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50. Vicky Krieps, “Phantom Thread”

Many American audiences were not familiar with Luxembourg-born actress Vicky Krieps before “Phantom Thread”: she’s been working steadily since 2008 (mostly in the world of foreign cinema), although she had small but fruitful roles in Joe Wright’s “Hanna” and also the 2014 espionage thriller “A Most Wanted Man.” All that said, it feels as though her spellbinding, startlingly gentle turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s tale of love and obsession in the world of high fashion was the performance she was born to give. Any actress that can go toe-to-toe with Daniel Day-Lewis is clearly doing something right, but Krieps doesn’t just hold her own in her scenes with the legendary, reclusive thespian – in many instances, she outright eclipses him. Krieps has her work cut out for her playing Alma, who becomes the object of Reynolds Woodcock’s (the tortured designer played by Day-Lewis) affection, desire, and scorn. Throughout “Phantom Thread,” we see how dismissive and cruel Reynolds can be to the women in his life. Knowing that, Alma has to possess something – some otherworldly, luminous quality – that is capable of capturing his imagination and flooding his mind with thoughts and feelings that he’s never experienced. Krieps fluently imbues Alma with a kind of graceful, somewhat unknowable quality: she’s as much of an enigma to Reynolds as she is to us, and one wonders while watching the film if our lead character isn’t trying to court her so much as he’s trying to simply figure her out. It’s an unobtrusive knockout of a performance, as well as the announcement of a remarkable and indispensable new talent. – NL

49. Barry Keoghan, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”

Acting in a Yorgos Lanthimos film is probably one of the most deceptively difficult tasks for an actor these days. Past generations of actors have cut their teeth on the dialogue of David Mamet and Harold Pinter, both challenging in their own right, but it takes a certain kind of actor to deliver the deadpan, almost robotic dialogue that’s required for a Lanthimos film. Colin Farrell might have been the unexpected muse of Lanthimos, but young Irish actor Barry Keoghan gave him a run for his money in the acidically funny body horror nightmare “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” One of the most unusual, but supremely watchable actors to emerge this decade, Keoghan had been popping up in supporting roles in films like “Dunkirk” throughout the latter half of the decade, but it “Sacred Deer” felt like his first genuine breakout role. Essentially playing an enigma with increasingly sinister intentions, Keoghan makes every bizarre gesture and line of dialogue feel shockingly natural. In one of the best scenes of Lanthimos’ career, Keoghan sits in his boxers eating a disgusting plate of spaghetti that would make Harmony Korine blush, recalling a seemingly innocuous memory of his late father to Nicole Kidman’s traumatized mother. It’s hard to imagine anybody keeping a straight face during the scene, but Keoghan somehow manages to make the scene simultaneously chilling and shockingly funny. A character that could have been another tired example of the “bad seed” so many young actors have been asked to play in their careers, Keoghan mines the role of Martin for something far more gleefully sadistic, turning in one of the most surprising villainous turns of the decade. – MR

48. Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”

Nothing is quite as powerful as the quiet resolve of a loving mother, and one would be hard pressed to find a better expression of this in cinema than what Regina King brings to the table in “If Beale Street Could Talk.” This is hardly an opinion, too: King won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Golden Globe, and a slew of critic’s association honors for her turn as Sharon, the mother of a pregnant young African American woman. Modulating between protective guardian when told of the unexpected pregnancy, to an aggressive defender when meeting with the in-laws, to desperate advocate when confronting the woman who falsely accused her would-be son-in-law of rape, King’s work is masterful. There’s nothing flashy about the performance, however, and director Barry Jenkins wisely rations the use of Sharon, who represents stability and perseverance in the face of unspeakable oppression. In 20th century America, the African American community struggled to take control of their own narrative, and while public victories in this regard manifested themselves through the Civil Rights movement, the forgotten ones appeared in the form of strong community scions who refused to let the ugliness of the country snuff out their dreams. -Warren Cantrell

