I’m trying something different this year. The end of this article contains a mention of movies with terrific ensemble casts. I think that’s worth saluting. Sorry to say that once again, more men make it onto this list than women, although we do have a non-binary actress here, so that’s something.
Austin Butler
Whatever you might think of Paul Atreides’ heel turn at the end of Dune: Part Two, everyone can agree that his rule would be preferable to having somebody like Butler’s Feyd al-Rautha in charge. The all-white makeup and shaved head and eyebrows do contribute, but it’s mostly the actor who gives us someone to fear amid all the movie’s intergalactic maneuvering. Amid a lot of moral ambiguity, the murderous Feyd is someone you can hate without reservation.
Kieran Culkin
A Real Pain starts and ends with him sitting in an airport lounge watching people go by in a way that makes you wonder whether he’ll be okay. His Benji is the dynamo that drives the movie as he ventures into unauthorized areas of hotels, tears the tour guide a new one for talking too much, smokes a ton of weed, comments on his cousin’s feet, and is all too willing to feel the weight of history as he tours Holocaust sites. He’s annoying and charming in equally large measures.
John Earl Jelks
I could have put Exhibiting Forgiveness in the best ensembles list below, but this 65-year-old who has done most of his acting on the stage deserved a mention here all by himself. He portrays the main character’s crack-addicted father who resurfaces in his life at an inappropriate time. He may sincerely want to establish a relationship with his son and grandson, but he’s determined to do it on his own terms, and as he proudly recounts his horrible upbringing, you can see how difficult that’s going to be.
Brigette Lundy-Paine
They grew up in Southern California, but they were born in Dallas. Their Maddy in I Saw the TV Glow becomes a polestar that the probably trans protagonist can’t follow. Given the metaphysics at work in the movie, it is possible that Maddy actually goes into her favorite TV show and alters its reality, and you believe that she has that in her. If Owen can’t face what he is, Maddy embraces her otherness and floats off into an ether where she’ll find fulfillment.
George MacKay and Moses Ingram
They’re both in The End, though in his case, I could have easily included him for his other supporting roles in The Beast and Femme as well. He’s quite good in Joshua Oppenheimer’s postapocalyptic musical in a role that you could argue is the lead, but he’s upstaged by the clear-singing Ingram as the outsider who arrives in this family group. They help make this occasionally baffling film into something coherent.
Clarence Maclin
Other people thought Sing Sing was one of the year’s best movies. I thought it was too formulaic, but watch the movie for him. The college graduate with a degree in psychology also served 17 years of hard time for his part in a robbery and found his way into an acting program at the upstate New York prison. He may be playing a younger version of himself, but that doesn’t account for the dramatic power that he brings to this as a prison inmate who finds art as a way to express his inner turmoil.
Guy Pearce
He is quite the complicated villain in The Brutalist. Unfortunately, since I haven’t had the chance to review the film yet, I can’t go into too many details about his performance, but he does completely capture the vibe of a man born in the 19th century whose brusque manner hides an eye for beauty and also a terrible secret. If you told me this was the performance of his career, I wouldn’t object.
Aubrey Plaza
Our condolences to her on the recent loss of her husband. She was one of the bright spots in Megalopolis as the awesomely named Wow Platinum, but I’m putting her here for her turn in My Old Ass as the older version of the heroine who mysteriously contacts her. Gee, that scene when she tells her younger self what’s going to happen to the boy she loves cuts even closer to the bone now.
Margaret Qualley
The Substance is the movie that convinced people that she was more than just a pretty face. She had done good work prior to the science-fiction body-horror movie, but she plays against type in the film as the “better” version of Demi Moore who eventually grows resentful of having to go back into the original self during alternate weeks. You wouldn’t have guessed from her previous performances that she was capable of the panic that envelops Sue as her own body starts breaking down.
Reneé Rapp
“My name is Regina George, and I am a massive deal.” And, well, yeah. I don’t think we’re giving this performance in Mean Girls its due. After all, Rachel McAdams was so iconic playing this same role 20 years ago, and Rapp made it into something so different this past year. When she says, “Get in, loser,” it sounds like a come-hither instead of a command. McAdams gave Rapp her seal of approval, and that’s good enough for me.
Denzel Washington
He’s so big that Gladiator II has trouble containing him. The historical Macrinus cuts a decidedly less impressive figure than the arch-cynic that Washington plays, who snitches on the coup plotters to the emperors and then waits for the right moment to tell one of them, “You know, you should really kill your brother.” His rejection of Rome as a place worth ruling but not worth saving is thrilling stuff, and the ending is sadly anticlimactic for such a villain.
Alicia Witt
Her scrubbed-down performance in Longlegs couldn’t have contrasted more sharply to the glamorous parts she typically plays in Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. It made people wonder whether the likes of Lacey Chabert and Lindy Booth might have performances like these in them. (There’s only one way to find out.) Even without that, though, the moment when she raises her blood-stained hands to her face in despair is unforgettable.
Honorable mention: Adriá Arjona, Blink Twice; Yura Borisov, Anora; Joan Chen, Dìdi; Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez, Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga; Nicholas Hoult, The Order; Kathryn Hunter, The Front Room; Lee Sun-kyun, Sleep; Lesley Manville, Queer; James McAvoy, Speak No Evil; Adam Pearson, A Different Man; Zoe Ziegler, Janet Planet.
Best ensembles: Conclave (Sergio Castellitto, Carlos Diehz, Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci); His Three Daughters (Jovan Adepo, Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Jay O. Sanders); The Piano Lesson (Erykah Badu, Danielle Deadwyler, Ray Fisher, Corey Hawkins, Stephan James, Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington); Stress Positions (Faheem Ali, John Early, Theda Hammel, Qaher Harhash, John Roberts, Tarek Ziad, Amy Zimmer); Wicked (Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Ariana Grande, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh).
