Who was the best ever Best Actress Oscar winner, by decade? 2000s edition

Link to 1990s

Naomi Watts gave the best performance by an actress in Mulholland Drive (2001) in this decade. She wasn’t even nominated and had to watch Halle Berry win.

All of them are excellent but Monster was something else.

Biggest contenders are Charlize, Hillary and Marion. The best is Marion Cotillard, hands down.

Roberts: Hollywood's way of saying thanks for making us millions all these years.

Berry: Affirmative action and she was naked in her movie. She's the only winner in this decade except for Swank that hasn't received a subsequent nomination.

Kidman: People love a plastic nose and divorce sympathy helped her too. Perhaps this was also a makeup win for her loosing for Moulin Rouge the year before.

Theron: One of the most deserving wins. Ingenue factor. Also, more often than not they give best actress to the one they wanna fuck the most.

Swank: Imelda Staunton was robbed. Perhaps they just wanted her to thank her now ex-husband.

Witherspoon: Ingenue factor. Borderline supporting. All she did was a play a banjo.

Mirren: Hammy performance that just screamed give me an oscar. Cruz and Dench were much more deserving.

Cotillard: Perhaps the greatest best actress win ever.

Winslet: Her campaign was insufferable and the role was borderline supporting.

Bullock: There are no words other than Hollywood just wanted to give a pat on the back to a bankable, well-liked star. Any of the other four would've been infinitely better.

Ranked:

1. Marion Cotillard

2. Helen Mirren

3. Kate Winslet

4. Charlize Theron

5. Halle Berry

6. Julia Roberts

7. Sandra Bullock

8. Nicole Kidman

9. Reese Witherspoon

10. Hilary Skank (pictured)

That's Sarah Jessica Parker R6.

She looks good for her age.

The Should Have Wons, by year:

Ellen Burstyn - Requiem for a Dream

Sissy Spacek - In the Bedroom

Diane Lane - Unfaithful

Got it right in 2003

Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake

no one in 2005

Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal, OR Penélope Cruz - Volver

Got it right in 2007

Melissa Leo - Frozen River

Carey Mulligan - An Education

R8: I agree although Felony Huffman should've won over Witherspoon. Also, Diane Lane or Julianne Moore should've won over fake nose.

Even though I enjoyed them at the time, I hardly remember Transamerica or Far From Heaven, R9.

I've watched all the best actress nominations in the 00s with the exception of Monster. Marion Cotillard gave the greatest performance of the decade. No contest.

Top 10 nominated performances that decade, in date order, are:

Renee Zellweger: Bridget Jones' Diary

Halle Berry: Monster's Ball

Nicole Kidman: Moulin Rouge

Keisha Castle-Hughes: Whale Rider

Annette Bening: Being Julia

Judi Dench: Notes On A Scandal

Meryl Streep: The Devil Wears Prada

Marion Cotillard: La Vie En Rose

Melissa Leo: Frozen River

Carey Mulligan: An Education

I loved 'Being Julia' so much.

Charlize truly did transform herself. She didn't just let the makeup and costume designer do the heavy lifting for her. The way she carried herself and spoke felt like a totally different person. That's acting to me. She had me believing she was a totally different person and very few can do that.

R13 totally agree, she was truly giving an amazing performance that was compelling and believable

r12 Thank you. Me too.

I loved being Julia too!

Who the hell voted for Sandy B?!

Only someone who's blind and deaf would think Bullock's performance was Oscar worthy.

r16 you always loved to be me, Meryl. But not everyone gets to be me, you second rate "superstar". Bow down, bitch.

Marion Cotillard transcendent performance is made even more impressive when you realise that the director, Olivier Dahan, is incredibly shitty at his job. A lot of actors depend on the director to help them pull a great performance and the ones who are able to pull a magnificent performance in spite of the terrible director are few. Nicole Kidman, a less talented actress, starred in Dahan's movie about Grace Kelly and that movie was an abomination. Marion also did great work in Two Days One night and in Rust and Bone (co-starring the hunky Matthias Schoenaerts)

That being said, I voted for Charlize Theron.

Anne Hathaway should have won over Kate Winslet's supporting performance in a leading category shit.

R19 What about me, whore? I was supposed to be the next America's sweetheart.

r22 You wish, bitch. I am still big, it's the pictures that got small.

R20 Marion was also great in that incredibly dull "The Immigrant". There is a scene where her character is accused of stealing money and she runs into a corner scared. She acted that out so good. That's the only thing I remember from that movie.

