Number 37: Estelle Parsons as Blanche Barrow in "Bonnie and Clyde" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Estelle Parsons won her only Oscar for portraying one of the most infamous movie-characters of all time – the shrill, over-the-top, screaming, endlessly annoying but ultimately tragic Blanche Barrow in the classic Bonnie and Clyde.

This is a performance that seems mostly praised or hated with nothing in between. Those who dislike this performance mostly seem to dislike the character – but for me, this is only proof that Estelle Parsons did a fantastic job since she did exactly what she was supposed to do: showing Blanche as a neurotic and hysteric mess who underlines the stress of the situation the gang is getting into while also standing as a symbol for the tragedies they have to endure as time goes on.

With her performance, Estelle Parsons makes it easy with the viewer to sympathize with the character of Bonnie – it works in the context of the movie in which Bonnie and Clyde may be killers but are still a glamorous couple and in some way the heroes of the picture. Gene Hackman makes Warren Beatty even more handsome while Estelle Parsons make Faye Dunaway even more admirable.

But Estelle Parsons does not disappear behind Faye Dunaway. Her performance is much too loud and hysteric to get lost anywhere – who can forget Blanche running around in the middle of a shooting, screaming at the top of her lungs (one of the funniest scenes I have seen)? The most important triumph in Estelle Parsons’s work is that she makes Blanche a realistic character – Bonnie and Clyde is placed somewhere between the old and melodramatic style from the 40s and the realism of more modern pictures and the performances all capture this by being both over-the-top and believable.

Despite all the obvious problems that arise when Blanche enters the movie, Estelle Parsons is still able to make this character not only annoying but also very interesting. The relationship between her husband which seems more like that of a child and its father (the way she grabs her arm when she sees a gun or constantly calls him ‘Daddy`) is endlessly fascinating. Estelle Parsons’s appearance also begins to turn the movie around – up until now Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have an easy life, killing and robbing, but Blanche not only makes life much harder for them but she also accompanies the downfall of the duo.

Estelle Parsons also miraculously achieved to turn the character completely around during the run of the movie without ever turning her into somebody else. In the scene in the car, she suddenly shows a new and unexpected side in Blanche and it’s maybe the most moving and human moment of the whole story. Later, she has one powerful scene after another, kneeling on the floor and praying after her husband has been hit by a bullet, ‘Dear God, please help us!’ It’s a very hard scene because immediately after her prayers, Blanche realizes that her eyes are hurt and she screams ‘I think I’m blind’. It seems as if God had answered and he has shown Blanche that it is too late for prayers – because of Estelle Parsons, that whole scene is so strong and for the first time the movie achieves a much more serious tone in which a lot of aspects are put in new perspectives. And her later scenes, when she screams ‘Daddy, don’t die!`or she is alone and blind in a police cell are incredibly moving and heartbreaking.

A curious and sometimes even strange performance – but all this only helps to achieve very memorable and powerful results.

Number 38: Eileen Heckart as Mrs. Florence Baker in "Butterflies are Free" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

When Eileen Heckart played the part of Mrs. Florence Baker in the Broadway production of Butterflies are Free, she lost the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress to Blythe Danner who played the hippie-neighbour next door in the same play. But when the play was turned into a movie, only Eileen Heckart reprised her stage role – and won an Oscar for her efforts.

Like Shelley Winters in A Patch of Blue, Eileen Heckart plays the mother of a blind child. But that’s about all that these two roles have in common. While Shelley Winter’s Rose-Ann is cruel and full of hate, Eileen Heckart’s Mrs. Baker is over-protective, full of love and unwilling to let go and give her son his own freedom. She plays the sort of mother a lot of people know: criticizing your apartment, bringing you new clothes, looking into your refrigerator to see what you’re eating.

Butterflies are Free can be parted into three chapters: Before mother comes, while mother is there and after mother is gone. Eileen Heckart’s strong presence and unique voice dominate the whole movie just like her character is supposed to be. In an unforgettable way she comes into Donnie’s apartment and begins to criticize everything she sees, but not in an unlikable way but in a way (almost) every mother does: out of love.

Eileen Heckart plays Mrs. Baker with a wonderful combination of dry humour and honest feelings. There can be so much sarcasm in her voice the one moment and an incredible amount of love and worry the next one. An early highlight is when she sees Goldie Hawn in her underwear and Goldie tells her that she came by because she had trouble zipping up her blouse and she responds with a big, friendly smile ‘So I see. Where is your blouse?’

From that moment on Eileen Heckart and Mrs. Baker dominate everything around her, trying to convince her son to leave this place and come back home again with her. In all the arguments that follow, Eileen Heckart always makes it perfectly clear how much Mrs. Baker loves her son and how unwilling she is to see that he needs his freedom and his own life.

Especially in her scenes with Goldie Hawn. Eileen Heckart’s dry humour comes to perfection as she couldn’t make it more obvious how much she disapproves the relation between her and her son.  In one scene particular Eileen is wonderful, when Goldie says ‘I don’t think anyone could call me a prude’ and Eileen says ‘I’d like to see them try!’

The big arc of her character comes at the end when, finally, Mrs. Baker realises that she has to let her son go – her touching close-ups are heartbreaking and she is especially wonderful when she tells her son ‘You know Donnie, it’s not easy to adjust to not being needed anymore…’ And when she says goodbye to her son and tells him that she loves him her son tells her that he knows – and the audience knows, too.

Maybe a little problem I have with this performance is the fact that, sometimes, Eileen Heckart appears a little too calculated. It seems rather obvious that she played this part on the stage many times as everything seems well rehearsed and Eileen Heckart almost rushes through some scenes as if she had something else to do.

Still, does are only small complaints that can’t ruin an overall wonderful performance.

Number 39: Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols in "Tootsie" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Jessica Lange’s win as Best Supporting Actress for Tootsie is generally considered as a compensation by the Academy since she couldn’t win Best Actress for her acclaimed role in Frances against Meryl Streep’s Holocaust survivor in Sophie’s Choice. Well, I don’t want to deny that her work in Frances surely played an important part when Jessica Lange won the Oscar (and various other awards) for her role in Tootsie – but luckily it was a very deserving compensation.

In Tootsie, Jessica Lange played Julie Nichols – a soap-actress who has troubles in her personal life and becomes the best friend of Dorothy Michaels aka Michael Dorsey. Frankly, Julie Nichols is a very thankless part – she is the straight character who could easily get lost compared to Dustin Hoffman’s cross-dressing, Bill Murray’s one-liners or Terri Garr’s neurotic hysterics. Julie Nichols has hardly any jokes, her scenes tend to be more serious and could easily become boring next to the comedic brilliance of others. But personally, I consider Jessica Lange the heart and soul of Tootsie and her role and performance are much more important and challenging than she is usually given credit.

As Julie Nichols, Jessica Lange has to be charming, sexy, smart but naïve, a woman who tries to redefine her life and a love-interest. And she does all this wonderfully. She hast to make us believe that she really thinks Dorothy is a woman but she never appears to be dumb or crazy. Her scenes may lack the comedy that concerns the other characters but she is the reason why Tootsie is not only a comedy but also a very touching study about lonely characters and how they try to get ahead in life. Her role is so essential because the character or Julie is the reason why Michael changes from being cold and arrogant to warm and caring. As he says ‘I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.’ The innocence and charm that Jessica Lange displays here makes it easy to believe that this is true. And the ending of Tootsie would also never work without Jessica Lange’s wonderful portrayal – it all should be so unbelievable but somehow you have the feeling that Julie could actually forgive Michael for everything he has done to her.

So, Jessica Lange is the emotional glue that holds the story together and provides the most human moments in the movie. Scene like the one after her break-up with Ron, when she tells Dorothy ‘I’m so grateful to have you as a friend and yet at the same time…I never felt lonelier in my whole life’ or her wonderful and heartbreaking moment in the bedroom when she talks about her mother and the wallpaper are very memorable. The latter one is very simple but Jessica Lange shines when she talks. All her memories and dreams are lying in her voice and when she says ‘I made a million planes looking at this wallpaper’, she gives exactly the right feeling of a person who looks at her life and realizes that it is so different from the dreams she had.

