What is the best Katharine Hepburn role?

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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).
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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).
7. 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.
8. 8
   Little Women

   A 1933 adaptation in which Hepburn's tomboyish, fiercely independent portrayal of Jo March set the gold standard for the role.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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).
15. 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).
16. 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.