We’ve seen quite a few young actresses be nominated in recent years, if we just look at the last two years we have Abigail Breslin for her supporting role in Little Miss Sunshine, Saoirse Ronan for her supporting role in Atonement and Ellen Page for her starring role in Juno. We will however not really look at them seeing they didn’t actually win and because they were nominated not that long ago. So what it will do to their career in the long run isn’t really known yet.

So lets take a look at a young actress who won an Oscar not that long ago. Anna Paquin won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her part in The Piano in 1994, she was only eleven years old making her the second youngest winner ever behind Tatum O’Neal. So what happened for Anna Paquin after the Piano?

In all reality she isn’t doing half bad, being part of major movie franchises like X-Men. Movies like She’s All That and Finding Forrester didn’t do too shabby either, there however is one thing about her biggest movie successes after The Piano. She won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and that’s the thing she does in most of her movies. She’s rarely the sole female lead in a movie.

Right now she has a couple of smaller movie projects going but her most notable role of the year is the lead role in the vampire themed series True Blood on HBO. Despite it also getting some cheap publicity due to several nude love scenes on the show it also gets good critical reviews. In fact Anna has just been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama. Quite a mouthful it shows that the Oscar might be her biggest prize to date she’s hardly doing bad. It’s not like she completely disappeared off the map after winning it.

The thing is just that she can never live up to it. When you talk to someone about Anna Paquin it’s usually “who?”, a lot of people don’t know who she is until you tell them that it’s the girl who won an Oscar when she was eleven years old. That’s now almost fifteen years ago, almost seems like forever when you consider that Abigail Breslin wasn’t even born yet when Anna won her Oscar. So she’ll always be the young Oscar winner even though most actors would kill to have a career like Anna since then.

For the coming Oscars there is only one teenager in contention for an award; as mentioned before on this site Miley Cyrus is a contender for the Oscar for Best Original Song. She wrote the song I Thought I Lost You together with Jeffrey Steele for the Disney animated movie Bolt. She already has the Critics Choice Award and Golden Globe nomination so an Oscar nomination wouldn’t be a very big surprise. By some media outlets she’s even being pinned as the favorite for the award.

So if Miley was to win an Oscar in February, would she be known as a young Oscar winner as well? I don’t think so, you can’t even compare the situations of Anna and Miley. For one it’s for a completely different award, even though it’s an Oscar the ones for acting are held in higher regard by the general public than the ones for music. Not to mention that before Anna won an Oscar no one knew who she was, if you don’t know Miley yet you must have been living under a rock.

Abigail Breslin didn’t win an award two years ago but right now people still see her as an Oscar nominee. Thing just is that none of the roles she played so far were able to live up to that Oscar nomination. Of course Abigail is only twelve years old so she still has plenty of time to form her career. In ten years people might still remember that she was nominated but if she had won it would have been dragged along much further.

So is an Oscar at a young age something bad? Not really, it might be a stigma somewhat at times but it doesn’t mean people don’t have a career afterwards. An Oscar might give someone a buzz for a while but in the end it all depends on the career choices they make. Even if they’re at a lower level than Oscar nominated movies that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Like Miley Cyrus said about her Golden Globe nomination that she doesn’t do things because she wants an award, she does it because she loves it; awards are just little extras that keep her going.

The list is based on who we think is the starlet in Hollywood that had the most development in her career. We also look at what projects they have ahead of them and if those will help them to improve their careers.

10.Shailene Woodley; after a very short stint on the OC in 2004 all Shailene did was guest star on TV shows and do a couple of TV movies. Her career wasn’t going anywhere fast but that changed this year. With the ABC Family show The Secret Life Of the American Teenager she put herself on the map. Though that’s also where she lacks a bit; right now it’s still the only project on her horizon.

9.Taylor Momsen; her main fame is for Gossip Girl of course besides that she hasn’t actually done that much in the past year. Not that much planned for next year either, her main rise in fame this year is due to media attention. Nothing really shocking or negative just attention and that counts for something too. People need to know your name before they can consider you for something.

8.America Ferrera; was ranked a lot higher last year but The Sisterhood Of the Traveling Pants 2 didn’t do too well at the box office. That combined with the Ugly Betty buzz going down a bit she still is well on her way in her career but just not moving as fast as last year.

7.Blake Lively; her being ranked seventh is more or less a combination of numbers eight and nine. She was also in the Sisterhood Of the Traveling Pants 2 and is of course on Gossip Girl. Just like her co-star Taylor she got quite a bit of media attention in the past year and she has some other stuff coming out next year as well.

6.Selena Gomez; often referred to as the next Miley Cyrus in the past year which is just unfair to her. She’s working on her own career with Wizards of Waverly Place still going strong and she starred in the straight to DVD Another Cinderella Story (though it’s not exactly a masterpiece in movie making to say it nicely). Next year we’ll also see an album from her with her new band, she’s already in the studio busy recording. Thing is that she doesn’t quite have a band yet which makes you wonder.

5.Demi Lovato; the other next Mile Cyrus and best friend of Selena Gomez. In the past year she of course had some success with Camp Rock and she had her first album Don’t Forget. Though the success of both album and movie probably weren’t as high as some people might have hoped there’s still a lot to come. Next year we’ll see her in her own Disney Channel show called Sonny with a Chance.

4.Amanda Seyfried; after Mean Girls she dropped off the radar a bit but she came back with a blast by starring in Mamma Mia. She would have been ranked higher if there was a lot to come next year but sadly for her, her major projects are scheduled for 2010.

