The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

1. Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Da'Vine Joy Randolph made her Broadway and West End debuts starring as Oda Mae Brown in Ghost the Musical (2012 Tony Award® Nomination, Best Featured Actress in a Musical). A Philadelphia native, she is an alum of Temple University in Theater with a concentration in Musical Theater and then ...

The Holdovers

Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)
Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple)
America Ferrera (Barbie)
Jodie Foster (Nyad)

2. Jamie Lee Curtis

Actress | Halloween

Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading...

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Hong Chau (The Whale)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

3. Ariana DeBose

Actress | West Side Story

Ariana DeBose is an American actress, dancer, and singer. Known for her performances on stage and screen, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 2022, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people ...

West Side Story

Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter)
Judi Dench (Belfast)
Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

4. Youn Yuh-jung

Actress | Minari

Beloved by audiences around the world, Youn Yuh-Jung's a legendary actress who has starred in many of Korea's most revered films & TV shows in a career that spans 5 decades. After winning Korea's Blue Dragon Award for best actress in her film debut as the country girl turned femme fatale in 1971's ...

Minari

Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)
Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy)
Olivia Colman (The Father)
Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

5. Laura Dern

Actress | Jurassic Park

Laura Dern was born on February 10, 1967 in Los Angeles, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Dern was exposed to movie sets and the movie industry from infancy, and obtained several bit parts as a child. Her parents divorced when Dern was two and Dern lost contact with her father for ...

Marriage Story

Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell)
Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit)
Florence Pugh (Little Women)
Margot Robbie (Bombshell)

6. Regina King

Actress | Ray

Regina King was born in Los Angeles, California, to Gloria, a special education teacher, and Thomas King, an electrician. She began her career in the television show 227 (1985), followed by a role in Boyz n the Hood (1991). She began to be recognized by a mainstream audience after her role as Cuba ...

If Beale Street Could Talk

Amy Adams (Vice)
Marina de Tavira (Roma)
Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

7. Allison Janney

Actress | The Help

Allison Janney is an award-winning actress who has earned a solid reputation in stage productions and in many supporting roles on screen, and who more recently has become prominent by portraying one of the major characters in the popular TV series The West Wing (1999).

Entertainment Weekly magazine ...

I, Tonya

Mary J. Blige (Mudbound)
Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread)
Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)

8. Viola Davis

Actress | Fences

Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated ...

Fences

Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

9. Alicia Vikander

Actress | Ex Machina

Alicia Vikander is a Swedish actress, dancer and producer. She was born and raised in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden, to Maria Fahl, an actress of stage and screen, and Svante Vikander, a psychiatrist. Through her mother, she is one quarter Finnish, and had a maternal great aunt who moved...

The Danish Girl

Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight)
Rooney Mara (Carol)
Rachel McAdams (Spotlight)
Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)

10. Patricia Arquette

Actress | Boyhood

With her expressive blue eyes, soft, Southern-tinged voice and an acting range that can carry her from hysterically funny to terrifying in seconds, Patricia Arquette is one of the most underrated and talented actresses of her generation. Though she has been working for years, she's always stayed ...

Boyhood

Laura Dern (Wild)
Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)
Emma Stone (Birdman)
Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)

11. Lupita Nyong'o

Actress | 12 Years a Slave

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o was born March 1, 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents, Dorothy Ogada Buyu and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Her father, a senator, was then a visiting lecturer in political science. She was raised in Kenya. At age 16, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to...

12 Years a Slave

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
June Squibb (Nebraska)

12. Anne Hathaway

Actress | Les Misérables

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Kate McCauley Hathaway, an actress, and Gerald T. Hathaway, a lawyer, both originally from Philadelphia. She is of mostly Irish descent, along with English, German, and French. Her first major role came in the short-lived television series ...

