The best actress of our time?

Toss up between Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton

Meryl and Glenn are past their prime.

I know people here loathe her, but I’d put Nicole Kidman on the list, and probably even rank her just behind Cate and Kate.

Minka Kelly

Oh it’s her, we all know it’s her whether we like it or not.

Viola "One Note" Davis, Jessica "Woke as Fuck" Chastain, and Frances "I Don't Give A Fuck" McDormand have no business being on the same list as G, M, and Cate.

not Meryl. overrated.

Jessica Lange

I can't believe Jessica Chastain won for that Donald Trump in drag movie.

Frances McDormand is the worst on the list. No range, plays herself in everything, her I don't care attitude is fake and annoying, and owes most of her career to her husband.

Zero? Poor Glenn.

Meryl is the same character

Streep is the Al Pacino of American actresses. One or two standouts early on and then hackneyed shit.

Tilda Swinton can act rings around her, and is just possibly the most under-appreciated actress of the era.

Most of these actresses are fine, but Kate is my girl.

Meryl is your winner.

McDormand is the most talented and versatile among these performers. Penelope Cruz belongs nowhere near this list.

Disappointed Scarlet Johansson isn't on the list

Here's Part II bitches

Let me submit Juliette Binoche and Rebecca Hall.

Up to 4.5! Well done, Glennie!

I'd suggest Julianne Moore.

Léa Seydoux. If "our time" is younger than the crypt keeping eldergays.

There's a difference, I guess, between best actress of our time and best living actress. Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith are coming to the end of their careers, but they should be here, too. And Meryl might have a surprise or two up her sleeve in the next 10-15 years.

Why isn't Linda Lavin and Polly Holiday on this list ?

Marin Ireland.

R16 What is versatile about Frances? She can play every different type of common midwesterner??

As overexposed as she is, Meryl has to win. She's played such a great range of roles and done so brilliantly even if the films themselves aren't very memorable. The ones that were less Oscar bait-y like The Devil Wears Prada, She-Devil, and Death Becomes Her will end up being rewatched and talked about more than Out of Africa or The Iron Lady as the decades fly by.

And fuck all these actresses, they’re all pretentious Oscar bait actresses.

I like someone like Kirsten Dunst who I think can take on genuinely good parts without thinking about an Oscar.

Judy Davis.

Jodie Foster

OH, some people chose Glenn. In a Best Actress poll. Bless their hearts.

Andrea Riseborough

Where Julianne Moore?

I think Streep wins this one. Once she dies or retires. Cate, Frances, and Jodi can fight it out.

If Cate wants to take Meryl's crown, she is going to need to make some better movies and give some more coherent performances with less scenery-chewing. And learn how to relax and be more "relatable" in interviews, which is maybe Meryl's greatest sleight-of-hand.

Meryl and quite a few women on the list's entire star persona is contingent on their being great actors, thus, people explicitly go to see their films to watch them 'act' in the same way people go to see Julia Roberts to see her laugh and fall in love against the odds. Meryl is the archetype of this actor, but Blanchett and Winslet also fall into this category. The problem with this is that their choices in material become a bit obvious and while sometimes challenging, oftentimes repetetive. Daniel Day-Lewis and Pacino would be the male equivalents that I could think of, off the top of my head.

Meryl is a great actor, but I would say among her peers from the 1970s and '80s, Debra Winger was a far more raw and honest in her performances. Kidman makes far more interesting choices in terms of roles and directors (though she sometimes can also get caught up in being a 'great actor' PR). Both probably have less range than Streep, though to be fair, has Meryle ever played a character who wasn't intelligent?

Mary Fisher and that sex therapist woman from "Web Therapy" and the vulgar president in "Don't Look Up" are not the brightest....and Meryl condescends to their dumbness. But she can play ordinary not-too-bright women, as in "Marvin's Room" and "Hope Springs."

My favorite used to be Joan Allen but she doesn't get work anymore.

Samantha Morton. Always outstanding, she's doing a fabulous Catherine de Medici in "The Serpent Queen" right now. Her ten minutes of screentime, or however many it was, stole that "Elizabeth" sequel right out from under Cate Blanchett. Granted it was nothing compared to the first "Elizabeth" flick but Morton put them all to shame anyway. She's a wonderful actress.

Christine Blasey Ford

Seconding Andrea Riseborough!

Kate Winslet has terrible choices in projects but I find her to be a much better actress than Streep or Close. Cate Blanchett runs so hot and cold. When she's great, there's no one better, when she's bad, she's horrendous, which prevents me from calling her the greatest of our time. Nicole Kidman is awful 90% of the time but has occasional moments of inspired acting, it's laughable she's getting an AFI award.

Julianne Moore is pretty great but seems to not get the Great Actress respect that Winslet, Blanchett, or even one-note (but entertaining) Frannie McD gets...is it because she's very good looking? Gets naked a lot while being American?

