The Best of the 2010s: Top 20 Performances

I will be brief here in the introduction because I will go on far too long below. The best performances of the decade will not appear to have much in common on the surface. The characters and films and performers differ wildly, and the themes they explore differ more wildly than that. There are Oscar-winning portraits in searing historical dramas alongside irreverent comedic mischief and everything in between. Some of these performers were introduced to us in the 2010s, while others have been around for decades, but they all left us with work that will stand the test of time.

Before we get to the list, here are 10 other performances who landed just outside the top 20 for me (in alphabetical order): Olivia Colman in The Favourite; Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia; Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave; Charlotte Gainsbourg in Nymphomaniac; Brendan Gleeson in Calvary; Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler; Naomi Harris in Moonlight; Michael Keaton in Birdman; Carey Mulligan in Shame; and Brad Pitt in Moneyball.

The only rule I had was to limit the list to one performance per actor, which was difficult in several cases, and I made note of other performances I considered when putting together this list. Enjoy.

20. Tiffany Haddish as Dina in Girl’s Trip

Comedy stars have a way of breaking onto the scene seeming fully formed, forcing audiences to wonder, “Where has this person been?” But it is never that easy, and Haddish is just the latest example. She had been working the comedy circuit for more than a decade and garnering supporting roles in film and television for years before the blockbuster success of Girl’s Trip. Her journey to the spotlight was long, but from the moment she bursts onto the screen in director Malcolm D. Lee’s uproarious comedy, you understand immediately how she wound up there.

Dina is as fully realized a comic creation as we have gotten in a generation. She is to the film what Carl Spackler is to Caddyshack, the reason to keep going back, again and again. While Girl’s Trip is filled to the brim with wonderfully funny set pieces, the moments when Haddish is allowed to be her flamboyantly comic self are those that stick in your mind. Just watch this film and try to look at a grapefruit the same way ever again.

19. Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Ramona Flowers is an impossible character to pull off, or at least, she should be. She is both fantasy and all too human. She is a self-absorbed nerd’s idea of the perfect woman, but she is also her own person. Director Edgar Wright asks Winstead to be both at once throughout his energetic graphic novel adaptation, and Winstead turns the high-wire act into high art.

Though Michael Cera’s Scott Pilgrim perhaps sees her one dimensionally, as a prize to be won, Winstead never plays her that way. Winstead’s Ramona is a complex mix of pain and hope, waiting neither to be saved nor won but rather earned. She knows who she is and embraces the flaws and imperfections that have brought her to this point. Winstead had an interesting decade and deserved more than many of the roles she received, and the proof is right here, in Technicolor magic.

18. Andy Serkis as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes series

Maybe this is a bit of cheat as we are considering all three films in the Apes reboot series as a single performance, but point to another character in any franchise that is as well developed and intimately observed as Caesar. Across Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes, Serkis charts Caesar’s growth from orphaned lab experiment to reluctant warrior to commanding leader with a grace and dignity rarely given to human characters, let alone motion-capture chimps.

It is a travesty that none of these films won Best Visual Effects at the Oscars, but it is perhaps sadder still that Serkis’ work was not recognized. Actors have long feared visual effects technology would make their performances obsolete, but with Caesar, Serkis proves the opposite to be true. It takes real talent, skill, and commitment to bring to life a character this vibrant through layers of digital makeup. Famed as well for his motion-capture Gollum and King Kong in Peter Jackson’s films, Serkis reaches new heights in the Planet of the Apes series, pointing the way forward for the blending of art and technology.

17. Florence Pugh as Dani in Midsommar

(see also: Little Women)

This was my introduction to Pugh. I missed her acclaimed turn in Lady Macbeth and skipped Outlaw King and Fighting with My Family. No reason. There are just a lot of movies to see. But as soon as Pugh showed up in Ari Aster’s psychological horror show Midsommar, every performance of hers shot to the top of the must-see list. This is earth-shaking work, and in a genre that not only allows for but embraces hysterics, Pugh reaches for something deeper and grander.

Dani is a victim of everyone in her life. She is tormented and abused by those closest to her, and she suffers it gladly, thankful for any scrap of connection. Midsommar is the story of her escaping this darkness and literally stepping into the light. Pugh embodies this transformation so thoroughly we barely notice it happening. In every pained cry and private moment, Pugh takes the opportunity to show us the woman Dani is hiding from the world, and by the end, we understand why she can hide no longer.

16. Peter Bogdanovich as Brooks Otterlake in The Other Side of the Wind

Think about the level of difficulty inherent in what Bogdanovich is doing in Orson Welles’ final film. At this point in their careers, Bogdanovich is a talented director who has surpassed his mentor, Welles, in commercial success and popular acclaim, if not necessarily artistic merit. Welles cannot get a film financed and is living in Bogdanovich’s home, subsisting primarily on what little good will he has not squandered. And in The Other Side of the Wind, Welles asks Bogdanovich essentially to play out this personal and professional drama on the big screen. Bogdanovich, as ever, is game.

Brooks Otterlake has all the success in the world, all the fame, money, and women he could want, but he feels obliged to kneel at the feet of the master, played here by John Huston as Jake Hannaford. He is desperate for Jake’s approval and acceptance, and Bogdanovich plays the slow realization that he is never going to receive it as a Shakespearean tragedy. He is wounded, angry, and bitter but also strident and petulant. Finally, when Brooks asks Jake, “What did I do wrong, daddy?” he is resigned. By this point, so is Bogdanovich, as the shadows grows ever larger in death, of both Jake and Welles.

15. Adèle Exarchopolous as Adèle in Blue Is the Warmest Color

It is difficult now to discuss Blue Is the Warmest Color without addressing its director’s misconduct (and his generally crumby subsequent output), which casts a shadow over this film. That is why you will not see it cropping up on many decade’s-end lists, despite its Palme d’Or win and rightful critical acclaim. However, while the film has perhaps become, what the kids refer to as, #problematic, what remains is the sterling lead performance of Adèle Exarchopolous.

While scene partner Léa Seydoux, who went on to larger international fame, is remarkable as well, the film belongs to Exarchopolous. Yes, the graphic sex scenes took courage and strength and all that for an actress who was not yet 20 when the film premiered, but more than that, watch the way Exarchopolous eats spaghetti. Watch the way she dances. Watch the way she interacts with people she knows, with people she doesn’t. Exarchopolous uses every moment to craft a life that feels both mundane and unique, universal and specific.

14. Michael Shannon as Curtis in Take Shelter

(see also: 99 Homes and The Shape of Water)

Michael Shannon has been around for years, which is to say Michael Shannon has been knocking it out of the park for years. I missed the early boat on Shannon. I remember him as a menacing presence in Before the Devil Knows Your Dead and a voice of truth amid delusions in Revolutionary Road. But the first time I remember thinking he was going to be special – or in fact, was already special – was in Jeff Nichols’ masterful surrealist drama about paranoia and mental illness.

Shannon inhabits the mind and spirit of a good family man who just wants to do right by those he loves but must battle the demons clouding his mind, such that he cannot see the right thing. By now, we all know Shannon can play scary or intimidating. What he does so brilliantly here, though, is to take a man who could be your neighbor or drinking buddy and break him down to his wounded soul. Curtis is not scary because he is large or angry. He is scary because, as Shannon shows us, he cannot trust his own mind and fears what that mistrust could force him to do.

13. Emmanuelle Riva as Anne in Amour

Riva was already 32 when most of the world met her in Alain Resnais’ 1959 New Wave masterpiece Hiroshima, Mon Amour. She was then with us steadily for the next 58 years, until she died in January 2017, a month shy of her 90th birthday. In the final decade of her life, she gifted us with the capstone to a brilliant career, a stunning, heartbreaking turn in a modern masterpiece, this time simply called Amour, from German provocateur Michael Haneke.

Anne is an older woman but full of life and love and vibrancy. All of this is stolen from her when she suffers a stroke, and for the rest of the film, Riva guides the audience through Anne’s slow, painful deterioration into invalidity. In the early passages, Riva is able to show us who this woman once was, and her transformation into a living ghost is haunting because we see the light fade from Anne’s eyes. Riva has no vanity and no timidity in showing us a death, not of the body but the soul.

12. Michael Fassbender as Frank in Frank

(see also: Twelve Years a Slave, Shame, Prometheus & Alien: Covenant, and Macbeth)

I am probably on the record somewhere on this site calling Fassbender the best actor of his generation. I stand by that. There are contenders for the crown, many on this list (DiCaprio, Shannon, Phoenix, etc.), but the depth and breadth of the roles Fassbender has disappeared into speak for themselves. It took every ounce of will power not to name his devastating turn in Steve McQueen’s Shame here, but we have enough pain and sorrow. And I find equally impressive the profound joy and wonder Fassbender imbues the title character with in Lenny Abrahamson’s musical-on-the-sly, Frank.

The character of Frank has all the hallmarks of a gimmick. First of all, you cannot see his face for nearly the entire runtime of the film. In lesser hands, he would be a cipher, an unknowable accumulation of tics and gesticulations, hidden behind a literal mask. But in Fassbender’s hands, he is a soulful artist, a wounded creature who has built a home with other wounded creatures. Instead of repelling, his giant mascot-like head draws people into his orbit, like a star. When he guilelessly asks whether we can see him smiling, we know he is because Fassbender makes us feel it, even without seeing it.

11. Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie

(see also: Black Swan)

The trick to Pablo Larrain’s magnificent film Jackie is that it is a mood sustained over its entire 100 minutes. It walks a razor’s edge in portraying the first lady’s state of mind in the days following her husband’s assassination. A hair one way, and the film becomes mawkish pablum. The other, and you have overwrought melodrama. Instead, we have this strange, haunting tone poem about tragedy, grief, and a kind of stardom. And at the center of it all, tasked with balancing these seemingly incompatible goals, is Portman.

Few actresses her age have been in the spotlight as long as Portman, and she brings those years of world weariness to a Jackie Kennedy whose life has been irreparably altered. In moments that have been seared into the public consciousness – like that of widow in her blood-stained pink jacket – Portman is able to communicate all of the conflicting feelings and impulses that are flying through her mind all at once. She gives us a full picture of the private person and public persona that made Jackie O such a fascinating character on the world stage for generations.

10. Yana Novikova as Anya in The Tribe

We have seen great silent performances before. Samantha Morton in Sweet and Lowdown. Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water. Of course, Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God. But Novikova’s performance in Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s harrowing The Tribe is the only one that forces us into stunned silence along with the character. Born deaf, Novikova is absolutely electric as a girl at a deaf school forced to trade her body for safety but who will not allow herself to be compromised or downtrodden.

There are reports of people fainting during the film’s most difficult scene, which revolves around Anya – and I witnessed the phenomenon firsthand at a screening I attended – but these reports, however true, are sensationalist. They dull the impact of Novikova’s work, which is breathtaking in this controversial scene but only succeeds because the actress has made Anya a fully realized character in everything before this. Novikova makes us care about Anya’s pain, her struggle, her release, and it is for this reason that no matter how much we may want to, we cannot look away.

9. Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street

(see also: Shutter Island, The Revenant, and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood)

This was basically Leo’s decade. He made just eight films over the past 10 years, and J. Edgar is the only flop among them, though even that made $84 million on a $35 million budget. Apart from that, he made megahit after megahit for celebrated auteur after celebrated auteur. Let’s just look at the list: Inception with Christopher Nolan; Shutter Island with Martin Scorsese; J. Edgar with Clint Eastwood; Django Unchained with Quentin Tarantino; The Great Gatsby with Baz Luhrman; The Wolf of Wall Street with Scorsese; The Revenant with Alejandro G. Iñárritu; and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood with Tarantino again.

I would argue each performance is better than the last, culminating in his career-best work in Once Upon a Time. But it is his sleazy stockbroker, Jordan Belfort, that I keep returning to in my mind. DiCaprio has been a serious, capital “A” Actor for nearly his entire career, and though brilliant, he is often controlled and contained. There is nothing to contain him in The Wolf of Wall Street, and he embraces that freedom with all the energy of … well, a Wall Street bro with too much damn money. DiCaprio not only chews the scenery but burns the set to the ground, and when this loathsome creature tells us he’s not leaving, we rejoice at the hubris but revel in the audacity.

8. Sarit Larry as Nira in The Kindergarten Teacher

How painful it must be to see potential wasted. How burdensome it must be to recognize talent unappreciated. Finally, how horrific to see that which you love profaned and mocked. This is Nira’s tragedy in Nadav Lapid’s superlative The Kindergarten Teacher. She is surrounded all day by children, who are incapable of understanding the beauty around them, then goes home to a husband who willfully ignores that same beauty. She has the soul of a poet but not the talent – and then, she meets Yoav.

Larry translates all this pain and pleasure and poignancy with a quiet dignity for which the world Nira inhabits has no time or need. She shows us what happens as the ignorant philistines around her chip away at her sense of self and Nira is forced to cling harder and harder to the one pure thing she sees. The actress portrays Nira not as a woman in the midst of a breakdown – though she very well may be – but in the throes of an awakening. And in her struggle to rise, we finally see just what about all this is so profound.

7. Viola Davis as Rose Lee Maxson in Fences

(see also: Widows)

Davis is one of the finest actors working in Hollywood today. She has proven that time and again and has never given a poor performance, nor has she taken a scene off, even in substandard material, such as Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, the material she is given so rarely rises to the level of Davis’ talent. This is not Davis’ fault. Rather, it is the fault of an industry that seems to have little use for middle-aged women and even less for middle-aged women of color. So, for times like this, you just want to throw your hands up to the cinema gods and say thank you.

Rose Lee Maxson is one of the great female characters in modern American theater, perhaps even the greatest. That is thanks to August Wilson. This performance, however, is one of the greatest of the decade thanks to Davis. As a woman constantly let down by the men in her life, trying to hold on to some piece of the future she envisioned, Davis is stunning. She won an Oscar for her performance but as Supporting Actress. There is nothing about Rose that is supporting, and Davis knows it, which is the strength of the performance. Rose has been in the background far too long, and Davis will not allow it for one second more.

6. Denzel Washington as Troy Maxson in Fences

(see also: Flight)

The Fences ensemble is magnificent, from Stephen Henderson and Jovan Adepo to Mykelti Williamson and Saniyya Sidney. But at its core, August Wilson’s masterpiece is a two-hander. It is Rose and Troy. You cannot have one without the other. So, of course, we cannot have here Viola Davis’ Rose without Washington’s Troy. They are perfectly matched performers working in perfect harmony, even when their scenes are specifically about discord. It is a thrilling pas de deux that we are privileged to be able to sit back and watch.

All of this is perhaps made more impressive by the fact that Washington is directing the whole production. Washington’s place on the Mount Rushmore of modern actors is secure. He has won multiple Academy Awards, headlined major blockbusters, and starred in one great film after another. Fences, then, is evidence of the restless artistic spirit that resides within Washington. He has nothing left to prove, but still he performs Troy as if everything depends on it. He brings Wilson’s creation ferociously to life, portraying a man who has everything he needs if only he could see it. Washington not only sees it, but he appreciates it, and he is gracious enough to share it.

5. Charlotte Rampling as Kate Mercer in 45 Years

Kate is older but vital. She is a retired teacher. She takes her dog for walks in the countryside and enjoys spending quiet mornings at the kitchen table with her husband of 45 years. When we meet her, she is planning a blowout anniversary party to celebrate that lengthy union. Then, writer-director Andrew Haigh pulls the rug out from underneath her entire life, and she is left to question what is true, what is not, and what, if anything, it all means.

Rampling is the life force that drives 45 Years. She is its broken heart and its clear mind. She is both the storm and the eye. Rampling draws on Kate’s lifetime of experiences and joys and sorrows and regrets and brings all of it to the surface. Rampling focuses Kate’s anger and pain in ways that are too raw to watch but too powerful to avoid. Kate’s life crumbles as her perception of the world around her is altered irrevocably, which makes her struggle almost entirely internal. Rampling makes this internal struggle felt all the way up to her final, defiant gesture.

4. Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave

(see also: Us)

It is easy to forget how late into Solomon Northup’s story Patsey arrives. But when she does, the impact she leaves behind is that of a crater, and Nyong’o is the asteroid that brings this devastation upon the story. How to talk about Patsey without talking about her abuse, her suffering, her torment? She is the favored slave of a cruel master, which is worse than being nothing because she knows all eyes are on her. It is her unfortunate circumstance that she refuses to have her spirit broken, and when she demands to be clean, we feel every ounce of her pain and we feel it physically, viscerally.

This was Nyong’o’s feature film debut, and it is shocking to realize that she made just 10 films in the decade, three of them Star Wars sequels in which she appeared as a CGI creation. This is to say that despite the absolute force of nature she clearly is and always has been, we have yet to see the full extent of her powers on the big screen. Her performance as Patsey is possibly one of the greatest film debuts of all time, it was awarded an Oscar, and it is likely we are still undervaluing the performance and Nyong’o as a performer. Hopefully, we do not make that mistake in the next decade.

3. Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya

(see also: The Wolf of Wall Street and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood)

If there is justice in Hollywood – for the most part, we know there is not – Robbie will be allowed to do anything she wants over the next decade. Maybe that decision will not be up to Hollywood, though, as Robbie has proven smart enough, savvy enough, and talented enough to turn her passion projects into reality. This is why we are getting in 2020 a Birds of Prey movie for which Robbie will serve as a producer. This is why there is a Tank Girl movie and a Barbie movie in the pipeline. And, this is why we have this rollicking film and this transcendent performance.

Robbie accomplishes the nearly impossible as Tonya Harding in this film, showing us whole new shades of a public figure we thought we knew and creating a character where the culture had decided on a caricature. With this performance, Robbie fundamentally changes our shared understanding of one of the strangest moments in recent American history. The culture demanded a monster, and the media narrative offered up Harding. Robbie’s performance is a corrective that does not whitewash the person or the history but deepens our sympathies with a weapon more powerful than any blunt object: truth.

2. Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd in The Master

(see also: A Most Wanted Man)

Sometimes you just have to say what’s on your mind, and what’s on my mind is: What a damn shame. I am not the first and I will not be the last to wonder aloud what other performances Hoffman had in him, what future works were forthcoming, what greatness was denied by his death in February 2014 at the age of 46. It was a devastating loss to his family and friends. It was a gut punch to the film and theater communities in which he thrived. It left everyone searching for ways to express their grief and their appreciation. For those of us who knew him only through his work, then, what better expression than taking in perhaps the crowning achievement of his career.

Hoffman’s collaborations with writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson were frequent and varied, with each artist bringing out something beautiful and brilliant in the other. They saved their finest creation for their final work together, though of course, neither knew it would be such. The cult leader Lancaster Dodd is thoughtful and intense but also remarkably boisterous and alive. His appetites outstrip his ability to satisfy them. He thinks he is searching for answers, but he is only searching for confirmations. And what he wants confirmed more than anything is his own greatness. He is an open book in which each new page is a contradiction. Only Hoffman could do this, and there will never be another like him.

1. Joaquin Phoenix as Freddy Quell in The Master

(see also: I’m Still Here, Inherent Vice, and Joker)

Freddy Quell is the mewling, animalistic id to Lancaster Dodd’s superego. He is the part of us that knows we are broken and the part that refuses to be fixed. For long stretches, The Master is a two-man show, and perhaps the only actor capable of matching Philip Seymour Hoffman scene for scene was Phoenix. He embodies the brooding intensity and childlike mischievousness with equal vigor, portraying a man who will walk endlessly back and forth between two points simply because he is told to but who will also fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. He is base and incurious, a reflection of our worst selves, but probably closer to us than the heroes we so idolize.

Phoenix’s unconventional manner and strange public persona are well documented by this point. We have all read the stories of him being difficult to work with, refusing to answer questions in interviews, and walking off set if it suits him. We all lived through the insane (and, to my mind, glorious) experiment that was I’m Still Here. Society can be to quick to excuse the behaviors of difficult geniuses, exempting them from common humanity because of their gifts. This is wrong-headed and should not be so. But Phoenix seems genuine when he insists he is an artist whose only wish is to do the best work he can. He will tell you himself that he does not believe art should be a competition, but competition or not, he is winning.

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Check back throughout the week as we continue with our Best of the Decade project, continuing with the Top 20 Moments and the Top 20 Films of the 2010s.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Actress

Brie Larson is far and away the frontrunner this year for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Room.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Actress

The nominees are:

Cate Blanchett for Carol

Brie Larson for Room

Jennifer Lawrence for Joy

Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years

Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn

I have not seen a more competitive year at the Oscars than this in my time following them. It seems like every category has two or three legitimate contenders that could come away victorious. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant are battling it out through the crafts categories, while The Big Short and Spotlight wait in the wings, ready to pounce on the top awards. Nothing seems particularly settled, and that has made this season exciting.

Nothing is settled, that is, except the top two acting categories. It took longer than it usually does, but one actor and one actress have risen to the top, and each now seems assured of an Academy Award win. We will talk about Best Actor tomorrow, but today, we are focused on Best Actress in an incredibly strong year for women.

You can always determine the quality of the year by the strength of the performances not nominated, and this year, we have Yana Novikova in The Tribe, Marion Cotillard in Macbeth, and Sarit Larry in The Kindergarten Teacher all on the sidelines, along with many other wonderful performances. The five actresses below have all turned in tremendous work, but only one has run away with every award under the sun, including the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA, and the Golden Globe.

