We take a look at eight films featuring incredible acting that any aspiring actors should definitely watch…
Great actors are one key piece of a jigsaw and the big picture everyone hopes for is a great movie at the end of it. Some actors can be so great they often elevate everything they’re in, even making the mediocre more palatable (such as Mads Mikkelsen in most of his American big screen pictures).
Get a great actor in unison with a masterful director’s vision, working from a great screenplay and then you’re talking about magic. It’s all too rare these days but it still happens.
For aspiring actors out there, you can learn a lot from great performers and they offer plenty of inspiration from those hoping to be the next De Niro, Streep or even those who want to let loose like Nicolas Cage. Here are 8 films with masterful acting…
Autumn Sonata
Pick a Bergman, any Bergman. Yep, the iconic director made a litany of incredible films, marking him as one of the most influential and consistently exceptional directors in history. During his peak years, he was prolific but rarely less than stellar and never less than watchable.
Ingmar Bergman also had plenty of muses, often calling upon several tried and trusted cast. Why? They were all incredible and seemed to have a great cohesion with the Bergman picture. One of the key traits required is the ability to speak without words. To paint a vivid and compelling picture with only your eyes, be it Harriet Andersson, Bibi Anderson, Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman.
Speaking of Ullman, that brings us to Autumn Sonata, a late-era Bergman film which sees Ullman as a repressed daughter who invites her estranged mother to her place to reconnect. This masterpiece also saw Ingmar’s namesake, Ingrid collaborate with the director for the first time ever, in her final feature film role.
Like most Ingmar Bergman films, the simple storyline provides a perfect backdrop with enthralling character work built on repression, evasiveness and simmering resentment that threatens to blow (and inevitably does).
The film largely rests on Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman as their initially joyous reunion begins to fray as that pent-up anger (particularly from a downtrodden and ignored daughter) builds up. Charlotte (Bergman) is a master pianist whose devotion to music came at the expense of her two daughters, one of whom (Lena Nyman) is severely disabled. A mother ridden with guilt she can almost no longer suppress faces a daughter whose anger can’t be suppressed either.
The two central performances are exceptional. It’s Ingrid Bergman’s best performance and a stunning last hurrah for a cinematic icon. Ullman is also on top of her game and both actresses play deep repression up to outpouring with incredible skill.
12 Angry Men
Ensemble films are tough to pull off. The more actors you have in key roles, the more likelihood that someone might drop the ball or be unable to match the level of the others. Not just down to who you cast but how well each role is written too.
12 Angry Men sets its story within the confines of a single interior location, resting entirely on the writing and direction as well as the principal cast, including Henry Fonda, Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb and Martin Balsam.
A seemingly open and shut case should see a unanimous guilty verdict but one Juror stands against the others with a creeping doubt. The intensity of the drama is matched by the sweaty and clammy atmosphere that Sidney Lumet conjures and Reginald Rose’s script is incredibly well paced with great dialogue.
It’s remarkable that you have at least half of the jurors who could conceivably have deserved Oscar recognition for their roles (only Fonda was nominated), whilst the less prominent jurors are no less impressive when called upon. The best ensemble film ever, bar none.
A Woman Under The Influence
Some performance films need a couple of cast members or more to be at the very top of their game. Other films focus more minutely on a single character requiring something special from the lead. John Cassavetes knew how to get mesmeric performances out of his actors, in no small part because of a very intimate and intense style of filmmaking, as well as his own background as an actor.
His wife and regular muse, Gena Rowlands was capable of the sublime when she was at her best and had no level of ego that would restrain her or limit her. Nowhere is this more apparent than in A Woman Under The Influence where she plays a grim and unflattering portrait of a woman struggling with manic depression, exacerbated by alcoholism.
It’s grim viewing but Rowlands never becomes too much of a caricature and never threatens to lose the audience’s sympathy. She’s compelling from the first minute, portraying the almost pain-inducing lengths she has to go through to hide her ills from her family and friends. It’s performance within performance. When the cards come crashing down too, her breakdowns will leave you aghast. It’s rare you see performances where you feel like a performer left nothing behind. Rowlands is one of those and she gave everything to the part.
Decision to Leave
Dialogue can often be a crutch. You’ve seen it, even in some great films where characters tell you how they think and feel, or you’re treated to a nice hearty exposition dump. However, there’s one thing we can learn, particularly from masters of East Asian and Nordic cinema, and that’s how to tell a story visually, where even simple dialogue that says one thing is countered with acting telling is something else entirely.
Park Chan-wook has delivered some exceptionally twisted thrillers and visually stunning films. He’s never been afraid to deal with shocking subject matters or a blunt approach to sex and violence, so Decision to Leave’s refrain felt almost like new territory. It’s a film with heady doses of allegory and metaphor, a love story filled with lingering restraint and ambiguity. It’s his most quiet film, that still keeps his precise visual language and plenty of symbolism.
A film like this, focused mostly on two characters needs gripping performances and it gets them. Hae il Park is the married Korean cop investigating the death of a businessman and becomes infatuated with the (Chinese) widow (Tang Wei) who might well be the chief suspect. Casting Wei as effectively a foreigner in Korea is a nice touch too, though her Korean is serviceable it often leaves gaps that translation devices must fill and sees both regress to looks and body language.
