The best actors of the last 20 years, according to the New York Times



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Manohla Dargis and AO Scott, the two most important film critics of New York Times, made a ranking of the 25 best actors and actresses of the XXI century. They wrote that they did so without any particular formula or method and that their classification is “necessarily subjective and possibly scandalous in its omissions.” How he specified Dargis on Twitter, the list includes only actors still alive and to do so she and Scott have focused on the performances of the last twenty years, without considering what had possibly been before. Well ranked is Toni Servillo, the only Italian, but not the only non-American present, and among the most illustrious absentees are, just to name a few, Tom Hanks, Kate Blanchett, Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl. Streep.

From 25 to 11
Before reaching the top 10, dedicating a video and a few words to each of them, a quick overview of those behind. In position 25 in the ranking of the New York Times There is the Mexican Gael García Bernal, and in front of him the Brazilian Sonia Braga and the American Mahershala Ali (winner, in 2017 and 2019, of the Oscar for best supporting actor). Up ahead is Melissa McCarthy (one of the most criticized options in the comments, about which Dargis wrote: “McCarthy has shown his variety time and time again and by making us laugh he smashed old ideas about who can become a movie star.” ), Catherine Deneuve and Rob Morgan («if you have seen Mudbound, Monsters and Men, The Last Black Man in San Francisco me The right to object, all released between 2017 and 2019, you know who Rob Morgan is, even if you don’t know his name, ”Scott wrote).

In 19th position the New York Times put Wes Studi, an American actor of Cherokee ethnicity, and in front of him Willem Dafoe, Alfre Woodard (“even in small parts in minor films or television series, he is an unforgettable, real and real presence,” wrote Scott), The South Korean Kim Min-hee, American Michael B. Jordan and Oscar Isaac. In thirteenth, twelfth, and eleventh place are Tilda Swinton, Joaquin Phoenix, and actress Julianne Moore.

10. Saoirse Ronan
Ronan (whose Irish name means “freedom” and is pronounced like this) was born in 1994 and is the youngest in the ranking. “She grew up before our eyes for half her life,” Scott wrote, “and became wiser, sadder, freer, and more herself in each new role.” Among his best roles, Scott mentioned those of Atonement, Lovely remains, Hanna, Brooklyn, Lady Bird and Little Women and wrote that Ronan “lives in all women or girls, always controlling his acting talent to the maximum.” In particular, Scott appreciated the way Ronan is able to “capture the emotions and body language of a 16th century Scottish queen, as well as that of a 21st century California teenager, allowing us to understand how these people think, what happens in their heads. “

His next role will be in The French office by Wes Anderson, whose release was delayed due to the pandemic.

9. Viola Davis
For the presentation of this 55-year-old actress, winner of the Oscar 2017 for Best Actor, the New York timeshe asked Denzel Washington, who has worked with her several times and who directed her in the film Barriers, talk about it. Washington wrote that he liked him from the first audition he did for Antwone fisher, the first film he made as a director, and that he is a talent “one of a kind” and who “can do whatever he wants.” In recent years, Davis has made a name for himself in Innocent lies, prisoners me Widows – Criminal Legacy.

His next movie – Ma Rainey’s black ass, in which she stars as blues singer Ma Rainey, will hit Netflix in December.

8. Zhao Tao
The 44-year-old Chinese actress is best known for her collaboration with director Jia Zhangke, who is also her husband. “Her film alliance is so holistic and familiar,” wrote Dargis, “that it’s hard to imagine what her films would be if she weren’t there. It is often called his muse, but the definition does not even come close to the richness of the contribution it offers, the poetry, the symbolism and the emotional granularity it offers. Dargis also explains that Zhao, who had been a dance teacher before acting, “moves with balance and fluency” (which is no small feat for Jia’s films, whose characters walk a lot and frequently).

Normally, Dargis and Scott divide the performances of actors and actresses. In Zhao’s case, however, they both wrote, and Scott wrote: “The ongoing transformation in China – in fashion, music, economics, architecture and topography – is the theme of every Jia film, and Zhao is the avatar and the testing ground: she is every woman, in the sense that she represents many different women, sometimes during the same movie. Among the films cited by New York Times exist The world – Shijie, still life, me 24 City. His most recent film is Children of the Yellow River, from 2018.

7. Toni Servillo
Here in Italy, for a long time he has been talked about as the “best Italian actor alive”, because of what he has done in theater and cinema, with Paolo Sorrentino but not only with him, and because everything can be appreciated first by Giulio Andreotti and then by Silvio Berlusconi. Scott writes that to American viewers he is probably known for The great beauty and about his collaboration with Sorrentino he wrote that “the two have developed a symbiosis reminiscent of those of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, between Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren, between John Ford and John Wayne” but he also adds that “these analogies do not they are enough and he writes: “Imagine the same actor who plays Richard Nixon and then Barack Obama, or Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.”

