Greatest Oscar-Winning Performances - Leading Actress

Of the 87 performances rewarded with a Best Actress Oscar, these are the ten best.

Since the Academy Awards began, 87 performances by 70 women have garnered the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In identifying the ten best, there were tough selections to be made. Also-rans include: Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind; Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady; Holly Hunter in The Piano; Kathy Bates in Misery; Diane Keaton in Annie Hall; Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker; Sophia Loren in Two Women; Bette Davis in Jezebel; Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. Great performances all, but they are outdone by these...the ten best:

10. Frances McDormand, Fargo, 1996.

By turns touching, courageous, comedic, and ultimately true, Minnesota cop Marge Gunderson would have been a third trimester caricature in lesser hands, but McDormand introduces us to a woman whose purpose, heart, and spine solve the mystery, teach the lesson, and carry the film.

9. Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday, 1950.

This comedic bombshell bested Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson for the Oscar, and deservedly so. Easily dismissed as just another dumb blonde, Holliday's Billie Dawn is funny, sexy, brave, whip-smart, and able to understand – with the help of William Holden – that the world is full not just of opportunities to snatch but of choices to seize.

8. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry, 1999.

From out of nowhere came Swank to play Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon in director Kimberly Peirce's first feature-length film, an unflinching portrayal of gender identity, love, confusion, betrayal, homophobia, violence, and hope in dusty old Nebraska. Swank hits it out of the park.

7. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951.

The ultimate portrayal of the ultimate female character, Scarlett O'Hara is nowhere to be found in Leigh's Blanche DuBois. Leigh's work is so genuine, so frail, so heartfelt, so afraid of/in awe of/in lust with/disgust with Brando's Stanley that it can be actually painful to watch. The yardstick by which all other Blanche's are measured.

6. Charlize Theron, Monster, 2003.

How did one of the planet's most beautiful women shapeshift into one of its most unappealing? Prosthetics, make-up, and a positively fearless performance by Theron, who manages to show us the heart behind the crazy and makes us ache for the victim behind the killer.

5. Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966.

At once ferocious and hopeless, Taylor's Martha demands our focus. Under the lens of Mike Nichols' brilliantly claustrophobic direction, we see every wrinkle, every smudge, every lump. And Taylor hides nothing, daring us to look away, knowing full well her grip is so strong we couldn't possibly.

4. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose, 2007.

Cotillard was mostly unknown in the US prior to this performance; as a result, we lose ourselves beholding someone implode from the force of their relentless self-destruction, and never for a moment doubt that Edith Piaf herself is alive onscreen.

3. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968.

Hepburn's best; her Eleanor of Aquitaine is fierce, fearless, broken, resigned, removed, relentless. The emotional chess match between Kate and Peter O'Toole plays out like Virginia Woolf circa 1183, but we are never more enthralled than when Hepburn is onscreen, chewing up the medieval scenery in the best possible way.

2. Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo, 1955.

There are many brilliant scenes, but watch the one where Serafina confronts the priest about whether her now-dead husband was unfaithful. Magnani veers from maudlin to pleading to desperate to terrifying in a blink and never loses the heart of one of Tennessee Williams' greatest women.

1. Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice, 1982.

Via lemonyellowbooks.com

The finest characterization ever put on film by anyone, male or female. Riveting, heartbreaking, and ultimately exhausting, the performance is even more remarkable when you remember that Sophie – who occupies nearly every frame of this overlong film – is played by only one person. Streep should have gotten a second trophy based on perseverance alone. You may not want to see this film again, but you must see it once to witness the best there has ever been.