Ironical it may sound, hindi movie industry was largely dominated by males but if observed carefully, it was the actresses who were always in balance and in thier elements ever. Baring a few, the male actors suffered from lack of screen presence, poor physical builts and stereotypical images. It was the actresses right from Meena Kumari to Rani Mukherji now who had thier personalities and works well defined.
Its hard to choose just 5 from the huge variety and range, so Iam splitting the list into two, veterans and current.
Veterans
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Rekha
Nargis
Nutan
Meena Kumari
Waheeda Rehmaan
While there were so many actresses, one could easily identify the best based on the expressions and body language seen on screen. There was an overflow of tanlent in this veteran category but its Waheeda Rehmaan who walks away with the crown for her subtle performances and awesome character portrayals.
Current
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Kajol & Rani Mukherji
Sridevi
Tabu
Shabana Azmi
Madhuri Dixit
The fate of hindi industry now is we have these awesome performers but left with stale and stinky scripts with horrible screenplays. Luckily the decade 1990-2000 had the opprtunity to bring out some of the amazing talents of bollywood ever. Rani and Kajol are so natural and spontaneous. Sridevi was professional, cute and character oriented. Shabana Azmi is a volcano of talent. Tabu extends Shabana. Madhuri is perfection inpersonified. One could write a text book on a ’Bollywood’ heroine by documenting her screen characters. Its the deadly combination of vulnerability + strength seen in both Madhuri and Shabana, make them Queens of Bollywood.