The greatest performances of all time

[litlover12]

I did it -- I made my list of the top five performances by actors and top five by actresses. And let me tell you, it was not easy. (Add usual disclaimers about how there are lots of great films I haven't seen, how I may change my mind tomorrow, etc.) I appreciated all the comments on my original post -- they were enjoyable to read and helped me think things through!

So let me give you the lists, and I'll explain a little about my reasoning after that. Going from last to first in each list . . .

Top Five Performances by a Film Actress

5. Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's


4. Jean Simmons as Hattie Durant, The Grass Is Greener


3. Bette Davis as Margo Channing, All about Eve


2. Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Lion in Winter


1. Ingrid Bergman as Paula Anton, Gaslight

Top Five Performances by a Film Actor

5. Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, Arsenic and Old Lace


4. Jack Lemmon as Ensign Frank Pulver, Mister Roberts


3. Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady


2. Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, Casablanca


1. James Stewart as Senator Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington


And now some thoughts . . .

1. Someday I may have to expand this to top ten performances for each, just because it was so darned hard to narrow it to five. (Believe me, GWTW fans, Vivien Leigh came extremely close to making it.)

2. One thing I tried to do is make it about what I think are the greatest performances, not my favorite performances.

3. I gravitated toward performers who showed a lot of range and variety in their performances. Cary Grant in Arsenic, for example, is a one-man master class in how to be over-the-top and subtle at the same time. (Here again -- this is not my favorite performance of his, but looking at it as objectively as I can, I think it just might be his greatest.)

4. I tried not to let the fame or the obscurity of a performance, or anything else about its reputation, have any bearing on my opinion. Audrey Hepburn's performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's, for instance, is considered so iconic just because of the little black dress and the sunglasses and all the rest of the fashion statements, I think people tend to forget how good it actually was.

5. Someday I may also need to do a list for "top teams," because there were some performances that were so entwined with and dependent on the performances of others, I found it impossible to separate them. In this category I might put Grant-Hepburn-Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Firth-Carter-Rush in The King's Speech (which is one reason that I still think Rush should have won that Supporting Actor Oscar), Lemmon-Matthau in The Odd Couple, Lemmon-Curtis-Monroe in Some Like It Hot, and more.   

So there you have it! Comments and feedback (and even "What the heck were you thinking??") are welcome!