The Best Actresses

1. Meryl Streep

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 ...

The Bridges of Madison County; Adaptation; The House of The Spirits; Silkwood; Out of Africa; Postcards From The Edge; Death Becomes Her; Kramer vs Kramer; Mamma Mia!; The Devil Wears Prada; The Doubt; Sophie's Choice; Julie & Julia...

2. Glenn Close

Actress | Fatal Attraction

Eight time Academy Award-nominated actress Glenn Close was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Mary H. "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close (William Close), a prominent doctor. Both of her parents were from upper-class families.

Glenn was a noted ...

Fatal Attraction; The House of The Spirits; Dangerous Liaisons; Mars Attack!; Nine Lives; Maxie; The Safety of Objects; The Stepford Wives; Mary Reilly; 101 Dalmatians; Hamlet; Reversal of Fortune; The Natural; Jagged Edge...

3. Toni Collette

Actress | The Sixth Sense

Toni Collette is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Collette was born Toni Collett (she later added an "e") on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is the first of three...

Muriel's Wedding; The Sixth Sense; Velvet Goldmine; Little Miss Sunshine; Japanese Story; The Hours; About A Boy; Emma; The Boys; United States of Tara (Tv)...

4. Winona Ryder

Actress | Little Women

Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and ...

The House of The Spirits; Eduard Sissorhands; Reality Bites; Bram Stocker's Dracula; Alien: Resurrection; Black Swan; The Age of Innocence; Little Women; Heathers; Bettlejuice; Mermaids; Stay Cool; The Last Word; Mr. Deeds; Simone; Sex and Death 101; Lost Souls; How To Make An American Quilt...

5. Kathy Bates

Actress | Misery

Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates...

Fried Green Tomatoes; Misery; About Schmidt; Titanic; Bruno; P.S. I Love You; Valentine's Day; Unconditional Love; The Waterboy; Primary Colors, Diabolique; Dolores Claiborne; Six Feet Under (Tv); The Office (Tv)...

6. Susan Sarandon

Actress | Thelma & Louise

It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who ...

Thelma & Louise; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Dead Man Walking; The Lovely Bones; Wall Street 2; In The Valley of Elah; The Client; Little Women; Lorenzo's Oil; Solitary Man; Alfie; Stepmom; The Hunger; The Witches of Eastwick...

7. Natalie Portman

Actress | Black Swan

Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).

Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an ...

The Professional (León); Black Swan; My Blueberry Nights; V For Vendetta; The Other Boleyn Girl; Closer; The Darjeeling Limited; Beautiful Girls; Heat; Mars Attack!; Paris, J'e T'Aime; Goya's Ghost; Cold Mountain; Where The Heart Is...

8. Mary-Louise Parker

Actress | Weeds

Southern-bred Mary-Louise Parker was born on August 2, 1964 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the youngest of four children of Judge John Morgan Parker, and the former Caroline Louise Morell. She is of mostly Swedish, English, and Scottish descent. Her father's occupation took the family both around...

The Client; Fried Green Tomatoes; Red Dragon; Solitary Man; The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert; Romance & Cigarrettes; Naked In New York; Mr. Wonderful; Bullets Over Broadway; Portrait Of A Lady; Red; Weeds (Tv); The West Wing (Tv)...

9. 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 ...

Life Aquatic; When in Rome; Buffalo 66; The Addams Family; Addams Family Values; Manhattan Murder MIstery; The Perez Family; The Royal Tenenbaums; One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; The Postman Always Rings Twice; Prizzis's Honor; Crimes & Misdemeanors...

10. Christina Ricci

Actress | Casper

Precocious, outspoken child-teen starlet of the 1990s, Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980 in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children of Sarah (Murdoch), a realtor, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, and ...

Mermaids; The Opposite of Sex; Anything Else; Monster; Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas; New York, I Love You; After LIfe; Buffalo 66; The Ice Storm; Casper; The Addams Family; Addams Family Values; Now And Then; Speed Racer...