Isabelle Huppert is probably my pick if we're going international. I guess I like redheads!

Meryl is such a boring actress. I never buy her dramatic performances as honest, she's best in comedy when she doesn't have the usual stick up her ass. People look at me like I'm insane when I say her best work was Death Becomes Her!

Her ex-classmate Sigourney Weaver is a lot more charismatic and fun to watch, if less "technically" (whatever THAT means) gifted.

And someone PLEASE explain to me the new reverence for Kirsten Dunst on here. She is someone who never registered to me except for Melancholia, which I totally credit to Lars von Trier being a fantastic (yes, he is) director of actresses. He got great acting work out of Bjork, for fuck's sake.

Sofia Coppola's movies are beautiful tableaus which would have the same effect with with any fresh faced young actress.

I've been impressed with Dunst's abilities since Interview with a Vampire, where she pretty much stole the movie from Cruise and Pitt, not just because she was doll-like and adorable, but conveyed the frustration and despair of a much older woman stuck in the body of a child. I've liked Dunst as an adult as well, however, she's a bit limited by her voice, similar to Sally Field. It can be hard for them to play gravitas with such high, thin voices.

Funny, R44. I agree with you about Dunst - few actresses of her generation can serve crumbling bravado with the nuance she can - but I was coming in here to say Sally!

Winslet can fucking do anything. She’s brilliant.

"OUR time"?

OP, how about your time?

Or are you caught between Helen Twelvetrees and Nazimova?

I can’t stand Winslet, nor Drunkst.

I just now realized from this thread that Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet are two different people. I know who Kate Winslet is, I think, so now I have to figure out who Cate B. is.

How is Kate Winslet in the back end? She's about as good as it's possible to be.

Annette Bening Julianne Moore

Sally Field is lot more vivacious than Dunst. She is watchable in very shitty comedies, which Dunst did a lot of (and fell totally flat in) during the 2000s. I saw many of her movies because she was at her mainstream peak when I was in high school/college - we’re about the same age.

She was also totally miscast in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, which was otherwise a perfectly cast movie. Mary Jane is supposed to be a sassy bombshell, not some whiny girl next door.

R52 yeah but you have to admit her voice (Sally Fields that is) prevents her from having the gravitas her contemporaries have. Her height probably contributes to that as well. I agree she’s always enjoyable to watch though (even when she’s not very good) which is another quality worth noting in actors generally.

Judi Dench is still alive, still the queen here, with Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren making up the triumvirate. Meryl is our greatest screen actress, but Glenn counts for a lot (and she continued to do stage work much more than Streep). I love everything Emma Thompson does, and also Tilda Swinton. I think Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Regina King, are all fine too.

Everybody wins. But Judi Dench is still alive.

Once upon a time Jane Fonda would have been on this list. It makes me sad people forget how superb she used to be.

But of everyone, I would honestly say Judy Davis is the very best of all of them. "My Brilliant Career," "A Passage to India," "High Tide," "My Brilliant Career," "Husbands and Wives," "Barton Fink," "Me and My Shadow"... she played incredibly different characters in these, and yet she was great in all of them.

Glenda Jackson - still hasn't lost it even after all those years away from acting. Being a politician kept her skills sharp.

Kate Winslet is the most underrated overrated actresses.

Tina Yothers.

Seconding Samantha Morton. Love her. Cate could be great if she learned to be more relatable in interviews. Stop preaching . You won't ever hear I'm dying to see the new Cate Blanchett movie like you would hear someone say I want to se the new Meryl movie. Merely is a charming woman. Cate can be great but she needs to come down to earth. Like Nicole her whsipery voice acting is shit but I enjoy watching her movies.

What about us?

Shirley Booth

r61: Thanks, Mr. B!

Perhaps I just haven’t watched enough Meryl Streep movies because I have yet to be impressed by her.

I did watch Viola Davis act circles around her in Doubt though.

R57 VERY apt way of describing her. She's overblown for the wrong reasons. Her best performances - Heavenly Creatures, Holy Smoke, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - are rarely cited among mainstream discussion of her talent.

Glenn Close.

The rest are garbage.

Gina Rowland is still alive.

R41 Winslet and Blanchett are also hot. And Winslet gets naked a lot. Or at least she used to. Bit she's not an American.

R43 Kirsten Dunst was great in second season of Fargo. Should have won The Golden Globe for the best actress, instead of Lady Gaga.

Best of the last 30 years:

Isabelle Huppert

Juliette Binoche

Tilda Swinton

Penelope Cruz

Nicole Kidman, Andrea Riseborough

And Toni Collette

Toni Collette is a better actress than all of those listed in the poll.

I also think Adele Haenel is fantastic in everything she’s in.

The Ice Queen Rampling anyone?

