My top 10 female comic performances (off the top of my head)

Teri Garr in Tootsie

The completely silly uproar over the all-female cast of the new Ghostbusters, which opens today, has had me thinking about my favorite female comedic performances.

First off, there are too few outright comedic roles for women. In fact, I am sad to say that in most of my favorite movies in the genre, women are either marginalized completely or have thankless girlfriend/wife roles, which serve simply to either advance the plot or provide the male lead(s) with some extra motivation. These characters are usually sweet and implausibly patient, but rarely if ever get to deliver a funny line, let alone be at the center of the action.

Still, some pretty glorious female comedy has managed to break through in the 100-plus years of Hollywood. Here are 10 great gems that popped into my head, although I reserve the right to either expand this list or revisit this topic at a later date.

10) Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment (1983) - While this performance is arguably a dramatic one, it's so full of excellent, light comedic touches I could not keep it off my list. The eccentric MacLaine plays the rare domineering mother who elicits sympathy from an audience and watching her find love with an irascible Jack Nicholson when she least expects it is a real delight. An Oscar winning performance that is rich with different shadings both funny and heartwarming.

9) Winona Ryder in Heathers (1988) - Before she moved on to more generic leading lady roles, Ryder was the ideal surrogate for sardonic iconoclasts everywhere. In this film and in Beetlejuice, she is the witty cynic, standing apart from the action commenting on the absurdity around her. But while in Beetlejuice she is playing a type, here she is a more fully fleshed out person who at least sees some of the seductive appeal of the popular high school crowd, before she destroys it in the most macabre way.

8) Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin (1980) - By the time this movie rolled around Hawn had already perfected playing sweet, somewhat dimwitted but still adorable heroines. But her character here is a bit of a departure. She plays a bratty daddy's girl who discovers her inner grit and desire not to be tied down in the most unlikely place -- the military. Hawn's performance in this film has been oft-imitated, but this still feels fresh.

7) Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938) - I still remember the first time I saw Hepburn's speed demon performance in this screwball comedy back when I was studying film in undergrad. I was stunned with how liberated she was and how modern her presence felt in a movie that came out of Hollywood's golden age, which didn't exactly provide a lot of opportunities for women to demonstrate their range. Here Cary Grant is her straight man foil, and she gets the biggest laughs.

Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles

6) Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles (1974) - This incredibly talented comic actress was a favorite of director Mel Brooks, and it was hard to choose between her work here and in Young Frankenstein, they're essentially interchangeably brilliant. But this western spoof has her show-stopping number "I'm Tired" (she scored an Oscar nom for the performance) which is a tour-de-force in crude comedy. Kahn has sadly been consistently overlooked and underrated.

5) Reese Witherspoon in Election (1999) - A breakthrough for director Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt) and its star. Witherspoon is famous for her more mainstream comedies like Legally Blonde, but she actually gave one of the best performances of her career as the overachieving nutjob Tracy Flick, who wages a figurative holy war to win a race for class president in her high school to the chagrin of one of her teachers (a note perfect Matthew Broderick) in this unsung black comedy.

4) Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids (2011) - Melissa McCarthy scored the Oscar nod and had the showier role, but in a film packed with funny women, for me, Kristen Wiig was the standout. She gave the most nuanced performance as someone struggling to come to grips with the reality that her best friend is entering a new phase of her life, marriage, ostensibly without her. The drunken airplane meltdown is one of the most hilarious moments in movie history.



3) Renee Zellweger in Nurse Betty (2000) - Before her career got somewhat derailed, Zellweger was a fresh and interesting new face. Her best role is in this little seen masterpiece about memory loss and mistaken identity, where she plays a plucky waitress at a diner who inadvertently gets plunged into a dangerous bit of criminal intrigue. Zellweger gives an exceptionally endearing performance, but also shows off some great comedic timing too.

2) Teri Garr in Tootsie (1982) - In what could have been a one-note role, Garr nearly steals this classic movie playing Dustin Hoffman's friend who briefly becomes his pseudo girlfriend. She plays  a wonderfully vivid, insecure, emotional and energetic actress -- whose reaction to the central reveal of the movie (that Hoffman has won a role she sought by dressing up like a woman) is a thing of beauty. Honorable mention goes to Garr's bizarro (in a good way) cameo appearance in Martin Scorsese's After Hours.

1) Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977) - Woody Allen has written a lot of great comedic roles women (including most recently Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine), but he may never top this one -- which won Keaton the Oscar. Although Keaton has been pretty much playing versions of this same character throughout her career, I have little quibble with this, especially since Annie Hall is such a nuanced and neurotic personality. This romantic comedy works only because her character grows on you, and by the final scenes you come to realize that you fell in love with her too.