Actor/Actress's Career Best Performance: Never mind what they won the Oscar or Emmy for.

Brad Pitt - True Romance. I know it's a tiny part, but he cracks me up every time.

Christopher Walken - the Dead Zone

I love Kathy Bates, and Dolores Claiborne, but her inconsistent accent in that drives me nuts.

I agree with all of the OP's choices.

Judy Garland - The Wizard of Oz

Kathrine Hepburn - The African Queen

Barbra Streisand - What's Up Doc

Lauren Bacall - The Big Sleep, tied with Murder on The Orient Express

Cary Grant - North by Northwest

Clark Gable - Gone With The Wind

Carrie Fisher - The Empire Strikes Back

Sigorney Weaver - Alien

Meryl Streep - Silkwood

Dustin Hoffman - Tootsie

R4, I would choose these:

Katharine Hepburn - The Lion in Winter

Sigourney Weaver - Gorillas in the Mist

Henry Fonda - The Lady Eve

Anouk Aimee - Lola

Paul Newman - The Rack

Gregory Peck - Roman Holiday

Whooping Goldberg - Jumpin' Jack Flash

William Hurt - Children of a Lesser God

R4 OP here. Great list! I totally agree with a few: Hoffman/Tootsie, Streisand/What's Up Doc (although Madeline Kahn might have been even better in her career Best), Meryl Streep/Silkwood. For Kate, though, I'd switch in Philadelphia Story for African Queen, and I preferred Sigourney in Aliens, (though she gives a couple stunning performances much later on). A few I didn't see.

Rosalind Russell - Auntie Mame

Charlize Theron - Young Adult (playing another Monster, but with no "ugly" makeup to hide behind).

Marion Cotillard - La Vie En Rose (2007)

Janet McTeer - Tumbleweeds (1999)

Kim Stanley - Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)

Paula Beer - Frantz (2006)

Nina Hoss - Phoenix (2014)

Isabelle Adjani - Possession (1981)

Giulietta Masina - La strada (1954)

All women since I never find any male actors convincing in their roles though.

Brendad Ickson- Camille- Mr. Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre production

Shannon Tweed- Night Desires: A Mother’s Revenge, Cinemax

Lindsay Wagner: A Stolen Life of a Small Town Stripper Batting Bulimia While Searching for her Kidnapped Daughter, Lifetime

Mamie Van Doren: Third set of stunt breasts in Caligula

Loni Anderson: As a C- List celebrity from 30 years ago standing in line for her unemployment check.

Paul Lynn: As America’s Straightest Lavender Lothario, Bewitch

Carol Channing: Children of the When Did I Have Corn?

Sally Field - Norma Rae (The Academy got it right. She's been great many times since, but never better).

Sharon Stone, Casino and she deserved the Oscar.

R13 No she fucking didn't!

R14 bullshit, no one even remembers those two performances. Sharon’s is the only one that held up.

[quote]All women since I never find any male actors convincing in their roles though.

How come?

R15 Fuck you you Trump supporter, you you....

Your not taking away my Oscar.

R17 undeserved.

R17 = the real Sue Sarandan being triggered for real.

Olivia Colman in The Favorite. Such a well deserved Oscar. Sad to see her talents miss-fire on the Crown, but she had gigantic shoes to fill.

Leonardo DiCaprio—What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

I think LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is Katharine Hepburn's best by far.

Deborah Kerr in THE INNOCENTS.

Judy Davis in ME AND MY SHADOW with HIGH TIDE a close second.

Love Weaver in the ALlEN films, but think she's even better in A MAP OF THE WORLD.

Robert Redford in THE CANDIDATE.

Alfre Woodard in PASSION FISH (haven't seen CLEMENCY yet).

Angela Bassett in WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT.

Audrey Hepburn in THE NUN'S STORY.

Sigourney Weaver - Death and the Maiden

Glenn Close - Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons

Carol Kane - Hester Street

OP here.... "I think LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is Katharine Hepburn's best by far."

I chose Philadelphia Story but only by a hair. Long Days was so grueling I could never watch it a second time.

Sigourney was brilliant in both Maps and Maiden. Those were the two I had alluded to.

For Glenn, it was also Dangerous over Fatal by a hair. I chose Dangerous because of how they butchered her performance at the end of Fatal, (which Glenn, herself, hated!). And she had that tremendous final scene in Dangerous.

R22 Audrey Hepburn for The Nun's Story?

