A24 deservedly gets a lot of love these days, as a company that produces and/or distributes a wide range of boundary-pushing and critically-acclaimed pieces of cinema. For a while, A24 was king, and any other company doing a similar thing had to produce/distribute movies in its shadow, but more recently, NEON has been edging its way towards the crown upon A24’s head, as far as these small, independent-focused, and critically-beloved production/distribution companies go.
NEON’s been associated with distributing an alarming number of recent Palme d’Or winners, for example, and while a certain logo before a movie is never a guarantee that the movie’s going to be good, one might feel a little by way of comfort upon seeing the word “NEON” before a film like they would if they saw the A24 logo. To celebrate the acting specifically, found within the movies associated with NEON, here’s a rundown of some of the very best performances found in movies that were funded or distributed (at least in the U.S.) by the company.
10 Tilda Swinton as Jessica Holland
‘Memoria’ (2021)
Despite this, Memoria is oddly absorbing and certainly hypnotic, with Tilda Swinton’s central performance helping out a ton in this regard. She has undeniably given showier and more traditionally impressive performances, but she matches the film’s restraint perfectly, and proves captivating to watch, even when her character might not be doing all that much in the literal sense. It’s all hard to describe, really, but in a good way. Figuring out how to put Memoria into words might well ruin the whole thing.
Memoria
- Release Date
- August 20, 2021
- Director
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- Cast
- Tilda Swinton , Elkin Díaz , Jeanne Balibar , Juan Pablo Urrego , Daniel Gimenez Cacho , Agnes Brekke
- Runtime
- 136
- Main Genre
- Drama
Buy on Amazon
9 Kōji Yakusho as Hirayama
‘Perfect Days’ (2023)
In contrast to Memoria, there is a tiny bit more going on narratively in Perfect Days, but not by much. It’s a slice-of-life movie through and through, exploring the routines of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo named Hirayama. He does his work, meets people, does things outside his job, finds a certain amount of beauty in the world around him, and seems at peace, even if things from his past catching up to him do threaten to unravel his existence.
Fittingly, Perfect Days is a subtle movie that needs a grounded, subtle, yet compelling central performance to work, and that’s just what lead actor Kōji Yakusho delivers here. He’s able to do so much with what might otherwise appear to be so little, and he helps make the simplicity of Perfect Days oddly engaging.
- Release Date
- December 22, 2023
- Director
- Wim Wenders
- Cast
- Kôji Yakusho , Tokio Emoto , Arisa Nakano , Aoi Yamada , Yumi Asô
- Runtime
- 124 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Drama
8 Renate Reinsve as Julie
‘The Worst Person in the World’ (2021)
At the center of The Worst Person in the World is a woman named Julie, played by Renate Reinsve. She’s not exactly sure what to do with her life, and finds herself being hit with various ups and downs when it comes to things like her professional life and her romances. She, and the other characters, all feel like tangible people, with Reinsve’s acting achievements in this regard standing as the most impressive, given she’s the one with easily the most screen time of all the cast members.
The Worst Person in the World shows that coming-of-age movies don’t have to center around high school or teenage characters. It’s a film that plainly lays out difficulties one might face in their 20s or even their 30s, and there’s both pain and catharsis in watching it all play out, especially when the acting on offer is so unbelievably authentic.
The Worst Person in the World
- Release Date
- October 13, 2021
- Director
- Joachim Trier
- Cast
- Vidar Sandem , Anders Danielson Lie , Helene Bjoreby , Renate Reinsve , Hans Olav Brenner , Herbert Nordrum
- Runtime
- 127 minutes
7 Noémie Merlant as Marianne
‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)
Combining a romantic story with an exceptionally well-recreated period setting, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is all about desire and longing, but done in a tasteful, restrained, and eventually achingly painful way. It’s centered on two women – one a painter, and the other a bride-to-be – and follows the way they slowly discover they have romantic feelings for each other, albeit at a time in history when such a bond was seen as taboo.
It’s hard to single out one of the two leads here, because both Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel are excellent, but it’s the former whose character gets to tell the story, and whose role might have slightly more impact in the end. But, speaking of the end, Haenel’s best scene acting-wise is during Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s memorable final sequence. Maybe a coin was flipped here, and that’s why Noémie Merlant’s name is written above. It really could go either way.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
- Release Date
- September 18, 2019
- Director
- Céline Sciamma
- Cast
- Adèle Haenel , Noemie Merlant , Valeria Golino
- Runtime
- 120 minutes
6 Mikey Madison as Ani
‘Anora’ (2024)
Before Anora, Mikey Madison was probably best known for being one of many victims in the Scream series, or for playing a character who suffered a remarkably grisly demise in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Things have changed in a post-Anora world, though, because she is undeniably front and center throughout all 140-ish minutes of this film, playing a sex worker who gets married to a wealthy young man on a whim, only for that marriage to cause conflict within his family.
Starting out as a romance before shifting into something uncomfortably funny (and tense), all before hitting some stark emotional beats in the final act, Anora is a dizzying and unique ride of a film. Sean Baker’s writing and directing talents do need to be recognized, but Madison also contributes immensely to the whole (admittedly) strange film working as well as it does, and even if she had been in some high-profile movies before, this still feels like a star-making kind of role.
