Every month, our contributors submit lists of ten films or individuals fitting certain topics or themes. Each month, we feature an alphabetical list of films or individuals along with commentary explaining our selections. There will also be an itemized list at the end of each of our individual selections.

For our new top ten list, one of four we’ll be doing by the end of the year, we look at the top individual lead performances by a female actor. While some actors are great each time, many still have a singular great performance that stands out. Others were never greater than the performances we name here. Any direction you look at them, these magnificent performances are among the best.

Looking over the list, we have four actresses whose performances in the same film were recognized. Olivia de Havilland was cited twice for To Each His Own, Diane Keaton was mentioned two times for Annie Hall, Rosalind Russell made two lists for Auntie Mame, Maggie Smith was referenced twice for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Gloria Swanson was selected for Sunset Boulevard twice. Meanwhile, not all actresses are recognized for the same pinnacle performance. Five actresses were also referenced twice but for different films: Ingrid Bergman, Ellen Burstyn, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, and Diane Keaton. Keaton is in both of these groups, making her the only person mentioned more than twice.

After the break, dig into our setups and follow that by reading about each performance.

The Introductions

Wesley Lovell: In making this list, I had to narrow down greatly from a broad range of brilliant performances. It was a challenging, Sophie’s Choice-like decision. Ultimately, I tried to go with performances from the entire history of film from silent to modern. I focused on picking only one performance per actress. It was also important to include works from various genres as great performances aren’t the sole purview of traditional drama.
Peter J. Patrick: Ten seems like an insignificant number when it comes to acknowledging single performances by leading actresses. Even a hundred would be too few. None of the actresses on my list are mentioned for more than one performance, although most of them could be named for many other performances as well. I’ve seen all but the three oldest of the ten films listed on the big screen, some when new, others in revival. I’ve seen all of them again on DVD or Blu-ray. None of them ever get old, even though the oldest on the list is now 73 years old and the newest is now 40 years old.
Tripp Burton: Looking at my list, there are some trends of what I love about these great performances: they all take on roles that walk a fine line, where at any moment they could lose all credibility, but they do it with a grace and intelligence that makes them shine. They are complex actresses tackling complex women, where they must be funny, charming, beautiful, honest, intelligent, wise, and emotional all at the same time. Great actresses handle that with ease.
Thomas LaTourrette: When I thought about these performances, I went by ones that had stayed in mind from first viewing them. I looked through lists of Oscar winners and nominees, but only four of the women on this list won for that particular part. Two were not even nominated for them. They are all well known actresses, playing parts for which they are remembered, but they also have stood the test of time for being so good. I realize that only one is truly from a comedy, so maybe there is a reason why people usually win or are nominated for the more serious roles. A lot of actresses came close to being included, some being Bette Davis, Genevieve Bujold, Jane Fonda, Greta Garbo, and Patricia Neal, but I am happy with this set.

Julie Andrews – Victor/Victoria (1982)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – One of the most wonderful vocal talents ever to grace the silver screen has also delivered some of the most memorable performances it has ever seen. From the titular Mary Poppins to Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews is a class act and a gifted performer. No better were her talents tested than in the 1982 comedy Victor/Victoria directed by her husband Blake Edwards. Playing a woman playing a man playing a woman, Andrews delivers a bravura performance of unparalleled quality.

Anne Bancroft – The Graduate (1967)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – For those of us that did not know her earlier work, Bancroft hit the screen with a bang as the seducer Mrs. Robinson. A number of other actresses had been considered for the part before she was offered it, but it is difficult to picture anyone else in the role. In reality she was only six years older than Dustin Hoffman, but one would never guess that. She bares her emotions as both the cougar and then also as the protective and vindictive mother. She would never find another role as good as this one.

