Silver Shell for Best Actress

The Silver Shell for Best Actress (Spanish: Concha de Plata a la mejor actriz; Basque: Aktore onenaren Zilarrezko Maskorra) was one of the main awards presented at the San Sebastián International Film Festival to the Best Actress of a competing film.^[1] The last of this award was given out in 2020, after which it was replaced with a gender-neutral Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance and Silver Shell for Best Supporting Performance the following year.^[2]

Winners

Year	Actress	Film Title	Ref
1953	Julita Martínez	There's a Road on the Right
1954	Marisa de Leza	La patrulla	[3]
1956	Luisa Della Noce	The Railroad Man	[4]
1957	Giulietta Masina	Nights of Cabiria	[5]
1958	Jacqueline Sassard	March's Child	[6]
1959	Audrey Hepburn	The Nun's Story	[7]
1960	Joanne Woodward	The Fugitive Kind	[8]
1961	Pina Pellicer	One-Eyed Jacks	[9]
1962	Anne Bancroft	The Miracle Worker	[10]
1963	Lee Remick	Days of Wine and Roses	[11]
1964	Ava Gardner	The Night of the Iguana	[12]
1965	Lilli Palmer	Operation Crossbow	[13]
1966	Evangelina Salazar	Arm in Arm Down the Street
1967	Serena Vergano	A Love Story	[14]
1968	Monica Vitti	The Girl with the Pistol
1969	Stefania Sandrelli	The Bandit
	Ludmila Tchoursina	Zhuravusha
1970	Stéphane Audran	Le Boucher	[15]
1971	Graciela Borges	Crónica de una Señora	[16]
1972	Mia Farrow	Follow Me!	[17]
1973	Glenda Jackson	A Touch of Class	[18]
	Françoise Fabian	La bonne année
1974	Sophia Loren	The Voyage	[19]
1975	Gena Rowlands	A Woman Under the Influence	[20]
1976	Helen Morse	Caddie	[21]
1977	Katherine Hunter	The Girl's War
1978	Carol Burnett	A Wedding	[22]
1979	Laura Betti	Il piccolo Archimede	[23]
1985	Mercedes Sampietro	Extramuros	[24]
1986	Angela Molina	Half of Heaven
1987	Victoria Abril	El Lute (Run for Your Life)	[25]
1988	Cipe Lincovski	The Girlfriend	[26]
	Liv Ullmann
1989	Mirjana Jokovic	Eversmile, New Jersey	[27]
1990	Margherita Buy	The Week of the Sphinx	[28]
1991	Deborra-Lee Furness	Waiting
	Noni Hazlehurst
	Helen Jones
	Fiona Press
1992	Krystyna Janda	Zwolnieni z zycia	[29]
1993	Niki Karimi	Sara	[30]
1994	Ning Jing	Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker	[31]
1995	Victoria Abril	Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead	[25][32]
1996	Norma Aleandro	Autumn Sun	[16]
1997	Julie Christie	Afterglow	[33]
1998	Jeanne Balibar	Late August, Early September	[34]
1999	Aitana Sánchez-Gijón	Volavérunt	[35]
2000	Carmen Maura	La Comunidad	[36]
2001	Pilar López de Ayala	Mad Love	[37]
2002	Mercedes Sampietro	Common Ground	[38]
2003	Laia Marull	Take My Eyes	[39]
2004	Connie Nielsen	Brødre	[40]
2005	Ana Geislerová	Something Like Happiness	[41]
2006	Nathalie Baye	Mon fils à moi	[42]
2007	Blanca Portillo	Seven Billiard Tables	[43]
2008	Melissa Leo	Frozen River	[44]
	Tsilla Chelton	Pandora's Box
2009	Lola Dueñas	Me Too	[45]
2010	Nora Navas	Black Bread	[46]
2011	María León	The Sleeping Voice	[47]
2012	Macarena Garcia	Blancanieves	[48]
	Katie Coseni	Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang
2013	Marian Álvarez	Wounded	[49]
2014	Paprika Steen	Silent Heart	[50]
2015	Yordanka Ariosa	The King of Havana	[51]
2016	Fan Bingbing	I Am Not Madam Bovary	[52]
2017	Sofia Gala Castiglione	Alanis	[53]
2018	Pia Tjelta	Blind Spot	[26]
2019	Greta Fernández	A Thief's Daughter	[54][55]
	Nina Hoss	The Audition
2020	Ia Sukhitashvili	Beginning	[56]

See also

• Golden Shell for Best Film
• Silver Shell for Best Director
• Silver Shell for Best Actor
• Donostia Award
• Sebastiane Award