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Actress Jennifer Lawrence poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Red Sparrow' in London, Monday, Feb. 19, 2018. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)By John Serba | [email protected] Oscars are nigh, and with it, one of the strongest batches of best actress nominees in recent memory: Saoirse Ronan (“Lady Bird”), Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”), Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”), Meryl Streep (“The Post”) and Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”). In acknowledgment and celebration of that, here’s a ranked list of the 25 best working actresses in Hollywood – and 15 runners-up for good measure.25. Penelope CruzShe emerged as a teenager in “Jamon Jamon” and Oscar-winning Spanish dramedy “Belle Epoque,” then quickly became director Pedro Almodovar’s muse: “All About My Mother,” “Broken Embraces” and “Volver.” Ohhhhhh, “Volver” – I pause to slowly exhale, because she’s a femme-tornado here, and while the story involves ghosts casually mingling with the living, the most supernatural thing in the movie must be Cruz’s performance, which is candid, bold and seductive. She was shoehorned into American films with middling success, although turns in “Blow,” “All the Pretty Horses” and, especially, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” stand out. One of her future roles is in “Love Child,” directed by Todd Solondz, a pairing of filmmaker and actress that raises one eyebrow, and then the other eyebrow, and just might be Cruz’s return to form.24. Sally HawkinsIf not for “The Shape of Water,” Hawkins might be an outsider looking in at this list. I’m not sure who else could play a mute woman who falls in love with an amphibious man-fish, and not make it feel alienating to the audience. Such a thing requires almost superhuman warmth, empathy and humanity, to emphasize the love from within a strange thing – and we are strange things, sitting in the audience, feeling her own heartache and unspoken tragedy. She emerged previously in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” playing a flighty free spirit taking driving lessons from a tightly wound Eddie Marsan; she’s the most lovable, sympathetic dingbat I’ve ever experienced in film, an example of character immersion of significant distinction. She’s also the best lightly kooky mom ever in the “Paddington” movies, which delightfully dovetail with her effortless tonal presence.23. Helena Bonham CarterAn auspicious debut it was, as the cherubic and witty Lucy Honeychurch in “A Room with a View,” rendering the film the most lively and lovely of all buttoned-up British period pieces. From there, it was Henry James (“The Wings of the Dove”) and Shakespeare (“Hamlet”) and E.M. Forster (“Howards End”) and Chuck Palahniuk (“Fight Club”), and one of these marks a shift. Hm. Which could it be?Carter’s Marla in “Fight Club” scuzzed up a career of prim propriety, and it was delectable, ugly and gloriously warped. It ushered in the second half of her career, rife with oddities, primarily as the most interesting performances in husband Tim Burton’s films, be they good or bad: “Sweeney Todd,” “Big Fish,” “Dark Shadows,” “Alice in Wonderland,” even “Planet of the Apes,” where she was the standout among so much monkeying around. She’s also the “Harry Potter” Character Most Deserving a Spinoff Movie or Three, the tantalizingly deranged Bellatrix Lestrange. I love HBC without measure, and anticipate another eccentric performance in the upcoming “Ocean’s 8.”22. Octavia SpencerSpencer is the mistress of the weed-whacker one-liner, able to cut down whatever’s in front of her with razor precision. When her eyes widen, it’s either in wonder, or foreshadowing a withering takedown. Her most famous KO came when she delivered that pie full of you-know-what to Bryce Dallas Howard in “The Help,” and walked off with an Oscar, ending a long career of bit roles here and there. She’s exceptional in “Fruitvale Station” and “Snowpiercer,” and is brilliant as a weary, but resilient NASA computer programmer in “Hidden Figures.” Most recently, with “The Shape of Water,” she showed us that a comic-relief role doesn’t need to be thankless, and in fact can be absolutely necessary. She’s one of the funniest people in film, and makes it look so effortless.21. Rachel WeiszMost know Weisz from two “Mummy” movies, and possibly for winning an Oscar thanks to a gripping performance in “The Constant Gardener.” But she’s quietly put together an impressively diverse filmography: “About a Boy,” “Runaway Jury,” “The Fountain,” “The Brothers Bloom”; recently, she’s provided significant supporting turns in overlooked films such as “The Light Between Oceans” and “Youth,” and deftly walked the line between dramatic heartbreak and oddball comedy in “The Lobster.” Her work is terribly underrated. Is it too late to give her a Dern-ish role in the next “Star Wars”?20. Jessica ChastainOf all actresses emerging in the last decade, Chastain is one of the best at finding the sweet spot between prestige work and mainstream accessibility. Supporting work in “The Debt,” “Take Shelter” and “The Tree of Life” established her talent, preceding her Oscar-nominated role in “The Help,” in which she showed nuance when the film literally put poop in the pie. Since then, she anchored “Zero Dark Thirty” with her credibility, and wasn’t given her due for the unfairly scorned “Crimson Peak.” And her confidence and detailed character work shined in 2017’s “Molly’s Game,” supported by a rich Aaron Sorkin script.19. Sigourney WeaverShe was, is, and always will be Ripley, an all-time-great cinema icon of feminine toughness. If you are a massive, hissing, slime-drooling queen creature with a little mouth inside your bigger mouth, you will not get between Sigourney and her surrogate daughter. You will eat the cold and unforgiving void, you b----. Of course, there’s also “Ghostbusters,” “Working Girl,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “The Ice Storm,” “Galaxy Quest” and probably a dozen other career highlights (let’s say “Avatar” is one, considering she’s currently shooting foursequels). She’s also a recent recipient of a Great Performance in a Movie Nobody Saw award, playing a tough-love grandmother who softens under the weight of her daughter’s cancer treatments in “A Monster Calls.”18. Charlize TheronShe won an Oscar playing a real-life serial killer in “Monster,” and simmered with righteous feminist fury in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But Theron’s best performance is so terribly overlooked, all of you who skipped it – too many of you – should be incarcerated: “Young Adult.” Her characterization of a delusional woman trying to worm her way back into the life of her now-married-with-children ex-boyfriend is so exquisitely modulated, it breaks our hearts and makes us laugh at precisely the same time. And let’s not overlook the gritty “North Country,” or a kickass cold-steel action turn in “Atomic Blonde,” or her recurring role on TV’s “Arrested Development” (all together now: “Mr. F!”), which is one of the funniest things of the 21stcentury, on any screen, big or small.17. Emily BluntAs the embattled personal assistant to a viciously