Sometimes, a good actor can make a bad script tolerable and mediocre script enjoyable. But occasionally, an actor will stumble upon a role they seemed born to play, and watching them transform themselves is an utter joy. We chose 25 of our favorite performances to celebrate from the last decade and could have picked another 25 we dearly loved. We only selected our favorite from each actor so that Daniel Day-Lewis, Kate Winslet, Sean Penn and Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t simply dominate the list.
25. Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman
The Pianist (2002)
While many great performances rely on dramatic and affecting dialogue, Adrien Brody’s turn as real life musician Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama The Pianist is hushed, a sullen-eyed lost soul hanging on to a world cloaked in gray. As the title character, Brody became a living skeleton, an all-too-real representation of one of history’s darkest periods. Justin Jacobs
24. Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff
Juno (2007)
Ellen Page walks the delicately fine line between pitiable pregnant teen and resilient, plucky feminist in this film that manages to be both a cautionary tale and a story of love and compassion. Page displays intelligence and wit while clearly conveying the moments of humiliation that come with being pregnant in high school, producing an utterly endearing, memorable character. Emily Reimer
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