Runners-Up: Casey Affleck in Out of the Furnace proves once again why he really should get more attention and roles –
even if he doesn’t seem to want them – as his intense performance here is the
film’s emotional core. Javier Bardem in
The Counselor perfectly delivers McCarthy’s long, complex monologues. Bradley Cooper and Louis CK in American
Hustle make an excellent comic duo – Cooper is great
throughout the film as the FBI agent, whose ego gets out of control, but he
elevates his game when opposite C.K. – their scenes are perhaps the best in the
movie. Chris Cooper in August: Osage
County was the one male actor, except for a pitch perfect one scene by Sam
Shepherd, who completely nailed his character in this large ensemble piece. Paul Dano in 12 Years a Slave leaves a
definite impression in only a few short scenes. Andrew Dice Clay in Blue Jasmine played a normal guy to simple
perfection. Nathan Fillion in Much Ado
About Nothing is best in show in Joss Whedon’s modern day retelling of the
Shakespeare play – every time he opened his mouth, I laughed. Ben Foster in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints gives
the least showy performance of his career – a quietly heartbreaking
performance. Paul Giamatti in 12 Years a
Slave had only a few scenes, but they are devastating in how casually he
can deliver such hate filled dialogue.
Ryan Gosling in The Place Beyond the Pines anchors the first of the three
segments of the movie, and is so good, the movie never quite lives up to him
once he leaves. Dwayne Johnson in Pain
& Gain is delightfully off kilter as a gentle giant, turned drug fueled
murderer. Brad Pitt in The Counselor delivered
perhaps my favorite performance in the film – all wry humor – and handled the
monologues with ease. Keith Stanfield in
Short Term 12 delivered a quiet, but emotionally devastating performance –
especially when he opens up and raps. Wu
Jiang in A Touch of Sin plays a stubborn character that gradually becomes
fed up with the corruption he sees all around him.
Top Ten
John Goodman is always so great when he is in a Coen brother’s movie that it almost becomes easy to overlook him. While his performance in Inside Llewyn Davis does not reach the heights of his work in Barton Fink or The Big Lebowski (two movies he easily should have at least been nominated for Oscars for) – it’s still great work. As an aging, overweight, heroin addicted jazz musician, who shares a ride with Llewyn to Chicago (or most of the way anyway), Goodman once again delivers a larger than life comedic performance. He is the one character in the movie who may be an even bigger asshole than Llewyn - the preview makes him look like a comedic character, which he is – but his performance in the movie makes him more than just comic relief, but someone Llewyn sees perhaps a little of his future self in. Goodman is one of those actors who is great in pretty much everything – it’s time he starts getting more recognition for it.
9. Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club
Jared Leto took a few years off acting before being drawn back in with this showcase role in Jean-Marc Vallee’s AIDS film. On the surface, Leto’s role looks like pure Oscar bait – he gets to play gay, sick and a cross dresser – those three things by themselves usually make people say a performance is “brave”. And yet Leto goes well beyond the surface level, making Rayon into a fully functional, tragic character that buoys much of the movie, and helps to humanize the lead played by Matthew McConaughey. When Leto leaves the movie, the film deflates a little bit – it misses his presence in the final scenes. Before now, I’ve never been quite sold on Leto as an actor – he was wonderful in Requiem for a Dream, but not much else. Here, he takes what could have been a showy, one note role and turns into something far more than that. That’s what great actors do, and perhaps Leto’s career is just warming up.
It couldn’t have been easy for newcomer Barkhad
Abdi, who has to share his every scene with a veteran like Tom Hanks at the top
of his game – but Abdi more than holds his own. In fact, he does far more than
that as he creates a three dimensional character – someone who we can
understand, even if we do not like what he does. The three other hijackers in
Captain Phillips are fairly one note characters – but Abdi is far from that, as
we first get to see him in his small village – where there is little to no opportunity
for him to do anything but live a life of crime. As he gets on the boat, and
takes Hanks hostage, many of the best scenes in the movie are the tense
standoffs between the two men – with Abdi as a business man who simply wants to
get his money, and who will not back down no matter how unlikely him receiving
it becomes. This is a great debut performance for an actor who I hope will be
able to find some roles suitable for his talent.
7. Jake Gyllenhaal in, Prisoners
Jake Gyllenhaal has made a career out of playing
likable guys – some of his characters may be flawed, but they are all in the
end decent guys. In Prisoners, Gyllenhaal makes no effort to make his Detective
Loki into a nice guy – he’s a cop who is good at his job, but doesn’t play well
with others (hence why he has no partner) – and he has little patience for
grieving families who do little except get in his way as he tries to find their
missing girls. On the page, I’m sure Loki looked like a more boring, straight
ahead no-nonsense movie cop – but Gyllenhaal makes him much more than that – a
bundle of nervous ticks, a violent temper – perhaps a little bit of OCD – that
Gyllenhaal doesn’t dwell on, but places it unmistakably in the background. This
is what a great performance is – elevating the material, which is precisely
what he does in this – one of the year’s most overlooked performances.