Renee Zellweger deserved Oscar for Chicago over irritating Nicole Kidman. Oscar tried to make up for that by awarding her the supporting actress Oscar for an underwhelming film.

2003 was an odd year

Oscars: Charlize over Diane Keaton, Keisha Castle Hughes, Samantha Morton and Naomi Watts

BAFTA: Scarlet Johansson (Lost In Translation) over ScarJo (Pearl Earring), Anne Reid, Uma Thurman and Naomi Watts (Charlize's Monster lost to Vera Drake the following year)

SAG: Charlize over Patricia Clarkson, Diane Keaton, Evan Rachel Wood and Naomi Watts

GGs Drama: Charlize over Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and ScarJo (Earring)

IndSpirit: Charlize over Agnes Bruckner, Zooey Deschanel, Samantha Morton and Elisabeth Moss

Wow, a category where I’ve seen all the performances!

Charlize Theron was the only one who absolutely wowed me with her performance. Helen Mirren was a close second, but after The Crown, I don’t find her performance as riveting.

Sandra Bullock was shit and gave a performance worthy of a Hallmark Channel movie, but the rest were perfectly fine. It sucks Kate Winslet won for The Reader when she gave a better performance in Revolutionary Road.

We don't know the vote totals, but if I had to guess which acting winner in recent memory won in the biggest landslide, it would probably be Charlize Theron. It's a role designed almost perfectly to win an Oscar, especially in that era, and her competition was dire.

Charlize

1. Charlize

2. Marion

3. Helen

4. Julia

5. Nicole

6. Halle

7. Hillary

8. Kate

9. Reese

10. Sandra

Haha not one vote for Reese yet. I always thought the Reese and Sandra wins were garbage. Charlize definitely should win this one, with Helen a close second.

Lol poor Reese.

[quote]We don't know the vote totals, but if I had to guess which acting winner in recent memory won in the biggest landslide, it would probably be Charlize Theron. It's a role designed almost perfectly to win an Oscar, especially in that era, and her competition was dire.

How do the actor nominations work? Is it 1 nomination per Academy member or do they get 5 each?

I’d vote for Sandra and Halle over Reese. Talk about an unworthy performance. Joaquin Phoenix was great in Walk the Line. Reese was fine.

Reese would have deserved a Supporting nod at most, certainly not a win. Mediocre in the extreme

If I'm not mistaken, didn't Reese win the same year Rachel Weisz won BSA? If she had been submitted in the proper category, she could've easily won...and Imelda Staunton would have a Best Actress Oscar.

The funny thing is, the 2000s saw THREE supporting actresses undeservedly win for Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Kate Winslet. In Nicole's case, she had the most screen time of anyone in The Hours, yet Julianne Moore was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. In Kate's case, I don't know why she wasn't nominated for Revolutionary Road. She still would've won and it was an actual lead role. Hell, she's the only actress to win Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress at both the Golden Globes and SAGs in the same year.

Screentimecentral's Matthew Stewart insists that Kidman, Witherspoon, and Winslet were all nominated and won in the correct category, Lead. In second tweet linked, he explains his reasoning for Winslet. I agree.

Stewart's reasoning for Witherspoon.

Stewart's reasoning for Kidman is explained via his critique of Julianne Moore's incorrect Supporting placement for the same film.

R23: I've never had to do television. I can't say the same about you cunt.

R36 Streep won lead at SAG for Doubt in 2009 (her only film win so far). Winslet took Supporting.

The Reader got a totally undeserved Best Picture nomination so more Academy voters saw it than Revolutionary Road (presumably). This might account for Winslet's nomination for the former movie.

R36 Imelda was nominated the previous year, lost to Swank.

Felicity Huffman (Transanerica) was nominated alongside Witherspoon

[quote][R23]: I've never had to do television. I can't say the same about you cunt.

What about that zombie thing on Netflix where you had sex with the black man half your age?

My rankings :

1. Marion Cotillard

2. Hilary Swank

3. Kate Winslet

4. Nicole Kidman

5. Julia Roberts

6. Charlize Theron

7. Reese Witherspoon

8. Helen Mirren

Tied for last: Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock

Marion Cotillard gave one of the best performances by an actress in the history of film. She is certainly the best of this lot.

Over the years my appreciation of Helen Mirren in The Queen has changed. She was very good but it hasn't become iconic like Meryl in Prada or Judi in Scandal. And Claire Foy did such an outstanding job in The Crown.

It is a great film though and captures that short period in 1997 perfectly.

Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren all gave performances that were truly Oscar worthy. I presume Charlize did as well but I've never seen that movie.

