Discussion Board: Best Performances…Ever

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So, we know who the academy wants us to believe gave the best performance each year, but who do YOU think has given a best performance EVER?  Was it Halle Berry in Catwoman?  Was it Adam Sandler in Jack and Jill? Was it Steven Segal in…. anything 🙂

Please discuss the actor and films that you think contain the best performances an actor has given.  Maybe they shone in a mediocre film.  Maybe there was a role they were born to play.

Thank you 4Porcelli for the idea.

52 thoughts on “Discussion Board: Best Performances…Ever”

  1. For me, this is more difficult than I thought it would be. I had a look through the list of Oscar winners and nominees to see if there were any glaring omissions and there were quite a few! Also plenty of people who were nominated and should have won. It was quite surprising how many of the Oscar nominated (and winning) films have disappeared without a trace, yet other films are still as relevant and popular today but were not recognised.

    In terms of actors who I thought were born to play a particular role:

    Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley (of course, my favourite film had to get a mention). Matt Damon was great, but his part required him to be a blank sheet, and Jude really stood out. He captured the playboy arrogance of Dickie Greenleaf perfectly. It has been a while since I read the book, but Jude’s interpretation fitted perfectly.

    Another favourite of mine was Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun. Monty is perfect in all his roles (I thought he was fantastic in Raintree County, which should have got a lot more recognition than it did. It needs a reappraisal as I think at the time critics and the public were too busy trying to see which films were filmed before and after Monty’s horrific car accident) especially in From Here to Eternity and The Heiress, but A Place in the Sun was his film. His eyes tell all and even in scenes where he does not do much his eyes convey so much emotion.

    This is starting to read like a list of my favourite films, but I guess these performances contribute to why they are my favourite films! Next up in Anthony Perkins in Psycho. This is a role he was born to play and he does it so well! I imagine everyone reading this will have seen Psycho, but I will try to avoid spoilers: Perkins as Norman Bates manages to get the audience totally on Norman’s side – the interactions between Marion and Norman in the back parlour are a masterclass in acting – they say nothing, yet everything.

    An additional mention must go to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People – I have not seen it in a while, but he really impressed me with his believable acting.

    In terms of actresses, there were so many, yet I have managed to narrow it down:

    Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven. Absolutely fantastic. I am not sure how she does it, but she managed to play the character as a 50s movie actress acting in a film – almost two layers of skilful acting.

    Sidse Babett Knudsen in Duke of Burgundy was absolutely fantastic. I saw this before I started watching Borgen (in which she was brilliant), but as Cynthia in Duke of Burgundy she totally draws the audience in and we feel her emotions. Brilliant.

    Similarly to Sidse, Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves was just perfect! For almost three hours she WAS Bess. Without someone as watchable and giving such an engrossing performance I think this film could have dragged.

    Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now. Absoluetly perfect in quite a difficult role. Everything about her performance is believable. Looking at the film now her performance is still as raw as it must have been in the 70s.

    Again I have a few I need to mention, but have not seen in a while. However, I do remember that their performances shone through: Lana Turner in Imitation of Life; Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots, Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist ; and Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of Sixth Happiness.

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    • I have not seen many of the films you mentioned but I have rewatched just earlier tonight The Talented Mr Ripley and I liked it a bit more than the first time! 😀 The casting was almost perfect for this movie (I guess Gwyneth Paltrow was the weak link, but she was still decent). Jude Law was great indeed (I like him in most movies btw), but Matt Damon was even more impressive to me and was surprised that he wasn’t nominated for this role! I also loved Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett!

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      • I know there’s a million things to watch but I really rec the French version Plein soleil (my top 10!) with Alain Delon, Maurice Ronin and not Gwyneth… both are very good but Plein soleil is more European in feel and casting, which I think you might enjoy as well.

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    • Interesting point about Anthony Perkins and Norman Bates! I rewatched Psycho only a few months ago and I thought his performance was really excellent but I found him less sympathetic than the first time around…the signs were there all along…

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  2. “but who do YOU think has given a best performance EVER? Was it Halle Berry in Catwoman? Was it Adam Sandler in Jack and Jill? Was it Steven Segal in…. anything” ROFL, that had me going for a while, lol. 😆

    This is a very interesting topic and I will have to think about it for a while, but here are some of my favourite (more recent) performances:
    Michael Keaton in Birdman
    Joaquin Phoenix in Joker
    Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
    J.K. Simmons in Whiplash
    Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
    Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody
    Mahershala Ali in Green Book
    Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds
    Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine
    Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
    Emma Stone in La La Land
    Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water
    Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    Glenn Close in The Wife
    Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story

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    • I see that Adam and Steven have not got a mention…. yet 🙂 You have some excellent choices in your list! Jake is one of my favourite contemporary actors – he is always good and I should have mentioned Rami too, and Taron for Rocketman.

