10. Sakura Ando – “Shoplifters” [Review]
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or-winning “Shoplifters” is, like many of his films, about the mutable definition of “family,” following a motley collection of unrelated misfits and cast-offs who call themselves The Shibatas. And as much as it is an ensemble piece (with Lily Franky and the late, great Kirin Kiki deserving special mention), the most transformative role is played by Sakura Ando, as the young, de facto mother Nobuyo. Though initially resistant to the introduction of another child, Nobuyo’s gradual thawing, and the growing radiance of her love for the little girl is utterly enchanting, while Ando’s stunningly intimate and nuanced turn also provides the film with its most shattering moments, that suggest that maybe the way you finally know what family truly is and who your family really are, is by how they break your heart.
9. Jesse Plemons – “Game Night” [Review]
While no one’s going to launch an FYC campaign for it, and in the long weeks of awards chatter we are facing into right now, his name will scarcely be raised, there was maybe no single performance in 2018 that elicits that same effusive reaction 100% of the time: “OMG, I LOVE Jesse Plemons in ‘Game Night‘!” As creepy, divorced, cop-neighbor Gary in John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein‘s blackhearted joy, Plemons brings the weird and the ever-so-slightly disturbing to what might otherwise be too cozy a comedy, even though the ensemble, especially Rachel “Oh he died!” McAdams, Jason Bateman and Sharon Horgan, are great. As Krusty always maintained, it’s only funny when the sap’s got dignity and nobody has more dignity (nor surrenders it more spectacularly) than Plemons’ stolid, malevolent, devious Gary.
8. Yoo Ah-in – “Burning” [Review]
In Lee Chang-dong‘s perfectly mysterious “Burning,” 2018 breakout Steven Yeun might be the glint in the eye and newcomer Jun Jong-seo the skipped heartbeat, but it’s the least flashy performance, from Yoo Ah-in as the befuddled, slightly downtrodden Jong-su that is the film’s charred and smoking soul. Playing the aspiring writer who becomes obsessed with a girl who disappears, and the wealthy, callous playboy she was dating just prior, Yoo’s Jong-su is the very definition of still waters that run deep and dark and conceal who knows what in their murky reaches. Only a flawlessly assured performance could make the film’s devastating yet ambivalent and enigmatic finale work as well as it does here.
7. Toni Collette – “Hereditary” [Review]
Since Toni Collette’s talent is always in danger of being taken for granted — and she has only herself to blame for being so consistently brilliant over the years — it’s particularly gratifying to see her get some buzz for Ari Aster‘s terrifying “Hereditary,” as horror films seldom generate this kind of cinephile goodwill. But as the haunted mother, daughter, and wife at the center of this spectacularly creepy story Collette is such a powerhouse that it’s arguably the film’s biggest flaw that the focus of the horror shifts off her and onto the supernatural in the final stretch: Her performance is so titanic it contains all necessary terror within itself.
6. Ethan Hawke – “First Reformed” [Review]
His career has run the gamut from buttoned-down dystopian repression to grizzled cop dramatics to the loose, bittersweet, semi-improvised vibe of Richard Linklater’s ‘Before‘ trilogy. But though his versatility is a proven fact, it’s Ethan Hawke’s total commitment as the despairing Catholic priest undergoing an apocalyptic crisis of faith in Paul Schrader‘s excellent “First Reformed” that has made us aware of how much he has grown as an actor, and what new levels of maturity he will bring to roles in the future. “First Reformed” is not just a great, challenging role for this consummate underplayer, but a transformative, before-and-after marker in a career that might be just now entering its most exciting phase.
5. Joanna Kulig – “Cold War” [Review]
It’s a minority opinion, but for some of us, the masklike, passive serenity of the lead character in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” made it slightly difficult to relate to her. But Joanna Kulig’s turn in his similarly gorgeous, monochrome follow-up, “Cold War” is electrifyingly different. Her Zula is a storm system, capable of the most destructive and self-destructive behaviors as well as almost transcendent grace and calm, all made into one coherent, if volatile, whole by Kulig’s astonishingly elastic performance (and her sublimely smoky singing voice). Zula is not always right, or wise or even likeable, but this wildly spinning compass holds herself as true North, and it is thrilling to watch.
4. Hugh Grant – “Paddington 2” [Review] “A Very English Scandal” [Review]
Like a Phoenix Buchanan from the flames, Hugh Grant’s renaissance has been one of the most unexpectedly gratifying pop culture moments of 2018. And just in case you worry that his turn as the vainglorious, washed-up-actor villain in “Paddington 2” was a one-off meta in-joke, he also gave one of the TV performances of the year (also opposite ‘Paddington’ co-star Ben Whishaw, bizarrely) in Stephen Frears‘ slippery, darkly comic “A Very English Scandal.” As one of the most seemingly contentedly typecast actors of the ’90s, it’s been a blast to see him so obviously liberated by torching the very persona that made him a star.
