Top 5 Academy Award Best Actresses in History

Movie fans the world over love the Academy Awards, The glitz, the glam, the drama, they're all the elements that make up the biggest night in Hollywood. Everyone watching usually has their favorite stars that they cheer on as the night passes, but only one person gets that golden statue.

On January 22^nd, the nominations for the 81^st Annual Academy Awards, will be announced at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Academy Awards will be held on February 22^nd.

The Academy Award for Best Actress has been given to a long line of deserving actresses. Of course, everyone has their favorites, but they are all deserving in their own right. As we wait in anticipation for another Oscar celebration, let's take a look back at a list of truly deserving actresses.

5. Vivian Leigh

1939 marked the 12^th celebration of the Academy Awards and the very deserving Best Actress winner was British actress Vivien Leigh in the role of Gone With the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara.

The film was the Titanic of its day. The sets and landscapes were epic, the characters larger than life and the actors and actresses playing them were cast perfectly. Leigh shone in the role of impetuous and charming Scarlett. Her British accent was non-existent. She had adapted a smooth Southern lilt and truly tapped into the character that was Scarlett. Leigh would later win another Oscar playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire alongside Marlon Brando, but her part in Gone With the Wind is the role for which she is most remembered

4. Anne Bancroft

It was a role that Bancroft had already done on Broadway. She wanted to continue playing the part that had won her a Tony Award on film, but she was almost replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. Luckily, Bancroft won out and was cast as the stubborn, but kind Annie Sullivan in the film production of The Miracle Worker.

Bancroft and the unknown Patty Duke sparked onscreen, clashing in a desperate battle of wills as Sullivan tried to teach the uncontrollable Helen Keller. Though Bancroft was up against Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, she and Patty Duke deservedly won the Oscars for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.

3. Sissy Spacek

Waif-like Spacek was already known to the Academy when she was nominated for her role in Coal Miner's Daughter in 1980. She had been previously been nominated for her role as Carrie in the film version of Stephen King's classic horror novel.

The film followed the hard life of famous country singer, Loretta Lynn. Though she was initially hesitant about playing Lynn onscreen, Spacek blew audiences away with her performance. She convincingly played Lynn as a 13-year-old girl up through her adult life. On top of her endearing performance, Spacek did her own singing, a gutsy move when imitating such an icon. Though she didn't win for Carrie, everyone agreed that the win for Coal Miner's Daughter was more than worth the wait.

2. Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman and Salma Hayek went head to head in 2002 playing two legendary women: Kidman as writer Virginia Woolf in The Hours and Hayek as artist Frida Kahlo in Frida. Kidman was virtually unrecognizable as the tortured Woolf. Though she wore a prosthetic nose that was made fun of for months afterward, Kidman's performance was far from dependant upon it.

Her beautiful face wilted into one perpetually furrowed by sadness and depression. She twisted her tall, graceful figure into the essence of awkwardness and uncertainty. Kidman was far from the Australian beauty that had been nominated for an Oscar for Moulin Rouge the previous year.

Though Kidman's award was the only one for The Hours, it was rightfully deserved.

1. Marion Cotillard

One of the brightest performances in years was young Marion Cotillard's role in La Vie En Rose as beloved French singer, Édith Piaf. Just like Nicole Kidman in The Hours, Cotillard didn't rely on her amazing makeup for her performance--her acting was truly brilliant. She played Piaf from age 19 to 47 and she did it with grace.

Cotillard's shoulders hunched together uncomfortably in old age, then were easily thrown back in the grace of youth. Throughout the film, it was hard to believe that the girl audiences saw playing the young Piaf, was the same girl playing the ailing, middle-aged Piaf. As everyone saw at the Oscars, sweet, young Marion Cotillard was far different than the tortured Piaf they saw in the film.

Additionally, Cotillard was a new face to the Hollywood scene, thus adding to the appeal of her performance. Besides her award, Cotillard had more to be proud of. Her performance won the first Oscar that had been ever been given for a French-language role.

Academy Awards Database