Top 5 – Jake Gyllenhaal Performances

Jake Gyllenhaal has become one of the best actors working today.  Having started off his career kind of rough, he has since grown into a mature, brilliant actor who continues to push himself by taking on challenging roles in good movies.  With his latest film, Demolition, coming out this Friday, let’s take a look at the best performances from Jake Gyllenhaal.

5 – BILLY HOPE in SOUTHPAW (Antoine Fuqua, 2015)

When Southpaw came out last summer, I was convinced it was going to be one of my favorite movies of 2015.  It had a great trailer, killer soundtrack, and was loaded with talent.  The movie overall was a disappointment, but Gyllenhaal was spectacular.  He became Hope, a boxer who’s wife dies and then goes in a downward spiral of drugs and depression only to rise again when he meets up with an old trainer (Forrest Whitaker).  Gyllenhaal got ripped for this role and gave an emotionally riveting, powerful performance reminiscent of Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull (1980).  The movie might not be the classic I hoped, but Gyllenhaal proved that he is talented enough to turn a dud into something good.

4 – BRIAN TAYLOR in END OF WATCH (David Ayer, 2012)

Gyllenhaal’s performance in End of Watch is the first performance I saw him really transform into a character.  He plays an L.A. police officer who has to survive the dangerous streets with his partner (Michael Pena).  It’s an intense, gritty, realistic performance.  Gyllenhaal and Pena have great chemistry and you buy their partnership and friendship through out the entire movie.  Ayer’s decision to shoot this like a documentary gives the movie an authenticity that allows Gyllenhaal to really shine and become the military trained cop.  This was the start of the rebirth of Gyllenhaal’s career.

3 – JACK TWIST in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee, 2005)

A lot of people focus on co-star Heath Ledger’s performance in this film, but Gyllenhaal is just as good, if not better.  In a time where being gay was heavily frowned upon in society, two cowboys (Ledger and Gyllenhaal) fall in love during a job up on Brokeback Mountain.  This is a tale of forbidden love and Gyllenhaal is emotion of the film.  Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar is moving on with his life, getting married, having kids, trying to move on from Jack.  Jack, on the other hand, can’t get over Ennis.  He tries, but nobody makes him feel the way Ennis made Jack feel.  Gyllenhaal gives one of the most emotional lines ever in film with, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”  If that line doesn’t pull at a heartstring or two, you’re more soulless than me and I’m a ginger.  This is an emotionally crushing performance in one of the best love stories of the 21st century.

2 – LOUIS BLOOM in NIGHTCRAWLER (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

Gyllenhaal completely lost himself in Nightcrawler.  Playing a creepy yet determined freelance photo journalist trying to make a name for himself, Louis Bloom is like a coyote roaming in the night.  He wanders the streets of Los Angeles, looking for opportunity everywhere, until he stumbles on a career in recording the bloody darkness that lurks at night.  Looking painstakingly thin and grim, Gyllenhaal’s eyes pierce through the screen to show us a man who is willing to do anything to get to the top.  His sociopathic tendencies are horrifying, which makes the ending all that more powerful.  Criminally robbed of an Oscar nomination in 2014, this is a haunting, brilliant performance.

1 – DETECTIVE LOKI in PRISONERS (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

A lot of people would have Nightcrawler as Jake Gyllenhaal’s best performance.  But for me, it was his performance in Denis Villeneuve’s thrilling masterpiece Prisoners that stands as his best.  Playing a detective obsessed with finding two little girls who have gone missing, Gyllenhaal is at his most vulnerable and absolute best.  He took all the intensity and realism from a year before in End of Watch and heightened it, while also staying restrained and mesmerizing.  Detective Loki is hellbent on finding the girls and pushes ethical lines to do so.  This is a performance that Gyllenhaal had been building up towards.  All the of the actor’s best characteristics and skills come out in this role, which is what makes Detective Loki the best performance of Jake Gyllenhaal’s career.

What’s your favorite Jake Gyllenhaal performance?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or on Facebook at Kevflix.