Best Actress Retrospective: An Introduction

 

If we go by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Mikey Madison is better than Greta Garbo, Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr. How? This year, Madison won Best Actress for her performance in Anora. One wonders if Garbo would have won the Oscar if she had shaken her ass in Ninotchka. Perhaps if Dunne had simulated sex on screen in Love Affair, that Oscar would have been hers. For that matter, would Madison be able to play, now or in the future, the leads in Camille or I Remember Mama? This, of course, does not even count Myrna Loy or Maureen O'Hara, who were never even nominated once.

In the history of the Academy Awards, as of this writing 80 women have received a Best Actress Oscar. Katharine Hepburn currently holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins at four, with Frances McDormand hot on her heels at three. Some of those wins have stood the test of time (Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins). Some are pretty much forgotten (Luise Rainer's first back-to-back win for The Great Ziegfeld, Glenda Jackson's second win for A Touch of Class). Where will Madison's win eventually fall? Will her Anora be mentioned in the same breath as Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress or will it be as obscure as Joan Fontaine's win for Suspicion? 

With that, I am embarking on something of a fool's errand. I will watch and review all 100 Best Actress Oscar winning performances (there was one case of a tie, and the first Best Actress winner won for three performances), starting backwards owing to the unavailability of some of the Oscar-winning films. You can't find everything on streaming. 

I have already reviewed 48 performances as of this writing, which is not bad. I will, after the retrospective is complete, rank them to find the Ten Best, the Ten Worst, and the overall ranking for all our winners. I will go only by the performance itself, not who the competition was. That might come later, on a year-by-year basis.

With that, I now formally begin my Best Actress Retrospective.