Top 12 Actresses of the Past 25 Years

Tuesday Top Ten Twelve: for the list maker in me and the list lover in you

As you may have read below, I'm getting ready to leave on that trip which has filled me with much aging anxiety... but one good thing about aging in terms of movie-loving: you get perspective. It's impossible to look at any current actor / director / critical / movie and attendant audience response and assume that the gradations of love or hoopla in place now are permanent things ...even your own feelings change. Actors fade or grow in stature, celebrities pop up out of nowhere, films that everyone loves people forget about and the reverse happens, too.

I was wandering 'round the web today and chanced upon this cover of Life magazine celebrating the movies in 1986! So long ago... but I remember being excited to buy it in high school. This was long before those Vanity Fair Hollywood issues. Jessica Lange, Sally Field, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn and Jane Fonda are listed as "Hollywood's Most Powerful Women"... that wasn't completely accurate even at the time considering that Meryl Streep and Kathleen Turner were the top superstars by anyone's sane account of mid 80s American cinema. But back on topic: these five movie careers were all about to shrink rapidly.

It got me to thinking about who I love now versus who I loved then so herewith are a dozen favorites (I couldn't restrict myself to ten) from the past twenty-five years. Not all of them are doing so well at the moment and some are now too old for lead roles in Hollywood but if you smoosh all those years together this is something approximating my dozen favorites --the women that I was seeing as I morphed from casual moviegoer to the über film fiend I am now.

Twelve Favorite Actresses (1983-2008)
In rough ascending order. Ask me tomorrow and rank would vary

If we make it a baker's dozen you'd see one of these names in the mix: Angela Bassett, Helena Bonham-Carter, Juliette Lewis, Emma Thompson, Tilda Swinton, Toni Collette, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Miranda Richardson or Christina Ricci. But this is a quarter century of love compiled... Obviously the top dozen of right now would be much different and quite a lot younger.


12 Nicole Kidman. Age: 40. First feature: BMX Bandits (1983). First time I saw her: Days of Thunder (1990)... I was not impressed. When I started to take her seriously: To Die For (1995). When I fell in love: Moulin Rouge! (2001). Her three best performances: Moulin Rouge! (2001), Birth (2004) and either The Others (2001) or To Die For (1995) depending on which day you ask me. I can't wait for: Australia (2008).

11 Annette Bening. Age: 49. First feature: The Great Outdoors (1988). First time I saw her, when I started to take her seriously, and when I fell in love: Postcards From The Edge (1990) --a one scene comic wonder. I didn't even look at Meryl Streep. This, you may have guessed, hardly ever happens. Her three best performances: The Grifters (1991), Being Julia (2004) and American Beauty (1999). I can't wait to see what kind of a spin she puts on the Roz Russell role in The Women (2008).

10 Mia Farrow Age: 63. First feature: John Paul Jones (1955). First time I saw her: Broadway Danny Rose (1984). I love her primarily due to that long and fruitful collaboration with Woody Allen. It ended poorly, sure. But not before they gave the cinema many treasures. Her three best performances in this time frame: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Alice (1990) and Broadway Danny Rose (1984). Also Oscar nomination worthy in Husbands and Wives (1992) and that's not even counting her earlier work. She's my choice for the #1 most egregiously Oscar snubbed actor of all time. That's right... in the entire history of Oscar's 80 years she has the most cause to bitch.


09 Uma Thurman. Age: 37. First feature: something from 1988. She made four movies in her first year. When I first saw her & fell in love lust: Dangerous Liaisons (1988)... it wasn't true love yet because I had a hard time seeing past Glenn Close & Michelle Pfeiffer at the time. Uma and I have had a rocky relationship and she may be the least purely talented of these 12 women but I shan't lie and pretend that my heart doesn't beat faster when I see her, no matter how uneven her work may be. Her three best performances: Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), Henry & June (1990) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Next movie: Life Before Her Eyes, a survivor's guilt drama in which Evan Rachel Wood plays her younger self.

08 Dianne Weist. Age: 59. First feature: It's My Turn (1980), a Jill Clayburgh vehicle. First time I saw her: Footloose (1984). When I fell in love: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1995) --a brief but endearing role. Her three best performances: Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) --were two Oscar winning performances by the same performer ever this different? -- and Parenthood (1999). She's the only performer in my lifetime that the Academy ever got it exactly right with in terms of nominations and wins for the exact right performances. Next up for Dianne: Part of the delicious stacked feminine ensemble of Synechdoche New York (2008).

07 Holly Hunter. Age: 49. First feature: The Burning (1981). First time I saw her and it wasn't just me who fell in love: Raising Arizona and Broadcast New (1987) a back to back wonder. Her three best performances: In what movie is she not amazing? Here's an old top ten. My sentimental fav' in some ways: Living out Loud (1998). Next up for Holly: more Saving Grace on television (see: related post)


06 Susan Sarandon. Age: 61. First feature: Joe (1970). First time I saw her: a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show (1977) in the 80s of course. Her three best performances in this time period: Dead Man Walking (1995), Thelma & Louise (1991) and Bull Durham (1988). True story: I carried a picture of her in my wallet for many years. Next up: Playing "Mom Racer" in Speed Racer (2008). Anxiously awaiting some filmmaker to give her a big juicy lead again. If Julie Christie, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren can get leads and Oscar nominations for their efforts, why not Sarandon?

05 Kate Winslet. Age: 32. First feature, when I first saw her and when I fell in love: all in one glorious package which happens to be Peter Jackson's best film and happens to be called Heavenly Creatures (1994). Her three best Performances: Holy Smoke (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Sense & Sensibility (1995). Next: appearing on every ballot of my Actress Psychic Contest for either The Reader or Revolutionary Road. Seriously y'all: Calm down!

04 Kathleen Turner. Age: 53. First feature: Body Heat (1981). When I first saw her and fell hard: Romancing the Stone (1984). More Kathleen Turner loving here.


These final three ladies I talk about too much. Hell, maybe I talk about all twelve too much. Next month I'll restrain myself from frequent topics and go new places. Promise. But today, I must indulge. It's my comfort food before a stressful trip. If you haven't had enough and are curious you can click away for redundant drooling.

03 Julianne Moore Age: 47. For much Mooooore, see previous posts. Julianne has two chances to win me back this year with Savage Grace and Blindness. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do. We've been estranged.

02 Meryl Streep Age: 58. If you love Streep --and who doesn't save Pauline Kael (RIP)? --don't doubt that there's more.

01 Michelle Pfeiffer Age: 49. If you love the one and only, there's more posts than you can probably read. Plus, the famous Pfeiffer Pforever blog-a-thon from '06.

Twenty-Five years of cinema. 1983 to 2008... who makes your list? And if you've only recent succumbed to the cinema in full, which actress from the past quarter century are you most to investigate? It's easier than it ever was to get acquainted with cinematic years gone by.
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