We ranked Hollywood’s top 25 actresses, and Meryl Streep is not No. 1
Actress Jennifer Lawrence poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film ‘Red Sparrow’ in London, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)
By John Serba | [email protected]
The Oscars are nigh, and with it, one of the strongest batches of best actress nominees in recent memory: Saoirse Ronan (“Lady Bird”), Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”), Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”), Meryl Streep (“The Post”) and Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”). In acknowledgment and celebration of that, here’s a ranked list of the 25 best working actresses in Hollywood – and 15 runners-up for good measure.
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25. Penelope Cruz
She emerged as a teenager in “Jamon Jamon” and Oscar-winning Spanish dramedy “Belle Epoque,” then quickly became director Pedro Almodovar’s muse: “All About My Mother,” “Broken Embraces” and “Volver.” Ohhhhhh, “Volver” – I pause to slowly exhale, because she’s a femme-tornado here, and while the story involves ghosts casually mingling with the living, the most supernatural thing in the movie must be Cruz’s performance, which is candid, bold and seductive. She was shoehorned into American films with middling success, although turns in “Blow,” “All the Pretty Horses” and, especially, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” stand out. One of her future roles is in “Love Child,” directed by Todd Solondz, a pairing of filmmaker and actress that raises one eyebrow, and then the other eyebrow, and just might be Cruz’s return to form.
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24. Sally Hawkins
If not for “The Shape of Water,” Hawkins might be an outsider looking in at this list. I’m not sure who else could play a mute woman who falls in love with an amphibious man-fish, and not make it feel alienating to the audience. Such a thing requires almost superhuman warmth, empathy and humanity, to emphasize the love from within a strange thing – and we are strange things, sitting in the audience, feeling her own heartache and unspoken tragedy. She emerged previously in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” playing a flighty free spirit taking driving lessons from a tightly wound Eddie Marsan; she’s the most lovable, sympathetic dingbat I’ve ever experienced in film, an example of character immersion of significant distinction. She’s also the best lightly kooky mom ever in the “Paddington” movies, which delightfully dovetail with her effortless tonal presence.
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23. Helena Bonham Carter
An auspicious debut it was, as the cherubic and witty Lucy Honeychurch in “A Room with a View,” rendering the film the most lively and lovely of all buttoned-up British period pieces. From there, it was Henry James (“The Wings of the Dove”) and Shakespeare (“Hamlet”) and E.M. Forster (“Howards End”) and Chuck Palahniuk (“Fight Club”), and one of these marks a shift. Hm. Which could it be?
Carter’s Marla in “Fight Club” scuzzed up a career of prim propriety, and it was delectable, ugly and gloriously warped. It ushered in the second half of her career, rife with oddities, primarily as the most interesting performances in husband Tim Burton’s films, be they good or bad: “Sweeney Todd,” “Big Fish,” “Dark Shadows,” “Alice in Wonderland,” even “Planet of the Apes,” where she was the standout among so much monkeying around. She’s also the “Harry Potter” Character Most Deserving a Spinoff Movie or Three, the tantalizingly deranged Bellatrix Lestrange. I love HBC without measure, and anticipate another eccentric performance in the upcoming “Ocean’s 8.”
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22. Octavia Spencer
Spencer is the mistress of the weed-whacker one-liner, able to cut down whatever’s in front of her with razor precision. When her eyes widen, it’s either in wonder, or foreshadowing a withering takedown. Her most famous KO came when she delivered that pie full of you-know-what to Bryce Dallas Howard in “The Help,” and walked off with an Oscar, ending a long career of bit roles here and there. She’s exceptional in “Fruitvale Station” and “Snowpiercer,” and is brilliant as a weary, but resilient NASA computer programmer in “Hidden Figures.” Most recently, with “The Shape of Water,” she showed us that a comic-relief role doesn’t need to be thankless, and in fact can be absolutely necessary. She’s one of the funniest people in film, and makes it look so effortless.
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21. Rachel Weisz
Most know Weisz from two “Mummy” movies, and possibly for winning an Oscar thanks to a gripping performance in “The Constant Gardener.” But she’s quietly put together an impressively diverse filmography: “About a Boy,” “Runaway Jury,” “The Fountain,” “The Brothers Bloom”; recently, she’s provided significant supporting turns in overlooked films such as “The Light Between Oceans” and “Youth,” and deftly walked the line between dramatic heartbreak and oddball comedy in “The Lobster.” Her work is terribly underrated. Is it too late to give her a Dern-ish role in the next “Star Wars”?
