Another thread brought this question to mind.
Most—hell, nearly all—movies have people acting dramatically in ways that I have never seen or heard anyone acting in real life, even in times of crisis.
Which movies have the most realistic acting? Not the best realism in situations or plots or special effects, but which movies have people acting the way you would picture someone actually reacting to a situation in real life?
United 93? Some of the acting by the non-actors is pretty stilted, but a lot of it is how they believe they behaved on 9/11.
The one that came to mind for me was Apollo 13. But I don’t know if historical movies count…particularly those about recent events where the words and tone was captured on film to base the portrayal on.
I watched a movie about ten years ago called In the Company of Men, and I was really impressed with the realism of the acting and the dialogue.
Just about anything by the Dardenne Brothers.
I thought Requiem for a Dream was very realistic.
District 9.
Ken Loach
Mike Leigh
John Cassavetes
Chantal Ackerman
Not a huge fan of Robert Altman, but one thing his movies get right is the way people often talk over each other (“step on each other’s lines”) in real life.
Primer. The dialogue and acting are both extremely naturalistic (watch the opening scene, starting at about 1:25, to get an idea).
Not specific movies, but I always think movies in languages I don’t know (fluently) feel more realistic. I have this often with french, spanish and italian movie, while I cringe at most dutch movies.
Taxi Driver continues to amaze.
The Thing from Another World, if only for the dialogue—and it really isn’t just the dialogue, either.
Yeah, they did the whole “stepping on each other’s conversation” in that movie too. I’ve always liked that about the original The Thing.
Thanks much for the link. I watched the whole movie. Very cool.
For specifics of Altman acting, watch scenes of MASH where they are in the mess tent. They talk, they laugh, they stumble over each other.
It’s fun to laugh along with because the acting seems real and the characters are having fun.
Of all the movies I’ve seen, the single performance that stands out for me as “not acting” is Dexter Gordon’s performance in Round Midnight. Dexter is a jazz musician portraying a jazz musician, so there’s that. But he is not a professional actor. What I saw on screen was a real person, not a performance. I found it quite amazing.
He received a well deserved Oscar nomination for his work.
You’re welcome; I figured something like that might happen. Just in finding the link and the start point of the first conversation, I got sucked in and watched about 45 minutes.
It’s a very cool flick, made with no money at all. They couldn’t even really afford film stock, so doing lots of multiple takes was not an option. Rather, they had to meticulously block out each scene and rehearse it into the ground before rolling. Wiki.
It was directed by Howard Hawks.
Who did the same thing in much earlier films, most notably His Girl Friday.