Top 10 Acting Performances of the 2000's

[pandaman]

Randomly thought of this last night and you know how much I love doing top 10 lists!! Comment on my choices and share some of your favorites

10. Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless / "Alexander Supertramp"
          in Into The Wild

9. Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius
          in Doubt

8. Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville
         in I Am Legend

7. Kate Hudson as Penny Lane
         in Almost Famous

6. Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview
          in There Will Be Blood

5. Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson
          in The Wrestler

4. Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff
         in Juno

3. Heath Ledger as The Joker
         in The Dark Knight

2. Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello
         in The Departed

1. Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris
         in Training Day

[FuryoftheFilmFan]

Good solid list there. I'm going to add Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and George Clooney for his role in Up in the Air

Both of those guys gave the best performance they have given in a long long long time. Especially Clooney

[pandaman]

Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds is one honorable mention along with Jamie Foxx and Joaquin Pheonix as Ray Charles and Johnny Cash respectively. Stuff from No Country For Old Men were definitely worth mentioning and everybody in Little Miss Sunshine were great choices too

[Darkknightrules92]

Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen.

[ZimMan2]

I would add: Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers/The Return of the King.

"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."

 

[pandaman]

Now that we are past the halfway mark of the first year of this new decade, what are some of the best performances so far this year?

I would definitely say everybody in Kick-Ass and everybody in Iron Man 2, specifically Downey, Jr. and Sam Rockwell.