Best Movies of 2024: Best Performances

In my continued analysis of the best movies of 2024, here are my picks for the best performances of 2024. Every year this is the toughest list to make and every year I feel bad about leaving some performances off. While I loved performances by Angelina Jolie, Adam Pearson, Timothée Chalamet, Justice Smith, Amy Adams, Sebastian Stan, Lily-Rose Depp, Ralph Fiennes, Aaron Pierre, Kristen Stewart, and many others, I think the performances I chose are all truly great and deserve their place as some of the best performances of 2024. 

Like previous years, I have broken the performances down by category, much like the Oscars, with Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. For each category, I will list the “nominees” and then pick a winner and go further in-depth as to why that actor gave the best performance in their category. I love all these performances and you’ll see a nice mix of performances that might get some recognition at the Oscars and some that will be completely ignored by the Academy, despite being worthy. I also noticed when making this list that a lot of my nominees and all of my winners are up-and-comers or relatively new to the movie scene, which is very exciting because, much like Best Director, it shows that the future of Hollywood is loaded with talent.

Here are my picks for the best performances of 2024.

 

Best Supporting Actress

Adria Arjona, Hit Man

Ariana Grande, Wicked

Reneé Rapp, Mean Girls

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys

Zendaya, Dune: Part Two

Winner

Adria Arjona, Hit Man

The Supporting Actress category was weaker than most years but there was one performance that grew on me throughout the year thanks to several rewatches and that was Adria Arjona’s performance in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. Arjona plays Madison, a woman who hires a hitman to take out her husband, only for that hitman to be Gary (Glen Powell), an undercover police officer posing as a hitman hired to entrap people who plan on harming others. Gary and Madison end up falling for each other, which puts their lives in dangerous, dubious territory. Arjona is electrifying. Her performance perfectly combines drama, humor, charisma, and sexiness, and her chemistry with Powell will have you swooning. Arjona had a great 2024, also starring in Blink Twice and Los Frikis and her future is as bright as anyone in Hollywood.

Best Supporting Actor

Austin Butler, Dune: Part II

Ed Harris, Love Lies Bleeding

Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing

Denzel Washington, Gladiator II

Winner

Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing

Clarence Maclin is not an actor by trade. At the age of 29, Maclin was sentenced to 17 years in prison for robbery. While incarcerated, he joined a rehabilitation acting group that would put on plays in prison. Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing is about this program and Maclin stars in the film as an inmate resistant to being in the group despite showing real talent. Though Maclin has never acted on screen before, he has a natural screen talent, giving the breakout performance of the year and maybe the decade. There are scenes where Maclin owns the screen and others where he blends in seamlessly with the rest of the ensemble. He knows when he needs to go big and when he needs to keep a more subdued tone, but your eyes are always on him. In a film that features career-best work from Colman Domingo, it was Maclin’s performance that blew me away and impressed me the most in 2024.

Best Actress

Nell Tiger Free, The First Omen

Mikey Madison, Anora

Demi Moore, The Substance

Naomi Scott, Smile 2

Zendaya, Challengers

Winner

Naomi Scott, Smile 2

Naomi Scott gives one of the great horror movie performances in recent years in Smile 2 as Skye Riley, a global pop star set to go on a world tour who gets possessed by the Smile Curse. The brilliance of Scott’s performance is that it is essentially two performances meshed into one. One performance is that of a woman possessed by a mysterious curse and her trying to stay alive and break it. The other is of a pop star trying to reclaim her life and fame following a horrific accident that almost killed her. This is a lot of emotion for one actor to portray and Scott showed she was up to the task. She must convince us that what is possessing her is terrifying and confusing while also making us empathize with her as she tries to reclaim her fame and humanity. This is easily the best performance of Scott’s career and one that shows she can handle more demanding roles and knock them out of the park.

Best Actor

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Josh Hartnett, Trap

Andre Holland, Exhibiting Forgiveness

Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight

Winner:

Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight

Keith Kupferer’s performance in Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s Ghostlight has been my favorite performance of the year since I first saw the film back in January 2024 and it has stayed at that top spot the entire year despite some stiff competition. Kupferer, a Chicago character actor, got the opportunity to be the lead in a wonderful film about a family going through a recent tragedy and the father, who he plays, finding solace in a local theater production of Romeo & Juliet. Kupferer’s performance is a brilliant act of restraint. His character keeps everything bottled in, from the recent family tragedy to his daughter constantly getting in trouble at school. He doesn’t know how to express his emotions and just keeps everything in, which weighs heavily on his shoulders. But when he learns how to express everything that’s been built inside him, it’s a powerhouse of emotion. Kupferer gives a lived-in, authentic, beautiful performance.

 

 

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