Streeping Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Blunt was a revelation, vicious but vulnerable, the movie’s unheralded champion. Yes, I said that, and I mean it, and I’ll stand by it. She was the best thing by far in sci-fi films “The Adjustment Bureau” and “Looper,” as well as the musical “Into the Woods.” She overshadows Tom Cruise’s charisma playing a tough-as-nails superheroic alien-eradicator in “Edge of Tomorrow.” She shows a knack for light comedy in “The Five-Year Engagement.”She’s a naive FBI agent in a shadowy black-ops unit in “Sicario,” providing a wide-eyed avenue for our own confusion and frustration with what happens outside the gaze of mainstream international law enforcement. She’s also sneakily brilliant in the soapy trash of “The Girl on the Train,” where she lets loose and gets wild and intense, and renders a very dumb movie quite riveting at times. Next, Blunt will play Mary Poppins in a sequel we didn’t really ask for, until we found out Blunt is playing Mary Poppins, and now, hey, maybe we want it.16. Laura Linney“You Can Count On Me”: it’s Linney’s greatest performance among many great performances, as well as a mantra for her career. “The Truman Show” was her true breakthrough, and she’s extraordinary in “Kinsey,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “The Savages” and “Mystic River,” which showcase an actress of vibrant character. She makes less-memorable projects more so – “Nocturnal Animals,” “Hyde Park on Hudson” and, curiously, amusingly, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” in which she doesn’t deliver her lines with a straight face, and it’s the perfectly timed elbow in the ribs we need to remind us we’re watching a movie about turtles that are also teenagers that happen to be ninjas.But back to “You Can Count On Me,” in which her single mother’s viciously kempt life is upended by the arrival of her just as viciously unkempt brother played by Mark Ruffalo, who goes toe-to-toe with Kinney in nuance and commitment to character – the film proves she’s a talent to be treasured.15. Helen MirrenShe sure seems born to play the effing Queen, or color the sprawling ensemble in a fastidious period drama like “Gosford Park,” or anchor countless Shakespeare adaptations. But I love how a silly thing like “RED” gets damn serious when Helen Mirren shows up neatly coiffed in a designer dress and hauling around a machine gun the size of Florida. “The Debt,” “The Last Station,” “The Queen”; “Calendar Girls,” “Trumbo,” “Hitchcock,” and, sure, why not, “The Fate of the Furious” – she brings dramatic heft to all of it. She really is great as the effing Queen, which scored her an Oscar, and I love her as The Wife in “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,” the sympathetic face of one of the scariest and most grotesque films I’ve ever seen. P.S. Don’t judge her because she was in “Caligula.”14. Greta GerwigFew people in movies are funnier than Gerwig, who balances elevated wit with an almost-tactile emotional realism. “Frances Ha,” “Mistress America” and “20thCentury Women” are Gerwig at her best; her work in “Greenberg” and “Maggie’s Plan” is almost as brilliant. And her distinctive affectations are all over writing/directing effort “Lady Bird,” even though she’s behind the camera. If she ever sells out to play a superhero, I’ll eat the moon on a low-fat Ritz cracker.13. Julianne MooreI first noticed her in 1993’s “Short Cuts,” and not just because she’s the focal point of an utterly fearless nude scene. It’s frankly shocking Moore didn’t win an Oscar for more than two decades after that, in 2015 for playing an academic afflicted with Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice” – she could’ve, should’ve, won several times before, for two Todd Haynes films, “Safe” and “Far From Heaven,” her greatest, most empathetic and complex performances. Or for playing a veteran porn star in “Boogie Nights,” or for Annette Bening’s foil in “The Kids are All Right,” or for enduring supporting turns in “Children of Men” or “The Hours” or “Magnolia” or “A Single Man.” Moore’s career is surely among Hollywood’s most prolific – she sure seems game for any challenge, be it silly or substantial – and even in lesser films such as “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”, “The Shipping News” or “Chloe,” she provides a credible dramatic foundation for the rest of the cast.Oh, and she’s also Maude Lebowski in “The Big Lebowski,” in which she exercises her great comedic and satirical chops. It’s not the kind of character who inspires the gifting of statuettes, but for the rest of the wide, open world outside that bubble, it’s probably her greatest performance.12. Laura DernDern wedged her way into my heart as the wonderfully loony Bonnie-type to Nicolas Cage’s Clyde-type in “Wild at Heart” – and never left. Few could so seamlessly merge from David Lynch to “Jurassic Park” like she did, a testament to her versatility. She’s just as wild in Alexander Payne’s satirical shredder “Citizen Ruth” (which you probably haven’t seen – time to correct that). A relatively quiet period in the 2000s preceded a recent flurry of strong roles in “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Certain Women,” “Wilson” and an obscurity called “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” And her recent TV work in “Twin Peaks” and “Big Little Lies” is as strong as anything she did for the big screen.11. Michelle WilliamsHit TV series “Dawson’s Creek” made her famous, but it never reflected her true interest. So Williams never looked back, challenging herself with roles in which she radiated truth and sincerity. The biggest was “Brokeback Mountain,” the first of her four Oscar nominations; the second was “Blue Valentine,” the third was “My Week with Marilyn” and the fourth, “Manchester by the Sea.” (Yes, her Marilyn Monroe is absolutely magnetic.) Her resume only gets richer from there: her work with director Kelly Reichardt yielded great authenticity in “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff” and “Certain Women.” For my money, her work in Sarah Polley’s “Take This Waltz” is her most endearing and complex. She has softened for the occasional mainstream picture, lending grace to otherwise graceless stuff such as “The Greatest Showman” and “Oz the Great and Powerful.”10. Saoirse RonanExhibit A: “Atonement”; at 13, she found the place between childhood and adolescence that’s often a cliché in movies, but made it intense and a little haunted. Exhibit B: “Brooklyn”; in a movie that’s smart, sweet, funny and quietly assertive, she’s all of these things at once, effortlessly so, and creates a lovely, lovely character. Exhibit C: “Lady Bird,” the funniest coming-of-age comedy in a long time (OK, 2016’s “The Edge of Seventeen” is just as funny), stars her as high-school senior who’s awkward and rebellious in all the least obvious ways, and her timing for comedy and capacity for pathos are astonishing. I can’t come up with arguments why she shouldn’t win/have won Oscars for all these. She’s also brilliant in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” fiercely committed in “Hanna” and charismatic in the otherwise maligned “The Lovely Bones.” She’s 24. What have you done lately?9. Amy AdamsA dozen years since she stole our hearts in “Junebug” and landed her