The 25 Best Movie Performances of the 2000s

With today's announcement of the 71st Golden Globe Awards nominations, cinephiles and casual movie fans alike find themselves officially in the thick of awards season. New best-of lists from critics appear daily. Oscar bloggers argue on Twitter. And before long, former critical darlings but mainstream question marks like Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), June Squibb (Nebraska), and Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) will be as widely recognized as Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lawrence, and Sandra Bullock.

This year is full of great performances, and that's nothing new. In both the indie and major studio scenes, the movie world's best talents have been killing it all throughout the new millennium. To truly evaluate this year's crop of Best Actor and Best Actress selections, think about how they'd fare if pitted against any one of The 25 Best Movie Performances of the 2000s. As you're about to see, that phenomenal nine-year span (2000-2009) saw towering work from titans like Daniel Day-Lewis, Cate Blanchett, and the late Heath Ledger. June Squibb, bless her soul, would have her work cut out for her.

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25. Jim Carrey as Joel Barish in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Moviegoers have known and loved Jim Carrey for a really, really long time. Dumb and Dumber? Classic. Liar, Liar? A childhood staple. But we were all more than concerned when we found out he wanted to take on more serious roles. His elastic plastic face wasn't born to be molded into a worrisome frown! Of course, he was great in Man on the Moon and The Truman Show but those were still comedies (mostly), and we easily saw him in those roles, ya know? For chrissakes, this was a man who dressed up in a green fur suit to play the Grinch!

But Carrey revealed the depth of his skills, with a perfect blend of ferocity and subtletly, in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You're with him the whole ride, from falling in love, to wanting to forget, to grasping desperately to hold on to the memories. For the first time, it's easy to see yourself reflected in a Jim Carrey role.

It's an impressive transformation to watch, sure. But more impressive is the fact that thanks to his performance, with the help of co-star Kate Winslet, the film's become a classic that hopeless romantics love to revisit. Despite the pain it causes. —Tara Aquino

24. Denzel Washington as Det. Alonzo Harris in Training Day (2001)

Throughout his near 40-year career, Denzel Washington has cultivated a reputation as Hollywood’s go-to good guy. Whether he’s defending a wrongfully terminated lawyer with AIDS (and learning something about himself in the process) or bringing the life of South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko to the big screen, Washington has made few wrong turns in his career as the ultimate hero. That is, until, Training Day.

Playing Detective Alonzo Harris, a much-admired albeit totally corrupt LAPD narcotics offer, marked not only a high point in Washington’s already career, but a turning point as well. Though he’d long been considered on the industry’s most talented actors, no director had ever seemed willing to tarnish his saintly reputation. Washington plays a hero, pure and simple. And that’s all audiences want to see him as. Right?

Antoine Fuqua didn’t think so. And his instincts proved right.

As the foil to Ethan Hawke’s still-wet-behind-the-ears officer Jake Hoyt, Washington as Harris is six-feet of pure intimidation as he hazes the newcomer in a brutal fashion—giving him anti-morality lessons in drugs, fidelity, and honesty along the way. But Harris’ hard-ass persona is no act; the guy is an outright asshole. And Washington was unrelenting in his performance to prove that, with his own hubris eventually being the thing that takes him down. (Isn’t it always?)

The role was not just a turning point in Washington’s career (and a trick he would continue to go back to in movies like American Gangster), but a change to good guys in general. One can only imagine that if Jimmy Stewart were still around, he might be looking to play a psychopath.

Following the film’s premiere, Washington himself noted that the film wouldn’t be for everyone. But wanted to make one thing clear: “I've always done what pleases me,” he told ABC News. “I like this role and am positive some people won't like it… I like my fans, but I'm not here to please the public; [I'm here to] do films that stir my interest.” Are you gonna argue with Alonzo? —Jennifer Wood

23. Amy Adams as Ashley in Junebug (2005)

It may have earned just north of $3.5 million at the box office (which isn’t a shabby sum when you consider its $1 million price tag), but enough people who matter in Hollywood saw Junebug to propel Amy Adams from little-known actress to lauded enough that media outlets like ours would forever more be forced to put the “Oscar-nominated” descriptor before any mention of her name. (Though she’s now a four-time Oscar nominee.)

