Top 12 Shows of the First Half of 2025

1. Resident Alien (Syfy) – Long one of my favorite series on the airwaves, the increased entanglement of characters in the alien storyline has the potential to improve the sprawling ensemble piece into a tighter catharsis. It's only four episodes, but the infrastructure is really coming together.

2. The White Lotus (HBO) – The first three episodes were too slow of a burn for an eight-episode season. There were minor character tics that didn't quite land: The power lady trio never got hooky enough, the Scott Glenn character's actions made no sense, Sam Rockwell's relationship to his sexual and drug wagon were too tangential, and a White Lotus Parker Posey was more over-the-top than even a Christopher Guest Parker Posey. Still, this is by far, the best thing on TV and has so much ambition and craftsmanship at every step.

3. The Four Seasons (Netflix) – Unfairly compared to the original film by the critical sphere. Steve Carell, restless from his marriage (to Kerri Kinney), experiences a mid-life crisis and subsequent May-December romance that threatens to throw off the long-standing equilibrium of the friendship between three couples. The show's format of rotating over four vacations is clever. The show is largely populated with comedic actors, but it's oh so sweet, and the automatic reaction by the gang to the May-December romance is surprisingly salient.

4. Deli Boys (Hulu) – The show operates at that dark comedy level around Good Girls or the TV version of Fargo, but I'm not sure if I've seen a dark comedy that's so funny despite the WIDE proliferation of this genre. Poorna Jagannathan as the aunt steals every scene, and it's a blast seeing Brian George take on something new (speaking of something new, the Pakistani member of Queer Eye debuts as an Indian mobster). Aasif Ali and Saagar Shaikh handle every turn with this unique comic energy as if they've just boarded a roller coaster that they didn't know was going to be so intense.

5. Poker Face (Peacock)-Leans on the same three tropes every episode -- accidental murderer, detective in the right place at the right time, and deus-ex-machina to get the hero kicked out of her home every -- BUT Riann Johnson imbues every episode with movie-level quality. That's a pretty high level of consistency for a show that switches settings every episode

6. Ghosts (CBS) – My iTunes bill can confirm that I can't get enough of this show even when I think I've quit it. It's a rare sitcom that harkens back to the whimsical comedy of the mid-2000s as laugh tracks were getting left behind. It keeps expanding its world without losing charm: The show is the most evenly balanced and strongest ensemble.

7. Grosse Pointe Garden Society (NBC) – Even with a flat murder twist, the show delivers a compelling take on adulthood adrift and the intersecting plots are doubly rich. Two actors that have been begging for meatier work --Melissa Fumero and Josh Radnor -- turn in career-high work here.

8. America’s #1 Family (Amazon Prime Video) – Ramy Youssef pivots fully into comedy, shedding introspection for a breezier, punchier sitcom approach. It's an animated family sitcom and it fully uses the capacity of animation to make characters visually funny.

9. Black Mirror (Netflix) – Three episodes this season—Hotel Reverie, Bête Noire, and USS Callister: Into Infinity—were fully realized, while one episode (Eulogy) came close but ended up more of a downer than a provocative episode. Still, going four for six at this level of ambition this late into an anthology show's run is highly impressive.

10. Running Point (Netflix) – A sports-family sitcom powered by inspired casting—Kate Hudson, Drew Tarver, Justin Theroux, and Scott MacArthur—as siblings who inherit a basketball team. It moves fast, cleverly segments certain episodes to tangential stand-alone shots, and features a great array of guest stars.

11. Going Dutch (Fox) – Military culture gets a sharp satire here. The humor is a little broad at the dialogue level, but the basic premise-- a military support base that's exclusively designed for bowling, laundry, and cheese-making -- is pretty hilarious. The chemistry is so great between Taylor Misiak and Dennis Leary as a headstrong father and daughter working out their baggage years after childhood has ended, I'm here for it. Catherine Tate is miles better as a foil than she was on The Office.

12. Krapopolis (Fox) – Animated show set in a city adjacent to the glory of Athens. The show gets endless mileage out of reality-bending plots and mythology gags. There's plenty of amusing in-fighting within this clan, but it's more along the lines of a family sitcom, making it a kinder and gentler cousin to the nihilistic-leaning Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites.

Best TV Ensembles of 2022

 I contributed a couple entries to this TV Fanatic crowd-sourced article about best ensembles on TV.

My top pick: Reboot (Hulu)

Reboot is about the coexistence of different generations of artists. In that vein, who could be better epitomize that clash than Paul Reiser and Rachel Bloom as an estranged father and daughter entrusted with co-running a sitcom?

Reiser is an old-school 90s sitcom star with a comic delivery that borrows a little from Borscht Belt comedy. Rachel Bloom made her way to TV fame as the star and co-creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend via YouTube stardom that turned musical theater conventions on their head.

The pair is complemented by a writing room that echoes Bloom’s Gen Z approach to artistic merit with Riser’s Borscht Belt big laughs approach, and the combination is hilarious.

Meanwhile on the show’s set, Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville (who thought of that casting choice?), and Calum Worthy play a quartet of has-been actors who form a found family with healthy doses of comedy and heart.

