Best movies that are oscar winners or nominees in actress in a leading role category

Vera Drake(2004)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 82

Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain--a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.



The Reader(2008)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 72

Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.



My Week with Marilyn(2011)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 74

Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Olivier's, documents the tense interaction between Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).



Monster's Ball(2001)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 73

After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African American wife of the last prisoner he executed.



The Blind Side(2009)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 69

The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family.





The Piano(1993)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 74

A mute woman is sent to 1850s New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, but is soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.



The Lost Daughter(2021)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 83

A woman's beach vacation takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past.



Chocolat(2000)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 69

A woman and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the rigid morality of the community.



You Can Count on Me(2000)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 78

A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely seen younger brother returns to town.



Unfaithful(2002)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 72

A New York suburban couple's marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an adulterous fling.



North Country(2005)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 75

A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States -- Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.



Frozen River(2008)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 79

Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling ...



The Iron Lady(2011)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 71

An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene.



August: Osage County(2013)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 72

A look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Oklahoma house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.



Frida(2002)

Combined Rating:
77
Combined Critics Rating: 71

A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.



Misery(1990)

Combined Rating:
77
Combined Critics Rating: 67

After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.



Leaving Las Vegas(1995)

Combined Rating:
76
Combined Critics Rating: 67

Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.



As Good as It Gets(1997)

Combined Rating:
76
Combined Critics Rating: 65

A single mother/waitress, a misanthropic author, and a gay artist form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery.



Blonde(2022)

Combined Rating:
76
Combined Critics Rating: 71

A fictionalized chronicle of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe.




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