The Top Five Movies of Kate Winslet

I?m not sure if you spend a lot of time on IMDb, but I do for my own amusement and to make these top five lists. (Before that it was the book form of the Videohound, before that it was Leonard Maltin?s Movie Guide and before that I was a carefree kid that did not bother making lists and instead spent a lot of time wandering up and down creeks looking for adventure. Ain?t that just bucolic?) So, when I go look up an actress like Kate Winslet to check out her movies, I inevitably find a list of lists on the right column of the page as list-making compels other people too. The lists are generally all about the hottest and most beautiful actresses.

The gorgeous Kate Winslet

These lists have been around forever. ?People? does them and so do many other tabloids. If you want to sell magazines or get page views, you put beautiful people on them. ?People? did their first list in 1990. Kate made her first of two appearances in 1996 at the age of 20. (Her second was on the 2005 list at the age of 29.) Here are some other comely highlights of that 1996 list:

Brandy
Tyra Banks
Rozonda ?Chilli? Thomas
Fran Drescher
Sandra Bullock
Brooke Shields
Jenny McCarthy
Tori Amos
Salma Hayek
Nicole Kidman
Josie Bissett
Lela Rochon
Susan Sarandon
Michelle Pfeiffer
Ashley Judd
Demi Moore
Mira Sorvino
Gloria Reuben

I love to look at lists like this one, fifteen years after the fact. How people have changed and how our perceptions of them have changed. Oh Fran Drescher, are you only attractive if you?ve got a hit TV show, or did your voice catch up to you? How does Sandra Bullock stay attractive and Nicole Kidman start to look weird? Salma, just still wow.

That brings us back to Kate. In my opinion, she should be on the list every year, but that?s the thing, who would you kick off the list? We can look at the list above and there are several women on it that I would say are still hot 15 years later and we keep finding more beautiful women in every new film or TV show. Are there really only 25 beautiful people in movies, music and TV each year? Of course not, but there are only so many pages in a magazine. However, with ?Contagion? starting this weekend, I?m going to start the campaign to get Kate into this year?s most beautiful people lists. (But, full confession; I may have picked the wrong movie to showcase her beauty as she looks sick during a good deal of it.) So, go see the Steven Soderbergh directed ?Contagion? like me and once we get home, we can tweet, blog, like and generally promote Kate for a beautiful award. Then, knowing we have done some good for the world, we can reward ourselves with the top five other great movies she has done. Oh, and as much as ?Titanic? probably belongs somewhere on this list just for the fact that according to Mr. Skin it has ?Hall of Fame Nudity!? (and I concur that she is so gorgeous in this movie) I just can?t convince myself to list two James Cameron films in two weeks. It just feels wrong.

5. Sense and Sensibility

It?s an adaptation of a Jane Austen movie that stars the lovely Emma Thompson (?I?ve got a Porsche?) as well. I think it is hard to have a Jane Austen adaptation without casting beautiful women.

4. Heavenly Creatures

A great little movie from Peter Jackson (who up to this point in his career had done gory horror films and a very strange puppet movie) that also stars the beautiful Melanie Lynskey, who I look forward to seeing in ?The Perks of Being a Wallflower.?

3. Finding Neverland

I think if you were to create a flow chart of how to make a successful movie, pairing two people from a Most Beautiful People list like Kate and Johnny Depp would be one of the steps. Adding Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman can?t hurt either.

2. Little Children

This movie is creepy, sexy and sad at different times and I loved it for blending all of those moments. I just wish that the script for ?Watchmen? that brought Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley together again after this movie had even one of those feelings.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I have a rule ? if an actor starred in this movie, it?s going to be their best movie. Now, if you want a list of my rules, well, that will have to wait for another essay list.

Agree? Disagree? Which movies would make your Kate Winslet top five?