Brie Larson for Room – Larson has been appearing onscreen since she was 9 years old and is now in line to become the 11th-youngest Best Actress winner in the 88-year history of the Academy Awards. She has dominated the awards circuit thus far this season, and barring a major scandal in the very near future, she will roll to that richly deserved Oscar win in a little more than a week’s time.

One of the best things about Larson’s awards success is that it has driven more people to discover the film and her work in it. Room is a harrowing experience but one which rewards viewers willing to endure it. As Joy, the kidnapping and sexual abuse survivor at the heart of the story, Larson is among the film’s chief draws. She is battered but not broken, terrorized but not terrified. She is a survivor whose pain we could never imagine, but through Larson’s performance, we come that much closer to understanding the character’s personal hell.

Some have said viewers will find the film too painful to sit through, too difficult to watch. To a degree, that is the point. To sexual slavery and abuse, which goes on in every part of this world, we too often turn a blind eye. Those unwilling to see this film are the very people who need to see it most. Abrahamson has done a commendable job portraying the suffering and horror that exist in this world, but it all starts with a tremendous, committed performance by Larson.

Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn – At the beginning of this Oscar season, most pundits figured the Best Actress race would be a fight to the finish between Larson and Ronan, thinking Brooklyn would be more popular than it ultimately proved to be. It was not an unreasonable position to take. Brooklyn is a delicately moving romance about a shy, brave girl who makes her own way thousands of miles from home. If Room is an endurance test, then Brooklyn is its opposite, a feel-good story about perseverance.

Ronan is absolutely luminous as Irish immigrant Eilis Lacey. Though the plot may have all the trappings of a fairly drippy romance, Ronan’s performance makes us care about Eilis as a person. Ronan gives Eilis steadfastness and charisma that are not always present on the page, lending weight to the struggles of this lonely immigrant girl. Like Larson, Ronan made her first onscreen appearance at the age of 9, earning her first Oscar nomination at 13 for her supporting role in Atonement. She is a longshot to win the Oscar this year – as is everyone not starring in Room – but if she keeps choosing smart, interesting projects such as this and this year’s Lost River, she will be back.

Cate Blanchett for Carol – When Carol Aird enters a room, all eyes are on her. She is beautiful, yes, but she is alluring and mysterious in a dangerous way. You know you should not follow her, but the fear of what you could be missing out on is too much to bear. She is classy and confident, the kind of woman who knows what she wants and has little trouble getting it. Luckily for her, she is played by Blanchett, an actress about whom all the same things could be said.

Blanchett was nominated just two years ago and won Best Actress for her role in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. A seven-time nominee, she also won Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. She is indisputably among the best actresses of her generation because she is unafraid of disappearing into her characters. She has been Bob Dylan and Katherine Hepburn, a Soviet commander and Queen Elizabeth I, and she is fiercely committed to creating the reality of each and every role. As Carol, Blanchett crafts an enigma, a human puzzle box at the center of the story that both the characters and the audience must solve.

Jennifer Lawrence for Joy – Lawrence is a hard actress to pin down. Just 25 years old, she is the youngest person ever with four acting nominations from the Academy, and she is also the second-youngest Best Actress winner in Academy history. She always delivers great performances, but sometimes, she seems at the mercy of the characters she is given to play. All of this is to say, she really needs to get back to doing work outside franchises or for David O. Russell. If she can get back to the kind of gritty, intense performance she gave in Winter’s Bone at 19, it seems she would be taking steps in a better artistic direction.

She is not bad in any of these films, but now, with The Hunger Games series at an end, she has an opportunity to break out and try something different. As a fictional version of Miracle Mop creator Joy Mangano, Lawrence is playing a strong-willed, intelligent woman of the sort Russell usually writes for her. This time out, though, the overall script is so shoddy that Lawrence can only do so much. She carries off the part with poise and professionalism, but she will have better roles and better chances to show off her talents in the future.

Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years – Putting aside her recent unfortunate comments regarding diversity at the Oscars this year, Rampling is well respected within the industry, and that veneration is most likely why she finds herself nominated here. I named this the best performance of the year, and I would say the contest is not close, but the Academy does not seem to have warmed to 45 Years the way it otherwise might have. It is an unfortunate oversight, and I hope more people discover this movie in the years to come. It is a treasure.

At the core of that treasure is Rampling and her emotionally raw, wounded performance as Kate Mercer. As a woman whose husband has been lying to her for nearly five decades, Rampling shows all the pain, betrayal, and hurt Kate experiences with little more than a furtive glance or a shift in posture. Due respect to her excellent scene partner, Tom Courtenay, but I would argue the entire film could be played in a tight close-up on Rampling’s face, and the emotional impact would still register. She has been in this game a long time and turned in some of the most iconic performances of European art-house cinema, but this may be her crowning achievement.

The final analysis

Larson will win her first Oscar. The honor is well earned, and one hopes she continues to make savvy decisions with her career, unlike so many other Oscar winners who cash in their prestige for a payday or two. She deserves her choice of roles right now – not just because she is young and people will pay to see her but because she is a gifted performer who will only get better as she gains experience.

Will win: Brie Larson for Room

Should win: Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years

Should have been here: Yana Novikova for The Tribe

Tomorrow: Best Actor

Year in Review: Top 10 Performances of 2015

On Tuesday, I called this the year of the ensemble, and many of the best films of the year were stacked with wonderful performers giving themselves over to a theater-like atmosphere of community and trust. As a result, this year was not overflowing with big, showy, movie-star performances – with one notable exception we will discuss below – and instead, 2015 was a year of talented actors, young and old, delivering the type of subtle, measured work that often goes underappreciated.