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20. Jessica Chastain
Of all actresses emerging in the last decade, Chastain is one of the best at finding the sweet spot between prestige work and mainstream accessibility. Supporting work in “The Debt,” “Take Shelter” and “The Tree of Life” established her talent, preceding her Oscar-nominated role in “The Help,” in which she showed nuance when the film literally put poop in the pie. Since then, she anchored “Zero Dark Thirty” with her credibility, and wasn’t given her due for the unfairly scorned “Crimson Peak.” And her confidence and detailed character work shined in 2017’s “Molly’s Game,” supported by a rich Aaron Sorkin script.
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19. Sigourney Weaver
She was, is, and always will be Ripley, an all-time-great cinema icon of feminine toughness. If you are a massive, hissing, slime-drooling queen creature with a little mouth inside your bigger mouth, you will not get between Sigourney and her surrogate daughter. You will eat the cold and unforgiving void, you b—-. Of course, there’s also “Ghostbusters,” “Working Girl,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “The Ice Storm,” “Galaxy Quest” and probably a dozen other career highlights (let’s say “Avatar” is one, considering she’s currently shooting four sequels). She’s also a recent recipient of a Great Performance in a Movie Nobody Saw award, playing a tough-love grandmother who softens under the weight of her daughter’s cancer treatments in “A Monster Calls.”
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18. Charlize Theron
She won an Oscar playing a real-life serial killer in “Monster,” and simmered with righteous feminist fury in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But Theron’s best performance is so terribly overlooked, all of you who skipped it – too many of you – should be incarcerated: “Young Adult.” Her characterization of a delusional woman trying to worm her way back into the life of her now-married-with-children ex-boyfriend is so exquisitely modulated, it breaks our hearts and makes us laugh at precisely the same time. And let’s not overlook the gritty “North Country,” or a kickass cold-steel action turn in “Atomic Blonde,” or her recurring role on TV’s “Arrested Development” (all together now: “Mr. F!”), which is one of the funniest things of the 21st century, on any screen, big or small.
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17. Emily Blunt
As the embattled personal assistant to a viciously Streeping Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Blunt was a revelation, vicious but vulnerable, the movie’s unheralded champion. Yes, I said that, and I mean it, and I’ll stand by it. She was the best thing by far in sci-fi films “The Adjustment Bureau” and “Looper,” as well as the musical “Into the Woods.” She overshadows Tom Cruise’s charisma playing a tough-as-nails superheroic alien-eradicator in “Edge of Tomorrow.” She shows a knack for light comedy in “The Five-Year Engagement.”
She’s a naive FBI agent in a shadowy black-ops unit in “Sicario,” providing a wide-eyed avenue for our own confusion and frustration with what happens outside the gaze of mainstream international law enforcement. She’s also sneakily brilliant in the soapy trash of “The Girl on the Train,” where she lets loose and gets wild and intense, and renders a very dumb movie quite riveting at times. Next, Blunt will play Mary Poppins in a sequel we didn’t really ask for, until we found out Blunt is playing Mary Poppins, and now, hey, maybe we want it.
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16. Laura Linney
“You Can Count On Me”: it’s Linney’s greatest performance among many great performances, as well as a mantra for her career. “The Truman Show” was her true breakthrough, and she’s extraordinary in “Kinsey,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “The Savages” and “Mystic River,” which showcase an actress of vibrant character. She makes less-memorable projects more so – “Nocturnal Animals,” “Hyde Park on Hudson” and, curiously, amusingly, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” in which she doesn’t deliver her lines with a straight face, and it’s the perfectly timed elbow in the ribs we need to remind us we’re watching a movie about turtles that are also teenagers that happen to be ninjas.
But back to “You Can Count On Me,” in which her single mother’s viciously kempt life is upended by the arrival of her just as viciously unkempt brother played by Mark Ruffalo, who goes toe-to-toe with Kinney in nuance and commitment to character – the film proves she’s a talent to be treasured.
