10 Most Intense Actor Performances In Movie History

Whether through their characterization, over-the-top acting skills, or sheer commitment to the role, the most intense performances in movie history were insanely memorable. While acting roles are often acclaimed for their subtlety, nuance, and realism, at the other end of the spectrum there are intense, foreboding, and sinister performances that can leave their mark on viewers’ imaginations. An intense acting performance in a movie can be majorly effective, it can bring a story to great new heights, and result in audiences being blown away, captivated, and moved by the sheer intensity of what’s being portrayed on screen.

The most intense performances in movie history vary from incredible commitment over many months to a mockumentary project that viewers were unaware was actually a bizarre and shocking social experiment. There were other performances, like Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, that were surprisingly short in screen time but left their mark on movie history. Or even intense performances characterized by method acting techniques, where the actor truly lived the role to add extra validity to their intense onscreen portrayal.

10 Joaquin Phoenix As Himself

I’m Still Here (2010)

Part art project, part mockumentary, and part satire, Joaquin Phoenix played himself in I’m Still Here after he falsely announced his retirement from acting to become a hip-hop artist. Phoenix’s performance was incredibly intense as, in all public appearances for 18 months, he remained in character as a strange, bearded, sunglass-wearing, alter ego, who, to anyone who didn’t realize this was a mockumentary would think he was amid a serious mental breakdown. I’m Still Here does not totally succeed in its ambitions to shine a light on the sinister nature of celebrity, but Phoenix’s portrayal brought up interesting questions and acted as the most unusual performance in his varied career.

9 Anthony Hopkins As Dr. Hannibal Lecter

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, a performance so intense that many did not realize Hopkins was on-screen for just sixteen minutes. In this thrilling psychological horror, Hopkins made the character entirely his own and imbued him with such foreboding and menacing energy that he became the first horror film to ever take home Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Hopkins returned to the character in two films, Hannibal and Red Dragon, however, nothing can top the intense power of this first performance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

8 Robert De Niro As Travis Bickle

Taxi Driver (1976)

Robert De Niro portrayed one of the most intense characters in movie history, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. A depressed, lonely, and insomniac Vietnam War veteran, Travis drove a taxicab during the graveyard shift in New York City, where he was confronted daily by the crime, grime, and violent excesses of the city. Watching as Travis got rejected by his love interest Betsy, dawned a mohawk and attempted to kill a presidential candidate, and gradually lost touch with reality through intense self-deprecating monologues, cemented Travis as one of the most empty, haunting, and intense characters to come out of the New Hollywood era.

7 Natalie Portman As Nina Sayers/White Swan/Odette

Black Swan (2010)

The shifting identities and psychological complexity of Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan amounted to a wildly dramatic, intense, and passionate performance that made this a career-defining performance for Portman. Disturbingly creepy and simultaneously captivating, Portman’s performance as a quiet and shy ballet dancer, who remained a devoted perfectionist slowly descending into madness, was a tour-de-force in intensity. Black Swan brought out the darkness of innocence, the self-destructive nature of jealousy, and a looming anxiety-ridden sexuality that made this film both difficult to watch and impossible to look away from.

6 Joe Pesci As Tommy DeVito

Goodfellas (1990)

Perhaps the most iconic example of intensity in all cinema, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas had the power to turn light and comedic scenes into moments of pure fearful intensity in just a few seconds. The prime example of this was the “funny how” scene, where Pesci intimidated Ray Liotta’s character of Henry Hill in a scene that highlighted the power of the mobster and the speed at which a moment of laughter can turn tense and uncomfortable. The power of this scene was not so much about what Pesci said, but through the intense, intimidating, and frightfully threatening way in which Pesci delivered his lines.

5 Heath Ledger As Joker

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Joker was the greatest Batman villain of all time and Heath Ledger’s performance as the character in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight stood as the best onscreen depiction of Gotham City’s most frightening clown. Sadly, Ledger died before the release of The Dark Knight and was posthumously given the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ledger’s performance was an intense triumph that rose the character out of its comic book origins and placed him within a realistic context that was both convincing and horrific.

4 Daniel Day-Lewis As Daniel Plainview

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Day-Lewis took method acting to the extreme with his portrayal of the sociopath Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Always an actor of massive commitment and intensity, Day-Lewis carved out the character of Plainview, an oilman searching for riches, with intense research into the life and work of oil tycoon Edward Doheny, on whom the character was partly based. Day-Lewis’ booming voice and expert knowledge of his character led to an astonishing work of art that buried into the core of American greed and stood as one of the most intense and memorable performances in all cinema.

3 Jack Nicholson As Jack Torrance

The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining was an intense horror that saw Jack Nicholson lose his mind at the haunted Overlook Hotel. With a sense of foreboding from its opening scene, Nicholson brought a manic energy to his character that let audiences know right from the beginning something was not right with him. By the time Nicholson was wielding an ax and hunting his own family in a murderous rage, the performance was so over-the-top in intensity that only an actor with the skill of Nicholson could have managed to avoid it looking like an outright parody. A masterclass in intensity, nobody could have played Jack Torrence like Nicholson.

2 Nicolas Cage As Ben Sanderson

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his haunting portrayal of Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic committed to drinking himself to death, in Leaving Las Vegas. The intensity with which Cage played a man on a path of complete self-destruction was more nuanced than the over-the-top extremities of movies like Vampire’s Kiss, The Wicker Man, or Mandy, and maintained the heartbreaking humanity at the core of Ben Sanderson. Nicolas has always been an actor who forged his own path and his performance in Leaving Las Vegas was the most definitive indication of his extraordinary potential as a performer.

1 Ellen Burstyn As Sara Goldfarb

Requiem For a Dream (2000)

The story of television-obsessed widower Sara Goldfarb in Requiem For a Dream started as a mother blind to her son’s heroin addiction and soon grew into her own harrowing, intense story of dependency. Ellen Burstyn’s exceptional performance as a woman doomed to drug abuse following an amphetamine prescription was a depressing tale that sadly felt all too real. Goldfarb believed she was going to appear on her favorite game show and began a restrictive crash diet with the help of drugs. Watching Burstyn fall into addiction, lose touch with reality, and become subjected to electroshock therapy in a New York psychiatric ward was an intense and difficult journey to witness.

Source: NY Daily News