Other picks:
Ghosts (CBS): The eight actors who play the ghosts weren’t particularly hot on casting lists before this show. In an ideal world, they should be now. Each member of the octet provides such pitch-perfect character beats to create this great whirlwind of humor. It’s like your favorite comedic duo expanded by six with the rat-a-tat banter still operating like clockwork. Of course, credit goes to Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) for bringing the heart and grounding the plots. (I also wrote about Ghosts here)

Star Trek Picard (Paramount Plus): Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, and Santiago Cabrera bring a sense of visceral edge that I’ve never seen in Star Trek before. Pill’s displays an antsy-ness at being in space that seems pretty logical for most humans, but somehow Star Trek has never shown that side of the 24th century populance before. It makes sense: Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed to appeal to a broad audience in the 1980s so the actors weren’t aiming for high drama, but when the TNG cast is introduced they also are up to that higher bar.

Yellowjackets (Showtime): The show centers around a plane crash involving a teenage soccer in the 90s, and the way the survivors are traumatized all the way through their adulthoods. How fitting that the show cast three of the most promising ingenues of the 90s as the roles of the four main survivors: Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis. All three have long been underrated actresses and deserve to be attached to one of the hit shows on television. But that’s half the battle: The show also succeeds in casting matching teenage versions of these characters with all their drama.

Winning Time (HBO)-When you have two Oscar winners in your cast (Adrien Brody and Sally Field) and neither of them are central characters, then you’ve got a pretty deep talent pool. This docudrama about the Lakers 1980 championship features John C. Reilly in one of the most complex roles of his storied career as larger-than-life team owner Jerry Buss. Quincy Isaiah shines here in his first screen credit playing Magic Johnson as a bright-eyed superstar that’s still in the incubation phase. His main rival for the starting position is Norm Nixon played with swagger by the real-life figure’s son, DeVaughn. Surrounding them are a murderer’s row of character actors in Jerry West, Hadley Robinson, Jason Segel (did not see that coming), Tracey Letts, and the aforementioned Brody alongside Field who makes a strong impression with little screen time.

Ramy (Hulu): Ramy Yousef just plays a less self-assured version of himself, but there’s so much idiosyncrasy in the characters around him that this show deserves a place. Watching this show and not knowing the names of all the actors is a good reminder of the scarcity of Middle-Eastern actors with name recognition. Ramy’s parents are played by Amr Waked (Syriana, Salmon Fishing in Yemen) and Hiam Abbass (The Visitor) who have both done enough good work to be names among more astute American audiences, but everyone on this show deserves a brighter future. It also helps that the show format gives characters like Dena (May Calamaway), Uncle Naseem (Laith Nakli), and Ahmed (Dave Marheje) an episode in the spotlight or two.

The White Lotus (HBO)-This one is going to pop up on a lot of my lists because you can't make a TV series that works on so many layers without doing so many things right. This show has Lost/Arrested Development levels of Easter Egg placement and you better believe that the actors are in on the intricacies of each character. The show's brightest star is Emmy-winner Jennifer Coolidge but deserves a lot of credit for finding a new tone of deadpan for Aubrey Plaza, and making spaces for the largely unknown-to-American-audiences Italian newbies.

Top Ten Character Arcs in TV in 2022

 

10 Best Character Arcs on TV in 2022

I contributed a number of entries to TV Fanatic where I am currently writing:

Tori Nichols (Peyton List) Cobra Kai, Netflix-Tori caught the audience’s attention the first day when she walks into Cobra Kai and challenges anyone in her way to a battle royale. In 2002, she became a capable anti-hero that provides a welcome counterpart to Samantha’s privilege. Although we expected to cheer an eventual Samantha win at the tournament this year, it felt unexpectedly right to see Tori triumph at the end of the day (Even if there was a technicality involved).

Gordon (Paul Reiser), Reboot (Hulu): The best thing about Gordon is that he isn’t that much different from where he was at the start of the season. He makes insensitive jokes and doesn’t appear to have changed his ideas of what’s funny or what isn’t. But, he has formed a genuine relationship with his daughter and a genuine appreciation of the people he works with. With that, every insensitive joke he makes has a little more good intent behind it.

Al (Adhir Kalyan), United States of Al (CBS)-South Asian characters on TV are typically either ambassadors of cool (the personas of Kumail Nanjiani or Utkarsh Ambudkar) or sheltered nerds. Adhir Kalyan first became known through the 2007 TV series Aliens in America as an exchange student who was doomed to high school nerdom the moment he entered the school in his traditional South Asian garment. Most of Kalyan’s roles have been like that, but Al is a wonderful exception as he has started to change and (more importantly) assimilate to the better opportunities of his culture. He even gets a make-out buddy (Jayma Mays) and squares things better with his non-traditional love interest (Azita Ghanizada).

If I were to round out the list to a clean top 10, I would say:
Craig (Craig Robinson), Killing It (Peacock:) Learning to stop chasing some bourgeoisie vision of success is empowering (If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be writing these words). And learning to appreciate a good person (Claudia O’Doherty) for her faults and strengths takes a lot of growth as well.

Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz: (Jacob Bertrand), Cobra Kai (Netflix): It’s not just Tori that was a tournament winner that no one predicted. It’s also an ending we didn’t know we wanted until it happened.

Emma (Cristin Milioti), The Resort (Peacock): A determinator of a character, nothing will stop Emma from finding out what happened to these two random strangers 15 years ago. But she learns about herself and her marriage in the process. Sort of like that hackneyed “the treasure was friendship all along” trope, but tonally the show managed to work out Emma’s arc.

John Hunchman (John Hodgeman), Dicktown (FX): The stunted Encyclopedia Brown John Hunchman finally earns an iota of self-respect when he solves a 20-year-old high school case. The second season of Dicktown was more serialized than the first and it worked y to John’s favor.

D’Arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund), Resident Alien (SyFy): The idea of watching a Winter Olympian try to retain her former glory is always an interesting arc. It’s also a great anti-ship: Her relationship with Elliott didn’t work because she’s not there yet, but her efforts towards intimacy count for their own sake. It’s also unclear if a Season 1 version of D’Arcy would have apologized to Kate.

Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), The White Lotus (HBO): A lot of fellow fans of this show saw Portia as suffering from some sort of character defect for rejecting the vanilla Albie in favor of the bad boy. But, come on, she needed to go over to the dark side a little before valuing him properly. And what a wild episode it was: Surely more than the ennui-laden zoomer wished for when she wanted to feel alive.

George Shultz (Sam Waterson), Dropout (Hulu): Having unfortunately lived in the US during the last six years, it’s easy to see how evil is perpetuated by powerful people not wanting to admit they’re wrong. I’m not familiar enough with the real-life story of Elizabeth Holmes to know what George Shultz actually did but the idea of him is nice and we need to know more. And he’s pretty damn effective in Sam Waterson’s hands

Review of TV 2021: My Ten Honorable Mentions

AP Bio (Peacock) Season 4

Premise: Disgruntled Harvard exile gets stuck in his hometown teaching biology and vows never to teach his kids anything. Despite this attitude, life lessons and bonding ensues.

Pros: The show still has great momentum and a deep bench. The fan fiction episode shows just how adept the show is at playing with genre.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: A Lynette-less season can only take the show so far. That was a pairing for the ages. Another of my faves, Stephanie Duncan is a little less sassy during her pregnancy.

The Chair (Netflix) Season 1

Premise: In the world of academia, Sandra Oh can’t win as the English dlit epartment chair at an Ivy Light college. If it isn’t the new wave of political correctness, it’s the conflicting demands of the colleagues underneath her or the demands to keep up enrollment or justify soft skills to her students.

Pros: Sandra Oh kills in this (props to wardrobe too, she always looks like someone who’s too busy to shop f), despite my frustration at the students who rap about Herman Melville’s illegitimacy for being too white, the show does its best to humanize every side in the debate.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: This was my #12 before I watched the Great so it came pretty damn close. There are a lot of six-episode seasons this year, but this one suffered the most from its brevity as a lot of plot movements didn’t have room to breathe.

Cruel Summer (IFC) Season 1

Premise: Two girls at the same high school have divergent paths. One gets kidnapped and held hostage in a predator’s basement for several months while the other is accused as being aware of it and being silenced.

Pros: The editing, for one. Being able to tell a coherent story with this many time jumps, damn!  It also has impressive young actors who mirror each other quite well and handle those time jumps equally adeptly, and then there’s all the fun this show mines from the unreliable narrator trope.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Ehh, it was a competitive year.

Ghosts (CBS) Season 1

Premise: Utkarsh Ambudkar (no, I couldn’t spell that without IMDBing it) and Rose McIver play a pair of city yuppies who inherit a New England mansion from the gilded age which they plan to turn into a bed and breakfast. However, a gaggle of ghosts (primarily eight who live in the upper floors) stretching back decades and even centuries in some cases (yes, there’s a Viking and a Native American) haunt the mansion.

Pros: It’s a lot of fun and the ghosts are a rich cacophony of characters.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: It’s more fun than a game changer. Considering that it’s such a structurally traditional sitcom (it wouldn’t miss that many beats if a laugh track were inserted), I’m frankly surprised I liked it as much as I did. It’s most definitely worth watching at this point though.

Kevin Can F*ck Himself (AMC) Season 1

Premise: Plot-wise this is a traditional sitcom. What sets it apart is how it’s shot. When Allison (Annie Murphy from “Schitt’s Creek”) is interacting with her husband, it’s a traditionaly laugh track sitcom but in scenes where her husband is not present, the sitcom takes on a much darker form. The sitcom takes on at least three or four different genres per episode.

Pros:  Sheer ambition. You have to watch it to understand it and even then it’s a good book-club-like show to deconstruct as a group.

 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: While the show is certainly watchable, there isn’t as much of a thru-thread to get me to a state of “I can’t wait to see what happens in the next episode.” As I previously said, it’s a competitive year.