The following 10 achievements come from seven very different films, which share in common only the commitment and perseverance of their actors. The characters they play run the gamut from prisoners and spies to survivalists and robots. In each case, though, it is like the audience is witnessing a magic trick, watching as one person disappears and another appears in an instant to transport us to worlds we could otherwise never know.

Before we get to the list, here are five more performances that certainly belong in the conversation for the year’s best: Benicio Del Toro in Sicario; Marion Cotillard in Macbeth; Paul Dano in Love and Mercy; Rinko Kikuchi in Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter; and Günes Sensoy in Mustang.

10. Tom Hardy as John Fitzgerald in The Revenant

Hardy has built his career on chameleon-like character work. It is a cliché, but if you had told me the same actor was Charles Bronson in Bronson, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, Eames in Inception, and Fitzgerald in The Revenant, I simply would not have believed you. Hardy had a magnificent year with turns as Max in Mad Max: Fury Road and the Kray brothers in the critically acclaimed Legend, but those pale in comparison to his portrayal of the antagonist in the year’s darkest adventure story.

Hardy makes Fitzgerald completely unsympathetic while still giving the audience time and space to come around to his point of view. His actions are incredibly self-serving and cowardly, but one may never question his will to survive. For a film that is all about the triumph of the human spirit against impossible odds, Hardy is the kind of fearless actor who dares to show us the dark side of the human spirit. Fitzgerald is not evil, just weak, and Hardy’s performance is that much stronger for the choice.

9. Jacob Tremblay as Jack in Room

This may be a bit of a mild spoiler for Room, so if you have not seen it, I insist you run out and see it as soon as you can, then come back and finish up the list – or you know, just skip to the next entry. Everyone else still here? Okay. The moment Jack first meets a real dog might be the most uplifting three seconds in recent cinema history. A boy who until a month or so before had no idea the real world existed meets the animal he has long dreamt of but could never really imagine. It is a moment that reminds us why we watch movies, and its success is all due to the look on Tremblay’s face.

If it were that moment alone, Tremblay might have earned a spot on this list, but from the first scene to the last, the then-8-year-old child star of Room makes the audience feel every second of his experience. He simply radiates childlike wonder, curiosity, and exuberance. In an otherwise bleak tale, he is the shining beacon of light for every other character, but without Tremblay’s mature, controlled performance, the role could come off as too cute or cloying. Instead, it is one of the most memorable elements of an eminently memorable film.

8. Brie Larson as Joy in Room

Joy is the shadow of Jack. She is the one who knows the life she is missing, the life she has lost. She does everything she can to keep Jack sheltered from reality, but the truth is always staring her in the face. She is a young woman who is nearly destroyed by the contradictions she is forced to live with every day, and the only reason she keeps it together is for the sake of her son. Larson embodies this torment with an achingly physical performance that ensures the audience comprehends the torture she endures.

Still just 26, Larson has been appearing onscreen since she was 9 years old – something which no doubt allowed her to connect on a deeper level with her young co-star. Apart from 2013’s Short Term 12, though, she has never had a role as raw as this to sink her teeth into. No one would have doubted the lifelong actress could pull off this part, but even Larson’s most ardent fans and supporters must have been floored by the grit, determination, and strength of this performance.

7. Michael Shannon as Rick Carver in 99 Homes

Albert Brooks has a great speech in Broadcast News about the devil. In it, he says, “What do you think the devil is going to look like if he’s around? Come on! Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail.” It is my favorite scene in one of my all-time favorite movies because it gets at a core truth about people. We do not fall prey to evil because we are evil ourselves. We fall prey because evil is often seductive and alluring. Carver is a bad guy who rarely acts like a bad guy. He comes off as a pragmatist and an opportunist, but few of us could identify him as evil, which is what he is.

By walking that line and never betraying the darkness inside the character, Shannon pulls us into a web of deceit and treachery the way only a true villain can. He is inviting rather than menacing. He is calm rather than raging. While the world collapses all around him, Shannon portrays Carver as a man who will sit back and wait for it to finish, then go collect the deeds on the rubble. I have said before that along with Michael Fassbender and Leonardo DiCaprio, Shannon is one of the best actors of his generation, and with performances like this, I do not think I will be proven wrong any time soon.

6. Tom Courtenay as Geoff in 45 Years

Courtenay is an absolute acting legend who could have had any career he wanted. In 60 years of screen work, he has just 51 credits and often has gone years between film or television gigs, preferring instead to focus on the stage. Considering the universal acclaim he has enjoyed, things have not worked out too badly for him. For the rest of us, as people who mostly cannot make to British theater productions very often, we are surely missing out. Nowhere is that more evident than in Courtenay’s stellar work in 45 Years.

The audience never meets Geoff before the opening scene of the film changes his life forever, but through Courtenay’s portrayal, we are able to understand the kind of man he was and the kind of man he has become. We see him lost in thought, sulking, sullenly contemplating the five decades of his life since his first love died in an accident. Yet, Courtenay also gives us glimpses of the loving husband and anarchic spirit that are buried by unexpected news from the past. We cannot exactly root for Geoff, but because of Courtenay, we can certainly understand him.

5. Alicia Vikander as Ava in Ex Machina

Last year was a remarkable breakout year for Vikander, who appeared in the critically lauded Ex Machina, Testament of Youth, and The Danish Girl. She does not look to be slowing down in 2016 with Derek Cianfrance’s highly anticipated The Light Between Oceans, a new Wim Wenders film, and a role in the next Bourne film. If she is not a household name by now, she should be by the end of this year, and she has earned it, not only by starring in quality films but by generally being one of the best aspects of those films.