Despite her obvious talent, it’s easy to imagine that had the script for Junebug not come along, Adams might still be relegated to the role of perky supporting actress, instead of headlining blockbusters like Man of Steel. It’s also easy to imagine that in the hands of a less gifted actress, the character of Ashley—a gregarious and very pregnant southern gal living with her the parents of her high school sweetheart-turned-disinterested husband’s parents—could have been annoying. Really annoying. But Adams’ genuine affection for the character is obvious. Quiet but richly painted, Adams deftly walks the line between charming and obnoxious without a single moment of stumbling.

It’s a stereotype about the south—and Southerners in general—that there are certain things that just don’t get talked about. And the characters in Junebug seem to want to prove this sentiment true, and with a vengeance. Yet when they do speak—whether that’s often, as in the case of the Ashley, or not much at all (see Johnny, her husband, played by Ben McKenzie)—there’s a deeper meaning beyond the words that is palpable. Phil Morrison is that rare director who trusts his audience to fill in the blanks of this quiet little story of a highly dysfunctional family. Yet he makes it clear that Ashley is the single positive light.

Like the movie itself, there’s great depth and a wisdom boiling just under the surface of Ashley. She may initially come off as a dumb-but-sweet yokel, but Adams quickly makes it clear that for all her naiveté, there’s a worldliness to Ashley (regardless of how many stamps she’s got on her passport, or whether she even has reason to own a passport at all).

The film maintains a quiet dignity that is at once moving, funny, charming, heartbreaking and ultimately redeeming. And all of it is owed to Adams, who while playing the part appropriately as the ensemble it was meant to be, stands out as the film’s star. And heart. —Jennifer Wood

22. Uma Thurman as Beatrix "The Bride" Kiddo in Kill Bill: Volumes 1 & 2 (2003 & 2004)

It's easy to overlook Uma Thurman's performance in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies. Hell, it's easy to overlook any of the acting in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2. More so than in any of his other highly stylized movies, Tarantino crams his two-part kung-fu/exploitation homage with visual flourishes, nostalgic musical cues, and other grandiose directorial choices, not the least of which is an extended anime "chapter."

For all of its excess, though, Kill Bill would crumble without Uma Thurman. She's the cinematic free-for-all's tour guide, leading viewers through Tarantino's craziest impulses and subversions with the confidence of a master swordswoman. Physically, Thurman is unfuckwitable, believably laying waste to over 90 of O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu) henchmen in one scene and patiently freeing herself from a dirt-covered grave in another. Emotionally, she evokes anger, defiance, and, predominantly in Kill Bill: Vol. 2's quieter scenes with Bill (David Carradine) and their daughter, tenderness.

The Kill Bill movies are, together, a kitchen sink overflowing with Quentin Tarantino's fanboy obsessions. Thanks to Uma Thurman, the strongest of those obsessions isn't martial arts cinema—it's his love of badass heroines, and Beatrix "The Bride" Kiddo is one of the all-time baddest. —Matt Barone

21. Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Here's the thing about Ron Burgundy. He's an entity in himself. You mention the name alone and people know who he is, what he does, how he talks—everything. Will Ferrell is just a vessel for this character to use and to come alive in. And, not to give something so ridiculous so much meaning, but it's kind of awe inspiring.

What gives strength to his performance is this: No one believes in Ron Burgundy more than Will Ferrell himself, and his unforgettable and now-iconic comedic peformance is a testament to that. It's as if he missed his calling in a past life. Or maybe it's the mustache. Who could be sure? All that's certain is that Ferrell looks in the mirror each morning and says, "I'm Ron Burgundy?" before shaking his head. No, of course not. That can't be... —Tara Aquino

20. Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000)

Patrick Bateman is a narcissist. He's a heartless philanderer. He's a cold-blooded serial killer. But he's also something completely unlike those things—he's pathetically insecure. Which is why American Psycho's central character (based on author Bret Easton Ellis' original literary creation) is such a brilliant character.

