The Great Performances of 2024, Part One

It’s our favorite time of year, the one in which the many writers of this site pick their favorite performances to write about. There were so many contributions this year that we’ve split the results in two—the second half will run tomorrow. Now, a few notes. These pieces are not comprehensive. There are performances we love that won’t be in either feature, including standouts like Kieran Culkin, Adrien Brody, and Mikey Madison. Perhaps it’s because they’ve already received so much attention, or that we stick to one performer per film, but we don’t love them any less. All we know is that these are 32 great performances of 2024.

Clarence Maclin as Himself in “Sing Sing”

There was no actor on this planet capable of playing Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin more than the man himself. Having stumbled upon Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) during his seventeen years in prison, Maclin returned to “Sing Sing” to bring authenticity to the role based on his own life. From his first appearance, Maclin’s character makes his interest in acting known but can’t leave his troublesome tendencies behind. He’s difficult and doesn’t take direction from his fellow performers. Colman Domingo’s character becomes almost like a mentor to Maclin, but there’s a pivotal moment when that dynamic changes.

It’s easy to imagine his performance being overshadowed by his accomplished co-star, but Maclin holds his own. He is able to translate his experiences on the stage to being in front of a camera for the first time. It must’ve taken a lot for Maclin to revisit Sing Sing, but the most telling aspect of his amazing performance is that I fully expected his IMDB profile to be filled with past work. I thought, “Maybe this was a performer I wasn’t familiar with who has been putting out quality work for the past few years.” That’s not the case! It’s simply unfathomable that Maclin was able to step into this movie and completely knock it out of the park. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of an illustrious career. – Max Covill

Zoe Saldaña as Rita in “Emilia Pérez”

Zoe Saldaña has had a somewhat paradoxical career. She’s starred in several of the highest-grossing franchises, but she’s not credited with their successes. Which perhaps makes sense, because she’s been obscured, hidden by green body paint in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and blue CGI in “Avatar.”

So it’s refreshing to see her clearly in “Emilia Pérez.” I mean, she’s not even always beautiful in this French fever dream. At the start, she looks tired, made down, and the camera lingers across her face. Stuck in a demanding job without glory or moral grounding, Saldaña’s Rita dominates the first half of the film, transforming into a confident, beautiful, and (figuratively and literally) rich woman.

That’s a lot to handle and Saldaña does so with ease, making the downtrodden Rita feel as real as the carefree one. But then the film goes further, with perhaps her greatest moment being “El Mal.” Here, we see Saldaña firing on all cylinders. She’s filled with rage at the cronies around her, frustrated at the titular Emilia for sticking her in this second-fiddle role, and indulging in an inner monologue that she’d never let burst out. Saldaña dances, sings, and emotes mostly alone, giving emotional resonance to a melodramatic operetta that perhaps doesn’t deserve her. It’s a naked and powerful performance that makes the most out of Saldaña’s considerable talents. – Cristina Escobar

David Jonsson as Andy in “Alien: Romulus”

There is an entire world in David Jonsson’s performance as the synthetic Andy in Fede Álvarez’s otherwise largely quotidian and fan-serving “Alien: Romulus.” By himself, he is reason to not just watch the film but revisit it. He embodies an essential wistfulness, a sense of decency, and he carries it in his posture and the way he holds his head.

His first moment five minutes into “Alien: Romulus” is just his voice, telling a joke about a claustrophobic astronaut who “needed space.” His adoptive sister, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), begs him to stop. He tells another and when she doesn’t laugh, he furrows his brow sadly and says, “You always laughed at that one.” We don’t know he’s synthetic yet, but he does have an unusual affect that suggests something like autism. He is immediately likeable because of his winsomeness and his desire to make Rain laugh. He has communicated an entire and complete character in less than one minute and I don’t know if there are a lot of actors who can do so much, so quickly, and so quietly.

He’s in it for more than a minute, though, thank God, and the story of the early days of synthetics in this universe is written in his oppression and on his skin. The film is about him, the only character who is true. He is Daniel Keyes’ Charlie, and he is destroyed by knowledge: the theme of the entire franchise embodied in his sad eyes. – Walter Chaw

Jodie Comer as Kathy in “The Bikeriders”

“I’ve had nothin’ but trouble since I met Benny…” chirps Kathy as her beau, a streak of denim and lightning defined by growling menace and the parts of him that emerge from shadow, gets the hell beaten out of him. What’s a girl like her doing with a guy like this? Of course, anyone with a functioning set of eyes would fall for Benny (a never-better Austin Butler in the role he was born to embody) but what did this dark-hearted menace see in her, with her charmingly nattering midwestern lilt, each word in a sentence a chorus of drunken hummingbirds, and her perennial distaste for his antiestablishment malingering?

