20. Jennifer Lopez in “Hustlers”
If you’re going to largely disappear from our big screens for years, this is how you achieve re-entry: with a glittery fringed one-piece that manages to make you look more naked than when you’re naked, Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” thumping while a razzle-dazzle display burns up half the lighting budget, and a pole, rising from what will soon be a roiling sea of dollar bills. Jennifer Lopez‘ pole dance intro in Lorene Scarafia‘s tale of scamming, stripping and suckering stock-market assholes into thinking you’re going to have sex with them, has no real parallel n 2019 as a mic-dropping, jaw-dropping, “I’m back, baby!” But it’s the surprising warmth — almost maternal at times — and unsurprising smarts that Lopez exudes in the role of ringleader Ramona that really reminds us what we’ve been missing. The film can feel a little schematic at times, but Lopez, like Ramona, is worth the price of entry, and the astronomical mark-up on likely spiked drinks, all by herself.
19. Mary Kay Place in “Diane”
At first, it feels like you know Diane, the title character played so fully by stalwart character actress Mary Kay Place in Kent Jones‘ gently devastating fiction feature debut. She is your mother, or your mother’s best friend. She is as practical as a good parka; as neighborly as a returned Tupperware container; as unshowily compassionate as Meals on Wheels and church on Sunday. But as Place inhabits her deeper and deeper, as the days turn colder and the people she loves (and constantly puts before herself), begin to die off one by one, Diane becomes less of an everywoman and more specific, living life according to a code of unceasing compassion so rigid it’s almost a compulsion. And as we finally learn, there is something behind Diane’s restless inability to put herself first — a sense memory of a moment of selfishness, decades ago that she has never stopped atoning for. It’s a transgression so comparatively minor, when racked up against her lifetime of good works, that we can instantly forgive her for it, but Place’s quietly pristine performance is the most assured possible portrait of a woman who can forgive anybody, except herself.
18. Saoirse Ronan, “Little Women”
Greta Gerwig’s sensitively drawn “Little Women,” is a fabulous, retelling of a beloved story. And it is filled to the brim with fantastic, rich performances— Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, etc. But the heart of this wonderful feminist text is none other than Saoirse Ronan, who is so good in this sophisticated, emotionally complex, movie, she makes “Lady Bird” and that performance, look like a cute runner-up prize in comparison. Still only 25 years old (!!), and she’s well on her way to becoming the next Mama Streep at this rate. She dazzles with the complexities, conflicts, and contradictions of the fiercely independent Jo March, the second eldest sisters of the family, and the writer of the family who seemingly bears the collective burden and responsibility of all her sisters on her shoulder thanks to her way with words. Ronan simply shimmers in every moment, so honest, vulnerable and truthful, her performances convey everything about a thoughtful, modest old soul, ahead of her time, so dedicated to her family and sisters and still yearning to find space for her own moment in time. It’s gorgeous and heartrending stuff. –Rodrigo Perez
17. Elisabeth Moss in “Her Smell”
Alex Ross Perry gave us an all-time, hall-of-fame male asshole in “Listen Up Philip,” in which Elisabeth Moss played said asshole’s finally wising-up girlfriend. So it’s nicely symmetrical — to say nothing of being a testament to her gargantuan range — that it’s Moss who gets to bring Perry’s female equivalent in unlikability to such unforgettable life. There are those who detest this performance, and it’s true that she doesn’t just go big, she goes huge, into spitting, snarling, scenery-chewing abandon that is quite unlike anything we’ve seen from her before. But as Becky Something, the frontwoman/driving force/self-saboteur of fictional New York punk band Something She, Moss has deceptive control on her out-of-control character, even if it’s hard to make out under all the yelling and whining and runny mascara. As Moss plays her, there’s something so attracti-pulsive about Becky’s chemical vitality that when you finally see her humbled, you kinda miss the horror-show she was. It’s as canny a reflection of the monstrousness of the demands we make of celebrity — the way we insist our idols be larger than life, and then start to hate them for it — as we’ve seen.
16. Taylor Russell in “Waves”
I get that I’m in the minority here, but I really, really did not like Trey Edward Schults‘ “Waves.” And one of the things that got me maddest about it was that after a basically reprehensible first half, just when I was toying with leaving, it introduced Taylor Russell as the new focal point and she was so moving and wonderful that I had to stay. Russell can’t redeem “Waves” — and it’s not her job to. But her Emily — the bookish little sister of a star student imprisoned for killing his girlfriend — is so easily the best and most interesting character in the ensemble. Russell plays Emily with an acutely physical awareness of her own notoriousness as the sister of a killer; her whole body seems to withdraw into itself, quailing away from the world. And to watch her then unfurl toward the light and warmth of a new, hopeful relationship (with the ever-reliable Lucas Hedges) achieves, via the old-fashioned virtues of insightful writing and committed playing, all the emotion and drama that the first half lacks, for all its bludgeoning sound and fury.
