I think SOMEONE could come up with a script to highlight the talents of : Gena Rowlands, Joanne Woodward,Ruby Dee ,Debbie Reynolds,Lauren Bacall ,and Eva Marie Saint.

Aw beep Forgot Kathy Bates. Great in everything

Gena Rowlan111cds "A Woman Under the Influence " Opening Night" Another Woman" The Neon Bible" etc.
Jessica Lange "France's" Tootsie"
Faye Dunaway "Chinatown"
Glenn Close "Dangerous Liasons" Damages"
Louise Fletcher "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest"
Shirley McClaine "Terms of Endearment" The Apartment "
Viola Davis "The Help" Fences" ( B'way revival)
Ellen Burstyn "Requiem for a Dream" Providence "
S. Epatha Merkerson "Law and Order" Come Back Little Sheba( B'way revival)
Agnes Moorehead "Citizen Kane" The Magnificent Ambersons"ok, so she's not among the "living" but she's my favorite actress-so shoot me

One more. How could I forget Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream?

I can't think of 10 but here's what I have:
Joanne Woodward Rachel, Rachel
Sally FieldSybil
Gena RowlandsAnother Woman
Mia FarrowRosemary's Baby
Meryl StreepJulie and Julia
Mary Tyler MooreOrdinary People

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Lovely lists. It's nice to see that favourites of mine, like Maggie Cheung and Bruno Ganz, are finalists in your thesp-Olympics.
I think it admirable that you have humbled yourself to the enormity of world cinema (that I can relate to), and the sad fact that the filmic/actorly output and development of certain countries is difficult to scrutinize exhaustively (for obvious reasons).
There are too many users on this site whose viewing histories and understanding don't extend as far, or run as deep, as their cinephilic egos. People who've clearly watched fewer than thirty films from a particular country (e.g. Canada), but act as though they're ready to write a film studies thesis111c on that industry and its performers. Or, that think they're fit to make sweeping international and eternal, as it were assessments having completed only a small fraction of the research that you seem to have done.
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

This is a difficult question to answer. One of the reasons I've confined my list-making to the national cinemas of France, the U.S. and Britain (and occasionally Japan), is because my knowledge of the history (recent or otherwise) of film 111cin these countries is far more substantive than my understanding of the evolution or traditions of film acting (or film culture generally) in Greece, for example, or the Philippines.
This imbalance in my own knowledge base would (and does) carry over into an Anglo/Americo/Franco-centric focus on world cinema as a whole, including any broad, sweeping assessments of its greatest contributors (directors, actors, etc.). That being said, my lists in their current (narrow, monocultural) form would look something like the following:
Setsuko Hara -
Late Spring
Vanessa Redgrave -
Wetherby
Gena Rowlands -
A Woman Under the Influence
Isabelle Huppert -
The Piano Teacher
Liv Ullmann -
Face to Face
Jeanne Moreau -
Bay of Angels
Maggie Cheung -
In the Mood for Love
Fernanda Montenegro -
Central Station
Meryl Streep -
Sophie's Choice
Hanna Schygulla -
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Max von Sydow -
Hamsun
Tatsuya Nakadai -
The Human Condition
Albert Finney -
Under the Volcano
Bruno Ganz -
In the White City
Jean-Louis Trintignant -
The Conformist
Al Pacino -
Dog Day Afternoon
Javier Bardem -
Before Night Falls
Toni Servillo -
Il Divo
Daniel Day-Lewis -
There Will Be Blood
Jiang Wen -
The Last Eunuch

Gena Rowlands - Gloria/Woman Under the Influence
Cicely Tyson - The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Meryl Streep - Sophies Choice
Sally Field - Norma Rae
Diane Weist - Hannah and her Sisters
Jane Fonda - Klute
Ellen Burstyn - Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore
Sissy Spacek - In the Bedroom
Viola Davis - Doubt
Anjelica Huston - The Grifters

Just out of curiosity, what would your lists of ten finest living film actors and actresses
the world over
look like?
In order of preference:
Joan Allen
Yes
Gena Rowlands
Opening Night
Jodie Foster
The Silence of the Lambs
Meryl Streep
Sophie's Choice
Julianne Moore
Safe
Holly Hunter
The Piano
Susan Sarandon
Bull Durham
Olivia de Havilland
My Cousin Rachel
Anjelica Huston
The Dead
Jane Fonda
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
(Special mention: the mesmerically talented Vera Farmiga.)
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?