Christian Bale does a great job playing up Bateman's darker sides. That look of euphoric glee on his blood-drenched face after he successfully drops the chainsaw onto the fleeing prostitute? Chilling in its genuine excitement. His oral dissertations on the merits of Huey Lewis and the News' pop musical stylings? Wonderfully sincere and confident. And the way he flexes into the mirror while not paying attention to his sexual partner in bed? Hilariously douchey.

Bale's portrayal of that son-of-a-bitch Patrick Bateman excels, however, in its more nuanced moments. Specifically, the scene in which he sees his colleague's fancy new business cards—feeling inferior once again, Bateman's keeps his seething embarrassment and rage bottled up, but Bale conveys it all through his eyes. Without lifting a finger, he makes you believe that Patrick Bateman is capable of killing everyone in sight. —Matt Barone

19. Tim Robbins as Dave Boyle in Mystic River (2003)

When Dave Boyle was a kid, something terrible happened to him. It's the kind of thing that's too terrible to speak about, especially if you're Dave Boyle. Two men, pedophiles, abducted him. Kept him in a cellar for four days. And then he escaped.

Tim Robbins plays Dave as a man haunted by himself. He died in that cellar but is somehow still upright and walking about, a ghost inside the body of this person people still recognize and call Dave Boyle.

There's no scene more powerful in Mystic River than then when he tries to explain this to his wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden, doing A+ work as per usual). "It's like vampires," he says.

It's the closest he can come to explaining that the violence and depravity visited upon him when he was a kid is still inside him, like a sickness. He killed a child molester the night his friend's daughter was killed. But because he can't talk about, because he's trapped in the haunted space of his mind, he'll be punished for the daughter's death.

The way Robbins creates sympathy while he horrifies you is what makes this one of the best performances of his career. It stays with you. —Ross Scarano

18. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lee Holloway in Secretary (2002)

Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jake's older sister) isn't a name you hear often enough, and it's a damn shame. Her talent is just as immense as her brother's and Secretary is proof. It takes a lot of ability to make a rom-com involving BDSM both believable and watchable. More specifically, it takes an actress with a certain mixture of skill and fearlessness to play a naive submissive masochist who can come off as endearing to a wide audience.

And Gyllenhaal nails it as the sexually inexperienced Lee Holloway. She's makes a 50 Shades of Grey-esque comedy, in which she plays the titular character to James Spader's boss, look like a smarter version of Sandra Bullock fare. Whether she's being spanked, gagged, or tied up, she manages to emanate a sweetness that hooks you too the screen. So to speak. —Tara Aquino

17. Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Told with numerous flashbacks, artist turned director Julian Schnabel's overwhelming biopic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly depicts a fascinating and uplifting subject: Jean-Dominique Bauby, the French ELLE editor and journalist who suffered a major stroke in 1995 that left with him with locked-in syndrome. He cannot move or communicate verbally. All he can do is blink one eye.

But in the flashbacks, you see star Mathieu Amalric let loose, filling the able-bodied Bauby with an invigorating sense of life. He's funny, good with the ladies, enjoyable to be around, a bit too carefree, sure, but likable. Amalric makes Bauby easy to root for while he's still able to indulge in life.

Which makes Amalric's predominantly motionless performance as the locked-in Bauby all the more resonant. It's all in his eyes, in how he conveys Bauby's transitions from sorrow to optimism to pride as he gradually learns to live while the world is expecting him to do the opposite. Schnabel's exceptional leading man makes blinking as effective an acting technique as yelling or crying. —Matt Barone

16. Naomi Watts as Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Drive (2001)

Mulholland Drive, like most of David Lynch's films, is just as compelling as it is maddening. Even after two or three viewings, it's understandable for you, or anyone, to yell at the screen, "What the hell is this about? Why is there a cowboy? And a dwarf? And Billy Ray Cyrus?" It's the best kind of mind-fuck, though, one that's macabre and bewildering. And one that's anchored by Naomi Watts embodying the definition "fearless acting."

The dual part of eager Hollywood starlets Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn is a Herculean task for any actress, but for one who, in 2001, was still unproven, it's a revelation. Watts covers the entire spectrum of performance, starting off wide-eyed and amiable, descending into fragile and jealous, and disintegrating into manic and distraught. She's the through-line in Mulholland Drive, giving Lynch's nightmarish depiction of soul-crushing Hollywood the humanity it needs to stay away from being cartoonish or impenetrable.