Kathy Bates – Misery (1990)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – The Academy rarely does the right thing in the acting categories, at least in terms of recognizing great genre performances, but in 1990, they did. Kathy Bates wasn’t a familiar face on the big screen at that point, but in the role of Annie Wilkes, a “number one fan” who rescues her favorite author during an accident in a blizzard, she commands the screen shifting from merciful benefactor, to crazed psychopath with frightening aplomb. It was a towering performance that helped pave the way towards a long, creative, and mesmerizing career.

Ingrid Bergman – Autumn Sonata (1978)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – Two of the greatest exports Sweden ever unleashed on the world, Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman, only worked together once. 1978’s Autumn Sonata stars Ingrid Bergman as a former concert pianist whose daughter is attempting to reconcile their relationship. A late-career triumph, Bergman’s final big screen effort was also one of her greatest. The character is filled with so many complex emotions that Bergman is given every opportunity to show her command of the screen and she exceeds all expectations.

Ingrid Bergman – The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Ingrid Bergman was never more luminous than as Sister Benedict, the principal of the run-down inner city school on the verge of condemnation. She spars with the new priest (Bing Crosby reprising his Father O’Malley role from Going My Way) who wants to close the school down and uses her brains as well as her charms to convince a wealthy businessman (Henry Travers, soon to be Clarence the guardian angel in It’s a Wonderful Life) to donate his newly built building next door to the school. She even makes the bittersweet ending seem like a happy one as she learns the reason for her being reassigned.

Ellen Burstyn – Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Martin Scorsese is often thought of as a man’s director, but one of his most affecting films remains Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a powerful “woman’s film” from the early 70s. Ellen Burstyn attacks the role of Alice, a newly widowed mom travelling across country with her son, with the same gusto and determination that we associate with Scorsese’s other 1970s films, while balancing it at all times with a tenderness in her relationship with her son. It is a tightrope exercise that Burstyn handles deftly, and the best of a long line of terrific American actresses in the 1970s redefining women on screen.

Ellen Burstyn – Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – It’s hard to imagine a more courgeous and visceral performance than the one Ellen Burstyn gave in Requiem for a Dream, as a kindly old woman desirous of only one thing: being on a prominent game show and taking home fabulous prizes. She descends into heartwrenching madness as she abuses her medication and destroys her life in the process. Burstyn had always played strong, commanding characters, but here she startlingly tapped into a well of depression, mania, and drug addiction with such destructive force that the audience was left speechless.

Stockard Channing – Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Recreating her Tony-nominated Broadway creation, Stockard Channing earned her only Oscar nomination for Six Degrees of Separation. Surrounded by a ferocious cast of celebrated actors and rising stars, Channing commands the screen with a New York regality that must have exploded off the stage. As her Ouisa subtly changes through the film, from a status-centered Manhattanite to her final, restrained outburst at the brunch table at the end of the film, Channing modulates her theatrical success into a quiet performance that always feels ready to burst.

Bette Davis – All About Eve (1950)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – If ever a role fit an actress like a glove, it was this one in which Davis gets to spout delicious over-the-top dialogue one minute and wax reflective the next as aging Broadway star Margo Channing whose life and career are being taken over by conniving ingénue Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Davis’ performance is even more remarkable considering the role wasn’t written with her in mind. It was supposed to be played by Claudette Colbert, who had to bow out after injuring her back, but no one now can imagine anyone other than Davis delivering such immortal lines as “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Bette Davis – The Letter (1940)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – One of the great actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, there are many performances of Bette Davis’ that could have made this list. I chose The Letter, a noir melodrama that allowed Davis to give one of her most restrained yet controlling performances. She commands the screen, not in the theatrical way she would in many of her films, but with a chilling calculation that sucks the viewer in and never lets go. The film itself is a fast gut-punch, but Davis takes her time at every moment and it leads to a devastating effect.