We never see big outpourings of emotion in this. It’s reliant on reading the actors and deciphering what they’re telling us without dialogue and it’s something Tang Wei in particular has always been exceptional at. She’s an elusive and mesmerising actress who can tell as everything and nothing all at once (much like her Lust Caution co-star, Tony Leung for example). Decision To Leave is a film with rich subtleties and alluring ambiguity that invites repeat viewings and open interpretations.
Rocky
Yep, an acting masterclass with a film headed up by Sylvester Stallone. You monocle-wearing snobs just listen up. Rocky might have been slightly contentious as the Best Picture winner, considering it was up against Taxi Driver and Network, but honestly, Hollywood was in the process of a big mood shift from pessimistic cinema to optimistic, which would be cemented the following year with Star Wars.
The classic underdog sports story is written with real heart with an uplifting story but as well as the stellar direction and iconic soundtrack, Rocky is also gifted with five incredible performances, four of which were nominated in acting categories at the Oscars. The other, the late great Carl Weathers was a bit more of a linear archetype but he plays the Ali-esque show-boating boxing champ to absolute perfection.
Stallone, all hound dog pathos and good-hearted charm as the loveable Rocky shone so brightly he launched himself as one of the biggest stars in the World. He’s got incredible support in a cast of eclectic and beautifully rounded characters from Burt Young and Talia Shire as a pair of polar siblings. Shire is wonderful as Adrian but sadly became an afterthought in the sequels. The man who steals the show above all, with a masterclass in scenery chewing that never loses humility, is Burgess Meredith the veteran of the film. He really was a wonderful actor and despite his small stature, he had a bark that could send chills down the spine.
Naked
The Mike Leigh school of filmmaking usually involves a huge deal of preparation from his actors during the development process which helps to carve out their arcs and a storyline to place them into. The in-depth process differs from conventional scriptwriting but by the time cameras roll the actors are no less clued up as to what the film is. Yet Leigh can still moments of instinctive improvisational brilliance.
His most electrifying, dark and cerebral film remains Naked. Everyone in the film is incredible, from Leslie Sharp to the late Katrin Cartlidge but this show is very much the David Thewlis show. As the protagonist, Johnny, Thewlis has to make an often reprehensible character retain some sympathy and an oddly antagonistic charm.
His night odysseys in London are beautifully captured and his encounters with the leftovers of London are always compelling (with every other cast member excellent too). When Johnny descends into rants on everything from humanity to philosophy, Thewlis becomes mesmeric. This deep-thinking character is wrapped up in unkempt costuming with physiological ticks and bipolar shifts in mood at the click of a finger. One of the greatest performances ever committed to film.
Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese’s grimy New York opus is still his most dazzling display of confident style. Beautiful cinematography captures filthy back streets. Moody and enveloping Jazz creates a dreamy mood before despondency smashes its way into the speakers with punching crescendos. Within all of this yin yang, is Travis Bickle as played by Robert De Niro.
Firstly, he benefits from not only Scorsese’s visual gifts but from Paul Schrader’s magnificent script. De Niro has often played characters with verbal self-assurance. Commanding, fast-talking tough guys but characters who tell you a huge deal with words. With Bickle, he delivers his most introspective performance.
De Niro has to wear the complexity of Travis on his face and a bombardment of uncontrollable angst and anger that surges through him, constantly threatening to burst out of him. De Niro has incredible moments throughout and a number of iconic moments, but one of the best scenes comes with Bickle opposite The Wizard (Peter Boyle), a fellow driver. Bickle struggles to articulate the almost nuclear reactions bubbling within him that his stillness and silence belies. You can see that struggle written on his face (which is bathed in red light from nearby neons).
De Niro aside, he’s got great support from Jodie Foster (she’s immense, even so young), Harvey Keitel (who almost makes slime drip from the screen) and a chilling cameo from Scorsese himself.
Dead Poets Society
Nothing is more pleasing in acting than seeing the unexpected. To be surprised is thrilling and Robin Williams had the power to surprise and defy what audiences expected of a comedian and TV star. He bridged into cinema with often quirky or comedic roles but when it came to playing things straight he managed it with aplomb. Not only that but with a kind of warm pathos and charm that was rare.
Dead Poets Society is a brilliant film by Peter Weir (who is honestly, criminally underrated and should be considered one of the top-tier directors alongside Scorsese et al). The ensemble sees a group of boys in an expensive private school as they search for meaning in life beyond the path laid out for them by strict parents. From Ethan Hawke to Robert Sean Leonard, everyone is superb.
It’s Williams as the inspiring and unconventional teacher who makes this film so timeless. The guy with the rubber face and funny voice also had such a gift for nuance when the slightest shift in an expression could make your heart break or make it sing. He’s just as exceptional in Good Will Hunting, but Dead Poets Society was the first film which really painted Williams as a great dramatic artist and the film as a whole just does not get old.
Which films do you think have exceptional acting in them? Are you an aspiring thespian? Who are your acting heroes? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe