Top 10 Performances of the 2010s
The 2010s were a mess in just about every sense of the word, but I’ve often found that the messier that reality gets, the more creative films have to get in order to offer an experience that rivals the oddities of the real world (see: the 1970’s and the 1940’s). So in that regard, the 2010s were a grand time for film enthusiasts. In the wake of a Hollywood coming to grips with its own failure to give voices to the voiceless, there came a slew of films that frankly couldn’t have been made ten years ago. With these new opportunities for interesting stories came new opportunities for actors to helm them, so as we near the end of the decade, let us take a moment to pontificate over the finer performances of the decade in an easily digestible (and just as easily contestable) list-like format.
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network (2010)
When you’re working with Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue, there isn’t too much heavy lifting required in order to be convincing. If the words he wrote somehow convinced the world that Justin Timberlake was a decent actor, then the man could truly accomplish anything. But Jesse Eisenberg takes the crippling insecurities of the character and funnels them through a faux macho academic persona, effectively creating the blueprint for the Ben Shapiro types staining the Twittersphere. So much of the Social Network has only aged like a fine wine since 2010, but nothing in the film has become more relevant in today’s age of racist fursonas nit-picking female-led movies than this performance.
Daniel Day Lewis - Phantom Thread (2017)
When it was announced that Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson would be reuniting for a feature film about the world of London high fashion in the mid-1900s, I had no idea what to expect. Anderson and Lewis never disappoint, but before we even got a look at the film itself, comparisons were already being made to Anderson’s 2007 masterpiece, There Will Be Blood. But after seeing this film three times in the theater, I’m gonna make the sacrilegious statement that I kind of like this even more. Day Lewis so perfectly toes the line between lovably quirky and darkly manipulative and pairing him with Vicky Krieps’ wonderfully rebellious performance just highlights this even more. Reynolds Woodcock is that strange kind of genius that can be detestable in the hands of a less talented actor, but Day Lewis so endearingly pulls off all these quirks in a way that made this one of the most unexpectedly funny films of the decade.
Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes - Moonlight (2016)
Maybe this is cheating, but clickbait list writing is a lawless land devoid of structure or rules. While most people point to Mahershala Ali’s performance as being the standout of this film (which is an undeniably great performance, don’t get me wrong) I am more fascinated by these three actor’s ability to showcase an evolution in Chiron over the course of the story. All three of these actors show different levels of vulnerability, all while doing their best to suppress a steadily increasing mountain of trauma. These performances capture the same age spanning nuances of Boyhood but do so in 1/12th the time.
Elsie Fisher - Eighth Grade (2018)
The 2010s will be a decade where we as a society collectively realized that we aren’t as mentally stable as we were lead to believe. As the arm of social media began to wrap around us, pinching our love handles and dragging us down a rabbit hole of insecurities and anxiety, Elsie Fisher descended from her fluffy throne to remind us all just how universal these struggles are. Her performance in Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade captures all the cringe-inducing nuances of this particular time in our lives we all pretend didn’t exist but does so in a way that feels so genuine and true to life, you start to wonder just who has been writing coming of age movies all this time. Eighth Grade is a film that aims to encapsulate this tumultuous time, warts and all, and Fisher’s performance is a huge reason as to why it works so well.
Ralph Fiennes - The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
I’ve been waving the “Put Ralph Fiennes In More Comedies” flag since he smashed that poor telephone in a fit of blind rage all the way back in 2008’s In Bruges, and I can only hope that Anderson saw this flag from a pair of vintage opera glasses whilst sitting on the baby blue porch of his perfectly symmetrical home. Comedic performances are often overlooked in the grand scheme of film criticism, and Fiennes’ performance as Gustave H in Wes Anderson’s 2014 masterpiece is one of the greatest of them all. Fiennes masterfully captures the quirkiness Anderson had cultivated over the years, delivering a performance that is so wonderfully austere and dry it makes Steve Zissou look like Tony Montana. His timing is perfect, his delivery is appropriately poetic, and his occasional manic breaks from his chic persona are some of the funniest moments of the film. Gustave H is everything you’d want out of a Wes Anderson character, and Fiennes delivers.