first Oscar nomination, Adams has added four more Academy nods: “American Hustle,” “The Master,” “The Fighter,” “Doubt.” I’ll correct the glaring inadequacies in that track record by giving her the Oscar for “The Master” – she’s terrifying as the true person of power in that story – and adding nominations for “Arrival,” one of the most glaring snubs of the last decade, and “Enchanted,” in which she’s a delightfully un-self-aware Disney princess naif. Few of her generation are so talented.8. Lupita Nyong'oHer breakthrough was unforgettable: As Patsey, the horribly abused slave in “12 Years a Slave,” she ripped our hearts out, and won probably the most deserving Oscar of the last decade. Too many overlooked her extraordinary turn in “Queen of Katwe” as an impoverished mother protecting her children on the streets of Uganda – a role that deserved an Oscar. And she recently proved her mettle in mainstream fare with a significant role in “Black Panther,” one of the most important, credible and thematically complex blockbusters in recent memory. Nyong'o has made the most of every moment she's on screen. Few have such a bright career ahead.7. Jennifer LawrenceFrankly, her most high-profile stuff is the least of Lawrence’s work, and she’s still pretty great – the “X-Men” movies criminally underuse her, and she made sure we still cared what happened to Katniss in “The Hunger Games,” even when the final two movies fell apart around her. She very much deserved becoming everyone’s favorite actress after earning an Oscar nod for “Winter’s Bone,” and winning one for “Silver Linings Playbook.” Her “science oven” bit in “American Hustle” is one of the funniest scenes of the last decade. And she recently challenged herself mightily in the love-it-or-hate-it psychological horror nightmare “Mother!” (note: I loved it, and she had a lot to do with me loving it).6. Viola DavisDavis is one of the new greats, a powerhouse channeling righteous sincerity into her roles. She toiled thanklessly for years before she stole scenes out from under Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt.” Then she was the earnest heart of “The Help.” Both earned her Oscar nods, but she wouldn’t win until “Fences” cast her as the long-suffering wife of Denzel Washington’s impossible, philandering garbage man – a performance blending exasperation and love like few others. She’s currently attached to a Harriet Tubman biography, which isn’t even in production yet; can we buy our tickets now anyway?5. Frances McDormand“Fargo":I could stop right there and move on and you’d all nod your heads in agreement. It’s the single greatest performance by any living creature in the last half-century of film, and if that seems like hyperbole, think again. My police work on this case is indelible there, Lou. Her other work with the Coen Bros. (she’s married to Joel) is smaller, supporting, and nearly as brilliant: “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “Hail, Caesar!,” “Burn After Reading,” “Raising Arizona” and, of course, “Blood Simple.” Outside that hallowed canon are significant turns in “Mississippi Burning,” “Laurel Canyon,” “Short Cuts,” “Wonder Boys,” “Almost Famous,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and TV’s “Olive Kitteredge” (I know, it’s the small screen, but the miniseries is essentially four short films, meticulously directed by Lisa Cholodenko). And her utterly dominant performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is a poignant portrait of grief and anger for our times.4. Tilda SwintonWhether it’s a mega-budget studio tentpole or an arthouse indie, Swinton makes any movie she’s in at least 32 percent weirder. That’s a fact supported by science and things. Well, in the last decade, at least. Also early in her career, before she was internationally famous, although the projects themselves were also weird.It’s during that last decade, since she won an Oscar for playing a very, very quietly sociopathic corporate suit in “Michael Clayton,” that she’s really let the strange loose: The garishly garbed and made-up head of a future-world food manufacturer – and her twin! – in “Okja.” Or grandiose grotesques in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Snowpiercer,” the latter showcasing her scene-stealing at its funniest, craziest and most committed.And yet, her sincerity is on its own performative plane too, as the mother of a budding young psychopath in “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” as a Bowiesque androgynous rock star vacationing with troublesome old friends in “A Bigger Splash,” and as an unfulfilled showpiece wife and mother in “I Am Love” (the latter two directed by Luca Guadagnino); these are her three most significant works. She’s even commanding as the White Witch in “The Chronicles of Narnia” and as a magickal guru in “Doctor Strange.” Next, she’ll star in Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake. The role ultimately doesn’t matter for Swinton – she’s unpredictable and enthralling regardless. We should look forward to her future works with great interest.3. Meryl StreepOf course we love Streep. Who doesn’t love Streep? The Academy loves Streep – she has 21 Oscar nominations, give or take several hundred, and three wins, give or take a dozen. “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Deer Hunter,” “Out of Africa,” “The River Wild,” “The Bridges of Madison County.” I know a list of titles isn’t a sentence, but they are when they’re Streep movies.Her best films to my eye are “Postcards from the Edge” and “Adaptation.” Her most recent nomination, “The Post,” is her best work of the past 15 years. Even her voiceover work in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is dialed in tight for comedy. And don’t ever, ever forget: the dingo took her baby.Streep is often guilty of something I call Streeping, in which she plays big and goes over the top, frequently with crazy, finely tuned accents: “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Julie and Julia,” “Doubt,” “August: Osage County,” “Florence Foster Jenkins.” Then again, tell me she still isn’t great when she’s Streeping, which is simultaneously infuriating and entertaining and kind of bewildering in its multifaceted display of talent. There is no one like Streep, and there will never be another one like Streep.2. Kate WinsletFour of Winslet’s first five roles are as follows: “Sense and Sensibility” (Austen), “Jude” (Hardy), “Hamlet” (Shakespeare) and “Heavenly Creatures,” in which she plays an obsessive, murderous teen. Then came “Titanic,” in which she found a way to make us fall in love with her despite being required to recite James Cameron’s cornball dialogue. Her subsequent work in the few years after the boat sank was offbeat, must-see stuff despite their ambition sometimes outsizing the final product: “Hideous Kinky,” “Holy Smoke,” “Quills,” “Iris.”Then she made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” her greatest performance and role, funny and heartbreaking, idiosyncratic and so, so humane. She anchors the tragedy in “Finding Neverland,” hones incisive satire in “Little Children,” is luminescent in glossy comedy “The Holiday.” She goes deep and dark in “The Reader” (which earned her an Oscar, on her sixth nomination), and finds a different shade of deep