Midway into Mulholland Drive, Betty auditions for a film role in a room full of cynical executives and filmmakers. She destroys it with raw emotion and overwhelming sensuality. As it ends, everyone present just stands there, dumbstruck what they just saw. As Mulholland Drive concludes in hallucinogenic devastation, you'll relate to those fictional casting room denizens. —Matt Barone

15. Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (2005)

It's easy to go on about what Brokeback Mountain meant to American culture—how it pushed homosexuality and the issue of equality to the forefront and made it a national conversation, how it helped people accept homosexuality as a reality, and how there was (and still is) a tremendous dearth of homosexual stories at the movies. But let's talk about what made it so effective: the directing (by Ang Lee, who won an Oscar for his effort) and the performances. Namely, Jake Gyllenhaal's portrayal of Jack Twist.

Without drawing on any stereotypes, Gyllenhaal played the role of the Wyoming rancher in love with a man as any other person in love with another. No special gimmicks or ticks, Gyllenhaal transferred his emotions to Heath Ledger's Ennis, the man who secretly strung his Jack Twist along for two decades, with simplicity and honesty. Their chemistry becomes so palpable that it hits you like a race horse when Twist confesses to Ennis, "I wish I knew how to quit you." —Tara Aquino

14. Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004)

Before 2004, Jamie Foxx was Martin Lawrence's slightly higher-brow counterpart, leading goofy comedies and action-comedies like Booty Call, Held Up, Bait, and Breakin' All the Rules. "Slightly higher-brow" comes from his work in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday and Michael Mann's Ali. But then came '04, starting off with Foxx's excellent work alongside Tom Cruise in Mann's strong thriller Collateral and culminating in a performance that very few Hollywood watchers saw coming: Ray Charles in director Taylor Hackford's biopic Ray.

As a movie, Ray is pretty pedestrian biopic fare, all telegraphed inspiration and little innovation. But Foxx is magnificent. Both physically and emotionally, he becomes Ray Charles, complete with the twitchy body mannerisms and the iconic singer's easily identifiable singing voice. It's the rare biopic acting that blurs the line between performer and subject and leaves you floored and doing double-takes. You know, the polar opposite of these. —Matt Barone

13. Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008)

We are all very lucky to be alive to watch Irish actor Michael Fassbender work in his prime. It's like Robert De Niro in the '70s and early '80s—physical, furious, intimidating, peerless. Hunger, Fassbender's first collaboration with British director Steve McQueen, announced that Fassbender was unlike the others. He plays Bobby Sands, leader of the famous IRA no-wash and hunger strike in 1976. He has the charm of someone who knows that they're right but understands that the world is a mostly merciless place, and that changing anyone's mind is damn near impossible.

It's easiest to praise Fassbender for Hunger because of the physical transformation he underwent to play Sands during the revolutionary's last days. There's no more explicit representation of discipline and dedication to craft than when you can count the vertebrae of his back as he slowly dies during the hunger strike. But it's the almost 20-minute long take in which Sands explains his motivation for the strike to a priest that turns the performance into something transcendent, something more than just a crazy diet. —Ross Scarano

12. Laura Linney as Sammy Prescott You Can Count on Me (2000)

Laura Linney is great at playing intense. Exasperated, too. You Can Count on Me, playwright Kenneth Lonergan's first film as a director, provides opportunities for both. Linney plays Sammy, a divorced single mom. After her parents died when she was young, she learned to cope by staying in control. When her deadbeat brother comes back into her life, looking for money, that control is threatened. But he also proves to be something of a father to her son.

