The Best Male Movie Performances of 2017
10. Tom Hanks, “The Post”
Tom Hanks, America’s sweetheart, has an uncharacteristically thankless role in “The Post.” Playing the legendary Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991 and during the Pentagon Papers scandal, Hanks embodies Bradlee as a swaggering pirate king, plundering the newsroom for whatever sort of bounty he can squeeze out of it. Crucially, he doesn’t seem to recognize that he’s not the hero of this story. In fact, he kind of just gets in her way. Bradlee isn’t a jerk, but he is a man, and the gendered way in which he marginalizes Katharine Graham (his boss!) only makes it harder for her to find the strength required to do the right thing. It’s a delicate tango, but few living actors could so convincingly chase justice while stepping on their own toes. This may not go down as anyone’s favorite Tom Hanks performance, but it might just be one of his best. —DE
9. Hugh Jackman, “Logan”
It’s telling that Wolverine is the only one of the major X-Men who hasn’t been played by another, younger star along the way. Jackman’s performance has always cut deeper than the spandex he wore for it — he wasn’t a vessel for this character, the character was a vessel for him. And with “Logan,” it’s clear that he was saving the best for last. Playing the fallen hero as a Johnny Cash song with adamantium claws, Jackman indelibly humanizes the rule, bringing real vulnerability and tenderness to a once-invincible icon. In a genre where most of the choices are shaped by studio notes and watered down by fan service, Jackman rides off into the sunset by proving that his Wolverine was his own man, able to withstand almost anything. He was big even when the pictures got small, and even bigger when they didn’t. “Don’t be what they made you,” Logan says at one point. That could be an empty line of dialogue, but Jackman makes it resonate. —DE
8. James McAvoy, “Split”
M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split” was one of the more fascinating attempts by a once-revered filmmaker to recapture his former glory, revisiting one of his best works with a wacky new twist. However, the story of a deranged man whose multiple personality disorder leads him to shift between 23 different characters wouldn’t have worked without the right vessel for the concept. As Casey Cooke, McAvoy veers from creepy psychopath to innocent child, stern house mother to cannibalistic beast, relying less on special effects than shifting expressions and tones. Even as the movie barrels toward a series of ludicrous developments, McAvoy remains a fascinating enigma at its center, his character at once pathetic, sad, and terrifying in ways that make him totally unpredictable. By the end, it’s clear that the actor has created a movie monster for the ages, and the twist makes it clear that we haven’t seen the last of him. —Eric Kohn
7. Barry Keoghan, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”
Has anyone in the history of movies ever eaten a bowl of any food — not just spaghetti — with as much genuine dread and character-defining menace as young Barry Keoghan in Yorgos Lanthimos’s deliciously unsettling film? As twisted teen antagonist Martin, Keoghan is tasked with playing a murderous psycho who is bent on revenge, while also being capable of charming the family of his primary target, the woefully unprepared Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell). When we meet the pair, they’re already in the thick of their destructive relationship, and things are only about to get worse, as a disarmingly dead-eyed Martin reveals his plan for well, just like, so much murder. We — and Steven — take him at face value because we have to, and it’s clear from the start the Martin is capable of anything. So is Keoghan, who also starred in this year’s “Dunkirk” as a wrenchingly good-hearted citizen just trying to do something meaningful, a wacky flipside of the chilling Martin, who is also eager to leave his mark. By the time Keoghan tears into his own flesh, it’s clear Martin will never stop — and neither will Keoghan. —KE
6. Robert Pattinson, “Good Time”
It’s hard to imagine a character further from a brooding vampire than Connie Nikas, the Queens-bred con man Robert Pattinson plays in Josh and Benny Safdie’s pitch-black joy ride of a crime thriller. If Pattinson was trying to slough off his teen idol sheen once and for all, he succeeded. In place of “Twilight” fans, he now finds himself adored by cinephiles with a penchant for dark humor and deranged plots. Following a poorly planned bank robbery gone hilariously wrong, Connie becomes separated from his brother Nick, the only person in the world he cares about. His only redeeming quality is this fraternal bond, as he manipulates every other person in the movie with a callousness that is at times hard to stomach. Pattinson uses his considerable charms as Connie’s sharpest tool, and it’s such a convincing performance that you almost forget the mild-mannered British boy underneath the scum. —JD