OK, let the hate begin: I don't think Audrey Hepburn deserved an award for anything. She had a beautiful face, big doe eyes, and a skinny model body. She was truly like a mannequin, no body movement whatsoever.

Children's Hour with Shirley MacLaine and James Garner could have been a great movie except for Audrey's casting.

Linda Lavin Manhattan Night

Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon

Angela Lansbury, The Manchurian Candidate

Gillian Anderson, The House of Mirth

John Cazale in ANY of his roles: The Conversation, Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon AND let's not forget Fredo in The Godfather (I and II).

Sad that his career was cut short; he was great in the few films he appeared in.

R28, he was great but you’re not going along with the OP’s premise. Pick one.

Kathleen Turner for "Serial Mom"

Don't agree at all with Rosalind Russell for "Auntie Mame." She must have been wonderful on stage in the role, but in the film she projects too big (as if she were still on stage), and she's clearly got all the little live stage performing rhythms down that get rid of a lot of the spontaneity of her performance.

I think she's MUCH better (and much fresher) in comedy in "His Girl Friday." But my favorite of all her roles might be as the sensitive, quiet paaid companion in "Night Must Fall," a dramatic role.

R29 You are correct; I'm didn't play fairly. I'll go with John Cazale's performance in Dog Day Afternoon as his best performance.

Peter O'Toole - Becket

My Katharine Hepburn choice would be "Alice Adams"

Joan Allen -- "The Ice Storm"

Michelle Pfeiffer -- "Married to the Mob"

Bette Davis -- The Letter

Barbara Stanwyck -- The Bitter Tea of General Yen

Margaret Sullavan -- The Good Fairy

Ida Lupino -- The Hard Way

Teresa Wright -- Shadow of a Doubt

Yvonne Mitchell, probably best known as being the nasty nun to the angelic Lilli Palmer in Conspiracy of Hearts,. She quite broke mine in Woman in a Dressing Gown. I

Geena Davis - The Accidental Tourist

John Travolta - Saturday Night Fever

I think Bette Davis was best in “The Little Foxes”. William Wyler got an excellent performance out of her without all those mannerisms that she’s known for.

Mae West in “Klondike Annie” Which gave Mae a chance to be dramatic and humorous.

Katherine Hepburn in “Summertime”.

Greta Garbo in “Anna Christie”, “Queen Christina”, “Camille” and “Ninotchka”.

Vivien Leigh in “GWTW”, “That Hamilton Woman”, “Waterloo Bridge”, and “Streetcar Named Désire”

Tallulah Bankhead in “Lifeboat” and “A Royal Scandal”.

Gloria Swanson in “SB”

Greer Garson in “Random Harvest” and “Mrs. Miniver”

Lana Turner in “The Postman Always Rings Twice”

Jeanne Eagles in “The Letter”.

Dame Edith Evans in “The Importance Of Being Earnest” and “The Nun Story”.

Norma Shearer in “Escape”, “The Barretts Of Wimple Street”, “Marie Antoinette”, “Romeo And Juliet”

Joan Crawford in “Grand Hotel” and “Possessed” 1940’s.

Judy Garland in “The Clock”, “Meet Me In St. Louis”, “ASIB”.

Olivia De Haviland in “Light In The Piazza”, “To Each His Own”, and “The Heiress”.

Jean Harlow in “Dinner At Eight” and “Red Dust”.

OP Here: R27 - Great choices. For Pacino, I was debating between Dog Day and Godfather II, but you made up my mind. I haven't seen enough of Lansbury or Gillian A, but I saw those two performances and agree they were great.

For Audrey Hepburn, I'd go with Wait Until Dark, although Breakfast at Tiffany's was her most iconic,

Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons

Diane Keaton - Subway Child

Julia Roberts - Normal Heart

Jessica Chastain - Moulin Rouge!

Peter Sellers - Being There

Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback

Guy Pearce, L.A. Confidential

Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

R32 Good answer! It's what I was thinking, just a shade over The Godfathers. I believe his part in DDA was originally written for an 18yr old - (based on the real person) - but Pacino was buddies with Cazale and insisted he be considered. The meeting/audition blew Sidney Lumet away so he went with him.

For those not in the know. Cazale was only in 5 movies before his untimely death. Every single one got a Best Picture Nomination! Pretty amazing.

Curious, did any Italian Mamas and Papas name their sons "Fredo" after 1974? That names has such a negative connotation now, It'd be interesting to know.

"Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback"

Absolutely! I bet a lot of DL'ers would agree!

Diane Keaton - Annie Hall (Yeah, she was great in Goodbar, Shoot the Moon and many others, but no other actress could have played Annie Hall!).

R42 Subway Child???? Please fill us in.

George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air.

George Clooney - Up in the Air... Absolutely!!

Jennifer Aniston - Cake

Nicole Kidman, To Die For

All four main actors in sex, lies, and videotape.

R50 Agreed.

R51 My favorite Nicole performance was Birth. I didn't list it because so few people have seen it. Did you? (my second choice might be Big Little Lies).

R53, no, I haven’t that yet, but I’ve heard she’s great in it.

Bette Davis has a raft of immortal performances, but The Letter is my pick.

Meryl Streep, The Dingo Ate My Baby

Charlize Theron, Young Adult

Nicole Kidman, To Die For

Sean Penn, Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Denise Richards, Drop Dead Gorgeous (perhaps her only good performance)

Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia

Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Emma Stone, Easy A

Isabelle Huppert, La Pianiste

Tom Cruise, Risky Business

Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy

Jane Fonda, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Faye Dunaway, Network

Marlon Brando, The Godfather

Robert DeNiro, The Godfather Part II

Winona Ryder, The Age of Innocence

Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Elizabeth Taylor, announcing "Glaaaaadiator" at the Golden Globes

I feel that this performance is so far under the radar that it's almost subterranean. I can't argue with any/many of the choices above, but Mare Winningham in "Love is Never Silent" gave the greatest performance on television ever. Bar none, and not even Streep, Redgrave, McDormand, et al. can top this.

The only award worthy performance Val Kilmer ever had was in Tombstone.

Also Joaquin Phoenix should have got one for Gladiator. I’m glad he got it for Joker but he’s deserved it for much longer.

AnnaLynn McCord - Excision

I've never seen her in anything else, but I can't believe she could top this. No major awards or nominations though.

*AnnaLynne

Shirley MacLaine - Terms of Endearment; Heath Ledger - Brokeback Mountain; Susan Hayward - I'll Cry Tomorrow; Donald Sutherland - Ordinary People/Day Of The Locust (tie); Doris Day - Love Me Or Leave Me; Jack Lemmon - Days Of Wine And Roses/Some Like It Hot (tie); Judi Dench - Philomena; Richard Burton - Virginia Woolf; Ellen Burstyn - Requiem For A Dream; Robin Williams - The Fisher King

Rod Taylor in The Time Machine

Montgomery Clift in The Search

Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets

Gloria Grahame in The Man Who Never Was

Lilli Palmer in The Counterfeit Traitor

Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia

Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon

Juliet Stevenson in Truly, Madly, Deeply

Dana Andrews in The Best Years of Our Lives

Julie Christie in Billy Liar

R45 Another bit of trivia on John Cazale: He and Meryl Streep were 'the couple' on the stage and she nursed him through his illness. When he died, she claimed heartbreak and no one doubted it.

R6w why did she get married so quickly after that though? Knowing how people normally grieve that’s always been so odd to me.

R47 yes I want to know what that’s all about too.

Jodie Foster - The Accused

I loved her in Silence of the Lambs when it came out, but watching it recently, her facial tics; all her mannerisms, seemed very studied and deliberate. I couldn't stand her.

Gene Wilder, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Julianne Moore - The End of the Affair, (seriously)

R63 Theory is she rebounded after Cazale's death. But it's not unusual for caregivers to develop other relationships while caring for a spouse/lover. They stay with their ill loved one until the end out of loyalty. Maybe that was Meryl's motivation - loyalty and love to John. Either scenario makes sense.

R67 It's explained in this bio released in 2016. I also saw it discussed in some thread awhile back, (not a Meryl thread).

Where is M when you need her?

R68 lol at the title — a DLer must have written it.

[quote]Angela Lansbury, The Manchurian Candidate

Agreed. Lansbury gave a chilling depiction of evil in that one.

Miles away from Jessica Fletcher.

Chrissy Metz: The Karen Carpenter Story

Jessica Simpson: The Life and Times of Madame Curie

Faye Dunaway: Little Homosexual Boy: The Awakening

Bill Cosby: Fading In and Out of Consciousness

Kevin Spacey: Boys Dont Cry

Queen Latifah: Hiding in Plain Sight

Madonna: Joy Luck Club

Whitney Houston: Free: Based on a True Story

Uma Thurman in Jennifer 8. She deserved an Oscar for that.