Kathy sees the world through binoculars, unable to judge the threats a few feet in front of her as they, like all of life, seem a few miles away, peering down at the behavior of Benny’s biker club like a dissatisfied goddess. She imbues this mousy girl, destined for a life on the wrong side of the tracks, with the most peculiar and beautiful confidence, as if she were the last model on the assembly line of creation. She sees the worst of human behavior and she’s drawn towards it even as she knows it isn’t “real”. Nothing is if she doesn’t let it. That’s why Benny can’t get her out of his head, any more than he could silence the roar of an engine in his heart. She’s not like anyone else in his life, and this performance, caught between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, is not like anything else in contemporary cinema. – Scout Tafoya

Keith Kupferer as Dan in “Ghostlight”

If I have to choose one movie performance to get the extra boost for the current Oscar season, that will be Keith Kupferer in “Ghostlight”. Although he has been relatively unknown despite starting his movie acting career around 20 years ago, this little but undeniably powerful film gives a precious spotlight for Kupferer at last, and he is utterly poignant as Dan Mueller, an ordinary family man dealing with his immense personal loss via an unexpected chance to act on the stage.   

Reluctantly trying to play the lead role in the little local stage production of Romeo and Juliet, Dan gradually comes out of his shell to face his complicated emotional issues on a recent personal tragedy, and Kupferer subtly illustrates his rather inarticulate character’s difficult emotional journey. When Dan struggles to hold himself for what is supposed to be a very important moment for himself and his family later in the story, Kupferer deftly handles his character’s dramatic emotional shifts during this crucial scene, and the result is devastating to say the least.

Around the end of the story, the movie simply observes Dan and his family members right after his fairly successful stage performance, and Kupferer and his two fellow cast members, who are incidentally his real-life wife and daughter, deliver a wordless but sublime human moment to be appreciated. After observing a little glimmer of hope and healing from the screen, you will never forget Kupferer’s performance, and you may also hope that the movie will lead to more good things to come into his solid acting career. – Seongyong Cho  

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in “Wicked”

“Wicked” is a movie with massive musical numbers, including one with dancers in what are basically hamster wheels, enormous sets and fabulous costumes all but exploding with eye-popping details, plus lots of characters with tons of star power. There are huge, intense emotions. There are soul-stirring, once-to-a-planet voices, and one of them belongs to Broadway star Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba.

Elphaba is hurt by her father’s icy resentment and preference for her sister. She is an outcast at school. But that does not make her try to be anything but who she is. Her vulnerability does not keep her from being unhesitatingly protective of others who are vulnerable.

There are a hundred different ways an actress could convey Elphaba’s responses to other character’s comments about her: “You’re green!” and “Why is it that every time I see you, you’re causing some sort of commotion?” Erivo’s quiet “I am” and “I don’t cause commotions. I am the commotion” convey confidence, self-awareness, even pride at the differences that are the source of Elphaba’s power. What keeps “Wicked”’s, well, tornado of stimulation from being overwhelming is Erivo’s astounding control of the smallest gestures, the subtle expressions of her face in close-up, amid all the visual splendor, action, music, and energy. Her ability to create a stillness is the heart of the movie. – Nell Minow

Chris Hemsworth as Dementus in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”

Central to George Miller’s decade-on prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road” is one fundamental question: How was Furiosa made? From the opening minutes of “Furiosa,” we see each step on her journey from innocent recipient of paradise to one-armed warrior of the desert. Fundamental to that path, as we see, is the Lord Dementus, the maniacal biker-gang leader who kidnaps her, takes her in, sells her, then spends the rest of the movie battling her right under his pronounced prosthetic nose. It’s a role that commands a great deal of bluster and swaggering, big-dick machismo; leave it to Chris Hemsworth, then, to fulfill that brief and build even more staggering layers of pain and anguish underneath.