Les Misérables

Amy Adams (The Master)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

13. Octavia Spencer

Actress | Hidden Figures

Spencer is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, which she claims is the proverbial buckle of the Bible belt. She's the sixth of seven siblings and holds a BS in Liberal Arts from Auburn University. A "closet" lover of acting, this practical Alabamian knew that she'd someday work in the film industry, ...

The Help

Bérénice Bejo (The Artist)
Jessica Chastain (The Help)
Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)

14. Melissa Leo

Actress | The Fighter

Melissa Leo is an American actress. She is known for her Academy Award-winning performance in the 2010 film The Fighter (2010). She was born on September 14, 1960, in New York City. Leo starred as the mother of boxer Micky Ward in the 2010 film The Fighter, also starring Mark Wahlberg. The role ...

The Fighter

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

15. Penélope Cruz

Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to ...

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Amy Adams (Doubt)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

16. Tilda Swinton

Actress | We Need to Talk About Kevin

The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded ...

Michael Clayton

Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
Ruby Dee (American Gangster)
Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)

17. Jennifer Hudson

Soundtrack | Dreamgirls

Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois to Darnell Donerson (née Hudson) & Samuel Simpson. She is an Academy Award-winning actress, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and best-selling author. This bright, beautiful and booming-voiced talent is a perfect example ...

Dreamgirls

Adriana Barraza (Babel)
Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal)
Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)
Rinko Kikuchi (Babel)

18. Rachel Weisz

Actress | The Constant Gardener

Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. ...

The Constant Gardener

Amy Adams (Junebug)
Catherine Keener (Capote)
Frances McDormand (North Country)
Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain)

19. Cate Blanchett

Actress | Carol

Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten ...

The Aviator

Laura Linney (Kinsey)
Virginia Madsen (Sideways)
Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda)
Natalie Portman (Closer)

20. Renée Zellweger

Actress | Chicago

Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée ...

Cold Mountain

Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog)
Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April)
Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River)
Holly Hunter (Thirteen)

21. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Actress | Chicago

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (...

Chicago

Kathy Bates (About Schmidt)
Julianne Moore (The Hours)
Queen Latifah (Chicago)
Meryl Streep (Adaptation.)

22. Jennifer Connelly

Actress | A Beautiful Mind

Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across ...

A Beautiful Mind

Helen Mirren (Gosford Park)
Maggie Smith (Gosford Park)
Marisa Tomei (In the Bedroom)
Kate Winslet (Iris)

23. Marcia Gay Harden

Actress | Mystic River

Marcia Gay Harden was born on August 14, 1959, in La Jolla, California, the third of five children. Her mother, Beverly (Bushfield), was a homemaker, and her father, Thad Harold Harden, was in the military. The family relocated often -- she first became interested in the theatre when the family was...

Pollock

Judi Dench (Chocolat)
Kate Hudson (Almost Famous)
Frances McDormand (Almost Famous)
Julie Walters (Billy Elliot)

24. Angelina Jolie

Actress | Maleficent

Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...

Girl, Interrupted

Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense)
Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich)
Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown)
Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry)

25. Judi Dench

Actress | Skyfall

Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...

Shakespeare in Love

Kathy Bates (Primary Colors)
Brenda Blethyn (Little Voice)
Rachel Griffiths (Hilary and Jackie)
Lynn Redgrave (Gods and Monsters)

26. Kim Basinger

Actress | L.A. Confidential

Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a ...

L.A. Confidential

Joan Cusack (In & Out)
Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting)
Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights)
Gloria Stuart (Titanic)

27. Juliette Binoche

Actress | The English Patient

Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, France, to Monique Yvette Stalens, a director, teacher, and actress, and Jean-Marie Binoche, a sculptor, director, and actor. Her mother was born in Czestochowa, Poland, of French, Walloon Belgian, and Polish descent, while her father is French. Juliette was only...

The English Patient

Joan Allen (The Crucible)
Lauren Bacall (The Mirror Has Two Faces)
Barbara Hershey (The Portrait of a Lady)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies)

28. Mira Sorvino

Actress | Mighty Aphrodite

Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional ...

