30.) Liza Minnelli — Cabaret (1972)

Liza Minnelli brings hyperbolic joie de vivre and outrageous eye makeup to her career-defining turn as “strange and extraordinary” American chanteuse Sally Bowles, the showstopping performer at Berlin’s taboo-shattering Kit Kat Klub.

Minnelli is never less than dazzling, belting out show tunes in Bob Fosse‘s Weimar-set screen musical, but she’s just as mesmerizing in the scenes outside the club in which she must navigate unexpected complications arising from a romantic triangle and the ascendancy of the Third Reich. In the harsher light of day, it’s easier to see the way her relentless exuberance and wildly theatrical flamboyance mask a quaking vulnerability. Minnelli lends her powerful voice to help Sally sing her way through the pain. —Gina McIntyre

29.) Olivia Colman — The Favourite (2018)

Multiple actors have secured Oscars for portraying British royalty, so Olivia Colman winning for playing Queen Anne of Great Britain may not seem out of the ordinary. Then you sit down and watch The Favourite and realize this ain’t your grandma’s stuffy costume drama. Shot through the lens of director Yorgos Lanthimos‘ darkly comedic irreverence, this is a (gloriously) nasty piece of work, and Colman is more than willing to get her hands dirty.

Colman depicts Queen Anne as insecure and temperamental, but perversely delighted to have cousins Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) practically debasing themselves as they try to become her “favourite.” Reveling in many of the film’s funniest moments, Colman is often the comedic relief, though she also excels in making us sympathize with Anne, with her struggles to have children exacerbating her violent mood swings. While Colman had primarily worked as a character actress before The Favourite, her Oscar win has since propelled her into a thriving career as a leading star. —Kevin Jacobsen

28.) Anna Magnani — The Rose Tattoo (1955)

According to legend, Tennessee Williams wrote this role specifically for Italian icon Anna Magnani as her first major role in an English-language film. Whether or not that’s true is now probably beside the point. It feels true. As Serafina Della Rose, a seamstress and mother who becomes unmoored when her husband is killed and rumors circulate that he had been unfaithful, Magnani delivers one of the most dynamic performances of her era.

On the page, Serafina is an archetypical Williams heroine — a woman who feels the world too deeply and is therefore brutalized by its harsh truths and petty cruelties (e.g. Maggie the Cat, Blanche DuBois, Amanda Wingfield). But Magnani elevates Serafina into a lightning storm of rage, sorrow, and vengeance. As she seeks out her husband’s alleged mistress, confronts her teenage daughter’s resentment, and grapples with a not-very-bright new suitor (Burt Lancaster), Magnani unleashes a torrent of emotional fire and brimstone that, in lesser hands, would border on camp. In hers, it is a tour de force. —Sean Smith

27.) Olivia de Havilland — The Heiress (1949)

Three years after winning Best Actress for To Each His Own (and a decade from her first Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind) Olivia de Havilland discovered her own greatest performance when she saw the Broadway play The Heiress, based on Henry James’ novella, Washington Square. By intermission, she knew that she needed to play the lead role of Catherine Sloper, a lumpy dull charisma-void spinster.

Though the role required sacrificing vanity, when Catherine’s father (Ralph Richardson) destroys her chances to marry a gold-digger (Montgomery Clift), the double betrayal transforms the shy woman into an iron maiden. And de Havilland’s implosive final scene, in which she coldly speaks of “the same lies, the same little phrases” she’s heard all her life, could also be viewed as a feminist call to arms, as well as an indictment of the falseness and cruelty of Hollywood. —Joe McGovern

26.) Julie Andrews — Mary Poppins (1964)

Much is made of the iconography of the character of Mary Poppins — one of cinema’s most famous hyperbole be darned — but perhaps not enough is owed to how Julie Andrews, on the cusp of 30, simultaneously brought green charisma and decades of wisdom to the magical practical nanny.

Andrews’ nuanced design of P.L. Travers’ creation is an astute, mellifluous, and delightfully intimidating creature of talent and propriety — and as the world would realize, so, too, was Andrews. —Marc Snetiker

25.) Halle Berry – Monster’s Ball (2001)

For the first 73 years of its existence, the Academy did not reward a single woman of color in the Best Actress category. In fact, only six had ever been nominated before Halle Berry made history in 2002 with her win for Monster’s Ball. Berry, who had just come off winning an Emmy for her performance as the first-ever Black Best Actress nominee, Dorothy Dandridge, showed new layers here as Leticia Musgrove, a widow struggling to raise her son.