3. Regina King – “If Beale Street Could Talk” [Review]
Barry Jenkins has now elicited two astounding performance moments that exist solely in an actor’s expression as they stand in a kitchen: from Trevante Rhodes at the end of “Moonlight” and now from the long-overdue-a-promotion Regina King in “If Beale Street Could Talk.” As much as the love story is the animating heart here, King is the backbone, a dynamic reflected in the scene with where Kiki Layne, as her daughter, musters the courage to reveal she’s pregnant. The warring emotions of joy, dismay, fear for her child and infinite compassion wash over King’s features — and it’s her whole performance in microcosm: flooded with warmth, but also flinty, courageous and proud (making the moment she literally begs for mercy from her de facto son-in-law’s accuser all the more powerful).
2. Joaquin Phoenix – “You Were Never Really Here” [Review]
There’s something “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” about Joaquin Phoenix’s acting style, even when he’s in a lighter register (as he is in 2018’s “The Sisters Brothers” and “Don’t Worry He Wont Get Far On Foot“). And so it’s appropriate that perhaps his greatest role so far should come a film that could easily sit alongside the pioneering independents of the ’70s in its grimy mood and fractured, bloodshot view of masculinity. But in “You Were Never Really Here,” the surprise is how thoroughly grounded he is, how much he acts as the film’s fleshy, stolid, heavy anchor despite the prismatic, splintered, atomised approach of Lynne Ramsay‘s daringly inventive filmmaking. The film might also have dazzled with another actor, but Phoenix gives it its heft and its scarred and pitted soul.
1. Olivia Colman – “The Favourite” [Review]
Her Queen Anne stumps and glowers, she is petty and gouty and childish and yet as a tragicomic creation, Olivia Colman’s take on British royalty (before she assumes the mantle of Elizabeth II in “The Crown“) towers. It is not an easy thing to play a weak character with such forcefulness, assurance, and strength but, perfectly in keeping with the gonzo, exaggerated tone that Yorgos Lanthimos achieves in “The Favourite” Colman’s is a depiction of fragility, petulance, and inadequacy that somehow dominates. We loved her in “Peep Show” and have been fully in awe of her since her stunning movie breakout in Paddy Considine‘s “Tyrannosaur,” and if this is the year, and the performance, that makes her a household name, there is no one who deserves it more.
Honorable Mentions
Avid awards-watchers may be wondering where Glenn Close is, for “The Wife,” and well, here she is in the honorable mentions, for a performance that is very good in a film that is just ok. She may well get an Oscar nod, but we have to hope not — not in this year with its cornucopia of amazing female performances (in much better films). While everyone wishes Close already had an Oscar, giving her one this year would just be visiting that same injustice on another actress in future years.
Aside from long-snubbed grande dames there were a bunch of names who nearly made it into the top 40, some who we managed to slide into other people’s mentions above (those totally count — Emma Stone! Chiwetel Ejiofor! Rachel McAdams! Etc!) and some who may even have been on earlier incarnations of the list: Joe Cole, an On The Rise alum from 2017, is a revelation in the bruising Thai prison drama “A Prayer Before Dawn“; Josh Hamilton broke all our hearts as the ultimate inarticulate Embarrassing Dad in “Eighth Grade“; Ryan Gosling managed to make a buttoned-down character compelling in “First Man“; Claire Foy did the same despite severe underwriting as Armstrong’s wife in “First Man” and also was memorably deranged OR WAS SHE in Soderbergh’s iPhone thriller “Unsane“; Nicole Kidman underwent one of the physical transformations of the year in “Destroyer“; both Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen acquitted themselves well in “Green Book” though that film is fast falling from whatever favor it once held; Laura Dern is utterly convincing in Jennifer Fox’s harrowing “The Tale“; Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys finished out the spectacularly good “The Americans” in fine style; Julia Garner cropped up in “The Americans” too as well as stealing the show in “Ozark“; Kiersey Clemons was a charmer in “Hearts Beat Loud“; Hayley Atwell illuminated Kenneth Lonergan’s “Howards End” minseries; Robert Redford gave a lovely grace note performance in “The Old Man & the Gun”; Andrea Riseborough capped a typically chameleonic run of performances with a lead in the underseen “Nancy“; Dakota Johnson was sly and superbly physical in “Suspiria“; Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively were among our favorite double-acts in “A Simple Favor“; Charlie Plummer broke our hearts even more than the goddamn horse in “Lean On Pete“; Christine Baranski yet again ruled in “The Good Fight“; Elisabeth Moss once again rebelled in “The Handmaid’s Tale”; Florence Pugh schemed in “The Little Drummer Girl“; Emily Blunt was a very convincing menaced mom in “A Quiet Place“; Michelle Yeoh gets the comeback-but-wait-she-never-really-went-away award for “Crazy Rich Asians“; Rosamund Pike was very strong in the patchy (heheh) “A Private War“; Dominique Fishback, who we called a Breakout last year after “The Deuce” made good on our faith with “Night Comes On“; Zoe Kazan, who co-wrote one of the years best films with “Wildlife” also starred in probably the best and certainly the most feature-worthy segment of the Coens’ uneven anthology “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs“; Nick Robinson melted a lot of hearts in “Love, Simon“; and Matilda Lutz sliced a lot of flesh in the gory, bloody, does-as-advertised “Revenge.” And finally, let’s give a big ensemble shout-out to “The Death of Stalin” which contains so many priceless performances, cameos and bit parts that we’d be here till Christmas listing them all. You’ll let us know who we missed in the comments below, won’t you?
Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.
— With Oli Lyttelton, Rodrigo Perez and Charles Barfield.