Anora
- Release Date
- October 18, 2024
- Director
- Sean Baker
- Cast
- Mikey Madison , Mark Eydelshteyn , Karren Karagulian , Yuriy Borisov , Vache Tovmasyan , Ivy Wolk , Luna Sofía Miranda , Ross Brodar , Lindsey Normington , Darya Ekamasova , Emily Weider , Alena Gurevich , Masha Zhak , Paul Weissman , Charlton Lamar , Aleksey Serebryakov , Ella Rubin , Vincent Radwinsky , Michael Sergio , Brittney Rodriguez , Sophia Carnabuci , Anton Bitter , Zoë Vnak
- Runtime
- 139 Minutes
Buy on Apple TV
5 Nicolas Cage as Rob
‘Pig’ (2021)
Though his filmography is an inconsistent one, Nicolas Cage has been in his fair share of genuinely great movies over the decades, and is capable of greatness, as an actor, in the right role. Pig is one such showcase of how great Cage can be, even if the premise – which sees Cage’s character stopping at nothing to find his prized foraging pig – might make Pig sound a bit stupid.
It’s all in the execution, though, because Pig – while tense at times – certainly isn’t an action movie, and leans far more towards the drama genre than it does towards thriller territory. This approach works because of how subdued everything is cinematically, and because of how successful Cage is here at playing a quiet, intense, and mysterious man with a clear goal ahead of him and a rather shady past behind him.
Pig
- Release Date
- July 16, 2021
- Director
- Michael Sarnoski
- Cast
- Nicolas Cage , Julia Bray , Alex Wolff , Gretchen Corbett , Elijah Ungvary , Nina Belforte , Darius Pierce , Adam Arkin
- Runtime
- 92 minutes
4 Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding
‘I, Tonya’ (2017)
If you come to I, Tonya expecting a sports movie that’s in any way inspirational or heartwarming, then you’ve come to the wrong place. This is a down-and-dirty, grim, and sometimes darkly funny sports movie that plays out a bit like a crime film, with style that might make one think of a Martin Scorsese crime flick, and some flashbacks to key events that are a little Rashomon-like, owing to how different people remember different things.
It’s a film packed with great performances, with Allison Janney winning Best Supporting Actress, but I, Tonya really is Margot Robbie’s movie. She plays the titular Tonya Harding, expertly capturing the highs and lows of her life, and working alongside the script to paint a more complex portrait of the figure skater than the media might otherwise have one believe. It’s probably Robbie’s best lead performance to date, and, more than any other role, a showcase that she’s much more than just a pretty face.
- Release Date
- December 8, 2017
- Runtime
- 120minutes
3 Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek
‘Parasite’ (2019)
Like with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it’s hard to single out one great performance in Parasite, owing to it having an ensemble cast with enough actors firing on all cylinders that a top 10 could, potentially, just involve 10 actors from Parasite. Everyone gets a chance to shine, thanks to just how many directions this ambitious, thrilling, darkly funny, and tragic movie goes in over the course of just over two hours.
So, to single out just one person, it might just be best to highlight the closest thing the film has to a lead actor: Song Kang-ho, who’s no stranger to Bong Joon-ho, having also excelled in movies like Memories of a Murder and The Host. He delivers when it comes to drama, comedy, and anything else thrown in his way during Parasite, and is one piece of an impressive ensemble cast, all of whom worked together to make this an all-time great movie.
- Release Date
- November 8, 2019
- Director
- Bong Joon Ho
- Cast
- Yeo-Jeong Jo , Myeong-hoon Park , Jeong-eun Lee , Sun-kyun Lee , Ji-so Jung , So-dam Park , Keun-rok Park , Kang-ho Song , Ji-hye Lee , Woo-sik Choi , Seo-joon Park , Hye-jin Jang
- Runtime
- 132 minutes
2 Kristen Stewart as Diana, Princess of Wales
‘Spencer’ (2021)
Standing as a truly special – and far from generic – biographical movie, Spencer centers on Princess Diana during a particularly difficult Christmas celebration with the royal family she’s been married into. Faced with pressure from various areas of her life during a stressful time of the year (let’s be honest; Christmas, on occasion, can be hell), Spencer sees its lead character struggling to contain herself psychologically.
This sort of film would fall apart were it not for a great central performance, and thankfully, Spencer had Kristen Stewart in that lead performance, delivering what could well be her best acting to date. The whole movie, though technically well-presented and featuring some solid supporting performances, does belong to/revolve around Stewart, and her performance here might well be up there with the best from any movie of the 2020s so far.
Spencer
- Release Date
- November 5, 2021
- Rating
- r
- Runtime
- 111
1 Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter
‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (2023)
Few actors have been asked to do as much within a single movie as Sandra Hüller was required to do as the lead in Anatomy of a Fall. This begins as a recognizably compelling courtroom drama, but becomes something more interesting as things go along. Hüller’s character, Sandra Voyter, is at the center of the trial the whole movie revolves around, and for much of the runtime, characters and viewers alike are trying to work out Sandra’s deal.
To say anything more would ruin too much, but Hüller – hiding things, admitting to others, potentially lying, and speaking different languages – does so much over the course of Anatomy of a Fall that the movie is worth watching for her alone. Of course, there’s more to a film this great than just that lead performance, but for as great as, say, the screenplay was (and it was great), it wouldn’t have been as impactful if so much of its dialogue was in the hands of a lesser central actor. And, even more impressively, it’s not even the only great performance she gave in 2023, as she was also incredible (playing a very different role) in The Zone of Interest.
- Release Date
- May 22, 2023
- Director
- Justine Triet
- Cast
- Sandra Hüller , Swann Arlaud , Milo Machado-Graner , Antoine Reinartz , Samuel Theis , Jehnny Beth , Saadia Bentaieb , Camille Rutherford , Anne Rotger , Sophie Fillières
- Runtime
- 151 Minutes