Locke and Key (Netflix) Season 2

Premise: A young widow (Darby Stanchfield), with her kids in tow, moves in to a New England mansion that hold a number of mystical keys with the power to do very good and bad things. Before long, the whole extended family is sucked into a good vs. evil.

Pros: Even as I am more distanced from high school, god help me, I can’t stop getting hooked on the lives of teenagers (or at least, use them as a gateway drug to broader dramatical forms). The mythology behind the story is consistent and not more complex than the story mandates, and the stakes escalate well for a sophomore season. There were also a couple plot twists that blindsided me. 

 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: For starters, what is up with the catatonic brother who’s all of a sudden engaged to a cultured man Japan? When did he even leave his bed? The teen drama can also get a little Degrassi-ish (or One-Tree-Hill-ish if you’re from the states) before said drama starts integrating itself with the plot in ways that become deliciously Hitchcockonian. But, please, way less Tyler and Jackie drama.  Erase both their memories.

 

Maid (Netflix) Season 1

Premise: Trailer park mom Amy (Margaret Qualley) makes the sudden decision to leave her borderline abusive husband with her infant in tow. With a dead beat mom (Qualley’s real-life mom Andie MacDowell), uncooperative ex-husband and no previous savings, it’s a constant upbeat battle.

Pros: The constant tension: Amy is like a video game character on her last life. Only the stakes are very real for her and indicative of how real they are for the millions of Americans out there living pay check to pay check. 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: There was a slight dip in intensity towards the end, but it certainly would have made it in a less competitive year.

Saturday Morning All-Star Hits (Netflix) Season 1

 

Premise: If you’ve seen Kyle Mooney’s offbeat sketches based on 90s sitcoms on SNL, you’ll know what to expect here. Only instead of TGIF offshoots, Mooney focuses here on taking subtle jabs at the Saturday Morning cartoons of the late 80s and early 90s.

Pros: If you like Kyle Mooney doing his thing, this is an uncaged Kyle Mooney completely free to roam in the wild, so you should love this. It’s also a chance to see Mooney do serialized storytelling which works as a satire of the shallow nature of 90s stardom (and sibling envy, a lot to unpack there, I guess). This is a parody that prioritizes attention to detail over a high laugh-per-minute ratio and that works.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Well, a few more laughs per minute might have been nice.

Schmigadoon (Apple TV) Season 1

Premise:  Ever seen the 1954 musical “Brigadoon”? It’s about 50% of that (present-day couple gets stranded in a magical musical town), with references to “Music Man”, “Oklahoma”, “Sound of Music”, and nearly every other musical from that era.

Pros: The series is a loving parody that is chock-ful of Easter eggs from the golden era of musicals. However, as musical theater in its own right, it works: The cast is filled with darlings of the musical theater community, the musical numbers are fun, and the town looks like a Vincente Minnelli painting. So much to love

What Kept it from Making the Cut: At six episodes, the plot changes are really abrupt. As one example, Cecily Strong’s character gets her love interest’s father killed and the next minute, the two are dancing.

Studio C (BYU TV) Seasons 13 and 14

Premise: Family-friendly sketch comedy

Pros:  Since the show did a nationwide talent search and bought in acclaimed sketch actors and comedians, there has been a very professional feel to this brand of sketch comedy and the cast was really gelling. The show has also shown a penchant for experimentation like an episode exploring (facetiously) how sketches get written, and one examining the impact of messy sketches on the show’s janitor.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Considering I doubt this show was ever meant to be popular out of the state of Utah, I always view it as the little engine that could. I’m not sure if this could compete in a sketch-by-sketch dead heat with SNL and not even SNL is cracking my top 12 or top 22. However, if I HAD to be nitpicky, the show had a casting overhaul in season 14 and this new configuration will take a while to gel. 

And lest you think I’m being hard on these shows, this is everything else I watched this year that didn’t make my top 12 or Honorable Mention list that these shows rank above:

Abbott Elementary (ABC)^,  Animaniacs (Hulu), AP Bio (Peacock), Attack of the Movie Cliches (Netflix), B Positive (CBS)^, Call Me Kat (ABC), Call Your Mother (ABC), Cobra Kai (Netflix), The Circle (Netflix), Disenchanted (Netflix), Frank of Ireland (Amazon), Explained (Netflix),  Great North (Fox), Inside Job (Netflix), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX), Home Economics (ABC), Kevin Hart’s Olympic Show (Peacock), Kim’s Convenience (CBC), La Brea (NBC/Peacock), Lost Symbol (Peacock), Love Death and Robots (Netflix), Mr. Mercedes (Amazon), Mighty Ducks (Disney Plus), Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail (TBS), Mosquito Coast (Apple TV), McGruber (Peacock), Mr. Corman (Apple TV), Mythic Quest (Apple TV), Nora From Queens (Comedy Central), Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu), Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), The Premise (Hulu), Rebel (Amazon Plus), Reservation Dogs (Peacock), Rutherford Falls (Peacock), SNL (NBC), Solar Opposites (Hulu), Squid Game (Netflix)^, To Tell the Truth (ABC), Young Rock (NBC)^

