What is the best Katharine Hepburn role?

By YPB Team
0 votes

Four Academy Awards, nine nominations, and a career spanning six decades — she was Hollywood's most independent and defiant leading lady. Which performance is the greatest of them all?

The Philadelphia Story - ranking option ranked #1

The Philadelphia Story

A 1940 romantic comedy in which Hepburn plays a sharp-tongued socialite whose remarriage is complicated by her ex-husband, a role she originated on Broadway to reclaim her Hollywood stardom.

1/16
The African Queen - ranking option ranked #2

The African Queen

A 1951 adventure in which Hepburn plays a prim missionary who joins forces with a rough-edged riverboat captain played by Humphrey Bogart to navigate a dangerous African river during WWI.

2/16
The Lion in Winter - ranking option ranked #3

The Lion in Winter

A 1968 historical drama in which Hepburn won her third Academy Award playing the imprisoned Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine battling wits with King Henry II (Peter O'Toole).

3/16
On Golden Pond - ranking option ranked #4

On Golden Pond

A 1981 drama in which Hepburn earned her record fourth Oscar as a warm, resilient wife mediating between her curmudgeonly husband (Henry Fonda) and their estranged daughter.

4/16
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - ranking option ranked #5

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

A 1967 landmark film in which Hepburn won her second Oscar as a progressive mother who must truly test her liberal values when her daughter brings home a Black fiancé.

5/16
Bringing Up Baby - ranking option ranked #6

Bringing Up Baby

A 1938 screwball comedy masterpiece in which Hepburn plays a free-spirited heiress whose pet leopard upends the life of a buttoned-up paleontologist (Cary Grant).

6/16
Morning Glory - ranking option ranked #7

Morning Glory

A 1933 drama in which Hepburn's debut Oscar-winning performance as a starstruck young actress determined to make it on Broadway announced the arrival of a major talent.

7/16
Little Women - ranking option ranked #8

Little Women

A 1933 adaptation in which Hepburn's tomboyish, fiercely independent portrayal of Jo March set the gold standard for the role.

8/16
Long Day's Journey into Night - ranking option ranked #9

Long Day's Journey into Night

A 1962 Eugene O'Neill adaptation in which Hepburn's portrayal of a morphine-addicted matriarch is considered among the most demanding roles in American drama.

9/16
Suddenly, Last Summer - ranking option ranked #10

Suddenly, Last Summer

A 1959 drama in which Hepburn is chillingly brilliant as a wealthy, manipulative widow who schemes to have her niece lobotomized, sparring with Elizabeth Taylor.

10/16
Woman of the Year - ranking option ranked #11

Woman of the Year

A 1942 romantic comedy marking the first of nine films Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy, in which she plays a glamorous political columnist who falls for a sportswriter.

11/16
Adam's Rib - ranking option ranked #12

Adam's Rib

A 1949 comedy in which Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are at their sparkling best as married lawyers on opposite sides of a sensational attempted-murder case, with sharp feminist themes.

12/16
Summertime - ranking option ranked #13

Summertime

A 1955 romance in which Hepburn plays a lonely Ohio spinster who travels to Venice and falls into a brief, bittersweet romance, earning an Oscar nomination.

13/16
Pat and Mike - ranking option ranked #14

Pat and Mike

A 1952 comedy in which Hepburn draws on her genuine athleticism to play a champion sportswoman managed by a small-time promoter (Spencer Tracy).

14/16
The Rainmaker - ranking option ranked #15

The Rainmaker

A 1956 Western drama in which Hepburn earned an Oscar nomination for her touching portrayal of a plain-spoken woman whose confidence is transformed by a charismatic con man (Burt Lancaster).

15/16
Holiday - ranking option ranked #16

Holiday

A 1938 romantic comedy in which Hepburn reunites with Cary Grant playing the unconventional, free-thinking sister who falls for her sister's idealistic suitor.

16/16

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