and dark in “Revolutionary Road.” Todd Haynes’ TV miniseries “Mildred Pierce” is five-and-a-half remarkable hours of Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe-winning Winslet work. She loses herself in character in “Steve Jobs” and brandishes a mean needle in “The Dressmaker.”All of this speaks for itself, doesn’t it?1. Cate BlanchettHow many tours-de-force can a person have? One can’t imagine any other actress commanding the screen in “Carol,” “Blue Jasmine,” “Elizabeth” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” like Blanchett. She gave new shades of nastiness and complexity to the evil stepmother in 2015’s “Cinderella.” She’s ruthless as the villain in underrated action movie “Hanna.” She’s the most riveting of all iterations of Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” She does much, much more than an impression of Katherine Hepburn in “The Aviator.” She brings an eerie, ethereal presence to the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films as the elf queen Galadriel. She’s extraordinary as the foil to Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal.” I even enjoyed her turn as a nasty Nazi in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and as a scenery-chewing villain in “Thor: Raganarok” – silly movies made better by her presence. I could go on. It’s hard to argue that she isn’t the best in the business.The next 15:Annette BeningYou no doubt didn’t see “20thCentury Women.” Hardly anyone did. Go watch it, and tell me Bening doesn’t make it look easy. While you’re at it, revisit “The Kids are All Right.” And “The Grifters.” And recognize how she takes a relatively thankless role in “Open Range” and makes it deeper, richer. Don’t forget, her vicious self is still the best thing about “American Beauty,” which otherwise hasn’t aged well.Mary J. BligeThe superstar soul singer has a limited acting resume – a Tyler Perry movie, a small part in “Rock of Ages,” a handful of TV bit parts – but blossomed mightily in “Mudbound,” earning an Oscar nomination. More Mary in movies, please.Sandra BullockBullock is a warm, agreeable screen presence even in a career full of formulaic films (“A Time to Kill,” “The Proposal,” etc.). Recently, she tackled her most challenging role in “Gravity,” and was never funnier than in “The Heat” – two projects that boosted her credibility. Anchoring the upcoming “Ocean’s 8” seems like a perfect fit.Judi DenchIf you want some command presence, Dench is your go-to star. Her Oscar was earned with only eight minutes of screen time as Queen Elizabeth in “Shakespeare in Love,” which speaks significantly of her ability to make the most of only a few lines. I prefer her rich, complex work in “Philomena,” which is a rare leading role for Dench – she’s likely the greatest character actress, memorable in so many supporting parts in so many movies, it’s impossible to list them all, from “A Room With a View” to the recent remake of “Murder on the Orient Express,” with many stops along the way as M in the James Bond franchise.Salma HayekHer passion project, playing artist Frida Kahlo in “Frida,” is a tremendous work. Early roles in “Desperado” and “From Dusk Till Dawn” are terrific, and has shown a recent knack for stealing scenes in comedies (“The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” and she was uproariously funny on TV’s “30 Rock”).Taraji P. HensonShe’s not an above-the-title superstar, although she should be – her grace and quiet charisma guaranteed “Hidden Figures” was a creative success, and she’s unforgettable in “Hustle and Flow.” She earned an Oscar nod for strong supporting work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” It seems as if Henson hasn’t earned the acclaim she deserves.Scarlett JohanssonJohansson is such a movie star in the classical sense, it’s easy to forget how great an actress she was, so early in her career: “Lost in Translation,” “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” “Ghost World,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” “Match Point” and “Vicky Christina Barcelona” only boosted her credibility. Of course, now she’s the superhero Black Widow, which overshadows everything, including her greatest work: as a terrifying, man-eating alien in “Under the Skin,” and as the voice – just the voice! – of an artificially intelligent computer in “Her.”Brie LarsonShe won a well-deserved Oscar for some grueling, intense work in “Room,” but the microbudget indie “Short Term 12” is so alive, so real, thanks to her performance. Other highlights? She’s funny in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and buoyant in “21 Jump Street” and hopefully will bring significant femme cred to the Marvel Cinematic Universe when she headlines “Captain Marvel.”Carey MulliganShe knocked us out as a nightclub songstress in “Shame,” was viciously funny in “Inside Llewyn Davis,” was a vital, warm presence in “Drive” and carried great dramatic weight in “Never Let Me Go” and “Mudbound.” But “An Education” is her triumph, her turn as a teen dating an older gentleman in 1960s London landing her an Oscar nomination – which should have been an Oscar win.Natalie Portman“Black Swan” – hold on – yes – I just checked – it’s still terrifying. It’s destined to be her creative high point, eclipsing her extraordinary work in “Closer” and “V for Vendetta,” and as a youngster in “Beautiful Girls” and “Leon: The Professional.” Her projects have been uneven the past several years, although her take on Jackie Kennedy in “Jackie” and some gritty work in “Annihilation” show an upward trend.Margot RobbieShe was a wrecking ball in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which is as audacious a breakthrough as any star has ever enjoyed. She turned cracked corn into popcorn as Jane in “The Legend of Tarzan,” was far stronger than her material in “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot," and was formidable in "Suicide Squad" despite every other aspect of the movie being a fright. And of course, she’s an Oscar nominee now, taking a vivid, trashy turn in “I, Tonya,” and anyone who can make Tonya Harding sympathetic is a person of significant talent.Emma StoneStone is a bright, bright talent, never looking back after being effervescent in a small role in “Superbad.” Playing Billie Jean King in “Battle of the Sexes” might be her heftiest role yet, she anchored “The Help” and, of course, won an easy Oscar for “La La Land.” But “Easy A” is her best, a true lost gem.Marisa TomeiTomei might not be on this list if I hadn’t recently re-watched “My Cousin Vinny,” which made her the least-respected Oscar winner ever. Truth: she’s wonderful in the movie, so effortlessly funny and vibrant, doing everything we don’t expect her to do. She’s also great in “The Wrestler” – her grittiest, richest role – “Slums of Beverly Hills,” “Cyrus,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.” She has a surprisingly strong body of work.Naomi Watts“Mulholland Drive” was an unforgettable breakthrough for Watts, who would later gain mainstream fame for the horror hit “The Ring.” But film aficionados recognize how she never backs down from a difficult role: “21 Grams,” “King Kong,” “Eastern Promises,” “The Impossible.”Reese WitherspoonFew movie stars enjoy roles perfectly suited to their skill sets, but