Olivia de Havilland – To Each His Own (1946)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Only thirty at the time of filming, de Havilland uses very little makeup to age from naïve small town girl in upstate New York during World War I to middle-aged cosmetics maven running her business from London during the blitz in World War II in this superior soap opera. She does it all with her body movements and voice which deepens as she ages. As a girl, she is swept off her feet by a dashing pilot (John Lund) who leaves her pregnant and alone when he is killed in the war. Forced to give up her son to her best friend, she is looking forward to reuniting with him as a soldier on leave (also played by Lund) who doesn’t know she’s his real mother.

Commentary by Tripp Burton – To Each His Own is a film that constantly teeters on the line of powerful drama and sappy melodrama. The fact that it toes that line so effectively, and always leans to the side of powerful drama, is a credit to lead actress Olivia de Havilland. She fills every moment of the film with pure honesty, so that every decision her character makes feels not like a plot point but a real moment. It is a tour de force.

Irene Dunne – The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Dunne plays a proud American who falls in love with a British lord (Alan Marshall) while on a brief vacation to London in 1914. They marry. He dies in the war, leaving her pregnant. She raises her son (Roddy McDowall) with the help of her mother-in-law (Gladys Cooper) and her husband’s elderly nanny (Dame May Whitty). It’s now World War II, and Dunne has become a nurse awaiting another arrival of casualties at the field hospital in which she works. One of them is her now grown son (Peter Lawford). Will she lose him, too? This superior soap opera is made unforgettable by Dunne’s tender performance throughout.

Judy Garland – A Star Is Born (1954)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – It is easy for us to forget that beyond being one of the greatest performers in Hollywood history, Judy Garland was also a phenomenal actress. In A Star Is Born, she got her deepest and darkest role and turns out one of the most masterful performances in screen history that explodes from the screen like dynamite. Garland digs deep through the entire film, and at moments it feels like her own personal demons are outshining the character’s, but she is also in control at every moment and you know it. The fact that the film also allows her to be a performer and sing and dance is a plus, and then she combines all of her talents into a performance of “The Man That Got Away” that stings and leaves you breathless.

Janet Gaynor – Sunrise (1927)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – Her performance is joyous and heartbreaking. It’s also silent. An artform in and of itself, acting in silent features was often the purview of those who would act grandly to get complex emotions over to an audience without dialogue. Yet, Gaynor managed to convey a broad emotional range without excess or bombast. It made her performance in Sunrise a thoroughly spectacular experience, especially when you consider how many young actors still can’t hold a candle to this performance.

Audrey Hepburn – Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – Hepburn was perfectly charming and won the Oscar for Roman Holiday, but this is the role I will always remember her for. Most people think of Holly Golightly as the ultimate party girl, but that is only part of the character. It is the melancholy that she brings to much of the performance that makes it ring true. As the public Holly she is all light and bubbly, but when reality sneaks in and her defenses are down, her performance deepens. In the eight years since Roman Holiday, she had greatly improved her acting ability. Whether singing “Moon River” or looking for Cat in the rain, she turns in an emotional performance. She does wear some iconic fashions in this, but the human side of the character is what makes Holly even more memorable.

Katharine Hepburn – The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – After being labeled “box office poison” in 1938, Hepburn decided to return to Broadway and commissioned her friend Philip Barry to write a play for her. It was a triumph on Broadway and she returned to play it in Hollywood. She is charming as she does a send up of her reputation as the distant goddess, forever chaste, and riotously disperses that image. The role was custom tailored for her and she does it full justice. She should have won her second Oscar for this role as she really is that good in it, playing sweet, coy, drunk, repentant, and growing as a person. It doesn’t hurt that she is surrounded by a marvelous cast and Donald Ogden Stewart’s adaptation even improved on the sparkling dialogue of the play. I did debate about her performance in The Lion in Winter for this spot , but decided this earlier role was every bit its equal.

