It’s not a controversial statement to say that Cillian Murphy turned in one of the best film performances of the year as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s massive biopic Oppenheimer, and it would be weird to not acknowledge his achievement on a year-end best-of list. But, in addition to the Murphys and the Robbies, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite under-the-radar turns, too. So, for our best performances of 2023 list, we decided to go big: 30 actors, ranging from starring roles to cameos, rom-coms to thrillers. It’s still nowhere near exhaustive; there were just too many good performances this year to mention all of them, but we’ve highlighted the ones that really stood out to us. Here, in alphabetical order, are The A.V. Club’s favorite film performances of the year.
Danielle Brooks was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Sofia in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, so it’s not especially surprising that director Blitz Bazawule asked her to reprise the character in the film adaptation. But for those who never caught her on stage, Brooks is a revelation. We already knew she could steal the show in basically any television ensemble—she was consistently one of the most compelling parts of Orange Is The New Black, and her friendship with John Cena in Peacemaker was a series highlight—but her defiant, captivating performance in The Color Purple announces Brooks as a force to be reckoned with on the big screen, too. [Jen Lennon]
It’s hard for Nicolas Cage to surprise us at this point—he might have the most bizarre and varied filmography of any working actor in Hollywood right now—but damn if he doesn’t give it his best in Dream Scenario. As an unassuming biology professor who suddenly begins appearing in other people’s dreams, Cage delivers a performance that is somehow both understated and over-the-top, bouncing between wildly different scenes with ease. Dream Scenario is pure, unselfconscious Cage at the top of his game. [Jen Lennon]
To make a film about a string of murders of the Osage indigenous people for their oil wealth, Martin Scorsese chooses a fascinating character through which to tell the story: An ineffectual man who still manages to inflict a lot of harm. Someone who, against their better judgment and while knowing all the facts, chooses to do the wrong thing one time after another. DiCaprio transforms himself once again by playing a dimwitted man for the first time. It’s a performance of a thousand faces; confusion, bemusement and bewilderment leading to one man’s grand failure. He proves the cliche true—this is DiCaprio like we’ve never seen him before, emotionally naked, revealing his character’s weakness and foibles. [Murtada Elfadl]
Colman Domingo portrays Civil Rights organizer Bayard Rustin as a man always in motion. As he coordinates the 1963 March on Washington in Rustin, there’s no time to second guess himself—not as a leader, and not as a gay man. Rustin never hid his sexuality, which made other prominent leaders in the movement uncomfortable and hesitant to work with him. But they need him this time, and he knows it—and the way that Domingo throws himself so self-assuredly into the role feels nothing short of revelatory. Even when the film slips into standard biopic tropes, Domingo’s performance stands out as truly capturing the spirit of the real Rustin. [Jen Lennon]
2023 is Ayo Edebiri’s year. The comedian, actor, and writer delivered a stunning performance in The Bear season two, but that’s not nearly all she starred in this year. On the small screen she dropped in on Abbott Elementary, History Of The World Part II, I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, and Black Mirror. Edebiri also worked on movies big (Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and small (Theater Camp). Yet, one of her strongest cinematic achievements came in Emma Seligman’s Bottoms. In this outright hysterical film, she plays soft-spoken Josie, who opens a fight club to try and win over her crush. Edebiri brings palpable humor and authenticity to the role. One moment she can fight like crazy in the stadium, and the next she’s making you believe her lies during a trust circle. The parking lot scene above, which is total improv on her part, cements Edebiri as the rising star of our generation. We’re all just Rachel Sennott, processing in awe ofwhat we’re witnessing. [Saloni Gajjar]
