This wasn’t the best year for this category, but it got better the closer we got to the end, and some of the best performances came from the most unexpected places.
Runners-Up: Harris Dickinson in Beach Rats is a great as a young, gay man trying to pretend to exactly like his idiot friends – with fairly dire results. Colin Farrell in The Beguiled has a complicated role, where he has to be different things to each of the different women in the film – and does it brilliantly. Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger does great work, in a tired genre, as a man trying to get his life together after being disabled in the Boston Marathon bombing – he makes this man a person, not a saint. Tom Hanks in The Post makes his role as Ben Bradlee look effortless, which it couldn’t have been, since this is further outside his comfort zone than normal. Tracey Letts in The Lovers finally gets a leading role, and shows the great work he’s being doing in support for a while now translates nicely. Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour is great, in a larger than life performance as Winston Churchill on the brink of catastrophe. Adrian Titieni in Graduation is great as a father, who tries to do whatever possible to get his daughter into a school in England, even as the rest of his life unravels. Vince Vaughn in Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a large, nearly silent lunk in this film – and it’s the best work of his career.
10. Andy Serkis in War for the Planet of the Apes
Andy Serkis will always be best known for his motion capture work as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies – that character became so instantly iconic, and because when they came out, that sort of work was fresh and new, he essentially invented a different kind of performance. Yet, his greatest work as an actor has been in the new Planet of the Apes trilogy as Caesar. I still think his best work is in the first film – Rise of the Planet of the Apes (even if, as a film, it’s probably the weakest of the trilogy) – but here, playing Caesar as a leader of the apes, who will do anything to protect them, he delivers a stirring performance – one that fully gets the humans on the audience on his side. This is the rare blockbuster series that I think will age well – and Serkis is a major reason why.
9. Hugh Jackman in Logan
James Mangold’s Logan is basically the superhero version of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven – with the hero realizing that his time has passed him, and it’s time to move on. In order to make that work, you really do need a performance like the one Jackman gives in this film. For nearly 17 years, we’ve watched as Jackman’s Wolverine has been pretty much invincible, as he hacks and slashes his way through one X-Men movie after another (sometimes to the films detriment – as he isn’t always the most interesting character). Here though, he has aged, everything hurts, and he can barely hold everything together. But then, he finds in a little girl, a reason to fight (so, okay, it’s not quite Unforgiven – Logan remains noble). Jackman has always been a charming actor, but rarely has been given the opportunity to be much more than charming. Here, he digs deep, and delivers the best performance of his career – and really, one the best the superhero genre has ever seen, in part because we’ve never quite seen a movie like this, and in part because Jackman was ready to go there. 
8. James Franco in The Disaster Artist
It would have been easy for James Franco to just do an impression of the ever strange Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist – just don a fake accent and bad black wig, and mock the man who is known as the writer/director/producer/star of the worst film of all time. But Franco doesn’t do that – not entirely. Sure, Franco has a lot of fun with Wiseau and every strange thing about him, and the performance really is hilarious, and a spot on impression. But he also digs deeper into Wiseau’s humanity – showing us a dreamer, with no self-awareness. He has the resolve to see his vision through to the end – but not the talent, and he never really realizes the mistakes he’s making. Yes, it’s a softer portrait of Wiseau than the book – and perhaps softer than he deserves – but there is a part of Franco that admires Wiseau – and he brings that to the screen so that you will too.
7. Colin Farrell in The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Colin Farrell’s performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a study in inactivity couched in privilege. He plays a surgeon who has taken under his wing the son of a patient who died on his table (perhaps his fault, although he’ll never admit it) – only to have that young man come back at him with a threat – he needs to choose one of his family members to die, or else they all will. As one thing after another happens, to lead everyone to believe the threat is real, and unstoppable, Farrell’s surgeon does, well, nothing. He cannot fathom that he’s going to be punished, and puts all his faith in science, and then basically goes about his time. Because of Yorgos Lanthimos’ style, which requires actors to be flat and emotionless in their delivery, Farrell has to delve deeper in other ways to make this character clear. It’s not quite at the same level as his work in The Lobster last year (which was, after all, a better film) – but close. More proof of just how great Farrell is right now – and how many chances he’s taking. 