11. Rachel Griffiths

Actress | Six Feet Under

Her mother, Anna Griffiths, is an art consultant. Her uncle is a Jesuit priest. Has two older brothers. One brother, Ben, is a ski instructor. Lived on the Gold Coast, Queensland until age five, then moved to Melbourne. Attended Star of the Sea Catholic Girls' College, did well at school and ...

Muriel's Wedding; Beautiful Kate; My Best Friend's Wedding; Blow; Hilary & Jackie; Jude; Children of The Revolution; To Have And To Hold; Six Feet Under (Tv); Brothers & Sisters (Tv)...

12. Bette Midler

Soundtrack | Beaches

Multi Grammy Award-winning singer/comedienne/author Bette Midler has also proven herself to be a very capable actress in a string of both dramatic and comedic roles. Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945. She is the daughter of Ruth (Schindel), a seamstress, and Fred Midler, a ...

The Rose; Beaches; Divine Madness; The Women; That Old Feeling; The First Wives Club; The Stepford Wives; For The Boys; Ruthless People; Big Business; Scenes From a Mall; Hocus Pocus; What Women Want; Drowning Mona; Get Shorty...

13. Alfre Woodard

Actress | Star Trek: First Contact

Alfre Woodard was born on November 8, 1952 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the youngest of three children of Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an interior designer. She was named by her godmother, who claimed she saw a vision of Alfre's name written out in gold letters. A former high school ...

How To Make An American Quilt; Primal Fear; Lost Souls; K-Pax; American Violet; Something New; Down In The Delta; Cross Creek; Heart & Souls; The Forgotten; Bopha!; Mis Firecracker...

14. Julianne Moore

Actress | Far from Heaven

Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from ...

Magnolia; The Forgotten: The Hours; The Kids Are All Right; The Big Lebowsky; Boogie Nights; Children Of Men; Hannibal; Far From Heaven; Benny & Joon; Body Of Evidence; The Hand That Rocks The Cradle; Assassins; The Lost World: Jurassic Park; Surviving Picasso...

15. Juliette Lewis

Actress | Natural Born Killers

Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered ...

Natural Born Killers; Cape Of Fear; From Dusk Till Dawn; Who's Eating Gilbert Grape?; The Darwin Awards; Starsky & Hutch; Strange Days; Kalifornia; Husbands & Wives; Due Date; The Switch; The 4th Floor; The Evening Star...

16. Ellen Burstyn

Actress | Requiem for a Dream

Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of Irish, French/French-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Native American ancestry.. She worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a ...

Requien For A Dream; The Exorcist; The Wicker Man; The Velveteen Rabbit; How To Make An American Quilt; When A Man Loves A Woman; Same Time, Next Year; Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; Deceiver; The Fountain...

17. Annette Bening

Actress | American Beauty

Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, ...

American Beauty; The Kids Are All Right; Mars Attack!; The Grifters; Postcards From The Edge; Bugsy; The Women; In Dreams; Valmont; What Planet Are You From?; Being Julia; Mother & Child...

18. Helen Mirren

Actress | The Queen

Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...

The Queen; Red; Excalibur; Calendar Girls; The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; Caligula; The Mosquito Coast; The Madness Of King George; Where Angels Fear To Tread; When The Whales Came; The Last Station; The Tempest...

19. Angela Bassett

Actress | Strange Days

Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a ...

Malcolm X; Strange Days; Green Lantern; The Lazarus Child; F/X; Boyz N The Hood; What's Love Got To Do With It; Vampire In Brooklyn; Contact; How Stella Got Her Groove Back; Music Of The Heart; Critters 4; Mr. And Mrs. Smith...

20. Kate Winslet

Actress | Titanic

Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut...

Finding Neverland; Titanic; Jude; Little Children; Eternal Sunchine of The Spotless Mind; The Reader; Revolutionary Road; Heavently Criatures; Sense and Sensibility; Romance & Cigarrettes; The Life of David Gale; The Holiday...

21. Jodie Foster

Actress | The Silence of the Lambs

Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received ...