Witherspoon has at least three: June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line,” Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” and her funniest and most finely tuned character to date, Tracy Flick in “Election.” The unforgettable, indefatigable Tracy Flick. The utmost Tracy Flick. You get the picture. Also, I’d be doing her a disservice by not mentioning “Wild” or “Mud” or “Pleasantville,” which exhibit the range she so rarely gets recognized for.Honorable mention: Daisy RidleyA strong argument can be made that Ridley is the pivot point for the most astronomically important, pop-culturally relevant franchise in the current cinema: “Murder on the Orient Express.” Joking! But seriously, the new “Star Wars” trilogy hinges on us investing ourselves in the story of Rey, the badass scavenger who becomes a badass Jedi, a character Ridley endows with the conviction and sincerity – and occasional on-point comedic timing – crucial to the movies’ success. So far, so good for her career. Her only other significant part so far was an underwritten supporting turn in “Orient,” so we’ll see if she has the right stuff when she tackles Shakespeare later this year in “Ophelia” – she has the titular role!

It’s important to know that people don’t “hate” Social Justice Warriors, at least the vast majority of people who advocate against them don’t. Many aren’t even in a place where they hate their values. What many people hate is the way in which people described in this question act, the way they treat people who possess ideas different than their own, and the broader ramifications of the way they act and what it does to the rest of society.That said, I need some qualifiers because people are already rolling up their sleeves on this one.So who do I hate in this? It isn’t the Left. If you vote Democrat in America or follow the same ideas internationally, I don’t really have a problem with you. Most of the best people I know are Democrats because the pull of the modern Democratic party is one of kindness and taking care of people. Where I disagree with most of my Democratic friends isn’t that they are bad people. It is that their ideas for making the world a better place have unintended consequences that, in my research and experiences, do more harm than good. Among the large masses of the bottom are activists with idealistic worldviews, but who are fighting for things that are, in my view, fundamentally bad ideas which are made clear when they are not surrounded in an echo chamber of like-minded thinkers. As an example, this student arguing for free college and a $15 minimum wage.You see? She did nothing hateful. There is nothing to hate about this woman that we can see. She was just stupid and argued her points stupidly. In fact, she isn’t even a good representative of the Left. Mentally and emotionally immature and academically ungrounded, the Left has produced far greater minds and far better advocates for their ideals than her. I could even list many I personally know who would do better than that.That said, the common Democrat or Left minded individual is not really much of a problem. As I said, for the average Democrat, the party represents the party of nice people. In fact, if the worst people in the world merely had bad ideas and good intentions, but were also willing to look at the evidence, then this world would be a better place. The failures of the Right and the failures of the Left could be fixed by a system that sees the benefit of both sets of solutions and weighs them to create systems that work. Ah, the worlds of which we can only dream.I also don’t have a problem just with being an activist. Granted I disagree with most activists since Occupy, and an activist who sets a fire just became a rioter and sometimes a terrorist, ( things which never happened at the most despised of Tea Party events, if I may interject) but activism, in general, is a right and tradition I’m glad we have as Americans. This nation has had a great need of activists in the past and we wouldn’t be the wonderful nation we are today without many successive generations of them. I’ll even venture to say that there are even places I am happy to admit, we still need them. In fact, it is my belief that every single right and liberty of every single group that exists is always under attack by someone, and it requires a degree of activism in all of us to ensure that our ways of life don’t die with us.No, this isn’t about activism, nor is it about social justice or civil rights either. We don’t honestly have a problem with Democrats or people merely to the Left of Center. What I personally have a problem with, and many others like me, are people who are so hard-line Left-leaning that they advocate a brand of belief that fights to silence, outlaw, and repress all forms of thought outside their own through bullying, disruption, childishness, or even legal action, and more. Below, is a young woman by the name of Cora Segal, but she is better known by a different moniker - Trigglypuff. At a speech last year, ironically on if Political Correctness has gone too far on college campuses, she represented herself as thus.Segal was one of the dozens of protesters who gathered to shut down the event, but the one who became the most widely known for it, due to her bizarre behavior. What we see is wild hysteria, not activism; the petulance of a spoiled child, not Progressivism; this is utter madness, not civil rights advocacy. This is a Social Justice Warrior, and due to their loud, obnoxious, and demanding nature, they are commanding (unduly) a larger share of the world’s attention (note this isn’t an American phenomenon.) In so doing, whether the Left likes it or not, this is the new face of their movements to millions of people. This is why so many are flocking away from causes one would assume would have support in droves. Once they’re shown examples like Cora Segal, of which there are many, they don’t want to be associated with or be in any way represented by a system that creates people such as her.What in particular defines their behavior, against that of other activists, is that Social Justice Warriors have taken the idea that because they believe they are fighting for the rights of someone they believe to be oppressed, that any actions they take are justified. Victimhood exists, and victimhood demands justice, so any action taken in the process of gaining justice is justified. They’ve also thrown away key concepts fundamental to Liberalism, which they claim to support, such as actual free speech and allowing all voices a chance to air their grievances, communicate their solutions, and share their views, research, and experiences. It’s important to note that Cora wasn’t marching in a planned march, she was interrupting an already peaceful college lecture. She was denying the right of free speech to others. Liberalism, among other things, advocates that we must give a floor to all ideas, no matter what we personally believe about them. The best ideas, it is said, rise to the top, however, the SJW’s have made a common practice of believing that anyone who disagrees with their conclusions either:Hates the people they are fighting for, or…Are blind and stupid to the obviousness of their conclusions.The truth, of course, is that neither of these