Almost 20 years after portraying another despondent teacher with a drinking problem in Sideways, Giamatti teams up with director Alexander Payne again in The Holdovers to tackle Paul Hunham, a fixture—the way an old couch that isn’t particularly comfortable is a fixture—at a posh New England boarding school who’s the butt of both students’ and fellow teachers’ jokes. Over Christmas break in 1970, he’s tasked (namely, because he has nothing better to do) with overseeing the holdovers—that is, the kids whose parents didn’t pick them up for the holidays. And during this time, Hunham opens up, just a tiny bit, to a student (Dominic Sessa) and fellow staffer (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), spouting wisdom like the following: “I find the world a bitter and complicated place, and it seems to feel the same about me.” Giamatti, as always, has some of the best sad eyes in the game, not to mention some sharp comedic timing, and his character’s outlook perfectly matches the film’s snowy, bittersweet scenery. [Tim Lowery]
In Killers Of The Flower Moon, a movie where Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio are at their absolute broadest, it’s up to Lily Gladstone to add a subtle humanity both quiet and loud. Like so many of the Osage, her Mollie is always on guard, yet not immune to the charms of a pretty face and a courteous gentleman. In her stillness we can see both love and suspicion cruelly intertwined; in her inevitable grief every time a new body surfaces, she shares a generational cry of pain. [Luke Y. Thompson]
This summer we were all Greta Gerwig in this behind-the-scenes video about the making of the “I’m Just Ken” musical number in Barbie, cracking up at Ryan Gosling’s antics as Ken. We don’t care how the Academy Awards classifies it, he’s more than just a supporting character—Ken is the leading man in his own parallel journey of self-discovery. Gosling plays him as the embodiment of “blonde fragility,” a handsome, needy, utterly sincere dummy with a chip on his shoulder and his heart on his sleeve. With every carefully calibrated gesture—a nod of his head, the rise of an eyebrow, a tightening in his jaw—he tells us exactly what’s going on in that little plastic brain of his. And he keeps that up through some pretty elaborate musical numbers, too. It’s harder than it looks to play a character who’s unintentionally funny, but Gosling nailed it. And it was more than “Kenough” (sorry, not sorry). [Cindy White]
Could we please have more comedies like BlackBerry? This scrappy rags-to-riches-to-irrelevance story could have gone down so many wrong—or at least hyperbolic or needlessly dramatic or long—paths, but it doesn’t. Instead, it’s a truly funny film, with no narrative fat and a confident, energizing style. All great stuff. But it’s Glenn Howerton’s (It’s Always Sunny) brilliant portrayal of a bald, dickish, frustrated corporate shark (the Darth Vader to the ragtag group of nerds who actually program BlackBerrys) that puts the film over the top. [Tim Lowery]
Is Anatomy Of A Fall, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning marvel, a The Staircase-esque investigation that—at least for yours truly—stayed thrilling from beginning to end despite its nearly three-hour runtime, the best courtroom drama ever? I have … no idea, but I wouldn’t scoff at the proclamation. At the very least, it’s a reminder that this particular genre can pack as much artistic ambition and be as worthy of post-screening discussions as any other. And none of Triet’s careful compositions, slight twists, and questions about truth land as well as they do here without its star, Sandra Hüller, who plays a German writer (one who can also speak English but not French, an important character trait) accused of killing her husband in a cabin in the French Alps. Her facial expressions, pauses, misunderstandings, and body language speak volumes, further muddying the waters as to what really happened just when you think you’re getting a handle on it. [Tim Lowery]
Like Margot Robbie in Babylon last year, Barry Keoghan’s provocative performance in Emerald Fennell’s eat-the-rich drama Saltburn is in danger of getting lost in the discourse over the relative merits of the film itself. Both were initially positioned as Oscar contenders, but their hopes faded once critics and audiences actually saw the films and started picking them apart. That shouldn’t take anything away from Keoghan, though, or his ability to hold the center of a film in a leading role, in this case, an Oxford student who forms a bond with a wealthy classmate (played by Jacob Elordi) and joins him for the summer at his family’s large estate. Fennell tasks Keoghan with some pretty challenging material, sometimes merely for the sake of shock value, and he absolutely goes for it, holding nothing back. Even if Saltburn is soon forgotten, what Keoghan does in the film is worth remembering. [Cindy White]
It’s no secret, perhaps, why No Hard Feelings is doing so well on Netflix; adolescent male eyeballs are undoubtedly drawn to the previously nudity-averse actress doing a skinny-dipping scene. Prurient interests aside, the moment where her Maddie delivers an in-the-buff beatdown on the young punks trying to steal her stuff is one of fearless choices; an actress who has clearly said to herself, “Screw it, I’m going for it.” Maddie’s relatable if not necessarily likable—her financial woes ring true, while her willingness to lie goes further than most. That Lawrence commits more to the character than protecting her image is, paradoxically, what makes her a star. [Luke Y. Thompson]
