Who was the best ever Best Actress Oscar winner, by decade? 2010s edition

2000s

I rank them as follows

1. Cate Blanchett

2. Meryl Streep

3. Renee Z

4. Olivia

5. Frances

6. Emma

7. Julianne

8. Natalie

9. Bree

10. Jennifer

Jennifer was the weakest of the decade, did nothing impressive in an overrated bore of a movie

Blue Jasmine and Blanchett's performance are among the most overrated of their time.

Blanchett has never shown her tits or arse but we have seen her take a shite on the toilet in Notes on a sandal

Blanchett is the reason I keep coming back to Blue Jasmine. She's funny, tragic, and very haunting in it. I've known women like that. A well deserved win.

My personal choices:

1. Blanchett

2. Moore

3. McDormand

4. Zellweger

The rest were mostly dull, horrible choices and are in some random order except for Lawrence who was truly the bottom of the barrel.

Streep

Colman

Stone

Portman

Larson

Lawrence

My ranking:

1. Blanchett

2. Moore

3. Zellweger

4. Colman

5. McDormand

6. Streep

7. Portman

8. Stone

9. Lawrence

10. Larson

Portman: Ingenue factor. Am I the only one who didn't love this performance? It's certainly not Jennifer Lawrence level bad but all she did was cry. 90% of the performance was just choreography and dancing.

Streep: Everything about this win was horrible. The performance was hammy, she got the accent wrong, Weinstein was behind it, and it was a terrible film that nobody saw.

Lawrence: And the Oscar for best Harvey Weinstein cocksucker goes to...

Blanchett: Definitely the best ever Best Actress 2010s winner. However, her desperate attempt to win the award showed when said she didn't want to talk to the press because she was upset about Philip Seymour Hoffman. My ass she just didn't want to talk about the Woody Allen controversy. Her speech was a little cringeworthy too, "Daniel Day Lewis this just exacerbates the honor" and "Julia hashtag suck it."

Moore: Overdue factor. Rosamund Pike was robbed.

Larson: The little boy acted circles around her. Charlotte Rampling was robbed. Does she give the best blowjobs since Nancy Reagan? How does somebody so completely mediocre have a Hollywood career?

Stone: Isabelle Huppert was robbed. She literally was playing herself. Having said that, I think she's more likable than Lawrence and Larson.

McDormand: It's not a bad performance but it's really nothing special. I don't know why they gave her a second oscar for just a decent performance in a mediocre film when Robbie and Ronan were right there.

Colman: I think she's overrated but I'm glad she won over Glenn's nothing of a performance in The Wife. Seeing Glenn lose in that golden dress was pretty hysterical also.

Zellweger: I just can't believe she won for another mediocre performance AND this time with no Weinstein around to help her.

R9 Streep got the accent dead on and the movie made $120 million

Chastain should have won for Zero Dark Thirty over J-Law's "look at me, I am acting" performance in SLPB

Handsdown Meryl Streep was the worst of the decade and arguably the worst Best Actress win ever. That movie was panned. Her acting was hammy. Why did she get the award, btw ? She already had 2 Oscars.

Zellweger : I always have a sweet spot for this lady. And she's never a bad actress in any movie. And every one likes an incredible comeback story. Her's is story of legends.

Blanchett was superb in Blue Jasmine. Well deserved.

Meryl was far from the worst, she really conveyed Thatcher

Of the nominees I would have said the most deserving:

2011: Viola Davis (Charlize in Young Adult and Tilda in We Need To Talk About Kevin should have been nominated over Glenn and Rooney)

2012: Emmanuelle Riva

2013: Blanchett

2014: Witherspoon or Pike

2015: Rampling

2016: Huppert

2017: Sally Hawkins

2018: Melissa Mccarthy

2019: Renee Z

Agreed, r6. She reminds me so much of an ex friend (I haven’t seen her in years). She used to take a group of friends on her private jet to Aspen for dinner, every couple of months. Her life seemed fabulous, and she was a sweetheart. Her husband ended up getting busted for all kinds of shady shit. He killed himself. He left her broke, and ran through her inheritance as well. Link to her husband’s activities.

