Top 10 Performances of All-Time From Anything

15. (undecided)

14. Kathy Bates, Misery

13. Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall

12. Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Tied at 10. Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive

I suppose to properly ruminate on this performance I'd have to fully understand, or at least attempt to fully understand, the film first. which I don't exactly. Yet. Well, anyway, even without being able to talk with confidence about what exactly Lynch has gone for with Mulholland Drive I can quite confidently call it a masterpiece by the sheer daring and impact of Lynch's vision. It's probably my third favourite of his films after The Elephant Man and Blue Velvet. And Watts' performance is perhaps more attuned to Lynch's universe than anyone has ever been. Hers is a stylized, both innocent and duplicitous, breathtakingly serene and terrifying, piece of work that is the best performance out of any of his films I've seen.

Tied at 10. Alec Guinness, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (miniseries)

I talk more about him here (http://actorvsactor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/head-to-head-tinker-tailor-soldier-spy_24.html) but my thoughts on this performance have since changed a bit and in a good way. Now I absolutely love Gary Oldman's portrayal of George Smiley, it' in my top 20 leading male film performances of all-time, but Guinness' performance as the spy has simply grown on me even more. It's a brilliant performance, easily his best for me (which is saying something), and simply has so many layers to it that every time I watch it I pick up new things from his enigmatic portrayal of Beggarman. 

9. Deborah Kerr, The Innocents

Kerr's my favourite actress of all-time, who had such an elagance and range onscreen but also a great deal of versitality. She could play variations on the same sort of role with such ease and distinction to each (i.e. the contrast between the nuns in Black Narcissus and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison), could put in a spunky comedic leading turn (I Saw a Tall Dark Stranger) or a spellbindingly emotional one (An Affair to Remember, From Here to Eternity), but her performance as Ms Giddens in this brilliant adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is the pinnacle of a great career. Never before has Gothic horror been as strikingly impactful as The Innocents in generating chills through not outright jump scares but through brooding atmosphere and tricks. Key to it all, in fact the reason it all works, is Kerr who is marvellous in creating and amplifying each of the horrors of the film through her brilliant outward reactions, and her incredibly complex work on the psychological, possibly uinstable elements of her character's psyche. 

8. John Hurt, 10 Rillington Place

I talk more about him here (http://actorvsactor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/revised-list-top-30-best-supporting_24.html) but  it's pretty incredibly how a supporting performance, which is usually limited by screentime, focus etc. can make it onto my top 10 list. Really does speak to Hurt's overall brilliance as an actor though.

7. Peter O'Toole, Lawrence of Arabia

O'Tooles performance as T.E. Lawrence is one of those great characters that could so easily go wrong in the hands of a lesser actor. The hype surrounding the film and the portrayal of the character was immense and that O'Toole never let me down, but in fact exceeded my expectations, is incredible. Though he did indeed reach the peak of his career with his breakout role. what a fine peak it was. O'Toole delivers an incredibly unique portrayal of an incredibly unique man, holding the audience's interest over the 4-hour long running time and makes his not-quite-straightforward journey of this mysterious character one of the most compelling in all film history.

6. Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon

Pacino's portrayal of Sonny Wortzik is one of intense daring and magnificent pay-off. It's his greatest performance and that's saying something; his run in the 1970's ay have been a bit overshadowed by Nicholson's but I'd argue that he reached the higher heights overall. Here, he's both funny and tragic, delivers in the manic intensity of the bank robber and the sensitive side of the lover, both energizes the screen with aplomb with his domineering presence, and amplifies the work of his co-stars. 'Dog Day Afternoon' is one of the most important milestones in filmmaking history in so many ways, but above all it is Pacino's magnificent work which makes it stand out as one of the very few films I can truly call flawless. 

5. Takashi Shimura, Ikiru

To name the greatest performance in an Akira Kurosawa film is a difficult, difficult decision to make, and for a long time it was Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo but even then he wasn't the definite choice, there was also Mifune in High and Low, or Seven Samurai, or Yamazaki in High and Low, or Nakadai in Yojimbo or Sanjuro or Ran (I haven't even seen Kagemusha yet) or Machiko Kyō in Rashomon. A recent re-watch however, has put Shimura's devastating portrayal of an elderly man dying from cancer in Ikiru ahead of the pack. Beginning as perhaps the most depressing, painfully sad portrayal of a listless man's rotting existence, Shimura brings so much raw emotional power into each stage of his depression and eventual ascension into a sense of purpose and joy, and makes for perhaps the most powerful film ending in all film history, culminating in equal parts tears and smiles for the viewer. 

4. Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind

This is one of those performances that's just fabulous from start to finish. Firstly, Leigh holds together the long epic so well. Every scene with her just rides along so smoothyl and with such dynamic power, and she really does live up to the reputation of the role of Scarlett O'Hara. She shares some amazing chemistry with Clark Gable, charters the very strange sort of journey her character takes across the backdrop of Civil War and Reconstruction America and reflects this through every aspect of her performance's development, and really does make this one of those must-see performances everyone talks about.

3. Ian Richardson, House of Cards

Richardson's performance as Francis Uruqhart is probably the most perfect Shakespearean performance put on camera, and he's not even a Shakespearean character. As the malevolent Chief Whip, Richardson's fourth-wall breaking antics to the camera are the stuff of telivised legend as he's incisive, fun, terrfying and often, all within the same scene, and makes all these changes in Francis' character simply feel so natural to his development. Richardson was simply perfectly cast in a role he was born to play, and makes House of Cards a brilliant television miniseries to watch, now I must check out Spacey too to see if he will make this list as well.

2. James Stewart, It's a Wonderful Life

Stewart's performance in It's a Wonderful Life encapsulates not only everything that made him such a popular movie star, a showcase for his talents, but also just how much influence he had on the silver screen as an actor. His first film after having taken a hiatus from film to enlist in the U.S. military, Stewart show's not a speck of rust in his portrayal of George Bailey. He's as 'aw shucks' charming as ever in portraying the idealism and steadfast righteousness of George, and merges this undeniable movie star presence of his by undercutting his selflessness with an emotional, darker core, showing signs of the darker undercurrent of the later Stewart who would star in Vertigo and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Stewart's perfomance is utterly terrific to watch, both entertaining and full of depth in equal measure, and perfectly shows exactly why I deem him the greatest actor of all-time.

1. Celia Johnson, Brief Encounter

Well, here goes. My two top performances of all-time are in my two favourite films of all-time, and it was difficult to pick between the two. My pick goes to Johnson's portrayal of middle-class British wife Laura Jesson because she turns what could've been just another 'housewife in love' character into something truly iconic, and not only career-defining but cinematic defining.  Director David Lean's awareness that his lead actress is turning in a legendary performance is very clear from how the film is centred so much on close-ups of Johnson's expressive face and eyes, her voiceover narration. She handles every step of Laura's journey from bored wife to meeting and then losing the love of her life, and then back again, both a shell of her former self but still stronger from it, and exudes so much emotion each movement she makes and line she delivers. No hesitation whatsoever, in calling this my favourite performance of all-time. For extended thoughts, one of my first blog posts, comparing her performance to that of Sophia Loren's in the 1974 adaptation: http://actorvsactor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/head-to-head-celia-johnson-vs-sophia.html