best film:  Sunrise is capital “M” Masterpiece and amongst the greatest films of all-time. F.W. Murnau’s film is a stylistic tour de force. Janet Gaynor is Murnau’s face of innocence and purity.  Brilliant performances from a female actor in the top twenty (20) to twenty-five (25) films of all-time are rare of course- so this category is a strength for Gaynor.     Gaynor as "The Wife" in Murnau's masterpiece       best performance:  Gaynor plays “The Wife” (opposite George O’Brien’s “The Man”) in Sunrise and this is Gaynor’s best work. Her work with Frank

  best film:  Look at these options: Rocco and His Brothers, 8 ½, The Leopard, Once Upon a Time in the West, Fitzcarraldo – Claudia Cardinale is in five masterpieces, so this category is an unequivocal strength for her.  The single best film on her resume is Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ .  She has a bigger role in The Leopard and Once Upon a Time in the West - but there is plenty to admire in appreciate in her few minutes on screen as simply “Claudia” opposite o Marcello Mastroianni’s Guido. Fellini’s film has Mastroianni’s performance at the heart

  best film:  Isabelle Huppert’s best film may surprise some or act as fuel for a good trivia question. Her best film is Michael Cimino’s much maligned but splendidly ambitious 1980 film Heaven’s Gate. The film helped sink United Artists studio and it largely killed the career of Cimino (Huppert, John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges and many others involved clearly survived ok).  It is Gone with the Wind large (the dance to Blue Danube on the lawns at Harvard, the railroad set piece, the dance roller rink set piece with whirling Steadicam).  It shares bloodlines with Robert Altman’s

  best film:The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover(1989) is simply one of the great works in the artform’s history and Helen Mirren is front and center for it. Gosford Park is an important Robert Altman work - it is amongst the master’s best - but the answer here is still Greenaway’s film. There is a different color for each room - exteriors in blue, dining in red, bathroom in white, kitchen in green—some characters outfits change colors as does the cigarettes for Mirren. There is different music in every room - the child singing opera, Michael

  best film:  There is quite a bit to choose from here as Bibi Andersson was a frequent player in the world of the great Ingmar Bergman. Wild Strawberries and Scenes from a Marriage deserve some consideration - but in the long run it comes down to either The Seventh Seal or Persona with 1966’s bold masterpiece ultimately earning the top honor.  This category is most definitely a strength for Andersson - both Persona and The Seventh Seal are easy top 100 of all-time films.   Persona- the best of Bibi's nine (9) collaborations the great Ingmar Bergman

  best film:  Between 2011 and 2013 Carey Mulligan appeared in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, Steve McQueen’s Shame and then The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. It is the latter that sits atop Mulligan’s list of best films – it may go down as The Coen Brothers’ best film if that tells you anything. Inside Llewyn Davis is simply one of the melancholiest films ever made - it wallops you.  The film, in its entirety, has a washed out look - like a cloud is hanging over the entire film - everyone looks pale, very wintery, waiflike, haunting– chilly. 

  best film:  The answer is Shane but Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is not far behind.  This category, overall, is a weakness for Arthur, but there is depth here as Howard Hawks Only Angels Have Wings is not a terrible number three (if you blink you’ll miss her in Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances so it is hard to really count that).     best performance:  Her accomplishment in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is closer to Jimmy Stewart’s than she often gets credit for. Her Saunders character is wise to the world and the driving force

  best film:   The Apartment does not make for an extremely impressive best film overall (at least with all the excellent company surrounding her on this list) but Some Came Running from just two years before from 1958 is right there as well and the two films combine to help make this category more respectable for MacLaine.. But back to The Apartment- Billy Wilder was coming off Some Like it Hot (1959, so was Jack Lemmon) and Shirley MacLaine off Some Came Running (1958). Wilder had nothing to prove at this point in his career- he already had Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard

  best film:   David Cronenberg’s Crash shines as the brightest beacon here in the ranking of Holly Hunter’s best film. This makes Jane Campion’s The Piano runner-up and puts the two Hunter collaborations with the Coen Brothers (O Brother, Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona) in the third and fourth spot. Cronenberg’s best film of the 1990s comes from J.G. Ballard’s novel and Hunter plays the role of Helen Remington. Hunter is opposite James Spader and Elias Koteas.     best performance:  It is not by a landslide (Raising Arizona, Broadcast News in Hunter’s magnificent 1987) but The Piano is

  best film:   Gone with the Wind. This category is a strength for Vivien Leigh- no doubt about it. Gone With the Wind is a masterpiece and landed well within the top 100 of all-time on the last update.  A Streetcar Named Desire is a very solid film - landing in the top 500 of all-time. Vivien Leigh may have some weaknesses in her resume, but it is not in these top two categories.     of the hundred or more actors that auditioned to play Scarlett O'Hara- David O. Selznick eventually landed on Vivien Leigh- just 26

  best film:   Mad Max: Fury Road. As good as Charlize Theron is in Monster (won the Academy Award in 2003) she is not on this list without Mad Max: Fury Road. Theron’s work is Sigourney Weaver in Aliens but in a slightly better film - one of the best of the 2010s decade - and a clear masterpiece.  There is no second film to debate here - the closest film, and it is quite a distance away, is David Leitch’s 2017 film Atomic Blonde.   Theron’s performance is physical with her nearly six-foot tall frame swinging her

  best film:   Taxi Driver is the answer here over The Silence of the Lambs. Jodie Foster plays Iris Steensma in Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece and her role is no cameo- she received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her work here and this is a difficult (and showy) role that easily could have gone wrong. Jodie’s Iris is the most controversial part of this controversial film. Jodie steals some scenes from De Niro- or at least spars equally- that is Robert De Niro in 1976-  in the prime of his career,  with young not-quite-fourteen Jodie Foster. This is a strong