THE GREAT FILM PERFORMANCES – MALE
Part One
Subscribe to Hollywood North Magazine
Written By: John H.Foote
In this four part series I will explore the great film performances in four categories, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress. I have named ten best for each category along with a list of runners-up who could have easily made the list and in years to come might bump those on the list as time strengthens the impact of their work.

Since the recent passing of screen legend Marlon Brando, I have analyzed and speculated about the greatest screen performances of all time. In the days after Brando’s death, many tributes appeared in film magazines around the world, many of them declaring Brando the greatest actor in the history of the cinema.

Jack Nicholson, himself among the elite declared at least as good as Brando, wrote a wonderful tribute in Rolling Stone stating that the great actors never discuss who is best because they all know it is Brando. In the early sixties acting guru Stanford Meisner stated, “There are two great actors in America, the first being Brando who’s best work is behind him, the second is Robert Duvall”.

In compiling the list of the ten greatest acting performances in movie history, Brando did not top the list, though is the only actor to appear twice. Robert Duvall’s hellfire minister in The Apostle (1997) topped the list. Lists are odd things for critics to compile yet seem so much a part of our everyday existence. I justify my lists with a sheer and pure love of everything that is cinema.

The ten greatest performances are:

1. Robert Duvall in The Apostle (1997)…in a self directed performance, Duvall is electrifying as a flawed preacher in the deep south who commits a crime and flees into the backwoods to seek his penance. Portrayed with volcanic energy and great soul bursting fury, Duvall is stunning in a performance that stunned even the critics who admire as the finest American actor. What is astounding about the performance is that Duvall portrays this deeply flawed man with no apology and stills finds a chord of sympathy from the audience. A hypnotic and furious performance for the ages. Yes he was equally good in Apocalypse Now (1979), but that is very much a supporting performance and tops another list.

2. Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris (1973)…as an American left adrift in Paris when his French wife commits suicide, Brando’s Paul is a study in self loathing who blames himself for her death yet cannot come to terms with accepting blame. He enters into a purely sexual affair with a much younger woman in an effort to escape his guilt, yet because the guilt lurks in his mind, he finds he cannot get away. A miraculous piece of acting because so much of it was improvised and Brando had the immense courage to merge so much of his own life with that of the character he was portraying: art merged with life.

3. Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)Nicholson has been remarkable so man times it was difficult to find a performance of his to call the best yet for my money his work in this film as the rebellious leader of a group of mental patients is simply breathtaking. As a convict who fakes being crazy to get out of his work detail, he makes it his mission in life to get under the skin of the emotionally castrating nurse, unaware that she alone has the power to destroy him. A performance bursting with hope and utter defiance of authority.

4. Robert de Niro in Raging Bull (1980)…A seething, raging performance of such anger and self loathing one can scarce believe that it is indeed an actor on the screen portraying a character. De Niro got himself in peak condition to portray former middleweight fighter Jake Lamotta, then gained eighty pounds of fat to play him older and gone to waste. Underneath the flesh and muscle is a performance of astonishing depth and deep self hatred as De Niro captures why Lamotta raged through his life hating everyone, especially himself.

5. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954)…When Brando says with a wistful haunt in his voice, ‘I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender” we understand so much about his character and the soul of the character. As a boxer betrayed by those he loves best, Brando is remarkable moving through the film with a dawning realization that those closest to him have brought about his downfall. The first truly great film performance that would change the way we perceive acting on the big screen. There is so much hurt and heartache in this performance yet Brando is such a powerhouse of an actor we may not notice until the film is over how tender a performance this really is.

6. John Wayne in The Searchers (1956)…The Misconception that John Wayne could not act should be forever obliterated by his towering performance as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956). Portraying a racist man filled with hate, searching for his niece not to bring her home but to kill her because she has been defiled, he is terrifying in the power he brings to the role. Wayne made many films, gave great performance in perhaps a dozen, but was never as seething as he is as Ethan, said to be his favourite role. Wayne touched a part of himself he did not know existed and as Ethan found, discovered new layers of his humanity along the search, the last thing he was looking for.

7. James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)…Before Brando, James Stewart was the finest American screen actor, a fact borne out by his remarkable performance in this classic film. The range of emotions Stewart displays in this picture is astonishing, but he is at best during the darkest moments of the film, when audiences were treated to a side of Jimmy Stewart damaged by the war. He is everyman who has ever sought to get out of small town they grew up in, but for reasons of sheer human decency, were unable to do so. Sad that only when faced with non-existence does he realize his whole world is right in front of him.

8. Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie (1982)…There is a moment in this film when Dustin Hoffman the actor portraying Michael Dorsey the actor portraying Dorothy Michaels the actress, disappears, leaving us with Dorothy, a strong willed soap star who becomes a spokeswoman for woman’s rights. This masterpiece of a comedy sees Hoffman at his nastiest best and at his most decently glorious. How did Oscar miss this? There is not a trace of Dustin Hoffman once he becomes Dorothy, and I do mean becomes Dorothy.

9. Denzel Washington in Malcolm X (1992)…Often under appreciated as an actor, Washington electrified audiences as Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s film of the same name. Seeming to channel the soul of the slain black activist, Washington at times IS Malcolm on the screen, leaving no trace of the smiling educated actor he is. He carries this epic film that is also an intimate character study from beginning through to the tragic end. And yes, it is true that he lost the Oscar to Al Pacino’s over the top ranting in Scent of a Woman (1992).

10. Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000)…Armed with two Oscar before he gave this stunning performance, Hanks tops everything he had previously done as Chuck, a FedEx executive left stranded on a tropical island after a plane crash for nearly dour years. Hanks carries the film, which is largely silent, particularly in the middle half when there is no one on screen but him. He was remarkable as Forrest Gump (1994) and superb in Saving Private Ryan (1998) but he is astonishing in Cast Away (2000). Only of an actor of extraordinary ability could carry this film.


Runners-up Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption (1994); Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot (1989); George C. Scott in Patton (1970); Gene Hackman in The Royal Tanenbaums (2001); Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath (1940); Jack Nicholson in Chinatown (1974); Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (1976); Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II (1974); Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972); John Travolta in Blow Out (1981); Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City (1981); James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941); Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961); Jon Voight in Coming Home (1978); Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies (1983); Albert Finney in The Dresser (1984); Robin Williams in Awakenings (1990); Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991); Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump (1994); Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas (1995); Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking (1995); Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940); Edward Norton in American History X (1998); Gene Hackman in The Conversation (1974); Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962); Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot (1959); Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1967); Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy (1969); Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960)
© Copyright 2004 Hollywood North Magazine Inc.