6. Stacy Keach in Nebraska
The great performance in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska
that seemingly no one is mentioning is Stacy Keach’s as Woody’s long ago friend
and rival – Ed Pegram. He enters the movie all smiles – welcoming his old
friend Woody back to town with a hearty handshake and a pat on the back.
Throughout the movie though, as news of Woody’s “winnings” become public
knowledge, Keach’s charm turns somewhat dangerous and threatening – that sweet
voice of his turns a little bit darker, that smile a little bit more menacing.
It really is masterful character work for an actor who, like the star of film
Bruce Dern, delivered some great performances back in the 1970s and 1980s, but
who Hollywood never quite found the perfect role for. Ed Pegram is perfect for
Stacy Keach – and shows that perhaps it’s not too late for him to do some great
work. 
5. Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street
Jonah Hill delivers his best performance to date as
Donnie Azoff – Jordan Belfort’s right hand man who may in fact be an even
bigger asshole than his boss. There is no redeeming qualities to Donnie – he is
an amoral asshole from the beginning, who enjoys his larger than life lifestyle
perhaps because it allows him to be as big of a jerk as he becomes – telling
off employees, humiliating them, eating their live fish, pissing on subpoenas,
telling off his underlings, etc. There is not an ounce of vanity in Hill’s
performance – he goes from broke. Hill’s big screen image so far is pretty much
that of a lovable asshole – in The Wolf of Wall Street, he drops the lovable
part and is just all out, total asshole. And he’s perfect in it. 
4. Matthew McConaughey in Mud
Matthew McConaughey has been on a roll in the past
few years – giving excellent and very different, performances in films like The
Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, Killer Joe, Bernie, The Paperboy and Dallas Buyers
Club. I’m not sure his work in Mud is the best of his career (that may be
Killer Joe) – but it’s very close and he is just about perfect in the role.
When I saw Jeff Nichols cast McConaughey in the title role of his latest film,
I assumed it was some sort of concession to commercialism that prevented him
from casting his favorite Michael Shannon (who has a different, smaller role). After
seeing the film, I knew why he chose McConaughey – he is the perfect blend of
Southern charm, romanticism tinged with a little bit of danger for the
character. You have to have an actor like McConaughey in this role for the film
as a whole to work – to buy that Sheridan’s character that do everything he
does for this stranger – and McConaughey nailed it. A few years ago, I probably
would have ranked McConaughey on my list of the worst actors in Hollywood – now
he’s one of my favorites. All it took was for him to start trying.
3. James Gandolfini in Enough Said
The late, great James Gandolfini will always been
known to most as Tony Soprano. His iconic performance on The Sopranos truly is
the best work he ever did in his career. But if one were silly enough to
question his range, all you would have to do is watch Enough Said – where
Gandolfini plays the sweet, lovable slob Albert who falls for Julia Louis
Dreyfuss. Because of his physical appearance, Gandolfini was most often cast as
gangsters and heavies – but here, he has pitch perfect, subtle comic timing and
surprising chemistry with Dreyfuss. For me, his sweet comic turn is the best
work he’s ever done in a movie – a performance that is funny, perceptive,
quiet, subtle – and in one moment, that Gandolfini underplays perfectly,
heartbreaking. I know some think that the love some awards groups have given
him this season is a sympathy vote – a last chance to award a favorite actor.
But Gandolfini earns all the praise he has received for this movie.
2. Michael Fassbender in 12 Years a Slave
The collaboration between director Steve McQueen
and Michael Fassbender has already produced three great movies, and three great
performances from Fassbender. His role in 12 Years a Slave is striking because
while he plays the cruelest and most sadistic of the slave owners in the movie,
the performance never edges into caricature – McQueen has even said he feels
sympathy for the character, as he is in love Patsey but has no idea how to
handle that. I’m not sure I would go that far, but I would say that his
character remains a human monster – someone who either doesn’t realize or
doesn’t care (probably both) just how cruel he’s being – and that goes for the
physical abuse he inflicts, or the strange moments when he wakes up his slaves
in the middle of the night for music and dancing – and doesn’t realize how
degrading they feel it is. Fassbender has quickly become one of the best actors
working – and while I still think his performance in McQueen’s Shame is the
best work he has done, this is close to it. A brilliant performance by a
brilliant actor.
1. James Franco in Spring Breakers
There is perhaps no single character this year more memorable than James
Franco’s Alien – a drug dealer and violent criminal who thinks he has found
four beautiful girls to exploit and gets more than he’s bargained for. Franco –
who performance art extremes sometimes make you question what the hell he’s
doing – is the perfect actor to play Alien – a man who will shout “Look at all
my fucking stuff” without a trace of irony or self-awareness. Franco’s Alien is
scary and creepy – one of the best scenes of the year has him tell Selena Gomez
before she exits the movie “Your friends are staying here – and when I’m with
them, I’ll be thinking about you” is just about the creepiest thing I heard at
the movies all year. Then there is the strange three way “sex scene” with
Franco and Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson – who turn the tables on him with
his own guns. Franco’s Alien is a rapper, a drug dealer and an all-around
worthless human being – and he’s the perfect encapsulation of American culture
right now. I may not always respond to Franco – but when he nails it, he nails
it. His performance in Spring Breakers is the best work he has ever done by
far.
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