 

^ means I watched just one or two episodes. I didn’t necessarily watch every episode of a show if it’s not marked

Top 10 Movies of 2018

While still making my way through 2019,

here are my top ten films of 2018 out of 44. They are:

10.  Leave No Trace
9. Free Solo (although as I say in the video, I'm not a fan of documentaries)
8. If Beale Street Could Talk
7. Tag (yes, I am not joking here)
6. The Favourite
5. Crazy Rich Asians
4. Disobedience
3. Death of Stalin
2. First Reformed
1. Green Book


For reference, the other 34 films I saw were:
Ant Man and the Wasp, Aquaman, Bad Times at El Royale, Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Beirut, BlacKKKlansman, Black Panther, Clapper, Bohemian Rhapsody, Game Night, Hotel Transylvania, Ibiza, Night School, Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Ocean's 8, Overboard, Racer and the Jailbird, Ready Player One, Red Sparrow, Roma, Set it Up, Sierra Burges is a Loser, Shock and Awe, Solo, Teen Titans Go to the Movies, Tomb Raider, Vice, Wreck-it-Ralph, Welcome to Marwen, Wrinkle in Time, Widows

12 best episodes of 2017

"Juan Likes Rice and Chicken" Documentary Now-An absurdist take down of high-end dining involving a Colombian restaurant in the middle of nowhere and the half banana, rice, and chicken dish that drives people wild

"Chadwick’s Angels" Making History-"Time travel with idiots" was the basic gist of this under-rewarded series and few plots were as superfluous as a guy traveling back to the 1980's just to complete an ice cream challenge he failed as a middle schooler. The episode ends with some impressively heavy time travel conundrums.

"Kimmy Goes to College" Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt-The episode features Kimmy Schmidt reuniting with her one true frenemy Xan and surreptitiously finding herself in college while Titus and Mikey end their relationship on the sweetest of terms. 

"Real Secrets" Real O’Neals-The season finale is a high stakes episode with a possible marraige proposal and pregnancy scare. More importantly it ends with Eileen using all her collected wisdom as a recovering homophobe to win over Allison's disapproving parents. Like many of the show's episodes, it ends with the appropriate "aw" moment

"Always an Oscar Bridesmaid" Documentary Now-Fred Armisen's love of quirk combined with the show's love of milking out little details of derivation from the original story result in a a great season finale about a man who Forrest Gumps his way through the last 50 years of Hollywood Awards history.

"The Gang Tends Bar" It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia-Of all the adventures the gang has tried, they've never done one where the gang simply does their jobs.

"Jason Mendoza" Good Place-The cliffhanger for the last episode is that the buddhist monk is, in fact, Jason Mendoza but we had no idea he was this stupid and fun. One of the season's big shockers.

"Eight Mile High"Those Who Can’t-Abby joins a gang and Loren enters the world of freestyle rapping. It's about as hard-core (and oblivious) as these characters. Also earns points for being so politically incorrect it comes back to satire (either that or dumb fun)

"Prince and the Pauper" Another Period-A prince comes to Bellacourt manner seeking a bride. The episode's an excuse for Lillian and Beartice to unleash their most awful traits and for Peepers to get schooled in the art of butlership. And poor, poor Blanche.

"Michael’s Gambit" The Good Place-AKA The episode with the big twist

"That’s Too Much Man" BoJack Horseman-BoJack's demons become completely unhinged in this time-skipping episode that pairs BoJack with old costar (and on-again off-again) friend Sarah Lynn. It's an episode where BoJack reaches some odd level of self-discovery with a person who has always been important to his life in an odd way that appropriately ends tragically. Happiness is fleeting indeed.

"Fish Out of Water" BoJack Horseman-The visually splended underwater episode that was talked about everywhere on the blogosphere.

Top 25 Actresses of the (Last) Decade: Rehash Article from 2009

This article was originally published in 2009 on another website. It’s now being reprinted here and polished up a little bit:

With the decade nearly over, and the fact that we can get a sense of who is committed to which projects through the end of 2009, we can safely evaluate the actresses of the 2000s. The reason I'm picking actresses instead of actors, is partially because actresses are easier to compare to each other since they get the same roles (romantic interests, daughters, sisters, mothers, feminist activists, monarchs named Elizabeth, etc.), and because actresses tend to be at the peak of their careers for shorter time periods (for example, the actresses of the 90's, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer are not really stars at all today).

The criteria:

-Being prolific, as in doing a lot of movies. If you have a number of hits and some misses along the way, you still get more exposure than someone who's been in very few movies and has won Academy Awards for two of them like Hillary Swank

-Being in good movies. The actress might not be the one to get the major awards bling from the movie but they might be part of great works

-Having Oscar nominations, nominations by other major awards bodies, or generally highly praised performances

-Being a bankable movie star with blockbuster potential, bonus points for helming a major franchise

-Being present the whole decade. If you've only been hot since 2005 or 2006 like Amy Adams or Ellen Page, that's not really dominating the decade but rather 3 or 4 years.