In his next movie: Here i laugh, by Mario Martone – Servillo will be the playwright and actor Eduardo Scarpetta.

– Read also: The history and cinema of Toni Servillo

6. Song Kang Ho
For many, Song Kang Ho, a 53-year-old South Korean actor, is Mr. Parasite. And just for Bong Joon-ho (director of that and three of his other movies) the New York Times asked to talk about Song. «I saw it for the first time in Green fish [un film del 1997], where he played a small country gangster, and his performance was so strongly realistic that it was rumored that he was in fact a criminal. Then I discovered that he was an actor, that he had been doing theater for a long time ». Bong explained that he immediately wanted to meet him – “although I was just an assistant director, and it was a conversation rather than an audition” – and then called him for his second film as a director: Memories of murder, 2003. “He was born for that role and I wrote it for him,” explained Bong, adding that with Song “you always have the feeling that there is a new level to discover” and that he is “an inexhaustible mine of diamonds. According to Bong, Song “starts from the ordinary and elevates it to something unique and inimitable.” His other films, too Parasite, Am: Mr. Vendetta, The Host, Snowpiercer, Empire of Shadows me A taxi driver.

– Read also: Understand the success of Parasite

5. Nicole Kidman
“Kidman” wrote Dargis “is a miniaturist with a lapidary touch, capable – of creating the realism of her roles – of obscuring the beauty that has defined her for so long.” Dargis writes that Kidman began this century by acting in Red windmill and that shortly after arriving The hours (and the Oscar) and then Dogville by Lars von Trier (“a methodically abrasive exercise in Brechtian theater”). For the past twenty years, Kidman has acted extensively, not just in film, and the other roles Dargis cites are Birth – I’m Sean the Newsboy me Destroyer. “You never take your eyes off her,” Dargis wrote.

Kidman’s next movie, The prom, will arrive in December on Netflix.

4. Keanu Reeves
“You might be surprised to find him so high on this list,” Scott wrote, and might even have been surprised to find him 25th on this list. Scott’s defense is worded like this: “Ask yourself, have you ever been disappointed to see him appear in front of you in a movie? Can you name a single movie that doesn’t improve with its presence? ». Still, according to Scott, “there is no other ‘movie star’ capable of changing so much while still managing to remain himself so irreducibly” (according to Scott, obviously this should be considered a virtue). MatrixIf you were wondering, it was released in 1999. In recent years, Reeves has starred in three John wick, in The neon demon, in Destination wedding and in Siberia.

– Read also: We should love Keanu Reeves more

3. Daniel Day-Lewis
About the only person who won the Oscar for Best Actor three times (for My left Foot, The tanker me Lincoln), Scott wrote that, just starring in the movie The tanker “Not only does he play the lead, but he gives human form to the ideas and art of director Paul Thomas Anderson.” Scott cites his “aura of almost mystical proportions”, fueled, among other things, by the rare and intense preparatory activities for each of his roles and the times he announced that he would never act again. In this century, Day-Lewis has starred in six films: Gangs of New York, The Jack & Rose Story, The Oilman, Nine, Lincoln me The hidden thread.

– Read also: The Daniel Day Lewis method

2. Isabelle Huppert
About the 67-year-old French actress, Dargis wrote appreciating the remarkable variety and ability, “in the more than 50 films she has starred in this century”, to “move without apparent fatigue, from tears to screams, one of the most aimed at the greatest crazies. ”Dargis also wrote:“ I love many of his performances, but am fascinated above all by his monsters, his hideous and indescribable women. ”Scott, on the other hand, focused on describing his appreciation for Huppert’s role in The pianist – 2001 film, in which Huppert “represents his character’s descent into madness with icy precision and lyrical intensity” -, in The comedy of power, 2006, in White material, 2010 and Greta, from 2018.

– Read also: The gates of heaven, disaster and masterpiece

1. Denzel Washington
“We have fought and argued about any other position in this ranking, but we have never had doubts about the winner,” wrote Scott, according to whom “Denzel Washington is out of the league, a titan of the screen who is also a thin and sensitive artist, with serious theatrical experience and a powerful stage presence as a movie star. ”Scott wrote that he appreciates the way Washington” plays characters who don’t seem to require or deserve any kind of love, “adding that” it’s often the best of the movies he plays. “

Dargis wrote that Washington knows how to “establish itself as a colossus” but also to “express an agonizing vulnerability” and, like Scott, greatly appreciated his role in Flight, a 2012 film by Robert Zemeckis. After that Washington movie, which won two Oscars, for Training Day and to Gloria – Men of glory – starred Dogs on the Loose, The Equalizer, The Magnificent 7, Barriers, End of Justice me Equalizer 2.

His next film, the thriller The little things, will be released in 2021.



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