Best Actress in the 1920s: An Alternative Oscar History
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 9:00AM 
Janet Gaynor won the first ever Best Actress Oscar with her performances in Borzage's 7TH HEAVEN and STREET ANGEL, as well as Murnau's SUNRISE. Does she also win here?
To misquote Mark Twain, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Or maybe I should go with Dr. Frankenstein by way of James Whale and scream to the high heavens: It’s ALIVE! Now, dear readers, as I try to return to writing regularly for The Film Experience, I feel like I owe you an explanation for my prolonged absence, not to mention an apology.
I’ve suffered from migraines since I was four, but around the middle of July, a crisis like none other began. Unparalleled in intensity and duration – still going, though not as strong as before - it took me to the ER, a CT scan, a cardiologist’s office, a bunch of new medication, and, soon, a wisdom tooth extraction and an appointment with a neurologist. In other words, it’s been hell, endless pain for over a month that mostly left me useless as far as writing articles or anything longform is concerned. Still, movies have been a refuge, as they’ve always been, and social media has allowed me to keep writing in short spurts whenever the pain medication kicked in, mostly about what I’ve been watching. Specifically, I’ve been emboldened by Twitter user HungryBear’s Oscar retrospectives to revisit my Best Actress picks from the very beginning of the Academy Awards, way back in 1928.
What better way to mark my comeback than to share these with you, too? TFE readers seemed to like reading – or enjoyed arguing over and against – my picks from the 80s, when I shared them two years ago, after all. That’s most of what I’ll be doing as I prepare myself for another TIFF coverage in September, with maybe a couple of other things thrown in if my ever-evolving torment nexus of pain permits it. Anyway, to start things off, we have the first three Oscar editions, when the twenties were honored and, with them, the twilight of the silent era…
As I did before, in that 2024 post, I’ll be basing my picks on the Academy’s official rules and reminder lists of eligible titles. My Honorable Mentions section refers to eligible performances that got close to my lineup but narrowly missed, my own personal Almost There cases. There’s also a place for Ineligible achievements that deserve recognition, even though AMPAS left them out of their reminder lists. The Academy made this choice for one reason or another, sometimes because the films weren’t released in the States or, specifically, in LA. Finally, I added an On the Watchlist line to acknowledge movies and performances I haven’t watched and might yet crash my lineups when I finally give them a look. Mostly, these come from friends’ recommendations and the like. Feel free to add your own.
Also, until 1936, Best Actress lineups could include supporting turns, as a category for smaller roles didn’t exist yet, and my picks will reflect that. However, I decided to give myself some leeway and set a fixed number of five nominees, since AMPAS kept changing the lineup size for its first eight editions, with a maximum of seven performances nominated in one season and a minimum of three in another.
Whenever possible, I’ve added a link to my Letterboxd musings or past TFE writings on the titles, so click on those if you’re curious. With that, I think there are no more explanations or introductions necessary. On we go!
☆ = Oscar nominated that season
;)
1927/28
Marion Davies, THE PATSY
Dolores del Río, RAMONA
Janet Gaynor, 7TH HEAVEN *winner* ☆
Brigitte Helm, METROPOLIS
Gloria Swanson, SADIE THOMPSON ☆
Honorable Mentions: Eleanor Boardman in THE CROWD, Phyllis Haver in CHICAGO, Margaret Livingston in SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS, Pola Negri in BARBED WIRE, Mary Pickford in MY BEST GIRL.
Ineligible: Maria Falconetti in THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, Marguerite Gance and Gina Manès in NAPOLEON.
On the Watchlist: Greta Garbo in LOVE, Corine Griffith in THE GARDEN OF EDEN, Camilla Horn in TEMPEST, Laura La Plante and Martha Mattox in THE CAT AND THE CANARY, Margaret Mann in FOUR SONS.
;)
1928/29
Clara Bow, THE WILD PARTY
Louise Brooks, BEGGARS OF LIFE
Betty Compson, THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK
Jeanne Eagels, THE LETTER ☆
Lillian Gish, THE WIND *winner*
Honorable Mentions: Olga Baclanova in THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK and THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, Eugenie Besserer and Fay Wray in THUNDERBOLT, Joan Crawford in OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS, Marion Davies in THE CARDBOARD LOVER, Greta Garbo in A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS.
Ineligible: Louise Brooks in PANDORA’S BOX, Gloria Swanson and Seena Owen in QUEEN KELLY.
On the Watchlist: Eve Gray and Olga Tschechowa, MOULIN ROUGE, Colleen Moore in WHY BE GOOD?, Norma Shearer in A LADY OF CHANCE, Lupe Vélez in LADY OF THE PAVEMENTS and WOLF SONG.