The material is complicated and messy, like your own life, probably. Linney, like the rest of the cast and the screenplay, keeps everything subtle, always shy of hysterics. You watch this and realize that you could watch Linney do her grocery shopping and it would be riveting. —Ross Scarano

11. Nicolas Cage as Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. (2002)

Forget life; it’s Nicolas Cage who’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. It could be Face/Off Nic, gobbling up the scenery like he hasn’t had a meal in a month. Or you could get Leaving Las Vegas Nic, all sad and vulnerable with only a hint of the abrasive freak-outs that have unfortunately (though not unfairly) become his signature. Which means one of three possible things: Spike Jonze has all the confidence in the world in his directing abilities; Spike Jonze knows Nicolas Cage well enough to be sure that he would be great in Adaptation. (they were cousins-in-law for a short while, after all); or Spike Jonze is a masochist.

Because if you can’t control one Nic, how in the name of all that is holy are you going to contain two of them?

In Adaptation. Cage does the Lindsay Lohan a la The Parent Trap thing, playing two roles: real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the film’s script, and Charlie’s fictional twin brother Donald, whose name Kaufman and Jonze finagled onto the script, thereby earning the imaginary scribe an Oscar nomination. (Got that?)

Originally, the film was supposed to be an adaptation of Susan Orlean’s bestselling book, The Orchid Thief, with Kaufman signed on to write the script. What it turned into was a metafilm about the adaptation of Susan Orlean’s bestselling book, The Orchid Thief, with Kaufman signed on to write the script but experiencing terrible writer’s block. And halfheartedly asking his twin brother Donald (again, there is no such person) for some pointers.

The film ended up with four Oscar nominations, including the aforementioned Best Adapted Screenplay nod, supporting actor nominations for Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper (the latter one winning), and a Best Lead Actor nomination for Cage. So Jonze was clearly onto something, and we’ve got a theory: if you want to get the best performance possible out of Nicolas Cage, give him two roles to play. Because his style of acting has a certain schizophrenic quality, giving him two separate characters to play allows Cage to expend his energy in a more naturalistic way.

Though his performance is tinged with a bit of that Nic Cage weirdness (which, when channeled correctly, can work to a director’s advantage), the ability to play both straitlaced and freewheeling, both down-to-earth and pompous, and both meticulous and painstakingly imprecise seemed to be the great equalizer for Cage to deliver a perfectly balanced and deeply nuanced performance that looks nothing at all like the actor you see in Ghost RIder. —Jennifer Wood

10. Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Milk (2008)

The true indication of a film’s importance is a studio’s willingness to forgo a number of promotional opportunities in order to make its message stronger. Focus Features put the message of Gus Van Sant’s Milk before its bottom line. Despite massive interest in the film on the part of prestigious film festivals and key members of the media, the studio was extremely restrictive in its pre-release marketing strategy. Which is to say: it didn’t have one.

The film avoided festivals and screened in a limited capacity for the media in order to avoid the kind of word-of-mouth chatter most studios would be drooling over. That’s because the filmmakers wanted to target the film’s release to best illustrate that the anti-gay issues that the film’s main protagonist was fighting against were still very much in play in today’s political sphere. The film premiered at San Francisco’s famed Castro Theatre in 2008, just two weeks before Californians went to the polls to vote on Proposition 8, an amendment to the state’s constitution that would ban same-sex couples from marrying.

Though Prop 8 was eventually passed, Milk went a long way toward igniting the national conversation regarding the rights of same-sex couples, with the film helping to put a face to the political argument. That face, of course, was Sean Penn’s. But as with so many of his other roles, all remnants of the temperamental actor behind the character disappeared. For 128 minutes, Penn was Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician to be elected into office in the state of California. His performance was one of the most charmingly restrained he’d ever delivered. And he won an Oscar for it.

Bringing the story of Harvey Milk to the big screen was no easy task for the filmmakers. The idea for a biopic had been percolating since the mid-1980s, after Rob Epstein’s 1984 film The Times of Harvey Milk won an Oscar for Best Documentary. At various times, there were big-name filmmakers attached to the project, both in front of the camera and behind it, including Oliver Stone and Bryan Singer. Van Sant himself originally signed on as director in 1992, with Robin Williams set for the lead role. No offense to the Bicentennial Man, but that would have been a much different film altogether.

Although it would take Van Sant 15 years to finally get the film into production—based on a script by Dustin Lance Black (who also won an Oscar for his work)—both the director and audiences would agree that the film was worth the wait. As the end result is an expertly crafted piece of cinema, and one of those rare movies in which it's clear to the audience that the entire cast and crew is on the same page. They know how important the story they're telling is and are willing to enhance or tone down their performances, as necessary, in order to make it all fit. Including Penn.

