1. Leticia Musgrove - Monster's Ball (2001)
Clearly a superb performance and one that rightly earned her the Best Actress Oscar, Berry proved herself the emotional centrepiece of gritty, dark and involving drama
Monster's Ball from future Bond director Marc Forster. The plot concerns Berry's downtrodden heroine becoming sexually - and then emotionally - involved with the man who helped execute her Death Row inmate husband. Berry is on top form throughout here - her anguish at her obese son's death not soon after her husband's is agonising to watch, making her chemistry with Billy Bob Thornton's broken and cold-hearted executioner all the more uncomfortable and engrossing in equal measure. Their sex scene with the infamous line "make me feel good" isn't titillating by any standards - it's a breakdown, both physically and emotionally, of these two broken people clinging to one another in the eye of their own personal storms. Berry truly shines here however in the quiet, more hopeful scenes that make up the film's third act as her character begins to put the pieces of her life back together in whatever way she can, forging a new potential life with Thornton's character, both of them changed by their encounters. Berry's performance is a true tour de force here and one that more than earned its place in deserved Oscar performances.