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

To tackle the tough subject of Alzheimer's and not fall into the platitudes of exaggeration and ham-fisted emotion would be tough for anybody. Fortunately, Julianne Moore has never been an actress to ham up anything that she doesn't need to.

In Still Alice, she delivers a career-best performance, one full of carefully constructed realism and the gentle emotional wrought of a person having to deal with that terrible illness. Though film itself does flirt with the idea of falling into the old clichés, Moore refuses, bringing together the material upon her own crafted and almost gentle assuredness.

As Alice slowly loses large parts of her life to the degenerative disease, her career as a professor, her husband, her ability to recognise her daughters, it never feels anything but wholly real. Which is why Julianne Moore was rightly awarded her Oscar for the role.

Many would have said that Moore was given the award for the achievements she has had in her career, but those who have seen the film know that this is untrue. Moore was certainly due an Oscar for her works, but this one came because it was earned.

She walked away with the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG wins against good competition, though none were at her level.

Verdict: Deserved.