2. Jean Cabot - Crash (2004)
Crash, which became 2005's Academy Award Best Winner, did not act as a showcase for Sandra Bullock alone. It is a film that deals with a multitude of perspectives, races, cultures, and prejudices in urban Los Angeles, and stars an impressive cavalcade of prominent actors and actresses as a result (including Matt Dillon as you've never seen him before). Unlike so many movies about racism, Crash does not shy away from sensitive and gripping situations. Built around several intertwining stories, Bullock plays Jean Cabot, the wife of a successful District Attorney. In one of the opening scenes, the Cabots are robbed and have their car stolen by two African-American men. This sends Jean's racial paranoia over the edge and she forces her husband to change the locks, and then change them again by someone who isn't Hispanic. Her story comes to a peak when she slips down the stairs and has no one to call but her Hispanic cleaning lady, whom she had reamed out earlier in the film for not putting mugs away after washing them. Bullock's part may be small, but it is certainly one of the most moving aspects of the film. Though you could probably argue that this part could have been played by just about anybody, with Bullock in the role of Jean Cabot, the character comes alive in ways that she probably never would have had they gone with a different actress entirely. A great and sad performance.