The film dives into thorny territory as Leticia develops a relationship with a man named Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) who, unbeknownst to her, was involved in the execution of her husband. Berry admirably commits to the tricky nature of playing such an emotionally wounded character, particularly in the closing moments when Leticia realizes the truth and makes a deliberate choice on where to go from there. —K.J.

24.) Jodie Foster — The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Anthony Hopkins is more celebrated for his more showy performance as cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, but it’s Jodie Foster as the rookie FBI agent who drives the almost unbearably intense thriller.

Her riveting jail cell jousts with Lecter are a master class in acting that she aces, though her most awe-inspiring work comes in the climax, in which Clarice is trapped in serial killer Buffalo Bill’s basement. Eyes wide, panting near panic, Foster perfectly captures the audience’s own fear of being alone in the dark with a monster. —Tim Stack

23.) Michelle Yeoh — Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Most actors can only dream of finding a role that encapsulates everything that makes them special as an artist and allow them to explore the full extent of their range. Michelle Yeoh is one of the lucky ones, taking on the role of a lifetime as Evelyn Wang in this absurdist, genre-bending masterpiece. Yeoh begins the film as an ordinary, overstressed laundromat owner trying to live the American Dream with her husband and daughter but soon finds herself thrust into a dizzying plot spanning parallel universes in which she is the key to preventing total destruction.

The film easily could’ve gone off the rails in less capable hands, but Yeoh grounds it in an emotional truth as Evelyn journeys from embittered to empowered. She also gets to show off her years of martial arts training and razor-sharp comedic timing, pulling off risky scenes you won’t find in any other Best Actress-winning performance. With this Oscar, Yeoh made history as the first Asian Best Actress winner. —K.J.

22.) Ingrid Bergman — Gaslight (1944)

At the center of one of the best, and most unnerving, psychological thrillers ever made, Ingrid Bergman stars as Paula Alquist, a young bride who is slowly, methodically manipulated by her new husband (Charles Boyer) into believing that she is losing her grip on reality.

Then in her late 20s, Bergman landed her first of three Oscars for this intricate, layered, and deeply controlled performance of a bright young woman unraveling before her own, and our, eyes. Bergman’s brilliance lies in her ability to project, in just a few early scenes, Paula’s intelligence and stability, so that her growing terror as she loses her ability to trust her own mind mirrors our own. In each scene, Bergman makes such subtle, incremental adjustments to Paula’s demeanor that her descent into “madness” feels, by the climax, both inevitable and, to our horror, utterly believable. —Sean Smith

21.) Kathy Bates — Misery (1990)

Dirty birdies don’t come much dirtier than Annie Wilkes, the lonely, handy-with-a-sledgehammer psychopath whom Kathy Bates miraculously imbued with sweet humor and pathos — even as she kidnaps and tortures her favorite author.

Memorably dowdy fashion notwithstanding, the juicy role — part Nurse Ratched, part Jack Torrance — launched Bates into the Hollywood ether following years of false starts. Three more Oscar nominations — and safe passage on the Titanic — followed, but it’s still the actress’ charming delivery of the script’s chilling avowals — “I’m your No. 1 fan!” — that has the power to bring a person to his knees. Well, ankles. —Marc Snetiker

20.) Marion Cotillard — La Vie en Rose (2007)

In the decades-spanning biopic about legendary French songstress Édith Piaf, 31-year-old Marion Cotillard transformed into a convincing teenage busker, world-famous cabaret singer, and aging, arthritic morphine addict.

It’s a deeply emotional journey, especially when her love dies in a plane crash — it’s like you can see her heart shatter right before your eyes. Also emotional, sometimes spirited and other times melancholy, are the songs, which Cotillard lip-synced. No matter — she still tapped into a deep reservoir of passion for the music, like in the final reflective number, “Non, je ne regrette rien.” It’s an indelible portrait of a woman, a fighter from the beginning to the end, who never separated her life from her art. —C. Molly Smith

19.) Holly Hunter — The Piano (1993)

It’s the kind of role that could lead to actorly histrionics: Ada McGrath is a mute woman who communicates via piano, in the remote wilderness, caught in a triangle between a civilized man (Sam Neill) and a poetical barbarian (Harvey Keitel). But in the role that won her a Best Actress Oscar, Holly Hunter reveals the sound of her character’s soul with the barest of physical motions.