The Silence of The Lambs; Contact; Nell; Taxi Driver; Sommersby; Panic Room; Maverick; The Beaver; Inside Man; Flightplan; Anna and The King; Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; Catchfire; Shadows And Fog; The Accused; Freaky Friday; Bugsy Malone; Little Man Tate...

22. Holly Hunter

Actress | Broadcast News

Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first...

The Piano; Home For The Holidays; Thirteen; O Brother!; Nine Lives; The Big White; Crash; The Firm; Copycat; Broadcast News; A Life Less Ordinary; Raising Arizona; Blood Simple; Little Black Book; Moonlight Mile; Once Around...

23. Charlize Theron

Producer | Monster

Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...

Monster; The Cider House Rules; Devil's Advocate; The Road; Hancock; The Italian Job; In The Valley Of Elah; Sweet November; Men Of Honor; Celebrity; 2 Days In The Valley; That Thing You Do!; Trapped; The Curse of The Jade Scorpion; 15 minutes...

24. 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 ...

What Women Want; Before The Devil Knows You're Dead; The Wrestler; Anger Management; Four Rooms; The Perez Family; Untamed heart; In The Bedroom; The Guru; Cyrus; The Watcher; Only You; Chaplin; My Cousin Vinny; Equinox...

25. Catherine Keener

Actress | Being John Malkovich

Catherine Keener is an American actress, Oscar-nominated for her roles in the independent films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Capote (2005). Acclaimed in her community for her quirky roles in independent film and mainstream such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Keener got her start as a casting ...

The 40 Year Old Virgin; Into The Wild; Beeing John Malkovich; The Interpreter; Your Friends & Neighbors; Cyrus; Catchfire; Capote; The Ballad of Jack And Rose; Friends With Money; Trust; Where The Wild Things Are...

26. Jennifer Jason Leigh

Actress | The Hateful Eight

Jennifer Jason Leigh was born Jennifer Lee Morrow in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of writer Barbara Turner and actor Vic Morrow. Her father was of Russian Jewish descent and her mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry. She is the sister of Carrie Ann Morrow and half-sister of actress Mina ...

Rush; Dolores Claiborne; The Machinist; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; Single White Female; Existenz; Georgia; Crooked Hearts; Miami Blues; In The Cut; Backdraft; Washington Square; Kansas City; The Anniversary Party; The Jacket; Short Cuts; The Hudsucker Proxy; The Man Who Wasn't There; Margot At The Wedding...

27. Lili Taylor

Actress | American Crime

Lili Taylor is a well-known and successful American actress. She acts in film, TV and stage. She was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Marie (Lecour) and George Park Taylor, an artist and hardware store operator. Lili graduated from New Trier High School in 1985. Then, she attended the Theatre School ...

Ransom; High Fidelity; The Haunting; Say Anything; Public Enemies; Si J'etais Toi; Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle; I Shot Andy Warhol; Arizona Dream; Short Cuts; Born On The Fourth Of July; Mystic Pizza; Dogfight; Six Feet Under (Tv)...

28. Edie Falco

Actress | The Sopranos

Edith Falco, called Edie, was born on July 5, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith Anderson, an actress, and Frank Falco, a jazz drummer. She is of Italian (father) and Swedish, English, and Cornish (mother) descent. Edie grew up on Long Island and attended SUNY Purchase, where she was trained in ...

Copland; Private Parts; The Addiction; Trust; Bullets Over Broadway; 3 Backyards; Freedomland; The Quiet; The Funeral; The Sopranos (Tv); Nurse Jackie (Tv)...

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 ...

Edward Sissorhands; Bullets Over Broadway; The Lost Boys; I Am Sam; Rabbit Hole; Passengers; Little Man Tate; Hannah And Her Sisters; The Purple Rose of Cairo; Radio Days; The Horse Whisperer; September; The Birdcage; Dan In Real Life; In Treatment (Tv)...

30. Diane Keaton

Actress | Annie Hall

Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New ...

The Godfather; The Godfather II; The Godfather III; Annie Hall; The Firts Wives Club; Radio Days; I Will I Will... For Now; The Other Sister; Marvin's Room; Hanging Up; Smother; Manhattan; Something's Gotta Give; The Family Stone; Mrs. Soffel...