Mighty Aphrodite

Joan Allen (Nixon)
Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13)
Mare Winningham (Georgia)
Kate Winslet (Sense and Sensibility)

29. Dianne Wiest

Actress | The Birdcage

One of three children (she has two brothers, Greg and Don), Dianne Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on 28 March 1946. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but she was bitten by acting bug after some stage work, most notably playing Desdemona to James Earl Jones' Othello on ...

Bullets over Broadway

Rosemary Harris (Tom & Viv)
Helen Mirren (The Madness of King George)
Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction)
Jennifer Tilly (Bullets over Broadway)

30. Anna Paquin

Actress | The Piano

Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.

She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved ...

The Piano

Holly Hunter (The Firm)
Rosie Perez (Fearless)
Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence)
Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father)

31. Marisa Tomei

Actress | My Cousin Vinny

Marisa Tomei was born on December 4, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, to Patricia "Addie" (Bianchi), a teacher of English, and Gary Tomei, a lawyer, both of Italian descent. Marisa has a brother, actor Adam Tomei. As a child, Marisa's mother frequently corrected her speech as to eliminate her heavy ...

My Cousin Vinny

Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives)
Joan Plowright (Enchanted April)
Vanessa Redgrave (Howards End)
Miranda Richardson (Damage)

32. Mercedes Ruehl

Actress | The Fisher King

Ruehl received her first Academy Award nomination and win for her performance as Anne Napolitano, the emotionally driven girlfriend to fallen radio personality, (played by Jeff Bridges), in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, The Fisher King (1991). In addition to an Oscar, and a Golden Globe, Ruehl's ...

The Fisher King

Diane Ladd (Rambling Rose)
Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear)
Kate Nelligan (The Prince of Tides)
Jessica Tandy (Fried Green Tomatoes)

33. Whoopi Goldberg

Actress | Ghost

Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...

Ghost

Annette Bening (The Grifters)
Lorraine Bracco (Goodfellas)
Diane Ladd (Wild at Heart)
Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves)

34. Brenda Fricker

Actress | My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown

Irish character actress Brenda Fricker was born in Dublin, and gained experience in Irish theatre and with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Court Theatre Company in Great Britain. Brenda received great acclaim for her Oscar-winning supporting performance as the ...

My Left Foot

Anjelica Huston (Enemies, A Love Story)
Lena Olin (Enemies, A Love Story)
Julia Roberts (Steel Magnolias)
Dianne Wiest (Parenthood)

35. Geena Davis

Actress | Thelma & Louise

As a child, Geena dreamed of being an actress. While in high school, she felt left out and had low self-esteem because, at 6 feet, she was the tallest girl in school. After high school graduation, Geena entered New England College in New Hampshire and then transferred the next year to Boston ...

The Accidental Tourist

Joan Cusack (Working Girl)
Frances McDormand (Mississippi Burning)
Michelle Pfeiffer (Dangerous Liaisons)
Sigourney Weaver (Working Girl)

36. Olympia Dukakis

Actress | Moonstruck

Long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher's sardonic mother in the romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). Movie (and ...

Moonstruck

Norma Aleandro (Gaby: A True Story)
Anne Archer (Fatal Attraction)
Anne Ramsey (Throw Momma from the Train)
Ann Sothern (The Whales of August)

37. Dianne Wiest

Actress | The Birdcage

One of three children (she has two brothers, Greg and Don), Dianne Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on 28 March 1946. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but she was bitten by acting bug after some stage work, most notably playing Desdemona to James Earl Jones' Othello on ...

Hannah and Her Sisters

Tess Harper (Crimes of the Heart)
Piper Laurie (Children of a Lesser God)
Mary Elizabeth Mastranonio (The Color of Money)
Maggie Smith (A Room with a View)

38. Anjelica Huston

Actress | The Grifters

Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's ...