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15. Helen Mirren
She sure seems born to play the effing Queen, or color the sprawling ensemble in a fastidious period drama like “Gosford Park,” or anchor countless Shakespeare adaptations. But I love how a silly thing like “RED” gets damn serious when Helen Mirren shows up neatly coiffed in a designer dress and hauling around a machine gun the size of Florida. “The Debt,” “The Last Station,” “The Queen”; “Calendar Girls,” “Trumbo,” “Hitchcock,” and, sure, why not, “The Fate of the Furious” – she brings dramatic heft to all of it. She really is great as the effing Queen, which scored her an Oscar, and I love her as The Wife in “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,” the sympathetic face of one of the scariest and most grotesque films I’ve ever seen. P.S. Don’t judge her because she was in “Caligula.”
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14. Greta Gerwig
Few people in movies are funnier than Gerwig, who balances elevated wit with an almost-tactile emotional realism. “Frances Ha,” “Mistress America” and “20th Century Women” are Gerwig at her best; her work in “Greenberg” and “Maggie’s Plan” is almost as brilliant. And her distinctive affectations are all over writing/directing effort “Lady Bird,” even though she’s behind the camera. If she ever sells out to play a superhero, I’ll eat the moon on a low-fat Ritz cracker.
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13. Julianne Moore
I first noticed her in 1993’s “Short Cuts,” and not just because she’s the focal point of an utterly fearless nude scene. It’s frankly shocking Moore didn’t win an Oscar for more than two decades after that, in 2015 for playing an academic afflicted with Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice” – she could’ve, should’ve, won several times before, for two Todd Haynes films, “Safe” and “Far From Heaven,” her greatest, most empathetic and complex performances. Or for playing a veteran porn star in “Boogie Nights,” or for Annette Bening’s foil in “The Kids are All Right,” or for enduring supporting turns in “Children of Men” or “The Hours” or “Magnolia” or “A Single Man.” Moore’s career is surely among Hollywood’s most prolific – she sure seems game for any challenge, be it silly or substantial – and even in lesser films such as “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”, “The Shipping News” or “Chloe,” she provides a credible dramatic foundation for the rest of the cast.
Oh, and she’s also Maude Lebowski in “The Big Lebowski,” in which she exercises her great comedic and satirical chops. It’s not the kind of character who inspires the gifting of statuettes, but for the rest of the wide, open world outside that bubble, it’s probably her greatest performance.
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12. Laura Dern
Dern wedged her way into my heart as the wonderfully loony Bonnie-type to Nicolas Cage’s Clyde-type in “Wild at Heart” – and never left. Few could so seamlessly merge from David Lynch to “Jurassic Park” like she did, a testament to her versatility. She’s just as wild in Alexander Payne’s satirical shredder “Citizen Ruth” (which you probably haven’t seen – time to correct that). A relatively quiet period in the 2000s preceded a recent flurry of strong roles in “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Certain Women,” “Wilson” and an obscurity called “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” And her recent TV work in “Twin Peaks” and “Big Little Lies” is as strong as anything she did for the big screen.
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11. Michelle Williams
Hit TV series “Dawson’s Creek” made her famous, but it never reflected her true interest. So Williams never looked back, challenging herself with roles in which she radiated truth and sincerity. The biggest was “Brokeback Mountain,” the first of her four Oscar nominations; the second was “Blue Valentine,” the third was “My Week with Marilyn” and the fourth, “Manchester by the Sea.” (Yes, her Marilyn Monroe is absolutely magnetic.) Her resume only gets richer from there: her work with director Kelly Reichardt yielded great authenticity in “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff” and “Certain Women.” For my money, her work in Sarah Polley’s “Take This Waltz” is her most endearing and complex. She has softened for the occasional mainstream picture, lending grace to otherwise graceless stuff such as “The Greatest Showman” and “Oz the Great and Powerful.”
