Speaking of foreign language films, Ana Torrent was absolutely sublime in the 70s Spanish masterpieces The Spirit of the Beehive and Cria Cuervos. She has grown up to be a beautiful actress, too.
As terrible as Lloyd was, I didn’t remember that nickname getting traction until Hayden Christensen took over the role.
Me too. I also remember a movie in which she played a child prostitute that has stuck with me forever, except the title, doh!
Chloe Moretz reminds of her in a way, perhaps because she also played a child doing very adult things but still believably being a child, in Kick-Ass.
Christian Bale turned in one of the best performances of any age ever in Empire of the Sun.
Worst is hard to think of because I tend to be forgiving of kids failing at something that a lot of grown-ups also fail at. I can’t even fault Jake Lloyd, given that the adult actors were at least as bad in that movie.
Taxi Driver. DeNiro, Scorsese. “You talkin’ t’me?” :dubious:
It’s the Saved By the Bell school of dramatic arts method.
Speaking of Hayley Mills…
I’d forgotten about that – absolutely brilliant movie, yet doesn’t seem to get nearly as much attention as many of Spielberg’s other movies. And yes, Bale is tremendous as a kid running wild in a WWII Japanese internment camp.
She also was one of the main female voice actresses in the old Warner Brothers cartoons, playing Granny and Witch Hazel. She still is active today, still playing Granny on the new Looney Tunes show, as well as doing voice work on the CGI Garfield cartoon.
No, I meant the other movie in which she played a child prostitute. Grew up in a brothel, nerdy man married her when she was about 12.
Even as a kid I wondered what her parents were thinking, putting her in those roles…
I seem to remember that Jodie Foster has been long estranged from her entire family, and a few years ago, her brother (in a shameless bid to cash in on his sister’s fame) wrote a book “outing her” as a lesbian and as having severe, chronically untreated bi-polar disorder…
You’re sure it was Jodie Foster, and not Brooke Shields? 
Great: the kids in Stand By Me, particularly River Phoenix
Bad: the little screamy girl in War of the Worlds (Dakota Fanning)
Have I missed it, or has no one yet mentioned Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher? I swear, I wanted to throw him out an airlock the first time he appeared in ST: TNG! :mad:
Apparently Diane Lane was up for that role as well as Blue Lagoon at a later age, beaten out twice by Shields. Lane is kinda interesting because IMO she’s an example of a so-so child and young adult actor who gradually became better at her craft as she aged and continued to work steadily.
I think you’re right and I was misremembering. And now I also wonder what brooke shields’ parents had against her growing up as a normal kid.
IIRC, she had a very demanding mother who basically pushed her into show business. If you look around on YouTube, e.g., you might find some interviews with them from the '70s. If not, look for the sketch on SCTV where Rick Moranis played her mother opposite Catherine O’Hara as Brooke.
Bob Guccione was, BTW, one of the first to take advantage of Brooke’s “exposure” in Pretty Baby, if I’m not mistaken.
Dakota Fanning was pretty good in Taken, in part because she already looked like an alien child. But it was a pretty heavy role and she managed it well.
I second Hayley Mills & Lindsay Lohan.
My other favorite is Gordon Gebert, who played Janet Leigh’s son in the 1949 movie Holiday Affair. He’s one of the most natural child actors I’ve ever seen in a film.
UT
I just watched “Tenth Avenue Angel” (1948) and was very impressed by young Margaret O’Brien.