A decade that saw some of the biggest movie stars on the planet shine and deliver career work, the first part of the century had a healthy film industry where star-driven vehicles would see the biggest and best at the Oscars. Not to say every excellent performance was rightly recognized, but a diverse array of performers gave it their all. From guys like Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio to method acting giants like Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale — actors with a diverse skill set bought characters to life that were born out of the film independence boom of the 90s. As the stories got grittier so did the actors. Here are the best performances from a male actor in movies of the 2000s, ranked.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
10 Philip Seymour Hoffman — Synecdoche, New York
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
The late Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of the greatest of his generation. An actor of sheer gravity and force who could ignite a scene with laughter, but also dominate everyone else in the frame. He could portray the subtleties of the human experience, like a faint glimpse to mirror his soul, or give you the over-the-top stage theatrics of a great actor who mastered the art of yelling. In Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, Hoffman plays a theater director who is ailed by an unknown disease shutting down his body. He attempts to stage production as large as New York City in his slow decay. In his ambition and grief, Hoffman’s soul and heart are ripped to shreds, but only because he puts every aspect of his life into his art.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Tommy Davidson — Bamboozled
New Line Cinema
Spike Lee’s films are in conversation with the history of cinema. In his audacious satire Bamboozled, Lee uses his voice to attack the history of minstrel shows, performative blackface, and racism towards Black art. While darkly funny, Lee’s message about white corporations profiting off of Black bodies is poignant, even today (per Vanity Fair), especially when they lose ownership. The film is a heartfelt memoriam of the history of Black performers. In a supporting role, Tommy Davidson is doing the best work of his career, playing street performer Womack, whose joy in performing gets undercut by the corporate decay. His Oscar-worthy performance leaves him shaken and disturbed by the end. While also delighting in the comedic origins of Davidson, he gives a full-bodied portrayal of struggling to have ownership of your art especially when it is body-dependent.
8 Christian Bale — American Psycho
Lionsgate Films
A performer known for his method acting, Christian Bale went to the extremes to make the psychotic and murderous yuppie Patrick Bateman’s character come to life in American Psycho. Working from rich source material from Brett Easton Ellis, director Mary Harron and Bale conjured up bleak dark comedy that pushes the violent imagery to the extremes, only to hilariously critique white-collar culture and the shallow nature of those Wall Street executives. The business card scene is an example of cringe and satire done to comedic effect. Bale’s performance is looney, grim, and physical. Pushing the frames with his violent stares while he ghoulishly murders and soundtracks his killings.
7 Nicolas Cage — Adaptation
Sony Pictures Releasing
Nicolas Cage’s madman expressionism split in two as he plays both sides of a dissimilar coin in the Spike Jonze-directed, Charlie Kaufman-scripted Adaptation. Deftly balancing the mannerisms, anxiety, and putrid self-worth that has all the classic Kaufman ticks, but Cage had to do it in two. Playing identical twins as they quest for finalizing a script that will etch their names in Hollywood, Cage transformed into a sweaty, heaving mess and also a confident, sly ladies man as the two personalities collide, fighting for a finished product. Punctuating the air of usual Hollywood banter, Cage uses Kaufman’s script to find all the peculiarities of writing and the pain it causes.
6 Michael Jai White — Black Dynamite
ARS Nova
A blacksploitation satire that nails all the aesthetic choices while undercutting the ludicrous nature of its plot with hilarious characters and gags, Michael Jai White carries the film on his back. Hilariously playing to his type as a man of peak physical physique, his physicality is matched by the over-the-top person of his badass vigilance. Whether it be a furiously funny tirade because of his kung fu being interrupted or figuring out the conspiracy harming his community, Black Dynamite is one of the great characters conceived in the 2000s and also the funniest.
5 Leonardo DiCaprio — The Aviator
Miramax Films / Warner Bros.
Martin Scorsese and Leonard DiCaprio have been as fruitful as any director/actor combination in the last 20 years. Their second effort together was a superstar tandem that drove DiCaprio from his most charismatic — proving why he’s one of the best actors working today — but also went to depths he hadn’t before in The Aviator. The anxieties of legendary Hollywood figure Howard Hughes saw the visionary director and flight-obsessed millionaire with his brain a prisoner by mental illness. Suffocated by his OCD, DiCaprio played the character with a loss of vanity while taking us to the edge of his decimated psyche. But also: shows what a progressive figure he was in the eyes of Hollywood causing trouble to the machinations of capitalism as he used his fame to challenge those in power.
4 Denzel Washington — Training Day
Village Roadshow Pictures
The first collaboration between Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington that would spawn a tight-knit partnership, Training Day led Washington to his first Oscar as a leading man. One of the few times Washington has been cast as an outright villain, he patrols the streets of Los Angeles as a dirty cop looking to make busts that help his own pockets. Playing the devil with a badge, he lures the young Ethan Hawke into a harsh reality of police corruption. With the “King Kong ain’t got shit on me!” scene, Washington cemented himself as the villain we love to watch.
3 Heath Ledger — The Dark Knight
Warner Bros.
One of the best performances to grace a superhero film, Christopher Nolan radically changed the arc of the industry with The Dark Knight. Although posthumously winning the Oscar after his tragic death for Best Supporting Actor, Heath Ledger’s Joker is undoubtedly the driving force of the film. Immersing himself with a thick-laced Chicagoan accent, Ledger bought all the mad man, psychotic, and clown posturing to a realistic portrayal of Batman’s ultimate villain. Taking apart Gotham one by one to show them he’s not alone in being a force of chaos and evil, The Joker takes everyone to their darkest depths.
2 Javier Bardem — No Country For Old Men
Miramax Films
A character that walks the desert as pure evil manifest, abandoning all loyalties to people but staying true to his principles, as twisted as they may be, Javier Bardem stars as Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men — an unstoppable force of violence. Bardem inhabits the character so chillingly, a man of cold calculations, directed in the sparse, minimalist landscape by The Coen Brothers, painting a vivid portrait of a changing American psyche. As the old Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones begins to realize that maybe his time is up.
1 Daniel Day-Lewis — There Will Be Blood
Paramount Vantage
The extremes of American capitalism, religion, greed, and fatherhood never collided as they did in Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece, There Will Be Blood. Taking the blood and oil-soaked fields of California as a chessboard for money was the perfect breeding ground for a scorched-earth performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as the wealthy and determined “Daniel Plainview”. As he takes his life and the small town he mines to the extremes as he watches himself and his family slowly crumble, even though his fortune amasses beyond his expectations. While verbally sparring with the equally great Paul Dano who tries to make money too, it all comes to bear in the epic “I drink your milkshake!” conclusion.
