Best Actress Ranking - Update

Here is a new update - the class of 2001. The newly added performances are highlighted in bold. 

If five performances from the same year are included, the winning performance is 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. Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
6. Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
7. Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven (1927-1928)   
8. Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman (1978)
9. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
10. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful (1985)

11. Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise (1991)
12. Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
13. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)
14. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)
15. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
16. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
17. Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby (2004)
18. Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998)
19. Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge! (2001)
20. Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

21. Simone Signoret in Room at the Top (1959)
22. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
23. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)
24. Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958)
25. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
26. Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
27. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
28. Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
29. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
30. Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom (2001)

31. Halle Berry in Monster's Ball (2001)
32. Lee Remick in Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
33. Annette Bening in American Beauty (1999)
34. Emily Watson in Hilary and Jackie (1998)
35. Judi Dench in Iris (2001)
36. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)
37. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
38. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)
39. Meryl Streep in The Devil wears Prada (2006)
40. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

41. Anne Baxter in All about Eve (1950)
42. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)
43. Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932)
44. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)
45. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
46. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
47. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
48. Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear (1952)
49. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)
50. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)

51. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)
52. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)
53. Martha Scott in Our Town (1940)
54. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
55. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
56. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
57. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
58. Jeanne Crain in Pinky (1949)
59. Eleanor Parker in Detective Story (1951)
60. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

61. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)
62. Louise Dresser in A Ship comes in (1927-1928)
63. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
64. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
65. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)
66. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)
67. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
68. Ruth Chatterton in Madame X (1928-29)
69. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)
70. Bette Davis in The Star (1952)

Best Actress Ranking Update

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

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. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)
10. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)

11. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
12. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
13. Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998)
14. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
15. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)
16. Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958)
17. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
18. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
19. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
20. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)

21. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
22. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)
23. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
24. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)
25. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)
26. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
27. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
28. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
29. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)
30. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)

31. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)
32. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
33. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
34. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
35. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
36. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)
37. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
38. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
39. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)
40. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)

41. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
42. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)

Judi Dench as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown

 

I realize right away that my positioning of Judi Dench might be a bit controversial. Her loss at the Oscars has caused outrageous reactions almost right away, leading to a so-called “make up Oscar” the next year and putting her forever into the usual “The biggest Oscar robberies of all time” lists. Helen Hunt’s victory over Judi Dench has almost reached a Judy Garland vs. Grace Kelly-level which is certainly astonishing since we are not talking about one of America’s most beloved musical legends in her greatest on-screen performance but an English character actress in a subtle performance as Queen Victoria in a little movie that was initially meant for TV instead of the big screen.

I cannot comment yet on the “robbed” argument as I need to see Helen Hunt’s performance again but as you can see from my ranking, I don’t consider her work some kind of undeniable masterpiece and I am honestly a bit perplexed by the extremely high reputation of this performance. Don’t get me wrong – if an unknown, English character actress can get her first plum leading role at the age of 63, receiving her first of (so far) seven Oscar nominations at an age where most actresses cannot get any work at all, winning a Tony for her stage work, getting a supporting role in the James Bond franchise and quite simply become a household name in the US, then I am surely the last to complain! Sudden international careers like that of Judi Dench are incredibly rare at this age and how wonderful is it to see this happen to an actress of such talent, grace and poise.

So, why don’t I position her work higher? When talking about Judi Dench’s performance, I think it is best to start with the parts I don’t regard that highly and then come to the positive aspects. First of all, my main problem of Mrs. Brown is quite simply the script – I admit that the movie itself is both entertaining and touching and presents a very strong ensemble but I don’t think that the central character of Queen Victoria is truly written in a challenging or long-lasting way. I read a lot of reviews that praised Judi Dench for bringing this complex woman to live and I do believe that Queen Victoria was a complex person (I’m sure most royals are) – but I don’t think that I see this complexity in Mrs. Brown. Here, the Queen’s only purpose seems to be to suffer the death of her husband and nothing about the way she is written truly suggests her royal background. When you get right down it, Mrs. Brown is the kind of TV movie where an old widow/widower falls in love with an unconventional man/woman and has to fight for this love against the will of his/her disapproving children. This does offer various moving moments to Judi Dench but unfortunately I never get the feeling that I am truly watching the Queen of England as the script never concerns itself with these matters. I do appreciate that the movie wanted to show another side of Queen Victoria but I think that very often she becomes almost a side character in her very own story (apparently, Billy Connolly was campaigned as a supporting actor which was category fraud of the highest level – I would estimate that he has a larger role than Judi Dench).

