50 Favorite Performances of the Decade

So this is a listing of my favorite performances from the last decade (2000-2009.) This is my personal favorites and very much in my thinking as of now, and is very likely to change possibly as soon as tomorrow.

1. JULIANNE MOORE, Far From Heaven- my absolute favorite performance of the decade, and without certainty this will stick. Think about for her performance as long suffering wife Cathy Whitaker, the gifted Moore had to not only create a credible emotional performance without typical histrionic gimmickry, but also had to co-exist with the film Douglas Sirk homage, in all it's heightened beauty and encoded messaging. It's a genuine gift to le cinema, a performance to be studied and fawned upon for generations. Oh that train scene at the end, when her one shot a happiness leaves, and camera abandons her as well...it's breathtaking. Add to that, in an age where beautiful actresses seem to have to ugly themselves up (Charlize Theron in Monster, Halle Berry in Monster's Ball, Hilary Swank in anything) to get recognition, Moore with the assist of brilliant ace director Todd Haynes do just the opposite (in appriopriate Sirk fashion) and make Cathy radiant and beautiful. Of course Moore lost the Oscar that year to Nicole Kidman's false nose in The Hours, but her work here is enough to leave a lasting legacy, not just to film geeks, but to film acting.

The rest of the list is in alphabetical order:

• Amy Adams, Junebug
• Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
• Maria Bello, A History of Violence
• Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
• Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
  
• Steve Carrell, The 40-Year Old Virgin
  
• Nicolas Cage, Adaptation.
  
• Sharlto Copely, District 9
• Jeff Daniels, The Squid & the Whale
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis, There Willl Be Blood
  
• Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
• Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
• Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  
• Robert Downey, Jr., Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
  
• Paul Giamatti, Sideways
• Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
• Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums
  
• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
• Holly Hunter, Thirteen
  
• Vlad Ivonov, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
• Catherine Keener, Into the Wild
  
• Nicole Kidman, Birth
• Nicole Kidman, Dogville
• Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
  
• Laura Linney, The Savages

• Virginia Madsen, Sideways
• Anamaria Marinca, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
  
• Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge!
• Viggo Mortenssen, A History of Violence
• Emily Mortimer, Lovely & Amazing
  
• Samantha Morton, Minority Report
• Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
• Liam Neeson, Kinsey
  
• Edward Norton, 25th Hour
• Ellen Paige, Juno
  
• Gwyneth Paltrow, The Royal Tenenbaums
  
• Sean Penn, Milk
• Dennis Quaid, Far From Heaven
  
• Charlotte Rampling, Under the Sand
  
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrester
• Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
  
• David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
  
• Meryl Streep, Adaptation.
• Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
  
• Uma Thurman, Kill Bill: Volume 1 & 2
  
• Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive
• Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  
• Renee Zellweger, Bridget Jones's Diary