On episode 289 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch contributor Mark Johnson, and special guest Kevin Jacobsen, Entertainment Weekly Content Update Editor and host of the And the Runner Up Is podcast. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

While everyone is settling into the summer blockbuster season and recovering from the Cannes Film Festival from the month of May, the AW team turn to the month of June by going back to a favorite exercise from last year, an extensive tier ranking of an Oscar category. After doing Best Director last year, the team moves the most popular category the Oscars has for the team; Best Actress and its 98 winners. In trying to place these winners in the correct spot, the team had to come together and decide on whether to place these performances in the S (all-time winner), A, B, C, D, or F tier and explain the ranking.

Only 49 of the winners are discussed on this episode, including Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter and Sally Field in Norma Rae, with the rest covered next week. For the first time in the tier ranking episodes, the performances have been randomized, making the show even more unpredictable as to who will be covered from the list of winners on this episode. Also, the team has instituted two rules that include only 15 winners being able to be in the “S tier” and if an actress has multiple wins, only one of their wins can make it into the 15. It adds a fun wrinkle for the team to try and figure out when they get to their final rankings. It may only be part one, but it’s a great episode and we hope you all enjoy it and listen next week to part two.

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This podcast runs 3h58m. We will be back in next week for part 2 of our Best Actress tier ranking episode. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).