31. 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 ...

Blue Velvet; Inland Empire; We Don't Live Here Anymore; Jurassic Park; Jurassic Park III; Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; Happy Endings; A Perfect World; Tenderness; Lonely Hearts; Foxes; I Am Sam; Rambling Rose; Wild At Heart...

32. 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; Chocolat; Blue; Blanc; Rouge; Paris J'e T'aime; Wuthering Heights; Damage; A Couch In New York; The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Les enfants du siècle; Country of My Skull...

33. Michelle Pfeiffer

Actress | The Fabulous Baker Boys

Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High ...

Scarface; The Age Of Innocence; Dangerous Liaisons; Batman Returns; Dangerous Minds; The Witches of Eastwick; Hairspray; I Am Sam; What Lies Beneath; Grease 2; The Russia House; The Fabulous Baker Boys; White Oleander; I Could Never Be Your Woman; A Midsummer Night's Dream; One Fine Day; Up Close & Personal; Wolf; Frankie and Johnny...

34. Frances McDormand

Actress | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She ...

Fargo; Almost Famous; Burn After Reading; The Man Who Wasn't There; Friends With Money; Barton Fink; Short Cuts; Paradise Road; Primal Fear; Something's Gotta Give; Raising Arizona; Blood Simple; Talk of Angels; Wonder Boys...

35. Sigourney Weaver

Actress | Alien Resurrection

Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has ...

Alien; Aliens; Alien 3; Alien: Resurrection; The Ice Storm; Avatar; Copycat; Ghostbusters; Infamous; The Village; You Again; Galaxy Quest; 1492: Conquest of Paradise; Death and the Maiden; Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey; The Year of Living Dangerously...

36. 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 ...

Elizabeth; Elizabeth - Goldenage; I'm Not There; Oscar & Lucinda; Paradise Road; Robin Hood; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Talented Mr. Ripley; The Gift; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Coffee and Cigarettes; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King...

37. Stockard Channing

Actress | Practical Magic

One of Broadway and Hollywood's perennial and cleverer talents who tends to shine a smart, cynical light on her surroundings, Stockard Channing was born Susan Williams Antonia Stockard on February 13, 1944 in New York City to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother of Irish descent. Her parents ...

Grease; Practical Magic; The First Wives Club; To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; Up Close & Personal; Multiple Sarcasms; Smoke; A Time of Destiny;

38. Hilary Swank

Actress | Million Dollar Baby

Hilary was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Judith Kay (Clough), a secretary, and Stephen Michael Swank, who served in the National Guard and was also a traveling salesman. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Martha Dominguez, was of Mexican descent, and her other roots include German, English, and ...

Million Dollar Baby; Boys Don't Cry; P.S. I Love You; Insomnia; The Gift; Buffy The Vampire Slayer; The Resident; Conviction; Amelia; The Reaping; The Black Dahlia; The Next Karate Kid...

39. Uma Thurman

Actress | Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain retreat, and of Robert Thurman (Robert Alexander ...

Kill Bill: Volume I; Kill Bill: Volume II; Tape; Vatel; Gattaca; The Truth About Cats & Dogs; Batman & Robin; Beautiful Girls; Pulp Fiction; Dangerous Liaisons; Jennifer 8; Henry & June; The Producers; The Accidental Husband; My Super Ex-Girlfriend; The Avengers; Les Misérables...

40. Franka Potente

Actress | Lola rennt

Franka Potente was born on 22 July 1974 in the German city of Münster, to Hildegard, a medical assistant, and Dieter Potente, a teacher, and raised in the nearby town of Dülmen. After her graduation in 1994, she went to the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule, a drama school in Munich, but soon broke off to ...

Run Lola Run; The Bourne Identity; The Bourne Supremacy; Blow; Anatomie; Anatomie 2; Atomised; ¿Bin ich schön?; I Love Your Work; Che: Part Two; Shanghai; Valerie...