Katharine Hepburn – Summertime (1955)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Hepburn plays Jane Hudson, a middle-aged secretary from Ohio, who uses her life savings to finance a trip to Venice before settling down to lifelong spinsterhood. There she is swept off her feet by a handsome Italian shopkeeper (Rossano Brazzi), who she later learns is married. Having stayed too long at parties before, she now knows when it’s time to leave, and does. Hepburn, who had been playing spinsters throughout her career, never played one with more sympathy and pathos than here. Jack Hildyard’s breathtaking cinematography is an added plus.

Diane Keaton – Annie Hall (1977)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – There was a time when Woody Allen was one of the foremost directors of women. He wrote parts smartly and wittily for many of Hollywood’s great younger actresses. No muse of his was ever greater than Diane Keaton whose performance in Annie Hall is as iconic as any Allen has ever created. Keaton’s uncanny ability to deliver rambling, distinct lines of dialogue and make them feel authentic is one of the reasons for her success and for a long career of smart, sometimes verbally inept, women.

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Woody Allen has had many muses through the years, but no one has ever quite mastered his dialogue the way that Diane Keaton did. In Annie Hall, Allen gave her her best material and she makes the most of it. She is hilarious, neurotic, bold, sexy, enigmatic, and quirky. She is the girl next door you loved but didn’t exactly know why. Keaton walks a tightrope the entire film, and uses her natural charm and exquisite comedic timing to craft a singularly unique cinematic character, while also filling every joke with a sense of pathos and truthfulness that makes Annie Hall as great a drama as a romantic comedy.

Diane Keaton – Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Based on the real-life murder of a promiscuous elementary schoolteacher form the Bronx, the City of New York was as much a character in the novel as Theresa Dunn, the character Keaton so brilliantly brings to life. The film suffers from changing the milieu to a no-name city that is an amalgam of its shooting locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but remains a must-see thanks to the many-faceted performance of the actress, and her interplay with a superb supporting cast that includes Tuesday Weld as her sister; Richard Kiley as her father; and William Atherton, Richard Gere, Alan Feinstein, and Tom Berenger as the men in her life.

Deborah Kerr – An Affair to Remember (1957)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Kerr was on a roll, having made Leo McCarey’s remake of his 1939 classic Love Affair right after The King and I, Tea and Sympathy, and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. Brilliant in all four, she is especially memorable as Terry McKay, the nightclub singer who falls in love with playboy Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) on a cruise to the Mediterranean and back. On the way to their planned reunion atop the Empire State Building, she is struck by a car and crippled unbeknownst to him. The inevitable tear-jerking ending remains a thing of beauty, thanks to her exquisite playing of it.

Vivien Leigh – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – The very British Leigh is best known for her iconic portrayals of two very American women, both of which won her much deserved Oscars. Blanche DuBois, the disturbed middle-aged woman she inhabits in Streetcar could well be an older version of the willful Scarlett O’Hara she embodied so well in Gone with the Wind. Never has frailty been played so deftly as it is by the actress who suffered much of her later life from chronic depression and tuberculosis. Although she and Marlon Brando as her brother-in-law and tormentor, Stanley Kowalski, are from two different acting schools, they mesh quite brilliantly here.

Giulietta Masina – La Strada (1954)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – This performance haunted me. Masina, the wife of the director Federico Fellini, played a simple woman sold to a circus strongman by her mother. He mostly intimidates her to perform in his act, even though she would willingly do it. She starts to fall in love with another performer, but is torn by affection for the strongman. It is a heartbreaking performance, with so much emotion written into her face. This was the film that first put her on the map for American audiences, and deservedly so. Based on this performance, I am amazed that she did not have a larger career, but perhaps mostly limiting herself to her husband’s films kept her from being better known.

Frances McDormand – Fargo (1996)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Although she has less screen time than most of the other actresses on my list, Frances McDormand dominates her film like no other. Every moment that her Marge is on screen all you can do is watch her. On the outside she is a perfectly crafted caricature of the Midwest, but McDormand layers Marge with such honesty and love that she comes out as a fully realized character. Like all great performances, McDormand is juggling many balls in the air at the same time and she never drops one.

