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The Top 100 Performances by a Male Actor
- Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
- Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood
- Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront
- Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
- Al Pacino – The Godfather Part II
- Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
- John Wayne – The Searchers
- Toshirô Mifune – Seven Samurai
- Jean-Paul Belmondo – Breathless
- Tony Leung – In the Mood for Love
- Marlon Brando – The Godfather
- James Stewart – Vertigo
- Marcello Mastroianni – 8 ½
- Peter O’Toole – Lawrence of Arabia
- Al Pacino – The Godfather
- Denzel Washington – Malcolm X
- Takashi Shimura – Ikiru
- Emil Jannings – The Last Laugh
- Dustin Hoffman – The Graduate
- Klaus Kinski – Aguirre, the Wrath of God
- David Thewlis – Naked
- Henry Fonda – The Grapes of Wrath
- James Stewart – It’s a Wonderful Life
- Joe Pesci – Goodfellas
- Gunnar Björnstrand – Winter Light
- Clark Gable – Gone with the Wind
- Emil Jannings – The Blue Angel
- Lamberto Maggiorani – Bicycle Thieves
- Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
- Malcolm McDowell – A Clockwork Orange
- Anatoliy Solonitsyn – Andrei Rublev
- Humphrey Bogart – Casablanca
- Charlie Chaplin – The Gold Rush
- Marlon Brando – A Streetcar Named Desire
- Marcello Mastroianni – La Dolce Vita
- Marlon Brando – The Last Tango in Paris
- Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner
- Tom Cruise – Magnolia
- Anthony Hopkins – The Silence of the Lambs
- Tony Leung – 2046
- Kirk Douglas – Paths of Glory
- Dennis Hopper – Blue Velvet
- Bill Murray – Lost in Translation
- Jean-Louis Trintignant – The Conformist
- Al Pacino – Dog Day Afternoon
- Jack Nicholson – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Christian Bale – American Psycho
- Burt Lancaster – The Leopard
- Paul Newman – Cool Hand Luke
- James Cagney – White Heat
- Peter Lorre – M
- Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Robert Mitchum – Night of the Hunter
- Humphrey Bogart – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Michael Fassbender – Shame
- Oscar Isaac – Inside Llewyn Davis
- Carlo Battisti – Umberto D
- Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
- Ray Liotta – Goodfellas
- Jean-Pierre Léaud – The 400 Blows
- Charlie Chaplin – City Lights
- Max von Sydow – The Seventh Seal
- Clive Owen – Children of Men
- Robert De Niro – The Godfather Part II
- Orson Welles – Touch of Evil
- Chhabi Biswas – The Music Room
- Adam Sandler – Punch-Drunk Love
- John Travolta – Pulp Fiction
- Martin Sheen – Apocalypse Now
- Samuel L. Jackson – Pulp Fiction
- Michael Keaton – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West
- Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
- Gene Hackman – The French Connection
- Toshirô Mifune – Rashomon
- Daniel Day-Lewis – Gangs of New York
- Michael Gambon – The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
- Takashi Shimura – Seven Samurai
- Tatsuya Nakadai – The Human Condition
- Robert Shaw – Jaws
- Anthony Perkins – Psycho
- Jonathan Pryce – Brazil
- Jean-Paul Belmondo – Pierrot le Fou
- Toshirô Mifune – Yojimbo
- William Holden – Network
- Jeremy Irons – Dead Ringers
- Erland Josephson – The Sacrifice
- Morgan Freeman – The Shawshank Redemption
- Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
- Dirk Bogarde – The Servant
- Eli Wallach – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Gary Oldman – Sid and Nancy
- John Cazale – The Godfather Part II
- Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain
- Dustin Hoffman – Midnight Cowboy
- Chishû Ryû – There Was a Father
- Pete Postlethwaite – Distant Voices, Still Lives
- Tony Leung – Chungking Express
Drake2023-09-15T00:36:23+00:00
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Not a single Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt performance. Wow.
@Anderson – or Cary Grant or Alain Delon – there are others. Certainly these four have a few each that would lane in the next 50-100 best performances
Wow. I didn’t realize a Cary Grant performance is missing.