Whereas much of Penn’s career has taken advantage of his ability to be intimidating, Milk suggests an entirely different side to the actor. Those who knew Milk—who was assassinated by fellow San Francisco Supervisor Dan White (played by the always-enthralling Josh Brolin) in 1978—saw Penn’s greatest achievement not in bringing the film’s message to the masses, but in his ability to capture the distinct mannerisms and the positive spirit of the man himself.

Even in the face of discrimination, Milk (and Penn as Milk) successfully encouraged positive action over angry arguments. Shortly before his assassination, Milk stated that, “I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive.” In the end, the film—which hinges entirely on Penn’s believability, not to mention his likability—wants to convey that the sound volume on the debates that surround such polarizing topics as gay marriage is unnecessary. It shows that straightforward and intelligent conversation is much more productive. And if it can be delivered from a genuinely positive place, as Penn shows, then all the better. —Jennifer Wood

9. Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn in I'm Not There (2007)

It took a sock to get it right.

Cate Blanchett's performance as Bob Dylan Jude Quinn in Todd Hayne's brilliant I'm Not There didn't click for the performer until she stuffed a sock down the front of her pants. "[It] helped me walk like a man," she told the press.

Compared to theater, movies are, usually, far more literal in their casting decisions. If you're casting a movie about Dylan, you cast a man with a mop of unruly hair. That would be the general wisdom, of course. This is why I'm Not There is so smart and essential. By exploding the conventions of the biopic that call for literal representations, I'm Not There gets at something closer to the truth. Bob Dylan was himself a construction, a pose, a mask—why not cast a number of performers to help get at every nuance of that construction?

Blanchett's version is the most exciting, the most captivating, the most unreal. She speaks in a quick mumble that's deeper than her normal speaking voice. She skips from one loaded five-dollar word to another: "Raving queen...cosmic amphetamine brain" is her response to a request for "two words about Shakespeare."

Her performance is a bold delight, the kind that lets you imagine new possibilities for the movies. How often can you say that? —Ross Scarano

8. Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

"How does he never break character?" That's the question one finds his or herself asking all throughout Borat, master performance-artist Sacha Baron Cohen's remarkable faux documentary about Kazakh TV host Borat Sagdiyev's U.S. quest to meet, and have "sexy time" with, Pamela Anderson. Cohen cements himself as a comedic genius in the feature-length extension of his popular Da Ali G Show character, exposing the ignorance and/or unpleasantries of new-age Confederates, religious nutjobs, and whitebread frat guys all for the sake of laughter.

And his desire to provoke is unstoppable. The magic in Borat comes from Cohen's quick-witted ability to remain in character and improvise, even when the physical comedy gets riotously out of hand. See: Borat's naked chase-and-wrestle bout with his overweight righthand man Azamat (Ken Davitian) in a hotel. Or don't see it, since, well, you'll never be able to un-see it afterwards. —Matt Barone

7. Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Quentin Tarantino's dialogue is an actor's dream come true. It's virtually impossible to speak his fictional language and not sound cool, or witty, or devious, or all three concurrently. But Christoph Waltz does more than just let Tarantino's dialogue do the heavy lifting in Inglourious Basterds (not to mention, in last year's Django Unchained, as well)—he empowers it.

One of Tarantino's greatest discoveries, Austrian film veteran Waltz came out of nowhere to blindside Hollywood with his next-level performance as Col. Hans Landa, a.k.a. "The Jew Hunter." Considering himself more of a detective than a military leader, Landa is a master interrogator, disarming his conversation partners with his nice-guy charms and eloquent descriptions of things like milk, rats, and strudel. But there's a malevolence tucked away into his surface-level pleasantries, which he subtly reveals through a mere turn of phrase. Before the other person realizes it, Landa has manipulated them. They're powerless against him.