It’s a hard thing for megastars to transition out of works that remind audiences of their most famous roles. So it’s a funny thing to see the deliberate plays on Thor that Dementus engages in: the leather-bound costume, the long, flowing locks, the crimson-red parachute cape he wears during one of his many subtle reinventions (“The Red Dementus”). But hiding underneath all the Aussie-accented barking and relentless superhero physicality is a wounded man who turns to nihilism at the loss of his family. Hemsworth plays all of these notes with remarkable grace; he’s Mad Max if tragedy turned him hateful instead of heroic. And suddenly, we see what kind of fire forged Furiosa into the hardened diamond she became. Without that keen supporting performance, all blood and rage and sadness, “Furiosa” wouldn’t be the Dickensian war epic it turned out to be. -Clint Worthington

Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in “The First Omen”

The horror of “The First Omen” emerges through the horror of original sin. It’s a horror steeped in shame, where the body’s inscribed with possibility and nightmare. Nell Tiger Free, as Sister Margaret, captures the full physical demands of the role. When we first meet her, she’s uncomfortable in her body, unsure what to do with her hands; she stands unusually straight with her head almost constantly bobbing in agreement. Margaret seems unduly aware of how she moves and is perceived, as if loosening her gestures or abandoning herself to sensation will reflect the hidden darkness of her soul. Her body doesn’t belong to herself but to the social and religious pressures that surround her.

As Margaret is swayed into going to the club at night, her body takes over. Music and sensuality pull her towards her baser instincts, which liberate her into something pulsing and organic. The newly discovered sensuality leads to a different kind of powerlessness. Pleasure turns to pain, and an orgasm transforms into an undulating violence. With evocations of Adjani’s primal performance in Zulawski’s Possession, one form of feminine subservience turns to another, and through Free’s performance the body telegraphs pain and grace within a series of oppressive systems. Yet, it’s in her gaze that the role comes together; one that feels astute, self-aware and tender. She doesn’t just feel, she looks; feeling for beauty within a world that seems increasingly beset by ugliness. – Justine Smith

Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy in “Hard Truths”

Mike Leigh first met the actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste when he was formulating his 1993 picture “Naked.” I say “formulate” because it’s relatively accurate in describing how Leigh works. He gathers actors and certain crew months before filming begins and they improvise their way into a narrative. It’s a form of collective action. “It immediately became clear she was as sharp as we know her to be,” he says in the book Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh. He didn’t cast her in that picture for a reason that now embarrasses him: that is, the fact that she is Black would have placed an undue stress on the character interaction.

Of course, he did cast Jean-Baptiste in “Secrets and Lies,” in a searching role that instantly made her cinematically immortal. In a mild irony, Pansy, the constantly complaining character that Jean-Baptiste brings to scarily vivid life in Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” is very much an angry monologuist in the tradition of Johnny, the boisterous lead character played by David Thewlis in “Naked.” She’s a hectorer, she is, bearing down on her affable husband and berating her gloomy, unmotivated adult son to go out and walk somewhere, anywhere.

When her pragmatic, cheerful sister Chantelle (Michele Austin, also marvelous) wants to arrange a visit to their mother’s grave, Pansy has to make a three-act out of her decision to go or not. One standout scene demonstrates that you absolutely don’t want to get on a grocery line with her. But when someone asks her just what she’s so angry about, she nearly breaks down before admitting “I don’t know.” Some have said this film lacks the dimension of social consciousness that animates much of Mike Leigh’s work, but I disagree. The answer to where it lays is something I find in the title of a recent book about the politically radical rock group Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem. – Glenn Kenny

Yura Borisov as Igor in “Anora”

After being predictably transfixed by Mikey Madison’s powerhouse lead performance the first time I saw “Anora,” a funny thing happened the second time I saw the film—I couldn’t take my eyes off Yura Borisov. Knowing how the film ends becomes a cheat code for unlocking a second viewing of the film, where all of the subtle mannerisms and facial expressions Borisov brings to his performance suddenly take hold of the screen, and almost wrench the film away from Madison.

Playing Igor, a Russian enforcer with a heart of gold, Borisov mostly sticks to the background in a role with little dialogue. But he’s there in every scene, and it’s only on that second viewing that you truly see how much Sean Baker’s expert blocking and editing of the film chronicles Igor’s emotional journey just as deftly as it does Anora’s. There are so many shots where the main action in the foreground features Anora talking to someone, but the frame is telling a second story in the background with Yura Borisov’s face. He’s watching Anora just as much as we are, and the emotional journey taking place on his face is nearly as compelling as the one Anora goes through.