;)
1929/30
Mary Duncan, CITY GIRL
Greta Garbo, THE KISS
Nina Mae McKinney, HALLELUJAH
Helen Morgan, APPLAUSE *winner*
Gloria Swanson, THE TRESPASSER ☆
Honorable Mentions: Claudette Colbert in THE LADY LIES, Greta Garbo ☆ and Marie Dressler in ANNA CHRISTIE, Janet Gaynor in LUCKY STAR, Jeanette MacDonald and Lillian Roth in THE LOVE PARADE, Norma Shearer in THE DIVORCÉE ☆
Ineligible: Rosa Maria in MARIA OF THE SEA, Barbara Stanwyck in LADIES OF LEISURE.
On the Watchlist: Nancy Carroll in THE DEVIL’S HOLIDAY ☆, Ruth Chatterton in SARAH AND SON ☆, Joan Crawford in OUR MODERN MAIDENS, Dolores del Río in EVANGELINE, Lupe Vélez in HELL HARBOR.
Please share your own lineups in the comments, argue for your favorites, and give me more recommendations to further explore this era of movie actressing.
Reader Comments (15)
Ah, so sorry to hear about your ongoing health problems. Of course I'd never go anywhere near Twitter these days since it's just a propaganda machine after the takeover, so I never knew about your updates, nor this Oscar challenge.
I'm very impressed with all these silent films you've seen, how did you manage to find them all for viewing? I have seen SUNRISE, JOAN OF ARC, and probably LOVE. I know I've seen THE LOVE PARADE a few times, but then, that's a talkie. Also THE DIVORCEE.
I will have to leave it to people with better streaming/viewing options than I have to opine on all these choices. Which performance(s) are your favorites out of all the listed ones?
Dave in Hollywood -- Thank you for the kind words. Twitter works for me if you use the block button liberally and rarely wander into the "For You" page.
To answer your last question, I'd say the following belong on my personal canon of the greatest performances of all time:
Brooks, PANDORA'S BOX
Falconetti, THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC
Gish, THE WIND
Morgan, APPLAUSE
Welcome home.
Off the top of my head, the one memorable performance I miss here is Merna Kennedy in the classic The Circus. Her work as a professional dancer, beginning in childhood, gave her the athleticism to complete stunts required by her role as a circus performer while still winning the hearts of Charlie Chaplin's character and the audience. Sidelined by a brief marriage to Busby Berkeley and then an early death at age 36, she never took advantage of the opportunity to capitalize on her early promise.
This is reminding me that I biffed on my 1926 centennial celebration which never even got started. Sad that two of my fav all time performances (Louis Brooks in Pandoras's Box and Falconetti In Passion of Joan of Arc) were not even eligible -- they would both take gold for me.
Fernanda Montenegro starred in three best international film nominee (Four Days in September, Central Station and I'm Still Here). Although she was in just one scene in both the former and the latter, she is indeed credited in the three of them. So she should be mentioned in the section "Stars Who've Appeared in Most Best International Feature Film Nominees" in the international film index.
Normal services is resuming,great news.
I love the american word for ER which we call A and E.
I'd love to participate but haven't seen many 20's or 30's films bar King Kong,Nosferatu,Frankenstein,Dracula and The Women.
1927/1928:
Eugenie Besserer- The Jazz Singer
Janet Gaynor- Sunrise (WINNER)
Brigette Helm- Metropolis
Margaret Livingston- Sunrise
May McAvoy- The Jazz Singer
1928/1929:
Jeanne Eagels- The Letter (WINNER)
Lillian Gish- The Wind
Corinne Griffith- The Divine Lady
Bessie Love- The Broadway Melody
Mary Pickford- Coquette
1929/1930
Marie Dressler- Anna Christie
Margaret Dumont- The Cocoanuts
Kay Francis- The Cocoanuts
Greta Garbo- Anna Christie (WINNER)
Norma Shearer- The Divorcee
TomG,
You are usually one of my favorite commentators but not today!
Mary Pickford in Coquette is my choice for the single worst performance to receive an Oscar. The gifted silent film star, here burdened with dialogue, crashes spectacularly.
The Best Actress prize was widely viewed as the result of backroom politics, including Pickford’s infamous teas in her home for the Academy Central Board of Judges who determined the recipient. Cries of favoritism and bias were so strong after Pickford’s win that the Central Board of Judges was abolished in favor of the one vote per each member in good standing.
Finbar McBride- unfortunately to get 5 nominees I felt I had to include her. While I did rank her fifth among the others I do think there are parts of a good performance captured on film and don’t think it is as bad as her reputation.
That being said, when she is off in the movie she is OFF. It’s ultimately a mixed bag of a performance for me. When I watch more films eligible for this ceremony I’ll probably replace her.
I'd like to ask this of you commentators who are familiar with the late 20's performances,
Compared to acting and how it has evolved,how do you judge their performances,silent film acting can come across as hammy and OTT with larger than life facial expressions,grand gestures and everything signalled quite clearly for the camera.