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10. Saoirse Ronan
Exhibit A: “Atonement”; at 13, she found the place between childhood and adolescence that’s often a cliché in movies, but made it intense and a little haunted. Exhibit B: “Brooklyn”; in a movie that’s smart, sweet, funny and quietly assertive, she’s all of these things at once, effortlessly so, and creates a lovely, lovely character. Exhibit C: “Lady Bird,” the funniest coming-of-age comedy in a long time (OK, 2016’s “The Edge of Seventeen” is just as funny), stars her as high-school senior who’s awkward and rebellious in all the least obvious ways, and her timing for comedy and capacity for pathos are astonishing. I can’t come up with arguments why she shouldn’t win/have won Oscars for all these. She’s also brilliant in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” fiercely committed in “Hanna” and charismatic in the otherwise maligned “The Lovely Bones.” She’s 24. What have you done lately?
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9. Amy Adams
A dozen years since she stole our hearts in “Junebug” and landed her first Oscar nomination, Adams has added four more Academy nods: “American Hustle,” “The Master,” “The Fighter,” “Doubt.” I’ll correct the glaring inadequacies in that track record by giving her the Oscar for “The Master” – she’s terrifying as the true person of power in that story – and adding nominations for “Arrival,” one of the most glaring snubs of the last decade, and “Enchanted,” in which she’s a delightfully un-self-aware Disney princess naif. Few of her generation are so talented.
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8. Lupita Nyong’o
Her breakthrough was unforgettable: As Patsey, the horribly abused slave in “12 Years a Slave,” she ripped our hearts out, and won probably the most deserving Oscar of the last decade. Too many overlooked her extraordinary turn in “Queen of Katwe” as an impoverished mother protecting her children on the streets of Uganda – a role that deserved an Oscar. And she recently proved her mettle in mainstream fare with a significant role in “Black Panther,” one of the most important, credible and thematically complex blockbusters in recent memory. Nyong’o has made the most of every moment she’s on screen. Few have such a bright career ahead.
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7. Jennifer Lawrence
Frankly, her most high-profile stuff is the least of Lawrence’s work, and she’s still pretty great – the “X-Men” movies criminally underuse her, and she made sure we still cared what happened to Katniss in “The Hunger Games,” even when the final two movies fell apart around her. She very much deserved becoming everyone’s favorite actress after earning an Oscar nod for “Winter’s Bone,” and winning one for “Silver Linings Playbook.” Her “science oven” bit in “American Hustle” is one of the funniest scenes of the last decade. And she recently challenged herself mightily in the love-it-or-hate-it psychological horror nightmare “Mother!” (note: I loved it, and she had a lot to do with me loving it).
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6. Viola Davis
Davis is one of the new greats, a powerhouse channeling righteous sincerity into her roles. She toiled thanklessly for years before she stole scenes out from under Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt.” Then she was the earnest heart of “The Help.” Both earned her Oscar nods, but she wouldn’t win until “Fences” cast her as the long-suffering wife of Denzel Washington’s impossible, philandering garbage man – a performance blending exasperation and love like few others. She’s currently attached to a Harriet Tubman biography, which isn’t even in production yet; can we buy our tickets now anyway?
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5. Frances McDormand
“Fargo”:
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I could stop right there and move on and you’d all nod your heads in agreement. It’s the single greatest performance by any living creature in the last half-century of film, and if that seems like hyperbole, think again. My police work on this case is indelible there, Lou. Her other work with the Coen Bros. (she’s married to Joel) is smaller, supporting, and nearly as brilliant: “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “Hail, Caesar!,” “Burn After Reading,” “Raising Arizona” and, of course, “Blood Simple.” Outside that hallowed canon are significant turns in “Mississippi Burning,” “Laurel Canyon,” “Short Cuts,” “Wonder Boys,” “Almost Famous,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and TV’s “Olive Kitteredge” (I know, it’s the small screen, but the miniseries is essentially four short films, meticulously directed by Lisa Cholodenko). And her utterly dominant performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is a poignant portrait of grief and anger for our times.
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4. Tilda Swinton
Whether it’s a mega-budget studio tentpole or an arthouse indie, Swinton makes any movie she’s in at least 32 percent weirder. That’s a fact supported by science and things. Well, in the last decade, at least. Also early in her career, before she was internationally famous, although the projects themselves were also weird.
It’s during that last decade, since she won an Oscar for playing a very, very quietly sociopathic corporate suit in “Michael Clayton,” that she’s really let the strange loose: The garishly garbed and made-up head of a future-world food manufacturer – and her twin! – in “Okja.” Or grandiose grotesques in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Snowpiercer,” the latter showcasing her scene-stealing at its funniest, craziest and most committed.