I hope we eventually get a YouTube supercut of just Borisov’s facial expressions in the “Anora.” It would provide fascinating illumination into Baker’s filmmaking, and Yura Borisov’s acting deserves that spotlight. – Daniel Joyaux

Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle Monnier in “The Beast”

At this point, the notion of actress Lea Seydoux delivering superlative work should not come as too much of a surprise—in films such as “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The French Dispatch,” “France,” “Crimes of the Future” and “One Fine Morning,” she has been consistently turning in one outstanding performance after another. As good as she has proven herself to be so far, though, she manages to outdo even herself with her astonishing turn in this film from Bertrand Bonello inspired by a Henry James short story.

As a woman in the year 2044 undergoing a procedure to divest her of all emotions that triggers memories of past lives in Belle Epoque Paris and 2014 L.A. in which romantic entanglements ended badly, she adroitly negotiates the film’s audacious shifts in time and tone—ranging from the romantic to the satiric to the terrifying—and conjures up three distinct characters while at the same time subtly suggesting the ways in which they are all linked together. Her performance serves as an effective emotional counterbalance to the more head-spinning metaphysical concepts on display throughout and it is due in large part to her efforts that the result was the single best performance in the single best film that I saw in 2024. – Peter Sobczynski

Carol Kane as Carla Kessler in “Between the Temples”

The third act of Carol Kane as an actor is almost enough to restore one’s faith in a benevolent universe. She has had a part tailor made for her by comedy giant Tina Fey, recently became a part of the “Star Trek” universe, and this year became the leading lady of Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples”.

It is almost impossible to think of anyone else in Kane’s role of Carol Kessler. The script mercifully does not try to make her into a septuagenarian manic pixie dream girl. The filmmakers know we have seen that film before. Instead, Kane gets to create a full human being, not just a stand-in for the life force sorely missing in the life of the grieving Cantor Ben Gottlieb (played by Jason Schwartzman). Kane’s Kessler, is a retired music teacher and a self-described “red diaper baby” raised in a socialist household. She decides after a chance meeting with Cantor Ben (a former student of hers she hasn’t seen in 30 years) to become a Bat Mitzvah student.

Silver’s film is essentially improvisational, and Kane is equal to the challenge. Even with the restless editing she manages to be the eye of the film’s hurricane. She manages to do one of the most important things in the craft of film acting: she listens with her eyes. She makes us feel a lifetime of lived experience as she meets Ben where he is and tries to grapple with the intense feelings she has for this wounded younger man. Kane so embodies Carla and with so much of her unique elan that you become frustrated with Ben for taking so long to realize he’s in love with her.

After her Oscar nomination for “Hester Street,” Kane did not work for a year. This is a testament to the paucity of roles for someone with her gifts. Let’s hope the accolades for playing Carla are just as plentiful and perhaps we won’t have to wait until 2026 to see her in a part worthy of her again. – Brandon Wilson

Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha in “Dune: Part Two”

Denis Villeneuve gathered together a murderer’s row of acting talent for the Dune duology, giving Frank Herbert’s genre redefining novel the vast cast of scene stealers it deserved. Nobody was half-assing it in “Dune: Part Two,” wherein Paul Atreides’ ascent to messianic ruler of the universe unfolded to the backdrop of warring dynasties and bloodshed. But if anyone were to make themselves a repulsive yet alluring alternative to the golden boy malice of Timothee Chalamet, it was always going to be Austin Butler.

As Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the proudly murderous heir to the Baron’s throne, Butler is instantly magnetic. With not a hair on his entire body, skin the pallor of dusty milk, and inky black eyes, he’s both hard to look at and away from (and sounds so much like Stellan Skarsgard that Alexander and his brothers should be worried.) All of the swaggering charm and country boy guilelessness he brought to Elvis is replaced with something more calculated and still. Butler’s Feyd-Rautha is the mirror-verse Kwisatz Haderach, one who takes too much joy in death yet possesses a twisted sense of nobility. When he squares off with Paul, Butler retains a strain of dignity, respecting his cousin while wanting him to kneel at his feet. All of the uneasy incestuous qualities of the novel that the first movie carefully sidestepped are shoved right to the forefront by Butler. He makes Feyd-Rautha a lascivious libertine, one who licks his knives with pure sexual zeal and kisses his own uncle as though his sexuality is the ultimate weapon. This is an actor who knows the material. If only Villeneuve could find a way to bring him back for Dune Messiah. – Kayleigh Donaldson

