Greatest Acting Performances that won Best Supporting Actress
by OfficialPaul | created - 29 Nov 2010 | updated - 18 Apr 2015 | PublicOnly acting performances I watched are included. (28 Did not watch; Les Miserable (2012); Precious; The Constant Gardener; Girl, Interrupted; Bullets Over Broadway; The Accidental Tourist; A Passage to India; The Year of Living Dangerously; Melvin and Howard; California Suite; Julia; Shampoo; Murder on the Orient Express; The Last Picture Show; A Patch of Blue; Zorba the Greek; The V.I.P.s; The Diary of Anne Frank; Sayonara; Written on the Wind; East of Eden; Key Largo; The Razor's Edge; None but the Lonely Heart; From Whom the Bell Tolls; The Great Lie; In Old Chicago; Anthony Adverse)
1. Meryl Streep
Actress | Out of Africa
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 ...
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
2. Eva Marie Saint
Actress | On the Waterfront
Actress and producer Eva Marie Saint was born on July 4, 1924 on Newark, New Jersey. She is known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). Her film career also includes ...
On the Waterfront (1954)
3. Patty Duke
Actress | Valley of the Dolls
Patty Duke was born Anna Marie Duke on December 14, 1946 in Elmhurst, Queens County, New York, to Frances Margaret (McMahon), a cashier, and John Patrick Duke, a cab driver and handyman. She was seven eighths Irish and one eighth German. Her acting career began when she was introduced to her ...
4. Rita Moreno
Actress | West Side Story
Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa ...
West Side Story (1961)
5. Josephine Hull
Actress | Harvey
Josephine Sherwood changed her name after marrying stage actor Shelly Hull in 1910. She studied drama at Radcliffe College -- much to the dismay of her parents -- and first worked on the stage in a stock company in Boston. Her husband died in 1919, aged 35, of Spanish influenza. Josephine left the ...
6. Maureen Stapleton
Actress | Reds
Academy Award-winner Maureen Stapleton was born June 21, 1925 in Troy, New York, to Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton. Her family was of Irish descent. Maureen moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and did modeling to pay the bills. Already a Tony Award-winner, she made her Academy ...
Reds (1981)
7. Penélope Cruz
Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress", Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to ...
8. Kim Hunter
Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire
Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.
According to an in-depth article on ...
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
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 ...
10. Anne Revere
Actress | Gentleman's Agreement
Veteran character actress Anne Revere became another in the long line of talented artists whose careers would crash under the weight of the "Red Scare" hysteria that tore through Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Manhattan and a direct descendant of Revolutionary War figure Paul Revere, ...
11. Donna Reed
Actress | It's a Wonderful Life
Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young ...
12. Jessica Lange
Actress | Tootsie
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis...
13. Ruth Gordon
Actress | Rosemary's Baby
When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 ...
14. Mercedes McCambridge
Actress | Giant
Mercedes McCambridge was a highly talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...
15. Brenda Fricker
Actress | My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown
Irish character actress Brenda Fricker was born in Dublin, and gained experience in Irish theatre and with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Court Theatre Company in Great Britain. Brenda received great acclaim for her Oscar-winning supporting performance as the ...
My Left Foot (1989)
16. Octavia Spencer
Actress | Hidden Figures
Spencer is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, which she claims is the proverbial buckle of the Bible belt. She's the sixth of seven siblings and holds a BS in Liberal Arts from Auburn University. A "closet" lover of acting, this practical Alabamian knew that she'd someday work in the film industry, ...
The Help (2011)
17. Anna Paquin
Actress | The Piano
Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.
She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved ...
The Piano (1993)
18. Olympia Dukakis
Actress | Moonstruck
Long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher's sardonic mother in the romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). Movie (and ...
19. 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 (1996)
20. 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 ...
The Aviator (2004)
21. Marcia Gay Harden
Actress | Mystic River
Marcia Gay Harden was born on August 14, 1959, in La Jolla, California, the third of five children. Her mother, Beverly (Bushfield), was a homemaker, and her father, Thad Harold Harden, was in the military. The family relocated often -- she first became interested in the theatre when the family was...
Pollock (2000)
22. Kim Basinger
Actress | L.A. Confidential
Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a ...
L.A. Confidential (1997)
23. Jane Darwell
Actress | The Grapes of Wrath
Missouri-born Jane Darwell was born Patti Woodard, the daughter of William Robert Woodard, president of the Louisville Southern Railroad, and Ellen (Booth) Woodard, in Palmyra, Missouri, where she grew up on a ranch . She nursed ambitions to be an opera singer, but put it off because of her ...
24. Shirley Jones
Actress | The Music Man
Named after child star Shirley Temple, Shirley Jones started singing at the age of six. She started formal training at the age of 12 and would dream of singing with her idol, Gordon MacRae. Upon graduating from high school, Shirley went to New York to audition for the casting director of Rodgers & ...
Elmer Gantry
25. Melissa Leo
Actress | The Fighter
Melissa Leo is an American actress. She is known for her Academy Award-winning performance in the 2010 film The Fighter (2010). She was born on September 14, 1960, in New York City. Leo starred as the mother of boxer Micky Ward in the 2010 film The Fighter, also starring Mark Wahlberg. The role ...
