When it comes to good movies, there's a lot that rides on the actors' performances.
Some roles can't be played without a great actor at the wheel, and when an actor is at
the height of his or her game, one unforgettable performance might be enough to nudge an okay
movie up into an award-winning film.
In the case of these films, these actors performances' were so strong that they're practically perfect.
Bringing the fury
She may not be the title character, but make no mistake: the star of Mad Max: Fury Road
is definitely Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa.
She's the heart and soul of George Miller's gorgeous post-apocalyptic road war movie.
Of course, it was Miller who gave Theron such stellar material to work with, but it's not
hard to imagine the character falling flat in the hands of a less capable actress.
With Theron behind the wheel, Furiosa is every bit her name -- a woman of determined fury
hellbent on freeing Immortan Joe's brides from lives of torment.
Theron creates a true modern icon, embellishing her determination with a quiet empathy that
shines through in some of the film's calmer moments.
As Furiosa finally achieves her ends and takes on the big bad, she grunts what's come to
be the defining line of the film:
"Remember me?"
We sure do, and will continue to do so for years to come.
Making depression hilarious
Ryan Gosling seems to have dedicated much of his career onscreen to defying expectations.
After blowing up thanks to a turn in one of the most beloved romance films of all time,
Gosling took on a litany of strange, uncomfortable roles in order to distance himself from the
traditional career of a leading man in Hollywood.
This has given us films like The Nice Guys, which may well mark Gosling's finest hour
as an actor.
Gosling takes on the role of Holland March, a depressed alcoholic private investigator
in Los Angeles circa 1977.
March is vulnerable, cowardly, and apt to self-harm.
There's a shocking degree of drama sprinkled throughout the performance, considering the
film is an action comedy, and Gosling sells March's darkest moments just as expertly as
his funnier ones.
At the same time, he's also hysterical in the movie.
His may just be one of the great comedic performances of the decade, with the kind of timing to
perfectly foil Russell Crowe's straight-man routine.
"Munich."
"What?"
"A guy without his balls … Munich."
It's a difficult contrast to balance, playing a life-hating alcoholic who's funny without
compromising his character's identifiability.
It takes an actor as talented as Gosling is to pull it off.
Burning it down
Even the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are often marred by bland, unmemorable
villains with vaguely-defined goals and personalities.
There are occasional exceptions like Loki...
"Surprise."
...but for the most part, Marvel villains are uninteresting.
That changed, though, when Michael B. Jordan hit screens as Erik "Killmonger" Stevens,
the antagonist of Black Panther.
Jordan melds swagger with terror, painting Killmonger as a sympathetic character who's
just a few adjustments away from being the film's protagonist.
His background as a poor kid in Oakland, California feels all too familiar, so much so that the
audience is more likely to relate to him than to T'Challa''s royal upbringing.
His ultimate inability to distinguish justice from aimless violence is all the more heartbreaking
because of how close he is to being someone we love.
Jordan's charming recklessness and seething hatred make for a character who feels doomed
from the moment we meet him, yet seeing him finally meet his tragic end still hurts.
Jordan's had some sizable performances before, of course, but this one is absolutely unforgettable.
Besting the braggadocio
It's always incredible when a young actor manages to not only hold their own in a film
featuring a slew of major movie stars, but manages to come out as the standout performer
in the film.
There are few better examples of this than Hailee Steinfeld's turn in the Coen Brothers'
remake of True Grit.
Steinfeld scored the role of Mattie Ross from a pool of 15,000 actresses, and she was just
13 when she began filming on what was her first major movie role.
True Grit tells the story of a young girl who hires a drunk US Marshal named Rooster
Cogburn to help her track down the man who killed her father.
And while Steinfeld acts alongside heavy-hitters like Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon
in the movie, she steals every scene she's in.
Her take on Ross is snappy, angry, and fierce, with Steinfeld channeling the character's
laser-like focus on vengeance with the kind of poise most actors four times her age aren't
capable of portraying.
Some stars go their entire lives without turning in a performance as authentic as the one Steinfeld
crafted, and she did it on her feature film debut.
It doesn't get much more impressive than that.
Humanizing the ape
Motion capture performances are becoming just as impressive and important as live-action
ones, and there's no one better at putting on a high-tech computer suit than Andy Serkis.
The actor has portrayed quite a few CGI-enhanced characters of note, including Gollum from
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Supreme Leader Snoke from the new Star Wars trilogy, and
Caesar from the Planet of the Apes trilogy.
And he really shines in that last role as the simian soldier.
Not only is his performance in the role among the best of his career, but it may just be
the most important motion capture acting of all time.
Throughout the films, we see Caesar evolve over the course of several years.