I think the major problem of the script is that Queen Victoria is presented as such a passive character. The title Mrs. Brown is not only true for the fact that Queen Victoria was mocked by her critics for her affection to Mr. Brown but also because she is very often reduced to her relationship to this character. This is also the reason why Mrs. Brown barely makes Queen Victoria seem truly royal – everything she does appears to be out of the intentions of other characters. She begins the movie as the grieving widow but it only takes a few moments opposite Mr. Brown before she starts riding out with him and then a few more moments before she enjoys life again. Queen Victoria appears to be totally dependent on Mr. Brown – I do appreciate that the movie presents him as the man who helped her overcome her grief but Mrs. Brown as a movie never presents any true character development. Years after Mr. Brown entered her life, she still begs him to not let any politicians or the members of her family send her back to London, the movie never gives a feeling about what happened in all these years as the basic situation always remains the same. And this affects Judi Dench’s performance – she does play every scene correctly but you never get the feeling that Queen Victoria is the master of her own life. And considering all the time the movie spent on creating this deep friendship, it again makes a misstep by letting the Queen drop Mr. Brown very quickly again when he demands her to do something she does not want. This might underline the own feeling of superiority in the Queen but the script is too undecided on her character, letting her be pushed around from one emotion to the other without every properly explaining reasons or giving the Queen an inner personality – and not even Judi Dench can overcome these obstacles.

So, I think that is was truly the script that held Judi Dench back from giving an outstanding performance because it kept her within a very limited range and did not allow her to create a three-dimensional human being. But now we come to the parts of her performance that I do appreciate: most of all, even if the script does not suggest a truly royal character at its center, Judi Dench’s performance certainly does. Everything that does succeed about Queen Victoria is due to her work. She inhabits a royal personality down to her toe – the way she eats her food and then stops, naturally expecting everyone else to stop as well, the way she walks around the palace with her ladies in waiting behind her or the way she holds out her hand to receive a letter feel completely authentic at every moment. I also appreciate that Judi Dench did not decide to go the easy route with her character and ‘sweetened her up’ – sure, there are moments when she drops her usually reserved façade to smile at John Brown but she always stays true to the superior character of the Queen. The way she treats her family and her servants always indicates that Queen Victoria knows her rank and her position and won’t ever let anyone forget it – except Mr. Brown. I especially like the scene when Queen Victoria plays the piano and makes her grandchildren sing with her – the whole scene reminds me of a horror movie where the killer invades the house of a family and makes them all act as if everything is as usual. Judi Dench also makes the great decision to never make it seem that the Queen is unaware of the disapproval around here – instead, she simply ignores it, showing that she understands everything she does as the right way and contrary opinions as wrong.

Besides the proper display of royal superiority, Judi Dench also plays the emotional sides of her character well – the script may limit her work but she does work beautifully within these limits. Her grief at the beginning of the movie feels very authentic, her eyes weak from private crying, her face rid of any joy and only a display of hidden pain. Her slow breakdown while she is talking to John Brown is done excellently by Judi Dench as well, just as her quiet plead to make him stay with her and her final scenes when she confesses that she has not always been the loyal friend that he deserved.

So, it’s an overall satisfying performance with many great moments but I just wish that a character with such endless possibilities as Queen Victoria had been given a more demanding and interesting script to really let its leading actress shine.

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

Number 46: Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

After her first nominated performance in Mrs. Brown, Judi Dench was back at the Academy Awards the next year with another turn as an English monarch – and this time she was able to take the Oscar home.

In Shakespeare in Love, Judi Dench famously gives one of the shortest performances ever to win the Oscar – as the legendary monarch Elizabeth I, she has only three short appearances. But, as the saying goes, there are no small parts – and Judi Dench proved that even only a couple of minutes on the screen can be turned into cinema gold.

Judi Dench is one of those British actresses that can command the screen with the greatest ease, make everything look both natural and impressive and can do more with one look than others with tons of dialogue. Especially in the small role of Elizabeth I, all these qualities are a big advantage for her. Not a single second is there a doubt that Elizabeth I is indeed one of the most powerful monarchs in the world. And also not a single second is there a doubt that this woman is much, much, much more than visible in the few moments on the screen.

Judi Dench’s appearance in Shakespeare in Love benefits from the fact that her three scenes are strategically very well placed – at the beginning, in the middle and at the end. This way, her presence, even though never of importance in all the scenes without her, is never completely forgotten.
While her first scene is rather meaningless it still establishes the character of Elizabeth I and helps Judi Dench to build the foundation on which her later scenes are based. Her second scene only strengthens the impressions the audience has gotten earlier – that this woman possess strength and power like nobody else. With only a few looks, she is able to command a room full of people and make Viola look like the biggest fool. Judi Dench wonderful line delivery helps her to achieve maximum results in this scene. And who can forget her delivery of the line ‘She’s been plugged since I saw her last and not by you. Takes a woman to know it’?

Her best moments are in the end, when her character basically solves all the problems (not necessarily to the happiness of all) and brings everything to an end. And again she shows her talents for filling every bit of dialogue with life and energy when she says ‘But I know something of a woman in a man’s profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.’

Judi Dench took a true supporting role and used it to steal every scene she is in.

YOUR Best Actress of 2001

The poll results are:

1. Nicole Kidman - Moulin Rouge! (22 votes)

2. Halle Berry - Monster's Ball (13 votes)

3. Sissy Spacek - In the Bedroom (4 votes)

4. Judi Dench - Iris & Renée Zellweger - Bridget Jones's Diary (2 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 2001 - The resolution!