Her performance as Ava is so studied and mannered it is almost otherworldly, which is the point. She is a humanoid robot meant to test our capacity for telling the difference between a human and a machine. The question of whether Ava has what we would call a soul is the central drama of Ex Machina, and Vikander’s portrayal of this alien being keeps the audience in the dark right up to the final frames. Meanwhile, we are as transfixed by Ava as the characters, and that is due to Vikander.

4. Yana Novikova as Anya in The Tribe

The Tribe is a swirling maelstrom of rage and disaffection, and at the center of all this pain is Anya. The plot may revolve around Sergei (Grigoriy Fesenko), the new arrival at a boarding school for the deaf, but Anya is the film’s soul. We cannot know how long she has been a part of this makeshift society, but we can see how she has accepted her place in it. There is a gang that runs the school, and she is simply a cog in their machine. She wants out, but she knows no matter where she goes, her options are limited, so she stays.

Novikova is heartbreaking in the role. Like most of her co-stars in the film, Novikova is deaf and had never acted before The Tribe. Her performance makes one wish there were more call for deaf actors. Hell, someone should probably just write a movie around her. Every moment she is onscreen in this essentially silent film, your eye is naturally drawn to her. Almost without uttering a single noise, she brings you into Anya’s world of disappointment and lost innocence. There is no comparison in cinema history for this work, and this is just as well because the performance is incomparable.

3. Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass in The Revenant

I talked about this a bit in my review of the film, but I am going to repeat myself here because I want to be very clear. Apart from it generally being an honor, DiCaprio does not care if he wins an Academy Award. The cynical among the film commentariat would have you believe his choice of films and roles is influenced by a burning desire within him to win a small gold statue. Consider this, though: Maybe his choices are informed by a sincere wish to do amazing work. Wouldn’t that be novel – sincerity?

It seems necessary to repeat this because some have criticized DiCaprio’s performance in The Revenant as simply Oscar bait. If these critics mean DiCaprio’s physical and mental dedication to portraying the grueling journey made by Glass is the kind of performance the Academy often awards, they are correct. DiCaprio should win an Oscar for his wholesale transformation from famous actor to frontiersman, and if he does, some will deride that victory, but they will be wrong. DiCaprio’s portrayal of Glass is career-defining work by an actor at the height of his powers.

2. Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies

Like Courtenay, Rylance is a brilliant British actor who has devoted himself to the theater, earning multiple Tony and Olivier (the British version of the Tony) awards in the process. He has just a handful of screen credits, but after his turn in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, you can expect that to change. In fact, Spielberg has already brought Rylance on for his next film, The BFG, a dark children’s literature adaptation. I do not have to see it to know Rylance will be amazing in it. Rylance delivering an awesome performance is a fact of life, like the sun rising or a stone sinking.

Abel is a suspected Soviet spy who is captured and railroaded through the court system, not because it is just but because the institutional fear of communism demands it. His lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks), is incensed by this miscarriage of justice, but Abel remains cool. Rylance plays Abel as a studious man at peace with the things he has done and the consequences thereof. When Donovan asks if he is scared, Abel asks in return, “Would it help?” It is a wonderful line, and Rylance sells it with the calm conviction of a condemned man who has done nothing but follow his conscience.

1. Charlotte Rampling as Kate in 45 Years

This could be nothing else. From the minute this film ended, I knew I had just seen the performance of the year by a living legend of European cinema. Rampling has created indelible characters her whole career, from The Night Porter to The Verdict to Swimming Pool, but the most remarkable thing about Kate is how unremarkable Rampling is able to make her. Kate’s life has pretty much gone according to plan. She met a man, got married fairly young, became an apparently well liked school teacher, and retired to the countryside with her beloved husband. By all indications, hers is a dream life.

At the start of 45 Years, the dream is over, and Kate wakes up. For an hour and a half, we watch as this woman’s fragile existence is torn apart from within and without, and Rampling’s performance turns an otherwise low-key marriage drama into a Shakespearean tragedy. Every note of pain and remorse registers on Rampling’s face, and she uses her body the way other actors use a monologue. There is not a false note or wrong step to be found in Rampling’s portrait of a woman grappling with the lie at the center of her life and searching for the strength to face the truth.

Check back tomorrow as we conclude our Year in Review series with Last Cinema Standing's Top 10 Films of 2015.

The Tribe: Silently screaming from the void

Miroslav Slaboshpitsky's The Tribe, starring Yana Novikova (center), is a modern masterpiece.

Silence may be among the most terrifying things in our culture. Because silence implies an absence – of sound, of company, of life – we take it upon ourselves to fill the void any way we can. In that empty space, we hear cracks and creaks and groans and moans, and we ascribe to them meaning, import, and danger. When the TV is off, the lights are out, and we are lying in bed, there is nothing but the beating of our hearts and the blood in our veins. The millions of thoughts ringing in our subconscious echo in the nothingness, and we are scared. But if the only world you know is silence, what is there to fear? Perhaps, each other.

Ukrainian director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s The Tribe is among the most formally daring, visually stunning, and emotionally taxing films you are ever likely to see. It concerns a student’s arrival at a boarding school for the deaf and follows as he becomes a member of the school’s ruling gang and the toll that acceptance takes on him physically and emotionally. The film is told entirely in Ukrainian sign language without subtitles, and despite running more than two hours, it is composed of fewer than 40 shots. There is no other experience in cinema to match.

