The male version of my last post, obviously. The female list was a tad shallow, but this one was really difficult for me to make, since there were almost twice as many performances I would like to have included on this list, so bear with me. Any disagreements? Let me know what you think. Obviously, this list is just my opinion, though, so do try to be civil in making your counter-points: there are children present.
10. Joaquin Phoenix - Inherent Vice
A strange combination of Jeff Bridges' The Dude and Johnny Depp's Raoul Duke, Phoenix goes all out here (as usual for him) and gives one of the most entertaining performances of the year as a whacked-out private investigator in a drug-addled '70s Los Angeles setting. A trippy movie with a lead performance just insane and hilarious enough to match the tone.
9. Gene Jones - The Sacrament
Though his performance is relatively small and a large amount of his actual screen time here is restricted to two scenes, Jones plays the part of the creepily messiah-like cult leader in this disturbing Jonestown inspired thriller to a tee, making every moment he's on-screen count. Obviously not an Oscar-friendly role, but his inclusion in the Best Supporting Actor category would have been a very welcome surprise -- not to mention well-deserved.
8. Pat Healy - Cheap Thrills
Not quite horror, not quite drama, but far too much of both to be flat-out comedy, this is a movie that's all over the map tone-wise, yet Healy somehow manages makes it work on every level nonetheless. Absurd, torturous and exhausting, Healy is the punching bag of a film so intent on distressing every person involved, it would make me sick to my stomach if it weren't so damn entertaining. And it all works, largely due to his performance.
7. Oscar Isaac - A Most Violent Year
Basically the 1980s version of Michael Corleone, Oscar Isaac's morally-conscious businessman has all the nuances and complexities of Pacino's performances in the first two Godfather films, but without all the extra running time. This is the kind of subtle, incredible performance that I feed off of; like how a sea monster with suction cups for a face would.
6. Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game
Though this performance is by no means new ground for Cumberbatch (he's made a career of playing super-intelligent, Aspergersy, and/or homosexual characters), what he does here is what I would consider to be his most fully-realized performance and characterization yet. A complex role handled gracefully by one of the finest actors working today.
5. Ralph Fiennes - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson characters always have a certain style to them in which the actors playing them have to adapt to in order to match the tone of the movie. That style comes very naturally to Fiennes, and the result of which is a comedic goldmine. Fiennes' performance is so in-tune with the outlandish sense of humor oof the rest of the movie and his comedic timing is so spot-on, I find it genuinely hard to believe he has never worked with Wes Anderson before.
4. Brendan Gleeson - Calvary
An excellent spiritual successor to his performance in The Guard, Gleeson blends drama and comedy seamlessly in his performance as a priest doomed to die within a week. In this emotionally-exhausting film with radical tonal shifts and a bizarrely dark sense of humor, Gleeson gives what is possibly his strongest performance, managing to salvage the rest of the film at times when it starts to lose its way.
3. Michael Keaton - Birdman
Easily the best performance of his career, this movie is to Keaton what The Wrestler was to Mickey Rourke. Though the Oscar (much like in Rourke's case) won't go to his clearly superior performance in a non-Oscar bait role, in the years to come, people will not be forgetting just how incredible Keaton really was in this movie, and undoubtedly be regretting the amount of attention they gave to the wrong performances. Hilarious, powerful, and totally insane, this is one of the best, most interesting movies of the year anchored by one of the best, most interesting performances of the year.
2. Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler
A performance more like Daniel Plainview than anything else I've seen, Jake Gyllenhaal's terrifying, morally-stunted lead is 95% of what makes this film so good. Everything about him, from his fast-paced dialogue to his bugged-out appearance, make this one of the most interesting, complex, and downright creepy characters of the year. The fact he didn't get an Oscar nomination for this movie is absolutely insane.
1. J.K. Simmons - Whiplash
Yes. So much yes. We've all seen the angry, scream-as-loud-as-they-can Oscar-y performances that make everyone super happy because shouting is fun to watch, but the characters rarely have more to them than what you see. These roles are often just loud, angry, and get a lot of attention for being just that. What Simmons has here is a great character with a lot more to him than meets the eye. Small glimpses of humanity and a profound emotional core fill in the gaps of a performance largely shown as a man who seems to enjoy being in control and freaking out on everyone all the time. All of it is absolutely heart-stoppingly intense to watch, but in the few brief moments where his more sensitive side show through his brutal persona, he becomes much more than the single-note character some might see him as. And what better actor to play this role than J.K. Simmons? I loved this performance. Every moment he's on screen demands your complete, undivided attention, and the reward is some of the greatest movie insults you've ever heard and a reason for the hair-raising, incredibly intense scenes to be so satisfying to sit through. Miles Teller does a fantastic job in the films lead, but it's Simmons who really steals the show and ultimately gave my favorite performance of 2014.
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