Prizzi's Honor

Margaret Avery (The Color Purple)
Amy Madigan (Twice in a Lifetime)
Meg Tilly (Agnes of God)
Oprah Winfrey (The Color Purple)

39. Peggy Ashcroft

Actress | A Passage to India

Academy Award-winning, legendary English actress - who maintained her status in the British acting elite for decades. Made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956. Almost always on stage, she appeared rarely in film, her first being The Wandering Jew (1933). On stage she was cast...

A Passage to India

Glenn Close (The Natural)
Lindsay Crouse (Places in the Heart)
Christine Lahti (Swing Shift)
Geraldine Page (The Pope of Greenwich Village)

40. Linda Hunt

Actress | The Year of Living Dangerously

Linda Hunt is a veteran character actress who had only just begun acting in motion pictures when director Peter Weir required her peculiarities to animate one of cinema's most esoteric characters, Billy Kwan, the intellectual and virtuous Chinese-Australian dwarf and photographer, in the Australian...

The Year of Living Dangerously

Cher (Silkwood)
Glenn Close (The Big Chill)
Amy Irving (Yentl)
Alfre Woodard (Cross Creek)

41. Jessica Lange

Actress | Tootsie

Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis...

Tootsie

Glenn Close (The World According to Garp)
Teri Garr (Tootsie)
Kim Stanley (Frances)
Lesley Ann Warren (Victor/Victoria)

42. Maureen Stapleton

Actress | Reds

Academy Award-winner Maureen Stapleton was born June 21, 1925 in Troy, New York, to Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton. Her family was of Irish descent. Maureen moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and did modeling to pay the bills. Already a Tony Award-winner, she made her Academy ...

Reds

Melinda Dillon (Absence of Malice)
Jane Fonda (On Golden Pond)
Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh)
Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime)

43. Mary Steenburgen

Actress | Last Vegas

Mary Steenburgen is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

She was born in Newport, Arkansas, USA. Her mother, Nellie May (Wall) Steenburgen, was a school-board secretary, and her father, Maurice H. Steenburgen, was a freight-train conductor. Her surname comes from distant Dutch ancestry, and ...

Melvin and Howard

Eileen Brennan (Private Benjamin)
Eva Le Gallienne (Resurrection)
Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull)
Diana Scarwid (Inside Moves)

44. Meryl Streep

Actress | Out of Africa

Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William ...

Kramer vs. Kramer

Jane Alexander (Kramer vs. Kramer)
Barbara Barrie (Breaking Away)
Candice Bergen (Starting Over)
Mariel Hemingway (Manhattan)

45. Maggie Smith

Actress | Gosford Park

One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...

California Suite

Dyan Cannon (Heaven Can Wait)
Penelope Milford (Coming Home)
Maureen Stapleton (Interiors)
Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter)

46. Vanessa Redgrave

Actress | Coriolanus

On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...

Julia

Leslie Browne (The Turning Point)
Quinn Cummings (The Goodbye Girl)
Melinda Dillon (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Tuesday Weld (Looking for Mr. Goodbar)

47. Beatrice Straight

Actress | Network

In her long career, Beatrice Straight did quite a bit of work in the movies, despite plying her trade mostly onstage. When she did grace the silver screen, she did it with great skill. Her first love was theater, having debuted on Broadway in the 1935 "Bitter Oleander". Her work garnered her much ...

Network

Jane Alexander (All the President's Men)
Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver)
Lee Grant (Voyage of the Damned)
Piper Laurie (Carrie)

48. Lee Grant

Actress | In the Heat of the Night

Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee ...

Shampoo

Ronee Blakley (Nashville)
Sylvia Miles (Farewell, My Lovely)
Lily Tomlin (Nashville)
Brenda Vaccaro (Once Is Not Enough)

49. Ingrid Bergman

Actress | Casablanca

Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...

