Today, we're looking at male leading and supporting roles from all walks of film. I believe the relative instability of Best Actor nominations at the big awards groups adds some credence to the quality of acting this year. No one was predicting Christian Bale for American Hustle, but he somehow out maneuvered Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips), Robert Redford (All is Lost), Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station), and Forest Whitaker (The Butler) among many other potentially worthy nominees to get in the race at the last possible moment. But you all know by now those aren't my picks. I'm not being a contrarian just for the sake of going against consensus. I'm recognizing the best performances in the films I saw regardless of budget, genre, or accessibility. VOD and theatrical releases both apply and I even count voice acting in my awards.
Best Supporting Actor
5: Dane DeHaan, Metallica: Through the Never
Though Dane DeHaan is the main actor in the loose story contained in Metallica: Through the Never, the focus is never far from the live concert footage of Metallica. It's a supporting role in the greater concert narrative. DeHaan plays an intern sent to recover a bag for the band. He is the main reason the wandering story holds up as long as it does and the only reason not to skip some of the later narrative chapters. There is a believable mix of terror, excitement, depression, joy, and boredom covered through a dark fantasy landscape of apocalyptic destruction and forests of hanging corpses.
4: Louis C.K., Blue Jasmine
Louis C.K. is talented. I don't think anyone questions that. But the dramatic chops he showcased in Blue Jasmine are something entirely new. The type isn't that far off, a loser a/v tech guy, but the twists in his role are. What starts off as charming, funny, Louis C.K.-like banter turns into something far more despicable very quickly.
3: Matthew Goode, Stoker
The charming psychopath isn't a new concept. Matthew Goode just does it with a whole lot of style. Stoker does not hide the fact that Uncle Charles is a dangerous person, but Goode doesn't let you hate him. You start to fall for Uncle Charles, same as young India's mother Evelyn and even India herself.
2: Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond the Pines
The Place Beyond the Pines is easily Ryan Gosling's most captivating performance since Lars and the Real Girl. There is no artifice or accent to hide behind, and it's not just quiet tough guy posturing. Motorcycle circus performer turned bank robber Luke is a complicated character driven by family, not greed, and played to sympathetic perfection by Gosling.
1: John Goodman, Inside Llewyn Davis
Inside Llewyn Davis is nothing without the quality of acting; John Goodman steals the show. His controlling, long-winded jazz musician act is the highlight of the film. There's a total commitment to the physicality of the role that makes even the most bizarre musician in a story filled with strange folk singers believable. Just wait until he starts talking about Santeria and see if you can resist his gaze.
Click through for the top five leading performances of 2013.
Best Actor
5: Roy Abramsohn, Escape From Tomorrow
Escape from Tomorrow is weird. There's no way around that. The reason the film holds together as well as it does is Roy Abramsohn. No matter what writer/director Randy Moore asked Abramsohn to do in the Disney parks, he did it. This wasn't a film that allowed for many second takes. And by many, I mean any. Some background actors were added with greenscreen and that's about it. This was mostly one take shots reacting to a lot of things that weren't there (pure terror at It's a Small World aside, that's just an unnerving relic of a ride) and Abramsohn always draws focus in just the right way.
4: Elijah Wood, Maniac
The Maniac remake is somehow more depraved than the original for all but eliminating the backstory. Elijah Wood's performance as the titular killer is shocking. Most of the film is POV shots with his face or body shown in the reflection of a broken mirror, a shiny car, or glass from just the right angle. There is no attempt to soften villain, even when he faces more typical challenges like a migraine or asking someone on a date. The film by its legacy comes with a trigger warning and Wood does nothing to ease that sense of apprehension.
3: Israel Broussard, The Bling Ring
Broussard does not have the flashiest role in The Bling Ring. He's just the closest writer/director Sofia Coppola allows the audience to get to a real human being. The whole story is an exploration of the vapidity of tabloid culture and privileged teens behaving badly, yet Boussard's Marc becomes a sympathetic figure. He's the only one in the group of terrible teen thieves who ever expresses any anxiety or doubt over breaking into celebrity houses and robbing for sport. There's this deep search for identity and companionship that makes Marc a tragic antihero. You can never really cheer on what his little group is doing but you can empathize with his desire to be accepted in a new school.
2: Simon Pegg, The World's End
For once, Simon Pegg plays against type in a comedy film and he knocks it out of the park. Gary King is a loathsome human being, a grown man with no sense of shame or purpose. He has spent an entire lifetime pining after a stupid pub crawl he never finished with his friends. Pegg is not afraid to be the butt of every joke in the same with King is not afraid of lying or cheating through every challenge he faces in life. It's a deft darkly comic performance that manages to make the apocalyptic/Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like story feel more realistic than it has any right to be.
1: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Chiewetel Ejiofor's performance as Solomon Northrup is stunning. There's really no other way to describe it. He nails the role of the abducted northern man sold into slavery. It's not hard to earn the audience's sympathy in a story like this, but Ejiofor doesn't ask for it. His performance is honest. There is no artifice. There is only a man trapped into circumstances he never imagined struggling to maintain hope that he will once again be free.
So those are my top performances by male actors from 2013. What do you think? What were your choices?