Oscars 2009: Best Actress Nominees

The 81st Annual Academy Awards show is Sunday, Feb. 22. Here are the five nominees for Best Actress.Who will win? Comment below. For the entire list of 2009 Oscar nominees visit: www.oscar.com

Best Picture Nominees

Best Actor Nominees

Photos: Who might win?

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KATE WINSLET ("The Reader")

ROLE: Hanna Schmitz

SUMMARY: In postwar Germany, a teenager has a love affair with an older woman who is hiding a terrible secret.

REVIEW: Can a formidable actress redeem a pile of solemn erotic kitsch? Kate Winslet answers that one as honestly as she can in the film version of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel. -- Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune

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ANNE HATHAWAY ("Rachel Getting Married")

ROLE: Kym

SUMMARY: A woman with a drug problem is allowed out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding.

REVIEW: With her chopped hair, constant smoking and wraith-from-hell demeanor, Kym calls on aspects of Hathaway that simply have not been seen before, and the actress rises to the challenge beautifully, making Kym simultaneously empathetic and outrageous. -- Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

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MERYL STREEP ("Doubt")

ROLE: Sister Aloysius

SUMMARY: Suspicions of child abuse fuel a traditionalist nun's personal crusade against a popular priest who wants to reform her school's strict customs.

REVIEW: Streep pulls out a new accent (thick and Bronx-y), and a new trick: Did you know she can dominate a scene with her back turned to the camera? -- Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times

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ANGELINA JOLIE ("Changeling")

ROLE: Christine Collins

SUMMARY: A single mother in 1928 Los Angeles comes home from work to find her 9-year-old son has vanished. After five painful months, a child is returned to her but she says it's not hers.

REVIEW: Jolie takes hold of the movie and transforms it. This larger-than-life actress here plays a very regular woman with a small, soft voice that turns quavery when she's troubled. Her expression when she greets "Walter" at the train station is remarkable; already pale, she seems suddenly drained of life. -- Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times

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MELISSA LEO ("Frozen River")

ROLE: Ray Eddy

SUMMARY: The lure of easy money leads a financially strapped mother to join a Mohawk woman in smuggling illegal immigrants from Canada to the U.S.

REVIEW: It's between Meryl Streep in "Doubt" and Kate Winslet in "The Reader" - and too bad, because my heart votes for Melissa Leo in "Frozen River." -- Roger Ebert

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