The 27 Best Film and TV Performances of 2021

Jasmine Cephas Jones, “Blindspotting”

There’s so much to love about Starz’s television translation of “Blindspotting.” So much so that it’s found a spot in almost all of IndieWire’s year-end coverage. Who knew that when Starz decided to put out a TV version of the 2018 movie it would be one of the year’s triumphs? And while it’s certainly a team effort, the one anchoring everything is Jasmine Cephas Jones as Ashley. In the film, Ashley was Miles’ (Rafael Casal) girlfriend, who wanted to put their son in a fancy private school and generally stuck to the fringes of the narrative. Here, Cephas Jones takes center stage and shows audiences she can command a room with little more than an eyebrow arch.

From the pilot’s opening, Ashley just wants a break. But there is no breaking away from “the ordeal” as she’s left to raise their son solo after Miles is sent to jail. Thus kickstarts Cephas Jones unburdening Ashley’s soul to the audience. Whether it’s smashing up a hotel room while giving a spoken-word verse, wondering how she’s going to explain Miles’ incarceration to their child, or having a dream date with Miles where the two say everything they’ve ever wanted to say, Cephas Jones controls everything with skill and grace. —KL

Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”

Out of reverence for one of the rawest and most triumphant performances on TV this year, I’ll just leave this here, courtesy of Tanya McQuoid:

“I just know I’m gonna get hurt. He likes the first layer. Maybe. What about the second layer, and the third layer, and then every step along the way? I have to worry about, ‘Is he gonna like the next layer?’ I get all afraid. How much do I want to show? Is he gonna be repulsed? Or is he gonna be alarmed? And at the core of the onion, Belinda, is just a straight-up alcoholic lunatic. I just want to show my hand. I don’t want to play poker anymore. I just want to skip all the layers and just go straight to the crazy and just let the chips fall where they may, and just show him the core of the onion.”

—RL

Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”

Pedro Almodóvar creates his most politically charged film to date with “Parallel Mothers,” an indictment of the horrors of the Francisco Franco regime wrought in personal terms as a switched-at-birth melodrama that sweeps you off your feet and into its lunacy. While you can see where the plot is headed from space, Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit render the familiar beats as unexpected — their dynamic ever shifting from the maternal to the erotic and back again. 

Together, the two women represent opposite ends of the spectrum of motherhood, but their identities are never fixed in place: At once, Janis (Cruz) is resolute in childless middle-age, and then suddenly welcoming the possibility of an unexpected child, while Ana (Smit) is a scared teenager staring down the precipice of parenthood. Cruz, who should’ve won the Oscar for her performance in Almodóvar’s 2006 “Volver,” brings a determined ferocity to her mother-turned-detective. But what’s most remarkable about this performance is Cruz’ effortlessness: There are no grand gestures of drama or breakdown, no meltdown moments, no huge operatic heaves of drama. It’s just a world-class actress delivering a no-nonsense performance with immeasurable skill. Watch as Janis’ eyes dart across the computer screen as she learns the maternity results of “her” child: She’s stunned, confused, curious, the gears turning. —RL

Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”

In a sea of semi-grown child actors and crossover pop stars, it’s nice to see a good old-fashioned Broadway breakout star now and then. Radiant, charismatic, and a damn good dancer, Broadway baby Ariana DeBose had the monumental task of performing Anita opposite Rita Moreno, the only original cast member involved in Steven Spielberg’s thrilling reimagining. Even Moreno had to admit she knocked it out of the park. Arguably the most beloved character in the film, Anita is the lively heart and soul of “West Side Story.” Not only does she sing the show’s most memorable song, “America,” but she provides a vital emotional balance to the central plight of Tony and Maria’s ill-fated love story. Anita’s love for Bernardo and her devastating heartbreak force the audience to empathize with the other side.

A seasoned theater actor, Debose first popped onscreen in “The Prom” last year. In “West Side Story,” she gets a much higher-quality vehicle to showcase her chops. She plays Anita with a contemporary lustfulness while still keeping things family-friendly, a delicate and appropriate balance. We knew she could sing and dance, but the wrenching scenes in the show’s third act prove DeBose is as formidable a dramatic actor as anyone else on this list. If Hollywood has any sense, we’ll be seeing much more of her. —JD

Jamie Dornan, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and “Belfast”

Connoisseurs of acting craft love to talk about “versatility,” but few performers in the year of our lord 2021 displayed quite so much range as Jamie Dornan, with a pair of perfs that (somehow?) both hinged on his ability to belt a love ballad. And yet no two roles could be further apart in terms of tone, feel, method, or scene partners. Consider Dornan’s first big 2021 move: starring as the lovably deluded henchman Edgar, who is so hung up on being part of “an official couple” that he’s mostly unable to commit to anything beyond just being super, super adorable. Dornan mixes and mingles with Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo with ease, scene-stealing every single take in the delightfully bonkers comedy, no small feat when opposite such massive comedic stars. And then, the song — bellowing out to, of all things, seagulls? — is Dornan in a way we’ve never seen him before: loose, funny, uninhibited, and fucking hellbent on getting some waterfowl to appreciate his romantic follies. You don’t need to be a seagull to appreciate that kind of work.

Dornan closes out the year in a very different style, but with a familiar hook: singing. Starring as a lovingly crafted version of filmmaker Kenneth Branagh’s own father in the period piece “Belfast” — how’s that for taking on a scary role? — Dornan finds a fresh outlet for his prodigious charm. He’s world-weary, tired, and a bit broken-hearted, and that’s before the film really kicks into its primary plot, following the early days of The Troubles that eventually led the Branagh clan to decamp for England. Dornan moves in and out of the film, both one of its most loving presences and also one of its hardest to pin down (Branagh’s father traveled for work, and was typically gone for weeks at a time). Tear-stained sequences are expected, but Dornan gives them real, heart-tugging weight. And by the time he starts (again crooning) during the film’s rich final moments, there’s little question of the power he’s wrangled, lovingly tucked into a performance just as heartfelt and disarmingly real as any — even the one involving the seagulls and their prayers. —KE

Adam Driver, “Annette”

Adam Driver plays a sociopathic — and probably psychopathic — loser in Leos Carax’s beguiling musical “Annette.” His cheeky name, Henry McHenry, sets up the kind of lunacy about to be displayed. As a standup comedian with no moral compass who exploits his opera-diva wife and eventually their young daughter, Driver exhibits a festering control of anguish and hatred at the world. His comedy routines are running dry, the women in his life are turning against him as his celebrity rises, and his daughter will eventually grow up to despise his every fiber. Driver delivers the sort of dead-inside, misanthropic, but acidly funny turn only Driver can. Henry might be one of the most morally repulsive characters ever featured in a movie musical (here with songs and a script from the Sparks brothers), and while Carax and Driver don’t let him off the hook by the film’s end, they more subtly observe than all-out indict the character’s toxicity.

The standouts of this hilarious and mostly hopeless movie are surely the often horrifying standup sets Henry delivers to an aghast audience, with Driver fully committing to their empty shock factor. When he drops the mic, it’s a relief, and a pitying display that leaves you sorry for this broken bird, but grateful he’s getting his. Good riddance to a sack of shit expertly performed by Driver. —RL

Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”

Kirsten Dunst has been crafting powerhouse performances since she was a child, but there’s something different at the heart of Rose, her role in Jane Campion’s devastating “The Power of the Dog.” Rose is a lonely widow with only her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) for company. The world around them is brown, seen in the dry grassland and the tiny hotel they run. When Rose marries the equally lonely George Burbank (Jesse Plemons), she hopes her drab life will change. Until Rose meets George’s brother, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch).

The battle of wills between Phil and Rose feels biblical on the screen, especially as Rose tries her hardest to believe he’s anything more than “just another man.” At the same time, Rose experiences sentiments many housewives of the 1920s surely felt: that of always being “on,” chipper, perfect. George invites wealthy friends, including the mayor, to dinner and wants Rose to play the piano. Rose tries her hardest to learn something worthy of the company, only to suffer anxiety. Dunst conveys so much of Rose’s frustration, at herself, at her husband, and the situation. But when Phil strides in and chides her for not performing, Dunst’s face is a masterclass of emotions. It’s a soul-crushing moment in a performance that burrows under your skin. —KL

Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard”

Don’t let the title fool you: While Reinaldo Marcus Green’s crowd-pleasing biopic “King Richard” gets its name from the tongue-in-cheek nickname of the father of the iconic Williams sisters, it’s Aunjanue Ellis’ turn as their mother Oracene Price that feels like the real revelation. Green’s film, produced by both Venus and Serena Williams (along with their sister, Isha Price), tracks the rise of the tennis champs through the teachings of their mercurial, driven father. And while Will Smith turns in one of the best performances of his career as the eponymous Richard Williams, Ellis matches him at every turn.

She’s not at all interested in mimicry, and has pointed to someone like Jamie Foxx (with whom she starred in “Ray”) as being a prime example of a performer able to tap into truth over cheap impersonation. That’s perhaps why Ellis is not at all bothered by the fact that she didn’t meet the real Oracene Price before taking on the role. Getting to the essence of who Oracene was comes to a head in a pivotal third act scene that sees her standing up to Richard as he threatens to dismantle the strides the girls have made at a luxe Florida training camp. —KE

Beanie Feldstein, “Impeachment: American Crime Story”

Beanie Feldstein had her work cut out for her in playing one of the most infamous women in modern history: Monica Lewinsky. Creator Sarah Burgess’ “Impeachment: American Crime Story” sought to lift the veil on not just Lewinsky and her relationship with former President Bill Clinton (Clive Owen), but how Monica was one of several misunderstood women used and abused for various purposes. Feldstein took a real-life figure audiences thought they knew and gave her a vulnerability, anxiety, and sadness that felt genuine.

The finale especially gives Feldstein an opportunity to not just convey the hurt she’s experienced, particularly from former friend/whistleblower Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson, also stellar), but the growth of the character. At one point, Feldstein’s Monica discusses how pathetic and obsessed she sounded when her relationship with the President started. In Feldstein’s hands, we see a young woman get a painful lesson in how much a person grows in their early 20s. The actress showed us Lewinsky was more than a stained dress; she’s a person who made mistakes and yet we’re still fascinated by them decades later. —KL

Renée Elise Goldsberry, “Girls5Eva”

Much like her “Hamilton” costar on this list, Reneé Elise Goldsberry is perfection wherever she goes. But the minute Wickie Roy screamed the phrase, “Cease and desist, bitch,” while dressed up as a female version of Jim Carrey’s “The Mask” character, it was love. Goldsberry’s performance as the stuck-up fame-monger who is one part of the former girl group Girls5Eva, draws comparisons to everyone from Patti LuPone to Beyoncé. Goldsberry tackles every challenge with 100 percent authenticity, even if that’s doing a faux MTV “Cribs” episode where she has to drive on a tiny bed. At the same time, Goldsberry conveys Wickie’s desire to be loved and have friends, which is easy to understand when one’s costars are as amazing as Sara Bareilles, Paula Pell, and Busy Philipps. This was the performance that made me laugh the hardest in 2021. —KL

Michael Greyeyes, “Rutherford Falls”

“Rutherford Falls” has a fantastic group of characters, even if its central premise is a bit weird. The series follows the small town of the title and what happens when citizen Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms), whose ancestor founded the location, discovers the history of colonization and oppression that took place. Helms is fine, but his plot is easily one of the weaker elements to the show. Really, it should just be called “The Terry Thomas Show.”

Michael Greyeyes’ portrayal of Terry, another Rutherford Falls citizen who wants to make his mark on the town and redefine the Native citizenry’s status within it, is warm, funny, and at times very unsettling. One of the episodes has Greyeyes give a speech to a reporter about oppression and capitalism, only to transition into the bright, chipper person who spouts buzzwords to make everyone comfortable. It’s a performance that critiques white colonization but also shows how marginalized groups often have to lower themselves in order to capitalize and make genuine change. It’s such a brilliant performance from an actor we should have already been talking about. —KL

Oscar Isaac, “Scenes from a Marriage”

Given the context of “Scenes From a Marriage” — Hagai Levi’s adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman classic about what a couple can lose when a partnership is shattered — it’s easy to see why any actor would be praised for channeling the painful depths of these all-too-relatable struggles. Isaac, along with his reflective co-star Jessica Chastain, does floor you in the verbal smackdowns peppered throughout the five-episode series, but it’s the internal arc he crafts for Jonathan that lingers long after the shouting ends. As a philosophy professor comfortable living in his own mind and a little too comfortable within his relationship, Jonathan’s journey sees his confidence and trust broken down, lost, and rebuilt into a far different application. Not only does his outlook change, but so too do the ways he speaks, listens, and even positions himself in a room, all in response to his newfound need to protect himself.

Jonathan never stops talking, but there are corners of his mind (and heart) that are forever closed off after the second episode, and seeing Isaac turn away or fight back when pushed toward them is wrenching. Even though he wouldn’t describe himself as such, Jonathan is a broken man by series’ end, and Isaac helps us feel the weight of not just who he’s lost, but the parts of himself that are gone, as well. This may not be a performance many are eager to revisit (or even see through to the end), but it’s one the actor deserves immense credit for embodying so thoroughly. Thanks to him, they aren’t just scenes — Isaac tells the full, unforgettable story. —BT

Cush Jumbo, “The Beast Must Die”

From “The Good Wife” to “The Good Fight,” Cush Jumbo is practically perfect in everything she does, but her work in the criminally underseen AMC series “The Beast Must Die” is on another level. Frances Cairns (Jumbo) details her intentions in the opening minutes of the series: “I’m going to kill a man.” She doesn’t know who the man is or where he lives, but his days are numbered after he ran over her six-year-old son in a hit-and-run.

With Jumbo in the lead, the character skirts the line between justice and revenge, never entering “Killing Eve” territory, but staying away from telling another tragic tale of what women do when their children pass. Jumbo always maintains Frances’ sense of humanity — this woman wasn’t a killer before, after all. Watching Jumbo and Jared Harris verbally spar is half the fun in the entire series. Both characters are playing roles that constantly shift based on what we, the audience, believe each knows about the other. Jumbo keeps Frances on tenterhooks, and it’s a deliciously great performance. —KL

The Cast of “Mass”

Impossible to single out one performer in “Mass,” we’re opting to include all four: Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Martha Plimpton. As two sets of parents (Birney-Dowd and Isaacs-Plimpton) meeting in a nondescript church basement, all four find themselves on ever-shifting terrain, alternately defensive and ferocious. The shellshocked survivors of a horrific event involving their sons, the quartet are as adept at making us wince at their pain and their fury as they are at making us squirm in embarrassment when they seize on the most mundane common ground to find their way back to their humanity. The questions raised are philosophically enormous, but the power all four actors bring to the conversation keeps us rooted firmly in a painful, ambiguous reality. —MP

Thuso Mbedu, “The Underground Railroad”

Considering the evolving, impossible journey Cora embarks on throughout “The Underground Railroad,” it’s simply remarkable how thoroughly Thuso Mbedu understands her character. Haunted by the unresolved loss of her mother and driven to find a new home better (or at least safer) than the painful reservation on which she was raised, Cora is equal parts anger and tranquility; searching and exhausted; a puzzle with a missing piece and that very piece all by itself. Mbedu doesn’t so much dial into each scene as she pulls Cora through time, building her out from the lessons, hardships, and loves accrued along the way. She is a changed person by the final episode, though she also remains her mother’s daughter. Watching such a trajectory could’ve left audiences lost or frustrated. Thanks to Mbedu, they’re connected to Cora and immersed in her growth all the way through. —BT

Annie Murphy, “Kevin Can F*** Himself”

Annie Murphy’s Emmy-winning performance on “Schitt’s Creek” proved her comic greatness, but her leading turn as Allison McRoberts, the put-upon housewife in a sitcom from hell, intensified what makes Murphy such a magnetic presence. Murphy has to tackle two roles that slowly bleed into the other as the series progresses. Her sitcom Allison tacks a smile on her face as her dimwitted husband, Kevin (Eric Petersen), concocts one callous comedic endeavor after another. After spending all their money, Allison has finally had enough and commits to killing him.

The editing and blending of the sitcom world into a real one enhances Murphy’s performance, but much relies on her ability to navigate the two landscapes. As things progress, her smiles in the sitcom world become more hollow, while her plans to kill her husband see her becoming more manipulative and phony. It’s a nimble balancing act that enhances the series with every rewatch. —KL

Ruth Negga, “Passing”

Ruth Negga brings the wide eyes and michievousness of a silent film star to her radiant turn as Clare Bellow in Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” adapted from Nella Larsen’s modernist novel about Black women concealing their identities amid their white-dominated environment. There’s a mannered temperament stitched inside her outward-facing confidence as a Black woman passing as white in Manhattan, pulling long-lost classmate Irene (Tessa Thompson) back into her orbit, while married to a brutish racist (Alexander Skarsgaard) in order to maintain her bon-vivant lifestyle. Clare is provocative and outgoing, but with a barely concealed discomfort in her own skin. Negga masterfully performs all these various layers in tandem — she is at once an actress playing a character who is, effectively, an actress in her own life, while also embodying the frays and fissures in that actress/character’s performance. —RL

Hidetoshi Nishijima, “Drive My Car”

In Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s masterful three-hour epic “Drive My Car,” veteran Japanese actor Hidetoshi Nishijima plays Yusuke, a whittled-down theater director cuckolded by his wife and denied his life’s great pleasure: to drive his car. He can’t, of course, because of his newly diagnosed glaucoma, yet another one of his life’s disasters. So he must funnel all of his life’s frustrations — physical, ocular, psychosexual — into his only last remaining passion: Anton Chekhov.

Namely, he’s trying to mount a busted adaptation of the Russian playwright’s masterpiece “Uncle Vanya.” Left in the ashes of his suddenly dead wife, whom he perhaps never knew quite as well as he thought he did, and forced to sift through his own creative legacy, Yusuke goes on a long dark night of the soul, aided by a driver who shows him new sides of himself, and lets him into her own trauma. Against the backdrop of a man’s creative and spiritual downfall is the landscape of Hiroshima. Nishijima has worked for visionary Japanese directors, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano, but here finds his most searching role yet as an artist seeking an exit, who instead finds his way back to himself. —RL 

Margaret Qualley, “Maid”

Margaret Qualley’s performance in “Maid” is heartbreaking in its reality about a woman escaping an abusive relationship and starting from scratch with her four-year-old daughter in tow. Qualley captures Alex’s constantly shifting mentality, from the depression she feels due to her husband’s control to her humorous attempts to get people to like her. It’s obvious why Qualley is considered one of the most exciting new actresses out there because she makes you see Alex’s lived experience, whether you’ve been her or fear becoming her.

Qualley has said that she doesn’t possess a specific technique, and that makes her performance all the more authentic. Her interactions with her onscreen daughter are sweet and come off just as genuine as acting opposite Qualley’s own mother, Andie MacDowell, who plays Alex’s mom Paula. There’s a lived-in quality to the performance that Qualley wields to great effect. —KL

Anthony Ramos, “In the Heights”

Inheriting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original “In the Heights” stage role with one of the most charismatic and radiantly likable performances you’ll ever see on a screen of any kind, Anthony Ramos plays Usnavi as a storyteller with a twinkle in his eye, and we meet him in his element: Sitting on the Dominican beach of his dreams and telling some precocious kids about the special neighborhood that he kept together from behind the register of a bodega. This is a lot to handle at the start of a movie where even the best parts demand a certain tolerance for cheesy musical theater tropes, and while a new star is born in this movie virtually every other minute, Ramos is exuberant in mining the spectacle inside of real life. —DE

Simon Rex, “Red Rocket”

“Red Rocket” is so arresting because of how it keeps hope alive by rescuing devastation from the jaws of happiness. Rex, a C-level celebrity whose past lives on the Hollywood merry-go-round include stints as a Hollywood VJ, a rapper named Dirt Nasty, a solo porn performer, and an actor whose body of work includes four episodes of “Felicity,” the last three entries in the “Scary Movie” franchise, and something called “Adventures of Justice — Farce Wars.” No judgment here; it’s a tough business, and I’m sure this job has required me to see worse.

Nevertheless, you can feel that the 46-year-old Rex isn’t quite ready to embrace the idea of becoming a Tarantino-esque reclamation project. His performance as Mikey is the work of someone who’s still holding out hope that he’ll be a leading man someday; that the “guys who look exactly like Bradley Cooper” niche is big enough for two people, and that “Red Rocket” might have the potential to play like “A Star Is Porn.” Either that, or it’s the work of a brilliant opportunist who just became a leading man by refusing to play the biggest role of his career any other way. While Rex never once flinches away from what writer-director Sean Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch’s script asks of him, there’s a palpable sense that he refuses to accept Mike’s inherent unlikeability — not as an acting choice, but out of a more personal need to believe in him. —DE

Christina Ricci, “Yellowjackets”

Christina Ricci has given us all manner of bizarre and off-kilter performances over the length of her career. She practically defined goth chic for tweens as Wednesday Addams. At times her performance as the adult Misty in Showtime’s series “Yellowjackets” feels like what would happen if Wednesday moved to the burbs and tried to fly under the radar. With her wide smile, blonde hair, and perpetually peppy attitude, Ricci makes Misty one of the most terrifying women onscreen this year. Living with her pet bird Caligula, who has a penchant for poking eyeballs, Misty just wants what we all do: a companion, friends, and the ability to make a frightening joke that someone will laugh at. Ricci’s performance is all cringe, but never in the awkward sense, more in the “should I have told somewhere where I am” vein. Her chemistry opposite Juliette Lewis, who plays a grown Natalie, is also hilarious to see, like if Laurel and Hardy wanted to kill each other. —KL

Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”

Who doesn’t love Martin Short? He’s created some indelible characters who’ve made us laugh hysterically (either at him or alongside him, and often both in the same turn). His performance as Oliver Putnam, the Broadway director suffering financial difficulties in Hulu’s mystery series “Only Murders in the Building,” cements his legacy. Many praise the onscreen camaraderie between Short and Steve Martin, who plays retired actor Charles Haden Savage, but Short really is the scene-stealer. He has such an ability to make his character’s stories come alive — you almost feel like you were at Studio 54 with Oliver! Who doesn’t identify with his selling of dip as an entrée? On top of that, he’s a good dad just trying to make his own way in the world. It’s a darling, sweet performance I can’t get enough of. —KL

Hailee Steinfeld, “Dickinson”

This year marked the final season of the Apple TV+ original series “Dickinson,” and any fan will tell you that they’re still not completely over it. Much of that love and appreciation extends to the supporting cast, but it’s Hailee Steinfeld who made the series in general, and this season in particular, poignant.

Emily Dickinson, through Steinfeld’s eyes, has always been obsessed with art. In the third and final season, as the Civil War raged on and political lines were drawn, Emily desired crafting something larger than herself. She wanted to write a poem that would change the world. She also desperately wished to have her family unified. Only one of those ambitions would come true. Steinfeld has always been masterful at taking the show’s scripts and making them funny, but there seemed to be an added layer of resonance to her performance, perhaps because the show was using the war to stand in for the pandemic. Steinfeld’s best work comes in a late-in-the-season discussion with Emily’s father, Edward (Toby Huss). Emily learns that, despite all of Edward’s love and trust in her, he will always see her as second best because she is female. Steinfeld plays with the hurt, anger, and disappointment in such a way that you want to study it as a towering piece of acting. —KL

Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”

“Spencer” is Pablo Larraín’s version of a Princess Diana biopic writ larger than large as a campy horror movie. Kristen Stewart plays the Royal as a kind of twitchy field mouse lost and suspended in the cold, a deer in the spotlight who trudges through the muck in heels and snips at herself with wire cutters purloined from the servants’ quarters — when she’s not vomiting up imaginary pearls into the toilet at Christmas Eve dinner. It’s a remarkable performance in a strange movie that pulls off a galling feat: twisting a pivotal weekend in the life of one of the world’s most revered public figures into a stylish psychological fantasy that almost completely ignores historical fact in service of digging a deeper tunnel into the woman’s inner life. It goes further than “The Crown” or any other serviceable biopic could. “Tell them I am not at all well,” Stewart barks as she jettisons another Christmas Day dinner from hell to fetch the wire cutters and return to building a scarecrow shrine to her dead father in the middle of a barren field. You root for her. —RL

Honor Swinton Byrne, “The Souvenir Part II”

Like the best sequels, “Souvenir: Part II” heightens the stakes for its central character and adds a new layer to her journey. In that respect, the movie’s true ace in the hole is the original film’s astonishing breakout, Honor Swinton Byrne. A genuine discovery in the first installment, Swinton Byrne goes beyond the call of duty in “Part II” with a mesmerizing performance that deserves just as much awards consideration as any other this year.

“Part II” picks up right after the events of the first film, which found budding filmmaker Julie Hart (Swinton Byrne) adrift in the wreckage of her tortured romance with drug addict and layabout flaneur Anthony (Tom Burke). While that film found Swinton Byrne’s character in the passenger seat of a relationship hurtling toward disaster, the follow-up sees Julie examining the detritus on the path to catharsis. She decides, in an unusual refashioning of the stages of grief, to center her graduate thesis film — at the fictional Raynham Film School in sleepy Norfolk — on the devastating but creatively invigorating fallout with Anthony, interviewing friends, family, and speaking to a counselor in the process.

Swinton Byrne’s performance in “Part I” was about conveying an interior struggle, the shifting of emotional and psychological tectonics as a doomed love affair consumes her soul. However, her turn in “Part II” is a commanding outpouring of grief, as Swinton Byrne wrests control of her own story to recreate it in front of a movie camera. It’s a remarkable performance whose subtleties provide an inner portrait of the woman as an artist more complete than any film in recent memory. —RL

Kate Winslet, “Mare of Easttown”

Featuring a seven-time Oscar nominee and two-time Emmy winner on a list of best performances may seem obvious to the point of irrelevance — especially when the performance being spotlighted was already recognized by the TV Academy and the tens of millions who watched each episode — but there’s never a bad time to credit what Kate Winslet brings to a role. As Mare Sheehan, a small-town detective in Pennsylvania unwilling to forgive herself for past mistakes, Winslet immerses herself in the daily grind that simultaneously exhausts her and keeps her going. She’s so used to everything that happens in her hometown, even chasing down a robber is little more than an unwelcome bit of exercise. Winslet huffs and puffs; she drags her feet and rolls her eyes; she routinely pops open a can of Cheez Whiz as topping for cheese puffs. Every movement and gesture carries the weight of boredom, frustration, and over-familiarity easily recognized within an unhappy soul who keeps herself isolated even when surrounded by friends and family.

The immediacy with which Winslet conveys these ideas through clipped dialogue and sheer physicality is what draws us closer at the story’s start, but what makes her turn so memorable is how steadily the actor sheds these layers while Mare works a case that doubles as redemption. Without a time jump or makeover, Winslet transforms her titular cop into an unmistakably changed person by the series’ end. The devil’s in the details, as they say, and Winslet has an uncanny ability to surface those specifics. Add it to the list of her many great accomplishments. —BT