Taste of Cinema's 10 Greatest Actresses of All Time

Pretty hard to argue this though you can always argue with the exact number rankings - I'd say No Magnani? No Rowlands? but .....this is very much a heavy drama actresses list that values filmography - the same as my "great actors are in great movies in the greatest scenes for great directors" argument which is mostly true......it just is.......it's NOT "Oh, great actors are almost always better than their movies which aren't that good for journeymen filmmakers " ........that's a much harder argument to make.....and is probably why you don't see Lange, Close, Magnani, Rowlands, Page on this list though all are great etc. - but outside their "top 10"

Hara is a great pick and she had died recently I'm pretty sure when this was done.....Liv Ullman is that thing I always say about the "great English speaking male actors":

Brando / DDL / Washington / Clift / Duvall / Hopkins / Burton etc. acclaimed actors who don't have much or in some cases any comic inflected work. Like them - Ullman "could do" comedy - but she didn't do it memorably too much - yet she is obviously an all timer because she was so great at drama - and they were big, important, heavy dramas etc.

Female lists have a core usually that the men don't have to have (Streep, Hepburn, Bergman, Davis, Huppert, Ullman) - with men you can more logically leave off A LOT of male heavy hitters depending what you value in acting........and film in general.

1. Katharine Hepburn
2. Bette Davis
3. Ingrid Bergman
4. Liv Ullmann
5. Bibi Andersson
6. Meryl Streep
7. Setsuko Hara
8. Giulietta Masina
9. Anna Karina
10. Isabelle Huppert

They are all great actresses, so from there, it's a good list. The 2 that, to me, feel like they are "less obvious/deserving choices" here are Anna Karina, who was a stunner and of course a very talented actress (especially memorable in Vivre Sa Vie) and Bibi Andersson, I like her but if you have Liv you don't need to put Bibi...except if the only movie you saw of these two is Persona (and overall she got nothing on Ingrid Thulin !).