Maika Monroe as Lee Harker in “Longlegs”

Maika Monroe may be in familiar genre territory with “Longlegs,” but she gives it new form in this film, delivering a career-best performance as its lead. Her embodiment of the psychically inclined rookie FBI agent Lee Harker is a cornerstone of the success of the film’s immersive, suspenseful atmosphere.

Harker is the epicenter of the film’s lore yet believes herself to be a fly on the wall, and Monroe plays the duplexity of this role with a pianist’s precision. Her flat affect, monotone voice, and corporeal stiffness are consistent idiosyncrasies amidst moments of curiosity, determination, devastation, and terror. Monroe latches onto an austere and distant disposition. Her performance, powerfully paradoxical, cuts through the screen on account of her unassuming approach.

As the film unravels, dragging us further underground, Monroe keeps us centered, but not unafraid: curious, but not quite brave. Harker is quiet, nervous, and sometimes timid, but there’s also power in her competence. When asked by her boss’s daughter “Is it scary being a lady FBI agent?,” her thousand-yard stare is interrupted by a flicker in her eye and softly uttered “Yep.”

Here, Monroe conveys a sense of mysterious contentment while igniting our voyeuristic wonder if some scab, deep in the soulful viscera of Harker, has been ever so slightly picked by the question. It’s this constant duality and enigma, expertly manipulated by Monroe’s nuanced stronghold on her craft, that makes Agent Lee Harker one of the most compelling portrayals of the year. – Peyton Robinson

Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne in “Red Rooms”

Juliette Gariépy’s performance in “Red Rooms” is one of controlled, hypnotic blankness. She has relatively few lines of dialogue, and instead we have scene after scene of only her face and body in poised silence; we are watching her watching, reading into flicks of her eyelids or the curl of her lips for clues and meanings of intent. We watch her as she emanates an unnerving aura inside the courtroom as she obsessively gazes at the killer. We watch her at home, her face aglow, as she scans her computer screen as she studies footage related to her killer’s crimes. It is a deceptively tricky performance, the kind where it is especially important to appear as though you are doing nothing at all, naturalistically void, and Gariépy inhabits this uncanny persona with ease.

But as the film nears its climax, we realize her face wasn’t truly blank at all, but as much a mask as those she wore in her modeling photoshoots, a failing disguise that reveals, slowly, who she really is and what she really wants, and who she wants it from. The answers are terrifying, and Gariépy gives her Kelly-Anne an undeniable, familiar credibility, a performance that slowly summarizes the corrosive compulsivity of online life. Through her we see the numbed gaze of endless scrolling, and the evil ecstasy of the internet provoking our worst impulses made reality. Not all of us are as far gone as she is, but there’s something of Gariépy’s performance in all of us –– and that’s what should scare us. – Brendan Hodges

Lily Collias as Sam in “Good One”

In most of India Donaldson’s thoughtful “Good One,” teenage Sam (Lily Collias) maintains a sturdy facade. While she suffers the tepid, near-mundane humiliations of hanging out with her father and his oldest friend while hiking, she handles it all good-naturedly, like the responsible, wise-beyond-her-years figure she’s painted to be. Collias handles these details as Sam beautifully, offering inquisitive facial expressions and sly rebukes to some of the adults’ more ridiculous declarations. She’s responsible without seeming precocious, carrying with her the air of someone relied upon too often, though her burden is quiet.

It’s what makes the crack in the armor so devastating later in the film. After her comfort and safety is breached, she reaches out to her dad. His response breaks her trust and reads all over Collias’s face. It’s a stunning, heartbreaking moment as we see every ounce of hope, every bit of childhood belief in our parents, drain away. Collias plays the moment close to her chest, her walls back up just as quickly as they were torn down, but her crumpled expression lingers. For such an internal, reactionary performance, this blatant, rightful vulnerability is startling. Honest and achingly human, Collias is expressive and vibrant in her debut performance, hopefully promising many more to come. – Ally Johnson