[quote]Handsdown Meryl Streep was the worst of the decade and arguably the worst Best Actress win ever. That movie was panned. Her acting was hammy. Why did she get the award, btw ? She already had 2 Oscars.

Streep wasn't the worst ever -- they'll never reward anything as bad as Pickford in Coquette -- but she was terrible, and so was the movie. Yes, she got the accent right, but she didn't have even the slightest understanding of who Margaret Thatcher was. It was a hammy caricature and nothing more.

I think I might be the only person here who is fine with Jennifer Lawrence and Brie Larson winning their Oscars. I think their performances don't receive any credit here because of the DL perception that Lawrence is a slut and Larson a scold, but Larson does a beautiful job with some very brutal scenes, while Jennifer Lawrence gets the energy of a David O. Russell movie better than almost anyone. Not my favorite wins by a longshot, but still respectable choices.

R15 they both deserved their nominations and some praise but did not deserve to win over their competition, especially Riva, Chastain and, Ronan and Rampling

I thought people liked Renee as Judy?

I don’t like chick flicks so the only one if these ten movies I even saw was Three Billboards and I found that overwrought.

^^^of these

Winners should have been

Nettie Bening

Charlize Theron (Young Adult)

Emmanuelle Riva

Cate Blanchett

Reese Witherspoon

Maggie Smith (Lady In The Van)

Isabelle Huppert

Sally Hawkins

Big Glenn

Saoirse R

Well looks like Miss Blanchett has more than a few fans here!

JLaw deserves her last place. A nomination would have been sufficient for that performance

OP, in addition to the final round featuring all the winners of each decade's poll, can you please also do a similar final round of the women who finished at the bottom in each decade? To help us decide who the worst of the winners is by seeing which one finishes last in that poll.

Are the winners so far

70’s - Liza 89’s - Meryl 90’s - Kathie Bates 00’s - Charlize 10’s - Cate

With punctuation

Are the winners so far

70’s - Liza; 80’s Meryl; 90’s - Kathie Bates; 00’s - Charlize ;10’s - Cate

R25 did you also see/vote in the earlier polls? I can link them if not, back to the 1920s

R23 that never even occurred to me but I bloody love your idea! I will indeed. I haven't really been keeping an eye on who's bottom so will check.

Hope everyone's been enjoying these threads!

OP, will you do the same for the other acting categories?

R27 yes I'd be happy to if people would enjoy it.

BSA or Actor next?

Actor, please, R28.

I think we should do Actor then S Actor and save S Actress for last.

And maybe leave J Lange out of the BSA poll for the 80s so that the psycho Lange loon and its sockpuppets don't vote 500 times.

I just watched The Favourite, but otherwise I haven’t seen ANY of these performances. Isn’t that odd?

I actually agree with how DL has voted each decade. Except maybe the 70s- am a Jane Fonda Klute fan. I feel Saroise should have won too, especially for Lady Bird. I actually liked Renee as Judy she made you believe it was her which is no mean feat. I feel Meryl did not do the same with Thatcher. I would have liked Viola to win that year really. OP this is such a great thread.

R33 glad you are liking it. I really like reading everyone's thoughts and take on each decade

But I want to say I feel Meryl probably could/should have won for Adaptation and Silkwood

Thanks OP, so nice to do something that really gives a lot of us joy.

[quote] I actually agree with how DL has voted each decade.

I don't for the 40s. Joan Crawford won for "MIldred Pierce," and I don;t think that's that good of a performance (Crawford is not a strong actress). it just won because it's the one everyone here has seen.

it should really have gone to Olivia de Havilland for "The Heiress," which may be the finest single performance of the studio era (runners-up: Barbara Stanwyck in "Stella Dallas," and Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca," though neither won Best Actress her year).

Both Reese Witherspoon and Rosamund Pike were more worthy of the oscar that year than Julianne Moore.

As much as I love Julianne Moore, seriously, Rosamund Pike should have won that year.

R38: Felicity, Reese, Marion, and Rosamund were all more worthy than Moore

R40 what about me?