Glenda Jackson in ELIZABETH R.

Vanessa Redgrave in ISADORA.

Julie Christie in AWAY FROM HER.

Anjelica Huston - The Grifters

Julianne Moore for Magnolia, or even I’ll take it for Far from Heaven, Safe or Boogie Nights over what she actually got the Oscar for in the end.

Humphrey Bogart - The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca. I'd guess that the African Queen was fun for him, being so different from the roles he'd been playing, but it was nowhere near his best performance.

Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby".

Agnes Moorehead - The Magnificent Ambersons

Russell Crowe - The Insider

Tom Cruise - Jerry Maguire

Sissy Spacek - Carrie & In the Bedroom

Vanessa Redgrave - The Bostonians

Joan Fontaine - Letter from an Unknown Woman

Gene Tierney - Leave Her to Heaven

Tyrone Power - Nightmare Alley

Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water

Viola Davis - The Help

Thanks R78. I was just coming here to argue that Russell Crowe was best in The Insider.

Tom Cruise — Rain Man.

So we still don't know what Subway Child was...

[quote]Humphrey Bogart - The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca. I'd guess that the African Queen was fun for him, being so different from the roles he'd been playing, but it was nowhere near his best performance.

How come Bogart won the Oscar for 'The African Queen' over Marlon Brando for 'A Streetcar Named Desire'?

Already mentioned but I’ll put in another vote for Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For A Dream.

Another vote for Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia.

Alicia Vikander in “Ex Machina”

R82, because Bogie was the respected, overdue veteran and Brando was the cocky upstart. An Oscar tale as old as time.

Faye Dunaway - Mommie Dearest.

Truly an astonishing performance! And yes, for me, over her superb performances in Network and Chinatown. Worthy not despite all the flaws and camp elements, but because of them. It might not have been the performance and movie originally intended, but a work of art nonetheless!

Bump

Jennifer Connelly - Requiem for a Dream

Catherine Zeta Jones - Traffic

Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Faye is correct about why Mommie Dearest is taken as camp--it didn't have the right director. It needed someone to reign the movie in at the right moments and that just never happened. Faye succeeds in spite of the movie, not because of it.

Nicole Kidman--Eyes Wide Shut. I know lots of people feel she is cold but I think she does very well in the right role.

Deborah Kerr--The Others. Such a fantastic performance that manages to be true to the Henry James short story, "Turn of the Screw". She manages to inspire both suspicion and empathy right until the very end.

Robert De Niro--Taxi Driver. Raging Bull is amazingly overrated and his performance in that one is so one-note.

Jimmy Stewart--Vertigo. Hitchcock knew how to turn his good-boy persona upside down.

Naomi Watts--Mulholland Drive.

Sheryl Lee--Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Catherine Deneuve--Repulsion. In real life, I doubt Catherine has any trouble getting laid and being sexually free but she did a good job of convincing me otherwise in this movie.

Meryl Streep - A Cry In The Dark

Winona was miscast horribly in The Age of Innocence. She is not a convincing actor. Her best performance in Heathers is much better.

Bette Davis - The Letter

Gloria Grahame - In a Lonely Place

Humphrey Bogart - In a Lonely Place

Susan Hayward - Smash-Up

Whoopi Goldberg - The Color Purple.

A truly stunning performance.

Agree with R75 100 percent.

Nicole Kidman - The Others

Teenage Ingenue Catherine Zeta-Jones as Lolita

Winona Ryder - Little Women

Tom Hardy - "Legend" - a dual role in which he played the infamous Kray twins. A brilliant performance.

I realize it was a "foreign" film and ineligible for an acting Oscar nomination, but Hardy deserves a nod for his portrayal(s) here alongside his peers.

Foreign films are eligible for the acting awards

Another vote for Streep in "The Dingo Ate My Baby".

Thanks R102 I do actually think it's one of the best ever performances by an actor. She nailed why the media went after her and in the private scenes she really conveyed how devastated and vulnerable Lindy Chamberlain must have been.

Jessica Biel in The Sinner. Only time I liked her in anything.