As the story goes, Tarantino originally wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play Landa, but eventually opted to cast the Austrian actor. And thank the acting gods for that, because had DiCaprio been in that remarkable "strudel" scene, it wouldn't be nearly as alternately endearing and devilish. Waltz nails the perfect balance of friendly uncle and Jim Jones-like manipulator that gives Col. Hans Landa his singular presence. —Matt Barone

6. Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000)

If Ellen Burstyn's performance as Sara Goldfarb doesn't crush you in every way emotionally, what makes you tick? What kind of machine pumps blood through your veins?

Darren Aronofsky's 2000 breakthrough film, Requiem for a Dream, is aggressively downbeat, presenting the downward-spiraling lives of four NYC drug addicts, the eldest being Sara Goldfarb. A widow and the mother of narcotics dealer/absentee son Harry (Jared Leto), Sara wastes away alone in her Brighton Beach apartment. A phone call inviting her to appear on one of her favorite TV game shows inspires Sara to start weight-loss pills, to fit into the old red dress her late husband, Seymour, loved so much on her. Maybe, just maybe, if she goes on TV and wins, Harry will pay more attention to her, and she'll finally have a purpose in her otherwise depressing post-Seymour world.

Sara never makes it onto that game show—instead, she starts losing her mind from all the pills, to the point where she thinks her refrigerator has come alive. The fridge bits border on the ridiculous, but Burstyn keeps those scenes grounded in her character's sad, hopeless reality. Sara's life goes from bad to worse to hospitalized vegetable, and it's difficult to watch. Yet, with Burstyn giving such a towering, all-in performance, you can't look away. Even if tears begin to cover your eyes. —Matt Barone

5. Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007)

Javier Bardem was hardly a newcomer to the acting scene in 2007. The then-38-year-old had already racked up more than two dozen credits, many of them in his native Spain, plus a Best Lead Actor Oscar nomination in 2001 for his flawless portrayal of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls. But that didn’t stop moviegoers around the world from feeling as if they’d personally “discovered” Hollywood’s next great talent after witnessing Bardem’s transformation into one of the most terrifying serial killers to ever grace the silver screen, the compressed air tank-toting sociopath Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

One really only needs to look at Anton’s hair to realize something’s not right with him.

All bowl cuts aside, Chigurh is a killing machine. Both because he’s paid to be and because, well, he kind of likes it. And that’s what his job is in the film: to recuperate a bag full of $2 million that got lost when a drug deal went astray. Chigurh’s task is simple; get back the cash, and kill anyone who gets in your way, cops and women included. Or the the unlucky sap who finds himself standing between Chigurh and something Chigurh wants—like that stash of cash—or on the wrong side of a flipped coin. There’s nothing but bitter coldness behind Chigurh’s eyes, which is reflected in the reaction of all those he encounters. On-screen, his presence reads like an extreme temperature drop.

Even as an actor, it would be easy to underestimate the craft involved in playing such a blank slate. Chigurh could easily be written (or written off) as nothing more than a robotic hit man. But Bardem manages to establish a strong character, even with zero back story and minimal dialogue. We know nothing about who Chigurh is or why he does what he does, but his presence is felt throughout every second of the film’s running time. Whether or not he’s on the screen really doesn’t matter; the thought that he could be lurking around any corner is enough to add a distinct level of tension to the film, that heightens even its most quiet moments. —Jennifer Wood

4. Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003)

Oscar shmoscar. The real proof of Charlize Theron's exceptional performance is the fact that every time you think about her as prostitute-turned-serial killer Aileen Wuornos, your stomach drops and you can't help but shudder. Her image is burned into your brain.

Make-up aside, Theron ditches her model-like image— the same one that broke her into the entertainment industry in the first place— to completely embody a real life murderer. Not only is her appearance—scarred, sunburnt, and unshowered—shocking, but so is the empathy Theron, as Wuornos, manages to evoke from her audience through the way she handles the rejection of her lover, the rejection of her male clients, and the rejection of employers who see her as nothing but dead-beat Florida white trash. You don't see Wournos as a sociopath, but as woman whom life repeatedly spit on and is exacting her revenge. Theron makes her monster human. —Tara Aquino

3. Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler (2008)

In Darren Aronofsky's heartbreaking The Wrestler, life painfully imitates art. The life in question is that of star Mickey Rourke, a one-time leading man who drew comparisons to a young Marlon Brando back in the '80s but squandered all of his potential in a figurative maelstrom of drugs and arrogance. Hollywood had all but written Rourke off before Aronofsky brilliantly saw the parallels between him and The Wrestler's main character, Randy "The Ram," a former professional wrestling superstar whose life has devolved into a mess of fractured personal relationships and a desperate longing for the joys of his past fame.

