Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett’s Latest 10 Movies vs. Greatest 10 Movies

Cate Blanchett
Latest vs. Greatest looks at directors, actors, actresses, screenwriters and composers to assess the state of their career as it stands.  We’ll look back at the latest 10 movies the artist has done, rate them and then average them out to see where they stand today.  We’ll also rank their 10 greatest movies and give them the same treatment to compare what they have been doing to their very best work.  (A quick side-note: if an artist is/has been a regular on a TV show we’ll also grade the seasons individually; artists need 10 projects to qualify).

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth

Over the last 20 years, Cate Blanchett has established herself as one of the premiere actresses in Hollywood with six Oscar nominations, two wins and iconic performances (elven and non-elven).  She has a commanding presence that few actresses can equal and this was evident when she burst on to the scene in 1998’s Elizabeth, which chronicled the early years of England’s most famous queen.  Though the movie doesn’t quite live up to her performance (and this is the case a lot of times with Blanchett films), it and Talented Mr. Ripley, which closely followed it, firmly established her as a leading lady.Cate Blanchett, Lord of the Rings, Galadriel

I make no secret that The Lord of the Rings is my favorite film (I consider it one long film divided into three parts) and it’s rather astonishing to me that I’ve done twenty-six of these profiles and Blanchett is the first member of the ensemble among them.  I think the Jackson trilogy is as close to as perfect an adaptation of Tolkien’s work as can be achieved (and I was poring over the books long before any of the films came out).  Blanchett’s Galadriel is not a huge part, but it is a huge presence and a vital role.  At different times, she has to be different things to this quest and Bilbo’s in The Hobbit trilogy.  She’s regal, kind, aloof and terrifying, by turns.  Her performance takes what could be a bit of a dead spot in the first film, the respite in Lothlorien, and turns it into a vital example of both the power of the Ring and the potential power of Galadriel (which, if Jackson follows the material, we’ll get to see on full display in the final Hobbit film).

Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, The Aviator

Blanchett won her first Oscar for playing perennial Oscar-winning actress Katherine Hepburn in Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator.  The film almost works, but something about it never comes quite together.  I actually found Blanchett’s Hepburn jarring and it’s one of my least favorite performances, but that seems lucky for her because the two Oscars she has (this and last year’s Blue Jasmine) are for performances I didn’t like.  She’s an actress I certainly feel is Oscar-worthy, but has her statues for the wrong film(s).


Cate Blanchett, Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg

Hot Fuzz, the middle film of Edgar Wright’s demented trilogy of ordinary people placed in daft, world-ending situations, is another favorite of mine and Blanchett has a small, uncredited role in the film.  If you have not seen Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, you couldn’t set up a better marathon for a lazy Saturday afternoon of bizarre madness.

Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth the Golden Age

In 2007, Blanchett returned to the role that made her famous in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (a film that even more so fell flat around her towering performance than its predecessor).  She also played an incarnation of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, a film I cannot stand, but definitely thought she was the highlight of.  For these films, she pulled a rare double nomination at the 2008 Oscars, though won for neither effort.


Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett

Indy 4 happened.  I know people who buy the blu ray set and throw away disc 4, but it happened.  Mutt.  The fridge.  “The space between the spaces.” Then Blanchett’s “Ees Moose and Squirrel” Russian villain looking to obtain the psychic weaponry of The Crystal Skull.  I have defended this film in the past as not being AS bad as people make it out to be, but I just read over this paragraph and I’m not sure that if I watched it again I would be as generous.  Blanchett is definitely not the reason why KCS fails…but she didn’t help.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett

In the last few years, Blanchett has had a number of fantastic performances.  She was outstanding in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  She was very good as the baddie in Hanna (a movie that frustratingly fell just short of being the freaking awesome film it should have been).  She played Maid Marian to Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s odd take on the classic, and then returned to her roots as Galadriel in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy (hopefully, as I said, we’ll get to see Galadriel unleashed in The Battle of Dol Guldur which either got cut from the second film or will take place early in the third).  According to the books, Galadriel “pulls the fortress down”.  I want to see that.  Badly.