Essentially, Jessica Lange gives a complex performance of a simple character. She shines in her scenes (and is not only dramatic but also funny, especially when she says ‘She scares the s**t out of me’ and when she tries to hide her laughter during a scene with Dorothy) and finds the right balance of drama and comedy which contributes enormously to this wonderful movie.

Number 40: Jennifer Hudson as Effie White in "Dreamgirls" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Well, here she is. It constantly amazes me how a performance that swept almost every award under the sun and received loud and strong critical acclaim from almost every angle was able to become such an object of hate on the entire Internet. Admitting that you like this performance is like admitting that you eat babies. But what can I say? Yes, Jennifer Hudson is obviously still a beginner in Dreamgirls and sometimes the part is clearly too challenging for her but at the same time there is something so outstanding, so spectacular and so first-class about her that I have to no problem to confess that yes, I really admire this performance.

There is often the argument against her that the Oscars aren’t the Grammys and she should not be awarded for her great singing voice – for me, this is a little too simple. Because even though her voice is undoubtedly the strongest aspect of her performance, she still also acts all these singing scenes – and she does it well. I admit that right at the beginning, her performance is a bit shaky – her tough behavior, her delivery of the lines ‘I don’t do back-up’ or ‘This dress does nothing for my body’ falls incredibly flat and her inexperience is obvious at every moment of her performance. But somehow, she begins to improve very fast. Her relationship with Jamie Foxx is done extremely well and she beautifully develops the character of Effie during the run of Dreamgirls.

Jennifer Hudson makes Effie strong and self-confident without making her annoying or unlikable. Her disappointment when she is taken away the lead in the band and her argument with the others show that Jennifer Hudson can be a true force on the screen if she wants to be. Her voice may unfortunately change its tone too often (which makes her sound sometimes like Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite) but she captures the essence of her character effortlessly at these moments.

Effie White surely is the kind of role awards were made for and it would have taken a lot to ruin this part – but Jennifer Hudson does not rely on the strength of the role but instead does her most to create Effie herself. Her inexperience as an actress may be noticeable a lot of times but the thing is that Jennifer Hudson still has such natural instincts for the part and the process of movie-making that it doesn’t really matter. She may be an amateur but on a very high level. A rough diamond but still a diamond.

She also gladly overcomes some obstacles that normally tend to ruin a lot of inexperienced performances – she never appears controlled or too calculated in her role, she is able to let herself completely go and let the character take over her performance. Her work during ‘It’s all over’ is especially very impressive just like her later scenes when she has to start her life anew.

I don’t mind it if a performance is dubbed but if somebody sings a part himself or herself, I gladly give a little extra bonus. And Jennifer Hudson surely deserves some extra bonus. Her rendition of ‘And I am telling you’ is simply mind-blowing and it’s so wonderful to see that she does not only try to turn these singing moments into showcases for herself but stays in character and expresses all the emotions of Effie through these songs.

So, it’s a very strong role with a lot of great moments and Jennifer Hudson gives a performance that I would easily call ‘great’. Sure, her inexperience is too obvious sometimes which is also the reason why she doesn’t get a higher ranking but I have no problem to give her this position as a testament to her overall wonderful debut.

Number 41: Marisa Tomei as Mona-Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Well, well…maybe not the most famous win in this category but surely the most infamous – it even comes with its own urban legend. But why was it such a big upset that Marisa Tomei received the Oscar? Sure, she did not receive any other awards attention, her competition were 3 serious British and 1 serious Australian actresses, My Cousin Vinny isn’t exactly a masterpiece – still, the Academy has more than once honored actors and actresses for scene-stealing comedy. So why was it okay for Whoopi Goldberg to win an Oscar for a purely comedic role just two years earlier but not for Marisa Tomei? I guess we will never know but what is so great is the fact that Marisa Tomei is one of the few people who actually survived the ‘Oscar curse’ – her post-Oscar career had first gone rather downhill but by now she has turned into a respected actress with two more nominations to display her talents.