Past Lives is a subtle and intimate film. While the dialogue is certainly pointed and affecting, Celine Song’s directorial debut relies heavily on its actors to convincingly display melancholia and yearning. She finds a perfect anchor in Greta Lee, whose subdued and trenchant performance steals the show (and, of course, she has great co-stars in Teo Yoo and John Magaro). With Russian Doll and The Morning Show, Lee has appeared in TV shows that are louder and more unapologetic than an indie film like Past Lives. Here, she stretches her skills and range to prove her mettle. It’s a sight to behold as Nora traipses through New York City, her new home, with the one who got away years ago. In Nora, Lee brings depth and naturalism, never more so than in the film’s final scene, which allows her to break down finally—and we can break down with her. [Saloni Gajjar]
If you cast Character Actress Margo Martindale in your movie, you’re always making the right choice. She has the innate ability to assimilate into any character, whether it’s a stern Russian spy in The Americans, a small-town bartender in Nobody’s Fool, or a Kentucky drug lord in Justified. And in Cocaine Bear, Martindale is at her wildest as park ranger Liz. Her striking performance becomes one of the best parts of the Elizabeth Banks-directed film. It’s impossible not to crack up when she’s on screen, especially when she struggles to shoot the drugged-up animal and spectacularly fails. She tinges her act with the right amount of ludicrousness, making Martindale’s performance one of the funniest of the year. [Saloni Gajjar]
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret could have been a treacly sap-fest of tropes in the wrong hands. But writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig delivered a remarkably heartfelt and faithful adaptation of Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age novel, and the fact that the film works as well it does comes down to the performances. Rachel McAdams nails her portrayal of a mom on a self-discovery journey which parallels that of her 11-year-old daughter’s; as Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) navigates the perils of puberty, McAdams adjusts to being a suburban housewife after years spent as a New York City art teacher. McAdams and Fortson make a charming duo, but it’s McAdams who stands out as the emotional heart of the film. [Jen Lennon]
It’s hard to steal the scene when you’re acting opposite 2023’s second-most popular living doll onscreen, but McGraw manages to be almost as memorable as her mechanical costar in M3gan. While so many child actors play cute, McGraw’s Cady can be as lovable, frustrating, and aggravating as a real child. Much as the viewer wants her to just snap out of her trauma, she’s not a programmable doll like her favorite toy supposedly is. When she finally gets her priorities clear and stabs her deadly friend in the head, it’s a glorious triumph of family over commerce—one the inevitable sequel will undoubtedly undercut in more ways than one. [Luke Y. Thompson]
In May December, director Todd Haynes forces us to examine our own obsessions with scandal and celebrity, and the harm that often goes unseen. It’s been called a black comedy and a dark satire, and it is both of those things at various points, but when it turns its attention to Charles Melton’s fascinating character Joe, it becomes a tragedy. He’s caught between two strong women, each assertive and manipulative in her own way. Julianne Moore’s Gracie has been grooming him since he was in 7th grade and their relationship became tabloid fodder. He’s now become a walking contradiction, having grown up too fast but also having never really grown up at all. When Natalie Portman’s Elizabeth Berry arrives to carelessly dredge up the past in the name of research as she prepares to play Gracie in an upcoming movie, he reaches his breaking point. Melton gives us every complicated facet of Joe’s inner turmoil as he begins to process what happened to him for the first time in his adult life. Portman and Moore are both very good in the film, as expected, but it’s Melton who turns out to be May December’s secret weapon. [Cindy White]