And yet, her sincerity is on its own performative plane too, as the mother of a budding young psychopath in “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” as a Bowiesque androgynous rock star vacationing with troublesome old friends in “A Bigger Splash,” and as an unfulfilled showpiece wife and mother in “I Am Love” (the latter two directed by Luca Guadagnino); these are her three most significant works. She’s even commanding as the White Witch in “The Chronicles of Narnia” and as a magickal guru in “Doctor Strange.” Next, she’ll star in Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake. The role ultimately doesn’t matter for Swinton – she’s unpredictable and enthralling regardless. We should look forward to her future works with great interest.
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3. Meryl Streep
Of course we love Streep. Who doesn’t love Streep? The Academy loves Streep – she has 21 Oscar nominations, give or take several hundred, and three wins, give or take a dozen. “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Deer Hunter,” “Out of Africa,” “The River Wild,” “The Bridges of Madison County.” I know a list of titles isn’t a sentence, but they are when they’re Streep movies.
Her best films to my eye are “Postcards from the Edge” and “Adaptation.” Her most recent nomination, “The Post,” is her best work of the past 15 years. Even her voiceover work in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is dialed in tight for comedy. And don’t ever, ever forget: the dingo took her baby.
Streep is often guilty of something I call Streeping, in which she plays big and goes over the top, frequently with crazy, finely tuned accents: “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Julie and Julia,” “Doubt,” “August: Osage County,” “Florence Foster Jenkins.” Then again, tell me she still isn’t great when she’s Streeping, which is simultaneously infuriating and entertaining and kind of bewildering in its multifaceted display of talent. There is no one like Streep, and there will never be another one like Streep.
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2. Kate Winslet
Four of Winslet’s first five roles are as follows: “Sense and Sensibility” (Austen), “Jude” (Hardy), “Hamlet” (Shakespeare) and “Heavenly Creatures,” in which she plays an obsessive, murderous teen. Then came “Titanic,” in which she found a way to make us fall in love with her despite being required to recite James Cameron’s cornball dialogue. Her subsequent work in the few years after the boat sank was offbeat, must-see stuff despite their ambition sometimes outsizing the final product: “Hideous Kinky,” “Holy Smoke,” “Quills,” “Iris.”
Then she made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” her greatest performance and role, funny and heartbreaking, idiosyncratic and so, so humane. She anchors the tragedy in “Finding Neverland,” hones incisive satire in “Little Children,” is luminescent in glossy comedy “The Holiday.” She goes deep and dark in “The Reader” (which earned her an Oscar, on her sixth nomination), and finds a different shade of deep and dark in “Revolutionary Road.” Todd Haynes’ TV miniseries “Mildred Pierce” is five-and-a-half remarkable hours of Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe-winning Winslet work. She loses herself in character in “Steve Jobs” and brandishes a mean needle in “The Dressmaker.”
All of this speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
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1. Cate Blanchett
How many tours-de-force can a person have? One can’t imagine any other actress commanding the screen in “Carol,” “Blue Jasmine,” “Elizabeth” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” like Blanchett. She gave new shades of nastiness and complexity to the evil stepmother in 2015’s “Cinderella.” She’s ruthless as the villain in underrated action movie “Hanna.” She’s the most riveting of all iterations of Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” She does much, much more than an impression of Katherine Hepburn in “The Aviator.” She brings an eerie, ethereal presence to the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films as the elf queen Galadriel. She’s extraordinary as the foil to Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal.” I even enjoyed her turn as a nasty Nazi in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and as a scenery-chewing villain in “Thor: Raganarok” – silly movies made better by her presence. I could go on. It’s hard to argue that she isn’t the best in the business.
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The next 15:
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Annette Bening
You no doubt didn’t see “20th Century Women.” Hardly anyone did. Go watch it, and tell me Bening doesn’t make it look easy. While you’re at it, revisit “The Kids are All Right.” And “The Grifters.” And recognize how she takes a relatively thankless role in “Open Range” and makes it deeper, richer. Don’t forget, her vicious self is still the best thing about “American Beauty,” which otherwise hasn’t aged well.
