Best Actress, 2000-2009: Your Thoughts?

As we looked at the Best Actors of 2000-2009, we had an even harder time determining the best leading actresses of the last 10 years. Even with the dearth of female leading roles, some elite members not only achieved new artistic heights but mass appeal as well. The hard part is, it really only came down to three actresses for us: Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, and Cate Blanchett (everyone else had a few misses for every strong film). So here are our nominations for Best Leading Actress, 2000-2009. Voice acting and cameos not included, wins/losses are a carefully calculated formula of box office and overall critical reception--or, just a gut feeling.

Kate Winslet

Wins: Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Finding Neverland, Iris, Little Children, Eternal Sunshine, Quills

On the fence: The Holiday, Romance & Cigarettes

Losses: All the King's Men, Enigma, The Life of David Gale

Meryl Streep

Wins: Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia, Julie & Julia, The Hours, Adaptation, It's Complicated, A Prarie Home Companion

On the Fence: The Manchurian Candidate, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Losses: Lions for Lambs, Evening, Rendition, Prime

Cate Blanchett

Wins: The Aviator, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I’m Not There, Notes on a Scandal, Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Babel, Veronica Guerin, Bandits, The Gift

On the Fence: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Little Fish, The Life Acquatic With Steve Zissou, The Missing, Coffee and Cigarettes, Heaven, Charlotte Gray

Losses: The Good German, The Shipping News, The Man Who Cried

Laura Linney

Wins: The Savages, The Squid and the Whale, Kinsey, P.S., Love Actually, Mystic River, The House of Mirth, You Can Count on me, Breach

On the Fence:  The Nanny Diaries, Driving Lessons

Losses: The Other Man, Man of the Year, The Hottest State, Jindabyne, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Life of David Gale, The Mothman Prophecies

Julianne Moore

Wins: A Single Man, The Hours, Far From heaven, I’m Not There, Hannibal, Children of Men

On the Fence: Blindness, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Losses: Savage Grace, Next, Freedomland, Trust the Man, The Forgotten, Laws of Attraction, Marie and Bruce, The Shipping News, World Traveler, Evolution, The Ladies Man

Also-rans: Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche.

Who else would you add to the list? --Ellen

Comments

[Trendart on January 02, 2010 at 05:39 AM]

Actress of the Decade? Definitely Meryl Streep, tho Laura Linney is a close runner-up. Ms. Streep is so verstile, so thorough in character conceptionm she is always believable as, well, an example: Julia Child. She is much shorter (cf. standing on boxes and in very high heels that the production designer put her in, much less strong boned (even padding couldn't help that), and, yet, and yet...she convincingly becomes "Julia" (& I must've watched 100's of Julia Child 'Bon Appetit's thru the years!) And her 'Anne Wintour' doppelganger was seemingly right on; so that bitchiness aside I had sympathy for the personal side revealed!

[怀淰＠＾过厾 on August 12, 2010 at 11:29 PM]

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[sensations on October 29, 2010 at 12:25 AM]

I saw its ordered happiness,but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course.There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights.In my heart was desire to live more dangerously.I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous,shoals it I could only have change-change and the exicitement of unforeseen.

[xiao on November 15, 2010 at 05:25 PM]

There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights.In my heart was desire to live more dangerously.