Christopher Nolan has never been one for emotive language in his screenplays, even when delving deep (sometimes literally) into his characters’ inner worlds. Rather than expend precious words charting the mental landscape of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, then, Nolan simply gifts us a series of deep, searching looks at actor Cillian Murphy’s face—and it’s more than enough, as Murphy captures so much of the man’s arrogance, intellect, and charisma through little more than the widening of his compelling and expressive eyes. Murphy plays Oppenheimer perfectly at every point of his long rollercoaster of a career, from the young upstart to the public punching bag. But he’s never better than in the film’s most haunting scene, as the scientist/politician addresses his team in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima. Nolan gets metaphorical here, showing the audience devoured in a flash of harrowing light as Oppenheimer’s imagination tears him apart. But it’s secondary to the scene’s real special effect: The expressions flitting across Murphy’s face—disgust, pride, horror, and worse—as he finally internalizes that he may be the man who killed the world. [William Hughes]
Ashley Park finally gets the leading role she deserves in Joy Ride, Adele Lim’s severely underrated comedy. The breakout star of Emily In Paris, Park shines here as Audrey Sullivan. Over the course of the film, Audrey transforms from a type-A lawyer to someone who discovers the fun side of her personality while trying to find her birth mother on a girl’s trip to China. It’s easy to root for everything Park does because of the realism she brings to Audrey, which perfectly balances the absurdity of her talented co-stars Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, and Sabrina Wu. Hopefully, with films like Joy Ride, Hollywood realizes Asian American stories aren’t a monolith and that actors like Park are capable of championing them. [Saloni Gajjar]
Is there a harder character trait to capture, in all of film, than “charming”? So nebulous, so easy to ruin—and yet it’s exactly what Chris Pine delivers, in abundance, as the lead in 2023’s shockingly enjoyable Dungeons & Dragons movie Honor Among Thieves. As good-guy-turned-thief (who’s still mostly pretty good) Edgin, Pine is the face of every tabletop player who’s ever tried to fast-talk their way past a humorless DM, channeling a young Harrison Ford in his capacity for letting flop-sweat panic bleed through a thin veneer of smarm. Pine sells the film’s more human moments easily, but it’s his gifts as a comic actor that really get a workout here, as Edgin leaps from one bad idea to the next, holding on to just enough confidence to convince his comrades that this time, definitely, he absolutely has a plan. [William Hughes]
As an actor preparing to portray a real-life person in May December, Natalie Portman delivers a high-wire act. She has to play the character of the actor while slowly merging into the persona of her on-screen co-star, Julianne Moore. Is it one character or two? A fascinating and intricately modulated performance is what it is. In a signature scene, Portman transforms into Moore as the two face a mirror that’s actually the camera, enabling the audience to look right at them as if privy to a secret. With every vicious line reading—“This is what grown-ups do”—Portman’s character cajoles and manipulates to get what she wants while Portman reveals the mercenary nature of acting. [Murtada Elfadl]
In a war between initially unlikable students and their teacher, it’s no wonder most of us found ourselves rooting for the cook in The Holdovers. Mary, who has suffered the hardest tragedy of all in the loss of her son, exudes sympathy for the outcasts as they’re forced together over an isolated vacation period. Though the movie isn’t really Mary’s story, focusing primarily on the growing bond between broken-down Paul (Paul Giamatti) and neglected teen Angus (Dominic Sessa), it’s her essential humanity and tenacity with (mostly) a smile that guides their way. She also serves as a crucial reminder, without lecturing or finger-pointing, that their tragic backstories nonetheless carry a privilege she never can. [Luke Y. Thompson]
Paul Reubens’ final film role in Quiz Lady is short and sweet: it’s just a quick cameo, but he makes a fan’s day with his selfless charisma—even as he’s pretending to be Alan Cumming. It’s a case of mistaken identity, an acknowledgment of the actors’ uncanny resemblance, which fans have commented on for years. But it’s fitting that Reubens rolls with it just to make the woman happy. It feels like something Reubens would do in real life, too: his dedication to making others smile showed through in every one of his roles, even his last one. [Jen Lennon]
Barbie has meant so many things to so many people over the years, as a semi-blank slate designed to be an avatar for children’s imaginations, that encompassing all she is, while looking inhumanly perfect at the same time, would seem an impossible task. As Helen Mirren’s voiceover reminds us, Margot Robbie makes it look easier. As a stereotypical Barbie, she lives life according to her accessories. As a plaything remembered, she begins to have existential doubt. In embodying what the blonde bombshell doll means to nostalgic adults, cynical kids, and everyone in between, Robbie expertly plays with expectations of herself as an actress as well. Even when Ken nearly takes over the movie, it’s still her narrative to set. [Luke Y. Thompson]
