Best Performances of 2018

In an age of special effects and ever expanding budgets, solid performances are what sets many movies apart. They carry the emotional weight of a movie and have the ability to make you laugh or cry or cry from laughing. These are the very best actors and actresses from this past year.

This year had some familiar faces in new territory. Daniel Kaluuya broke out last year in the hit Get Out, and his resume continues to grow with a villain turn in Widows. Ethan Hawke plays a somber priest who begins to spiral out of control when confronting some of the evils of the world in First Reformed. Another Get Out alum in Lakeith Stanfield got a star turning role in Sorry to Bother You, as a telemarketer who begins to see through the facade of the corporate world. Michael B. Jordan brought some heart to an other despicable Kilmonger in Black Panther.

But the best performance of the year comes in the form of Christian Bale playing Dick Cheney in Vice. Bale again had a dramatic weight gain and the results were stunning. Initially, I was unsure how Bale could ever look like Cheney, but the two become almost indistinguishable. But the similarities did not stop at the looks. Bale nailed the diction of the former Vice President, and gave him some heart that the man himself might not even deserve.

The ladies had some A-plus performances as well. Stephanie Germanotta (aka Lady Gaga) delivered a powerful first performance in A Star is Born, as a struggling artist looking for her big break. Claire Foy, star of Unsane, plays a woman who may or may not be suffering from a mental break, and shows all the anxiety and fear that such a situation would bring. Emma Stone plays a servant looking to expand her role within Queen Anne's court in The Favourite. And Elsie Fisher breaks out in Eighth Grade, a harrowing look into the terrors of middle school in this decade.

Toni Collette is my female performance of the year for her role in Hereditary. Starring as the mother of a family of four, Collette begins the movie grieving over the death of her own mother, and could be described as in various states of depression throughout the film. Without going into spoilers, the last 30 minutes of the movie have some of the best and most terrifying images from the year, with Collette providing many of the scares herself. If you missed Hereditary, I would definitely recommend checking it out if you can handle horror movies.