Best Actress Ranking - Update

Here is a new update. The newly added performance is 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. Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
6. Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven (1927-1928)   
7. Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman (1978)
8. Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
9. Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
10. Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise (1991)

11. Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
12. Edith Evans in The Whisperers (1967)
13. Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938)
14. Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
15. Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
16. Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998)
17. Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
18. Simone Signoret in Room at the Top (1959)
19. Bette Davis in The Little Foxes (1941)
20. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)

21. Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958)
22. Glenda Jackson in Women in Love (1970)
23. Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
24. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
25. Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (1941)
26. Emily Watson in Hilary and Jackie (1998)
27. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)
28. Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun (1951)
29. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)
30. Meryl Streep in The Devil wears Prada (2006)

31. Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
32. Anne Baxter in All about Eve (1950)
33. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)
34. Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932)
35. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)
36. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
37. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
38. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)
39. Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear (1952)
40. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)

41. Katharine Hepburn in Guess who’s coming to dinner (1967)
42. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)
43. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)
44. Martha Scott in Our Town (1940)
45. Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) 
46. Jennifer Jones in Love Letters (1945)
47. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year (1978)
48. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
49. Eleanor Parker in Detective Story (1951)
50. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

51. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)
52. Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (1949)  
53. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
54. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)
55. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)
56. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)
57. Ruth Chatterton in Madame X (1928-29)
58. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)

Katharine Hepburn as Violet Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer

Somehow, every time I am about to watch Katharine Hepburn’s performance in Suddenly, Last Summer, I expect to like her less (maybe because the movie itself is so hard to be taken seriously, maybe because her role is rather one-dimensional and short compared to many other Best Actress nominees) but every time I am done with the movie, I am again worshipping at her feet.

As my opinion on Katharine Hepburn’s performance did not really change compared to the last time I reviewed her, I will keep my thoughts short. Yes, Suddenly, Last Summer is a true camp fast with many over-the-top moments but both Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn had nonetheless extremely juicy parts that they brought to life with the right degree of professionalism and seriousness to rise above the craziness around them. While Elizabeth Taylor obviously had the larger and showier role, for me Katharine Hepburn walks away with the picture and delivers one of the most fascinating performances of her career.

The original one-act play Suddenly, Last Summer originally made the two female characters more equal with regards to the size of their parts but the movie version put more emphasis on Liz’s Catherine who maybe doesn’t enter the movie before more than half an hour is already over but from then on dominates the story. Katharine Hepburn’s performance mostly happens in these first 30 minutes in one long scene opposite Montgomery Clift that is almost like a never-ending monologue. From then on, she only appears again in the middle and at the end of the movie, where the script mostly puts the focus on Catherine but Katharine Hepburn effortlessly dominates every scene she appears in.

A lot of reviews I have read on the movie seems to be rather harsh on Katharine Hepburn and I can understand that this is a polarizing performance that can evoke many different reactions. For me, it is one of the most unexpected performances that Katharine Hepburn ever gave, not because she was so rarely cast as a villain and not because her acting style was somehow different (as it wasn’t) but rather because the way she played Mrs. Venable, her performance constantly goes into different directions from one second to the other, almost leaving the viewer breathless and exhausted. On a forum I read that apparently Anna Magnani compared her performance to a swarm of butterflies, constantly changing its tempo, direction and form – of course, I have no idea if this is true but it does seem like a perfect comparison.

What I find so fascinating about Katharine Hepburn’s performance is that she again proved how she could use her personality and only slightly alter a few aspects of it to seem like a completely different person. She was equally well suited to dramas as to romantic comedies and she only needed to change the way she delivered her lines to wonderful effect. And here she did the same – she can be effortlessly charming with a hint of danger, desperate, sarcastic or completely frightening within a matter of seconds only by changing the tone of her voice. It seems that overall, this is the role that more than any other in her career depended on and was built only by her distinctive pronunciation and pitch. Her big scene feels at moments very rushed but it’s impossible to get Mrs. Venable out of your head. Suddenly, Last Summer is often categorised as a gothic horror thriller which might be exaggerated from today’s point of view but Katharine Hepburn does manage to create a strange and uncomfortable tension that makes some her scenes indeed truly scary. Her monologue about the sea turtles is almost unbearable in its grotesque strain and Katharine Hepburn risks a lot in her acting to go very broad in certain moments but it’s the only way to create a performance that both overcomes the weaknesses around her while also integrating itself into the style of the picture.

Katharine Hepburn also does get some criticism for playing Mrs. Venable in a way that makes her descent into madness too obvious from the start which is true but I adore how absolutely straight-forward her approach is nonetheless – she doesn’t draw any attention to the madness of Mrs. Venable but instead almost casually injects it into her work, making switches between a charming socialite, an obviously highly influential and powerful woman and a grieving mother who slowly loses her mind. Katharine Hepburn, being Katharine Hepburn, has obviously no problems to portray a woman who is used to get what she wants and who can behave as she likes without anyone questioning her motives. Even in her final scenes when Mrs. Venable completely lost her connection to reality, Katharine Hepburn plays the scene again very straight-forward, never emphasizing the mental problems of Mrs. Venable but that way achieving an unforgettable impression.

Again, I understand that not everybody agrees with me here, but to me, this is a lyrical, poetic, frightening, dangerous, pitiful and altogether unforgettable performance that is among the best things that Katharine Hepburn ever did.