The Best Performances of 2007
by Brian Tallerico

You'll read a lot in the next couple months about critics awards, Oscar predictions, and top ten lists, but beyond the hype and the Hollywood politicking, who are the actors who really stood out this year? Sometimes with the flood of "For Your Consideration" ads and posters full of glowing quotes, it's hard to separate the truly great from the greatly marketed. And don't get us started on the limited memory of everyone from the Academy to Larry King, who often can’t seem to remember anything released any earlier than November. With all of this back-room back-slapping occupying so much of the media’s attention, how do you really know whose work you should be seeking out? Who moved up in the world of acting? Who are we forgetting? We went back through the entire year, film by film, and picked out the best performances in the four major categories, ignoring hype, advertisements, filmographies, or even the films themselves. Some of them may not have appeared in the best movies of the year, but based on the strength of their performances alone, these are the actors who deserve the most acclaim for 2007 and the ones that true fans of the craft should seek out as soon as possible.

BEST ACTOR

There’s an amazing range of actors that could easily qualify for the top five in this category, and Academy voters are going to have a tough time paring it down to just a quintet come next February. The great thing about the actor category this year is the breadth of experience. Some of the most lauded actors alive delivered their usual great work, while others rose from relative obscurity to give memorable turns on the silver screen.

The true newcomers this year included a heartbreaking turn by Gordon Pissent as a husband who realizes that the pain of Alzheimer's is actually worse for the loved ones left behind in Away From Her, Khalid Abdalla as a writer going back to Afghanistan to right wrongdoings from his childhood in The Kite Runner, Mathieu Amalric as a man trapped in his own body in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Glen Hansard as a musician who discovers that love can alter the course of your life in Once, and Sam Riley as the legendary Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis in Control. Riley was a particular stand-out, who doesn't so much pretend to be Curtis as channels him.

There are even a number of actors who felt that one big ticket performance just wasn't enough in 2007. Christian Bale proved yet again that he’s not happy if he’s not working, offering nicely nuanced turns in 3:10 to Yuma, Rescue Dawn, and I'm Not There. Reign Over Me and Talk to Me were two movies with some serious flaws, but Don Cheadle did amazing work in both projects. The actor with, arguably, the most breakthrough year in Hollywood in 2007 has to be Josh Brolin, who appeared in Grindhouse, In the Valley of Elah, American Gangster, and No Country For Old Men. Brolin was a relatively good character actor in 2006. By the end of 2007, he had moved to a completely different level. Then there's a young star you might have heard of named John Cusack. Always on the verge of critical acclaim, Cusack gave the two best performances of his career in 1408 and Grace is Gone. Let's just hope he doesn't slide back into romantic comedies again. Grace may be gone, but let’s hope that Must Love Dogs never returns either.

And there are still more memorable best actor performances that have to be acknowledged before we can even get to a top five. Actors already on the "A-list" like Chris Cooper, John Malkovich, Viggo Mortensen, and Tommy Lee Jones proved why they were there with their strong work in Breach, Color Me Kubrick, Eastern Promises, and In the Valley of Elah. A pair of young actors - Emile Hirsch and Casey Affleck - went from supporting roles and indie dramas to give two of the most riveting performances of the year in Into the Wild and Gone Baby Gone. Heck, even Brad Pitt did the best work of his career in 2007 with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and even he couldn’t make the top five. And finally, don’t be surprised if Frank Langella, a well-respected stage actor who has long been one of those "hey, it's that guy" character actors, becomes a household name by the time awards season is over for his deft performance in Starting Out in the Evening.

But even Frank couldn't break the top five for our list of best performances by an actor in 2007. Runner-ups in alphabetical order:

George Clooney as Michael Clayton in Michael Clayton

If he hadn't won so recently for Syriana, George might be the Oscar front-runner for his amazing work in Michael Clayton. Michael is the first character to really tap Clooney's dual personality of brawn and brain. He’s used his looks and charm in films like the Ocean's series and got a little more intellectual in Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, but Clayton finally (and beautifully) merges the two. Michael needs to be a suave, smooth character to be as successful as he is, but he's also one of the smartest guys in the room. And, as brilliantly played by Clooney, his life as a "fixer" for an amoral law firm has left him weary. He's the best at what he does, and now he has to pay the price for that. It's one of those rare roles that no one else could have played.

Benicio Del Toro as Jerry Sunborne in Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire is a great example of a movie that definitely goes wrong in a few places, but is completely pulled back into the realm of riveting cinema by one of the best actors alive. The amazing thing about Del Toro's work in Fire - playing a junkie who's forced to deal with the sudden loss of the one friend whose support was the only thing keeping him alive - is how completely believable it is, even if the film around him isn't. Fire isn't an awful movie by any stretch, but it's turned into a must-see simply by Del Toro delivering some of the best acting work of the year.

Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom in Lars and the Real Girl

Years from now, people will look back at what Ryan Gosling has achieved in the last 18 months and marvel at the scope of his abilities. Watch Half Nelson, Fracture, and Lars and the Real Girl back to back and try to find any commonality between the characters. While so many of Gosling's peers, even the good ones, fall back on repeated character tics or exaggerated personalities in their acting, Gosling seems to be one of those very rare actors who can take any role and knock it out of the park. He gave the best performance of last year in Half Nelson and nearly matched it this year. Is there any argument that he's one of the best of his generation?

James McAvoy as Robbie Turner in Atonement

McAvoy was completely (and some might say unfairly) overshadowed by Forest Whitaker last year in Last King of Scotland, and he's likely to be ignored again this year in favor of Atonement’s technical achievements. It's a shame because, despite the prodigious talents of everyone behind the camera on this excellent film, it's McAvoy who’s the beating heart of the entire story. From the first moment that Robbie looks at Cecilia to the way he closes his eyes when she touches his face late in the film, McAvoy gives one of the most subtle performances of the year in a category filled with big, showy roles.

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