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- Memorable 2024 Oscar moments
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year.
- EW Staff
- Meryl Streep as Sophie Zawistowski. Sophie's Choice (1982), directed by Alan Pakula. In Sophie's Choice, Meryl Streep's performance as a Polish survivor of the Holocaust is so beautifully shaded, so infused with every element of her character's light and darkness, that the mere feat of her mastering two full languages—she learned to speak both Polish and German for the part—almost seems like an afterthought.
- Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), directed by Elia Kazan. Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Desire documents the tragic mental deterioration of Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle who moves to New Orleans to join her sister and her brutish brother-in-law.
- Elizabeth Taylor as Martha. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), directed by Mike Nichols. Elizabeth Taylor won her second Academy Award blowing up the ingénue image minted in her Oscar winning-turn in Butterfield 8.
- Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara. Gone With The Wind (1939), directed by Victor Fleming. The most iconic Southerner in American history was played by a Brit—and one who almost didn't get the part.
- 2023: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeoh made history as the first Asian actress to win in the category for her leading performance as Evelyn Wang in the absurdist action film.
- 2022: Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Chastain won for her portrayal of the late televangelist personality in this biographical film.
- 2021: Frances McDormand, Nomadland. McDormand's award-winning character, Fern, sells her possessions and embarks on a nomadic life, driving a van around the country after the death of her husband.
- 2020: Renée Zellweger, Judy. Zellweger retold the life and career of a Hollywood icon in the Judy Garland biopic.
Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, making her the first person in Academy Award history to win an Oscar when a parent and a grandparent (her father and grandfather Walter Huston) had also won one.
Mar 13, 2023 · Michelle Yeoh has won the Academy Award for best actress and made history all at once. The Malaysian-born actor became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress on Sunday for her multifaceted performance in the multiversal “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
- ttang@ap.org
- National Race And Ethnicity Writer
Mar 13, 2023 · For the first time in its 95-year history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded the Oscar for best actress in a leading role to an Asian woman.
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Mar 27, 2022 · Jessica Chastain is officially an Academy Award winner. At Sunday night’s Oscars 2022 ceremony, Chastain picked up the best-actress statuette for her performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, in...