Anyway, as you can see I don’t share the general attitude that her win is one of the most undeserved ever. Why should it be? Marisa Tomei is absolutely hilarious and steals the movie right from under everybody’s noses. Sure, Mona-Lisa is not actually a very complex character and one little scene in a restaurant that is supposed to show a more serious side when Vinny attacks her verbally isn’t exactly very memorable either but when it comes to making the audience laugh and creating one unforgettable comedy scene after another, you don’t need to look any further.

The character of Mona-Lisa does not really allow a deeper look or something like that – she is there to support Vinny in a case and throw around funny remarks. It’s a stereotypical performance from every angle but when Marisa Tomei delivers lines like ‘How’s your Chinese food?’ or ‘What are you? A f**king world traveler?’ it’s easy to forget about all this. There are no real emotions, the more quiet moments between her and Vinny are less than satisfying but Marisa Tomei is such a force of nature (yes) in this role that everything else seems to disappear next to her.

When you think of My Cousin Vinny, isn’t she the first aspect that comes to your head? Don’t you immediately think of ‘Imagine you’re a deer. You’re thirsty…You put your little nose in the cool water…BAM! A F**KING BULLET BLOWS OFF PART OF YOUR HEAD!’ or ‘My biological clock is ticking like this!’?

Of course Mona-Lisa was only invented by the writers to have at least one female presence in the story, to throw in some jokes and to use her for the final scenes in the court room – but Marisa Tomei never allowed the character to be reduced in any way but instead made her larger than the whole remaining cast. And speaking of the scene in the court room – could Marisa Tomei have been any more perfect here?

So, the character of Mona-Lisa is certainly among the least challenging in this category but Marisa Tomei used her talent for comedy in so many glorious ways that it’s easy to forget about this the first time she enters the screen.

Number 42: Shirley Jones as Lulu Bains in "Elmer Gantry" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

The Academy loves to honor actresses who are cast against type. It was shown again when normally saint-like Shirley Jones won the Oscar for playing a ‘five-buck hooker’ in Elmer Gantry.

Shirley plays the kind of supporting role that is actually rather small but of great importance to the structure of the movie. The appearance of her character dramatically changes the direction of the story and the lives of the main characters – Lulu Bains is the turning point of Elmer Gantry.

Elmer Gantry is going on for over an hour before Shirley Jones’s character enters for the first time. Until this moment, Elmer Gantry was able to join the wandering church of Sister Sharon and became a religious phenomenon. But while he is telling the country about God, Lulu Bains knows all about his past and his sinful life – also with her. The audience first sees her in her most famous scene when she just sits in her chair and looks at her stockings. When one of her fellow hookers asks about Gantry ‘Can he save anybody?’, Lulu gives her characteristic hysteric laugh and says ‘Can he? Anywhere, anytime. In a tent, standing up, lying down or any other way. And he’s got plenty of ways!’ Shirley Jones is so full of energy in this part that you are afraid she might bust at any moment. Her believable devil-may-care-attitude, her wonderful voice which always expresses her inner feelings so well and her little smile craft a very memorable character that is up to all the things the script asks from her. And who can forget her famous ‘And then he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man’s footsteps!’

Shirley Jones’s whole performance is based on her chemistry with Burt Lancaster and her believability in a tricky role – and she succeeds in both. Lulu Bains is a character that changes very important characteristics in only a few moments and is constantly working on her own agenda and Shirley Jones was able to capture this while never losing the lightness of her own personality. Another great moment for her is the scene when she is meeting Elmer again – he is full of panic about this woman which could destroy his life while Lulu, again, gives her hysteric laugh.