Liza Minnelli – Cabaret (1972)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – This is the role she was born to play. Liza Minnelli had been offered the part when the original musical was first performed on Broadway in 1966, but she did not feel she had the acting parts down yet, even though she had already won a Tony the year before. Director Bob Fosse offered her the role for the movie and she said yes. The play was extensively rewritten making Sally Bowles the star of the production and Minnelli sings, dances, and acts her way to an Oscar as the doomed and deluded cabaret singer in pre-war Berlin. She is stunning in the role and now she and the part almost seem interchangeable.

Julianne Moore – Far From Heaven (2002)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – One of this generation’s greatest actresses, Julianne Moore has given any number of great performances, but none of her lead roles ever quite matched the role she took in Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven, as a woman whose marriage is crumbling around her. With grace and class, Moore evoked a world-weary charm in a subtle, nuanced performance that showcased all of her many talents. It wasn’t the first time I witnessed her ability, but it was certainly the best time.

Vanessa Redgrave – Mrs. Dalloway (1997)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – This production of the Virginia Woolf story was not seen by many, but boasts a wonderfully mature performance by Redgrave. Much of the story is told in voice over, which probably kept her out of Oscar talk, but she is delightful as a woman wanting her party to go well. She is wistful and endearing as a woman looking back on her life, and few actresses can look as radiant as she can. Her day does not always go smoothly, whether seeing an old flame or a shell shocked veteran, but she brings the character to life. This may not be as deep a role as some of the others on this list, but Redgrave instills her with such humanity and uses her voice to brilliant effect.

Rosalind Russell – Auntie Mame (1958)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – A film whose very existence is owed to the carefree nature of its title character, can doubly owe its existence to the grand charm and wit of Rosalind Russell. As the life-loving aunt tries to raise a young boy to be more open, honest, and free-thinking, the events of the picture conspire against their happiness, yet Russell’s performance stands tall. She perseveres with alacrity leaving the audience reeling between emotional punches, both humorous and serious.

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Russell was at her comedic best as the irrepressible Auntie Mame, a role she created on the Broadway stage. It was based on a best-selling novel by Patrick Dennis, the pen name of Edward Tanner III, who based his character on his real-life aunt, Marion Tanner. Although many great actresses including Greer Garson, Sylvia Sidney, Beatrice Lillie, and Eve Arden would later play her on stage, it wasn’t until Angela Lansbury played her in the 1966 musical version that anyone came close to capturing the magic of Russell’s original creation. Sadly, Russell at 69 and Dennis at 55, died within weeks of each other in November 1976.

Maggie Smith – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

Commentary by Peter J. Patrick – Magnificent Maggie came into her own as a screen star bringing to life the flamboyant, self-important schoolteacher in 1930s Scotland. She is a force to be reckoned with as she romanticizes everything, including dictators Mussolini and Franco, to her conservative girls’ school students. Her fellow teachers Robert Stephens and Gordon Jackson are enthralled. Her students, including Pamela Franklin, Diane Grayson, and Jane Carr are enraptured. Her stiff upper lipped principal (Celia Johnson) isn’t buying any of it. It’s hard to believe now, but her much deserved Oscar win came as something of a surprise at the time.

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – As the mercurial teacher Miss Jean Brodie, Smith became a movie star known throughout the world. She did already have an Oscar nomination for Othello, but this was a role that would be noticed. When she turns her charm on to teach the crème de la crème, one could be forgiven for her romanticizing of Franco and Mussolini because it would be so easy to believe it coming from her. She is sexy, not a word I had thought of before for her, vexing, and brilliant in the role. It is a time that the Academy got it right, bestowing an award to the right person for the right performance.

