Another year where best actress really was an embarrassment of riches – I could easily make the case for anyone in my top 10 for the year’s best, and any number of runners up higher in a different year.
Runners-Up: Jessica Chastain in Molly’s Game handles Sorkin’s dialogue like a pro, and carries the whole movie on her back. Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman was the perfect Wonder Woman – full of strength and sincerity and humor - the superhero we need right now. Nicole Kidman in The Beguiled keeps herself in control in her role, even as everything gets brilliantly overheated, which makes it more disturbing. Jennifer Lawrence in mother! Basically plays a symbol more than character – and does so brilliantly. Cynthia Nixon in A Quiet Passion is excellent as Emily Dickinson, in a costume drama that doesn’t romanticize the period, or her life. Haley Lu Richardson in Columbus is wonderful as a young woman drifting in her life, not sure what she wants to do next. Debra Winger in The Lovers is excellent, as always, as a wife who is having an affair, and cannot tell her husband about it – before she starts having an affair with her husband.
10. Kristen Stewart in Personal ShopperThere are few actors working today who command your attention so fully, while doing nothing, than Kristen Stewart. She spends much of Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper staring at her iPhone, as texts message from, well, someone, come in an horrify her. Yet, just try to look away, as she travels around Paris horrified, or tries on clothes she cannot afford, all the while, grieving for her brother. This is a performance I cannot imagine another actress of Stewart’s age giving – it’s quiet, and subtle and brilliant, and relies on her screen presence, which she carries effortlessly. I never get tired of watching Stewart.
9. Meryl Streep in The Post
One of the greatest actresses in history, Streep does have a tendency at times to suck all the air out of a movie and keep it for herself – which is why in many of her recent movies (from The Devil Wears Prada to Julie & Julia to The Iron Lady to Florence Foster Jenkins) are average overall, but great showcases for her. It’s good to see her in something like The Post, where she goes more understated in her performances, playing a powerful woman, who needs to fully except that power, in a world full of men – none of whom really believe in her. Streep makes Kay Graham sympathetic and vulnerable – and that only increases her power. Streep is always good, but she rarely has material this good, or a director this good – and it shows in just how great she is here.
8. Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water
Sally Hawkins has long been one of the more interesting actresses’ working- I still cannot believe she didn’t get nominated for Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky – and she’s always a bright shining light in any of her films. Here, director Guillermo Del Toro takes away one of her greatest assets – her voice – and she somehow delivers an even more endearing performance. It’s not easy to play a romance next to a sea creature – but Hawkins does it – not only that, she makes you believe it, and believe that she could enlist so many others to help her. It’s a physical performance yes, but it’s a deeply felt one as well. Hawkins has always been great – let’s hope more people realize it going forward.
7. Margot Robbie in I, Tonya
Tonya Harding is the kind of juicy roles that actresses would kill for – and its Robbie’s good luck that this movie wasn’t made years ago, when Amy Adams would have been perfect. Still, it’s hard to think that Adams could have been much better than Robbie is here, who captures the dual sides of Harding brilliantly – she is a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who just wanted a chance. Had she actually won gold – with no knee bashing – it would be one of the most inspirational sports stories of all time. Here, Robbie is hilarious, but she also does a great job of making Harding sympathetic, and yet also making you understand why everyone hated her so much. Robbie has been a star since her brilliant work in The Wolf of Wall Street – but here, she finds the perfect role for her. The role is a high wire act – and she pulls it off brilliantly.
6. Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth
The key to Florence Pugh’s performance in Lady Macbeth, is that in the first half of the film, she makes you like this woman – makes you feel sorry for her. She is a young woman, sold into marriage, with an older, rough man who doesn’t even like her, let alone love her, and placed on a cold farm, where she’s supposed to stay inside all the time. Her affair with a worker is almost feminist – her freeing herself from bondage. And then, in the second half, she does one monstrous thing after another, and you slowly realize what kind of performance you’ve been rooting for. Newcomer Pugh has to show all of this under a carefully benign expression most of the time – she cannot speak up, or else she will get in trouble. This is one of the great breakthrough performances of the year – I just wish more people realized it.
