40. Bradley Cooper, “A Star is Born”
Years from now, film scholars will puzzle over Rami Malek’s Best Actor win over Bradley Cooper in a music-fronted performance where the latter gentleman not only gave the better performance, but also did his own singing. Actually…it won’t take years: people have been scratching their heads over this one from the moment the statue was handed out, and for good reason. Cooper’s work in “A Star Is Born” transcends the base imitation work of its primary award’s season competitor to craft a nuanced, damaged character with a fully realized emotional arc. Cooper’s prep for the performance has begun to harden into legend, from his rubbing of menthol around his eyes before takes to the extensive voice work training he did in preparation for the role. Cooper’s Jackson Maine character had to run the full gamut of emotions from damaged to inspired to fully broken without ever drifting into the cartoonish, and the guy never once faltered. All of that taken on top of his additional directing duties make this one of the most impressive turns in movie history and will endure as long as the debate over whether he was robbed of some hardware (he was). -Warren Cantrell
39. Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”
Already an acting idol in her own right, the variety of ways in which Juliette Binoche effortlessly sways between a divvied series of extreme emotions all throughout Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy,” as the central relationship reinvents itself before the viewers’ eyes, is one of the most exposed performances of the decade; one can feel the desperation of her character’s need to be understood as a person and a relic, by a lover, and a critic (William Shimell), with whom she feels a connection. At the beginning of the film she’s clutching his books to her chest — slinking her way to a reserved seat at the man’s seminar when no one claims it — the excitability of a first encounter with a soul who has perhaps discovered something she also sees in the world oozes. But the “date” soon turns sour; bitter resentments and differences in ideological perspective surface during a leisurely car ride. In the middle of the film, the dynamic flips and the assertive side of the woman comes out, expressing all her lasting frustrations at the critic/her lover. Whether at the beginning, middle, or end, of any relationship, when the standards we see around us are but an imitation of reality, how can any person possibly live up to them? – AB
38. Amy Adams, “Arrival”
“Arrival,” on paper, is not a movie that screams “actor’s showcase.” It’s a forboding, unapologetically cerebral work of science fiction that is primarily concerned with language, communication, and memory – y’know, as opposed to CGI-enhanced set pieces and blowing stuff up. Director Denis Villeneuve has always brought an intelligent, grown-up touch to material that might come across as overblown in anyone’s hands (case in point: “Sicario” and “Blade Runner 2049”), and while he doesn’t get enough credit for it, he’s also a terrific actor’s director. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that Amy Adams gives one of her all-time great performances in “Arrival,” playing a linguist mourning the loss of her daughter whose contact with beings from outside of our solar system ultimately brings her to a place of personal revelation – more than she could have ever expected. One of Adams’ skills as a performer is her sense of vulnerability and emotional openness, all of which is on display in “Arrival.” She’s also a fiercely intelligent actress, and she plays this tough, unsentimental, brainy woman with a considerable, enviable ease. Adams also makes for a fine scene partner with the likes of Jeremy Renner (playing a no-nonsense physicist) and Forest Whitaker (playing a military colonel whose accent is as alien as anything in this movie). While we don’t tend to remember the small, human touches of a movie like this, they are ultimately crucial to its success, and Adams ends up acting as the still-beating heart of this steely but compassionate genre exercise. – NL
37. Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”
“Phantom Thread” is a movie filled with scenes where Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis ) acts poorly toward women, and frankly, that’s being generous about it. His relationship with the luminous Alma (Vicky Kreips) is, shall we say, fraught. Woodcock is so enamored with his own undeniable brilliance that he’s pretty much forgotten how to act around people. Throughout the film, the character is shown gritting his teeth through an endless procession of “confrontations” with the opposite sex. In that regard, Reynolds’ sister Cyril – played by the great Lesley Manville – enjoys a certain rarefied position. She’s the only one whose pointed verbal darts can pierce her brother’s durable armor. In other words, Cyril is the one who can shut her brother up. She’s the live wire of the two siblings: the daily dose of arsenic in your afternoon cup of tea who also happens to be the one who spills proverbial tea in the Woodcock household. Manville, a veteran of Mike Leigh classics like “High Hopes” and “Secrets and Lies,” possesses one of the single greatest traits any actor can possess. She can say any line – convincing, ludicrous, or poetic – and make it sound utterly true to life. Lucky for her, she’s working at a very high caliber in “Phantom Thread,” and her acridly uproarious scenes with Day-Lewis pack a most pungent sting. –NL
36. Toni Collette, “Hereditary”
Watching your husband spontaneously combust. Sawing your own head off with a piano wire. Reckoning with the decapitation of your only daughter. These are just three of the harrowing tasks Toni Colette performed as Annie, Ari Aster’s inaugural scream queen. “Hereditary” is a very difficult film to sit through, not because of its paranormal scares, but rather because of its incisive examination of a family on the brink of mental and emotional collapse. At its center is Annie, in all her elastic-faced glory. (There’s a reason they used said face as part of the film’s official Twitter hashtag. Her expressions once she turns into a possession puppet are simply iconic.) Ably supported by an absolutely wrenching Nat Wolff, Colette screams and deadpans her way through the film in equally chilling spurts of terror and grief-addled numbness. It is as much a melodramatic performance as it is a horror one, and all the more affective for its disturbing, uncanny humanity. It’s a rare actress can scream the line, “All I do is worry and slave and defend you, and all I get back is that fucking face on your face!” and still make you want to throw up with anxiety. But Miss Collette did that. –Lena Wilson