Meryl Streep – Sophie’s Choice (1982)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – I had not been a fan of Streep until this film. Her earlier work had garnered her an Oscar and two further nominations, but I had been underwhelmed. I was unprepared for how good she would be as the distraught mother who had to make a horrendous decision regarding the fate of her children. She has been very good in later films (One True Thing, The Hours, A Cry in the Dark, Julie and Julia), but this still counts as one of her best performances. It is also the one time that she won the Oscar for the correct role. Roger Ebert referred to it as “one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine,” and I would agree.

Gloria Swanson – Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond, a faded silent movie star trying to come to terms with a world where she is passé, is an amalgam of film acting styles. She is part emoting silent star, part melodramatic starlet, and part brutally honest exploration of a human soul. She swirls all of these ideas into one gigantic theatrical performance, one that can feel over-the-top but that is always grounded in Billy Wilder’s off-kilter reality. She matches the scope of the film at all times, not an easy feat when dealing with a masterpiece of a screenplay that reaches for the literal stars at every turn.

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – She was only 50 at the time, but Swanson’s portrayal of a nearly forgotten silent film star seems older but in many ways timeless. She is imperious and mesmerizing as a deluded actress wishing to claw her way back into people’s consciousness with a new role. It would have been easy for the character to tip into parody, but in letting Norma’s humanity show through she creates a fuller character. She is desperate for a return to the screen, but is also enjoying the affection of a younger man. It is the role she will be remembered for, and rightly so. She was ready for her close up, Mr. DeMille. She did not have much of a movie career afterwards as most of the roles offered her were pale imitations of Norma Desmond.

Jessica Tandy – Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – At 80 years of age, Jessica Tandy became the oldest Oscar winner in Academy history, a record she would hold for twelve years. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen this performance. She had a long, fruitful career filled with wonderful acting work. Tandy was a gifted thespian who channeled all of that experience into one of the defining performances of all-time. As Daisy Werthen, Tandy was a stern woman used to getting her way, but as she begins to understand her place in a world that is changing around her, she softens, but never loses her strength of character or conviction, aging over the course of the film, hers was a compelling and convincing performance.

Elizabeth Taylor – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Commentary by Thomas La Tourrette – I had never really thought of Taylor as an actress before I saw this film, but she did bring her all to the role. Truthfully she was too young for the part, but she also deserved the Oscar she won for it. She fights and claws and woos and works every wile she had as an actress and a woman to great effect. She has the showier role than her then-husband, Richard Burton, but when he brings their evening of games to a devastating close, she is fully up to the demands of the role. She may have won her first Oscar based more on the fact that she almost died, but this one she got for her talent.

Sigourney Weaver – Aliens (1986)

Commentary by Wesley Lovell – Ellen Ripley is one of the greatest characters in all of science-fiction cinema. Her no nonsense struggles against a vicious alien lifeform are wonderfully complex. She’s not a damsel in distress. She doesn’t wait for her prince to come rescue her. She sees a threat and faces it head on. What makes Ripley such a wonderful character is the sensational performance of star Sigourney Weaver. Infusing her with humanity, depth, and presence, Weaver’s performance is iconic for a reason.

Jane Wyman – All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – Douglas Sirk worked with a lot of great actors, and brought out the best in a lot of actors, but no one quite matched the temperament of his films like Jane Wyman. In All That Heaven Allows, their best collaboration, Wyman fills her quiet role with a warmth, intelligence, and noble stoicism. She says more in the moments of silence than in her dialogue, but also makes it clear where her character’s mind and heart lie at every moment. Wyman and her performance are lovely and as vibrant as the Technicolor she is bathed in.

Isuzu Yamada – Throne of Blood (1957)

Commentary by Tripp Burton – I always have trouble weighing the success of a foreign language performance, where you miss a lot of the nuance of the language, but I have no qualms about putting Isuzu Yamada’s Lady Macbeth-inspired Asaji on this list. Even if you don’t understand her words, you understand every moment of her journey emotionally. It is a triumphant performance: theatrically pitched but emotionally resonant and commanding of every moment of the film. You believe that she could so blatantly manipulate her husband because we are being manipulated with her in a masterful way.