Meryl Streep - Out of Africa Robin Williams - The Fisher King (Popeye gets honorable mention) Dustin Hoffman - Rain Man or Midnight Cowboy (Papillon gets honorable mention) Joe Pesci - Goodfellas Al Pacino - Dog Day Afternoon Jack Nicholson - The Shining Oprah Winfrey - The Color Purple Jimmy Stewart - Its A Wonderful Life Bette Davis - Now Voyager James Cagney - Any movie Humphrey Bogart - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Gwyneth Paltrow - Proof

Dennis Quaid - Far From Heaven

Olivia de Havilland - The Heiress

Clark Gable - The Misfits

Nicole Kidman in To Die For definitely.

Laura Dern in Enlightened. Such a great character and you can tell she's living an actor's dream trying to bring her to life.

R108 I might agree, but I challenge with Citizen Ruth.

Another vote for Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", and for Nicole Kidman in "To Die For"

Vanessa Redgrave - "Isadora" (Jesus that scene where she writes out, drunk and weeping, what happened to her children . . .)

Robert Newton - Bill Sykes in David Lean's "Oliver Twist"

Anton Wolbrook - Lermontov in "The Red Shoes"

Richard Burton - "Look Back in Anger"/"Beckett"

David Warner - "Morgan"

Michael Caine - "Alfie"

Audrey Hepburn - "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Cat - "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Robert Mitchum: Max Cady in "Cape Fear", with a close second as the middle-aged husband, Charles Shaughnessy

Gregory Peck: "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Joaquin Phoenix: "Gladiator" and "Walk the Line"

Mel Gibson: "The Year of Living Dangerously"

^*Robert Mitchum: Max Cady in "Cape Fear", with a close second as the middle-aged husband, Charles Shaughnessy, in "Ryan's Daughter" (forgot to type in the movie title"

R100 - Hardy was brilliant in "Legend" but frankly the film in which he really blew me away was much quieter: "The Drop" - was also James Gandolfini's last film performance, and died at the box office, which is too bad, as Hardy was utterly fantastic as the inarticulate Brooklyn barkeep, channeling, in the most respectful way, Brando's Terry Malloy.

Speaking of Brando:

Terry Malloy - "On the Waterfront"

R91. Do you mean “The Innocents”?

Julie Christie - "Darling"

James Cagney - "The Roaring Twenties"

Mary Astor - Brigid O'Shaughnessy, "The Maltese Falcon" with a close second as Edith Cortwright in "Dodsworth"

Ruth Chatterton - Fran Dodsworth in "Dodsworth" ("He's gone ashore! He's gone ashore!")

Joseph Cotten - Uncle Charlie - "Shadow of a Doubt"

R113, DOH! That is exactly what I meant. Deborah Kerr was amazing in The Innocents. I watched The Others two days ago and was probably thinking about it when I typed that.

Thelma Ritter for anything she was nominated for.

Kevin Spacey - Swimming with Sharks

Kristen Wiig - Welcome to Me

Matt Dillon - Drugstore Cowboy

Jason Patric - Narc

Ray Liotta - Narc

James Cagney - Yankee Doodle Dandy

Laura Dern - Smooth Talk

Gina Gershon - Showgirls

Boris Karloff - "The Body Snatcher:" A monster without makeup.

I actually think Audrey Hepburn’s best performance was in Two for the Road.

Streep in "Sophie's Choice"

Babs in "Up the Sandbox".

Pazuzu in “The Exorcist”

Albert Finney - "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" (sex on legs)

Photo Finish: "Shoot the Moon" and "The Dresser" and "Tom Jones'

Daniel Craig - "Love is the Devil" - George Dyer, Francis Bacon's working-class lover.

Photo finish: "The Road to Perdition" as Newman's psycho son, Conor Rooney, and Georgie Peacock in "Our Friends in the North"

Edward Norton, "25th Hour"

R125 I think Ed Norton right out of the gate with Presumed Innocent was a career defining performance.

Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream. The best acting in the entire movie. She deserved an Oscar (which she lost).

R126, do you mean Primal Fear? He was terrific in that.

R126 R128 - Thanks, I forgot that one . . .

R125

Reese Witherspoon - Election

So good that even today, people insist she was playing herself. Yeah, I know about the unfortunate arrest when she pulled out the old "Don't you know who I am?", but even she was embarrassed about it.

I had a friend who worked for her agent. He said she was very professional, a little curt at times, but always respectful, very friendly on occasion, and really nothing at all like Tracy Flick.

R130 I guess when they make the musical of Reese’s life, the big number before intermission will be called “Don’t you know who I am?” featuring a drunk, slurring Reese confronting a police officer and landing in jail.

