Every Best Actress Winner In Oscar History

Culturess Oscars Coverage (Image via Kalistrya)

Hollywood’s leading ladies have graced us with their gifts for nearly a century now. We’ve laughed with them, cried with them, and been inspired by them.

Hollywood’s leading ladies have graced us with their gifts for decades, now. We remember so many of them fondly, those still with us and those who are no longer – Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, all the way up through Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson and beyond.

They’ve inspired us. We’ve cried with them, laughed with them, moved with them – and some of us may have gotten where we are today in part thanks to them, whether they’ve drove us to tell our own stories, to speak up, to act, to write, whatever it may be.

More than anything, they’ve told breathtaking stories. A mother making an impossible choice in Sophie’s Choice; a runaway princess in Roman Holiday; a deranged and torturous superfan in Misery; on and on, they’ve taken us away to other worlds, to other lives. There have been years more memorable than others, and certainly there have been upsets – but each award deserved, at the end of the day.

Thanks to the Academy’s detailed history, here’s our list of every Academy Award Best Actress winner in Oscar history.