47. Robert Pattinson, “Good Time”

There are two key moments in Josh & Benny Safdie’s electrifying thriller “Good Time” that offer us a portal into the soul of Connie Nikas, the Queens-born hustler played by a nearly unrecognizable Robert Pattinson. Both moments are in the back of a car, both serve as almost bookends for his race against time journey. The first is in the back of a getaway car where Connie and his mentally disabled brother Nick (played by co-writer/director Benny Safdie in a mesmerizing, underrated turn) are on their way to freedom. They’ve just successfully robbed a bank and they’re on their way to a life far away from the endless hustle of living in Queens. It’s one of the rare moments in the 100 minute adrenaline ride that approaches anything approximating calm. We’re close on Connie as he looks out the window and for a fleeting moment, everything has gone as planned. He’s radiating life, watching the working class streets of his upbringing flash by, leaving them in the rearview forever as he embarks on a life of solitude with his brother in the woods. It’s a moment that most actors would have either basked in for far too long, overplaying the high before the inevitable low, but in the hands of an actor as gifted as Pattinson, it’s a moment so subtle you might not catch it until repeat viewings. There are terms that get thrown around so often for performances that they start to lose meaning, but Pattinson’s performance in “Good Time” is the very definition of “transformative.” The moment he bursts into his brother’s psychiatric appointment with the kind of brazen confidence you only see in a natural born hustler, wearing a Pelle Pelle jacket that should have stayed in the 90s, greasy slicked back hair and a diamond stud earring, you know exactly who Connie Nikas is. In that final key moment, we see Connie in the back of a squad car, out of options, knowing he’s headed back to the only place the system ever wanted him. It’s the last time we see Connie and the adrenaline is still pulsating through his veins, and as exhausted as he is, we can’t shake the feeling that there’s still a plan running through his head. He can’t give up. Pattinson has spent the last decade trying to shake himself of the teen heartthrob shackles, turning in consistently fantastic work, but “Good Time” is the role that announced him as an absolute force of nature and one of the best of his generation. – MR

46. Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”

If only we all could have had a best friend like Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson when we were kids – then, the slings and arrows of high school may not have seemed so treacherous to navigate. Saiorse Ronan had given some spectacular performances before her unofficial coronation in Greta Gerwig’s plucky coming-of-age landmark (she’s particularly good in “Brooklyn,” and makes the most out of a fairly minor part in “The Grand Budapest Hotel”), but nothing that burns with the compassion, wit and righteous teenage anger of her performance here. Lady Bird is a Sacramento rebel who refuses to be put in a box. She won’t be categorized or forced to do anything she doesn’t want to do – not by her parents, her cool-girl classmates, or a brooding, handsome musician (Timothee Chalamet, duh) who threatens to steal her heart. Ronan captures the character’s headstrong tenacity while maintaining a remarkable balancing act: suggesting that Lady Bird has a deep sense of who she is and what she’s about, while also hinting at the prospect that she may not be as fully formed as she thinks she is. A movie like this simply wouldn’t work without a dynamite lead performance at its center, and lucky for us, Ronan is more than up to the challenge. Is it really a surprise to anyone that Gerwig enlisted her once again to play another strong, single-minded young woman in her 2019 adaptation of “Little Women?” – NL

45. Josh Brolin, “Inherent Vice”

Perhaps you knew a mean-spirited jock back in high school: the kind of guy who enjoyed tormenting nerds and probably never amounted to a hill of beans after graduation. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice,” that guy is Josh Brolin’s Detective “Bigfoot” Bjornsen: a crew-cutted high school bully who’s all grown up and just beginning to realize what how pathetic and worthless is. In this case, the nerd who acts as the recipient of Bjornsen’s cruelty is Joaquin Phoenix’s dope-addled snoop Doc Sportello – a man who, in spite of his inchoate nature and affinity for intoxicants, is actually a more capable crime-fighter than his brawny cohort. Brolin plays these kind of dim-witted he-men better than most (he’s done so in everything from Oliver Stone’s “W.” to Jody Hill’s “Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter”), precisely because he invests these specimens with a degree of sensitivity that they almost certainly would not warrant in real life. For proof, witness the desperation with which Brolin cries out for “moto panacaku” in his favorite Japanese diner, or watch him devour a fistful of ganja in a moment of abject desperation near the film’s conclusion. Bigfoot may be a monster, but he’s a monster with an all-too-human core – one that Brolin plays in a note-perfect key. – NL

44. Colin Farrell, “The Lobster”

It hurts to watch Colin Farrell in Yorgos Lanthimos’ brutally pessimistic and totally brilliant romantic parable “The Lobster,” and not at all because his performance is subpar. In fact, it’s rarely anything less than superlative (hence its inclusion on this list). No, Farrell’s performance in “The Lobster” is so tough to watch because it’s such an uncomfortably relatable depiction of what sadness and depression look like on a bone-deep level. It’s a little strange, at first, to see the dashing, handsome Irish leading man playing an utterly average and unremarkable Everyman with a paunch, an unflattering mustache, and a stilted, borderline-robotic way of speaking (though, to be fair, this is a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, so everybody kind of has a stilted, robotic way of speaking). And yet, Farrell has always been a character actor trapped inside a leading man’s body, and he commits to his character’s tragically human yearning for love and connection without ever condescending to his plight. Farrell would go on to play another loser tormented by fate for this director in the much icier and less humane “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” amplifying the delusion of his character to a degree that would have been unthinkable in “The Lobster.” What’s brilliant about Farrell’s work in his first collaboration with Lanthimos is that he brings a sense of genuine sorrow to a work that is otherwise characteristically clinical without ever stooping to something maudlin. Lanthimos’ next project is an adaptation of Jim Thompson’s savagely funny Western “Pop 1280,” and while it remains unconfirmed as to whether or not Farrell will be featured in that movie, let’s just say that we, for one, would not be unhappy were he to take on the role of desperate, conniving sheriff Nick Corey. – NL

