best film:  The Lord of the Rings features enough of Cate Blanchett to qualify here. Blanchett is quite good in her limited time on screen as Galadriel. The closest competition in this category for Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s epic masterpiece are The Aviator from Martin Scorsese and The Talented Mr. Ripley from Anthony Mingella. This category is a bit of a weakness for Blanchett in that she has not really been more front and center in some of her best films.     best performance:  Todd Haynes’ Carol is probably next up after the three mentioned above as

  best film:  Kinuyo Tanaka has as many as five films that flirt with the top five of their respective years’ top ten as Must-See films or higher. On the most recent top 500 films of all-time list, A Hen in the Wind landed just thirteen (13) slots ahead of Sansho the Bailiff. That is not all, The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, and The Ballad of Narayama are all films that will require real consideration around the same slot when the list updates. So by an eyelash, though Takana is best known for her work with Mizoguchi, it is

  best film:  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  (2004) leads the way ahead of Titanic (1997) by a decent margin here for the best film of Kate Winslet’s career. Michel Gondry directs Charlie Kaufman’s wild dream world. All of Kaufman’s work should be treasured and appreciated, but Winslet’s Clementine is his greatest single character, and the film does not work as well, and that character does not leap off the page as much, without Winslet.     uncontestably Winslet's best work and film - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - and it came during her run

  best film:  A Woman Under the Influence is John Cassavetes' best work and clearly Gena Rowlands' best film. Faces comes in second and was part of the beginning of the Cassavetes one-man (for a time) American independent art film movement (of course Shadows from Cassavetes comes first in 1959 but it was not until Faces where he started to get some momentum for his movement as an auteur). A Woman Under the Influence is a difficult film- but a masterpiece worthy of the challenge.     A Woman Under the Influence is a character study marital drama

  best film:  Sofia Coppola’s second (2nd) feature Lost in Translation stands atop Scarlett Johannson’s list of best films. This lands Scarlett a lead (or co-lead) role in a top 100 all-time film. Under the Skin and Marriage Story are superb films- but cannot quite touch the aforementioned 2003 masterpiece.     Scarlett had been in Ghost World and The Man Who Wasn't There- but safe to say the young actor (still under 20 years old at the time) was a revelation in Lost in Translation in 2003     best performance:     Lost in Translation. This is a

  best film:  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a crucial film and role for Elizabeth Taylor. Young prodigy Mike Nichols came along to work with established stars and power couple Taylor and Richard Burton at just the right time. The film is brilliant, but his category is a weak spot for Taylor’s case on this list. Nichols’ film (and this is his second or third best film right there with Carnal Knowledge after The Graduate is the clear number one) does not quite compare with some of the heavyweight best films other female actors have on their resume.

  best film:  Black Swan (2010) is spectacular enough to debate here with Heat (1995). Natalie Portman was just fourteen years old in 1995 at the time of Heat’s release and she plays a smaller part in Michael Mann’s ensemble epic crime saga. Though Portman is solid in her role, there are at least a half dozen actors who make more of an impact on Heat’s brilliance.     best performance:    Natalie Portman gives one of the best performances of the 2010s decade in Black Swan. Cinema history has just ten (10) or eleven (11) real decades to draw

  best film:  Yasujirô Ozu made at least four masterpieces and Setsuko Hara was in all four of them (Late Spring, Early Summer, Tokyo Story and not to confuse things with the names, The End of Summer), so this is no slam dunk. Tokyo Story ultimately comes out on top as it lands as one of the top ten of all-time. This film is rightfully taught in just about every introduction to cinema art college class (though the focus is way too often on Ozu's humanity- and not the artistic aspects of the film). Tokyo Story is the artistic

  best film:  David Lynch moved his nightmare vision from suburbia (Blue Velvet) to Hollywood to create one of finest films of the 21st century in Mulholland Drive. Since Mulholland Drive is one of the finest films of the 21st century, this gives Naomi Watts (who is brilliant in the lead) a leg up on just about every actor of her generation (and younger). Birdman from Alejandro G. Iñárritu certainly deserves some consideration here as well but at the end of the day, Watts’ best film is Mulholland Drive.     Watts carved out her place in film

  best film:  This is a very strong category for Emily Watson. Breaking the Waves from Danish enfant terrible auteur Lars von Trier certainly looms as one of the art form’s truly great films, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love gives Watson two sure-fire top 100 of all-time films. Breaking the Waves relies more heavily on Watson. And as far as top twenty-five (25) films of all-time - the only film in this class that leans on their female lead actor as much or more-  is Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc.     sliding doors

best film:   This feels like a dead heat between Raise the Red Lantern and 2046 - both are masterpieces with strong arguments for this slot. Forced to choose, Raise the Red Lantern may be ever so slightly superior- and of course Gong Li is a much more important piece to Yimou Zhang’s film than WKW’s.  Gong Li will always be tied to the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers- Yimou Zhang and Kaige Chen- so in a way it is very fitting that her best film is the best film to come from this movement.     from Raise

  best film:   Nicole Kidman’s best two films are Eyes Wide Shut from Stanley Kubrick and Moulin Rouge! from Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann. It would be difficult to find to more dissimilar films- a tribute both Kidman’s brave role choices and her range as an actor. Ultimately, it is Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s final film, that ends up Kidman’s single strongest overall film. Eyes Wide Shut also marks Kubrick’s first film since 1987’s Full Metal Jacket– just a crazy long incubation period. Kidman and costar (and husband at the time) Cruise should get some credit for the endless preparation