On Friday, Slaboshpitsky and one of the film’s stars, Yana Novikova, were in New York City for a screening of the film and a question-and-answer session moderated by Indiewire’s Eric Kohn. In an illuminating and vibrant discussion, they covered topics such as the film’s remarkable technical achievements, its harrowing violence, and the audacity of making a film that only a small population of people could fully understand.

Yana Novikova and Miroslav Slaboshpitsky at Film Forum.

“To be clear, I had the concept of the film before I had the story,” said Slaboshpitsky. “It must be done without subtitles and without voiceover. It must be filmed like how I imagine a silent movie like the Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin films, or Harold Lloyd, which people can understand in every country in every place in the same condition, so subtitle is impossible … In the contract, we have an article that the person who buys the film has an obligation never to add subtitles or voiceover or anything like that, so I hope we never show this film with subtitles, not before my death but after, too.”

The difference is that even the great silent comedians used title cards throughout their films to keep the audience following the story. In this way, The Tribe is closer to the works of German silent film director F.W. Murnau, who sought to make films using as few interstitial cards as possible to allow the story to play out on its own. His success, and by extension the success of The Tribe, is to achieve unimaginable levels of psychological depth and inquiry in an essentially wordless setting.

Certainly, there are words, and none of the actors – all of whom are deaf – was making up any of the film’s dialogue. It simply is not necessary to understand the words in order to understand the intent. Even in our daily lives, as hearing-able individuals, so much of our interaction with others is non-verbal – a glance, a gesture, a smile, or a pose – that understanding communication without words seems to be an innate part of all of us.

“I have the challenge to make a film without subtitles when it was over … so I tried to build a story that the audience can follow,” said Slaboshpitsky. “In case you understand Ukrainian sign language, I think you can understand maybe 10 percent more, but I don’t think that you miss something important. In fact, you can completely understand the words, but the words are not really important.”

As such, what becomes important is the mood and atmosphere of the film, and Slaboshpitsky proves deft at building on his audience’s expectations and the general fear and discomfort caused by silences. Since we in the audience cannot understand what is being said, we feel like outsiders, but the use of long takes and Steadicam shots forces us to become part of the action. This puts viewers in the unique position of being accomplices to actions over which we have no control, similar to the film’s main character, played by Grigoriy Fesenko.

He is new to this school, but because power attracts like a magnet, he is lured into the world of drug dealing, robbery, and prostitution lorded over by the titular tribe. They run the school like a deaf mafia – which Slaboshpitsky stressed is a real phenomenon in Ukraine – and theirs is a brutal rule, punctuated by shocking acts of violence and psychological abuse. When Fesenko’s character falls in love with one of the prostitutes, played by Novikova, the whole hierarchal structure of the regime is threatened. Thus, the downfall of all involved begins.

For a first-time performer, Novikova is absolutely magnificent. Really, the performance is marvelous regardless of experience level, but as someone who had never previously acted, Novikova brings a remarkable amount of skill and professionalism to a part that asks an incredible amount of her. She bares herself completely, body and spirit, and brings us into the life of a young girl who has resigned herself to the options available to her and made peace with the things she must do to carve out a life for herself.

“I asked my mom, ‘Do you think I could become an actress in the future,’ and my mom was like, ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s possible. You’re deaf. Deaf people in movies? There’s no deaf people in movies,’” said Novikova through a sign language interpreter. “I felt kind of bad about it. I went to school, and I was never involved in any acting classes or courses or opportunities … I kept looking for something that could help me reach my goal of wanting to be an actress. Then, it just so happens that I was asked to be in this movie, The Tribe, by Miroslav, and I was so thankful for it. I was so inspired by the whole thing, and that’s how I begun, and now I’m going to pursue acting after this.”

Most of the actors in the film are first-timers – according to Slaboshpitsky, there are more than 300 deaf actors in The Tribe – but none, not even Fesenko, who is also brilliant in the film, endured as much as Novikova. One sequence in particular is certain to become infamous among viewers of the film. An illegal abortion, played out in one long take, is about as raw and grueling a viewing experience as I have ever witnessed. In a packed house at the Film Forum, the scene left grown men sobbing, and at least one person was so overcome he or she had to be removed from the theater.

Novikova spoke at length about the process of researching and preparing for the scene, as well as the physically and emotionally draining experience of shooting the scene. She said there was a medical professional on set to advise both her and the character performing the procedure, and the shot was repeated over and over until the full impact and realism of the scene could be transmitted on film.

“They explained to us how this goes and what’s this and what’s this process and really broke everything down for us to understand and digest it,” she said. “Once the director felt like we were comfortable with it and we understood what was happening, we filmed it. It took all day, and we kept rehearsing it again and again and again for days, and we kept reshooting it again. If we made a mistake, we shot it again. Again and again. We had to make sure it was done in the right way and capture it, capture the true emotions, the raw, gritty emotions in that moment.”

The sequence – in its preparation, shooting, and final presentation – is a microcosm of the film itself. Slaboshpitsky took it upon himself to present a society rarely considered by the rest of the world, and his responsibility was to show it as it exists. There is no Hollywood sheen, no artificial drama. It is just reality as experienced by an overlooked and underserved subculture. In digging into the muck and brutality, Slaboshpitsky exposes a raw nerve, aching for relief and screaming out in pain. The Tribe is a masterpiece that argues there is no relief coming, and the screams are simply echoes in a silent void.