Summary

Whether through their characterization , over - the - top acting attainment , or cobwebby allegiance to the role , the mostintense performancesin movie account 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 minacious performances that can leave their mark on viewer ’ imaginations . An intense act carrying into action in a movie can be majorly effective , it can take a story to great new heights , and result in audiences being blown aside , charm , and moved by the vapourous chroma of what ’s being portrayed on screen .

The most intense performances in motion picture historyvary from incredible dedication over many months to a mockumentary project that watcher were incognizant was really a bizarre and shocking societal experimentation . There were other performances , like Anthony Hopkins inThe Silence of the Lambs , that were surprisingly short in screen time but allow for their cross on movie account . Or even vivid performances characterized bymethod performing proficiency , where the doer truly lived the purpose to add surplus rigour to their intense onscreen portrayal .

10Joaquin Phoenix As Himself

I’m Still Here (2010)

Cast

Part art task , part mockumentary , and part irony , Joaquin Phoenix played himself inI’m Still Hereafter hefalsely announced his retirement from act to become a pelvic girdle - hop artist . Phoenix ’s performance was improbably intenseas , in all public appearances for 18 calendar month , he remained in theatrical role as a foreign , bearded , sunglass - wear , alter ego , who , to anyone who did n’t realise this was a mockumentary would conceive he was amid a serious mental breakdown . I’m Still Heredoes not totally succeed in its ambitions to shine a light on the forbidding nature of fame , but Phoenix ’s portrayal institute up interesting questions and act as the most unusual performance in his varied career .

The production ofI’m Still Herewas unfortunately shrouded in contention as two women impeach its director Casey Affleck of on - ready intimate harassment ( viaNY Daily News . )

9Anthony Hopkins As Dr. Hannibal Lecter

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his depiction of Dr. Hannibal Lecter inThe secretiveness of the Lambs , a functioning so intense that many did not realizeHopkins was on - screen for just sixteen minutes . In this electrifying psychological repugnance , Hopkins made the character whole his own and imbue him with such foreboding and menacing energythat he became the first horror film to ever take place Best Picture at the Academy Awards . Hopkins returned to the case in two motion picture , HannibalandRed Dragon , however , nothing can top the intense power of this first operation as Dr. Hannibal Lecter .

8Robert De Niro As Travis Bickle

Taxi Driver (1976)

Robert De Niro portray one of the most intense characters in movie story , Travis Bickle inTaxi Driver . A downhearted , lonely , and insomniac Vietnam War veteran , Travis drove a taxicab during the burying ground shift in New York City , where he was confronted daily by the crime , grime , and wild excesses of the metropolis . catch as Travis got rejected by his love interest Betsy , dawned a mohawk haircut and attempted to bolt down a presidential candidate , and bit by bit lost touch with realness through acute self - deprecating monologues , cementedTravis as one of the most empty , haunting , and intense lineament to come out of the New Hollywood era .

7Natalie Portman As Nina Sayers/White Swan/Odette

Black Swan (2010)

The shifting identities and psychological complexness of Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky’sBlack Swanamounted to a wildly dramatic , intense , and passionate performance that made thisa career - limit performance for Portman . Disturbingly creepy-crawly and at the same time fascinating , Portman ’s carrying into action as a quiet and diffident concert dance dancer , who remained a devoted perfectionist easy go down into madness , was a tour - de - force in chroma . Black Swanbrought out the dark of innocence , the self - destructive nature of green-eyed monster , and a looming anxiousness - devolve on sexuality that made this film both unmanageable to observe and unimaginable to see by from .

6Joe Pesci As Tommy DeVito

Goodfellas (1990)

Perhaps the most iconic example of intensity in all film , Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito inGoodfellashad the power to call on lighter and comedic scenes into moments of staring fearful saturation in just a few seconds . The prime good example of this wasthe “ funny how ” scene , where Pesci restrain Ray Liotta ’s character of Henry Hill in a panorama that highlighted the power of the gangster and the stop number at which a moment of laugh can turn tense and uncomfortable . The baron of this scene was not so much about what Pesci said , but throughthe acute , daunting , and awful jeopardise elbow room in which Pesci save his line of credit .

5Heath Ledger As Joker

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Joker wasthe greatestBatmanvillain of all timeand Heath Ledger ’s functioning as the character in Christopher Nolan’sThe Dark Knightstood as the full onscreen depiction of Gotham City ’s most frightening goofball . woefully , Ledger died before the release ofThe Dark Knightand was posthumously hand the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor . Ledger ’s public presentation was an intense victory that rose the eccentric out of its comical book originsand placed him within a realistic context that was both convincing and horrific .

4Daniel 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’sThere Will Be Blood . Always an actor of monumental allegiance and loudness , Day - Lewis carved out the character of Plainview , an oilman searching for riches , withintense enquiry into the spirit and workplace of oil color big businessman Edward Doheny , on whom the character was partly based . Day - Lewis ’ smash voice and expert knowledge of his character moderate to an astounding work of art that buried into the inwardness of American greed and stood as one of the most vivid and memorable public presentation in all cinema .

3Jack Nicholson As Jack Torrance

The Shining (1980)

Stanley Kubrick’sThe Shiningwas an intense horror that saw Jack Nicholson fall back his creative thinker at the haunted Overlook Hotel . With a sense of foreboding from its opening prospect , Nicholson take a frenzied energy to his character that get audience know the right way from the beginning something was not right with him . By the time Nicholson was maintain an ax and hunting his own phratry in a homicidal 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 unlimited parody . A masterclass in intensity , nobody could have act Jack Torrence like Nicholson .

2Nicolas Cage As Ben Sanderson

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Nicolas Cage acquire the Academy Award for Best Actor for his stalk portrayal of Ben Sanderson , an alcoholic committed to drink in himself to death , inLeaving Las Vegas . The intensity with which Cage played a man on a path of consummate ego - destruction was more nuanced than the over - the - top extremities of picture show likeVampire ’s Kiss , The Wicker Man , orMandy , and keep the grievous humanity at the sum of Ben Sanderson . Nicolas has always been an actor who forged his own path and his execution inLeaving Las Vegaswas the most classic denotation of his over-the-top electric potential as a performer .

1Ellen Burstyn As Sara Goldfarb

Requiem For a Dream (2000)

The fib of tv - haunt widower Sara Goldfarb inRequiem For a Dreamstarted as a mother unreasoning to her son ’s diacetylmorphine dependency and soon grow into her own agonising , intense news report of habituation . Ellen Burstyn ’s exceptional performance as a woman doomed to drug abuse follow an speed prescriptionwas a depressing narrative that sadly mat up all too real . Goldfarb believe she was going to appear on her preferred secret plan show and start a restrictive clang diet with the avail of drug . catch Burstyn fall into addiction , suffer touching with reality , and become subjected to electroconvulsive therapy therapy in a New York psychiatric ward was an intense and difficult journey to witness .

seed : NY Daily News

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Keanu Reeves looking over one shoulder as John Wick in Ballerina

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Sir Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter staring down with a bloodstained mouth inside a cage in Silence of the Lambs

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Joe Pesci as Tommy aiming a gun at the camera in Goodfellas

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Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight

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Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) covered in oil in There Will Be Blood.

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Nicolas Cage as Ben Sanderson at a bar in Leaving Las Vegas

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