Murder on the Orient Express

Valentina Cortese (Day for Night)
Madeline Kahn (Blazing Saddles)
Diane Ladd (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore)
Talia Shire (The Godfather Part II)

50. Tatum O'Neal

Actress | Paper Moon

Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress and author. She is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, winning at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. She also starred as Amanda Wurlitzer in The Bad News Bears (1976...

Paper Moon

Linda Blair (The Exorcist)
Candy Clark (American Graffiti)
Madeline Kahn (Paper Moon)
Sylvia Sidney (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams)

51. Eileen Heckart

Actress | The Bad Seed

Versatile, award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart, with the lean, horsey face and assured, fervent gait, was born Anna Eileen Herbert on March 29, 1919, in Columbus, Ohio. An only child, she lived with her mother after her parents separated when she was 2 years old, and was eventually ...

Butterflies Are Free

Jeannie Berlin (The Heartbreak Kid)
Geraldine Page (Pete 'n' Tillie)
Susan Tyrrell (Fat City)
Shelley Winters (The Poseidon Adventure)

52. Cloris Leachman

Actress | The Last Picture Show

The legendary actress set a record when at age 82, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars (2005). Cloris Leachman was born on April 30, 1926 in Des Moines, Iowa to Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman and the former Cloris Wallace. Her father's family owned a lumber company, Leachman Lumber Co. She ...

The Last Picture Show

Ann-Margret (Carnal Knowledge)
Ellen Burstyn (The Last Picture Show)
Barbara Harris (Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?)
Margaret Leighton (The Go-Between)

53. Helen Hayes

Actress | Airport

Known as "The First lady of the American Theater", Helen Hayes had a legendary career on stage and in films and television that spanned over eighty years. Hayes was born in Washington, D.C., to Catherine Estelle "Essie" Hayes, an actress who worked in touring companies, and Francis van Arnum Brown,...

Airport

Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces)
Lee Grant (The Landlord)
Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H)
Maureen Stapleton (Airport)

54. Goldie Hawn

Actress | Private Benjamin

Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland to Laura Hawn, a jewelry shop/dance school owner & Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has a sister, Patti Hawn, and a brother, Edward, who died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish...

Cactus Flower

Catherine Burns (Last Summer)
Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice)
Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy)
Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

55. Ruth Gordon

Actress | Rosemary's Baby

When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...

Rosemary's Baby

Lynn Carlin (Faces)
Sondra Locke (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter)
Kay Medford (Funny Girl)
Estelle Parsons (Rachel, Rachel)

56. Estelle Parsons

Actress | Bonnie and Clyde

The charming, witty, and immeasurably talented Estelle Parsons was born November 20, 1927 in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Elinor and Eben Parsons. She attended the Oak Grove School for Girls in Maine, and later graduated from Connecticut College in 1949. She worked as a singer with a band before she ...

Bonnie and Clyde

Carol Channing (Thoroughly Modern Millie)
Mildred Natwick (Barefoot in the Park)
Beah Richards (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)
Katharine Ross (The Graduate)

57. Sandy Dennis

Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

It would not be easy for anyone to out-do one of American theater's finest thespians, but somehow actress Sandy Dennis managed to even out-quirk the legendary Geraldine Page when it came to affecting nervous tics and offbeat mannerisms on stage and in film. She and Page had few peers when it came ...

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Wendy Hiller (A Man for All Seasons)
Jocelyne LaGarde (Hawaii)
Vivien Merchant (Alfie)
Geraldine Page (You're a Big Boy Now)

58. Shelley Winters

Actress | The Poseidon Adventure

Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling...

A Patch of Blue

Ruth Gordon (Inside Daisy Clover)
Joyce Redman (Othello)
Maggie Smith (Othello)
Peggy Wood (The Sound of Music)

59. Lila Kedrova

Actress | Alexis Zorbas

Lila Kedrova was a Russian actress, who spend most of her career as an expatriate. For her role as widowed courtesan Madame Hortense in Zorba the Greek (1964), Kedrova won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was the first Russian actress to win the award, and this was her only ...

