r/movies • u/Fun_Protection_6939 • 1d ago

Discussion What is the single greatest acting performance you have seen?

What is the single greatest acting performance you have seen?

It's got to be Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice for me. Such a heartbreaking and nuanced portrayal of loss and devastation, and doubly impressive because she had to learn two languages fluently and had to speak German with a Polish accent, when neither language was native to her.

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u/Chopper3 1d ago edited 1d ago

I was blown away by the scene in “Captain Philips” when Tom Hank’s character sits with the nurse at the end and just comes apart.

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u/SDoller1728 1d ago

It’s not the best full movie performance but this scene in particular was what first came to mind. I felt that shit.

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u/layzeeboy81 1d ago

Completely unscripted! And the nurse is an actual triage nurse on the ship they were filming on. They felt like they needed one more scene on the boat and they asked the military liaisons what happened when he got back on the boat and they said he went to the infirmary. So they went there and filmed this scene, and told the triage staff "just do what you would normally do". And got it in one take. GOAT.

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u/Calamari_is_Good 1d ago

Yes! That's really good.

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u/mic2292 1d ago

Yesss