The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey, Galadriel, Cate Blanchett

Which brings us to Blanchett’s 10 latest films:
BLANCHETT’s LATEST TEN:
1. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)…………………7.75
2. The Monuments Men (2014)……………………………..6.00
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)…9.00
4. Blue Jasmine (2013)……………………………………………..4.00
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)…..9.50
6. Hanna (2011)…………………………………………………………6.25
7. Robin Hood (2010)………………………………………………..6.00
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)….7.75
9.  Indiana Jones 4 (2008)…………………………………………6.75
10. Hot Fuzz (2007)……………………………………………………9.75
BLANCHETT’S CURRENT AVERAGE: 7.275
NEW RECORD FOR ACTRESSES!

Blanchett’s involvement with the Middle-Earth films helps both her Current and Greatest averages break the record for actresses that Amy Adams had previously held.  Even though she may not have large parts in each of the films, she’s credited, so it counts.  You can see this how this has helped her score even more clearly on the greatest side, where her involvement with the franchise has made up for a lack of blockbuster films of her own.

Veronica Geuerin, Cate Blanchett

BLANCHETT’S GREATEST TEN
1. LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)……………..10.00
2. LOTR: The Two Towers (2002)……………………………….10.00
3. LOTR: Return of the King (2003)……………………………10.00
4. Hot Fuzz (2007)………………………………………………………….. 9.75
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)………….9.50
6. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)………..9.00
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)………..7.75
8. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)……………………….. 7.75
9. Elizabeth (1998)……………………………………………………………7.25
10. Veronica Guerin (2003)……………………………………………7.00
BLANCHETT’S GREATEST AVERAGE: 8.800
NEW RECORD FOR HIGHEST GREATEST AVG FOR ACTRESSES

In 2014, Blanchett is set to appear in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups with Natalie Portman and Christian Bale before what should be a memorable final performance as Galadriel in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies this Christmas.  Next year, she’ll appear in the live-action Disney adaptation of Cinderella and a film called Carol with Rooney Mara and Sarah Paulson.


Blanchett is, undoubtedly, one of the best actresses working today.  The only criticism one could level against her is that she hasn’t really been able to carry films on her own; she’s much better as part of an ensemble of high-caliber.  It might be a case of just not finding the right project yet, but unlike, say, Amy Adams or-increasingly-Jennifer Lawrence, she can’t pull people into the theaters just on the strength of her name.  She has a good eye for quality projects though, and her Galadriel alone will always give her a special place in the hearts of moviegoers everywhere.
Cate Blanchett

5 thoughts on “Cate Blanchett’s Latest 10 Movies vs. Greatest 10 Movies”

  1. I love Blanchett. There is nothing wrong with the fact that she’s not a box-office draw. If I were a movie star, I would choose most of my parts wisely, while taking parts in blockbusters every now and then to make some bigger money.
    I shudder to think how much John Turtorro made off Transformers. He was hardly the draw, but I suspect those paychecks were bigger than all the money he’s made during the rest of his career. I don’t blame him, because he was the guy who begged for his life in Miller’s Crossing, and that is one of those things that can never, ever be taken away. Blanchett can’t be blamed for Indy 4, it gave her a chance to work with Speilberg and it was Indiana Jones.

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    1. Ugh, I know you like him but whatever good he ever did EVER was undone by Turturro in those three movies. He was the worst thing in them…no the parents were the worst thing but he was second. I love Cate Blanchett. She’s a classical movie star and she’s freaking Galadriel. I want to see her tear Dol Guldur to the ground like it says in the appendices.


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      1. She has genuine class.
        Also… the two minutes of screen time Turtorro has in The Big Lebowski are enough to not only mitigate his work in Transformers, but to forgive it completely. I can’t explain how he was the worst thing about those movies (you are wrong, it wasn’t the parents).

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      2. It’s splitting hairs over levels of awful, but the point is Cate in Indy 4 doesn’t even come close to that level of bad. Blah.


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