The Queen was a film made for television and that's where it belonged. Mirren's performance was overrated partly because the film academies are full of Anglophiles who worship Lizzy. Judi Dench delivered a stunning performance and even the otherwise overrated Meryl was superb in what has become one of her most memorable roles.

Mirren is a classic example of someone whose performance is highly lauded at the time, but becomes unmemorable and unimpressive as the years go by, before eventually landing in "WTF were the voters thinking?" territory.

Thank heavens that at least Helen didn't show her tits and her cooch in trying to reveal the real Lizzy to the world!

I know she's ridiculed here (and it's mostly deserving), but Hilary Swank blew my mind in MDB. I can't believe how much that film affected me. Her performance in particular. Perhaps she was just playing herself, but damn it wowed me.

I'd put it like this:

1. Marion

2. Charlize

3. Swank

4. Winslet

5. The Rest

And then: WTF are you doing here: Sandy (I love her as a movie star, btw)

R41: She was horrible in Doubt. Her "I have such doubts" monologue at the end was embarrassing.

I found the winners in the 2000s considerably less impressive than the women who won in the 80s and 90s. Sandy Bullock? Halle Berry? Reese Witherspoon? Charlize Theron? (Yeah I know Theron gets a lot of love but I didn't think that a psycho killer bitch playing a psycho killer bitch was much of a stretch. Monster was basically Charlize donning ugly makeup and then playing herself.)

I agree with whoever posted above that the best performance of the decade, which didn't even receive a nomination, was Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive.

[quote]Mirren is a classic example of someone whose performance is highly lauded at the time, but becomes unmemorable and unimpressive as the years go by, before eventually landing in "WTF were the voters thinking?" territory.

DCI Jane Tennison says hi.

Re the Charlize chatter, it's incredible to think that North Country got her her second nomination.

Talk about unmemorable. I can vaguely remember something happening in a portable toilet and (I think) a courtroom scene where Frances McDormand stands up, leading to gasps.

No nomination for Young Adult, nothing for Mad Max, nothing for Sully. And then nominated for her Meghan Kelly SNL impression.

I wouldn't have minded Sandy Bollocks winning for Gravity in 2013 if Blue Jasmine was released in 2012 and Blanchett got to win there. Would also have saved us from the gloriously overrated JLaw win.

Mirren was a revelation as The Queen and it was a huge gamble since HM is known to everyone. If Mirren got it wrong or the movie was slammed, she would have got a ton of flack.

Ugh at some of the opinions. Halle Berry’s win was richly deserved. It was done as an art film and was elevated. Affirmative action my ASS. What does nude have to do with anything? Kate wasn’t supporting in The Reader that was just the campaign honey

Halle Berry was better in Frankie and Alice, convincingly playing a woman with multiple personalities

I can't believe Sandy Bullock isn't last in this poll. Reese "Don't You Know Who I Am?" Witherspoon is a better actress than Sandy but somehow Bullock has actually received votes for her shit performance in her shit Lifetime movie.

Oh it's a dead heat between Marion and Charlize!

[quote]Marion was also great in that incredibly dull "The Immigrant". There is a scene where her character is accused of stealing money and she runs into a corner scared. She acted that out so good. That's the only thing I remember from that movie.

Like most non English speakers, Marion Cotillard loses a certain je ne sais quoi when she takes on English roles. La Vie En Rose, A Very Long Engagement, Rust And Bone, 2 Days and 1 Night and Love Me If You Dare are in a different league to her English roles. Only Nine comes close.

I liked Julia, she gave Erin B her all and was far from the worst winner we've seen.

Ellen Burstyn would have won in Supporting for Requiem For A Dream, which was likely too dark and depressing for many voters to stomach, in spite of name recognition.

R61 Are you bilingual honey? What exactly does she lose? The Immigrant, she’s amazing in and won major prizes for the role. Macbeth she’s amazing in and it was the hit of all Europe and Cannes but not sold well in this country.

I'm not bilingual, despite watching a huge number of French language movies.

I've seen 20 of Marion Cotillard's films. She's considerably better in French language movies compared to her English roles.

The Immigrant is a film I've not seen but I found Macbeth hard to follow. Cotillard looked amazing and was great when not speaking. This might explain why.

[quote]The French actress, who will star alongside Michael Fassbender in the film, said: “The hardest thing is going to be performing in the original language. When I first read the script I didn’t understand anything.”

She's not the only European actress who is much better in their first language. Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Juliette Binoche, Diane Kruger and are all much better in their native Spanish, French and German. With the exception of Kruger they didn't learn English until they were established in their careers.