35. & 34. Payman Maadi and Leila Hatami, “A Separation”
“He’s a good decent person, but he won’t leave with me.” Already regarded very high on our list of the Best Films Of The Decade, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi‘s “A Separation,” is a bruising drama about the painful dissolution of a marriage. It’s about the war within. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader (Payman Maadi) and daughter for a better life. But Nader’s poor father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and cannot be left alone. But Simin has had it with the conditions in Iran and frustrated and unfulfilled, she ultimately feels forced to divorce her husband so she can flee the country. It’s a moral quandary, one that Farhadi excels at and the movie features brutal twists that make the situation more and more excruciating. And it probably feels like a big cheat to include them both in this capsule, but they both hold equal weight in this emotionally difficult movie and it feels impossible to… ahem, separate them as they’re both sides of the same coin they’re telling unlike any other duo on this list. They’re intricately connected. Maadi’s Nader is stubborn and won’t budge, but he’s in the right. So is Hatami‘s Simin and that’s basically the brilliance of Farhadi’s movie: two characters both on the morally correct sides of their arguments and yet no peaceful accords to be found everywhere. Hatami and Maadi both deliver powerhouse performances of frustration, irritation, exasperation, and anger. There’s love in their somewhere too, but it’s just buried deep below all the hostilities with no reprieve in sight. The turns of the plot, miscarriages, lies, physical abuse, accusations and grave moral sins that threaten further dishonor and shame members of the family makes “A Separation” just more and more complex. Hatami and Maadi navigate this intricate symphony of pain like ballet dancers, note perfect in their depiction of melodramatic opposing grievances. “A Separation” is an anguishing dilemma that cannot be solved and an impasse with no way forward. Hatami and Maadi express an emotional gridlock of hurt that is as harrowing and unforgettable as any performance delivered this decade. – RP
33. Mads Mikkelsen, “The Hunt”
Is it any small wonder why Mads Mikkelsen is so often tapped to play a bad guy? Mikkelsen is both handsome and seriously scary-looking: a quality he’s used to his advantage playing everyone from Hannibal Lecter to a Bond villain. Mikkelsen is also an intuitively subtle and expressive performer, which makes him the ideal kind of actor to play the somewhat unknowable protagonist of Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt.” Throughout Vinterberg’s film – about a Danish teacher who may or may not have sexually abused one of his young students – we are deliberately not supposed to know how we feel about Mikkelsen’s character. Is he a monster? A misunderstood victim of mob hysteria? Does his polite, civil exterior disguise something sinister lurking underneath? Vinterberg retains the icy chill of his signature directorial style throughout “The Hunt’s” absorbing 115-minute runtime, and he and Mikkelsen make an outstanding team. This is one of the actor’s most delicate and human turns, one where he expertly interrogates the very notion of what it means to be a “bad guy” in a way that some of his more mainstream roles haven’t always had the time or inclination to do. The film’s teasingly ambiguous ending only underlines the mastery of Mikkelsen’s performance here, in which he and Vinterberg implicate the audience for their pre-supposed assumptions. – NL
32. Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”
“Blue Valentine” is one of those great movies that’s exceedingly difficult to revisit: it depicts the slow-motion disintegration of a marriage with a blistering, unflinching intensity that recalls the classic domestic dramas of John Cassavetes (if John Cassavetes were partial to the moody indie rock of Grizzly Bear, of course). Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a pair of doomed lovebirds whose giddy early romance eventually sours as the couple begin to resent and then outright despise each other. Gosling is characteristically terrific – apart from “The Nice Guys,” he’s never played a character this pitiable – but Michelle Williams gives one of her most heart-wrenching performances as a decent, damaged woman thrust unwittingly into a life she may not even want for herself. Williams is a marvelously internal actress (see her work with the great director Kelly Reichardt for examples of her brilliance, primarily “Wendy & Lucy” and “Certain Women”) and she lends even the more histrionic scenes in Derek Cianfrance’s crushing melodrama a sense of deeply affecting interiority. One could argue that Williams has never been better than a scene late in “Blue Valentine” where her character has to fend off her drunk, pathetic husband after he tries to start a scene at her workplace, but honestly, her work in the much-discussed motel sequence is nearly as devastating. “Blue Valentine” is a tough sit, but it’s well worth the pain for the splendor and emotional generosity of Williams’ performance. – NL
31. Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Willem Dafoe has one of the great faces in modern cinema. Anyone who’s seen Dafoe do his thing knows he has a gift for playing villains, whether it’s the Green Goblin from Sam Raimi’s first “Spider-Man” flick, the vile, rotten-toothed Bobby Peru from “Wild at Heart,” or the incorrigible “wickie” in this year’s “The Lighthouse.” Dafoe can also be a miraculously vulnerable performer, and “Tangerine” director Sean Baker makes fine, shrewd use of this aforementioned quality in his 2017 neo-realist masterpiece “The Florida Project.” Dafoe is unquestionably the biggest name Baker has worked with to date, but the “Antichrist” actor effortlessly eases into Baker’s preferred ecosystem of non-professionals, street performers, and child actors. In “The Florida Project,” Dafoe plays Bobby Hicks: the manager of the Magic Castle motel, a run-down roadside inn on the barren outskirts of Florida, near Disney World. Bobby is a guy with a lot on his hands: he’s the motel’s on-call maintenance guy, and also the poor schmuck tasked with evicting the Castle’s inhabitants should they be behind on their rent. In Baker’s film, Dafoe beautifully conveys the struggle a guy trying to do the right thing in a harshly realistic world that is largely indifferent to human error. The result is one of the great actor’s most unexpectedly gentle performances. – NL