When Randy tells his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) that he's a "broken down piece of meat," one can imagine Rourke confessing the same thing to his Hollywood peers. His work in The Wrestler is cathartic, a triumphant comeback for a great but tortured actor who's not afraid to lay his soul out for all to see. The Ram is loving but easily distracted, romantic in his approach to life but too stubborn to let wrestling, and his unhealthy vices, go, no matter how much it continues to ruin everything for him.

Once The Wrestler reaches its tragic yet hopeful finale, Rourke doesn't let you off easily. You want The Ram to hold that championship belt again, but you also know he'd be better off without it. Aronofsky's opts for one of those ambiguous endings, fading to back right before The Ram lands that elbow-drop off the turnbuckle, his ailing heart ready to give up in the process. However you see what happens next in your mind, everyone watching The Wrestler can agree: The Ram—and, in turn, Mickey Rourke—will do whatever it takes to win us back. The jury's eternally out on The Ram, but Rourke? Redemption is his. —Matt Barone

2. Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008)

Respect due to Jack Nicholson, who did a fine job portraying The Joker in Tim Burton's campy 1989 take on Batman, but compared to Heath Ledger, Jack's wack. As will be the case for anyone else who dares play The Joker in any future iterations of the Caped Crusader's Gotham City universe. The character's been owned. In Heath Ledger's tragic January 2008 death, fiction's greatest villainous clown transitioned with him.

It's not like any actor would ever be foolish enough to play The Joker in the wake of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Because, chances are, said actor would merely be mimicking Ledger's dynamic, weird, and unnerving performance. His version of The Joker is barely even human. He's a predatory anarchist who licks his lips like a lizard, as if he's part man, part snake. Ledger is never less than beguiling, though dangerously so. Watch how sticks his head out of the police-car's window after a mass murder—he's happier than a dog basking in the passing breeze. And his happiness is, to say the least, disturbing.

Prior to The Dark Knight, Ledger was one of Hollywood's best young actors, but he was never scary. Tender, yes. Bold, sure. But never frightening. As The Joker, though, Ledger merged his natural charisma with full-blown lunacy, landing upon something transcendent. Good luck finding two minutes' worth of acting more intricately layered and disorienting than Ledger gripping Maggie Gyllenhaal's (as Rachel Dawes) face and telling her one of his many bullshit origin stories, the one about why he scarred his own face. It's tragic, scary, darkly hilarious, and eerily batshit, all at the same time. —Matt Barone

1. Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007)

Make no mistake about it, There Will Be Blood is a monster movie. The monster, dressed in suit and tie, is Daniel Plainview, a flesh-and-blood creature of the night, his most monstrous after-hours moment coming as he stands before a burning oil derrick, admiring his fiery riches. But he's also monstrous by day, as in every time he berates God-fearing preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), and, in one particularly hideous moment, mutes Eli's face into a pool of mud. (Sunday is a different kind of monster, though, so don't get too hung up on it.)

On the page, Daniel Plainview is the creation of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, but it's Daniel Day-Lewish who gave him life. In a career full of incredibly lived-in performances, DDL' turn as Plainview is the most astonishing. It's there in those contemptuous looks he gives people, most of whom, he says, he hates. It's there in his occasional moments of vulnerability, all of which derive from his complicated relationship with his illegitimate son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier). It's there in the murderous rage he unleashes upon a con artist pretending to be his long-lost half-brother, Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor).

Day-Lewis achieves something far greater than just acting in There Will Be Blood—he completely transforms into the darkest and most fascinating of human villains. Because of his terrifyingly authentic performance, the once-innocent word "milkshake" will forever have a sinister connotation. For that alone, Day-Lewis deserves all the lofty praise. —Matt Barone