Casey Affleck - Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Grief permeates every aspect of 2016’s Manchester by the Sea, and Casey Affleck is the depressive glue holding it all together. Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a man haunted by a tragic accident that he just “can’t beat.” It’s a film about depression, grief, trauma, and the struggle to let it all go. Affleck’s performance is more akin to a ghost than a man, and he just sinks into this role so well that it’s almost concerning. It’s hard to see just how great this performance is until we get a flashback about halfway through the film that demonstrates just who he was before that fateful day, and every scene afterward is a reminder of the life that he lost. He is a shell of a man, plagued by guilt so deeply that there isn’t a single moment sans the flashbacks where he looks like he is enjoying anything. He is already dead, he just doesn’t know it yet, and Affleck captures this state of being perfectly.
Greta Gerwig - Frances Ha (2013)
One of the most common misconceptions of adulthood is this notion that you will magically figure everything out in your 20’s. Frances Ha is a film that so wonderfully dispels this notion with some of Noah Baumbach’s signature theatrical realistic dialogue and an equally theatrical performance from Film Twitter’s woman of the decade, Greta Gerwig. Gerwig plays a character that is so full of passion and so devoid of direction that it’s hard to not see a little bit of ourselves in her. As a fellow aimless twenty-something looking to make a living doing something that really doesn’t offer it, I connected with France’s plight a little too strongly. But that harsh reminder never became overbearing. Most of Baumbach’s characters have a similar sense of upper west side spontaneity, but none encapsulate this energy like Gerwig.
J.K Simmons - Whiplash (2014)
What makes J.K Simmons’ Terrance Fletcher such a compelling antagonist is that question of whether he really is an antagonist at all. Fletcher’s unconventional (to say the very least) teaching methods are not for the faint of heart, but they offer a necessary perspective in Andrew Neiman’s quest for greatness. His verbal tirades would make R. Lee Ermey weep, and at times, I still can’t believe this is the same man that played Juno’s dad. But the real effectiveness of Simmons’ performance is felt when he isn’t in the scene at all. Fletcher looms over every scene of the movie like a shadow, creeping in from the recesses of Neiman’s mind, having an unsaid say in every decision made. He is a time bomb in a skin-tight T-shirt, helping make Whiplash the most frightening movie about Jazz ever made.
Willem Dafoe - The Lighthouse (2019)
Willem Dafoe’s face always felt like it was something out of a history book, and Robert Eggers uses that quality to its full potential in his film, The Lighthouse. The most recent pick of this bunch, it was hard to deny from the first viewing just how devoted Dafoe was playing this cartoonishly gassy seaman of yester-century, even taking a mouthful of dirt for his performance. In a tale of cabin fever, machismo, and scurvy inducing madness, Dafoe manages to stand out as especially bizarre, due to his tendency to randomly break out into some beautifully worded and monstrously passionate monologues. We have enjoyed a bit of a Dafoe Renaissance over the past few years, from 2017’s The Florida Project to 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate, and into this year’s The Lighthouse. But as good as those other roles are, none capture that Dafoe aura quite like the film that gives him the chance to be naked and sporting lighthouse eyes. HARK!
Rebecca Hall - Christine (2016)
2016’s Christine chronicles the troubled life of Christina Chubbuck, a reporter who killed herself live on television in 1974, with Rebecca Hall playing the titular Christine. This performance is, in this armchair critic’s humble opinion, the best of the decade. Hall is unraveling at the seams with each scene that doesn’t feel like an actor using mental illness as a vehicle for award recognition, but a genuine portrayal of someone at the end of their ropes. She is erratic, manic, and constantly hanging her toes over the edge of sanity, but under all of that is a woman that cares deeply about her work and her family, held back by her own worsening mental state. It’s a performance that captures the ugly reality of depression, and in a decade so obsessed with the de-stigmatization of mental health, it’s a shame that this performance was overlooked.