Fantastic list you’ve put together Drake, that must have been a huge effort. Love seeing it all laid out like this, well done!
@DeclanG- Hey- thank you for saying that. It was fun to put this together – lots to debate.
A lot of actors not included in the main list are included here. Interesting.
1.David Thewlis – Naked (21)
2.Lamberto Maggiorani – Bicycle Thieves (28)
3.Malcolm McDowell – A Clockwork Orange (30)
4.Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner (37)
5.Dennis Hopper – Blue Velvet (42)
6.Peter Lorre – M (51)
7.Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (52)
8.Carlo Battisti – Umberto D (57)
9.Ray Liotta – Goodfellas (59)
10.Clive Owen – Children of Men (63)
11.Chhabi Biswas – The Music Room (66)
12.Adam Sandler – Punch-Drunk Love (67)
13.John Travolta – Pulp Fiction (68)
14.Michael Keaton – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (71)
15.Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (74)
16.Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network (75)
17.Michael Gambon – The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (79)
18.Robert Shaw – Jaws (82)
19.Anthony Perkins – Psycho (83)
20.Jonathan Pryce – Brazil (84)
21.Jeremy Irons – Dead Ringers (88)
22.Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds (91)
23.Eli Wallach – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (93)
24.Pete Postlethwaite – Distant Voices, Still Lives (99)
@Malith – what do you mean by “the main list”?
Top 100 Male Actors List
Your list is flat out staggering. Fabulous work. What I just love about both this and actress list that it’s pretty much definitive because it’s well studied. I think apt emphasis is given to both the quality of the performance and quality of the film. Both of these things are tied together and should’nt be separated.
👏👏👏👏👏
@M*A*S*H- Thank you so much – appreciate the kind words
I think a updated director’s list is impossible without an updated top 500/1000 list so that’s gonna be you’r next project right? Then we’ll see the directors list. Are you still working on your top 500/1000 or is the list ready?
@M*A*S*H- pulled the old top 500 list and updating that now
@Drake – Hey, I know the 10 year moratorioum is your standard – it’s late in 2023 now and quite a few of 2013’s top films have already passed their 10 year milestone (Llewyn Davis, Ida – checking the premier dates) – have you thought about selectively putting some of those on or just overall blocking 2013 films anyway?
@Harry- Yes, I am going to include 2013. We’re close to the end of the year anyways and this list is not ready yet
@Drake – I called your top 3, my top 5 is almost the same:
1. Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
2. Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood
3. Al Pacino – The Godfather Part II
4. Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront
5. Marlon Brando – The Godfather
@James Trapp- hard to argue with these
Actors who didn’t get get mentioned (my opinion of their best performances):
Pitt – either Fight Club or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Norton – Fight Club
Eastwood – The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Van Cleef – The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Penn – Mystic River
Choi Min-sik – Oldboy
Bruce Willis – Pulp Fiction or Die Hard
Keitel – Reservoir Dogs or Mean Streets or Pulp Fiction
Leo – The Aviator, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or The Revenant
Spacey – Se7en, American Beauty or Usual Suspects
Bridges – Big Lebowski
Bardem – No Country for Old Men
Del Toro – Traffic
Downey Jr – Zodiac
Bronson – Once Upon a Time in the West (not a fan of his other stuff but I think hes fantastic in this, below Fonda obviously)
Gosling – Drive or Blade Runner 2049
Tom Hardy – The Revenant
Buscemi – Reservoir Dogs or Fargo
If I had to pick 2 performances not on this list:
Brad Pitt – Fight Club. Iconic for a reason, I can’t think of a cooler character and he played it to perfection, his defining role. I don’t see how for example Bale for Patrick Bateman is on here but Tyler Durden is not
Joe Pesci – Casino. The desert scene alone speaks for itself. I can’t think of an actor that plays a better badass gangster than what he does in Goodfellas and Casino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fWRgzEofzA
@Dylan- Thank you for the share – yes, it was very hard to pare it down to 100
Well simply put Bale did even sweat on purpose for the role like that’s something else hahaha
@Drake – really nice work, I especially love the following:
Anthony Perkins in Psycho at # 83
Its an iconic role and even though I have always loved Psycho and consider it one of the 10 best films ever made I did not always think its was an all time great performance until more recently. The great Roger Ebert summarizes his character better than I can “Perkins does an uncanny job of establishing the complex character of Norman… Perkins shows us there is something fundamentally wrong with Norman, and yet he has a young man’s likability, jamming his hands into his jeans pockets, skipping onto the porch, grinning. Only when the conversation grows personal does he stammer and evade. At first he evokes our sympathy as well as Marion’s.”