The most challenging scene comes when she and Elmer are meeting in her apartment. Here, Shirley Jones shows a very impressive range of emotions. First, she wants to trick Elmer into kissing her to blackmail him later but then, all of a sudden, she discovers that she still has honest feelings for this man who treated her so miserably years ago. But when she finds out that he is already in love with another woman, she again finds her hate for him and goes through with her plan. It’s a key moment in the characterization of Lulu which could have gone horribly wrong but Shirley Jones made it all believable.

It’s a great, scene-stealing performance that provides the best moments of the movie.

Number 43: Penélope Cruz as Maria Elena in "Vicky Christina Barcelona" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Penélope Cruz must have been very happy when the Academy realized that Kate Winslet was a leading actress in The Reader and so made way for her to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the temperamental, hysteric and passionate Maria Elena in Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Penélope Cruz’s performance is one of those that saves a rather boring and lifeless movie with an enormous amount of energy and scene-stealing. It takes a great deal of time before Penélope Cruz enters the movie for the first time and her screen-time is surprisingly limited – but she still the saving grace of the story, creating an unpredictable and wild character who is undoubtedly the highpoint of this movie.

Before Maria Elena enters the story of Vicky Christina Barcelona, her character has been mentioned quite a few times already and evoked all kind of expectations – Maria Elena is supposed to be wild and a little bit dangerous, even violent and all other kinds of characteristics that in a movie like this would be called ‘passionate’. And Penélope Cruz manages to match all these expectations – but her Maria Elena is also more. There is something magnetic about her, she’s the kind of woman people would love to be around.

Penélope Cruz’s Maria Elena is not only temperamental and unpredictable – she is also honest and likeable.  The biggest achievement of Penélope Cruz is that she did not turn Maria Elena into some kind of diva – when she is looking at Christina’s photos and tells her that they are wonderful, you just believe her because you know she is serious. At the beginning, Maria Elena may look at Christina with an expression that says that this young, naive girl from America isn’t even worth a fight but later she finds a way to communicate with her.

Maria Elena is not a very well written character – she’s there to point out the obvious, to make the other characters re-think their own actions and thoughts but she is never really given the chance to become her own person. So Penélope Cruz deserves some extra points for making her such a force of nature on the screen and brining the whole movie to another level whenever she appears.

It’s a very realistic performance of a certain type of woman that Penélope Cruz brings to live beautifully.

Number 44: Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher in "Network" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

Beatrice Straight’s win as Best Supporting Actress is surely among the most famous Oscar wins ever – because she holds the honor of having given the shortest performance ever to win the award.

Technically, there are three scenes that feature Beatrice Straight – but we can skip her second scene right away because all you see is the back of her head while she is watching TV. In her first scene, Beatrice Straight also might not do anything remarkable – but watch closer! She gets out of bed and finds that Howard Beale, a friend of her husband, has left their house at night and wakes her husband up to tell him. It’s not much of a scene but in this short moment Beatrice Straight gives a lot of impressions that will be very important in her final scene – she obviously loves her husband (expressed only by Beatrice Straight’s way of delivering one sentence to him – a remarkable achievement), she’s elegant and intelligent, she’s not involved in her husband’s work too deeply but she is also not an outsider.

But in the end, it all comes down to her big ‘money-scene’ when her husband confesses his affair to her and she begins her monologue about love and betrayal, about her desperation and finally her acceptance. She basically expresses all the reactions that should come in weeks and weeks in only a couple of minutes. ‘Then get out! Go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, but don’t come back. Because after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I’m damned if I’m gonna stand here and have you tell me you’re in love with somebody else. Because this isn’t some convention weekend with your secretary or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze, this is your great winter romance, isn’t it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what’s left for me? She gets the winter passion and I get the dotage. What am I supposed to do, am I supposed to sit home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I’m your wife, damn it! And it you can’t  work up a winter passion for me than the least I require is respect and allegiance! I hurt, don’t you understand that? I hurt badly!’