In the beginning, he's a sweet, loving primate whose intelligence is obvious but who's otherwise
pretty innocent.
By the time we get to the last film, however, he's soulful, resonant, and all-too-human.
"I came for you..."
Serkis takes the character on a journey from a young ape confused by his place in the world
to a grizzled, unbreakable leader of a new nation, and his performance never once falters
along the way.
Yes, the special effects crew does a stellar job in transferring that performance to animation,
but at its core Serkis' tremendous work proves that he's a true pioneer in motion capture
acting.
Matching the tempo
J.K. Simmons has pretty much always been impressive.
From his gritty work on the small screen to his memorable foray into the superhero realm
to his versatile film appearances, he doesn't seem to miss.
Even his insurance company commercials are worth watching.
But Simmons' magnum opus is his role as Terence Fletcher in Whiplash.
In the film, he portrays the jazz professor from hell -- a maniacally focused and demanding
conductor who berates and abuses his students until they either achieve brilliance or go
insane.
His simultaneous mentorship and relentless antagonism of Miles Teller's Andrew is both
engrossing and repulsive.
Simmons strikes the perfect balance of mania, never going so over the top as to ruin the
audience's suspension of disbelief.
And yet there's a humanity Simmons gives to Fletcher when he easily could have been a
cartoonish monster.
There are plenty of great iconic movie antagonists, but Fletcher's realism makes for one that
will haunt any young artist's deepest insecurities.
Elevating the material
It goes without saying, but Meryl Streep is one of the greatest actors of all time.
Her filmography contains a multitude of flawless performances, which makes picking just one
sublime showcase next to impossible.
That said, there is one character that simply would not have worked without her, and that's
Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.
The film is based on the novel of the same name, which tells the story of a college graduate
working as the personal assistant to a tyrannical editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine.
The film, and her role as Miranda Priestly, should have been a relatively forgettable
one, but with Streep coming in and bringing her A-game to the picture, the whole movie
is lifted from simple dramedy status to an absolute must-see that'll stand the test of
time.
Streep's infinitely quotable ice queen bears an unwavering facade of steely perfection.
Yet she lets that mask slip just long enough to allow our young heroine, and the audience
by extension, see the humanity that lies beneath all that brass.
It's one thing to act well in an already well-crafted film but it takes a truly magnificent performer
to turn a role like Priestly into an Oscar-nominated performance.
If Streep's screen talents weren't already documented enough, her work in The Devil Wears
Prada proves that there's simply no one as good or as effective as her.
Being a BAMF
There's very little to say about Pulp Fiction that hasn't already been said.
Quentin Tarantino's masterclass in filmmaking is arguably the most quotable movie of a generation,
and most of the best lines came from Samuel L. Jackson's Jules, a righteous hitman who
finds himself in the midst of an existential crisis over the course of the film.
Jackson is extremely prolific as an actor and has appeared in a number of Tarantino
films, but it's his turn here that stands out as one of his finest hours as an actor.
There's a calm, controlled intensity to Jules that lingers throughout Jackson's performance.
He calculates everything and almost always has the upper hand, which is why his near-death
experience in the film shakes him to his core.
Jackson makes this experience less an unraveling and more a crossroads for the character.
It makes his encounter with petty criminals Ringo and Yolanda all the more riveting and
pivotal.
Consider the controlled rage and desperation that goes into every line:
"And what's Fonzie like?
Come on Yolanda what's Fonzie like?"
"He's cool."
"What?!"
"Cool."
"Correctamundo."
In a film filled with memorable characters and performances, Jackson's stands out as
the definitive performance in one of the great modern American films.
Channeling the insanity
Films based on Stephen King books provide countless stellar villains to choose from,
from Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance in The Shining to Pennywise from It.
However, there's one that seems to stand out from the rest, even all these years later:
Kathy Bates' Oscar-winning turn as Annie Wilkes Misery.
Wilkes is fan culture gone toxic — well, more toxic than it already is.
Her attachment to writer Paul Sheldon's novels is fanatical, leading her to kidnap him after
a car accident.
Oftentimes when a villain is so memorable, it's because the actor brings a relatability
one wouldn't expect to the role.
But Wilkes is just not that kind of woman.
Her performance is of someone so unhinged and unpredictable that it frightens you to
your core.
"What do you think I say when I go to the feed store in town?"
"Oh now, Wally, get me a bag of that effing pig feet and 10lbs of that beastly cow corn!"
Bates plays Wilkes as a woman who truly believes her behavior is normal, which makes it all
the more horrifying when she lashes out at poor Paul Sheldon.
Sure, it's the leg-smashing scene that really got everyone talking, but it's Bates' full-package
villainy that rattled everyone's nerves for the long haul.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!