R132 Played by Alicia Silverstone, of course - (trying to get her career back after Reese jumped in and stole it).

Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me? (of course!) - but for me, Spy is really, really close. I so loved her in that movie!

R130, I think it's because Witherspoon is intelligent enough and known to be a pushy, Type A, entitled, Southern white princess type, PITA that most people think she and Tracy Flick are more or less the same person.

Tim Conway, "The Private Eyes"

John C. Riley - "Chicago"

R112: Yes, we have to give the devil his due, too, when it comes to Tom Hardy's performance in "The Drop": fine story, ensemble cast and a dog character to boot!

Hardy rarely delivers less than his best.

Cazale didn't have much range in the movies (all of them) that I've seen.

Love him, but all the characters were basically the same, just in Dog Day Afternoon he was the non-verbal version of the others.

Cate Blanchett - Carol (though Blue Jasmine was a very worthy win)

Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Colin Firth - A Single Man

Paul Newman - Hud or The Hustler (take your pick)

Vanessa Redgrave - The Bostonians

Goldie Hawn - Shampoo

Faye Dunaway - Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Jill Clayburgh - Starting Over

Diane Keaton - Looking or Mr. Goodbar

Meryl Streep - Plenty

Glenda Jackson - Hedda

Kim Stanley - Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Sandy Dennis - Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean

Karen Black - The Day of the Locust

^ Damn it forgot

Jessical Lange - Music Box

Cher is great in Moonstruck but I think she's even better in Suspect.

Kurt Russell - "Silkwood"

He and Cher toasted Streep, in my opinion.

Viggo Mortensen - Freud in "A Dangerous Method"

Ingrid Bergman - was going to say Notorious from her movies I have seen, but have never seen Autumn Sonata which is often listed as her best performance.

I recently watched Casablanca, and really noticed this time Bogart's performance. He really did have a number of reaction shots that were quite good. There was a bit of subtly and subtext mixed in with the normal Bogie persona. Bergman was good as well, but don't think it was her most challenging role. That was one well-cast movie down to every bit part.

Bill Murray - Groundhog Day. Kind of ignored when the movie was originally released, now considered iconic and one of the greatest male performances in a comedy of all time.

Claude Rains - "The Invisible Man"

Photo finish - Alexander Sebastian in "Notorious" ("Mother, I'm married to an American agent.")

James Mason - Johnny McQueen in "Odd Man Out"

Photo finish: Brutus in the Joseph Mankiewicz "Julius Caesar" and Humbert Humbert in "Lolita"

Honourable mention: Nicholas in "The Seventh Veil"

Bergman is very good in NOTORIOUS, but you should see SONATA as she really knocks it out of the park in that film.

G in the 2019 Oscars. Killed it.

Joe DeRita in "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules"

Miss Shelley Winters in "Lolita."

R152 Maybe. But I'd also consider A Place in the Sun and A Patch of Blue.

R152 yep. Also love her to pieces in Poseidon Adventure.

I like JLaw a lot, but like Ed Norton before her first performance was the best because it was like is this some real hillbilly they got?

I'm fascinated by Zane Buzby

Didn't work often (directed a lot of tv sitcoms)

But not just one, but TWO of her roles are imprinted on my brain for all time

1. Mouling Jackson from Americathon

And

2 Delores Salk in National Lampoon's Class Reunion

Rover Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho. It was such a stunning performance, especially for a 21 year old.

R143 - Winters was a B-list blonde sexy actress type when she got that role in "A Place in the Sun". She may not have been a great beauty like Taylor, but she was plenty attractive and had fucked quite a few of the most fetching men in the business, including Burt Lancaster.

George Stevens insisted that her looks be played down and left her with almost no makeup on. When she saw the rushes, Winters cried at how she looked and begged Stevens to let her have some makeup to relieve how plain she looked. Stevens refused and said that in the end, Winters would thank him.

She got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and it stands as probably her best dramatic performance, and she more than held her own with Clift in their scenes (and he was already prettier than she was, anyway). Winters said later that although it was painful to watch, Stevens was right.

R149 - Speaking of "Notorious" (my personal favourite of all Hitchcock's films, even more than "Rebecca"), overlooked is veteran stage actor Louis Calherne's small but memorable performance as the American spy chief who sends Bergman into Sebastian's bed in the name of American patriotism without blinking an eye. His hypocritical opportunism is called out by Grant, and is one of the turning points for Grant's character, who ends by despising not only the crypto-fascists, but his own "side", as well. It's one of the things that leant the film more gravitas than a mere spy thriller.