Zorba the Greek

Gladys Cooper (My Fair Lady)
Edith Evans (The Chalk Garden)
Grayson Hall (The Night of the Iguana)
Agnes Moorehead (Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte)

60. Margaret Rutherford

Actress | The V.I.P.s

Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford ...

The V.I.P.s

Diane Cilento (Tom Jones)
Edith Evans (Tom Jones)
Joyce Redman (Tom Jones)
Lilia Skala (Lilies of the Field)

61. Patty Duke

Actress | Valley of the Dolls

Patty Duke was born Anna Marie Duke on December 14, 1946 in Elmhurst, Queens County, New York, to Frances Margaret (McMahon), a cashier, and John Patrick Duke, a cab driver and handyman. She was seven eighths Irish and one eighth German. Her acting career began when she was introduced to her ...

The Miracle Worker

Mary Badham (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Shirley Knight (Sweet Bird of Youth)
Angela Lansbury (The Manchurian Candidate)
Thelma Ritter (Birdman of Alcatraz)

62. Rita Moreno

Actress | West Side Story

Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa ...

West Side Story

Fay Bainter (The Children's Hour)
Judy Garland (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Lotte Lenya (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Una Merkel (Summer and Smoke)

63. Shirley Jones

Actress | The Music Man

Named after child star Shirley Temple, Shirley Jones started singing at the age of six. She started formal training at the age of 12 and would dream of singing with her idol, Gordon MacRae. Upon graduating from high school, Shirley went to New York to audition for the casting director of Rodgers & ...

Elmer Gantry

Glynis Johns (The Sundowners)
Shirley Knight (The Dark at the Top of the Stairs)
Janet Leigh (Psycho)
Mary Ure (Sons and Lovers)

64. Shelley Winters

Actress | The Poseidon Adventure

Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling...

The Diary of Anne Frank

Hermione Baddeley (Room at the Top)
Susan Kohner (Imitation of Life)
Juanita Moore (Imitation of Life)
Thelma Ritter (Pillow Talk)

65. Wendy Hiller

Actress | A Man for All Seasons

Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally ...

Separate Tables

Peggy Cass (Auntie Mame)
Martha Hyer (Some Came Running)
Maureen Stapleton (Lonelyhearts)
Cara Williams (The Defiant Ones)

66. Miyoshi Umeki

Actress | Sayonara

Miyoshi Umeki was born as the youngest of 9 children. The daughter of a prominent Japanese iron factory owner, she developed an early passion for music, learning to play the mandolin, harmonica & piano. She also enjoyed singing American-styled tunes, much to the chagrin of her parents. This ...

Sayonara

Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party)
Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)
Hope Lange (Peyton Place)
Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

67. Dorothy Malone

Actress | Written on the Wind

The blonde, sultry, dreamy-eyed beauty of Dorothy Malone, who was born Mary Maloney in Chicago on January 29, 1924, took some time before it made an impact with American film-going audiences. But once she did, she played it for all it was worth in her one chance Academy Award-winning "bad girl" ...

Written on the Wind

Mildred Dunnock (Baby Doll)
Eileen Heckart (The Bad Seed)
Mercedes McCambridge (Giant)
Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed)

68. Jo Van Fleet

Actress | East of Eden

Jo Van Fleet was born on December 29, 1915 in Oakland, California. She established herself as a notable dramatic actress on Broadway over several years, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for her skill in a difficult role, playing an unsympathetic, even abusive character, in Horton Foote's "The Trip to ...