In Passages, Franz Rogowski stars as Tomas, a man who just can’t stop fucking up his life. Between all the relationship drama with his husband and the woman Tomas cheated on him with, though, Rogowski expertly navigates the unknowable nature of desire. What turns us on, who we’re attracted to; none of it makes sense, and Rogowski turns himself over to his basest desires. Passages is definitely the horniest film of the year, but it’s also thoughtful, and it wouldn’t work without the deeply human performance at its center. [Jen Lennon]
People will probably be calling Andrew Scott “Hot Priest” for the rest of his life, but with All Of Us Strangers, he delivers a performance that’s at least equally as memorable, even if his character’s name isn’t quite as catchy. As Adam (Scott) cautiously enters into a relationship with his neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), he also finds himself inexplicably able to communicate with his parents, who died when he was 12. It’s a role that requires a lot of observation; Scott spends much of his screentime letting Adam’s emotions play out on his face rather than talking about his feelings. That we never have to guess what Adam is feeling is a tremendous achievement for Scott. It’s clear, with just one look, exactly what’s going through his head. [Jen Lennon]
Emma Stone is, simply put, unreal in Poor Things. With this movie and Showtime’s The Curse, she’s in her fascinating weird girl era. Playing a character like Bella Baxter requires her to give herself completely to the role, and director Yorgos Lanthimos’ strange vision of it. Thankfully, she is more than up to the challenge of shouldering a film that is so outrageous, audacious, and hilarious. Stone minutely crafts and performs every detail of Bella’s evolution, whether it’s her comical delivery or facial expressions (ranging from wonder to pleasure to grief to rage). However, Stone specifically emerges triumphant in embodying Bella’s physicality—her entire being comes alive as she finds societal and sexual liberation. It’s impossible to tear your eyes away from her in Poor Things, leading Stone to give the best performance of her entire career. [Saloni Gajjar]
We generally expect Swinton to steal the show when she appears in anything. But to do so in only one scene, in a meticulously crafted David Fincher film, is perhaps a theft more expert than any of the hits Michael Fassbender’s anonymous criminal pulls off in The Killer. Facing a stoic, almost silent Fassbender who deliberately gives her very little to work with and promises death with his mere appearance, she appears to accept her fate while indulging in some last-minute culinary hedonism. Only moments later is it clear she was attempting a double bluff that her particular sort of coworker might fall for. Unfortunately for her, he has not. Fortunately for us, she nonetheless becomes a crucial ingredient in the film’s flavor palate. [Luke Y. Thompson]
Talk To Me was one of the year’s great horror debuts—both for directors Danny and Michael Philippou and star Sophie Wilde. Wilde’s portrayal of a young woman overwhelmed by grief to the point where she can no longer make rational decisions cuts close to the bone. There are moments when we should be furious with her, moments when the rest of the characters certainly are, but Wilde still manages to garner empathy even when she continues to put the people around her in danger. [Jen Lennon]
Jeffrey Wright has quietly proved himself again and again to be one of the most talented actors working in Hollywood today, and American Fiction gave him a chance to show off his tremendous range in a role that was tailor-made for him. In the film, Wright plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author who deals with the rejection of his latest novel by writing a stereotypical, pandering book under a pseudonym and then has to roll with it when it becomes a runaway bestseller. That’s the high-concept logline, and if that’s all there was to it it would still be a humorous commentary on race, culture, and the systemic blind spots within the publishing industry. But it goes much deeper. While all this is happening, Monk is also dealing with family drama, and coming to terms with the ways in which his past shaped the person he is now. Wright plays him a little out of sync with the rest of the world. He can be prickly, and not always likable, yet you understand this character because Wright understands him, and puts it all out there on the screen. [Cindy White]