So, what are they? Comment as much or as little as you care...

Mine...

*Lon Chaney, Sr. in The Phantom of the Opera. Melodrama, pathos and horror -- and not a single word. I adore Chaney.

*Zohra Lampert in Let's Scare Jessica to Death. So completely she embodies a fragile mind on the edge of fantasy and reality, sanity and madness.

*Kim Stanley in Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Theatre's gain was cinema's terrific loss when Stanley made so few films, but we do have this, one of the most impressive pieces of film acting I've ever seen.

*Nicholas Gledhill in Careful, He Might Hear You. When things fall into place just right, children can truly be the most remarkable of actors. I'll never be able to forget the dour little victim of family warfare Gledhill conjures here.

*Ann Carter in The Curse of the Cat People. Another utterly beguiling child actor performance.

*Robert Duval in Tomorrow. Less is so, so much more.

*Ally Sheedy in High Art. I've said it before -- every moment of her work here, ever word, look, gesture, is sharp, sharp, sharp. A knife that goes right thru me.

Then there's the performance that inspired this thread, one that probably belongs on the list: Ivan Dobronravov in The Return. Another incredible job by a kid. See the thread on the film I started a few moments ago...

An honorary mention must go to Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. I've TWICE seen about half of this film, but never the whole thing, just happening to run across it, in progress, on IFC. I'm gonna have to just rent the thing. Such powerful use of close-ups by Dryer, such powerful use of silence and stillness by Falconetti. I'm tempted to include this performance before even seeing it in toto!

I'm sure I'm gonna be slappin' my forehead -- "D'oh!" -- over some essential piece of work I'm forgetting right now, but I do think that's just about all my very, very favorites.

And yours are...?

Matthew

Gerard Depardieu as Cyrano De Bergerac

Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson

Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise

Cary Grant in NOTORIOUS
Sterling Hayden in JOHNNY GUITAR
John Gielgud in PROSPERO'S BOOKS
Sam Jackson in JACKIE BROWN
Anthony Perkins in PSYCHO
Giuletta Masina in JULIET OF THE SPIRITS
Henry Fonda in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
William Powell in MY MAN GODFREY
Rosalind Russell in HIS GIRL FRIDAY
Joseph Cotten in THE THIRD MAN ... no SHADOW OF A DOUBT ... no, definitely THIRD MAN ... but then again ...
Jacques Tati in PLAYTIME (my favorite of the Hulot films)
Harriet Andersson in CRIES AND WHISPERS (this isn't exactly fair as it was all 3 sisters, but she's the one that made my toes literally curl up, like no scene of gore or bodily torture ever has)
Anna Karina in MY LIFE TO LIVE
Roger Livesey in THE LIFE & DEATH OF COL. BLIMP
Johnny Depp in DEADMAN
Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

and I could go on and on; wasn't even considering some of my favorite Japanese films ...

Beat Takeshi, in anything.

K

Charles,

Man, you've nearly prodded my first "D'oh!." Along with his work in I Never Sang for My Father, Hackman's performance in The Conversation, man... it's tempting to put them right up there with the others.

And you've managed to name my favorite Henry Fonda performance, too. Fucking Evil Bastard Incarnate!

Matthew

Humphrey Bogart in THE CAINE MUTINY
Morgan Freeman in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Lee J. Cobb in 12 ANGRY MEN
Jack Lemmon in GLENGARY GLENROSS

There are dozens of others, that I just can't think of at the moment.

Mandy Potempkin as Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride"

Claude Rains as Louis in "Casablanca"

James Woods as the really cool editor-in-chief in "True Crimes"

Alan Arkin as the dad in "Edward Scissorhands"

well... actually... Alan Arkin in just about anything--he had absolutely hilarious supporting roles in "Gross Pointe Blank" and "So I Married an Ax Murderer"

John Cusack in "High Fidelity" and "Say Anything"

Jeff Bridges as The Dude in "The Big Lebowski"

Sting in "Stormy Monday" (he plays a jazz club owner who is basically a gangster... surprisingly great performance, and he plays a cool double bass solo at one point in the movie)

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in the original, non-special edition, non-Greedo shot first version of Star Wars: A New Hope deserves a mention because of the major impression he made on my young psyche when I was a precocious four-year-old back in 1977. He also kicked serious ass in Witness and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian in "The Bounty"

Kenneth Branagh in "Henry V"

Chalk me up as a lover of that performance, too. Brilliant stuff.

Among my favorites are Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, which thrills me each time. "No prisoners!"

Al Pacino, who I am not generally a fan of, is great in both Godfather films (we make believe Part III is some other thing), but I prefer the arc of the first as far as performance goes. His initial murder is a stunning scene.

DeNiro gave one of the best in career in Taxi Driver, a performance that chills me.

Clint Eastwood's take on Eddie Money - errrr, William Munny - is fantastic in Unforgiven. The final scenes blew me away when I first saw it. He owned that character.

And for good measure, throw in Claude Rains in Casablanca. A charming, endearing "villain" if ever there was one.

My favorite performance in Glengarry Glenn Ross was Arkin's. Such quiet desperation. It's such a thoughtful, internal performance, yet it expresses so much. My other favorite Arkin performances would be in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and 13 Conversations about One Thing.

I remembered another piece of film acting that probably belongs on the list... if not, then it's damn near there: Peter Greene's scarily, achingly believable schizophrenic in Clean, Shaven.

Matthew

Some great performances listed so far, here's a few some of you missed, yet others knew:

Peter Lorre in either M or Mad Love: Such naked portraits of self-loathing and misery, you can not help but feel pity for Peter, even if he's playing pedophilic serial killers, or unwanted sadomasochistic suitors...

Anthony Perkins in Psycho: genuinely heartbreaking.

Peter O' Toole in Lawrence of Arabia: What a messiah would be like in the real world.

Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster...sheer pathos.

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver....more frightening than the movie monsters portrayed above.

Gene Hackman in the Conversation....loneliness incarnate.

Bob Hoskins in the Long Good Friday...a marvelous performance a sa rabid dog hiding beneath a veneer of civilization

Honorable mention: Leo McKern in the penultinmate episode of The Prsioner....the man had a nervous breakdown doing this episode, and it shows...perhaps the most intense prtrayal of a man putting everything he is on the line in an effort to break another individual, and losing everything...