Oh sure, Mary Pickford's performance is pretty terrible, but I've got to hand it to her that she understood the value of the award before a lot of people, and she also understood how to get herself one.
So she didn't get it for her performance, but for everything else involved in the process. In that regard, her pioneering "legacy" is probably as important as anything else and has kept everyone talking about "who will win" since the beginning. She's the direct predecessor of those people who scheme and fight to get that award a la Joan Crawford, Melissa Leo, Sally Kirkland, Andrea Riseborough, etc.
Definitely check out Lonesome (1928) if you haven't already. I wouldn't give Barbara Kent the win over Lillian Gish, but she'd definitely be among my nominees. Plus it's a beautiful film all around
I also find it pretty wild that in the Academy's first ever year of existence you have what is arguably the single greatest performance in the history of film to this day (Falconetti), and she wasn't even eligible.
Mr Ripley79- I judged the performances based on how they served the film- was the tone matched or did a performance take me out of the movie?
For Brigette Helm in Metropolis, her performance is OTT and big and epic (in the best way) because the entire movie is OTT, big and epic (in the best way) She not only matches the tone of the movie but her performance ups the stakes- making the audience root for innocent Maria and hope she gets out of all the predicaments she ends up in.
In contrast, Janet Gaynor in Sunrise gives a much more subtle performance. Even if this movie had been made 2 or 3 years later with the advent of sound, I don't think much dialogue would have been added. It isn't necessary. Gaynor's face shows us all we need to know about her and her relationship to her husband. (Shoutout to George O'Brien who is also excellent in this)
There is a scene in Two Arabian Knights- a blah nothing of a movie- expect in one scene where Mary Astor is flirting with a soldier and her face veil comes loose and she must hold it up by her hand to keep her face covered. The soldier then playfully and tenderly pulls her fingers away one by one so her veil falls. You can see both actors becoming more excited with each finger pull. Their faces and body language do enough without vocal language. Even without sound I remember how erotically charged this scene felt.
"Ineligible: Rosa Maria in MARIA OF THE SEA, Barbara Stanwyck in LADIES OF LEISURE"
Why is it mentioned here that Barbara Stanwyck is ineligible for Ladies of Leisure? Her own director, Frank Capra, thought Barbara Stanwyck was an obvious nominee, and when she wasn't, he was very surprised and critical of the Academy.
If he thought she was going to be nominated, then she was eligible.
Harmodio Harmodio -- After watching the BE KIND REWIND video on Stanwyck, I asked myself the same. I even tried to request the reminder list for that Oscar edition, since it is in the Academy library and supposedly available in the archive. Well, I was unable to do that, but a friend reached out to the folks at atogt.com, who transcribed those lists onto their site through photocopies of the original documents. They confirmed LADIES OF LEISURE wasn't in the reminder list.
However, until 1947, the separate rulebook didn't say the reminder list of eligible films included "all" titles voters could write on their ballots. So, until 1947, the matter of complete ineligibility was dubious or too vaguely worded. From 1947, the rulebook specifically says that the reminder lists include "all eligible" films a voter could consider. The matter remains that the studios clearly prioritized some productions over others early on and didn't even bother to have LADIES OF LEISURE on the reminder list for voters. The same happened to a lot of international productions premiering in US theaters by the hand of distributors that bought their rights, which is probably why the French PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and the German PANDORA'S BOX were left out. Comparable things happened later, presumably for strategic reasons on the American studios' part. There was a year in the 30s when Wellmann had four releases, and only two were included in the reminder lists, potentially to put them forward as the studio's preference and concentrate goodwill rather than spread it. This is just theoretical.
In this piece's first paragraph after the jump, I try to explain what I mean by "Ineligible." Basically, it means it wasn't on the reminder list of eligible titles that Academy voters received during the nominations phase of the season. I'm trying to keep things vaguely consistent, which is also why I'm maintaining the number of nominees at five rather than fluctuating it from 1928 to 1936, as the Academy did. It was a decision made to keep some pattern, some order, in these articles. Again, until 1947, "Ineligible" means the films weren't included in the reminder lists of eligible titles.
If Capra knew his movie had been completely absent from the voters' reminder list, I don't know. The Academy was still young and incredibly chaotic, to the point that that some of what we now consider official nominees weren't actually written as such,, but as names discussed for the award. STREET ANGEL competed in the first two editions, getting a nomination at the 2nd Academy Awards after winning Best Actress in the 1st edition. While Capra was clearly frustrated by the snub, I'm not sure he'd have understood exactly how the awards worked. As other commenters pointed out, Pickford was one of the people to know immediately the legacy-building power of these little golden men, how the system worked and how to work it in her favor. Most in the industry, even such up-and-coming directors as Capra weren't as in the known, probably. Without further primary sources on this matter apart from his immortalized complaints, it's impossible to say for sure.