The Fighter (2010)
26. Beatrice Straight
Actress | Network
In her long career, Beatrice Straight did quite a bit of work in the movies, despite plying her trade mostly onstage. When she did grace the silver screen, she did it with great skill. Her first love was theater, having debuted on Broadway in the 1935 "Bitter Oleander". Her work garnered her much ...
Network (1976)
27. Teresa Wright
Actress | Shadow of a Doubt
A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to ...
28. Hattie McDaniel
Actress | Gone with the Wind
After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...
Gone with the Wind (1939)
29. Fay Bainter
Actress | Jezebel
Fay Bainter's career began as a child performer in 1898. For some time, she was a member of the traveling cast of the Morosco Stock Company in Los Angeles. In 1912, she made her Broadway debut in 'The Rose of Panama', but this and her subsequent play 'The Bridal Path' (1913), were conspicuous ...
30. 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 ...
Hannah and Her Sisters
31. Tatum O'Neal
Actress | Paper Moon
Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress and author. She is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, winning at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. She also starred as Amanda Wurlitzer in The Bad News Bears (1976...
Paper Moon
32. Sandy Dennis
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
It would not be easy for anyone to out-do one of American theater's finest thespians, but somehow actress Sandy Dennis managed to even out-quirk the legendary Geraldine Page when it came to affecting nervous tics and offbeat mannerisms on stage and in film. She and Page had few peers when it came ...
33. Gloria Grahame
Actress | In a Lonely Place
Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944)...
34. Lupita Nyong'o
Actress | 12 Years a Slave
Lupita Amondi Nyong'o was born March 1, 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents, Dorothy Ogada Buyu and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Her father, a senator, was then a visiting lecturer in political science. She was raised in Kenya. At age 16, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to...
12 Years a Slave (2013)
35. Patricia Arquette
Actress | Boyhood
With her expressive blue eyes, soft, Southern-tinged voice and an acting range that can carry her from hysterically funny to terrifying in seconds, Patricia Arquette is one of the most underrated and talented actresses of her generation. Though she has been working for years, she's always stayed ...
Boyhood (2014)
36. Catherine Zeta-Jones
Actress | Chicago
Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (...
Chicago (2002)
37. Judi Dench
Actress | Skyfall
Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
38. Eileen Heckart
Actress | The Bad Seed
Versatile, award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart, with the lean, horsey face and assured, fervent gait, was born Anna Eileen Herbert on March 29, 1919, in Columbus, Ohio. An only child, she lived with her mother after her parents separated when she was 2 years old, and was eventually ...
39. Mercedes Ruehl
Actress | The Fisher King
Ruehl received her first Academy Award nomination and win for her performance as Anne Napolitano, the emotionally driven girlfriend to fallen radio personality, (played by Jeff Bridges), in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, The Fisher King (1991). In addition to an Oscar, and a Golden Globe, Ruehl's ...
40. Jennifer Hudson
Soundtrack | Dreamgirls
Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois to Darnell Donerson (née Hudson) & Samuel Simpson. She is an Academy Award-winning actress, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and best-selling author. This bright, beautiful and booming-voiced talent is a perfect example ...
Dreamgirls (2006)
41. Jennifer Connelly
Actress | A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to Ilene (Schuman), a dealer of antiques, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father had Irish and Norwegian ancestry, and her mother was from a Jewish immigrant family. Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across ...
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
42. Renée Zellweger
Actress | Chicago
Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée ...
Cold Mountain (2003)
43. Tilda Swinton
Actress | We Need to Talk About Kevin
The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded ...
Michael Clayton (2007)
44. Helen Hayes
Actress | Airport
Known as "The First lady of the American Theater", Helen Hayes had a legendary career on stage and in films and television that spanned over eighty years. Hayes was born in Washington, D.C., to Catherine Estelle "Essie" Hayes, an actress who worked in touring companies, and Francis van Arnum Brown,...
45. Mira Sorvino
Actress | Mighty Aphrodite
Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional ...
Mighty Aphrodite
46. 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 ...
47. Celeste Holm
Actress | All About Eve
Celeste Holm was an only child, born into a home where her mother was a painter and her father worked in insurance. She would study acting at the University of Chicago and make her stage debut in 1936. Her Broadway debut came when she was 19 in 'The Time of Your Life'. She appeared in many ...
48. Wendy Hiller
Actress | A Man for All Seasons
Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally ...
Separate Tables
49. Whoopi Goldberg
Actress | Ghost
Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on November 13, 1955. Her mother, Emma (Harris), was a teacher and a nurse, and her father, Robert James Johnson, Jr., was a clergyman. Whoopi's recent ancestors were from Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. She worked in...
Ghost (1990)
50. Estelle Parsons
Actress | Bonnie and Clyde
The charming, witty, and immeasurably talented Estelle Parsons was born November 20, 1927 in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Elinor and Eben Parsons. She attended the Oak Grove School for Girls in Maine, and later graduated from Connecticut College in 1949. She worked as a singer with a band before she ...
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
51. Goldie Hawn
Actress | Private Benjamin
Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland to Laura Hawn, a jewelry shop/dance school owner & Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has a sister, Patti Hawn, and a brother, Edward, who died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish...
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