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  3. First of all, on actors I agree with Rob on Anthony Perkins in Psycho and Jude Law in Ripley; perhaps unsurprisingly though I think that both Maurice Ronin (in the Law part) and Alain Delon (in the Damon part) are even better in Plein soleil; just absolutely electric.
    I’m sure I will keep adding to this so off the top of my head some more:
    William Holden in Picnic, the fallen sports hero and flim-flam man who has a moment of reckoning (but gets the girl anyway).
    Tom Cruise in Born on the 4th of July, transformed from being gung-ho about going to war to becoming a disillusioned vet leading protests against Vietnam.
    Robert Walker in Strangers on a train in the type of charismatic insane villain that would later regularly win people Oscars.
    Kevin Spacey in American beauty – boilerplate for many of his later performances; he is so entertaining. “You – will not tell me – what to do – ever – again.”
    Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, Claude Rains in Casablanca, Clive Owen in Bent – to be continued..
    Special mention for two TV portrayals, Jeremy Irons in Brideshead revisited and Gael Garcia Bernal in Mozart in the jungle.

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  4. On actresses: Rita Hayworth in Gilda; the ultimate femme fatale. She said that her problem in real life was “that every man I sleep with goes to bed with Gilda and then is disappointed to wake up next to Rita Hayworth.” The only woman I would ever have contemplated sleeping with (OK, also Lana Turner). THAT is talent!
    Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth – really a star is born performance; she has been brilliant in everything but this was really the role that deservedly made her a superstar and an icon (like the character she played – she was such a logical choice for Galadriel, too).
    Liza Minelli in Cabaret – role of a lifetime, absolutely electric.
    Katherine Hepburn in Summertime – so desperate to connect, so happy when she does (who wouldn’t be, it was with Rossano Brazzi), then shattered, then at the last moment saved.
    Rob, agree on Emily Watson in Breaking the waves, stumbling through that dead end town in her red stilettos.
    Emma Thompson in Howard’s End – never saw someone be so real in a period film; another “star is born” performance.
    Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian candidate – the ultimate mad queen “When we come to power, martial law will seem like anarchy”.
    To be continued…

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    • Nice Rita quote 🙂 And yes, Cate Blanchett in both Elizabeth films was perfect. Sometimes someone is so good in a role you just cannot contemplate someone else doing it better (see also Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind).

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  5. One of the greatest performances that spontaneously comes to my mind is Regina King in Ray.

    I don’t know if it was the Academy being blind, sexist and racist or Jamie Foxx – diva that he is – overshadowing her performance (probably a combination of both), but omitting her was one of the greatest snubs in my eyes.

    The others would be Thuy Thu Lee in Casualties of War (similar to Jaye Davidson a cinematic one-hit-wonder as she retired from acting pretty soon after the film came out), Toni Collette in Muriel’s Wedding obviously, Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction and Benicio del Toro in Sicario.

    And thank you Rob for mentioning Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist!

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      • I didn’t like Hereditary much actually; I kept waiting for some really clever twist and then it was v cliche “weird cult members doing weird rituals”

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      • The twist was weird I agree, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I didn’t mind it in the end as the rest of the film I liked a lot.

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      • I just felt it was kind of a letdown – the first 3/4 or so of the film were very different and it seems, like often in films, they then ran out of clever ideas. Toni Colette was great as always tho!

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      • For me it wasn’t, I was more neutral to it and that scene was only like the last 3-4 min of the film so it didn’t impact my overall opinion that much. I think Ari Aster is an interesting up-and-coming director (I also liked Midsommar) and I’m looking forward to his next films.

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      • I think Midsommar was an interesting idea but about 1 hour too long… it’s one of my pet peeves with films when they are too long or TV shows that have always 2 episodes where nothing happens. I’ve also never been a big fan of “extended versions” with films – especially the Hobbit films WTF lol.
        BTW don’t think I’ve said that yet but congrats on winning the ET contest!

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      • I agree that Midsommar was too long, I usually don’t mind lenghty films (there are many 2 and a half hours films in my top 50), but here I kind of felt it and it’s one of the reasons I didn’t love it, but I also liked the idea and it was well made on many other aspects so I really liked it.
        Btw, last year when I was preparing my top 50 I watched the LOTR trilogy again (the extended versions too :p ) in 2 nights with the last 2 films in the 2nd night as a double feature, so almost 8 hours in a row, lol.

        Thanks! ETSC is one of my most anticipated events of the year so that meant a lot to me!

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      • I find it very difficult to get through parts of LOTR, it’s the same with the books: The first one is great, the 2nd does not captivate meeither way and then the 3rd has the big ending. It’s too bad they cut Saruman and his onvasion of then Shire from the original release of the film; it’s one of the most fascinating parts in Return of the king for me.

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      • I did. She did a good job, but like our Porky I didn’t enjoy the film. It started out very strong, but the second half and especially the ending was a huge let down.

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  15. For me one of the most memorable and touching performances ever was Colin Firth in A Single Man. It was understated but extremely powerful. Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie; Joan Crawford in A Woman’s Face; Michael B Jordan in everything, but most recently in Just Mercy; Charlie Chaplin in everything; Ryan Gosling in Drive; Rachel Weisz in Amy Foster; Marilyn Monroe in most films but Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Mary a Millionaire oh and Niagara are my favourites…and I agree with several that have already been mentioned (e.g. Regina King, Montgomery Clift, Julianne Moore, Emily Watson, and definitely Liza Minnelli in Cabaret!

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