Performances in movies that blew you away

gugleguy

Nicholas Cage in:
8mm
Bringing out the dead

Gmol

Michael Douglas in Falling Down

TheMollusc

Michael Shannon in Take Shelter

MfMan

grohlisagod wrote: »

+1 on Tom Hardy in Bronson, absolutely captivating.

Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

Gene Hackman in Unforgiven. The scene with English Bob in the jail is brilliant.

Pacino in Serpico.

Thought Hopkins performance was hammy; equally, Hackman had become a snarling parody of himself by the time Unforgiven came along. Much better in French Connection. With a very occasional exception a lot of Pacino's best work came in the 70s.

Warper

Jennifer Lawrence in Winters Bone

JP Liz V1

Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in Gladiator outshines lead Russell Crowe as the devious villain for me


Tom Hardy as Tommy in Warrior also another great performance from him

Gatling

e_e wrote: »

Most recently: Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

Recently watched this have to say as a bloke she had some amazing displays especially in the last quarter of the movie


Christian bale in America psycho
Also Bale in Harsh Times

Alonso77

TheMollusc wrote: »

Michael Shannon in Take Shelter

+1, brilliantly played

Compu Global Hyper Meganet

Agree with a lot of the choices already made, particularly Heath Ledger as the Joker, Bruno Ganz in Downfall and Daniel Day Lewis in....well, in anything (lets face it, he is the greatest actor of all time). Also:

Michael Fassbender in Hunger: the monologue with the priest in which he recounts killing the foal as a boy is utterly compelling.

Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James (etc): Understated portrayal of a man who knows his days are numbered

Sean Connery in Finding Forrester: No real critical acclaim, but I just thought is was an effortless, natural performance.

Noomi Rapace in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Utterly compelling - this Swedish version was predictably superior to the hammy Daniel Craig Hollywood remake.

Those are just off the top of my head. Plenty others out there!

deadybai

Christoff Waltz in Django Unchained and Christian Bale in American Psyco

Crimson King

Genuinly never rated him as an actor as he irritates me, and still does. But tom hanks in castaway was sublime.

Good shout on Naoimi Rapace too, stunning performance as lisbeth, even now can only picture her when I re-read those books recently.

trancemuzic

Tom Hanks was superb in Forrest Gump

Leonardo di Caprio in This Boys Life

Heath Ledger in Brokeback mountain

Sean Penn in Mystic River and I Am SAM

Will Smith was great in The Pursuit of Happiness

BobbyPropane

Christian Bale in American Psycho

Rubber_Soul

Joaquin Pheonix in The Master. The audit scene with himself and PSH completely blew me away.

SnowDrifts

Having read through the list thus far, most of mine have already mentioned. Particularly Day Lewis.... in anything, Ledger as Joker, Al Pacino in Scarface and De Niro in Taxi Driver.

Also worth a mention is Freeman in Shawshank and Spacey in American Beauty. Joaquin Pheonix as Johnny Cash was superb.

fruvai

SnowDrifts wrote: »

De Niro in Scarface and Taxi Driver.

He was so brilliant in that I didn't even realise it was him :pac:

colmufc

SnowDrifts wrote: »

De Niro in Scarface and Taxi Driver.

De Niro - scarface are you feeling okay

SnowDrifts

Al Pacino... you knew what I meant

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

delbertgrady wrote: »

Olivia Colman in Tyrannosaur.

This was the first name that popped into my head when I saw this thread.

I think for two reasons this performance blew me away. 1 - It's an incredible performance, obviously. 2 - Much like Jim Carrey in ESOTSM, as some have mentioned, I'd only ever seen Colman do comedy up until that point, it came as a complete shock to me that she was capable of this.

