Academy Award for Best Actress

The Academy Award for Best Actress is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. The winners are chosen by the Academy membership as a whole. Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by release year: for example, the Oscar for "Best Actress in 1999" was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000. Winners are listed first, followed by the other nominees.

1980s

• 1980 Sissy Spacek - Coal Miner's Daughter
• Ellen Burstyn - Resurrection
• Goldie Hawn - Private Benjamin
• Mary Tyler Moore - Ordinary People
• Gena Rowlands - Gloria
• 1981 Katharine Hepburn - On Golden Pond
• Diane Keaton - Reds
• Marsha Mason - Only When I Laugh
• Susan Sarandon - Atlantic City
• Meryl Streep - The French Lieutenant's Woman
• 1982 Meryl Streep - Sophie's Choice
• Julie Andrews - Victor/Victoria
• Jessica Lange - Frances
• Sissy Spacek - Missing
• Debra Winger - An Officer and a Gentleman
• 1983 Shirley MacLaine - Terms of Endearment
• Jane Alexander - Testament
• Meryl Streep - Silkwood
• Julie Walters - Educating Rita
• Debra Winger - Terms of Endearment
• 1984 Sally Field - Places in the Heart
• Judy Davis - A Passage to India
• Jessica Lange - Country
• Vanessa Redgrave - The Bostonians
• Sissy Spacek - The River
• 1985 Geraldine Page - The Trip to Bountiful
• Anne Bancroft - Agnes of God
• Whoopi Goldberg - The Color Purple
• Jessica Lange - Sweet Dreams
• Meryl Streep - Out of Africa
• 1986 Marlee Matlin - Children of a Lesser God
• Jane Fonda - The Morning After
• Sissy Spacek - Crimes of the Heart
• Kathleen Turner - Peggy Sue Got Married
• Sigourney Weaver - Aliens
• 1987 Cher - Moonstruck
• Glenn Close - Fatal Attraction
• Holly Hunter - Broadcast News
• Sally Kirkland - Anna
• Meryl Streep - Ironweed
• 1988 Jodie Foster - The Accused
• Glenn Close - Dangerous Liaisons
• Melanie Griffith - Working Girl
• Meryl Streep - A Cry in the Dark
• Sigourney Weaver - Gorillas in the Mist
• 1989 Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy
• Isabelle Adjani - Camille Claudel
• Pauline Collins - Shirley Valentine
• Jessica Lange - Music Box
• Michelle Pfeiffer - The Fabulous Baker Boys