East of Eden

Betsy Blair (Marty)
Peggy Lee (Pete Kelly's Blues)
Marisa Pavan (The Rose Tattoo)
Natalie Wood (Rebel Without a Cause)

69. Eva Marie Saint

Actress | On the Waterfront

Actress and producer Eva Marie Saint was born on July 4, 1924 on Newark, New Jersey. She is known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). Her film career also includes ...

On the Waterfront

Nina Foch (Executive Suite)
Katy Jurado (Broken Lance)
Jan Sterling (The High and the Mighty)
Claire Trevor (The High and the Mighty)

70. Donna Reed

Actress | It's a Wonderful Life

Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young ...

From Here to Eternity

Grace Kelly (Mogambo)
Geraldine Page (Hondo)
Marjorie Rambeau (Torch Song)
Thelma Ritter (Pickup on South Street)

71. Gloria Grahame

Actress | In a Lonely Place

Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944)...

The Bad and the Beautiful

Jean Hagen (Singin' in the Rain)
Colette Marchand (Moulin Rouge)
Terry Moore (Come Back, Little Sheba)
Thelma Ritter (With a Song in My Heart)

72. Kim Hunter

Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire

Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.

According to an in-depth article on ...

A Streetcar Named Desire

Joan Blondell (The Blue Veil)
Mildred Dunnock (Death of a Salesman)
Lee Grant (Detective Story)
Thelma Ritter (The Mating Season)

73. Josephine Hull

Actress | Harvey

Josephine Sherwood changed her name after marrying stage actor Shelly Hull in 1910. She studied drama at Radcliffe College -- much to the dismay of her parents -- and first worked on the stage in a stock company in Boston. Her husband died in 1919, aged 35, of Spanish influenza. Josephine left the ...

Harvey

Hope Emerson (Caged)
Celeste Holm (All About Eve)
Nancy Olson (Sunset Boulevard)
Thelma Ritter (All About Eve)

74. Mercedes McCambridge

Actress | Giant

Mercedes McCambridge was a highly talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.

Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...

All the King's Men

Ethel Barrymore (Pinky)
Celeste Holm (Come to the Stable)
Elsa Lanchester (Come to the Stable)
Ethel Waters (Pinky)

75. Claire Trevor

Actress | Key Largo

Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Fifth Avenue merchant-tailor Noel Wemlinger, an immigrant Frenchman from Paris who lost his business during the Depression, and his Belfast-born wife, Benjamina, known as "Betty". Young ...

Key Largo

Barbara Bel Geddes (I Remember Mama)
Ellen Corby (I Remember Mama)
Agnes Moorehead (Johnny Belinda)
Jean Simmons (Hamlet)

76. Celeste Holm

Actress | All About Eve

Celeste Holm was an only child, born into a home where her mother was a painter and her father worked in insurance. She would study acting at the University of Chicago and make her stage debut in 1936. Her Broadway debut came when she was 19 in 'The Time of Your Life'. She appeared in many ...

Gentleman's Agreement

Ethel Barrymore (The Paradine Case)
Gloria Grahame (Crossfire)
Marjorie Main (The Egg and I)
Anne Revere (Gentleman's Agreement)

77. Anne Baxter

Actress | All About Eve

Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman, Kenneth Stuart Baxter, and his wife, Catherine Dorothy (Wright), who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved ...

The Razor's Edge

Ethel Barrymore (The Spiral Staircase)
Lillian Gish (Duel in the Sun)
Flora Robson (Saratoga Trunk)
Gale Sondergaard (Anna and the King of Siam)

78. Anne Revere

Actress | Gentleman's Agreement

Veteran character actress Anne Revere became another in the long line of talented artists whose careers would crash under the weight of the "Red Scare" hysteria that tore through Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Manhattan and a direct descendant of Revolutionary War figure Paul Revere, ...

