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/GhostWriter888 1d ago

Anthony Hopkins in The Father is mind blowing.

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u/chunga_95 1d ago

Him in a lot of things. I'm surprised no one mentioned him for Silence of the Lambs yet. 

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u/seanx40 1d ago

Silence is a silly campy performance.

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u/boboddball 1d ago

Anthony Hopkins has a scene towards the end of season 1 of Westworld where his face moves through 4 or 5 different emotions in a few seconds, some of which are clearly trying to be masked. It's just such phenomenal control.

There's a YouTube video just analysing that. https://youtu.be/4kSGkGKwp9U