is true. What is true is thatWe don’t hate what you love, we just think you have a narrow field of vision and have incorrectly assessed the cause of what ails the world, ergo arriving at the wrong conclusions for how to fix it, and…There is no bullet point two. We understand exactly what you are talking about as it isn’t as groundbreaking as you think, so refer to point #1.What does that sound like in real life?SJW: African Americas are poor because they are repressed by white privilege.Me: No, because only about 25% of blacks in the United States are poor and there are more than three times as many poor whites in American than poor blacks. What we have is a poverty problem which is much bigger than any of our racism problems. Blaming racism won’t actually make the black poor better off, but fixing poverty will help everyone.SJW: But what about institutional racism?!Me: What institutions are racist? I mean which ones exactly, and how? What rules or practices do they have that are explicitly racist? Show me those and we can fight them together. And intrinsic bias, how is that you want me to punish someone for a crime you can’t even prove exists?SJW: UR A RACIST!!!!1!!No, for real, that is a literal paraphrasing of an actual conversation I had with another Top Writer immediately before she blocked me.The people who absolutely can’t deal with the reality that some of their conclusions are wrong, or even the possibility that they may be wrong in all or even in part, or that people they are influenced by can be incorrect or even dishonest, are the people who take their beliefs to the point of absurdity. Perhaps they have some internalized notion that if they start believing anything other than what they do makes them part of “the enemy”, or that they will suddenly become a bigot if they compromise in that effort at all. Either way, that is a dangerous way to think about anything and how it got to be that grown adults could be led to think in such a way needs to be understood to get why so many people find them repulsive.It starts off benignly with SJW types demanding schools mandate that lectures and classes include “trigger warnings”, where professors have to inform students that certain ideas may potentially trigger a traumatic response, and which allows those students, “at risk” to be dismissed. This, in turn, forces many professors to not be allowed to speak on many extremely important subjects or at least only teach them through the most politically correct filter. As a teacher, I know that this an administration kowtowing to childish behavior from students with an interdepartmental memo that reads roughly,“Look, just give these kids what they want and don’t make them feel uncomfortable by giving the school a bad name or putting us on the news.”It is what happens when schools lose sight of their responsibilities as learning institutions and instead look to how is the best way to put butts in seats ($$$$), by lowering the standards of excellence and what is expected of a lifelong learner.After that comes the reign of the “micro-aggressions” where extremely small and innocuous statements or questions were viewed through misunderstanding, over-sensitivity, or intentionally taking statements out of context as attacks, harassment, or abuse with the aim to subjugate and repress the victim of the assault. These were especially pernicious because any form of challenging narratives or claims became a legitimately recognized attack on someone’s rights. How I’ve seen this idea taken to its logical conclusion is that a person makes a claim supporting whatever cause they champion and when challenged with a question like, “Can you tell me where you read that?” or “Can you show some evidence that what you’re saying is true?” and, or even, “What are you basing that on?”, call this asking for proof as a form of abuse. This, in turn, leads to punishment for the persons asking for support or proof, and negative repercussions.I’m actually really uncomfortable with some of the people I’ve seen use the words, “Asking someone to provide evidence is itself a form of abuse.” Let’s be honest; people lie to get attention and others just don’t know what they are talking about. I’ve become a far better writer through the process of having people more knowledgeable than I ask me politely to review a certain text or politely asking for sources. Even more, I’ve had many genuinely curious or confused people who ask for more and I know I need to provide it for them. However, this process of academic rigor is denied to certain people if they are saying certain things. In fact, it empowers those types to do exactly the opposite of academic discipline by creating a victim where there was none and demanding an apology from those brave enough to do the right thing - ask for proof with which to provide a common experience. This is an obvious attack on not even free speech, but the process which ensures we are actually sharing information which is true. As this example shows, it is also needlessly over-sensitive and makes everyday conversation impossible on the assumption that saying anything is going to offend someone, somehow, somewhere.Next, come “safe spaces” where children on these campuses can be treated like infants with a physical bubble to serve as a metaphor for the ideological one they have created for themselves. The idea seems to have originated with schools adopting areas for children with special needs who sometimes a breakdown in challenging or overwhelming situations. I’ve worked with autistic students before and can see the rationale, as my students were successful once placed in a calm, very ordered, very predictable classroom that fits their style. Then college kids got hold of the idea as a place that they must be given that allows them to “retreat” or “escape” from ideas which may be “traumatizing” to them. More often than not, they are being used as a form of protest, as if to say that whatever idea a professor, student group, or guest lecturer presents is so offensive, students feel they will be psychologically damaged if they are forced to endure it. And no, this isn’t because of something like KKK rallies. No, these are normal talks being given by everyday people who don’t follow modern Progressive ideology.One noted example is Christina Hoff Sommers, a feminist activist, registered Democrat, and professor for many decades of Philosophy. No, she isn’t guilty of creating a safe space for her students; they made one because of her! She was on a lecture tour where she was presenting commonly held myths believed by many modern feminists and the student activist group created a safe space for the students to retreat to if they felt they may get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from hearing her talk. According to Sommers, she was reported to have triggered over 30 young women and a dog. She also said she feels bad about the dog. They also circulated false narratives about her to drive away students and even pressured the campus administrators to shut down the event.She also adds that irony comes into the safe-space platform where safe spaces are formed within safe spaces, where a particular group of people must eject others based solely on their identity i.e. for racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. reasons. Sommers