Chase Infiniti, “One Battle After Another”
It’s a mercy that the “Mary Sue” crowd known for attending “Star Wars” and Marvel movies just to kvetch about competent female protagonists didn’t get their hands on “One Battle After Another”; they would hate Willa, the film’s determined, defiant, hyper-empowered co-lead, who manages to evading and outwitting the United States military, white supremacists, and far-right militiamen for a large chunk of the movie’s three hours. If “One Battle After Another” is about, political motifs aside, how damn hard it is for fearful dads to see their daughters go out into the world, it’s also about what Willa, this particular daughter, achieves when she does: she survives. She wields agency even when it’s tread upon by authoritarians. Infiniti keeps Willa’s backbone straight from beginning to end; she shows us what it means to be brave. Being brave, in this case, also means being terrified, and Infiniti welds those parts of her character into a cohesive whole with a casual ease far exceeding an actor of her veterancy. – AC
Jennifer Lawrence, “Die My Love”
Like Thompson, the years have shortened Jennifer Lawrence’s substantial roles over the last few years, the odd “Causeway” notwithstanding. (One might argue that she’s great in “No Hard Feelings,” too; I am one.) It shouldn’t take a collaboration with one of our greatest contemporary filmmakers for an actress like her to find such a role, but so it goes, and so Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love” serves as a stage for Lawrence to perform a kind of interpretive dance upon. There is no mistaking that Grace, her character, a postpartum mom, stumped writer, and long-suffering wife, is in turmoil; its source is a subject for debate. Is Grace’s decline after giving birth, after moving to the sticks with her dopey slacker husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson), and after indentured motherhood inevitable? Or is it triggered by a combination of these factors? “Die My Love,” and Lawrence, demonstrate the endless stresses imposed on women, and her feral depiction of Grace’s splintered wellbeing strikes a chord that harmonizes with Byrne’s, Tsai’s, and even Hawkins’ own work. – AC
Amanda Seyfried, “The Testament of Ann Lee”
In Mona Fastvold’s feverish Shaker musical “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Amanda Seyfried doesn’t just play a religious figure—she embodies conviction as a full-body state, something feral, rapturous, and terrifyingly alive. What makes her performance so overwhelming is its visceral emotional ferocity and physical abandon: she throws herself into Ann Lee’s suffering and purpose as if they were the same force, turning grief into doctrine and pain into propulsion. And then she sings. Yes, she has a gorgeous voice, but the real jolt is the intensity behind it—the way every song feels ripped out of her, sung with such passion it becomes an act of will, a communal command, a kind of ecstatic exorcism. The musical numbers don’t soften the character into pageantry; they sharpen her into something modern and dangerous, a woman remaking trauma into meaning with the kind of conviction that can inspire or consume. Seyfried makes that contradiction the point: tenderness braided to zeal, fragility fused to authority, devotion as both salvation and obsession. By the time the film hits its rhapsodic highs, you’re not watching a star “perform” so much as witnessing someone surrender to cinema’s most primal tool—emotion made physical—, and it lands as another reminder that Seyfried isn’t just excellent; she’s one of the defining actors of her generation. – RP
Delroy Lindo, “Sinners”
Hire a legend to play a legend. Delroy Lindo requires little introduction, but because the world is not always fair, he has yet to receive all the laurels he deserves as a great screen actor. Improvising material in a key sequence isn’t a qualification on its own for standing out among 2025’s best performances; in Lindo’s case, it’s that the improvisation itself is tremendous, both in a vacuum and in concert with “Sinners’” themes about the price paid for figurative immortality, fame, rather than the sort offered by Irish vampires. Lindo has a way of sauntering into a shot and commanding attention no matter where he’s blocked or what his purpose is on camera at the time. There’s a reason that Ryan Coogler wanted him in the film: when he speaks, one can’t help but listen, and when one listens, one can’t help but connect to him. – AC
Odessa A’zion, “Marty Supreme”
As written, Rachel, childhood friend to “Marty Supreme’s” entitled title character, is an object to be acted upon rather than an actual person. As played by Odessa A’zion, she exceeds the desperation meant to be radiated by Timothée Chalamet, who, as Marty, has entirely too much fun wreaking havoc on others’ lives; Rachel falls into circumstances not of her making, colliding with figures she wouldn’t otherwise, and as much as she tries to keep it together and match Marty’s swindle, she’s not made for it. When necessary, A’zion makes Rachel a splendid hustler. But it’s more necessary for her to be in over her head, and to crack, porcelain-like, under pressure she can’t endure, and imposed on her by a character whose behavior ranges from neglectful to thoroughly abusive. It’s too much to ask a film like “Marty Supreme” to include a moral center–viewers shouldn’t need hand-holding to clarify that Marty is a cad–but A’zion centers Rachel with moral instincts. – AC