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

5. Judi Dench in Iris

In playing Iris, a philosopher and writer who suffers from Alzheimer disease, Judi Dench gives a typically dignified portrayal that contrasts very effectively with later scenes of despair and illness and she believably shows that the knowledge about her own situation is the most important thing for a woman who has always put knowledge above everything else. Even though her later scenes of loneliness and confusion don’t offer much of a challenge for her, Judi Dench gives a very moving and memorable performance.

4. Halle Berry in Monster's Ball

                     

Halle Berry gives a surprisingly raw and powerful performance as a woman who suffers a series of devastating tragedies but unfortunately is not very consistent in her portrayal and mixes scenes of overwhelming emotions and truth with moments of awkward over-acting and shrill hysterics. Still, it’s a harrowing and unforgettable demonstration of a hopeless and helpless soul.

3. Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom

Sissy Spacek gives an uncompromising portrayal of a grieving mother who retreats more and more into her own world of silence and anger. It’s a fascinating, honest and subtle performance that offers a lot of unforgettable images. Unfortunately, the character of Ruth is very underwritten and more than once steps into the background but Sissy Spacek is able to create a complex and disturbingly real character who has no way out of her sorrow and sadness.

2. Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary

In the role of Bridget, Renée Zellweger creates a unique and hilarious character who doesn’t need big dramatic scenes of despair and anger to be unforgettable. Thanks to Renée, Bridget becomes a very real heroine who amusingly and awkwardly fights her way through life and love. Her greatest success is that she never takes herself, the role of Bridget or the movie too seriously – instead she portrays all of Bridget’s facets in a very nonchalant-way and so helps to make her incredibly charming and delightful.

1. Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!

In Moulin Rouge!, Nicole Kidman gives a star-performance on the highest level. From the first moment, she completely dominates the screen and is wonderfully able to survive all the craziness around her. In a loud and over-the-top movie, Nicole Kidman prevents Satine from ever stepping into the background and shows her character’s arc believably and effectively. It’s a fascinating and unforgettable performance that is funny, touching, crazy and romantic.

Best Actress 2001: Judi Dench in "Iris"

In Iris, Judi Dench plays Iris Murdoch, an English philosopher and author of 26 novels.

Right from the start, when we see Iris sitting on her bicycle, driving too fast for her husband to catch up, we are already given a perfect picture of a woman who is independent, strong-minded and knows what she wants and what she is able to do.

In the early scenes of Iris, Judi Dench gives her usual dignified portrayal of a unique woman. When she is giving a speech or simply talking to her husband in a supermarket, she does it with so much style and elegance that she might also be the Queen of England. While this is simply something that Judi Dench automatically does with almost every role she is playing, it serves the character and the movie very well – we see that Iris is no ordinary woman.

But very soon we find out that this woman who lives in a world of books and thoughts, who is a thinker and a poet, suffers from Alzheimer disease. At first, she has trouble remembering the spelling of certain words but her condition soon gets worse.

What’s so special about Judi Dench’s performance at the beginning of Iris’s illness is that she is able to show that Iris is intelligent enough to know what’s going on. She realizes her own decline, she is very aware of what is going on inside of her – and Judi Dench wonderfully portrays her fear of not being able to do anything against it. Judi Dench demonstrates that Iris’s biggest worries are to finish the book she is writing right now which seems like a race against time.

Also in the all the scenes that show how Iris is tested and examined, Judi Dench clearly and flawlessly shows that the most important thing for Iris is to be always aware of her own state. She doesn’t seem to mind what will happen to her as long as the doctors tell her the truth and she has the complete knowledge about herself.

When Iris’s condition gets worse, Judi Dench gives a very moving, but also rather standard performance that stops surprising the viewer. She handles the scenes of Iris’s loneliness, of her confusion and her retreat into her own world very well but in these scenes, she stops making Iris an interesting, complex character and focuses mostly on the moving effect of her scenes. When we see how this woman, who used to be so confident and intelligent, is not able to open the door or simple repeats a sentence endlessly because she can’t do anything else, it’s certainly heartbreaking to watch.

A lot of the success of Judi Dench’s performance depends on the work from Kate Winslet who, in her flashback scenes, lays the foundation for the character of Iris. If it wasn’t for Kate’s fresh, original and endearing performance, then Judi Dench’s performance wouldn’t be half as effective – because it’s Iris’s uniqueness and her strength that makes her such a fascinating person and we almost only see this in the flashback scenes. The Iris of Judi Dench would not be very interesting without the Iris of Kate Winslet.

As Iris, Judi Dench’s task is mostly to make the tragedy of the character visible to the audience. She does this very touchingly and creates a lot of unforgettable images and overall gives a performance that gets

Best Actress 2001

The next year will be 2001 and the nominees were

Halle Berry in Monster's Ball

Judi Dench in Iris

Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!

Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom

Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jonses's Diary