My personal "should have won" choices:

2000: Laura Kinney, although I think Roberts deserved a win for a very different kind and style of performance, one that is pretty much dead now. An old-school, movie star performance that was impressive as hell on the big screen.

2001: Of the nominated women, Sissy Spacek, but Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive was for me the best performance of the year and possibly of the decade.

2002: Tough year. Except for Salma Hayek I thought each of the other four nominees gave a good performance. Julianne Moore by a nose for me.

2003: Probably Keisha Castle Hughes in Whale Rider. I thought this was a dull year with uninteresting nominees. And jeez, whom was Diane Keaton blowing to get nominated for her hideous, shrieking, hysterical acting in the frautastic piece of excrement that was Something's Gotta Give?

2004: Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby.

2005: All the nominees were bland and tedious. I wish The Devil Wears Prada had been released a year earlier. Meryl Streep would have earned a well-deserved win for her delicious performance as "the manicured boss from hell". I can't believe Keira Chinley actually got a nomination for her pouting, anachronistic turn in P&P. Ugh!

2006: Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal

2007: Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose

2008: What the hell, just give it to Winslet.

2009: Gabourey Sidibe for Precious. Anyone but the awful Bullock, please.

WTF? I corrected the "Kinney" autocorrect twice to write her name correctly as Laura Linney and it got changed again in my R64 post. WTF autocorrect?

[quote] I can't believe Keira Chinley actually got a nomination for her pouting, anachronistic turn in P&P. Ugh!

The nomination for Pride & Prejudice was quite bizarre. Was Weinstein involved?

She did merit recognition for Atonement but she didn't deserve a place over Cotillard, Christie, Blanchett or Linney, Now Page is a man, maybe he can be kicked out and Knightley can be given a retrospective nomination, but she'd have to fight it out with Amy Adams for Enchanted,

R66, good point about E. Page. The nomination should be revoked and retrospectively awarded to whoever finished sixth in the voting.

Do they destroy the votes afterwards? I'd pay good money to find out who placed where in any given year..

2000: While this is probably Roberts' best performance to date, Burstyn was robbed.

2001: I don't Berry's win is Bullock level terrible but out of all the nominees Spacek should've won. I agree that Watts gave the best female performance of 2001.

2003: Even though Theron deserved it, she had that ingenue prospering in popcorn pictures turned serious actress thing going for her.

2009: Bullock's win is atrocious. The only explanation is that she had 2 box office hits in 2009 and she was playing a white savior.

They should've given Bullock the win for Gravity instead of that shit lifetime movie. I would've been fine with that. Perhaps I'm in the minority but I didn't love Blanchett's lauded turn in Blue Jasmine. Too much crying and screaming and her character was so unlikable.

R70 her character was unstable!

Cotillard was wonderful in Nine as was Cruz. Everyone else seemed to be phoning it in or playing it like they were in a different movie. Whatever movie Cotillard and Cruz thought they were in seemed to be much more interesting and I'd have liked to have seen that one instead.

I loved her singing too in the movie Nine. Especially, the fact that she didn't sing it in operatic style with pronounced vibratos. I had read that the studio, at the time, pushed her performance in Nine for the leading actress nomination, which was a bad decision considering that her performance was really a supporting one while submitting Penelope Cruz for the supporting category, which she did manage to get.

I loved Charlize in Monster. I loved her more in Young Adult. To me, Adult was a much braver performance. Without ugly makeup and a hideous denture, Theron managed to make a beautiful woman monstrously ugly by performance alone. It was a stunning achievement!

Young Adult really is the best performance Theron has ever given. I’ve never been that impressed by Monster, since part of me suspects the role would have earned any competent actress an Oscar at the time. Perhaps it’s unfair to not acknowledge what she did in Monster just because Oscar voters fell too easily for hot people making themselves ugly, but I still believe that every compliment Charlize received for her bravery in Monster better applies to Young Adult.

R75 "Oscar voters fell too easily for hot people making themselves ugly,"

I kind of felt the same way when she won. Was it a stunt? or is she a genuinely good actress? Young Adult confirmed the latter for me.

It probably didn’t help that Theron’s roles before Monster were awful, and she wasn’t experienced enough to make the most of them, which now she can do very well. I looked at her IMDb page again because I thought I might be forgetting some role pre-Monster that really showed her promise, but it’s a bunch of truly terrible movies (Bagger Vance, Sweet November, Reindeer Games), with a few where the movie is okay but she barely registers.