The list

1. Nicole Kidman

Kidman is one of the most prolific and visible actresses in Hollywood and if she has had any misfires, one has to credit her for taking so many chances and diving into them headfirst: She tackled romantic comedy with one of the most innovative writers in the genre with Nora Ephron, she immersed herself into the glitz and glamour of Baz Luhrmann, she teamed up with Sean Penn and Sidney Pollack to make a classic thriller, and took a chance with a controversial innovator in Lars von Trier even if she didn’t like it enough to stick around for the sequel. Some of Kidman's less-remembered roles this decade, such as that a trouble janitor who enters into May-December romance with a professor in The Human Stain or a UN translator in Sidney Pollack's thriller The Interpreter, are roles that might have been career highlights for other stars on this list.

Dossier

Nationality: Australian

Best Role: Ada Monroe, Cold Mountain (highly subjective personal opinion on the part of the author)

Other Highlights: The Others, The Hours, The Cold Mountain, Dogville, Interpreter, Birth, Margot at the Wedding

2000s Hardware: 1 win, 2 Oscar noms, 4 Golden Globe Noms

Blockbuster/Tent pole Credentials: Golden Compass if it spawns a sequel [Ed note: It didn't], voice work in Happy Feet

Directorial Portfolio: Anthony Minghella, Baz Luhrmann, Stephen Daldry, Nora Ephron, Sidney Pollack, Lars von Trier

Credit: Rebloggy

2. Cate Blanchett

Known primarily for playing Queen Elizabeth in the last decade, Blanchett never has exhibited much of a star persona but, like Kidman, she has been highly prolific and immersed herself in a tremendous variety of work. In the last three years alone, she appeared in seven wide release pictures, she has earned Oscar nominations for three of them. In addition, she has propelled two others to Oscar nominations for Best Picture. She also has a penchant for the quirky and experimental as shown through her willingness to embrace projects like Wes Anderson's Life Aquatic and Steve Soderbergh's The Good German.

Dossier

Nationality: Australia

Best Role: Bob Dylan, I'm Not There

Other highlights: Veronica Guerin, Aviator, Life Aquatic with Steve Zassou, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (she’s arguably the only person acting in the film), Notes on a Scandal, Babel, Good German

The decade in hardware: 1 Oscar win, 4 Oscar noms, 6 Golden Globes Nods

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones

Directorial Portfolio: Steve Soderbergh, Steve Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Ron Howard, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Peter Jackson, Todd Haynes, Shekhar Kapur, David Fincher, Barry Levinson

3. Meryl Streep- The preeminent actress of our era. Twelve nominations into her career, Streep is still capable of surprising audiences with new facets of herself, which is simply amazing. This decade, she's transformed into a stoic uberboss, a quaint country singer, and a sexually adventurous middle-aged writer.

Dossier

Nationality-American

Best Role: Susan Orlean, Adaptation

Other Highlights: Devil Wears Prada, Prairie Home Companion, Prime, It’s Complicated, Doubt, Manchurian Candidate

The decade in hardware: 4 Oscar noms, 7 Golden Globe noms

Blockbuster Credentials: Adventures of Lemony Snicket

Directorial Portfolio: Johnathan Demme, Rob Altman, Tom Daldry, Spike Jonze, Robert Redford

4. Kate Winslet

Winslet was in the biggest blockbuster of all time, and has done an excellent job in the 2000s of making audiences forget the name Rose Bukater and remember the name Kate Winslet instead. Her effusive personality and her able handling of Saturday Night Live the week after Ashlee Simpson was busted for lip-synching has done wonders for her public persona but it’s largely been about the acting talent with Winslet and the breadth of films. She became the youngest actress to earn 5 nominations by 2007, and finally goaded the Academy into giving her an Oscar through sheer perseverance with her role of Hannah Schmidt in “The Reader.” Interestingly enough, she predicted on a 2005 episode of “Extras” that it would take a Holocaust movie for her to win.

Dossier

Nationality: British

Best Role: April Wheeler, Revolutionary Road

Other Highlights: Secret Life of David Gale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,  The Reader

The Decade in Hardware:  Oscar Wins: 1, Oscar Noms: 4, Golden Globe Noms:  5

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Winslet isn't exclusively high-brow, but she doesn't have any big blockbusters to her name this decade.

Notable Directors: Michel Gondry, Sam Mendes (her then-husband), Todd Field, Marc Forster

5. Rene Zellweger

Ideal in romantic comedies or as a dramatic love interest, Zellweger has also expanded to roles of independent women with roles in Miss Potter, Cold Mountain and Bridget Jones. She scored three successive Oscar nominations with Bridget Jones, Chicago, and Cold Mountain, and with her performances in Cinderella Man and Miss Potter, was a a threat to be present in the Oscar race pretty much every year she had a major film.

