- 1 day ago
Audiences slept on all these career-best performances.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00There are so many movies being released on a weekly basis these days that it's absolutely
00:05impossible to keep track of everything, such that great movies and great performances can
00:10easily end up falling through the cracks.
00:13The sheer wealth of options available on streaming platforms makes it incredibly easy for an
00:17actor's best work to be slept on, whereby only the most committed fans have a hope in
00:22hell of discovering it.
00:24So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture and here are 10 more actors who
00:29gave their best performances in movies nobody saw.
00:33Number 10, Vince Vaughn in Brawl in Cell Block 99.
00:37Vince Vaughn probably isn't who most people picture when they think of a great actor, but he's given a
00:42bevy of hilarious comedic performances in the likes of Swingers, Old School, Dodgeball and
00:47Wedding Crashers and in the dramatic stakes has acquitted himself well in Hacksaw Ridge and True
00:53Detective's second season. But far and away, Vaughn's best work to date is in S. Craig Zahler's
00:59brutal 2017 prison thriller, Brawl in Cell Block 99.
01:04As imprisoned drug runner Bradley Thomas, Vaughn is like you've never seen him before,
01:09a bald-headed, stone-faced pillar of granite who must fight to save his wife and unborn child on the
01:14outside before it's too late.
01:16Vaughn isn't an actor who cuts a naturally intimidating figure, yet director Zahler clearly saw
01:22something in him that nobody else did, because his mere physical presence throughout this
01:27ferocious, graphically violent film is deeply imposing. Vaughn underplays the part perfectly,
01:33giving a richly internalised performance as a man stewing in his own rage while desperately trying
01:39to free his family from a helpless situation.
01:42Yet despite Vaughn receiving rave reviews for his performance,
01:45Brawl grossed just $79,208 on limited release at the box office before more or less fading into
01:52the abyss of streaming.
01:549. Scarlett Johansson in Under The Skin
01:58Scarlett Johansson has amassed an impressive body of work over the last two or so decades,
02:03but her most impressive and truly transformative performance was in a much smaller niche project,
02:08which couldn't have seemed much more off-putting to both mainstream audiences and Oscar voters.
02:14Jonathan Glazer's sci-fi masterpiece Under The Skin stars Johansson as an unnamed man-devouring
02:19alien creature inexplicably traipsing around Scotland while donning the guise of a beautiful
02:24human woman. Despite being produced for a svelte $13.3 million and the press constantly hyping up
02:32Johansson's nudity in the film, Under The Skin failed to make much of a dent with audiences,
02:36grossing just $7.3 million globally.
02:408. Michael Shannon in Take Shelter
02:43Michael Shannon is undeniably one of the greatest actors working to date, yet Shannon's finest work
02:48to date was in a film that many expected him to receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination for,
02:53Jeff Nichols' dizzying psychological thriller Take Shelter.
02:57Shannon stars as Curtis Lafourche, a man who begins experiencing apocalyptic visions and must decide
03:03whether to protect his family from the apparently incoming destruction or from himself.
03:08It's always deeply satisfying to see a card-carrying supporting actor get their own hefty leading role,
03:14and Shannon grabs the part with both hands, delivering an astonishing performance that's
03:18alternately sympathetic and terrifying. There's a deep vein of aching humanity running through
03:24Shannon's work here, and that his performance somehow didn't receive Oscar recognition over some
03:29of the lesser turns in contention that year remains an utter travesty.
03:337. Michael Fassbender in Hunger
03:37Though his acting career hasn't been up to much the last five years, Michael Fassbender is
03:41nevertheless one of the finest performers of his generation, as evidenced by his strong work in
03:47Fish Tank, Inglourious Bastards, Shame, The X-Men and Alien films, yet Fassbender's best work to date
03:53occurred before any of these films were released in Steve McQueen's expertly crafted 2008 historical
03:59drama Hunger. In the film, Fassbender plays IRA member Bobby Sands, who leads a hunger strike in
04:05prison which ultimately claims his life. In what would become the first of three collaborations
04:10between Fassbender and McQueen so far, Fassbender gives an astonishing physical and emotional
04:16performance, losing a concerning amount of weight while getting audiences firmly into Sands' mindset.
04:22Aided by wonderfully stripped back direction from McQueen, this is a singular examination of a
04:27devastating act of political defiance, and one surely best remembered for the jaw-dropping 17
04:32minute single take in which a priest attempts to talk Sands out of his hunger strike.
04:38Though Hunger received rave reviews and snagged Fassbender the British Independent Film Award for Best
04:42Actor, it barely cracked $3 million worldwide and so any Oscar buzz for Fassbender consequently went up
04:50in smoke.
04:506. Jennifer Aniston in Cake
04:54Jennifer Aniston will of course forever be remembered for playing Rachel Green on Friends,
04:59but she's also given many acclaimed performances on the big screen, whether in comedies like Office
05:04Space, Horrible Bosses and We're the Millers, or dramas such as The Good Girl, Friends with Money and
05:09Dumplin'. Yet Aniston's finest effort to date flew totally under the radar back in 2014 when she starred in
05:16Cake playing Claire Bennett, a woman addicted to both alcohol and pain meds following a car accident which
05:22claimed the life of her son. Though general critical response to the film was mixed, Aniston's performance
05:27received rave reviews from many outlets and even Best Actress nominations from both the Golden Globes and
05:33Screen Actors Guild. For many it was so hugely refreshing to see Aniston commit this hard to such an
05:39unvarnished, unflattering role of a woman hobbled by guilt, anger and the throes of addiction. It's a performance
05:46like nothing Aniston has ever done prior or since. Yet despite a ton of Oscar buzz for her work,
05:52which ultimately didn't pan out, Cake bombed at the box office grossing less than $3 million worldwide
05:58against a $10 million budget. Number 5. Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass
06:04Poor Hayden Christensen. Appearing in the latter two Star Wars prequels might be both the best and
06:10worst thing that's ever happened to him, convincing an entire generation of fans that, to be blunt,
06:15he can't act. Though Christensen doesn't exactly have a bevy of quality roles to his name, there
06:20is one which confirms him to be a shockingly underappreciated performer when cast in the right
06:26role. In between the two Star Wars prequels, Christensen starred in Shattered Glass,
06:31a low-budget drama where he played disgraced journalist Stephen Glass, who while writing for
06:36The New Republic falsified the majority of his news stories. Christensen's performance as the elusive
06:42cagey journalist whose life and career slowly unravel is nothing short of terrific, and yet
06:48is largely unknown among those who freely dismiss him as a terrible actor. Number 4. Aubrey Plaza in
06:54Black Bear. While undeniably being best known for her brilliant work as April Ludgate on Parks and
07:00Recreation, Aubrey Plaza has rather quietly built up an enviable filmography of quality roles in
07:06dramedies in more recent years. Plaza received vocal rave reviews for her sublime performance in the
07:112020 Blackley comedic dramatic thriller Black Bear, a difficult to categorise but utterly mesmeric film
07:18built almost entirely around Plaza's incredible work. This is certainly a movie best watched without
07:24knowing the finer particulars, but Plaza stars as a filmmaker suffering from creative block who heads to a
07:30quiet rural retreat in the hope of entangling her mind, only to do quite the opposite. Its tricky
07:36central conceit won't work for everyone, but even if Black Bear isn't fully for you, Plaza's sheer
07:42magnetism in the lead role, launching between poles of depression, sedonic humour and outright terror,
07:48is a treat that needs to be seen. Number 3. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Maggie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is as
07:54larger than life as actors get, and though it's basically impossible to imagine anyone else playing the
07:59part of the Terminator, few would go so far as to call him a genuinely great actor. We've seen Arnie
08:05experiment around a little more in recent years as he's gotten up there in age and his action chops
08:10have unavoidably waned, leading to him starring in a most unexpected project in 2015. An Arnie-led zombie
08:18film doesn't sound like the most unnatural of moves for Schwarzenegger, but Maggie is no normal undead
08:24horror romp. This is more a post-apocalyptic drama than anything, with Arnie portraying Wade,
08:29a father who must come to terms with his daughter's transformation into a zombie. This is more than
08:34anything else, Arnie like you've never seen him before, a vulnerable, hurting man pulled between
08:40knowing what he needs to do and the love for his daughter. It's as subtle a performance as Arnie
08:45has ever given, and while the film itself isn't doing too much new for the genre, seeing the actor in
08:50this more dialed-down mode, lending shocking dramatic nuance to Wade is a sure sight to behold.
08:56It's a shame that Maggie didn't do much business either theatrically or on VOD though,
09:01as we've seen few similar attempts from Schwarzenegger in the years since.
09:052. Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty
09:09Much like Arnold, Vin Diesel isn't an actor many would look to when casting a subtle or complex character,
09:15and though Diesel's filmography is almost entirely comprised of brutish action heroes,
09:20he quietly proved himself capable of much more in 2006's courtroom dramedy Find Me Guilty.
09:27Written and directed by the late legendary Sidney Lumet, the film is a biopic of New Jersey mobster
09:33Jackie DeNorcio, who while on trial for racketeering charges decides to defend himself and against
09:39titanic odds successfully beats the rap. The idea of casting Diesel in the role of a man who charmed
09:45the pants off a jury doesn't seem to fit, and yet he gives a genuinely believable performance as the
09:50infectiously likeable mobster without transforming him into a total caricature. Diesel certainly had
09:56everything working in his favour with Lumet in the director's chair and Peter Dinklage playing
10:01opposite him as the lead defence lawyer, but credit where it's due, Diesel completely defied
10:06expectations enough to make you wonder why he hasn't done more of this since. The answer may
10:11ultimately lie in the fact that Find Me Guilty was a colossal box office bomb, grossing just $2.6
10:17million against a $13 million budget.
10:211. Elizabeth Moss in Shirley
10:24Elizabeth Moss has near countless brilliant performances to her name, but the best of the
10:28lot? Moss' performance as eccentric novelist Shirley Jackson in Josephine Decker's hypnotic 2020
10:35biopic Shirley. Focus on Jackson while she was writing her 1951 novel Hangs a Man. This may only
10:42be a mere snapshot of her life, but Moss provides such a tenacious window into the woman as both
10:48mentally ill and creative genius that we come to feel like we truly know her essence by film's end.
10:54More than any other film Moss has made, this gives her the freedom to swing and swing
10:58hard. Untethered by the expected bounds of a formal biopic, director Decker taking a step back and opting
11:04for a more surreal, dreamlike filmmaking style. At least unlike Diesel, Moss seems quite content
11:10working on these smaller, less restrictive indie projects, even if it'll take some serious doing
11:14to top her work in this film. And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples,
11:20then do let us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like,
11:23and subscribe, and tap that notification bell. Don't forget to head over to Twitter and follow us
11:27there, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:31I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon!
Be the first to comment