The actress learned sign language and piano-playing for the role, Method-y affectations that explain the craftsmanlike lived-in quality of the performance. But the genius of Hunter here is how she makes Ada both mysterious and an open book — an unknowable enigma who becomes our eyes (and ears) examining the desperate strangeness of the human heart. —Darren Franich

18.) Louise Fletcher — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

The secret to playing a villain, actors often say, is not to play them as a villain. Everyone believes themselves to be the hero of their own story, and that is most definitely true of Louise Fletcher‘s Nurse Ratched, the all-business queen bee of the mental institute who just wants Jack Nicholson‘s authority-bucking R.P. McMurphy to get with the program.

But, right from the start, there is something a little too kindly, a little too soft-spoken about her, hints of the overly controlling manner simmering beneath the starched white uniform. It comes as no surprise to the audience when she shows her true terrible colors, but the genius of Fletcher’s performance is that you know Ratched doesn’t believe them to be terrible at all. —Clark Collis

17.) Cate Blanchett — Blue Jasmine (2013)

Woody Allen clipped his Jasmine out of the pages of Tennessee Williams, but Cate Blanchett‘s commanding performance is more than just a well-crafted homage to the delusional Blanche DuBois. Slumming with her sister in San Francisco after her life with her Madoff-like ex in New York implodes, Jasmine Francis isn’t quite willing to let go of the affectations that come with living in high society.

Blanchett’s depiction of a woman coming undone is an all-timer: She’s hilarious, she’s loathsome, she’s heartbreaking. It’s jaw-dropping work, crystallized in the film’s final scene: Drenched and alone, a broken Jasmine sits on a park bench, talking to the only friend she has left. —Jonathon Dornbush

16.) Patricia Neal — Hud (1963)

Part of the reason Patricia Neal‘s role opposite Paul Newman’s cowboy cad is branded on fans’ brains — despite only about 20 minutes of screen time — is because she never seems to be acting. Which is, of course, always the goal for any actor. But even Newman is acting. Neal is just bein’.

You can’t take your eyes off the easygoing but slightly besmudged Alma Brown because Neal is so authentic as to actually diminish her costars — an admittedly odd compliment. She tells Hud she’s a good poker player, and Neal is too, showing only as much as she needs. Every line is a dart. Every delivery has a potent subtext. There’s absolutely nothing another actor can learn from watching Neal in Hud. She’s that good. —Jeff Labrecque

15.) Jane Fonda — Klute (1971)

The title belongs to Donald Sutherland‘s nearly affectless private detective, John Klute, but the movie is all Jane Fonda‘s. As Bree Daniels, a high-class call girl and aspiring actress possibly marked for murder, she’s tough but vulnerable, streetwise but aching for approval. The whole thing couldn’t be more ’70s if it were rolled up in a shag carpet and wrapped in macramé — there’s endlessly groovy talk of sexual kinks and personality crises, and Bree’s mod bra-less wardrobe is justly famous.

There’s real grit underneath the shag haircut and thigh-high boots, though; see the discotheque scene, where her entire body vibrates with a desperate mix of hope, terror, and determination. Fonda would be nominated five more times and win again, for 1978’s Vietnam-vet drama Coming Home, but Klute is the one that cemented her as not just her father’s daughter or a youthquake sex kitten, but a mesmerizing star in her own right. —Leah Greenblatt

14.) Shirley MacLaine — Terms of Endearment (1983)

The sight of a distraught mother at the hospital where her daughter lies dying is expected to induce tears under normal circumstances. But Shirley MacLaine takes things to a whole other level when Aurora — who audiences could be forgiven for initially dismissing as a vapid and self-absorbed mom — takes our heartstrings and refuses to let go.

Cancer-stricken Emma (Debra Winger), suffering and near the end, is in pain, and MacLaine’s anguished losing-it at the useless nurses is as mama-bear primal as anything ever put on film. Within a movie full of Kleenex moments, this is the big one. —Sara Vilkomerson

13.) Claudette Colbert — It Happened One Night (1934)

The great American screwball heroine. Socialite-on-the-run Ellie Andrews is equal parts disreputably decadent and spunky-cool, the perfect love-hate match for Clark Gable‘s sozzled cynic reporter.

