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An interesting note: when she was young, it wasn’t uncommon for Streep to star in Best Picture contenders (Deer Hunter, Kramer, Out of Africa). As she has become older, starring roles in the main movies of the year have simply been nonexistent. This is a testament to the state of affairs in Hollywood, if even its most talented actress has no place in the movies that take the industry by storm each year.

The only gripe here could be that she perhaps deserved a lead acting nomination. Despite being absent for most of the movie, she is still there more than, for example, Nicole Kidman in The Hours. But Sally Field’s performance in Norma Rae that year was a runaway train, so Streep was happy to collect the first of her three statuettes this year.

But it would be her second statuette, her first Best Actress win, that would establish her as a legend for all time…

1. Sophie’s Choice (1982)

There really has never been any doubt that this is and likely always will be Streep’s finest performance as an actress, and one of the best performances by any actor of any time. Yes, in The Devil Wears Prada, she gave an unforgettable and nuanced comedic performance, and in Kramer vs. Kramer she achieved new levels of emotional complexity. But Sophie’s Choice is acting on another level.

One could start with her mastery of the Polish-Brooklyn accent and simply be in awe of her then. But to truly appreciate the amazingness of this performance one must look past the at times lackluster pacing of the film and into the heart of her devastating range of emotion in this film. I probably couldn’t list them all without going over my word limit today: love, loneliness, sadness, fear, joy, hope, and abject terror. Yes, the iconic scene that portrays Sophie’s fateful and devastating choice is harrowing - a true sucker’s gut punch if I’ve ever seen one on film - but the emotional nature of the choice itself surely made it “easier” for her to knock that one scene out of the park. Instead, I look to all the other scenes, in which she subtly conveys that she carries a secret, a burden that she will never overcome, while moving on with her life, where she really nails it. Indeed, one has to see the movie at least twice over to understand how Streep acted in a crescendo that led brilliantly to the dramatic climax.

Will Streep ever join Katharine Hepburn as the only person to win four acting Oscars? As I said, her comedic/dramatic performance in Ricki will be difficult to convert into a nod, but perhaps she will achieve a stunning 20th nomination for her smaller role in Oscar-bait drama Suffragette coming out later this year? Only time will tell the answer to those questions. But on one thing time has already spoken clearly: Meryl Streep will always be one of the greatest actors of all time.

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