The 10 Greatest Performances by an Actor

Back to the Best/Worst Master List
These performances must be of the highest calibre, both in acting ability and believability. Even good actors have trouble making their roles seem completely believable. Only the truly great can achieve this, and these are my choices. You will note that there is no worst category to balance out these great performances. The reason for this is that there are literally hundreds of lousy acting jobs in films. Most are laughable, and too numerous to list here. so just enjoy these performances for what they are. All of them are worthy of watching.

1. Dustin Hoffman/Death of a Salesman--Perhaps there is no more difficult role in English speaking theatre than Willy Loman, the protagonist from Hiller's famous play. He presents a special challenge with his relentless negativity, his total absence of anything upbeat and good. He must be played as totally negative, with no redeeming features at all, and Hoffman's performance achieves all of this with great success. It is almost cataclysmic in its impact. Even John Malkovich's great work in this film is overshadowed by Hoffman's brilliant, stunning interpretation of this great character.
2. Martin Landau/Ed Wood--Martin Landau has not done anything of real note in his career, going from Rolland in Mission Impossible to Commander Koenig in Space: 1999. But in this movie, he turns in an absolutely stunning portrayal of Bela Lugosi that is acted down to the finest detail with great skill and believability. You actually believe that it's Lugosi on screen. The performance left me dumbstruck with its greatness. A performance like this comes along only once a decade, if not less frequently. Landau deservedly won the Academy Award for his efforts, and it was nice to see a great actor finally achieve recognition after a largely uneventful career.
3. Sir Laurence Olivier/Hamlet--The Danish prince remains the actor's trump card. Anyone who can play this devious fellow is automatically regarded as highly skilled and worthy of respect. Olivier is possibly the finest actor in the 20th Century, at least in the Enlish speaking theatre. It is a shame that Hamlet is his only Academy Award, but, it is his greatest work, so it is fitting that he be rewarded for it. This role also can lead to hammed up interpretations with great, outlandish gestures and locution that bely its introspectiveness. Olivier achieves all of Hamlets many facets with a performance for the ages. The prince is devious, pitiable, brave, mad, loving, and tragic all at once, and Olivier can project all of those things with a single glance, seemingly.
4. Dustin Hoffman/Rain Man--Dustin Hoffman again shows us why he is one of the top actors America has ever produced. He likes almost impossible challenges as an actor, and Rain Man gives him one: Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant with a supercomputer mind for math related subjects, and no real frame of reference to the real world. Hoffman is mesmerizing in portraying Raymond. His voice is almost gender neutral, with almost no inflection...a simple monotone that is hauntingly effective. He neither portrays pathos or self-pity; Hoffman simply plays Raymond as if he were Raymond himself, without any knowledge that he is autistic. Hoffman studied autistic individuals for a year before making this film, and it is apparent in his totally credible performance
5. James Cagney/White Heat--The gangster film is a staple of American cinema as much as apple pie is to the dessert table, and Cagney is probably the most famous gangster movie actor there is. Gangster movies are generally predictable, with the "hero" doing his thing, making some small mistake, and getting caught. Along the way are the two-bit character parts that interact with the star (the gangster), with some cliches thrown in for good measure. White Heat is different. Cody Jarrett is a psycopathic Momma's boy who could kill without compunction, and then need consolation in his mother's lap when his goldfish dies. This was heady stuff in the 1940's. Cagney carries the picture, which is usual in its formula. You don't notice it, however, with Cagney's superb performance. The culminating shot at the oil refinery is possibly (along with the Odessa Steps incident in The Battleship Potemkin) the most famous movie scene in history. It is certainly memorable.
6. Orson Welles/Citizen Kane--Charles Foster Kane is a complex man. He is powerful and influential, running a newspaper empire ruthlessly. He is also sensitive and introspective when he so chooses. Balancing these two aspects of Kane's persona was tough for the 25 year old Orson Welles, who also directed and produced this masterwork, but he handles the acting with grace and character much beyond his years. A true classic performance.
7. Peter Sellers/Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb--Kubrick's masterful satire is driven by Sellers's performance of no less than three roles...the U.S. President, a British officer, and Strangelove himself. All three roles are markedly different. The President is conciliatory and wants to please. The officer is stuffy and lives for protocol and honor. Strangelove is a caricature, possibly of Werner von Braun, with a bionic arm that keeps wanting to salute Hitler (he calls the President Fuehrer). Sellers handles the three roles with ease...so much so, in fact, that you half-expect Clouseau to make a cameo appearance.
8. Sir Anthony Hopkins/Silence of the Lambs--Hopkins is an actor in the same mold as Olivier and Gielgud, classically trained English actors with stunning skill and great range. Hopkins certainly shows this range in portraying a hideously insane, psychopathic, cannibal. Strangely enough, this man has the manners of an English butler--formal and tactful, for a while. Until his complete and utter insanity becomes apparent. Hopkins is so subtle, and the character so vile, that the audience is transfixed by this transformation. Hannibal Lecter is one of the silver screen's all time most despicable characters, and Hopkins is completely convincing in portraying him. After seeing this movie, you might not want to meet Anthony Hopkins in a dark alley, let alone Hannibal the Cannibal.
9. Charlie Chaplin/The Gold Rush--The Gold Rush is one of the greatest comedies, if not films, of all time, and it would not have had its tremendous impact if not for the Little Tramp. Chaplin's comic touch and timing are legendary, and they are shown here in full force. Highlights include his eating a shoe under the watchful glare of Big Jim McKay, and the collapsing cabin. Filmed in 1925, the Gold Rush, and Charlie Chaplin, maintains a solid place in film even 70 years later. Chaplin has been imitated countless times, but never equalled.
10. Tom Hanks/forrest Gump--Seldom does a film hero so powerfully affect an audience as does Forrest Gump, who has the dubious distinction of being named after the founder of the Ku Klux Klan (also a Confederate cavalry General). Forrest is slow (IQ of around 75), but has a heart of gold. His adventures take him through the panorama of the late 20th century, and he is blissfully unaware of how great a man he actually is. Hanks is superb, handling Gump's subtleties and blatantness with great skill and compassion. His having subtleties and blatantness seems to be an oxymoron, but Gump is a complicated character underneath his simple exterior. Tom Hanks won his second Oscar for this portrayal, and it might be the omen of many more nominations and awards to come, as his acting is top notch.