I have often complained about characters that lack depth, show no development or are simply pushed too much aside – well, on the one hand Beatrice Straight would be the best example for all this. Her character only exists to mourn the end of her marriage in a scene that even could have been left on the floor of the editing room and nobody would have noticed. But even though – how can one deny all the brilliance that went into this characterization? Her suffering wife is much more touching than that of Jennifer Connelly despite the fact that there are worlds between the lengths of their roles. In one short scene, Beatrice Straight displays almost all human emotions, going from one extreme to the other, shouting and crying, suffering silently and smiling. All the lack of character and depth prevent her from going up further in this ranking but she definitely used her big scene to perfection.

What is also so impressive is the fact that the audience doesn’t know anything about her – her first scene surely went unnoticed by most people and a wandering husband isn’t anything new to the cinema. So why should the audience care for this unknown character when Faye Dunaway is so deliciously crazy in her role? But then all of a sudden, you see the wife’s face on the screen. All her hurt feelings, her desperation, her anger are shown in one second and you don’t even need any dialogue to know what is happening at this moment. From one moment to the other, the perspective completely changes and suddenly the wife, that nameless wife, has a face, she has emotions, she has a life, she is a real person. Her breakdown symbolizes all the breakdowns of cheated wives, she makes her monologue to something monumental.

Basically, Beatrice Straight is the only real human being in Network. All others seem like egoistic, rating-obsessed maniacs who don’t care for anyone or anything. Louise Schumacher shows us that there are also other people in this world, people with feelings, people who hurt.

It’s basically a very thankless part but Beatrice Straight turned it into gold and gave probably much more than was ever intended for this part.

Number 45: Dianne Wiest as Holly in "Hannah and her Sisters" (Best Supporting Actress Ranking)

I used to dislike this performance for a very long time and never got all the praise it received – but this time, I am more on the pro-side and will admit that Dianne Wiest gives a great and memorable performance in Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sister (but I will forever stand by my opinion that Barbara Hershey was the true stand-out in the cast and should have won that Oscar).

In the part of Holly, a neurotic wanna-be actress with some drug problems in her past, Dianne Wiest gets a chance to display all her qualities for being neurotic, a little crazy, unusual. All these tics combined with her talent for comedy and drama work very well and create maybe not the most interesting character in the movie but one who constantly develops new shades and characteristics.

Dianne Wiest’s Holly is pretty much an extremely unhappy character, something she likes to blame others for even though the truth is that she owes a lot of her unhappiness to herself. She doesn’t get ahead as an actress, the man she likes dates her friend, nobody seems to see her as a serious person but rather as a never-ending cause of trouble and problems. So it’s actually nice to see how Dianne Wiest lets Holly slowly find new self-respect and a new meaning in life – at the end of Hannah and her Sister, all characters have changed but no other change came as unexpected and at the same time gladly welcomed as that of Holly.

Dianne Wiest’s talent for comedy and drama works in great harmony with Woody Allen’s script and work as a director – she constantly finds some surprising ways to make the viewer laugh even in a serious situation while she can quickly bring a certain sadness and hopelessness into more funny moments. Her most memorable moment is easily her date with Woody Allen ('The room is alive with constant vibration!’ or ‘I love songs about extra-terrestrial live, don’t you?’ and ‘I was so bored!!!’ or the way she is always moving while sitting in the restaurant) but she also works very well with Mia Farrow and Barbara Hershey. During their dinner in a restaurant, it becomes clear how extremely difficult Holly is but at the same time it’s obvious that she never acts with the intention to hurt or harm anybody – she simply doesn’t know any better.

Holly’s little self-esteem is also shown when she tells Hannah about an audition for a Broadway musical and lets one remark from her confuse her completely. All these moments are a nice contrasts to later moments when she dares to ask Mickey if he would like to read her script and when she begins to get her life together. Everything that was so annoying and difficult about Holly in the beginning suddenly becomes rather charming and captivating. And her final scene with Woody Allen is, of course, absolutely delightful (and I think that every actress who has to kiss Woody Allen and makes it look voluntarily deserves some kind of award…).

So, it took me some time to really appreciate this performance (but I still probably don’t appreciate it nearly as much as her countless fans) but by now I truly enjoy her work and respect her for all the details and thoughts that went into this performance and made it look completely fresh and original.

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.