Claudette Colbert was a big star in the Hollywood Golden Age, and she had a long career, earning a Tony in the ’50s and an Emmy nod in the ’80s. But nothing can match her performance in It Happened One Night for sheer funny-sensual energy. The “hitchhiking” scene should seem old-fashioned to our modern debased sensibility — a lady’s bare leg, gosh! — but, nearly a century later, you can still feel how Colbert injects the scene with puckish transgression. —Darren Franich

12.) Bette Davis — Jezebel (1938)

Bette Davis may have had more iconic roles during her illustrious career, but her turn as a headstrong Southern belle in Jezebel stands out as one of Hollywood’s earliest feminist-leaning heroes. In character as a free spirit who scorns social convention, Davis is all haughty tosses of the head and sneering lines.

But then comes her Julie Marsden’s ultimate display of impulsive rebellion — in that unforgettable ball scene, when she arrives wearing a vampy dark dress — and Davis shifts gears, moving swiftly from spunky and spirited to shrinking and thoroughly shamed. It’s a transformation that unfolds in a matter of moments, showcasing her range from imperious to empathetic. —Nina Terrero

11.) Charlize Theron — Monster (2003)

Good luck seeing any trace of the Charlize Theron we know and love in Monster. The actress completely transforms into serial killer Aileen Wuornos, delivering a tour de force as a woman struggling to suppress her violent urges. With bulging eyes and frequently flipping her hair, Theron creates a fascinating portrait of a tragic figure who isn’t getting the help she needs, with an act of self-defense soon becoming a deadly pattern that leads to her conviction.

What makes Theron’s work so undeniable is how she doesn’t play Wuornos as a monster. Instead, she finds a great deal of compassion for a woman so psychologically damaged by life that her fate was tragically inevitable. —K.J.

10.) Frances McDormand — Fargo (1996)

“I’m not sure I agree 100 percent with your police work, there, Lou.” No single line embodies both the overflowing kindness and fierce competence of small-town Brainerd’s chief of police, Marge Gunderson. She’s talking to a colleague who has misread a bloody snowbound crime scene, but she leaves her gloves on. The world is cold enough.

In a movie that skewers the concept of “Minnesota nice,” Marge is the real deal. She has a razor intellect belied by her jaunty folksy Midwestern accent, don’tcha know, but she doesn’t turn that blade on anyone except the wrongdoers who deserve it. We see the worst of human nature in Fargo, as William H. Macy‘s Jerry Lundegaard plots his own wife’s kidnapping to raise ransom money for a parking lot investment, and as one scumbag willing to do such a rotten deed feeds his deceased partner into a wood-chipper, but Frances McDormand‘s Marge is the emotional center that carries us through as safely and snugly as that baby who’s nestled inside her. —Anthony Breznican

9.) Diane Keaton — Annie Hall (1977)

Well, la-di-da. When Coney Island’s most neurotic Jewish man meets the shiksa goddess of Chippewa Falls, Wisc., and falls in love, movie fans got one of the most magically mismatched couples of all time.

Woody Allen is at his self-flagellating best (the film would also go on to win Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay), but it’s Diane Keaton in the title role — with her loopy mannerisms, jazz-club serenades, and endlessly imitated fashion sense — who gives Annie Hall its sweetly beating heart. —Leah Greenblatt

8. and 7.) Barbra Streisand/Katharine Hepburn—Funny Girl/The Lion in Winter (1968)

“It’s a tie!” Ingrid Bergman’s astonished reaction when presenting Best Actress at the 41st Academy Awards will forever be an iconic moment in Oscar history, and we can’t possibly separate the two winning performances either. The tie couldn’t have been more representative of Hollywood at a crossroads, with showbiz veteran Katharine Hepburn winning for her wicked turn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter alongside Barbra Streisand for her brassy film debut as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl.

Moviegoers in 1968 probably weren’t ready for an Old Hollywood legend like Katharine Hepburn to talk about hanging jewelry from her nipples, but that’s just one of many outrageous lines that made her performance in The Lion in Winter so intoxicating to watch. As Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hepburn is at her theatrical best, trading barbs with her estranged husband King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and their sons over a chaotic Christmas gathering.

Meanwhile, there has rarely been a better arrival onscreen than Barbra Streisand in her fur coat, gazing at herself in the mirror and purring, “Hello, gorgeous.” Streisand’s turn as real-life entertainer Fanny Brice, a role she originated on Broadway four years earlier, is a musical tour de force from start to finish, delivering one powerhouse vocal after another and nailing Brice’s signature self-deprecating humor. —K.J.