3.Emily Osment; she’s climbing the career ladder in the wake of Miley Cyrus on Hannah Montana but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any assets herself. This year she had the straight to DVD movie Soccer Mom and in a couple of weeks the Disney Channel movie Dadnapped. Next year we’ll still see her in the Hannah Montana and in the Hannah Montana Movie of course which should get her plenty of attention. She’s also busy writing songs so is there a record deal on the horizon?

2.Ellen Page; she’s still ranked second though there were higher hopes for her this year. She of course got the Oscar nomination for her role as Juno but her only major release of this year, Smart People, didn’t quite live up to its promise and didn’t do too well at the box office. She has plenty of projects coming out next year though, including Drew Barrymore’s directing debut Whip It! The biggest project of course would be Jane Eyre but nothing is really known about that project yet.

1.Miley Cyrus; are you as shocked as we are? Yes we are crowd followers in this case by putting Miley Cyrus on top of our list just like everyone else. It’s hard not to put her on top though. Hannah Montana is still going strong despite it being one of the shows hit hardest by the WGA strike. She had her record breaking concert tour, the 3D movie recording also smashed several box office records and even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. On a side note she also had her third number one album on the Billboard Charts within two years. The Times even calls her the biggest-ever teen star. Next year she also has some things going on with of course Hannah Montana continuing and the movie coming out on top of that. The start of next year will also see the third Hannah Montana soundtrack, she has a biography coming out and Nicholas Sparks is writing a novel for her seeing she’s going to star in the movie base on it. The term unstoppable comes to mind when talking about Miley seeing that’s probably only half of what we’ll see from.

I’ll only be addressing the top ten this week, next week I’ll address the bottom ten; I won’t bother discussing everyone in between.

10. Megan Fox
Her performance in Transformers might not have been an acting challenge she still made a name for herself doing it. She already has the sequel to Transformers lined up for 2009 and she doesn’t seem to be out of work for 2008 so she’s pretty much working her way up in Hollywood. Of course this isn’t a guarantee for long term success, she hasn’t really proven herself in roles that are more challenging acting wise.

9. Sophia Bush
Best known for her role in the struggling the CW drama One Tree Hill but besides that she also has a steady stream of movies coming out. Though none of these movies might be gems of cinematography she still seems to be getting quite popular with the younger scene. This isn’t a guarantee for a very long career but she won’t be out of work for a while.

8. Emma Watson
Or should we call her Hermione Granger? Not anymore, she started doing other roles outside of the Harry Potter universe. She’s starting small which is a wise choice.

7. Natalie Portman
She’s getting out of the starlet age though I’m still mentioning her here. 2007 might not have been her most successful year to date but she’s still moving along. She does the roles she wants and doesn’t just go for the big paycheck. She’s slowly building towards the point where she’ll always be assured of work in Hollywood. For 2008 we of course have The Other Boleyn Girl to look forward to where she’s co-starring with Scarlett Johansson.

6. Abigail Breslin
After her success year of 2006 she only had one movie coming out this year. Because of her work in 2006 she managed to get Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominations in 2007. I personally don’t look at awards that much but big movie studios do so it sure is good for a career. 2008 might very well become Abigail’s year with four movies lined up with some impressive casts.

5. Keira Knightley
Pirates of the Caribbean is her obvious success of 2007, her main failure is the movie Silk which simply flopped. However she has announced that she wouldn’t do blockbusters anymore; because of that she ranks high with me. She does she wants and puts her art before money.

4. AnnaSophia Robb
This seeding might seem strange to some people looking at some the people that are ranked lower. Her main success Bridge of Terabithia pissed off a lot of fantasy fans because it pretended to be something it isn’t it still showed that the girl can act. The Reaping is pretty similar in that regard though it wasn’t as successful; she did keep up with Oscar winner Hilary Swank. She also has a decent line-up for 2008 so I see a bright future for her.

3. America Ferrera
To be completely honest I’ve only seen her in one movie and I’ve never seen a single episode of Ugly Betty. Still 2007 is her year with the massive success of Ugly Betty in the USA and abroad, it has made her name in Hollywood. Not the mention the numerous awards she received for that role. In 2008 she will continue with Ugly Betty of course and she’ll also star in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2; the last thing is the main reason why she only ranks number three. I can’t see that movie having major success.

2. Ellen Page
Pretty much a blank page (no pun intended) to the big audience; if people would know her it’s mainly for her roles in X-Men: The Last Stand and in Hard Candy though I doubt a lot of people could name her in that case. 2007 however brought her Juno a movie that’s loved by critics all around and is certain to win awards (it already won a couple actually). So in that regard 2007 has been her real breakthrough; 2008 will bring her a mix of smaller and bigger budget movies so her name will probably be spread even more.

1. Miley Cyrus
No shocker here; you couldn’t ignore Miley in 2007 it’s simply impossible. Even though her acting abilities are questionable at times (she’s young, she still has a lot to learn) she still manages to have the most successful show in Disney Channel history. Just a TV show doesn’t make her number one of course, the fact that she had another number one album in 2007 and the most successful concert tour of the year besides that makes her number one. She also became the youngest artist ever to have two number one albums withing one year; both of her albums are still moving strong in the Billboard charts. In 2008 we’ll see more Hannah Montana, the Hannah Montana Movie and probably one or two more albums. She still has to venture outside of the Disney family but it’s probably just a matter of time before we see her in more grown up movie productions. She has to venture into other movie productions actually, otherwise she’ll be Hannah Montana forever.