Dossier

Nationality: American

Best Role: Roxie Hart, Chicago

Other highlights: Nurse Betty, Cold Mountain, Miss Potter

The Decade in Hardware: Oscars: 1, Oscar Noms 3, Golden Globe Noms: 6

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Bee Movie, Bridget Jones spurned a sequel

Directorial Portfolio: Rob Marshall, Anthony Minghella, Ron Howard, Neil LaBute, George Clooney

Source: DRWL Wordpress

6. Reese Witherspoon

Her output is more limited than some of the ladies on the list but she has been America's sweetheart since breaking out in Legally Blonde and following up with favorable romantic comedy Sweet Home in Alabama. She also is in high demand judging by the 15 million dollar paycheck she's been commanding. Most importantly, she took her sweetheart charm and turned it into a nuanced performance in one of the best performances of the decade in Walk the Line.

Dossier

Nationality: American

Best Role: June Carter Cash, Walk the Line

Other highlights: Legally Blonde, Just Like Heaven

The Decade in Hardware: Walk the Line earned her a win at the Oscars and was her sole nomination at Globes or Oscars

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Legally Blonde spawned a sequel

Directorial Portfolio: James Mangold, Mira Nair

Source: IMDB

7. Judi Dench

Proving that old age and the bob weave are not barriers, Dench continues to corner the market on juicy veteran roles and has managed to score four Oscar nominations this decade. While none of her Oscar-nominated roles were popular films at the box office, she gets exposure through playing M in the James Bond series. She also appeared in the critically acclaimed Pride and Prejudice.

Dossier

Nationality: British

Best Role: Barbara Covet, Notes on a Scandal

Other Notable Roles: Iris, The Shipping News, Mrs Henderson Presents, Casino Royale, Pride and Prejudice

The Decade in Hardware: 4 Oscar noms, 3 Golden Globe noms

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: James Bond, the less successful Chronicles of Riddick

Directorial Portfolio: Stephen Frears, Martin Campbell, Lasse Hollstrom, Joe Wright, Rob Marshall

8. Scarlett Johansson

It is hard to even fathom how only five years after breaking out in Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johannson has amassed a lifetime of great performances to date. She's been in The Prestige, The Other Boleyn Girls, Match Point, Girl with a Pearl Earring, a Love Song for Bobby Long, and has even had time left over for a hearty romantic comedy like In Good Company or a sci-fi thriller like The Island. Even before breaking out in Lost in Translation, she managed to steal scenes in films like Man who Wasn't There and Ghost World. Due to category confusion (was she supporting or lead for Lost in Translation?), that career-affirming Oscar nomination eludes her but she's got plenty of time to accumulate more accolades. She also has a BAFTA (British version of the Oscars) to her name for Lost in Translation.

Dossier

Nationality: USA

Best Role: Charlotte, Lost in Translation

Other notable roles: Ghost World, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Love Song for Bobby Long, Match Point

Notable Hardware: Some Golden Globe nominations but no Oscar nods in a cruel twist of fate

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: She was in Home Alone 3, Prestige made quite a bit of money and she will be added to the Iron Man sequel next summer

Directorial Portfolio: Paul & Chris Weicz, Woody Allen, Sofia Coppola, Christopher Nolan, Brian de Palma, Joel & Ethan Coen, Frank Miller, Phillip Noyce

Source: Product Placement Blog dot com 

9. Julia Roberts

The biggest starlet in Hollywood last decade has slowed down a little bit this decade but still isn’t enough to stop and say. She's considered herself semi-retired and usually enters into projects because of her friendships with Brad Pitt, Steve Soderbergh, Mike Nichols or George Clooney, which doesn't make her particularly bankable as a star any more. At the same time, she's still Julia Roberts and generates a lot of buzz whenever she does decide to do a film, such as Charlie Wilson's War a couple years ago

Dossier

Best Role: Erin Brockovich, Erin Brockovich                  

Other notable roles: Closer, Ocean’s 12, Charlie Wilson’s War, Duplicity

Nationality: American

The decade in hardware: One Oscar, one Oscar nom and 3 Golden Globe noms

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Ocean's 11 series (though she was weaned out by part 3)

Directors: Stephen Soderbergh, George Clooney, Mike Nicholls, Gore Verbinski,

10. Julianne Moore

Moore is usually attracted to only the classiest material, and sometimes these films, like Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio and Freedomland, are films that the general movie going public is rarely even aware of. In some case, however, like Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men and the Oscar-nominated The Hours, magic has struck and her profile has been upped significantly as a result. Breaks into more lightweight material such as Laws of Attraction or Next have also helped as well.

Dossier

Nationality: American

Best Role: Cathy Whitaker, Far From Heaven

Other Notable Roles: Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, Laws of Attraction, Children of Men, The Hours, A Single Man, Shipping News

The Decade in Hardware: Two Oscar noms, two Golden Globe Nods

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: Hannibal, Next

Directors: Todd Haynes, Ridley Scott, Stephen Daldry, Alfonso Cuaron

11. Naomi Watts

With her ability to slip into and out of accents and an on/off switch with which she can bring out intensity, Watts is simply too talented to be anything but an A-list actor for long. Her performance in Mullholland Drive was one of the most notorious Oscar snubs of the decade. Two years later, she earned a well-deserved nomination in 21 Grams and a couple years later, she turned a role that nearly derailed Jessica Lange's career in a third-time remake into Oscar bait, with the role of Ane Darrow in King Kong. She often adds a lot to films in supporting roles like Eastern Promises or I Heart Huckabees and more often than not, her work goes unnoticed.

Dossier

Nationality: Australian

Best Role: Betty, Mullholland Drive,

Other Notable Roles: 21 Grams, The Ring, King Kong, Eastern Promises

Oscar Hardware: 1 Oscar Nom, surprisingly zero Golden Globe nods

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: King Kong, The Ring

Directorial Portfolio: Ron Howard, David Lynch, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, David Cronenberg, Peter Jackson, Gore Verbinski, Woody Allen, James Ivory

Source: North Country Charlize Theron-The Wrap

12. Charlize Theron

The Charlize Theron story is a dream come true for every B and C-lister out there with hopes of turning into an A-lister overnight. With Monster (2003), she landed that one juicy role and turned it into the performance of a lifetime. The Academy treats the best actress race like a coronation of Tinseltown's homecoming queen and more than in any other race, there is a hesitancy to give it to someone who hasn't paid her dues, but Theron was too good to deny. She later proved that she wasn't a one-hit wonder by scoring another Oscar nod in North Country and has picked up parts in Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah and attempted action roles in Aeon Flux and Hancock (the 10^th highest grossing film of 2008). Neither showed sequel potential but a kick-ass heroine is always marketable.

Dossier

Best Film Role: Aileen, Monster

Other Notable Roles: Aeon Flux, North Country, Curse of the Jaded Scorpion

Nationality: South Africa

The Decade in Hardware: 1 Oscar win, 2 Oscar nominations, 1 Golden Globe Nomination

Tentpole/Blockbuster Credentials: An unsuccessful attempt with Aeon Flux, Hancock had a decent opening weekend but fell off

Directors: Robert Redford, Nikki Cairo, Woody Allen, Paul Haggis, John Frankenheimmer

13. Helen Mirren- The first woman over the age of 40 to win a best actress Oscar since Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren had a big career hit with her role in The Queen and won a second Golden Globe for playing Queen Elizabeth I in the same year. In addition, she had Oscar nods for Godsford Park, The Last Station, and made respectable Oscar bait in Calendar Girls. Well into her 60s, she continues to exude an odd sex appeal and youthfulness. With the exception of her Oscar-nominated role for The Madness of King George, the actress was more visible onstage and in the British miniseries Prime Suspect. 

Best Role: Queen Elizabeth II, The Queen

Other Notable Roles: Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, The Last Station

Nationality: British through and through

The Decade in Hardware: 1 Oscar win, 3 Oscar noms, 4 Golden Globe noms

Tentpole/Blockbuster Credentials: National Treasure 2

Directorial Portfolio: Stephen Frears, Rob Altman, Taylor Hackford, Sean Penn

14. Keira Knightley

When she was cast in Pirates of the Carribean, little-known Keira Knightley might have been destined to be the female love interest in a swashbuckling epic, but as she held her own against Orlando Bloom and Jonny Depp, she gradually became the center of the story herself (and for that matter, the only remotely interesting character onscreen in the disastrous third installment of the trilogy). Rather than ride the kind of fame that one gets from being in a billion dollar trilogy into a string of roles in romantic comedies, Knightly went for more high-brow material, scoring a nod for Pride and Prejudice and starring in an Oscar-nominated film with Atonement.

Dossier

Best Role: Jules, Bend it Like Beckham

Other Notable Roles: Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Atonement, Domino, The Edge of Love

Nationality: English

The Decade in Hardware: 1 Oscar nom, 2 Golden Globe noms

Tentpole/Blockbuster Credentials: Pirates of the Caribbean

Directorial Portfolio: Joe Wright, Gore Verbinski, Tony Scott

15. Jennifer Connelly- Like Watts, Connelly is so talented that it was only a matter of time before she became an A-list actress, won an Oscar or both. Her Oscar for A Beautiful Mind could have just as well been for House of Sand and Fog, and she regularly appears in highly respected films such as Requiem for a Dream, Little Children, and Blood Diamond and even her unremarkable genre films like Open Water and Ang Lee's Hulk are capable of drawing attention solely because her name is on the marquee.

Best Role: Kathy, House of Sand and Fog

Nationality: American

Other Notable Roles: Beautiful Mind, Blood Diamond, Little Children, Requiem for a Dream, Open Water

The Decade in Hardware: One Oscar win, one Oscar nom, one Golden Globe nom

Blockbuster/Tentpole Credentials: A failed attempt at The Hulk, a commercially successful but critically panned Day the Earth Stood Still

Directors: Ron Howard, Ed Zwick, Todd Fields, Ang Lee, Darren Aronofsky, Terry George

And the rest of the top 25 (All deleted from the internet forever, except 25):
16. Natalie Portman 17. Laura Linney 18. Maggie Smith 19. Catherine Zeta-Jones 20. Kirsten Dunst 21. Joan Allen 22. Halle Berry 23. Maggie Gyllenhaal 24. Cameron Diaz 25. Angelina Jolie