Greatest actresses of all time

Meryl Streep▲ Rising

Seventeen Oscar nominations isn't a record, it's a natural law at this point — the Polish accent in 'Sophie's Choice,' the icy Vogue editor in 'The Devil Wears Prada,' the disintegrating diva in 'Postcards from the Edge.' She turned accent-and-mimicry acting into a genuine art form, disappearing so completely that critics started treating 'a Streep performance' as its own genre. No list like this exists without her at or near the top — she's the industry's own measuring stick.

Known for: Sophie's ChoiceActing Oscars: 3

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Katharine Hepburn▲ Rising

Four Oscars and a lifetime of playing women who refused to shrink — from the whip-smart heiress in 'The Philadelphia Story' to the crusty spinster softened by Bogart in 'The African Queen.' She built her legend on angular defiance, a Bryn Mawr voice that cracked like a whip, and a refusal to be anyone's ingenue. Her place here is foundational: she basically invented the template for the fiercely independent leading lady Hollywood is still copying.

Known for: The Lion in WinterActing Oscars: 4

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Frances McDormand▲ Rising

Marge Gunderson, seven months pregnant and unbothered, cracking a homicide case in the Minnesota snow in 'Fargo,' remains one of the most quietly radical performances ever put on film — ordinary decency as heroism. She doubled down decades later as the grief-hardened mother in 'Three Billboards' and the itinerant Fern in 'Nomadland,' proving her gift was never showiness but a bone-deep, unglamorous truthfulness. Three Best Actress Oscars later, she's the patron saint of actresses who never needed to be beautiful to be devastating.

Known for: Fargo, NomadlandActing Oscars: 3

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Ingrid Bergman▲ Rising

She said goodbye to Bogart in the fog at the end of 'Casablanca' and became the emotional center of one of the most beloved films ever made, luminous without ever seeming to try. Hollywood exiled her for years after her affair with Rossellini, and she came back anyway, winning Oscars on both sides of the scandal — a testament to talent outlasting tabloid morality. Her natural, almost translucent sincerity made her the anti-glamour movie star of her era.

Known for: CasablancaActing Oscars: 3

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Bette Davis

She smoked, sneered, and dared you to look away as Margo Channing warning everyone to fasten their seatbelts in 'All About Eve,' turning bitchy ferocity into an art form decades before it was fashionable. Davis fought the studio system outright, suing Warner Bros. for better roles and winning respect if not the lawsuit, carving space for actresses to demand substance over prettiness. Two Oscars and a thousand imitators later, she's the original difficult woman who made difficult a compliment.

Known for: All About EveActing Oscars: 2

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Viola Davis

Six minutes of screen time in 'Doubt' was enough to make Meryl Streep look like she was standing still, and Davis has spent her career since proving that scene was no fluke — Aibileen's wounded dignity in 'The Help,' Rose's fury unleashed in 'Fences.' She became the first Black woman to complete the acting Triple Crown (Oscar, Emmy, Tony), a milestone that says as much about the industry's belated recognition as it does about her volcanic talent. Nobody working today makes silence and stillness feel more dangerous.

Known for: FencesActing Oscars: 1

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Cate Blanchett

She played Bob Dylan in 'I'm Not There' and made it seem like the least strange casting choice imaginable, then unraveled spectacularly as a Bernie Madoff-adjacent socialite in 'Blue Jasmine,' collecting her second Oscar for a performance that felt like a nervous breakdown filmed in real time. Add Galadriel's ethereal menace and a terrifying conductor in 'Tár,' and you get an actress whose range spans the mythic to the monstrous without ever losing precision. She's the modern era's most technically fearless chameleon.

Known for: Blue JasmineActing Oscars: 2

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Jodie Foster▼ Falling

She was twelve years old and already unnerving in 'Taxi Driver,' then grew into an Oscar-winning adult playing a rape survivor demanding justice in 'The Accused' and Clarice Starling facing down Hannibal Lecter with trembling, unblinking resolve in 'Silence of the Lambs.' Few actresses have navigated the transition from child star to serious auteur-adjacent leading lady this cleanly, and fewer still have done it while directing their own films on the side. Her steely intelligence on screen always felt like it was daring the material to underestimate her.

Known for: The Silence of the LambsActing Oscars: 2

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Audrey Hepburn▼ Falling

Holly Golightly in that little black dress, eating a pastry on Fifth Avenue at dawn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' is one of cinema's most indelible images — an icon whose fashion sense somehow overshadowed the fact that she was genuinely, delicately great at the work. She brought a gamine, European elegance to Hollywood that redefined what a leading lady could look and sound like, from 'Roman Holiday' to 'My Fair Lady.' Her place here is part performance, part sheer cultural gravity — she changed what audiences wanted a movie star to be.

Known for: Roman HolidayActing Oscars: 1

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Emma Stone▼ Falling

She turned Sally Hawkins-adjacent whimsy into something stranger and sharper as the sexually awakening Bella Baxter in 'Poor Things,' a performance so committed to physical and moral transformation it barely resembles her Oscar-winning turn as the desperate dreamer in 'La La Land' years earlier. Still in the relative early-middle of her career, she's already collected two Best Actress Oscars by choosing weird, risky auteur projects over safe prestige bait. Her inclusion here is a bet on an actress actively rewriting what a modern movie star's filmography should look like.

Known for: La La Land, Poor ThingsActing Oscars: 2

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