Your favourite film performances

[CaptainCanada]

We've ranked films before, but I was thinking in terms of performances within those films what were my favourites. The top 10 that I came up with:

1. Morgan Freeman as Ellis “Red” Redding in The Shawshank Redemption
2. Kenneth Branagh as King Henry V in Henry V (1989)
3. Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life
4. Sir Ian McKellen as King Richard III in Richard III (1995)
5. Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love
6. Topol as Tevye the Dairyman in Fiddler on the Roof
7. Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (1998)
8. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
9. F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus
10. Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino

 

[Sagart]

Tough one.

Among my favourites -
Albert Brooks - Broadcast News
Tom Cruise - Jerry Maguire
Robert Shaw -Jaws
Bill Murray - Groundhog Day
Alan Rickman - Galaxy Quest
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Jack Nicholson - As Good as it Gets
Anthony Hopkins - The Remains of the Day
Harrison Ford - Witness
Russell Crowe- The Insider

 

[Rii]

I'm not particularly sensitive to actors or their performances. That said, some which come to mind:

Juliet Binoche in Three Colours: Blue
Morgan Freeman in Se7en
Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver
Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs
Peter Sellers in Lolita
Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and sequels.
Ben Kingsley in Gandhi
Audrey Tautou in Amelie
Mia Kirshner in Exotica
Orson Welles in The Third Man
Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now
Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men
Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves
Edward Norton in American History X
Faye Dunaway in Network

 

[Nowhere Man]

Kevin Costner- Dances With Wolves

Leonardo Dicaprio- The Beach/Inception/The Depated/Gangs of New York

Val Kilmer- Tombstone

Sharlto Copely- District 9/ The A Team

Heath ledger- The Dark Knight

Will Smith- 7 Pounds

Clint Eastwood- A Fist Full of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More/The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Johnny Depp- POTC

Ed Norton/Brad Pitt-Fight Club

Daniel Day Lewis- Last of the Mohechans/There Will Be Blood/Gangs of New York

Charlton Heston- The Ten Comandments/Planet of the Apes

 

[auntiehill]

Oh, there are soooo many. I'll start with these:

Maggie Smith--The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Daniel Day Lewis--My Left Foot
Kenneth Branagh --Henry V
Jack Nicholson --One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Malcolm McDowell--A Clockwork Orange
Peter O'Toole--My Favorite Year
Humphrey Bogart--The Maltese Falcon
Orson Welles--The Third Man
Meryl Streep--Sophie's Choice
Philip Seymour Hoffman --Capote
Peter Sellars--Being There
Sir John Gielgud--Arthur
James Stewart--It's a Wonderful Life

 

[Kirkman1987]

Just a couple that come to mind.

Robert De Niro in BOTH Taxi Driver and Raging Bull

Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Sigourney Weaver in Aliens

 

[Too Much Fun]

I tried, but I couldn't get the list below 20. I wanted to put a Marilyn Monroe role in there, but I like all of her performances I've seen about equally, so I couldn't pick one.

1) Al Pacino in "Scarface"
2) Johnny Depp in "Ed Wood"
3) Boris Karloff in "The Bride of Frankenstein"
4) Corey Haim in "Lucas"
5) Robert Mitchum in "The Night of the Hunter"
6) Terrence Stamp in "Superman II"
7) Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation."
8) David Carradine in "Kill Bill: Vol. 2"
9) Bruce Willis in "Twelve Monkeys"
10) Jack Nicholson in "About Schmidt"
11) John Cusack in "The Sure Thing"
12) Robert De Niro in "Midnight Run"
13) John Travolta in "Get Shorty"
14) Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"
15) Jason Segal in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
16) Jack Lemmon in "Some Like It Hot"
17) Walter Matthau in "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"
18) Bruce Campbell in "Bubba Ho-Tep"
19) Humphrey Bogart in "In a Lonely Place"
20) Jeffrey Combs in "Re-Animator"