15. Song Kang-ho in “Parasite”
There is far more to Korean superstar Song Kang-ho’s relationship with Bong Joon-ho than just “Parasite,” which means the (presumably) legions of new fans the Korean director has earned with his peach-fuzz-perfect social mobility satire, have a major treat in store. But his role as rumpled paterfamilias Kim Ki-Taek in “Parasite” is wonderfully exemplary of all the things he and Bong can do with a character: Kim is by turns comedic, horrific and ultimately desperately tragic, and sometimes the transitions between these states happen a couple of times over in a single scene. More than anything, it’s the rapscallion lovability Song brings to Kim that twists the knife even further, and that makes the shot of him and his darkening expression of dawning murderous rage when the Parks reveal their truest, ugliest colors, possibly the single most powerful close-up of the year.
14. Adèle Haenel in “Portrait of a Lady On Fire”
It’s only a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity before we see Adèle Haenel’s face in Celine Sciamma‘s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” And after such a buildup, such a long stretch of looking at the back of her hooded cape, or the intricate swirls of hair tumbling down the nape of her neck, the payoff has to be something extraordinary. And it is: in Haenel’s forthright, almost antagonistic gaze, the film finds a bewitching point of focus — and this is a film all about the act of looking, and how just that act itself can cause you to fall in love. Sciamma and Haenel used to be an item, and it’s hard not to overlay that information on to the way the camera, (and co-star Noémie Merlant, and therefore the audience), looks at Haenel, but the real miracle is that the great French actress can play a woman so looked-at, so desired, so examined, so committed-to-memory and yet be burning away inside there the whole time, looking out from over the fortress defenses of her pale eyes. Her Héloïse is a mystery to everyone but herself.
13. Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood”
By the end of Quentin Tarantino‘s history-redressing homage to Hollywood at sundown, the jury may still be out on whether faded star Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a good actor. But more even than the little gold man he got for eating raw liver, it firmly marks out DiCaprio as a great one. There’s an egoless commitment to the role of the egomaniac Rick that is truly brave — a less confident star might be afraid that some of Rick’s has-been tarnish might rub off on them. But DiCaprio fearlessly assays Rick’s fearfulness, his insecurity beneath the swagger, his awareness, despite himself, that it’s the very late afternoon of his career, and who’s to say any of it was worth it? And yet, then there’s the scene where, shooting his crappy TV serial, Dalton delivers the best acting an 8-year-old has ever seen in her whole life, and bursts into tears, a sequence itself couched in some of the best acting we’ve seen all year. Brad Pitt‘s loose-limbed sidekick is also a suntanned pleasure, and the two bouncing off each other is the closest we can get in 2019 to Butch and Sundance, but when it comes to the bravado of the acting itself, our heart is with Rick fucking Dalton, and Leonardo fucking DiCaprio, and don’t you forget it.
12. Kelvin Harrison Jr in “Luce”
Look, the inclusion of Harrison Jr for Julius Onah‘s “Luce” and not for “Waves” is not shade on “Waves.” Well, not entirely — Trey Edward Shults‘ widely praised film may be one I absolutely detest (now that’s shade), but I am willing to admit Harrison Jr is as good as his misconceived role allows him to be. But it’s still a little galling that he got most of the attention for his portrayal of golden boy/fallen angel student in “Waves,” when his turn as the golden boy/fallen angel student in “Luce” is so much more nuanced and involving. Harrison Jr’s Luce is a far more difficult and provocative proposition: a one-time child soldier adopted by a white couple who has grown up into a handsome popular valedictorian type, but who may harbor a deeply sociopathic streak beneath it all. The antagonistic interplay between him and Octavia Spencer alone makes “Luce,” for all its occasional overreach, a superbly knotted character study, especially when you realize you have no idea who is cat and who is mouse.
11. Florence Pugh in “Midsommar”
Ari Aster did it already with Toni Colette in “Hereditary” — giving one of our best actresses one of her best and most demanding roles. But if it’s a trick he repeats for Florence Pugh (also great in Greta Gerwig‘s “Little Women“) in his sun-dappled, braided, and garlanded “Midsommar,” it’s pretty much the only thing he repeats, apart, of course from his recurring theme of the intertwined nature of horror and grief. Pugh’s Dani is grieving. But though her grief is born of an extraordinarily upsetting, almost mythical horror, Pugh makes Dani’s psychology strangely relatable and real, so that we’re always right there with her. It’s a turn that is aware of the story’s horror framework, and also of its blackly comic moments, but for Dani, in Pugh’s performance, “Midsommar” plays as a tragedy as she discovers, minute by minute just how wrongly she chose the person in whom to place her trust and her vulnerability. But also, it’s just immensely satisfying to watch this diminutive, button-nosed, sensitive character get mythical, monstrous revenge on her absolute bellend of a boyfriend.