There are some new faces on this feature this year, which is lucky for me, because otherwise I think I’d have trouble writing up this intro. Let’s get right to the best leading turns in this year’s movies.
Jessie Buckley
It’s hard holding down the center of a movie when you’re playing opposite William Shakespeare himself. But then, that’s no problem for the Dublin native, who is no stranger to this column. In Hamnet, she not only excels in the big passages after her son dies, but also in the later bits when she goes to London and finds that Will is living a spartan existence so that he can turn their loss into one of the greatest plays of all time.
Timothée Chalamet
Is his turn in Marty Supreme the performance of his career? The 30-year-old has dazzled us on many occasions, but I think it’s between this movie and Call Me by Your Name for his greatest work so far. He seems effortless as the bastardly but redeemable titular table tennis champion whether he’s calling out a crooked cop’s corruption or flipping a prop knife 10 feet in the air during a play rehearsal. His antics during his press tour for the movie effectively highlighted his brilliance on the screen.
Ethan Hawke
Let’s start this off by agreeing that the part of a sub-5-foot self-destructive gay alcoholic who also happens to be one of America’s greatest songwriters is going to be a showcase role no matter who plays it. Now having said that, Hawke dominates Blue Moon by playing Lorenz Hart as an unsentimental writer caught in a sentimental time, and whose personal demons prevent him from finding the escape hatch.
Michael B. Jordan
Forget Oscar nominations, he should have won the damn statuette for his work in Black Panther. It seems like the Academy will finally notice him for Sinners. His continuing collaboration with Ryan Coogler bore a bumper crop of fruit in the form of a showcase dual role as two very different twin brothers whose devotion to each other lasts even beyond death. With such a talented roster of supporting players behind him, he nevertheless carried the movie to an awe-inspiring degree.
Jennifer Lawrence
Isn’t this why we have her? Die My Love is another chance for her to go balls to the wall as she plays an isolated, dog-killing housewife whose postpartum depression turns into postpartum psychosis and burns down an entire forest. As a woman who’s a wrecking ball as an adult because he was wrecked herself as a kid, Lawrence is better than the movie that she’s in, to the point where she unbalances it.
Lee Byung-hun
The 55-year-old Seoul native has an extensive English-language resumé in the likes of Squid Game, KPop Demon Hunters, and The Magnificent Seven. In No Other Choice, he manages to stay sympathetic as the laid-off paper executive who plots to murder his competition and succeeds to a great degree despite making so many mistakes. He finds the ridiculous comedy in his character’s plight, and makes the movie into such superb black comedy as it is.
Wagner Moura
You know the 49-year-old Brazilian actor from his turns in Civil War and TV’s Narcos, where he played Pablo Escobar. In The Secret Agent, he portrays a professor named either Marcelo or Armando who hides out from government hit men because he once pissed off an oligarch businessman, and he shows the man’s anger, his awareness of his predicament’s absurdity, and his loneliness at being separated from his son. If Brazil repeats as an Oscar winner for this movie, his performance will be a big reason why.
Renate Reinsve
A lesser actor would have been overwhelmed by the quality in Sentimental Value’s supporting cast, and the mere fact that she wasn’t says something. Of course, she did bring a ton to the table as a globally famous artist’s heavily damaged oldest daughter who paid a heavy price to protect her younger sister from the worst aspects of their upbringing. If the Academy voters overlook her a second time, we need to get out the pitchforks and torches.
Abou Sangaré
The 24-year-old native of Guinea worked as an auto mechanic in real life before portraying an auto mechanic from Guinea in Souleymane’s Story. Of course, it takes more than that to make this list, and so the first-time actor conveys the nonstop hustle of his character’s life in Paris and his desperation to make money to pay off his mother’s medical bills in Africa. The film’s final scene, when he finally cracks in front of an immigration officer, is as touching and unforgettable as any professional actor could have done.
Amanda Seyfried
It’s not just that she has a British accent in The Testament of Ann Lee, and it’s not just that the movie gives her a far grittier setting than we’re used to seeing her in. (Case in point: The plush The Housemaid.) Her musical theater skills somehow enhance her performance as the Christian martyr who traveled to the American colonies to found a utopian colony of believers who shared her faith. Her depiction of Ann Lee’s faith under great torture is enough to make you believe.
Emma Stone
It’s one thing to be weird, it’s another to be this good while being weird. Her continuing collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos led to her excellent turn in Bugonia as a Big Pharma CEO who continues to dictate the actions of her conspiracy-addled captors. She maintains total control whether her character is flubbing her lines filming a corporate video or spinning a tale about the aliens’ history of the Earth. If there was any doubt that she is one of cinema’s great actors, put it to rest. (Atsushi Nishijima)
Sophie Thatcher
This is the same person who plays Natalie on Yellowjackets? In Companion, she holds in her physicality considerably as a woman who doesn’t know that she is a robot designed for sex and companionship, and when she literally takes control of her life (by picking up the smartphone that contains her controls), it’s an inspiring moment. The bit where she makes herself speak German is a great bit of comedy, too.
Tessa Thompson
Theatergoers who have seen other versions of Hedda Gabler may wish for something wilder and more ruthless than her Hedda, but the genius in her work here is the way she manages to conceal the character’s scheming side (and lesbianism) under a veneer of well-manicured heterosexual normality that allows her to operate in 1950s Britain. The classicist in me loves the new take on Henrik Ibsen’s play, and Thompson’s performance is a big part of that. (Prime)
Honorable mention: Everett Blunck, The Plague; Alison Brie and Dave Franco, Together; Zoey Deutch, The Threesome; Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another; Brendan Fraser, Rental Family; Molly Gordon, Oh, Hi!; Lea Myren, The Ugly Stepsister; Josh O’Connor, The Mastermind; Elizabeth Olsen, Eternity; Jesse Plemons, Bugonia; Tim Robinson, Friendship; Inez Dahl Torhaug, Watch the Skies; Tonatiuh, Kiss of the Spider Woman; Ben Whishaw, Peter Hujar’s Day; Alfie Williams, 28 Years Later, Nina Ye, Left-Handed Girl.
