Let me spin the old “best performance ever” wheel and see where she lands …
zzzzzzzzzzingggggggggggggggggg … ding ding ding … ding ding … ding …
Dustin Hoffman in Papillion.
Ooh, good one.
Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in “Remains of the Day.”
Neither character puts into words how they feel, but you know exactly what they are thinking and feeling. Brilliant.
I thought Ben Kingsley was pretty good as Gandhi.
Bette Davis in All about Eve…George was good too.
Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man - yeh, I know, it’s an easy part but I liked it anyway.
Meryl Streep in The Hours
Argh, I really thought I’d get to be the first to say Paul Newman in The Hustler. Just a brilliant one-man performance (athough George C. Scott is also fabulous in the film, as is Piper Laurie.)
Clint Eastwood in *Unforgiven, then, a director/actor performance without pulling a Costner. A film as commentary on a career, without sacrificing the integrity and complexity of the individual role.
Robert Duvall in The Apostle, maybe.
Peter Finch in Network, from old-school newsman to mad prophet of the airwaves.
(Now that I think about it, William Holden was in Network, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Sunset Blvd., did he make an entire career out of playing opposite complete and utter loons?)
To complete the trifecta, George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove.
And Peter Sellers in the same film.
Pretty much everyone in Glengarry Glen Ross, but Jack Lemmon stands out.
We’ve pretty much covered a lot of the basics, so I’m going to nominate Goldie Hawn in Overboard. She had to nail three very distinct roles — the spoiled rich bitch, the sweet and kind-hearted poor girl, and the reformed wealthy matron. She also had to segue them seamlessly. She did the whole job perfectly.
I’m also going to second the nomination of Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.
And he was only in it for about fifteen minutes total.
I’ll throw in Malcolm McDowell in if….
Another vote for Sellers in Dr. Strangelove!
“Hello, Dimitri…”
“Do you know what will happen to you and your way of life if you disrupt a phone call to the President Of the United States?”
“Animals can be bred and slaughtered…”
I would cast three votes. First place for me goes to Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. I was mesmerized by the greates depiction of evil ever put on screen. It is a crying shame that Charles Laughton didn’t direct many more films, as he could be remebered as one of the greats.
Second would go to the great character actor Peter Lorre. His performance in M is astonishing. This was barely a talkie, in that it is nearly dialogue free until Lorre’s great speech in his defense. I wouldn’t say that I sympathized with him, but I understood him. A great achievement from an unlikely lead actor.
Third is Kanji Watanabe in Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Kurosawa was a great director, but he also had some of the best actors at his disposal. Watanabe conveyed the pain of a simple man’s failings and I was just heartbroken for him the first time I saw the film.
I have many more honorable mentions, three alternates.
Stephen Rea in Citizen X
Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train
William H. Macy in Fargo
Oh, you just reminded me: Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. And Lillian Gish in The Whales of August.
Good call Eve. If there was one movie that is under-watched and under-appreciated it is that one. Hell even the kids could act. That scene as they float down the river managed to make owls and frogs scary.
Hear! Hear! Spectacular performance!
George C. Scott in Patton was the first thing I thought of. Although there are scores of great nominations here as well.
Scent of a Woman loses a lot of luster considering that Pacino has now played that exact same role in every subsequent movie.
I’ll vote Tom Hanks in Cast Away simply for carrying the majority of a movie as the sole actor on the screen and thoroughly owning the part.
I don’t know how anyone could argue with my fiancee Charlize Theron’s performance in Monster.
But I think supporting roles usually have more meat to them than the leads. Frex, Brad Pitt was just amazing as the crazy guy in Twelve Monkeys and that he’s never been that good in any of his starring roles.
I was tempted to go with Bill Clinton in “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” but you said film and I believe this was exclusively on tape.
Seriously, **Orson Welles[i/], but not in the expected Citizen Kane instead in The Third Man.
He is a villian who is seldom on screen but is hypnotic and dynamic and very real. In Citizen Kane he is very good. In the Third Man, he is great
Helen Morgan in Applause
Joan Crawford in Rain
Billie Burke in Dinner at Eight
John Barrymore in Counsellor-at-Law
James Cagney in The Public Enemy
Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face
Lyda Roberti in Million Dollar Legs
. . . there’s more, but I’m all out of breath . . .