49. Liv Ullmann as Elisabet Vogler 
      Persona (1966)

To become an international movie sensation while barely uttering a word is no small feat. When Ingmar Bergman cast Ullmann as a stage star who suddenly stops speaking, she was a little-known Norwegian actress, younger than Bergman stalwart Bibi Andersson, who plays the innocent nurse who tends to her. Bergman’s infatuation with Ullmann is obvious onscreen (they began an affair during the shoot), and her visage is incandescent. Ullmann’s purely reactive performance projects terrifying power with as little as a smirk in this film, which is a radical deconstruction of role-playing and an ode to the art of acting and thus a showcase for its stars’ talents.

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