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Mary J. Blige
The superstar soul singer has a limited acting resume – a Tyler Perry movie, a small part in “Rock of Ages,” a handful of TV bit parts – but blossomed mightily in “Mudbound,” earning an Oscar nomination. More Mary in movies, please.
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Sandra Bullock
Bullock is a warm, agreeable screen presence even in a career full of formulaic films (“A Time to Kill,” “The Proposal,” etc.). Recently, she tackled her most challenging role in “Gravity,” and was never funnier than in “The Heat” – two projects that boosted her credibility. Anchoring the upcoming “Ocean’s 8” seems like a perfect fit.
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Judi Dench
If you want some command presence, Dench is your go-to star. Her Oscar was earned with only eight minutes of screen time as Queen Elizabeth in “Shakespeare in Love,” which speaks significantly of her ability to make the most of only a few lines. I prefer her rich, complex work in “Philomena,” which is a rare leading role for Dench – she’s likely the greatest character actress, memorable in so many supporting parts in so many movies, it’s impossible to list them all, from “A Room With a View” to the recent remake of “Murder on the Orient Express,” with many stops along the way as M in the James Bond franchise.
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Salma Hayek
Her passion project, playing artist Frida Kahlo in “Frida,” is a tremendous work. Early roles in “Desperado” and “From Dusk Till Dawn” are terrific, and has shown a recent knack for stealing scenes in comedies (“The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” and she was uproariously funny on TV’s “30 Rock”).
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Taraji P. Henson
She’s not an above-the-title superstar, although she should be – her grace and quiet charisma guaranteed “Hidden Figures” was a creative success, and she’s unforgettable in “Hustle and Flow.” She earned an Oscar nod for strong supporting work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” It seems as if Henson hasn’t earned the acclaim she deserves.
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Scarlett Johansson
Johansson is such a movie star in the classical sense, it’s easy to forget how great an actress she was, so early in her career: “Lost in Translation,” “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” “Ghost World,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” “Match Point” and “Vicky Christina Barcelona” only boosted her credibility. Of course, now she’s the superhero Black Widow, which overshadows everything, including her greatest work: as a terrifying, man-eating alien in “Under the Skin,” and as the voice – just the voice! – of an artificially intelligent computer in “Her.”
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Brie Larson
She won a well-deserved Oscar for some grueling, intense work in “Room,” but the microbudget indie “Short Term 12” is so alive, so real, thanks to her performance. Other highlights? She’s funny in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and buoyant in “21 Jump Street” and hopefully will bring significant femme cred to the Marvel Cinematic Universe when she headlines “Captain Marvel.”
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Carey Mulligan
She knocked us out as a nightclub songstress in “Shame,” was viciously funny in “Inside Llewyn Davis,” was a vital, warm presence in “Drive” and carried great dramatic weight in “Never Let Me Go” and “Mudbound.” But “An Education” is her triumph, her turn as a teen dating an older gentleman in 1960s London landing her an Oscar nomination – which should have been an Oscar win.
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Natalie Portman
“Black Swan” – hold on – yes – I just checked – it’s still terrifying. It’s destined to be her creative high point, eclipsing her extraordinary work in “Closer” and “V for Vendetta,” and as a youngster in “Beautiful Girls” and “Leon: The Professional.” Her projects have been uneven the past several years, although her take on Jackie Kennedy in “Jackie” and some gritty work in “Annihilation” show an upward trend.
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Margot Robbie
She was a wrecking ball in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which is as audacious a breakthrough as any star has ever enjoyed. She turned cracked corn into popcorn as Jane in “The Legend of Tarzan,” was far stronger than her material in “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and was formidable in “Suicide Squad” despite every other aspect of the movie being a fright. And of course, she’s an Oscar nominee now, taking a vivid, trashy turn in “I, Tonya,” and anyone who can make Tonya Harding sympathetic is a person of significant talent.
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Emma Stone
Stone is a bright, bright talent, never looking back after being effervescent in a small role in “Superbad.” Playing Billie Jean King in “Battle of the Sexes” might be her heftiest role yet, she anchored “The Help” and, of course, won an easy Oscar for “La La Land.” But “Easy A” is her best, a true lost gem.