Even Halle Berry as an awards-level actor didn’t come out of nowhere like Theron did. Berry did sweep the major television awards for playing Dorothy Dandridge.

I knew somebody who worked with Theron in her first big movie, 2 Days in the Valley. She described her as beautiful but awful as an actress. She had no clue how to act in front of a camera. But she liked her and credited her with being persevering, like she was doing everything she could to learn her craft. When the movie came out, she thought watching her on screen made a bit of a difference, she wasn't as bad as expected. Later on, she was very impressed with Monster. Like, dumbstruck.

Every time a black person wins something, there's always a group of Dataloungers saying it was "affirmative action." It's grotesque.

2000: Swank was by far the best of the nominees, but I very much thought Gillian Anderson deserved at least a nomination for House of Mirth. Streep's nomination seemed pointless.

2001: Naomi Watts, no question. Of the nominees, Burstyn. This is the Academy though and no one but Roberts was going to win.

2002: Of the nominees, I think they got it right, Halle Berry was fantastic. I think Mirren could have gotten a Leading nomination for Gosford Park and won, however.

2003: Diane Lane or Julianne Moore would have made more sense to me. Evan Rachel Wood should probably have been at least nominated for Thirteen and Uma Thurman for Kill Bill. Also, side note, I loved Adaptation but I was thankful they didn't give Streep a Leading nomination for it.

R63 I’ve seen more French films than you. Marion is not bound by language.

R80 You’ve got your years mixed up there, 99/00 and 02/03

Charlize was sensational in Young Adult

2000: Julia gave a great performance and she was a decent choice. Ellen Burstyn should have won in Supporting for Requiem For A Dream

2001: I have no problem with Halle win, she really tried in Monster's Ball. I also admire what a good sport she was when she got a Razzie. Sissy gave an incredible performance but a second Oscar would likely not have done much for her at that stage. Mirren should have won over Jennifer Connelly for her great turn in Gosford Park

2002: Julianne Moore for Far From Heaven. Sublime. Streep really deserved to win in Supporting for Adaptation but who can begrudge our own CZJ for stomping the stage in Chicago?

2003: Charlize for Monster was astonishing

2004: Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake

2005: Weak year! Felicity Huffman for Transanerica was the standout

2006: Judi Dench for her amazing Barbara Covett in Notes On A Scandal. Wickedly great

2007: Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose

2008: I really think Streep deserved it for Doubt, she owned the screen. That movie just needed an experienced (better) Director than John Patrick Shanley

2009: Gabi Sidibe for Precious. If Revolutionary Road had been held back a few months then Winslet would have also been a decent winner too

2000: Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream

2001: Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr

2003: Nicole Kidman in Dogville

2005: Carice van Houten in Black Book

2007: Julie Christie in Away from Her

2008: Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky

As someone said upthread, it's all in the timing. If even one of the great nominated performances had seen their film released earlier/later and fell in a weak year (2005, 2009) we could have honored more of the great performances.

Monster was a joke. 2 hours of Charlize Theron screeching.

Who the hell is voting Julia Roberts over Charlize or Marion?

r88, I agree re Marion, but, yeah, I'd much rather watch Julia's star turn over Charlize's mannered screeching any day.

r88 Julia is/was the greatest star there ever was, Charlize and every one else are just footnotes.

^hi Julia! ^

Charlize basically played herself in Monster. The woman really is an unhinged psychopath and possible killer in real life. I never believed the story about her mother killing Charlize's father. Charlize strikes me as the sort who would have been a right wing Afrikaaner loon shooting black people if she had stayed on in South Africa.

I didn't vote for Julia, but she was a lot more interesting and fun to watch in Erin Brockovich than Charlize was in "Watch Charlize look ugly and play herself".

R92 have you ever seen Charlize talk or move? She is nothing like Aileen Wurnos, that's insane. It was one of the best transformations of all time in movies.

Reese deserved a Supporting nod for Election and her nom for Wild. That's it. Walj The Line belonged to Joaquin

Charli winning

R94, I'd go as far as to say Reese flat out deserved to win the Oscar for Election, and she deserved it in Lead. Tracy Flick has become shorthand for a certain type of woman, and that speaks to how that performance still resonates in a way that Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, as good as she was, just doesn't.

I don't have a problem with Reese winning for Walk the Line, but that's mostly because that lineup is so mediocre that her getting an award for being a big star at the right time doesn't bother me. I would have voted for Keira Knightley, but it's difficult to muster much outrage that Keira Knightley doesn't have an Academy Award.