In his review of Julie & Julia,A.O. Scott asserted that Meryl Streep “has exhausted every superlative that exists.” And yet when it comes to the Academy Awards, Streep has not usually been granted the top spot: She’s been nominated 14 times for best actress, but has won the award just once, giving her the lowest winning percentage for any actor ever so honored. (She has been nominated three times for best supporting actress as well, also winning once, for Kramer vs. Kramer.)
Should the oft-hailed World’s Greatest Actress have won a few of the many times she was passed over? Oscar observers have begun to marvel at Streep’s long victory drought—it’s been 30 years since she was recognized for Sophie’s Choice. So Slatetried to determine what Streep’s winning percentage would be in a more just universe.
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In the slide show below, we go through each of her nominations, looking at who won instead and considering the fairness of that verdict.
Our conclusion? Meryl Streep should have three best actress Oscars, not one.
Still, there are no travesties among her losses: Her lone victory, for Sophie’s Choice, is really the only slam-dunk, clear-cut winner among her 14 nominated performances. Even in years when she was more deserving than the actual winner, another snubbed actress arguably had an even stronger case. (See, e.g., 1990 and 1998.)
Should have won? No. Streep herself has candidly stated that this role, in which she played dual characters in two separate time periods, was difficult to grasp: “I could never attach to either of my characters.” In this, her first best actress nomination, her detachment is apparent on screen.
Should have won? Yes. Considered by many the defining moment of Streep’s career, the actress’s mastery of accent and character are on full display. Within the Oscar category that year, or any year, her performance would be an incredibly difficult one to beat.
Should have won? No. While Streep’s performance as the real-life plant worker turned union activist Karen Silkwood is memorable, MacLaine gave the defining performance of her career, balancing humor and tragedy in Terms of Endearment, which won five other Oscars, including best picture.
Courtesy 20CREDIT: th Century Fox; Paramount Pictures.
Should have won? No. Streep gives another fine performance, but the best attribute of this tediously paced love story set in British East Africa is the cinematography. And while accents are only a small part of an actor’s development of a character, it does not help that Streep may not have gotten it completely right this time.
Should have won? No. Cher’s performance has somewhat surprisingly stood the test of time (this moment certainly helps). And if anyone was snubbed, it was probably fellow nominee Holly Hunter, who was excellent in Broadcast News.
Should have won? Yes. Streep mastered another accent for the role of Australian Lindy Chamberlain, of the famous “dingo took my baby” case, and conveyed the intense emotions of a mother who lost her child and was then falsely accused of murder. Still, it’s a close call: Jodie Foster is terrific as a rape victim who is undermined by charges of promiscuity. Neither is a great film, but both performances are haunting.
Should have won? No. Kathy Bates shouldn’t have won either. Streep was praised for the “most fully articulated comic performance of her career,” and for singing in her own voice—not once, but twice!—even belting out a foot-thumping country number for the closing scene. But the Oscar should have gone to Julia Roberts, whose role in Pretty Woman skyrocketed the young actress to stardom.
Should have won? No. The Bridges of Madison County is hardly a standout movie in Streep’s career. Meanwhile, Susan Sarandon’s turn in Dead Man Walking—as a nun who comforts a convicted killer on death row—was the best performance in a very competitive year. (Upon hearing of her nomination, Sarandon said, “Thank heaven I’m not competing against that pig.” She was referring to Babe.)
Should have won? No. Gwyneth Paltrow shouldn’t have either, not for her wan performance in the overrated Shakespeare in Love. But One True Thing, with Streep as a cancer-stricken mother whose daughter puts her career on hold to take care of her, was not the Oscar-worthiest movie, either.* The more deserving contenders that year were Cate Blanchett for Elizabethand Fernanda Montenegro for Central Station.
* Due to an editing error, this slide originally misstated the role that Streep plays in One True Thing.
Should have won? No. True, Streep did learn to play Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins” for her role as a music teacher in a tough Harlem school. But who can forget Hilary Swank’s breakthrough performance as a transgendered teen in Boys Don’t Cry? No one. The academy got it right.
Should have won? No. Mirren’s performance as Queen Elizabeth justly evoked a general consensus that her victory was a “done deal.” Streep’s bitingly intricate Miranda Priestly is the memorable crux of a fun, but somewhat thin, film. It deserved a nomination, but Mirren’s Queen is, as Slate’s Dana Stevens wrote, “maddening, hilarious, and deeply human”—a tour-de-force.
Should have won? No. As Manohla Dargis said, Streep’s Sister Aloysius makes “no sense in the context of the rest of the film”—her flamboyant depiction jars in an otherwise naturalistic movie. And, in one memorable scene, Streep is upstaged by the brilliant Viola Davis (possibly foreshadowing this year’s Oscars). Winslet, meanwhile, carries The Reader—an admittedly polarizing film—with a role that “heartbreakingly combines passivity and anger.”
Should have won? Yes. Bullock is certainly likeable in The Blind Side as Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took in an inner-city teenager who went on to join the NFL. Still, while a departure for Bullock, the role and performance do not stand out among the many other portrayals of a life-changing, white savior of poor, black children. Julie & Julia, meanwhile, is Streep “at her brilliant, beguiling best.”
Courtesy Columbia Pictures; Warner Bros.
2011—The Iron Lady
Winner: To be determined.
Should she win? No. Despite all the kudos for Streep’s portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, Viola Davis seems poised to win this year for her role in The Help. (Streep has graciously acknowledged as much.) Both women tackle challenging roles in middling films, but Davis’ ability to give such complexity to what might have been a one-note stereotype is more impressive than Streep’s persuasive embodiment of a complicated historical figure.
Courtesy the Weinstein Company; DreamWorks Pictures.
Streep seems likely to be passed over again—and justly—this year, but her partisans can take at least some measure of comfort from the precedent set by Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn is Streep’s closest equal among actresses in terms of Oscar wins and nominations, and she went 34 years between wins. She then went on to collect three of her four best actress statuettes.