Ranking The Academy Award For Best Actress Winners' Performances From The Past Decade

La La Land was raved about upon its release, though was unfortunate to share a year with Moonlight which was one of those very rare all-time great films.

Stone's performance was something that held great delicacy to it. She played actress Mia Dolan, who was struggling a lot with her dream of making it in Hollywood, something that most actresses and actors know a great deal about.

So, while the film may not have been so much a departure for her, she still managed to give Mia everything that wasn't clichéd about struggling actresses. She gave her the believable gift of unassuredness, failure and conditional love for a man.

Of course, it goes without saying that the hours Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling must have put in on the dancing could have been detrimental to their characters, though such is their chemistry that they never once let that happen.

It's not that La La Land is made on the back of Stone's performance, and you can see other actresses playing that role, it's that she gave Mia life and fully realised her as a person. Which is what made Stone so good in the role.

Stone won the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award for the film, though the competition was fairly meek by the standards of the decade surrounding it.

Verdict: Deserved because there was little else as the obvious choice.