6. Claes Bang in The Square
I have a few, minor quibbles with The Square – mostly that it’s too long, and doesn’t quite know where and when to end – and yet I do think that Claes Bang is pretty much perfect in its lead role. It’s the type of performance that seemingly changes from scene to scene, not because the character doesn’t make sense, but because he finds himself in one insane situation after another, never quite knowing how the hell he got there, or how the hell he can get himself out. This is a performance that ranges from hilarious to horrifying, and back again often in the same scene. The movie itself is great – but it teeters on the edge of becoming little more than a collection of strange sequences, with no through line. But Bang is that through line – he keeps the whole thing going from one horrifying set piece to another.
5. Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your NameBetween this and his performance in Lady Bird, this year was a great coming out party for young Chalamet. He is great in Lady Bird – playing that guy in high school we all know – but he is even better here. I particularly liked him in the first hour of this film, when he’s trying to hide his feelings for Oliver, and trying to pretend everything is normal – when it’s not. It’s a subtle performance, full of longing – and instant chemistry with Hammer. Of course, everyone will talk about that final scene – and with good reason, it’s a feat of acting to just sit there, for minutes on end, and hold the camera. Chalamet is a star in the making – and shows just how good he can be here.
4. Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out
Another of the great breakout performances of 2017 was Daniel Kaluuya’s work in Get Out – a performance that is subtle and sneaky in all sorts of ways. The British actor, who I basically only knew from one episode of Black Mirror, plays his character in Get Out as a man who is simply trying to be nice – trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, all the while knowing that there is something just not quite right about everything going on. He gets his bigger moment’s sure – applause lines late in the proceedings – but he’s at his very best early, when he’s trying to navigate this house, and figure out just what the hell is going on. It’s not a performance that calls attention to itself – I honestly worried he would be completely ignored this awards season – but it is a brilliant one. 3. Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky
I can think of no better sendoff for the legendary Harry Dean Stanton than Lucky – a movie custom written for Stanton, which gives the character actor a late, great leading role. In the film, he plays the title character – a 91 year old man, who still smokes every day, drinks every day, and walks around his small Texas town. He’s outlived his peers, has no family to speak of, is a lifelong atheist and afraid of death. The movie follows him on his routine for a few days – and in doing so, becomes a quietly moving film about this man. Stanton is the only actor who could have delivered this performance – and he does so in one of his best performances. Stanton will be missed of course – but I’m grateful we got this film before he died.
2. Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread
If this is indeed to be Daniel Day-Lewis’ swansong from acting, than he picked a hell of a role to go out on. His performance as Reynolds Woodcock, temperamental genius, who requires everything to be exactly perfect or else he becomes insufferable, truly is one of Day-Lewis’ great performance. He seems like a man who we know completely from the outset – he doesn’t hide his attitudes, his opinions, his wants – but he hides something far greater about himself, even in plain site (in the end, it’s still somewhat hidden). As Woodcock, Day-Lewis begins the performance as one of those toxic men we’ve heard about – the monster genius – but it’s far too complicated to leave it at that. This is one of the deepest, darkest performances of Day-Lewis’ career – and one of the best.
1. Robert Pattinson in Good Time
No one is more surprised than I am that Robert Pattinson has turned into a great actor, and more willing to take chances than many of his peers. He was horrible in the Twilight films, but the level of stardom he achieved in them has allowed him to take chances in films directed by the like of David Cronenberg and James Gray, among others. In the lead role of the Safdie brothers Good Time, he plays a would-be bank robber, who over the course of a long night, tries to rescue his brother, and himself into one bad situation after another – almost of all of which, he gets out of – mainly because black people are always there to take the film. Yes, in the film, he is white privilege personified. He is also charming and funny and despicable, and horrible – and full of a nervous energy, perfect for this film that wants desperately to be a 1970s New York crime movie – and pretty much nails it. Pattinson is quite frankly stunning in Good Time – a great performance in a great film and proof that Kristen Stewart isn’t the only one who is leaving Twilight behind, on the way to better thing.
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