Marion Cotillard - can speak 5 languages, do hundred of accents, can sing and dance, and still doesn't mind presenting her cooter. Glenn and Meryl would never do that.

R67 Cate blanchett hot? You need your eyes checked Sir.

Rampling cannot act.

Penelope is a great actress in her native language, but awful in English. Same with Marion. They deserve to be on this list more than half the choices.

Has no one mentioned Michelle Williams? I kinda think she's up there...

Sarosie Ronan is missing form the list. She is a real talent. At the tender age of 28 and already 4 Oscar nominations

The best actress over the century might be Maureen Stapleton. Or Geraldine Page.

R75 Like you would know what's hot

Tori Spelling

R77 Neither actress is awful in English. The Immigrant, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Winslet was terrific in STEVE JOBS and in MARE OF EASTHAM (though the latter was very contrived). Not so much in MILDRED PIERCE, but that series became dull after a few episodes so it wasn't entirely her doing.

It's easy to hate on Meryl and dismiss her because when you're at the top, there's nowhere to go but down and people love to be contrary. But you don't "accidentally" get 21 Oscars noms.

She's elevated truly awful things like the Bridges of Madison County and She-Devil (where she gave an absolutely brilliant comedic performance). And nobody has the range that she does. Cate's great, but Meryl is just...Meryl. She's the greatest living actress and possibly the greatest actress of all time. She's never turned in a poor performance and if she's gotten bored and is just phoning it in, she's still so good you can't tell.

And she has Oscars, Emmys, and a Grammy. I've always been surprised she didn't take a Broadway job just to get herself a Tony and EGOT, but I think she probably doesn't care. She's not all ego. She's genuinely surprised when she wins things and she's happy for the success of other actors.

Basically, she is the best. You can write that she isn't but we're all just expressing an opinion. None of this is based on fact. Except the fact that more people think she's the best than any other actress.

Jodie Foster?!

I feel like people only say Meryl is overrated because they CAN'T say she's underrated! She's the most awarded and esteemed actress alive. What are you gonna say? She's fairly rated? Nah, you're just going to look for non-existent flaws and say "she's overrated".

Renee Zelwegger?!?!?!

Hilary Swank!

^two extremely deserved Oscars. NOT overrated.

I recognize your posts, Mrs. Beatty!

It's still Meryl...no one else can touch her at her best.

TONI COLLETTE.

Anna Faris.

Judy Davis

Penelope Cruz doesn’t belong on this list.

OP, you made a mistake.

You didn't put my name on the list.

The correct answer is, of course, Miss Bradley Cooper.

Anyone who says Meryl is overrated should watch Kramer Vs Kramer then Doubt

Or Sophie's choice then Silkwood

Or A Cry In The Dark then Adaptation

Or Postcards From The Edge then The Hours

Or Death Becomes Her then Ironweed

Or Out Of Africa then The Devil Wears Prada

Or Florence Foster Jenkins then Angels In America

I think Cate is this generation’s Meryl in terms of wide recognition as a great actress. They are about 20 years apart. As you go younger, I can’t think of anyone but maybe it takes time.

[quote]I think Cate is this generation’s Meryl in terms of wide recognition as a great actress.

Cate's great. Personally I like Winslet more. But neither of them will ever be the chameleon that Streep is. It's not just the accents. It's the movement, the posture, everything. She has a such a distinct look, and yet when she played Lindy Chamberlain, Sophie, Miranda Priestly, Julia Child-I never once thought "I'm watching Meryl Streep". She just disappears effortlessly into characters.

Meh, probably someone who isn't all that famous and who we have never heard of. "Greatest" is very relative, and who ends up on top of Hollywood needn't be the best at all. Plus, it's very subjective.

Samantha Morton

Olivia Coleman

R101, I can agree with you on that. And I'd be comfortable saying Meryl Streep is the most accomplished actress of her generation or possibly ever.

R80, agree. Also, Colleen Dewhurst.

Cate losing the Oscar to that glorified stunt woman was beyond. Fàil.

[quote]Cate losing the Oscar to that glorified stunt woman was beyond. Fàil.

I'd like to revise my precious reply that Meryl Streep is the greatest actress of our time and replace it with Michelle Yeoh.

*previous^

Lesley Manville is the best actress working today. She is better than all the people in OP's list.

Cate Blanchett's Oscar-winning performance in Blue Jasmine was a copycat of Manville's superior turn in Another Year. It's shocking that Manville didn't even get an Oscar nomination for that performance.

I like Leslie Mann more than Lesley Manville. But I'm not sure she's Oscar ready yet (but she may have deserved a nom for Knocked Up)

I dont like Cate’s acting. She is never lost in the character. Every time I watch Cate onscreen, I am reminded it is Cate Blanchett acting.

I love that Glen Streep movie, Sophie’s Chill.

[quote]I dont like Cate’s acting

She plays "icy" very well!!