Calherne was the very fine Caesar in the "Julius Caesar" discussed further upthread. I thought his performance in "Notorious" a classic illustration of that old adage about there being no small parts, only small actors.

R159 That contradicts her whole dressing down and sitting in his office unnoticed and getting the park. She wanted to go that far.

Part*

r143 Totally agree. I never understand people who trash Winters in A Place In The Sun; her character is a simp, and Winters nails it. Those who think it's a love story just because Clift and Taylor are beautiful kinda miss the point that Clift is an amoral user who literally eliminates Winters when she is no longer useful to him.

R159 - Winters was actually nominated in the leading actress category - back then it was the studios' decision in which category a performer was placed, regardless of the size of the role. Based on their turns in the respective films they were in, Winters and Thelma Ritter (who was nominated in support for playing - beautifully, of course - the protagonist in The Mating Season) should have swaped categories. In any case, Winters was destined to lose to a Streetcar dame.

r163 should be directed to r159, since Cher is not Shelley Winters. But they would be great fun at a drinks party together!

Ida Lupino in "Road House".

Ashley judd...Double Jeopardy

Jim carry and Kate Winslet in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

I thought Ruby in Paradise was Ashley Judd's best

^ I've never seen. I was 12 when DJ came out lol. will look the movie up though.

Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl.

Agree, R169.

Reese Witherspoon's best part was in "Freeway" with "Election a close runner-up.

Early peaks.

Freeway is an unsung gem!

R170 Was that the one where she was working at a private school?

R163 - "Those who think it's a love story just because Clift and Taylor are beautiful kinda miss the point that Clift is an amoral user who literally eliminates Winters when she is no longer useful to him."

It should be noted that the film differs slightly from Dreiser's novel on that very point. In the book, it is made clear that the George let Alice drown to get her out of the way of his marriage to Angela, the beautiful heiress. In the film, they deliberately left this point uncertain in order to make the love story between George more sympathetic, more a victim of shabby American values, and the love between him and Taylor more palatable.

Dreiser based the novel on a true story that took place in 1906, and in his novel it is made absolutely clear that George plans from the outset to bring Alice up to the lake and murder her there. This is left ambiguous in the film, there is no indication that Alice falling out of the boat was anything but accidental, and in the trial it becomes a matter of whether the jury believes he could have saved if he had tried, or simply took advantage of an accident and let her drown, which is a bit different from premeditated murder.

Those final moments as George walks to his execution with that beatific look on his face as he sees nothing but Taylor's beautiful one before him, would have been far less affecting if the audience knew he'd planned to murder Alice all the time.

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Barbra Streisand "The Way We Were"

Laurence Olivier and Jon Fontaine- Rebecca. But they are both still a bit wooden.

Faye Dunaway in CHINATOWN gives a flawless performance. It’s the perfect meeting of stressed, beautiful, neurotic actor meets stressed, beautiful, neurotic character.

^Joan

[quote]Lisa Kudrow, “The Comeback"

[quote]Absolutely! I bet a lot of DL'ers would agree!

[quote]So we still don't know what Subway Child was...

SUBWAY CHILD is a little known Lifetime Original Movie in which Diane Keaton spots a seemingly homeless woman leave a 10 year old boy on a subway bench one Mothers Day, then dart into a train tunnel.

Keaton follows, and explores the subculture of vagrants living underground. The little boy teaches her the habits and [italic]parlance [/italic] of this grimy underworld inhabited by society’s castoffs.

TWIST: when Keaton at last finds the woman, she turns around... and it is Diane Keaton herself! Our heroine is having a psychotic break from giving her son up for adoption a decade ago! The Mothers Day holiday has triggered it all.

R181 Is this real or fan fiction?

Julia Roberts in Closer

[quote]R181 Is this real or fan fiction?

Well, it’s what I [italic]heard.[/italic]

Comments welcome from anyone who saw SUBWAY CHILD. (Think it only aired once?)

Subway Child should be a DL cult classic

Mrs Danvers can also be cross-posted to the crazy eyes thread.

Lisa Kudrow in The Opposite of Sex (at least the New York Film Critics got it right).

R187 The same could possibly be said about Christina Ricci.

Bump

Paul Newman - Hud

Bump

Divine in Female Troube

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

(Fred McMurray, too. Who would have thought he had quite the sex gene?)