5. Saorise Ronan in Lady Bird
Saorise Ronan is one of the best actresses working today – and has been since her breakout role in Atonement, a decade ago. While I won’t say her work in Lady Bird is the best of her career so far (her work in Brooklyn is one of the very best performances of the decade), it does show another side of her – and just how much range she has. As the title character, she is a high school senior, stuck in Sacramento, thinking the entire world is against her. She can be bratty and entitled – but that’s just par for the course in being a teenager. She is also hard hearted, but open and honest (most of the time), clashes with her mother, but ultimately sees her as more than an enemy. It’s also a hilarious performance, which Ronan absolutely rips into. I’m starting to think there is nothing Ronan cannot do. 
4. Garance Marillier in Raw
French newcomer Garance Marillier delivers the best performance of the year that will be nominated for no awards, since it was delivered in a foreign language horror film – and a damn bloody one at that. Marillier’s performance is a unique coming-of-age sort, as she has to deal with being on her own for the first time, peer pressure, sex, etc. Oh, and the fact that the vegetarian now hungers for raw meat – particularly human. Marillier has a sweet and open face – which she uses to great effect in the early scenes in the movie, making you feel for her, and win you over. And then, she rips into the scenes later, when she has gone off the deep end – and in the film’s most memorable moment, stares directly into the camera, challenging the audience, confronting them, daring them to still like her. It’s a great performance in a genre that often spawns them – but rarely gets the credit for it.
3. Brooklynn Prince in The Florida ProjectIt’s hard when it comes to child performances to determine just how much is the actor themselves, and how much credit the director should get for drawing that performance out of them – and then editing it in a way to make it look the way it does. But then again, couldn’t the same be said for pretty much any performance? What I do know is that as Moonee, Brooklynn Prince absolutely stole my heart in the film – acting precisely like a child, and showing the audience how a child does navigate that world, which is full of pain and poverty. The ending is a heartbreaker – both because it’s a world that Moonee may never know, and because you cannot help but wonder just what this bright, hilarious child is going to go through once the film ends. Typically, I do stay away from child performances in these sorts of lists – but once in a great while, one nails it. The best thing I can say about Prince’s work here is that for a child this young, the only performance I have ever seen that is better is Brigitte Fossey’s, all the back in 1952’s Forbidden Games. It’s an all timer.
2. Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread
Alma is the character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread who fascinates me the most – mainly because even at the end of the movie, she is an enigma. While Day-Lewis’ Reynolds is easier to peg from the start, and Manville’s Cyril, snaps into focus as we get to know her – Krieps plays Alma as a character who keeps everything close to her chest, not letting the audience, or those around her, completely in on her actions. She is immediately alluring, and continues to fascinate throughout the film – remaining still and quiet, never really letting things slip. This makes it all the more fascinating that she, in effect, narrates the story. There are some performances (like #1 in this category) that immediately grab you by the throat and won’t let go. Then there are ones like this that creep up on you slowly, but stay with you forever.
1. Frances McDormand in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
I cannot help but wonder why it’s taken the brilliant Frances McDormand 21 years to find another role close to as rich and wonderful as her Oscar winning role in Fargo (I say close, because that really is one of the best written roles of all time. She has undeniably done great work in the intervening years, but finally in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, she finds another lead role truly worthy of her talents. Here she plays the bitter and angry mother of a murdered daughter, who wants justice for her child, or else she will (literally) burn the whole damn place to the ground to try and get it. The first half of the film, you feel her righteous anger, you cheer on her profane rants and insults – and she is clearly a hero. The second half of the film deepens this character though – makes her more flawed, and complicated – perhaps not the hero we envisioned. McDormand rips into the role and relishes every delicious line. She truly is one of the greats.
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