Klaus Kinski in Aguirre, the Wrath of God at # 20
So much of this performance is Kinski just walking around silently but not aimlessly, he is always observing and studying the people around him, for example smartly nominating Guzmán as the new “leader” full well knowing he can be manipulated while Aguirre is really the one making the decisions. The first time I watched this I looked up Kinski and was shocked to discover he was 5’8” as he has such an intimidating presence I thought he was like 6’5”
John Travolta and Samuel L. Jacksonin Pulp Fiction at #68 and #70
Its fitting they are so closely ranked as their amazing performances play off one another though they have great individual moments. For Travolta, the legendary dance sequence with Uma Thurman and for Jackson the legendary diner speech (although Travolta’s character was present) by Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield. Its one of my 10-15 favorite scenes ever and some of the greatest acting I have ever seen
Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network at # 75
I feel like this one gets overlooked even if The Social Network gets, for the most part, the praise it deserves on best decade lists. Eisenberg nails all the Mark Zuckerberg mannerisms and demeanor. That opening dialogue and the ability to speak a million a minute
Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love at # 67
You are a braver man than most! I love seeing Sandler get the credit he deserves here even if PT Anderson is also deserving of credit for having the vision and guts to put Sandler as the lead role it is Sandler who uses his persona to suceed here
@James Trapp- Thank you James
Drake I think you’ve really outdone yourself with this one, what an exceptional looking list! One of the few lists about film where I look at almost every placement and wholly get it.
My personal comments:
– DiCaprio in The Revenant, Keaton in The General, Abraham in Amadeus, Gabin in La Grande Illusion, and Quinn in La Strada feel like ones that would definitely make my personal list off the top of my head (unsure where, but I think they’d be there). As much as I like every performance on this list that I’ve seen, I think Shaw in Jaws, Perkins in Psycho, Travolta in Pulp Fiction, and maybe Leung in Chunking would be among the ones that would drop to make room for those.
– I think this just means I need to watch it again, but I’m surprised to see Jannings in Blue Angel so high. It’s a sensational movie and a game-changer in terms of staging and blocking, but Dietrich’s performance stayed with me far more than Jannings’s. That being said, I’ll have to rewatch and pay more attention to his work.
– Another curious case for me is Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. It may very well be my #1 film ever, but I never know what I think of Mastroianni’s performance. He’s in a great film and has the perfect face/general look for the part, but in terms of straight-up acting ability showcased it doesn’t seem to me like he’s quite on the level of some of the performances around him. The tricky part is that this is also by design, due to the almost totally passive role his character plays in the story, which complicates matters even further. All in all, feels like this has to be one of the trickiest acting performances to grade.
– von Sydow in Seventh Seal would probably make my top 10.
All that being said, I think this is the best list I’ve seen on this website. Keep up the good work!
@ga- Thanks for sharing these- some food for thought for sure. And several of your choices were right on the cusp of making the list
Great list. My top 50 of the best male performances in movie history :
1/ Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
2/ Al Pacino – The Godfather Part II
3/ Marlon Brando – The Godfather
4/ Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver
5/ Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood
6/ Marlon Brando – On The Waterfront
7/ Al Pacino – The Godfather
8/ James Stewart – Vertigo
9/ Charlie Chaplin – The Gold Rush
10/ Klaus Kinski – Aguirre
11/ Toshiro Mifune – Seven Samurai
12/ Peter O’Toole – Lawrence of Arabia
13/ Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
14/ Marlon Brando – A Streetcar Named Desire
15/ James Stewart – It’s a Wonderful Life
16/ Peter Loore – M
17/ Jean-Pierre Belmondo – Breathless
18/ Jack Nicholson – The Shining
19/ Marcello Mastroianni – 8 1/2
20/ Takashi Shimura – Ikiru
21/ John Wayne – The Searchers
22/ Tony Leung – In the Mood for Love
23/ Denzel Washington – Malcolm X
24/ Humphrey Bogart – Treasure of Sierra Madre
25/ Malcolm McDowell – A Clockwork Orange
26/ Orson Welles – Citizen Kane
27/ Joe Pesci – Goodfellas
28/ Anatoliy Solonitsyn – Andrei Rublev
29/ Robert Mitchum – Night of the Hunter
30/ Jean-Pierre Leaud – Les 400 coups
31/ Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove
32/ Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
33/ Anthony Perkins – Psycho
34/ Anthony Hopkins – The Silence of the Lambs
35/ Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
36/ Dustin Hoffman – The Graduate
37/ Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West
38/ Rutger Hauer – Blade Runner
39/ Dennis Hopper – Blue Velvet
40/ Humphrey Bogart – Casablanca
41/ Max Von Sydow – The Seventh Seal
42/ Klaus Kinski – Fitzcarraldo
43/ Gunnar Bjorstrand – Winter Light
44/ Buster Keaton – The General
45/ Alain Delon – Le Samouraï
46/ Jack Nicholson – Chinatown
47/ Henry Fonda – Grapes of Wrath
48/ Philip S. Hoffman – The Master
49/ Burt Lancaster – The Leopard
50/ Clark Gable – Gone with the Wind
Easy to write down the top 25 then it’s really hard. I think top 30-70/80 is a tie and depends on the day I rank them.
My top 3 is the only three performances I consider goat tier.
The 4/7 is tier 2. I’m not arguing with anyone putting Pacino in Godfather, Brando in Waterfront, Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood as THE greatest performance. Not my opinion but I respect greatness.
About your list, I do think Nicholson in Cuckoo’s > Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon and I think DiCaprio/Pitt deserves a spot in the top 100. I think DeNiro deserves a 4th spot (for Deer Hunter or Heat). But it’s really splitting hairs.
DeNiro is the only actor with 2 perf’ in the top 5, Pacino & Brando have 2 perf’ in the top 15. Greatness. Brando is the only one with 4 perf’. DeNiro, Pacino, Mifune, Leung with 3. Chaplin, Jannings, Stewart, Fonda, Bogart, Shimura, Mastroianni, Belmondo, Hoffman, Day-Lewis, Ledger with 2.
@KidCharlemagne- This list is rock solid- thank you for sharing this
Damn. 60 out of these 100 performances weren’t nominated at the Oscars.
Great work Drake!
Some performances i think I’d include in my own version of this:
Depp – Dead Man
Grant – North By Northwest
Spall – Mr. Turner
Bogarde – Death in Venice
Leo – The Aviator, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Revenant
Pitt – Fight Club
Shreck – Nosferatu
Kinski – Fitzcarraldo
@Harry- Yes- can’t argue with these – several were on my short list just prior to cutting it down to the final 100
Some performances I think that should be included:
Bogarde-Despair
Duvall-Apocalypse Now
George C.Scott-Patton
Nicholson-Chinatown
Nicholson-Five Easy Pieces
De Niro-King of Comedy
Keitel-Bad Lieutenant
DiCaprio-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Phoenix-Joker
Pesci-The Irishman
There is another one
*Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer
Only seen it once in cinemas but I’d have Mescal-Aftersun pushing the edges of this top 100 too.
@Anderson- Thank you for sharing these, I can tell most of them were on my short list before having to cut it down
What an incredible list. Thank you for this.
@Yaared- Really appreciate the encouragement here- thank you
Hi Drake, when it comes to your Top 100 Actors lists, do you use a point system depending how many year mentions they get, their place in the top 100 performances list, etc? And if so, how much do you stick by these points – do you move their ranking around much depending on other factors?
@DeclanG – I do use a point system from the year by year archives for the top 100 actors list. I use that compiled point system as a sort of guide when putting together the top 100 actors list. There are times when the points do not tell the full story – so it is more of a guide than a rule
Edward G Robinson Performance in Scarlet Street (1945)
Obviously with a top 100 list there are going to be some amazing performances left out, some really strong performances. A number of great performances have been mentioned more than once on this page, so I want to instead highlight a lesser-known performance and that is of Edward G Robinson in Scarlet Street.
I think this film is a MP, on this site it’s a MS which is still a very strong grade, probably hard to make this list if the film is below a MS so it’s a strong enough film on that basis
Edward G Robinson plays Christopher Cross in Fritz Lang’s excellent film noir. Robinson does a complete 180 here, after years playing gangsters Robinson plays a shy middle-aged cashier, who has been with the same company for 25 years yet has never advanced and makes little money.
He is extremely meek and shy and is uncomfortable speaking in front of even a small group of people. He has a number of mannerisms that stand out, he stutters frequently and walks with his back hunched, he is a man in his 50’s in the beginning of the film yet he moves like he’s 80 years old at times. Robinson’s Cross lives a repressed life, he hates his boring dead-end job and married his verbally abusive wife out of convenience; they despise each other. He has no close friends, and it is even hinted that he has never been intimate with a woman not even his own wife. His only joy in live is his painting which he does “every Sunday”
By a bizarre sequence of events, he meets a young attractive woman named Kitty who mistakenly believes he’s a wealthy painter, so the Kitty and her repulsive boyfriend Johnny (played by the great Dan Duryea) try to scam him out of money that they believe he has. Chris is so desperate for love that he ignores all the many red flags and even starts to steal money from his employer to keep up his appearance of being wealthy and talented. Being film noir, it obviously ends badly for everyone.
The physical acting here actually reminds me of the Takashi Shimura character in Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Both characters walk with a hunched back and act older than they actually are. In both films these sad sack characters meet a young woman and start to feel alive and hopeful after wasting away years of their lives working menial boring jobs. Robinson starts looking and acting like a happy schoolboy which is different from the opening in which Robinson’s character has an odd posture, he often holds his arms out near waist level and often looks down at the ground when talking to someone or closes his eyes almost all the way while stuttering. Edward G Robinson has a unique face, and he really uses this to his advantage. I am not sure I can think of any film where an actor or actresses is so effective in using facial expressions. Cross is so passive and is steamrolled by basically everyone in his life, he is extremely gullible and believes everything lie Kitty tells him. The final 20 min are crazy, and Cross goes through just about every emotion possible and each with a distinct facial expression, sometimes occurring within a single frame. The sequence where he learns that he has been deceived is so heartbreaking.
Certain actors get so into their character that they “disappear into the role” especially when they have costumes or different accents. Scarlet Street comes just a year after Double Indemnity (1944) and even though that is not a gangster role it has Robinson playing a highly intelligent character who has ultra-confidence and believes in himself. Even though he still looks like Edward G Robinson his performance in this film is so effective that I actually forget these two characters are played by the same actor at times.
@James Trapp- Love the detail here- good share. thank you
“the physical acting here actually reminds me of the Takashi Shimura character in Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Both characters walk with a hunched back and act older than they actually are.”
well done!
@Drake – thank you, I look forward to checking out The Blue Angel (1930) as it was mentioned in several reviews for Scarlet Street as a similar film, at least thematically. I see you have Emil Jannings performance at # 27
@James Trapp- yep, that a key companion/comparison. Takashi Shimura in Ikiru is a great pull and then Michel Simon for La Chienne would be the other as Lang’s film is a remake of Renoir’s film and Edward G is in the Simon role
When will you be making your top 500/1000? You mentioned there was a chance that 2001 could make 1st place. Do you think it might?
@K – Thanks for the comment and for visiting the site. Putting together the updated list now.
Than I imagine it will probably be out soon. I am excited to see it, because I really loved your first list! I also hope Marienbad gets a big boost.
@K – I’m putting together the decade lists now. It just takes a lot of time. I don’t have an estimated time yet. Thanks for the kind words on the first list!
Apocalypse Now, 2001 or The Passion of Joan of Arc are 3 films wholly deserving of being number 1. Rooting for one of them to take over. Beyond excited for the list update
2001 would probably be my pick. I haven’t seen The Passion of Joan of Arc yet, but if it is as impressive as the snippets I’ve seen, it definitely deserves to be up there. I would have no objection to Sunrise at the top spot, either. I just can’t get behind Apocalypse Now at #1: it is beautifully shot, beautifully acted, and beautifully edited, but there are at least 5-10 movies I would rank over it right now (and my knowledge of film is 1% what some of the people here have).
2001 is more visually beautiful, tighter formally (repetition, each act leads into the next – unlike Apocalypse Now, where incidents on the river could be added or subtracted endlessly), and a much more impressive score, with great editing as well. Even The Shining I would say, is as beautifully shot (the use of color especially), great editing (dissolves, freeze frames), even better acting, better score, a great form (repetition, echoes, ambiguity, contradictions, etc.).
My biggest hope for a promotion, though, is Marienbad. Though 2001 might be more visually beautiful overall, due to the colors and special effects, Marienbad is arguably the most gorgeously shot movie ever made. Not to mention the structural audacity, form (like The Shining; repetition, ambiguity, contradiction), maybe the best editing in movie history (I have never seen editing this audacious and evocative).
Marienbad also has the greatest screenplay of all time (yes, better than Chinatown): it is at least as tight as Chinatown (nearly everything, down to the smallest line of dialogue, recurs and echoes), it has the best voiceover narration ever, and incredible structural audacity. While the dialogue may not be as sharp as, say, Sunset Boulevard, it more than makes up for it with the poetry of the lines.
Best cinematography ever, best screenplay, best editing, best form (maybe); top 10 at least, and a contender for the top spot.
@Joel- certainly not much separating those films
A few thoughts on this great list:
1. It’s interesting to me the English dominated ratio of these performances. I think it’s pretty accurate personally, but I think when looking at a top 100 movies ever, or top 100 directors ever list, there would be less English-speaking dominance.
2. Crazy to think Pitt and DiCaprio don’t have a performance up there, but Cruise has one in the top 40. I think a lot of film buffs would be surprised by this, but again I agree with you here.
3. Have to say I don’t get how Adam Sandler and Bill Murray make the list for their best drama/non-comedic performance, but Jim Carrey doesn’t make the top 100 for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This to me is the greatest serious performance by a comedic actor, and it’s every bit as good as Kate Winslet’s performance.
4. I love the performance, but I am surprised that you have Robert Shaw as the greatest performance in a Spielberg film. I expected Liam Neeson in Schindler’s List or Harrison Ford in Raiders to make the cut.
5. Compared to the women, there are not nearly as many recent films on the list.
Agree with you James, I think DiCaprio deserves a spot for The Revenant and I think The Wolf of Wall Street. Pitt for Tree of Life.
@KidCharlemagne – Pitt is great in Tree of Life (2011). I find this suggestion interesting because it is certainly a great performance but at the same time I think the film would still be almost just as great if Pitt or anyone else for that matter gave a mediocre performance. Compare that to say Al Pacino’s performance in Dog Day Afternoon (1975) just to throw out an example. I don’t think that film works with a mediocre performance from Pacino’s character Sonny. Curious for anyone who wants to weigh in here.
That’s a good point.
Agreed and I would say if I were to put in a Pitt performance I would put 12 monkeys or once upon a time in Hollywood before Tree of Life just because I think he has a larger impact on both films.
@James Trapp, @James Robbins and @KidCharlemagne- good stuff here all around. I think there’s a case for many of these performances – for sure a case for Pitt in Tree of Life-
Pete Postlethwaite’s selection is sort of similar – stern father that doesn’t have a ton of screen time but makes a lasting impression in a towering masterpiece. Certainly I wouldn’t put up a big fight on adding the top works from Leo and/or Brad Pitt (not sure there is a legit case for something like Pitt in 12 Monkeys to be on a list of the 100 best performances of all-time). However, if someone went into the project saying “well you have to have at least one from Leo and Brad Pitt”- I’d just disagree with that on the philosophy of it. Not saying that’s the case here. The strength of the argument for Pitt, DiCaprio, Cary Grant, Delon and others- may or may not be reliant on one big performance. Just wanted to add that.
It is definitely a balancing act with a Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon where he is carrying a lesser film (relatively of course) on his back vs. a smaller performance (but perhaps equally special) in a stronger film where someone gives a sort of perfect spoke in the glorious masterpiece wheel performance. Not sure there is a right or wrong answer here – I see both sides.
@James Robbins- Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Fantastic list! It’s so interesting to see which directors have tended to be behind the best male performances. Of course Scorsese and Coppola are dominant here, but check out PTA: 2 top-ten performances, and 5 in the top 100. Would those be the clear top 3 auteurs at eliciting male-actor performances?
It’s also interesting to compare the auteurs behind the performances on this list to those behind the top 100 female-actor performances. I haven’t examined super closely, but it seems to me that Lynch, Trier, Polanski, Allen, Hitchcock, Antonioni, Aronofsky, and Aster stand out as doing much better on the female-performance list compared to the male one.
@Logan 5- Thank you for the compliment here on the list- I thought the same thing on the directors being at the helm for the best performances. Five performances from Kurosawa films here as well in the mix
We have the same top 5! (Albeit the ordering might be slightly different)
Also I appreciate the willingness to give the young guys their due respect, even if Gosling (La La Land) and Leo (The Revenant) would make it here for me as well. But still, the margins are so thin between performances of these levels that I can’t complain with the list here, it looks great, glad to see that it finally came to fruition!
Question that I just thought of. Is it easier for you to compare and rank films or performances? There are obviously more factors to consider when it comes to films overall, but honestly I would probably have a harder time doing a top 100 performance ranking than top 100 film rating. Maybe it’s just harder for me to isolate a performance down to itself, and to evaluate it while blocking out the other stuff that is going on around it. (I’m not really sure why I think I would find it harder, to be honest)
Another question, and you may not want to answer this. But if the On the Waterfront script was picked up by an all-time aueter (I’m not exactly sure who this would be, mid 50s) on the level of Scorsese and PTA, and On the Waterfront were to have been a top 50 film of all time alongside Raging Bull and There Will Be Blood, could you see Brando’s performance in Waterfront topping this list? I could be incorrect in this, but I just imagine you looking at how close the top 3 performances are and using the fact that Waterfront is only a MS compared to Bull and TWBB being Big MPs the tie breaker (and a fair one at that)
@Matthew- Gosling in La La Land and Leo in The Revenant were very hard to leave off the list.
Good question on which was harder. I mean compiling the data for the best actor list was harder in a sense as it took more time and research— but after that part was done, putting together the list was easier than the performance list. Seemed like there was more second guessing for the performance list.
I think that’s a fair On the Waterfront question – impossible to answer of course as that hypothetical film does not exist. But sure, I see the potential for Brando’s work at #1.
Given the amount of argument your criteria for evaluating performances has aroused I’ve decided to complicate things more- mine is different in that I think there is film acting and there is acting which happens to have been filmed; the former achieves as much as possible (sometimes everything) through subtle body language and facial expressions and could not entirely exist without motion picture while the latter relies mostly upon the voice and has existed for longer than any historian knows. Greatness can be achieved in both styles, but they are too different to be compared and should really have separate lists. When you write that the film must be great for the performance to be great, my response would be that a performance is capable of making a film great if it uses a uniquely cinematic acting style. My syllogism would go 1. The purpose of film is to communicate through moving images 2. this acting style would be ineffective without the existence of moving images 3. therefore it is true and inherently valuable to its medium
What do you think are the best one-scene performances?
Mine are something like this:
1. Dean Stockwell- Blue Velvet
2. Donald Sutherland- JFK
3. Matthew McConaughey- The Wolf of Wall Street
4. Alfred Molina- Boogie Nights
5. Alec Baldwin- Glengarry Glen Ross
6. Drew Barrymore- Scream
7. Christopher Walken- Pulp Fiction
8. Ned Beatty- Network
9. Steve Park- Fargo
10. Martin Scorsese- Taxi Driver
Scorsese appears in two scenes in Taxi Driver. First in the Cybill Shepherd introduction scene
@Malith- I think you can hardly call that a scene. It is more like a jump scare by Scorsese.
Haha. But I can clearly see him.
@Malith- ok. If Scorsese is not eligible, then my number 10 is probably Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein.
@RujK- Love these! Good share here
@RujK – Casey Affleck is his one Oppenheimer scene was terrifying
@Harry- what a great scene!
Oldman in the same movie. Affleck has more than one scene.
@Harry and @Malith- love these two suggestions. I actually think that Affleck might deserve to be on the list (I do not remember him having a second scene).
My ranking of my favorite performances in Oppenheimer:
1. Murphy
2. Downey Jr.
3. Conti
4. Affleck (the best on per minute basis)
5. Blunt
6. Damon
7. Oldman
8. Pugh
9. Safdie
10. Ehrenreich
@RujK-I don’t care about Blunt’s performance in Oppenheimer. The film is better with another actress like Claire Foy for example who played essentially the same role excellently in Chazelle’s First Man. My top 10 would be:
1.Murphy
2.Downey Jr.
3.Conti
4.Damon
5.Pugh
6.Safdie
7.Ehrenreich
8.J.Clarke
9.Oldman
10.C.Affleck
The last two are probably the best on a per-minute basis
@RujK-It feels like Affleck only has one scene because all of his scenes happen at the same time. Outside of the scene with Murphy here there are numerous cutaways to Affleck speaking at the Murphy interrogation in the Present Day
James Caan in both The Godfather Part 2 and Dogville.
@Lionel- James Caan in Dogville is a brilliant addition. Probably between Walken and Beatty.
Also, my James Caan top five:
1. Thief
2. Misery
3. The Godfather (& Part II)
4. Dogville
5. Probably The Gambler (but I haven`t seen that film in forever)
Dogville is noway near Caan’s top 5. His role is way too small. I would go with:
1.Thief
2.The Godfather
3.The Yards
4.The Gambler
5.Misery
6.Cinderella Liberty
7.Gardens of Stone(Could go higher)
8.A Bridge Too Far
Yet to see The Rain People. Heard good things about his performance here.
@RujK-I think Caan’s one scene performance in GF2 is great. Especially when he realizes Michael has joined the army despite the family doing everything to prevent it
@RujK – Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, techinally he has 2 scenes but the 2nd is very minor. Its the first that people remember, Harvey Keitel owns that scene in Jimmy’s house, especially impressive given that he’s sharing the screen with Sam Jackson and John Travolta, both included on the top 100 list above
Christopher Walken and Gary Oldman in True Romance. Walken’s screen presence is incredible in the scene with Dennis Hopper where Walken’s charcter interrogates him regarding his son’s whereabouts, Walken is chilling here. Gary Oldman as Drexl is hilarious and entertaining, so over the top to the point of parody yet he pulls it off
Its a good not great film but Viola Davis is incredible in Doubt (2008) outacting Meryl Streep before she was a well known
@James Trapp- Keitel might have a touch too much screentime, but he is impressive indeed. I heard that Walken and especially Oldman are great in True Romance, but I haven`t actually seen the film, just bits and pieces on YouTube.
@RujK – True Romance is amazing screenplay, written by Tarantino who sold it to Tony Scott so QT could finance Reservoir Dogs, Oldman’s performance is just amazing, so hilarious
I just watched True Romance last night albeit the Tarantino Cut (which seems to have some considerable changes but I haven’t seen the original). In this cut at least Walken definitely has a second scene talking to his henchmen as he goes down an elevator.
There can only be one winner
https://youtu.be/35DSdw7dHjs?si=8LwxYGIbj0ktC29g