The viewer is supposed to believe that Eve is not only shy and quiet but also immediately likeable in a way that would make a woman like Margo Channing give her a room in her house and make her fool everyone around her (except for Birdie). This ability to make almost everybody like and trust her is the most important quality in Eve’s character and considering that Eve is supposed to be such a great actress, it should not be too hard for her. But Anne Baxter’s performance is never able to show these qualities. When she is questioning Karen about Margo, there should be some kind of excitement and admiration, but Anne Baxter delivers her lines mostly bored, sometimes even threatening but always very stiff. She does not succeed in showing the allegedly innocence in Eve. When she finally meets Margo, it’s also such a lifeless scene because Anne Baxter again seems almost bored to be there. Her biggest failure is the scene when Eve is telling about her own life and her past. It’s these scenes that should connect Eve to the other characters but again, Anne Baxter delivers her lines with so much lifelessness and a monotonous voice that is constantly gasping for air that it’s impossible to believe that anyone would care for this woman in any way. The only way to make this scene even slightly moving is by highlighting it with depressing music in the background. The normal reaction should have been that Margo’s and Eve’s ways part after that encounter because Anne Baxter fails to show why Margo and her friends accept her in their group.

Anne Baxter’s lifeless performance also makes another important aspect of Eve’s character unbelieving: the fact that she is supposed to be a great actress ‘full of fire and music’. It’s absolutely impossible to believe that a woman like Eve could seriously challenge Margo on the stage.

What does succeed in Anne Baxter’s performance is her ability to show Eve’s longing for that stage. In these scenes, she shows that this is not only a desire, but even an obsession. When she watches Margo’s curtain call or talks about how important the applause from the audience is, her performance and her character become much more interesting. It’s in these scenes that Anne’s acting style works well in the context of the move. Next to that, she is also able to show how inexperienced Eve seems to be compared to everyone around her. Thanks to her acting style that separates her from all the other performances, Anne Baxter is also able to separate Eve from all the other characters. Even when they are interacting, Eve seems to be distant.

Of course it’s obvious that Eve is a character who is supposed to be constantly acting but it’s Anne Baxter’s job to never let the other characters or the viewer realize this. But since Anne Baxter is not able to show this in Eve, the final outcome where Eve’s true character is revealed doesn’t work as well as it could have in the hands of a better actress.

But the astonishing thing about Anne Baxter’s performance is that, as misinterpreted as it may be, it still works in the context of the film. Anne Baxter’s performance does not harm the movie in any way but surprisingly works in its overall context. The reason is that Anne’s performance is low-key and quiet enough to never draw attention to itself but melt with the rest of the cast and movie.

On the whole, Anne Baxter’s performance improves during the run of the movie because her scenes of anger or hidden evil are much better acted than those of silent obedience. Her smile when she tells Margo about her phone call to Bill is a great moment in her performance and suddenly the character of Eve appears from a different angle. Her most famous scene in the bathroom with Celeste Holm is very well done and Anne Baxter is able to nail the moment when Eve suddenly shows her true self. Whenever Anne Baxter can show the merciless and conniving side of Eve, her performance suddenly comes alive. But even then, there are still more over-the-top moments to come. Her big fight scene with Addison DeWitt is so over-the-top, overdone, melodramatic and unreal that it’s impossible not to laugh when Addison slaps her after her fake laugh or when one sees her over-the-top crying.

The final scene of Eve is clearly the best moment in Anne Baxter’s performance because here she shows how Eve really is – lazy, bossy and too arrogant to notice the obvious truth in front of her eyes.

It’s a performance of so much mixed feelings because Anne Baxter has the right instincts for the part. She shows the differences between the fake Eve, the evil Eve, the manipulating Eve, the scared Eve and the real Eve but her limited talent prevents her from combining her instincts with a truly great performance.

Anne Baxter wants to do everything right but unfortunately does a lot wrong in her performance but is nonetheless still able to create an interesting character thanks to the brilliant writing. For this, she gets

Best Actress 1950

The next year is 1950 and the nominees were

Anne Baxter in All about Eve

Bette Davis in All about Eve

Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday

Eleanor Parker in Caged

Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard