10 actors who gave their best and worst performances in the same year
It is always interesting to consider the trajectory of different actors and their careers.
There’s no straight line in which to predict how an actor’s career will turn out, as most experience some degree of fluctuation. There are those who stand at the apex of their popularity before destroying their careers, and there are others who earn a massive comeback at a surprising moment.
Some actors retain a consistent level of quality throughout their entire body of work, which can either be for better or worse; actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel Washington have filmographies that are basically impeccable, whereas hacks like Vin Diesel and Gal Gadot have never done anything of quality.
The reality is that acting is a profession as much as it is an art form, and performers often have to make decisions that are both personally and logistically sound. There are more than a few instances in which actors take a ‘paycheck role’ in order to do a film that they really care about, but not every bad move can be credited to laziness; sometimes a script reads very well, but it just doesn’t connect when fleshed out into a feature.
While there are some actors who can significantly elevate or ruin material, regardless of quality, most act as a barometer. They’re as good as a film allows them to be, meaning that they can give both great and terrible performances in a short period of time.
10 actors who gave their best and worst performances in one year:
Michael Keaton: 2014
Films: Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Need for Speed
Michael Keaton earned the comeback of a lifetime when Alejandro González Iñárritu cast him to play the washed-up actor Riggan Thompson in Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, a Hollywood satire that ended up winning the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’. Riggan is a former star of superhero movies who is trying to be taken seriously by directing and starring in a Broadway show, which served as a parallel to Keaton, who had starred in the two Batman films for Tim Burton.
It was at a time in Keaton’s career when he wasn’t getting much respect and had been forced to take supporting roles that were beneath him. Need for Speed isn’t only one of the worst and most boring video game movies ever made, but one that totally wastes Keaton, as he appears on screen for nearly the entire film.
Margot Robbie: 2022
Films: Babylon and Amsterdam
Margot Robbie starred in two box office bombs in 2022, but given her interest in classic and silent cinema, Babylon was a role made for her. The film served as an epic satire about the history of filmmaking that was both a love letter to cinema and an indictment of Hollywood, and Robbie turned in her most emotionally haunting performance ever as a star on the rise.
Amsterdam, on the other hand, was directed by David O Russell, a director who has managed to always get massive ensembles for his films, despite being well-known as an abusive and difficult collaborator. Robbie, Christian Bale, and John David Washington are cast as the central trio, and it’s shocking that such inherently interesting actors could be so dull on screen, as they had absolutely no chemistry, with Robbie’s accent work being particularly weak.
Michael B Jordan: 2015
Films: Creed and Fantastic Four
Michael B Jordan continued his relationship with writer/director Ryan Coogler, who had cast him in his debut feature Fruitvale Station, for a new entry in the Rocky franchise that became its best instalment since the 1976 original. Jordan gave an empowering, heartbreaking performance as the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, who seeks out Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa to become his mentor as he follows his father’s legacy to become a boxer.
The same year, Jordan also had the misfortune of being cast as Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four, a gritty reboot of Marvel’s ‘First Family’ directed by Josh Trank, which became notorious because of Trank’s unprofessional behaviour on set. Not even an extensive round of reshoots was enough to save Fantastic Four from being a complete disaster, and its failure led 20th Century Fox to retire the characters until they were rebooted as part of the MCU.
Anya Taylor-Joy: 2016
Films: The VVitch and Morgan
Anya Taylor-Joy and filmmaker Robert Eggers formed a brilliant creative connection while making The Witch, an astonishing horror masterpiece that immediately solidified itself as a classic. Taylor-Joy brought sensitivity and sincerity to her role as a teenage girl who journeys with her religiously conservative family to America in the 17th century, only to find herself under the curse of an enigmatic force of evil lying in the woods.
The actor was able to capture the corruption of an innocent character who has her essence eroded by a powerful spirit that she doesn’t understand, but she wasn’t nearly as impressive in the underwritten cyberthriller Morgan, in which she played a sentient artificial intelligence that begins to attack human scientists. It doesn’t do any actors a favour to play a character as being robotic and removed from emotion, even if they are supposed to be playing an artificially created android.
Adam Driver: 2019
Films: Marriage Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Adam Driver has never been more heartbreaking than he was in Marriage Story, the divorce drama from Noah Baumbach that was somewhat inspired by the collapse of his own relationship. It’s the rare divorce film in which the audience doesn’t end up hating either party, which speaks to how magnetic Driver and Scarlett Johansson are together.
Driver was one of the best parts of the new era of the Star Wars franchise, and had turned Kylo Ren into a fascinating villain whose decisions were unpredictable, but unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker was a complete disaster that spent too much time trying to retcon the noble decisions that Rian Johnson had made in the previous film. The forced kiss between Driver’s Ben Solo and Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, is one of the most cringe-inducing moments in the entire saga, and that includes everything with Jar Jar Binks.
Amy Adams: 2016
Films: Arrival and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Denis Villeneuve’s modern science fiction masterpiece Arrival, saw Amy Adams play a brilliant linguist called in by the United States military to communicate with an enigmatic group of extraterrestrial creatures that have landed on Earth. It’s not only a smart work of sci-fi, but a devastating story about parenthood that becomes a tearjerker thanks to Adams’ powerful emotional work.
Adams had long desired the opportunity to play Lois Lane in a Superman film, but Zack Snyder’s take on the DCEU in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice resulted in Lois somehow getting into highly dangerous warzones without any precautions and featuring in one of the most inadvertently hilarious sex scenes ever to be included in a PG-13 movie. Not only was the film a boring take on the character, but her chemistry with Henry Cavill is practically non-existent.
Ryan Reynolds: 2016
Films: Deadpool and Criminal
A lot of people are rightfully sick of Ryan Reynolds, but it’s hard to deny that he is perfectly cast as Wade Wilson in the Deadpool films. The wisecracking, self-aware mutant mercenary may have overstayed his welcome in a few too many sequels, but the original Deadpool was a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre that gave Reynolds an opportunity to flex his comedic chops.
However, it was the same year that he starred in the action thriller Criminal, which was basically dumped in theatres by its distributor, where Reynolds plays a confusing part as a dead assassin whose memories are implanted into that of a dangerous criminal, played by Kevin Costner in a very sleepy performance. It was likely released only to cash-in on the popularity of Deadpool.
Josh Hartnett: 2001
Films: Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor
Josh Hartnett famously backed away from Hollywood in order to raise his family, which may have had something to do with the intense schedule of appearing in two high-profile war epics in 2001. Although Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down featured a stacked ensemble, Hartnett is very believable in the gritty military thriller that looked at the banality of war with cynicism, his performance standing as the emotional fulcrum of the story.
He also appeared in Pearl Harbor, a film that proved Michael Bay was not well-suited for making a historical epic based on a real tragedy, and even though it does boast one of the most impressive action scenes of the 21st century involving the titular battle, Harnett’s character is roped into a cringe-inducing love triangle alongside Ben Affleck that makes for an insufferable three hours.
Amanda Seyfried: 2025
Films: The Testament of Ann Lee and The Housemaid
The Testament of Ann Lee, an avant-garde musical from Mona Fastvold that explored the rise of the Shaker religious movement through the eyes of its founder, where Amanda Seyfried turns in the performance of a lifetime, capable of calibrating her musical skills for a film that overwhelms the senses, and has rightfully been hailed as a feminist masterpiece.
On the flip side, The Housemaid is a bizarre film that suffers from Paul Feig’s incompetent direction, easily predictable plot twists, and a total void of charisma within Sydney Sweeney’s performance. While Seyfried seems to be playing into the campier elements of the story, which at least make it more entertaining, the film is such a disaster that no one emerges with their dignity intact. The fact that The Housemaid was a surprisingly massive hit and The Testament of Ann Lee bombed at the box office and with award nominations is pretty depressing.
Alexander Skarsgård: 2018
Films: The Little Drummer Girl and Mute
Alexander Skarsgård has done some of his best work on HBO shows like Big Little Lies, Succession, True Blood, and Generation Kill, but he delivered his most impressive performance on The Little Drummer Girl, an adaptation of the famous John le Carré spy novel, which was directed in its entirety by the genius South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. Skarsgård is both alluring and intimidating as an Israeli spy who recruits a left-wing actress, played by Florence Pugh, to go undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group.
It was the same year that Skarsgård appeared in sci-fi neo-noir Mute, a bizarre passion project from Duncan Jones, the director of Moon and Source Code, in the vein of Blade Runner or The Fifth Element, where he plays a brooding Amish man, but it’s not nearly as interesting as that may sound.