43. Mya Taylor, “Tangerine”

Acting in a Sean Baker film can’t be easy. Baker is committed to street-level realism above all else: there is no room for artifice in any of his films. This is particularly true in the frenetic, funny, deeply soulful “Tangerine,” a slice of hard-boiled life that’s also a buddy movie about a particularly manic day in the life of two Hollywood sex workers. “Tangerine” is a film buoyed by a kind of frantic, raucous DIY energy, and nowhere is that energy more apparent than in the outstanding supporting performance of Mya Taylor. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez is technically the movie’s lead – the wonderfully named Sin-Dee-Rella, a sex worker who’s fresh out of jail and looking to track down their unfaithful, piece-of-shit boyfriend – but much of the movie’s rambunctious vigor comes as a result of Taylor’s performance. In “Tangerine,” Taylor plays the kind of best friend we all wish we had: loyal, funny, brutally honest, and willing to follow their friend wherever they may go. Taylor also brings no shortage of honest emotion to the part, which is crucial when you consider that Baker’s movie is a relentless, stylized mood movie where moments of pathos often sneak up on the viewer. Taylor has retreated from the spotlight since “Tangerine” (they allegedly spend much of their time in North Dakota, far from the hustle and bustle of Tinseltown), but this performance is one for the ages: one that burns red-hot with compassion, tenderness, vulgarity, and live-wire lunacy. – NL

42. Sakura Ando, “Shoplifters”

The true power of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Shoplifters” doesn’t really dawn on the viewer until after they’ve watched it and been forced to sit with it and process its many layers of narrative significance. This is an emotionally trenchant but nevertheless tricky film about “choosing” the one thing in life that you can’t really choose: a family. Much has been made of Kore-eda’s light, gentle directorial touch (it should go without saying that his ongoing fixation with family owes a considerable debt to Yasujiro Ozu) but if we’re being diplomatic, “Shoplifters” is also an astonishingly well-acted movie from top to bottom. The great Sakura Ando plays Nobuyo, the matriarch of the family that acts as the movie’s central focus, and like many movie mothers; she’s the glue of this scrappy ancestral unit. Whereas her shifty husband Osamu (the indispensable Lily Franky) emits an unmistakable con-artist energy, Nobuyo is the stabilizing force of calm in a family where the biggest question is whether they can afford to make it through another day (the character’s dismal fate when the movie takes a dark turn in its surprising final stretch is disheartening, but also resoundingly honest and authentic). Ando provides a welcome source of steadiness and solidity in a film that is constantly shifting and redefining what it wants to be. Kore-eda has always been masterful at assembling fictional family units, and with the help of Ando and the rest of his cast, the makeshift household at the center of “Shoplifters” might be his most convincing make-believe family to date. – NL

41. Daniela Vega, “A Fantastic Woman”

The key ingredient of Sebastian Lelio’s marvelous “A Fantastic Woman” is the supremely talented Daniela Vega: a trans mezzo-soprano who channels tremendous reservoirs of lust, doubt, and yearning over this picture’s tumultuous 104-minute runtime. Throughout “A Fantastic Woman,” you simply can’t take your eyes off of Vega: our star bolsters the grand, exuberant spirit of the movie’s script (credited to Lelio and Gonzalo Maza) with a swooning sense of romance and an enviable lightness of touch. Vega plays Marina, who lives in Santiago, Chile and dreams of becoming a nightclub singer. Marina’s boyfriend is a straight-laced older gentleman named Orlando (Francisco Reyes). One day, Orlando suffers what appears to be a stroke before taking a long, horrible tumble down a flight of stairs. When Marina rushes their lover to the hospital, they are greeted with hostility and disdain by the orderlies, even having to endure a particularly nasty (and deliberately misused) pronoun at one point. When Orlando finally passes, our protagonist comes to know the rest of Orlando’s family, including the man’s pleasant brother Gabriel (Luis Gnecco, giving another memorably droll turn after his Award-worthy work in “Neruda”). At the center of all this swirling color and madness and love is Vega, giving one of the most unembellished and unaffected portraits of a queer-identifying person that we’ve seen realized on screen. Our star’s magnetic turn here should be as good an argument as any that Hollywood would do well to take a page out of the indie/world cinema playbook by not casting white/cis-hetero movie stars as these unfairly marginalized people. – NL