List of winners:
1929 — Janet Gaynor as Angela in "Street Angel", as Diane in "7th Heaven" and as The Wife in "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
1930 — Mary Pickford as Norma Besant in "Coquette"
1930 — Norma Shearer as Jerry in "The Divorcee"
1931 — Marie Dressler as Min Divot in "Min and Bill"
1932 — Helen Hayes as Madelon Claudet in "The Sin of Madelon Claudet"
1934 — Katharine Hepburn as Eva Lovelace in "Morning Glory"
1935 — Claudette Colbert as Ellen Andrews in "It Happened One Night"
1936 — Bette Davis as Joyce Heath in "Dangerous"
1937 — Luise Rainer as Anna Held in "The Great Ziegfeld"
1938 — Luise Rainer as O-Lan in "The Good Earth"
1939 — Bette Davis as Julie Marsden in "Jezebel"
1940 — Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in "...Gone with the Wind"
1941 — Ginger Rogers as Kitty Foyle in "Kitty Foyle"
1942 — Joan Fontaine as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth in "Suspicion"
1943 — Greer Garson as Kay Miniver in "Mrs. Miniver"
1944 — Jennifer Jones as Bernadette Soubirous in "The Song of Bernadette"
1945 — Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist in "Gaslight"
1946 — Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce in "Mildred Pierce"
1947 — Olivia de Havilland as Miss Josephine 'Jody' Norris in "To Each His Own"
1948 — Loretta Young as Katie Holstrom in "The Farmer's Daughter"
1949 — Jane Wyman as Belinda MacDonald in "Johnny Belinda"
1950 — Olivia de Havilland as Catherine Sloper in "The Heiress"
1951 — Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn in "Born Yesterday"
1952 — Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
1953 — Shirley Booth as Lola Delaney in "Come Back, Little Sheba"
1954 — Audrey Hepburn as Princess Ann in "Roman Holiday"
1955 — Grace Kelly as Georgie Elgin in "The Country Girl"
1956 — Anna Magnani as Serafina Delle Rose in "The Rose Tattoo"
1957 — Ingrid Bergman as Anna Koreff / Anastasia in "Anastasia"
1958 — Joanne Woodward as Eve White / Eve Black / Jane in "The Three Faces of Eve"
1959 — Susan Hayward as Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!"
1960 — Simone Signoret as Alice Aisgill in "Room at the Top"
1961 — Elizabeth Taylor as Gloria Wandrous in "BUtterfield 8"
1962 — Sophia Loren as Cesira in "Two Women"
1963 — Anne Bancroft in "The Miracle Worker"
1964 — Patricia Neal as Alma Brown in "Hud"
1965 — Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins in "Mary Poppins"
1966 — Julie Christie as Diana Scott in "Darling"
1967 — Elizabeth Taylor as Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
1968 — Katharine Hepburn as Christina Drayton in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
1969 — Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" / Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter"
1970 — Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"
1971 — Glenda Jackson as Gudrun Brangwen in "Women in Love"
1972 — Jane Fonda as Bree Daniels in "Klute"
1973 — Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret"
1974 — Glenda Jackson as Vickie Allessio in "A Touch of Class"
1975 — Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
1976 — Louise Fletcher as Nurse Mildred Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
1977 — Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen in "Network"
1978 — Diane Keaton as Annie Hall in "Annie Hall"
1979 — Jane Fonda as Sally Hyde in "Coming Home"
1980 — Sally Field as Norma Rae Webster in "Norma Rae"
1981 — Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in "Coal Miner's Daughter"
1982 — Katharine Hepburn as Ethel Thayer in "On Golden Pond"
1983 — Meryl Streep as Sophie Zawistowski in "Sophie's Choice"
1984 — Shirley MacLaine as Aurora Greenway in "Terms of Endearment"
1985 — Sally Field as Edna Spalding in "Places in the Heart"
1986 — Geraldine Page as Carrie Watts in "The Trip to Bountiful"
1987 — Marleen Matlin as Sarah Norman in "Children of a Lesser God"
1988 — Cher as Loretta Castorini in "Moonstruck"
1989 — Jodie Foster as Sarah Tobias in "The Accused"
1990 — Jessica Tandy as Daisy Werthan in "Driving Miss Daisy"
1991 — Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in "Misery"
1992 — Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in in "The Silence of the Lambs"
1993 — Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel in "Howards End"
1994 — Holly Hunter as Ada McGrath in "The Piano"
1995 — Jessica Lange as Carly Marshall in "Blue Sky"
1996 — Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking"
1997 — Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in "Fargo"
1998 — Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly in "As Good as It Gets"
1999 — Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps in "Shakespeare in Love"
2000 — Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry"
2001 — Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich in "Erin Brockovich"
2002 — Halle Berry as Leticia Musgrove in "Monster's Ball"
2003 — Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in "The Hours"
2004 — Charlize Teron as Aileen Wuornos in "Monster"
2005 — Hilary Swank as Maggie Fitzgerald in "Million Dollar Baby"
2006 — Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line"
2007 — Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen"
2008 — Marion Cotillard as Édith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose"
2009 — Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz in "The Reader"
2010 — Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy in "The Blind Side"
2011 — Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in "Black Swan"
2012 — Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady"
2013 — Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany Maxwell in "Silver Linings Playbook"
2014 — Cate Blanchett as Jeanette "Jasmine" Francis in "Blue Jasmine"
2015 — Julianne Moore as Alice Howland in "Still Alice"
2016 — Brie Larson as Joy "Ma" Newsome in "Room"
2017 — Emma Stone as Mia Dolan in "La La Land"
2018 — Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"
2019 — Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in "The Favourite"
2020 — Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland in "Judy"
2021 — Frances McDormand as Fern in "Nomadland"
2022 — Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"
2023 — Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang in "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