6.) Hilary Swank — Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Kimberly Peirce’s haunting true-life portrait of Brandon Teena was far from Hilary Swank‘s first role. The actress had appeared on television and had previously been heralded as The Next Karate Kid, but her performance in Boys Don’t Cry is one of the boldest breakthroughs ever captured on film.

With her complete transformation and inhabiting of a transgender character, Swank went from near obscurity to an acclaimed actress who demanded the industry’s attention. Everyone expected to see her up on the Oscars stage again sometime soon, and they were right. —Kevin P. Sullivan

5.) Joan Crawford — Mildred Pierce (1945)

Is Mildred Pierce a film noir? A women’s picture? Yes, and yes. But it’s also a masochistic march through the stations of the cross for Joan Crawford‘s stoic title hero as she suffers through a failed first marriage, a playboy second husband, and a spoiled ingrate daughter from hell.

Viewed through our 21st-century lens, Crawford’s performance (those shoulder pads!) can seem like it’s teetering on the edge of camp. After all, it’s hard to watch her and not see the long shadow cast by 1981’s Mommie Dearest. But for its time, Mildred Pierce‘s self-made brand of feminism was undeniably revolutionary. Crawford was always an underrated actress, but there’s something about playing such an underestimated up-by-her-bootstraps woman in Michael Curtiz’s film that liberates her to be better than she ever was before and better than she ever would be again. —Chris Nashawaty

4.) Vivien Leigh — Gone With the Wind (1939)

The most iconic Southerner in American history was played by a Brit — and one who almost didn’t get the part. Producer David Selznick launched a nationwide casting search for the role of Margaret Mitchell’s resilient heroine, and Tallulah Bankhead, Lana Turner, and Paulette Goddard all screen-tested.

In the end, it went to the relatively unknown Vivien Leigh, who tapped into all aspects of Scarlett O’Hara’s complicated personality. Scarlett is all at once petty, brave, selfish, resourceful, devious, and resilient, and Leigh’s multi-layered portrayal makes you feel both scorn and sympathy for the legendary Southern belle. —Devan Coggan

3.) Elizabeth Taylor — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Elizabeth Taylor won her second Academy Award blowing up the ingénue image minted in her Oscar-winning turn in BUtterfield 8. She reportedly gained 30 pounds to play the much older Martha, a volcanically caustic and soused woman who mercilessly humiliates her miserable husband George (Richard Burton) through their cruel emotional games that have a deeper, sadder purpose than mere bitter ball-busting.

What she accomplishes under the direction of Mike Nichols (his first film) in this adaptation of Edward Albee’s acclaimed play owes much to her turbulent relationship with then-husband Burton. By playing against type, by glamming down and going raw, Taylor helped forge the modern template for so many Oscar-winning performances that followed her. —Jeff Jensen

2.) Vivien Leigh — A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire documents the tragic mental deterioration of Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle who moves to New Orleans to join her sister and her brutish brother-in-law. That said tortured belle is played by Vivien Leigh, who also breathed life into Scarlett O’Hara, is one of Hollywood’s most poetic twists of fate.

Leigh used every moment, every expression, to tell Blanche’s story and to illustrate her torment, her delusion, and her desire for affection. And when her brother-in-law, Stanley (Marlon Brando), rapes her, her descent into madness was made all the more vivid and believable by Leigh’s precise depiction of vulnerability and instability. —Samantha Highfill

1.) Meryl Streep — Sophie’s Choice (1982)

In Sophie’s Choice, Meryl Streep‘s performance as a Polish survivor of the Holocaust is so beautifully shaded, so infused with every element of Sophie’s light and darkness, that the mere feat of her mastering two full languages — she learned to speak both Polish and German for the part — almost seems like an afterthought. She’s luminous; she’s haunted. And then there’s “the choice” when she’s forced to make an impossible decision.

Novelist William Styron wrote that “tormented angels never screeched so loudly above hell’s pandemonium” when he described Sophie’s reaction to the dilemma, but Streep’s interpretation is different: a silent scream, while a Nazi officer makes off with her crying daughter. Streep took what could have been a one-note tragedy and turned it into one of the most transcendent, affecting portrayals ever committed to film. —Leah Greenblatt