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Marisa Tomei
Tomei might not be on this list if I hadn’t recently re-watched “My Cousin Vinny,” which made her the least-respected Oscar winner ever. Truth: she’s wonderful in the movie, so effortlessly funny and vibrant, doing everything we don’t expect her to do. She’s also great in “The Wrestler” – her grittiest, richest role – “Slums of Beverly Hills,” “Cyrus,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.” She has a surprisingly strong body of work.
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Naomi Watts
“Mulholland Drive” was an unforgettable breakthrough for Watts, who would later gain mainstream fame for the horror hit “The Ring.” But film aficionados recognize how she never backs down from a difficult role: “21 Grams,” “King Kong,” “Eastern Promises,” “The Impossible.”
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Reese Witherspoon
Few movie stars enjoy roles perfectly suited to their skill sets, but Witherspoon has at least three: June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line,” Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” and her funniest and most finely tuned character to date, Tracy Flick in “Election.” The unforgettable, indefatigable Tracy Flick. The utmost Tracy Flick. You get the picture. Also, I’d be doing her a disservice by not mentioning “Wild” or “Mud” or “Pleasantville,” which exhibit the range she so rarely gets recognized for.
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Honorable mention: Daisy Ridley
A strong argument can be made that Ridley is the pivot point for the most astronomically important, pop-culturally relevant franchise in the current cinema: “Murder on the Orient Express.” Joking! But seriously, the new “Star Wars” trilogy hinges on us investing ourselves in the story of Rey, the badass scavenger who becomes a badass Jedi, a character Ridley endows with the conviction and sincerity – and occasional on-point comedic timing – crucial to the movies’ success. So far, so good for her career. Her only other significant part so far was an underwritten supporting turn in “Orient,” so we’ll see if she has the right stuff when she tackles Shakespeare later this year in “Ophelia” – she has the titular role!
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MORE ON MOVIES
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Natalie Portman in “Annihilation.” (Peter Mountain | Photo provided to MLive.com by Paramount Pictures)
Reviews:
“Annihilation”
“Mute”
“Black Panther”
“Fifty Shades Freed”
“The Cloverfield Paradox”
“Phantom Thread”
“Call Me by Your Name”
“Hostiles”
“The Post”
“The Commuter”
“I, Tonya”
“Molly’s Game”
“Darkest Hour”
“The Greatest Showman”
“The Shape of Water”
“Downsizing”
“Wonder Wheel”
“The Disaster Artist”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
“Last Flag Flying”
“Lady Bird”
“Coco”
“The Man Who Invented Christmas”
“Justice League”
“The Florida Project”
“Murder on the Orient Express”
“The Killing of a Sacred Deer”
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Lists:
The 10 best, and 10 worst, superhero movies ever
25 of the best working female directors, and the must-see movies they made
The 35 biggest movies opening in 2018
The best movies of 2017
The worst movies of 2017
The best movie quotes of 2017
The 10 classic Christmas movies you should watch every year
Holiday movies 2017: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ and 32 others, ranked
Adam Sandler’s 5 worst, 5 best and 5 weirdest movie roles
The 27 biggest movies of fall 2017, ranked from least to most anticipated
20 cult movies and forgotten gems you (probably) haven’t seen
30 movies you need to see before you die
All the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies, ranked worst to best
All the Spider-Man movies, ranked worst to best
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“Star Wars”:
All 9 “Star Wars” movies, ranked from worst to best
Review: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is a cinematic force
Review: “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is gritty and dark, and often great
Review: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is a fresh, fun riff on old ideas
The pros and cons of being a diehard “Star Wars” fan
How a “Star Wars” lifer should gauge expectations for “The Force Awakens”
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” spoiler-free world premiere first thoughts
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Streaming recommendations:
30 of the best movies you can stream on Amazon Prime
24 Netflix Christmas specials and movies you can stream now
20 more new Netflix movies you need to see
20 Netflix movies you should be streaming now
25 of the best Amazon Prime movies streaming now
20 new Netflix movie recommendations
20 must-see Netflix stand-up comedy specials
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Oscars:
Oscar 2018 predictions
Oscar nominees 2018: snubs, surprises and other knee-jerk reactions
The 20 worst Oscar winners ever
20 classic movies that were robbed of a best picture Oscar
30 classic movies that weren’t nominated for a best picture Oscar
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