I was reminded of this recently when I saw 12 Years a Slave. Lupita Nyong'o's performance made me feel similar things to Colman in Tyrannosaur. The "soap" scene and what happened after from 12 Years a Slave moved me in a way I can't even explain, there was no one emotion I could say I was feeling, I just knew I was feeling a lot. The same in Tyrannosaur when she breaks down and

tells him all the horrible things her husband did and how she just wanted to be a mum

markesmith

Won't trot out the usual De Niro / Pacinos here. Two of my faves by them are Once Upon a Time in America (De Niro as opium-addled Jewish gangster Noodles) and Pacino in Glengarry Glen Ross, a tour de force performance.

Pacino in GFII is probably my favourite performance ever.

Also, Nicholson in the Shining, Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, Donald Sutherland in Novecento, Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange, Nicole Kidman in The Others...

The kid in Idi i Smotri (Come and See) is phenomenal, that movie's a must-watch.

Finally, Bruno Lawrence in the Quiet Earth. Okay-ish movie, but the ending blew me away.

con___manx1

Christof waltz in django and inglorious bastards.superb actor. Opening scene in inglorious bastards u just wanna kill him he plays d bad guy so well

Coleman Slawski

Coleman Slawski wrote: »

Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant automatically springs to mind, mesmerising stuff.

Peter Green in Clean,Shaven is probably the finest performance of a mentally disturbed individual I've ever seen.

Greene delivered some truly exception performances and was shaping up to be one of the all time greats till his career just ended. He's appeared in a few interesting projects recently in blink and you'd miss him roles and its got to the stage where he's stuck featuring in cheap direct to disc films that are best described as atrocious. It's such a waste of a great talent, maybe Tarantino can throw him a bone.

Kunkka

MfMan wrote: »

Thought Hopkins performance was hammy;

Hopkins has a little bit over 16 minutes of screen time in that movie and he is what makes it a masterpiece. Nothing hammy about it at all.

enda1

Difficult to choose the number one best but I particularly liked:

-James Woods in Once Upon a Time in America. Thought he was the stand-out adult actor in the film full of standout performances. Special mention to Fat Moe played by Larry Rapp.
-Jennifer Connolly as a young Deborah in OUATIA again. For a child's role she was convincing as the alter-ego to a young Max and a "girl next door" boyhood perfectionist fantasy.
-Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. The coldness of dysfunctional married life was written all over his face. Eerie.
-Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood. Need anything be said that hasn't already?
-John Goodman in The Big Lewbowski. A great personification of the geek freestater. Played a great tragicly comic performance.
-Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lams. Evil genius. No remorse.

MfMan

Kunkka wrote: »

Hopkins has a little bit over 16 minutes of screen time in that movie and he is what makes it a masterpiece. Nothing hammy about it at all.

Disagree. Like the film itself, his display was unnecessarily over-dramatic. His restrained performance in Remains of the Day was much better.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Anthony Perkins in Psycho
James Stewart in Vertigo and Its a Wonderful Life
Robert Shaw in Jaws
Gene Hackman in Unforgiven (he's brilliant in everything though)
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

deadybai

Al Pacino - The godfather part 2. Best performance in a movie ever. Theres many others that I could mention but this is my best.

Sir Gallagher

markesmith wrote: »

Won't trot out the usual De Niro / Pacinos here. Two of my faves by them are Once Upon a Time in America (De Niro as opium-addled Jewish gangster Noodles) and Pacino in Glengarry Glen Ross, a tour de force performance.

Pacino in GFII is probably my favourite performance ever.

Also, Nicholson in the Shining, Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, Donald Sutherland in Novecento, Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange, Nicole Kidman in The Others...

The kid in Idi i Smotri (Come and See) is phenomenal, that movie's a must-watch.

Finally, Bruno Lawrence in the Quiet Earth. Okay-ish movie, but the ending blew me away.

Since you mention Glengarry Glen Ross, Jack Lemmon's performance was also fantastic. His performance inspired the character Gil in The Simpsons.

Kunkka

Jack in the Shining is brilliant stuff altogether. The scene when he is walking up the stairs after his wife saying he's going to bash her brains in is absolutely terrifying. His eyes are so convincing. I love that movie

kuro_man

Away From Her
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Away_from_her

+1 on Glengarry Glen Ross