National Velvet

Eve Arden (Mildred Pierce)
Ann Blyth (Mildred Pierce)
Angela Lansbury (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Joan Lorring (The Corn Is Green)

79. Ethel Barrymore

Actress | The Spiral Staircase

Ethel Barrymore was the second of three children seemingly destined for the actor's life of their parents Maurice and Georgiana. Maurice Barrymore had emigrated from England in 1875, and after graduating from Cambridge in law had shocked his family by becoming an actor. Georgiana Drew of ...

None but the Lonely Heart

Jennifer Jones (Since You Went Away)
Angela Lansbury (Gaslight)
Aline MacMahon (Dragon Seed)
Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Parkington)

80. Katina Paxinou

Actress | For Whom the Bell Tolls

Katina Paxinou was born in 1900, in Piraeus, Greece. She first appeared on stage in 1928, in an Athens production of Henry Bataille's "La femme nue". In the early 1930's she was one of the founding members of the National Theatre of Greece (previously named Royal Theatre) and performed several ...

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Gladys Cooper (The Song of Bernadette)
Paulette Goddard (So Proudly We Hail!)
Anne Revere (The Song of Bernadette)
Lucile Watson (Watch on the Rhine)

81. Teresa Wright

Actress | Shadow of a Doubt

A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to ...

Mrs. Miniver

Gladys Cooper (Now, Voyager)
Agnes Moorehead (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Susan Peters (Random Harvest)
May Whitty (Mrs. Miniver)

82. Mary Astor

Actress | The Maltese Falcon

Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her...

The Great Lie

Sara Allgood (How Green Was My Valley)
Patricia Collinge (The Little Foxes)
Teresa Wright (The Little Foxes)
Margaret Wycherly (Sergeant York)

83. Jane Darwell

Actress | The Grapes of Wrath

Missouri-born Jane Darwell was born Patti Woodard, the daughter of William Robert Woodard, president of the Louisville Southern Railroad, and Ellen (Booth) Woodard, in Palmyra, Missouri, where she grew up on a ranch . She nursed ambitions to be an opera singer, but put it off because of her ...

The Grapes of Wrath

Judith Anderson (Rebecca)
Ruth Hussey (The Philadelphia Story)
Barbara O'Neil (All This, and Heaven Too)
Marjorie Rambeau (Primrose Path)

84. Hattie McDaniel

Actress | Gone with the Wind

After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...

Gone with the Wind

Olivia de Havilland (Gone with the Wind)
Geraldine Fitzgerald (Wuthering Heights)
Edna May Oliver (Drums Along the Mohawk)
Maria Ouspenskaya (Love Affair)

85. Fay Bainter

Actress | Jezebel

Fay Bainter's career began as a child performer in 1898. For some time, she was a member of the traveling cast of the Morosco Stock Company in Los Angeles. In 1912, she made her Broadway debut in 'The Rose of Panama', but this and her subsequent play 'The Bridal Path' (1913), were conspicuous ...

Jezebel

Beulah Bondi (Of Human Hearts)
Billie Burke (Merrily We Live)
Spring Byington (You Can't Take It with You)
Miliza Korjus (The Great Waltz)

86. Alice Brady

Actress | My Man Godfrey

Alice Brady was born in New York City on November 2, 1892. She was interested in the stage from childhood, as her father was famed Broadway producer William A. Brady. After a few stage productions, Alice was discovered by movie producers in New York, since this was the film capital at the time. Her...

In Old Chicago

Andrea Leeds (Stage Door)
Anne Shirley (Stella Dallas)
Claire Trevor (Dead End)
May Whitty (Night Must Fall)

87. Gale Sondergaard

Actress | The Mark of Zorro

Sly, manipulative, dangerously cunning and sinister were the key words that best described the roles that Gale Sondergaard played in motion pictures, making her one of the most talented character actresses ever seen on the screen. She was educated at the University of Minnesota and later married ...

Anthony Adverse

Beulah Bondi (The Gorgeous Hussy)
Alice Brady (My Man Godfrey)
Bonita Granville (These Three)
Maria Ouspenskaya (Dodsworth)