We went from the worst winner ever Lawrence to the best winner ever Blanchett.

I'm surprised so many people are voting for Brie Larson

Wow lots of love for Olivia

In hindsight Sally Hawkins probably should have won for "The Shape Of Water" over McDormand. She was wonderful

Colman is the only one that was not 100% geared towards winning or being nominated for an Oscar. I really like it the most, very surprising and endearing.

R25, your punctuation is wrong. The apostrophe goes before the numeric decades to replace 19 and 20. Also, Jessica Lange is the winner for the '90s.

Jessica was disqualified because of cheating by her fan.

Surprised Portman is polling as well as she is. That performance was pure amateur hour. Everyone in supporting acted circles around her.

Olivia Colman was lucky to win for that hack one note piece of moviemaking.

How many awards is the bitch going to win before enough people catch on that the empress has no clothes?

R50 Ouch, that's a bit harsh!

Julianne Moore has been great in many things, but to win for Still Alice was ridiculous. That was one of the most forgettable movies I've ever seen. Ironic considering the subject matter.

Brit here, I like Coleman for her comedy, but I must've been one of the only people who didn't like her Oscar speech, contrived from the moment her name was announced - "I used to work as a cleaner!" - that was the part that really irked me, bah, so patronising, just terrible.

R53 I agree to an extent but no one was expecting her to win! Poor Glenn..

I remember Olivia Coleman was really touching in her portrayal of a shy secretary in the BBC Olympics satire "Twenty Twelve", her boss was played by Hugh Bonneville and he was completely oblivious to her affection - she always works very well in ensembles, and is always memorable, and helps elevate things, she shouldn't feel the need to chase after "prestige".

Glenn Close should team up with Stephen Frears once more!

Has Glenn got anything lined up?

Celebrity Big Brother perhaps?

Glenn should put up her own money to produce Sunset Boulevard, if she believes in it so much..

I doubt Paramount would let her. Like Gypsy with Barbara it’s a guaranteed FLOP.

Surely they could make it for a pittance if Glenn waives her fee and they get one of her friends to loan their mansion?

Has Glenn Close ever been a Gloria Swanson type, would she work as Norma Desmond on film? If they ever do a remake of Sunset, they should do a new twist on it, something that shows everyone else to be crazy rather than Norma Desmond.

I've just read this wonderful comment, and I had to share it here:

"There’s more than a whiff of ancient Egypt about silent cinema.

Like tomb paintings wrapped in hieroglyphics, silent cinema’s dramatic gestures, ornate title cards and grand scenes bedecked with armies of costumed extras bore dynastiesaway, from scorching glory days to their horrible nitro celluloid demise.

Stardom, like pharaohhood granted godlike immortality, and what is celebrity if not a cult? Even the darkness of the cinema recalls the dust of the tomb in which the vestiges of vital power are encased and sealed with a kiss.

This is of course is not a new observation. The rise of cinema coincided with first dynasty art deco, and many cinemas embodied elements of Egyptian design, which thanks to Howard Carter and Tutankhamen was enjoying a minor renaissance at the time.

And Gloria did hieroglyphics very well. Her emotional semaphore transported her audiences into helpless slavery and her whiplash eyebrows kept their rapt attention until slow anthems returned them to the other side of the turnstiles."

Looks like Cate has her fans

Looking forward to Jen Lawrence showing up in the "Worst Winner by Decade" poll. Hope she finishes last in that one too.

r65, you mean, the least worst? Or the most worst?

I’ve not seen Portman, Stone and Zellwegger and I thought all three of them deserved their Oscar.

I’ve only seen Portman, Stone and Zellwegger and I thought each actress deserved their Oscar. I wasn’t interested in seeing the other performers because their movies seemed small.

Gaga should have won over Olivia Colman.

[quote]In hindsight Sally Hawkins probably should have won for "The Shape Of Water" over McDormand. She was wonderful

I like Sally Hawkins and really enjoyed that particular performance, but I thought McDormand's in 3BB was head-and-shoulders above it.