tells a story on the subject of safe spaces of a conference for women she attended where the topic of discourse was Intersectionality Feminism.Participants were instructed to break down into little groups based on their grievances and healing needs. There were groups for Asian American women, African American women, old women, Jewish women, disabled women, fat women. None of these groups proved stable. They all started to bicker. Members of the overweight group bickered because there was a straight and a gay faction. Members of the black lesbian group couldn’t get along. Some of them had white partners, they were called out for their privilege and they formed a separate group. New identities started to form. A group of “Women with Allergies” formed and they issued a set of demands telling us not to wear dry cleaned clothing or hair spray. It was a victimology spinning out of control…That was in 1992.”This pattern is repeated again and again and again for Conservative speakers on College campuses, and even Liberal speakers who don’t follow the narrative of the modern Progressives. The scary thing is how often those colleges do shut them down due to the outcry of potentially traumatized pseudo-adults. I have to say, this pattern is disturbing. Colleges are places where ideas are meant to be challenged, where ideas are subject to academic rigor, and where intellectual diversity matters more than some other social status identifier, but when only ideas of the Conservative students face scrutiny, the situation becomes downright scary.I want to be clear, up to this point, everything I’ve talked about is superficial on the surface. I am very annoyed with the culture where grown adults act like children because they want to be superstars of the Social Justice Olympics. As someone who has been to Iraq with the Marines, it annoys me that people think that they can get PTSD from hearing a guest lecturer lecture them on how you can’t get PTSD from words people say at a speech you chose to attend. There is a a meme going around right now that captures much of how I believe that reads something like this:College-aged kids leaving their safe spaces.It’s disgusting to steal from the victimhood of actual tragedy with the thinking that a Conservative speaker coming to your college counts as one. And I know that this answer has focused on the college-aged crowd and Millennials by extension, but there is a reason why that whole generation is cast as whiny, entitled crybabies. Quite honestly, that isn’t fair. I am quick to remind others that the vast majority of those who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, have been Millennials. The kid who fixed my air conditioner was a Millennial. Many hard-working, honest people are Millennials and they never get recognized. They never do, because it is the college kids that run the culture.These are the kids who create the music, write the stories, and have the thousands of Twitter followers that news outlets now listen to because the world unjustly handed them influence without wisdom. These kids are now demanding safe spaces, trigger warnings, and after writing this post, possibly will want me fired from my job because it was an offensive aggression against their victimhood.Honestly, it’s America in decline.And even comparing them to other generations of activists, I say this. The Civil Rights activists had legitimate grievances to correct, which they did. Even the Vietnam era protests at least were protesting a war that had a lot of problems worthy of being protested. Of course, they took out much of their aggression on the veterans of that war, many of whom were draftees and completely blameless, and in so doing created actual victims, for which they lost a great deal of respect from both me and how history will record them. But at least they were protesting something that really mattered. Hell, even a lot of what is protested about today really matters, but when every fifth person in the crowd, and the loudest among them, act like this… it really turns people away from whatever you’re trying to advocate.When you really boil down the Social Justice Warriors, you find that whatever they protest changes from month to month, but the real core of it is they are protesting against people hurting their feelings, even turning into raving lunatics from staged fits of false victimization.Where this turns into a legitimate issue is when the crybaby politics and fake outrage of today’s college-aged kids actually affect real-world politics. Any look through the history of the last century will feature social reforms coming mostly from the class of people with the most time, the most money, and the most energy to dedicate toward advocacy. Today, that is an upper-middle-class college student with access to family wealth, few responsibilities, and little real experience negotiating the challenges and perspectives of the real adult world, but radically empowered by the interconnectivity of social media. Now kids dangerously disconnected from the world outside their very narrow spheres of influence are determining the conversations the rest of us are supposed to have without ever considering the need to ask anyone else what they think.Furthermore, when these same children are empowered by the status of a college student, owing to the tradition of intellectual pursuit, but not held accountable to actual academic rigor in their ideas, it ennobles their rhetoric. Left to foment for years, it creates the sorts of social divides that people are still trying to figure out months after an election that left many people with a sense of profound numbness and sudden awareness to the broader world around them. They are allowed an audience, but not responsible for what they say.As an example, we can look back to much involved with the Black Lives Matter debate. While this answer isn’t a criticism of BLM movement, it is making the point that a great deal of what they based their movement on was false. There was an excellent video that debunked many of the “killed while leaving a bachelor party” #saytheirnames myths, and conservative media outlets are right in saying that we need the evidence before a protest is warranted. Much of the violence against blacks by police officers has been proven untrue and perhaps the most obvious case of the BLM movement getting it wrong being the “Hands Up; Don’t Shoot” slogan.Less than a day after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, a story began circulating about how he was trying to surrender peacefully to the police officer who shot him. With his back to the officer, on his knees and with his hands in the air screaming, “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” he was violently murdered, gunned down by a hate-filled police officer abusing the power entrusted to him by the people. This story incited the nation at the injustice of what people called the murder of Michael Brown. The story went viral and could be seen everywhere, from protests and student groups, football players in pregame, the Senate floor and the desk of CNN.However, this story didn’t mesh with a great deal of evidence circulating at the time. Those who said that we needed to wait until we got the facts before jumping to conclusions were shut down for