5. Andy Serkis, “War for the Planet of the Apes”
4. Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
In what he’s calling his final performance, the three-time Oscar-winner gives an unexpectedly comic turn as a manipulative, fussy couturier who dresses Europe’s richest women (but is not above ripping his impeccable creations off their drunk, unconscious bodies). Asked why he isn’t married, Day-Lewis’s character, Reynolds Woodcock, simply responds, “I make dresses,” identifying himself as an aloof, anti-Everyman (like one imagines the committed Method actor to be onset). Woodcock faces virtually no direct consequences for his professional and personal blunders, with his curt younger sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville) acting as his liaison, manager, and permanent third wheel. When he foists an upper-crust existence onto a waitress (Vicky Krieps) meant for temporary muse-dom and dalliance, she becomes emboldened, reducing Woodcock to a hallucinating, invective-spewing invalid. -Jenna Marotta
3. James Franco, “The Disaster Artist”
James Franco’s performance as “The Room” director Tommy Wiseau is so convincing and lived-in that it may as well have inspired Daniel Day-Lewis to retire from the screen, safe with the knowledge that the movies finally have another method actor capable of compensating for his absence. It’s not just that Franco becomes Tommy Wiseau, his note-perfect mimicry enhanced by subtle prosthetics that make his face look lumpy in all the right ways. No, the genius of Franco’s performance is that his Wiseau isn’t just a flawless work of imitation, it’s also genuinely additive. Franco builds on Wiseau’s legend as the worst director of all time, fleshing him out into an endearing dreamer whose delusions of grandeur inspire the people around him to remember what they really want for themselves. It’s a generous portrayal — maybe overly so — but it’s also one that will nevertheless delight people for years go come. -DE
2. Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
When Chris (Kaluuya) is visiting the affluent home of his white girlfriend (Alison Williams), he gets up in the middle of the night for a smoke. Then he runs into the woman’s mother (Catherine Keener), a psychotherapist with a teacup. She sits him down, speaks to him in a gentle tone, and forces him to revisit his troubled youth. Then she hypnotizes him, sending him careening into the dark void of his own mind where he risks becoming another brainwashed slave of deranged white people. The sequence is an instant piece of film history, one of the great statements on the power dynamics of America’s racially-imbalanced society. Yet while writer-director Jordan Peele conceived the brilliant concept of “The Sunken Place” where Chris winds up, it’s Kaluuya wide-eyed expression, his face wet with tears of shock and confusion, that transforms this hypnotic moment into an iconic one (no wonder Kaluuya’s eyes became the movie’s key selling point on billboards around the world). Kaluuya manages to ground the outrageous B-movie premise in a credible sense of disorientation throughout “Get Out,” from his awkward attempts to fit in during the early “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” passages to his frantic attempts to escape later on. Kaluuya is only at the start of his career, but he’s already delivered an iconic performance. —EK
1. Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
When it comes time to edit Chalamet’s Oscar clip for what one can only hope is the topper on an already-impressive slew of nominations, the show’s producers needn’t look any further than the final frames of his breakout film, “Call Me by Your Name.” The lush romance is showcase enough for Chalamet’s talents, as his Elio cycles through every permutation of desire, lust, confusion, self-doubt, worry, pain, heartbreak, and any emotion in between as he falls in love with the beguiling Oliver (Armie Hammer), but it’s that final scene that brings it all into stark relief. Luca Guadagnino’s film ends with a heartbroken Elio processing the content of a truncated phone conversation with Oliver while staring into a fireplace, the flames flickering gently over his face. While the credits role, Chalamet again captures the full terror and feeling of that great first love, though this time in the minimum of time and simply using his expressive eyes and trembling lips to re-tell a story we already well know. Chalamet brings it all to life, and makes sure that it burns, hard and bright. —KE
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Continue Reading: The Best Male Movie Performances of 2017
« Previous
