75. Julie Christie as Diana Scott
      Darling (1965)

“Why is life such a piss pot?” the mercurial, spoiled Diana wants to know, and though we are sporadically repulsed by her manipulations, Christie’s now breezy, now tragic antiheroine never fully loses our sympathy. Credit the despairing inwardness with which Christie shades her portrayal of a model-actress-whatever as she flirts, fibs, and fornicates through a series of relationships in London, Paris, and Capri. Her confession, “I could do without sex—don’t really like it that much,” chills us, because in it we see her almost childlike neediness. Offering herself to a near stranger with “Amuse me,” she’s almost feral; but after a regretted abortion, Christie’s trembling chin gives away an unforgettable mask of grief.

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