possessing racist comments and a lack of political correctness. Black people in this nation are the victims of police brutality and, therefore, siding with the police (which waiting on the evidence isn’t siding with anyone) is a subtle brand of racism.Later, a Department of Justice investigation proved conclusively that the whole “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” story, was a lie, fabricated by a friend of Brown who took part in the robbery immediately before the shooting. It was an attempt by one of the guilty to redirect attention from himself and cast the wrath of a nation on a police officer completely justified in his actions. A meme that affected the way the entire nation viewed BLM was based on a lie, which few have done anything to amend or acknowledge. There are those still angry with me for even bringing up the madness.Quite frankly, I don’t think the “Hands up, don’t shoot” lie would have been a thing without SJWs and the culture that allows them a voice. Yes, it based on a lie that spread through the BLM groups, but without the mentality of echoing out every piece of baseless information they hear, to call the act of fact-checking abusive, and their influence with the media as “champions of justice”, I don’t think it is possible for BLM on their own to have made themselves look as bad as the aftermath of “Hands up, don’t shoot”, followed by campaigns such as #saytheirnames, and other wrong pieces of information in the hands of SJWs made them out to be.Quite frankly, what we’ve seen with the SJW mentality is scary in that it doesn’t just represent disillusionment, but fundamentalism.I want to be fair, there are fundamentalists of all kinds, and they all have certain commonalities. They go beyond “activism” - of bringing attention and advocacy - into a level of full-blown attack against the foreign concepts they are radically less familiar with than they think. It’s ideological xenophobia and what that leads to is terrifying. By that, I mean that they are the people whose brains shut down when asked to consider that another way of looking at a situation may be possible. Literally, that’s fundamentalism, and the irony is that often the person does not realize they are like that. Whether it is an “Islamist” who takes moderate Islam to a fundamentalist level or a “Leftist” who takes Progressive ideology to the point of becoming ideologues, both see nothing wrong in the actions of what they practice, as the intended outcomes always outweigh the means to achieve them. The problem is that at that point, people begin to believe that it is acceptable to silence other ideas and far worse.After it began with the anti-Free Speech environment on college campuses through the silencing of controversial speakers, professors, ideas and history, the mentality obviously grew outward. Peaceful speeches, talks, and demonstrations were shut down for false allegations that what the speakers advocated was hate-speech. From there, it also leads to direct personal harassment and threatening people’s jobs for party affiliation. Finally, it creates an environment where the people who have these ideas feel so self-assured of their moral superiority, the immutable perfection of their ideas and rationale, the undeniable status of their victimhood, and the unquestionable evil of their adversaries, that absolutely any action they perform is justifiable. When that happens, a people descend to the levels of madness I’ve only seen in places of war but now am seeing right here in the United States, most clearly as in acts of outright terrorism such as the firebombing of the GOP’s campaign offices in North Carolina.Granted, by the time they are firebombing political offices, they have gone into an entirely different category. A terrorist is no longer a simple SJW and the vast majority of Social Justice Warriors will never be warriors in the real sense or terrorists for that matter. There is no crime being broken by SJWs, just many acts of indecency in regards to American liberty, but it is the Social Justice Warriors and their rhetoric of blind superiority, close-mindedness, and hatred of difference that create the environment where others they influence believe it is okay to commit acts of terror. It is morally righteous to bomb something they don’t like. In an even more recent example, it became so perfectly fine that one group can be so confident of their victimization and so sure of the world’s approval for their actions, that they literally can’t be wrong when they violently kidnap, torture, publicly humiliate, and threaten the life of a person of the wrong social status.Perhaps even worse, it’s because of this sort of fundamentalism and its power to influence a broader community beyond just the colleges, that a white mentally challenged man violently assaulted and forced to shout, “F*** white people,” by four people of color, is somehow not being labelled as a hate crime.This wasn’t activism. This is the ramification of belief so fervent that people think they can’t be wrong, that anything they do is justified, and that they are the victims. This mentality is disgusting and the ramifications are terrifyingly Orwellian.This is where your Social Justice Warriors matter. They are the middle ground between real activists and actual terrorism and mob justice. They fight for diversity but repress diversity of thought. In so doing, they sow the grounds for terror and blind hatred. They are fighting repression based on identity, but are the only ones silencing anyone and attempting to take away people’s freedoms. They are fighting for equality, but deny the rights of those they disagree with. It’s hypocrisy of the grandest order.In the wake of the five slain officers of Dallas Texas during a Black Lives Matter Protest, President George W. Bush, a Dallas resident himself, had this to say.“Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.”I’d like to say that this is a testament to what stands out as the worst of why people hate the SJW culture, for doing exactly that: building a worldview of xenophobia toward any idea not of their own, and for creating a complex of victimhood which excuses any action on the merits of their own good intentions. At the same time, it is a reminder to everyone else that everyone who agrees with the ideas of the Social Justice Warrior isn’t one. Millions of Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and the like don’t engage in the sorts of childish, petulant, unAmerican, fundamentalist, and sometimes violent, sometimes horrific antics of these overpowered youth. We have to remember that, but they have to also be aware of who is representing them in the news and in the culture today. It is by turning a blind eye to their actions, again because of the good intentions they communicate, that many of the problems in America have become as bad as they are today. It will be up to good people of the Left to demand better of their young and expect higher standards in the future than a culture that justifies madness and tragedy because someone disagreed with them.Thank you for reading. If you liked this answer, please upvote and follow The War Elephant. If you want to help me make more content like this, please visit my Patreon Support Page to learn how. All donations greatly appreciated!