Ranking the Best Actress Academy Award Winners

It's a very difficult job ranking the actual winners. Why? Because in the vast majority of cases, they were not my first choice in their categories of that year. It's almost more fun to rank the losers because they are usually stronger than most of the winners!

But here goes nothing. I will write more in detail about them later.

1. Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind
2. Charlize Theron, Monster
3. Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner's Daughter
4. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
5. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry
6. Faye Dunaway, Network
7. Geraldine Page, The Trip to Bountiful
8. Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs
9. Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?
10. Holly Hunter, The Piano

11. Kathernine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
12. Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment
13. Liza Minelli, Cabaret
14. Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice
15. Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
16. Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
17. Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce
18. Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking
19. Kathy Bates, Misery
20. Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest

21. Julie Christie, Darling
22. Anne Bancroft, The Miracle Worker
23. Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
24. Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight
25. Sally Field, Norma Rae
26. Cher, Moonstruck
27. Barbara Streisand, Funny Girl
28. Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
29. Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night
30. Jodie Foster, The Accused

31. Glenda Jackson, Women In Love
32. Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God
33. Emma Thompson, Howards End
34. Marion Cotillard, La Vien Rose
35. Patrica Neal, Hud
36. Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress
37. Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins
38. Julia Roberts, Erin Brokovich
39. Anna Magnani, The Rose Tatoo
40. Sophia Loren, Two Women

41. Jane Fonda, Klute
42. Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette
43. Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda
44. Janet Gaynor, Sunrise/Street Angel/7th Heaven
45. Ginger Rogers, Kitty Foyle
46. Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver
47. Helen Mirren, The Queen
48. Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
49. Simone Signoret, Room at the Top
50. Norma Shearer, The Divorcee

51. Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday
52. Susan Hayward, I Want to Live!
53. Bette Davis, Jezebel
54. Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
55. Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond
56. Kate Winslet, The Reader
57. Frances McDormand, Fargo
58. Ellen Burstyn, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
59. Sally Field, Places in the Heart
60. Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette

61. Shirley Booth, Come Back Little Sheba
62. Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
63. Joan Fontaine, Suspicion
64. Glenda Jackson, A Touch of Class
65. Nicole Kidman, The Hours
66. Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia
67. Katherine Hepburn, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
68. Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare In Love
69. Jane Fonda, Coming Home
70. Halle Berry, Monster's Ball

71. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
72. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
73. Elizabeth Taylor, Butterfield 8


Unseen
Marie Dressler, Min and Bill
Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own
Mary Pickford, Coquette
Bette Davis, Dangerous
Helen Hayes, The Sin of Madelon Claudet
Luise Rainer, The Great Ziegfeld
Katherine Hepburn, Morning Glory