Films from the last 10 years have not been included on this list, and will be eligible in future updates when the moratorium has passed.
| Film | Actor | Year |
| 1. Raging Bull | Robert de Niro | 1980 |
| 2. There Will Be Blood | Daniel Day-Lewis | 2007 |
| 3. Taxi Driver | Robert de Niro | 1976 |
| 4. The Godfather Part II | Al Pacino | 1974 |
| 5. On the Waterfront | Marlon Brando | 1954 |
| 6. Lawrence of Arabia | Peter O’Toole | 1962 |
| 7. Seven Samurai | Toshirô Mifune | 1954 |
| 8. The Godfather | Marlon Brando | 1972 |
| 9. Malcolm X | Denzel Washington | 1992 |
| 10. 8 1/2 | Marcello Mastroianni | 1961 |
| 11. The Master | Joaquin Phoenix | 2012 |
| 12. The Godfather | Al Pacino | 1972 |
| 13. Ikiru | Takashi Shimura | 1952 |
| 14. The Dark Knight | Heath Ledger | 2007 |
| 15. Aguirre, the Wrath of God | Klaus Kinski | 1972 |
| 16. A Clockwork Orange | Malcolm McDowell | 1971 |
| 17. Vertigo | James Stewart | 1958 |
| 18. Breathless | Jean-Paul Belmondo | 1960 |
| 19. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Jack Nicholson | 1975 |
| 20. A Streetcar Named Desire | Marlon Brando | 1952 |
| 21. The Searchers | John Wayne | 1956 |
| 22. The Grapes of Wrath | Henry Fonda | 1940 |
| 23. In The Mood For Love | Tony Leung | 2000 |
| 24. The Graduate | Dustin Hoffman | 1967 |
| 25. Goodfellas | Joe Pesci | 1990 |
| 26. Naked | David Thewlis | 1993 |
| 27. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | Humphrey Bogart | 1948 |
| 28. The Gold Rush | Charlie Chaplin | 1925 |
| 29. La Dolce Vita | Marcello Mastroianni | 1960 |
| 30. Winter Light | Gunnar Björnstrand | 1963 |
| 31. Last Tango in Paris | Marlon Brando | 1972 |
| 32. The Last Laugh | Emil Jannings | 1924 |
| 33. Casablanca | Humphrey Bogart | 1942 |
| 34. The Godfather: Part II | Robert de Niro | 1974 |
| 35. Shame | Michael Fassbender | 2011 |
| 36. Dead Ringers | Jeremy Irons | 1988 |
| 37. The Human Condition | Tatsuya Nakadai | 1959-61 |
| 38. Cool Hand Luke | Paul Newman | 1967 |
| 39. White Heat | James Cagney | 1949 |
| 40. It’s a Wonderful Life | James Stewart | 1946 |
| 41. Inside Llewyn Davis | Oscar Isaac | 2013 |
| 42. The Master | Philip Seymour Hoffman | 2012 |
| 43. The Big Lebowski | Jeff Bridges | 1998 |
| 44. Gone with the Wind | Clark Gable | 1939 |
| 45. M | Peter Lorre | 1931 |
| 46. Inglourious Basterds | Christoph Waltz | 2009 |
| 47. Once Upon a Time in the West | Henry Fonda | 1968 |
| 48. The Seventh Seal | Max von Sydow | 1957 |
| 49. American Psycho | Christian Bale | 2000 |
| 50. The Night of the Hunter | Robert Mitchum | 1955 |
| 51. Dog Day Afternoon | Al Pacino | 1975 |
| 52. The Silence of the Lambs | Anthony Hopkins | 1991 |
| 53. Blade Runner | Rutger Hauer | 1982 |
| 54. The Leopard | Burt Lancaster | 1963 |
| 55. City Lights | Charlie Chaplin | 1931 |
| 56. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover | Michael Gambon | 1989 |
| 57. Andrei Rublev | Anatoliy Solonitsyn | 1966 |
| 58. The Grand Budapest Hotel | Ralph Fiennes | 2014 |
| 59. Dr. Strangelove | Peter Sellers | 1964 |
| 60. Sweet Smell of Success | Burt Lancaster | 1957 |
| 61. Magnolia | Tom Cruise | 1999 |
| 62. Umberto D. | Carlo Battisti | 1952 |
| 63. Lost in Translation | Bill Murray | 2003 |
| 64. Blue Velvet | Dennis Hopper | 1986 |
| 65. The Conformist | Jean-Louis Trintignant | 1970 |
| 66. Psycho | Anthony Perkins | 1960 |
| 67. Touch of Evil | Orson Welles | 1958 |
| 68. The Blue Angel | Emil Jannings | 1930 |
| 69. Paths of Glory | Kirk Douglas | 1957 |
| 70. Gangs of New York | Daniel Day-Lewis | 2002 |
| 71. The Revenant | Leonardo DiCaprio | 2015 |
| 72. The 400 Blows | Jean-Pierre Léaud | 1959 |
| 73. Yojimbo | Toshirô Mifune | 1961 |
| 74. Modern Times | Charlie Chaplin | 1936 |
| 75. Punch-Drunk Love | Adam Sandler | 2002 |
| 76. The French Connection | Gene Hackman | 1971 |
| 77. Bicycle Thieves | Lamberto Maggiorani | 1948 |
| 78. Raiders of the Lost Ark | Harrison Ford | 1981 |
| 79. The Sacrifice | Erland Josephson | 1986 |
| 80. Goodfellas | Ray Liotta | 1990 |
| 81. Birdman | Michael Keaton | 2014 |
| 82. Unforgiven | Clint Eastwood | 1992 |
| 83. North by Northwest | Cary Grant | 1959 |
| 84. 2046 | Tony Leung | 2004 |
| 85. Bad Lieutenant | Harvey Keitel | 1992 |
| 86. Apocalypse Now | Martin Sheen | 1979 |
| 87. Chinatown | Jack Nicholson | 1974 |
| 88. Rashomon | Toshirô Mifune | 1950 |
| 89. Pulp Fiction | Samuel L. Jackson | 1994 |
| 90. Rebel Without a Cause | James Dean | 1955 |
| 91. The Social Network | Jesse Eisenberg | 2010 |
| 92. Brokeback Mountain | Heath Ledger | 2005 |
| 93. The Godfather: Part II | John Cazale | 1974 |
| 94. Le Samouraï | Alain Delon | 1967 |
| 95. Fitzcarraldo | Klaus Kinski | 1982 |
| 96. Synecdoche, New York | Philip Seymour Hoffman | 2007 |
| 97. Pierrot Le Fou | Jean-Paul Belmondo | 1965 |
| 98. Rocco and his Brothers | Alain Delon | 1960 |
| 99. Red River | John Wayne | 1948 |
| 100. Brazil | Jonathan Pryce | 1985 |
@DeclanG- wow. I love that you found room for Bridges and three Mifunes. Can’t wait to see your list for the female performers.
Thanks @rujkoc! That one will be coming out very soon.
i overall love your list but I have few disagreements here. Don’t get offended I know you have poured in so much effort here.
I don’t think DiCaprio, Nicolson (Chinatown), Ford deserve to be here. They are very personality oriented performances. Their film is much more focused on visuals or narrative rather than intricate character development (a breeding ground for great performances). There are no arcs, no character development, not major moments of electrical acting nor subtle internalisation or subtext. They are undeserving.
think Casey Affleck in the assassination of Jesse James is major miss. It’s a bohemoth performance. All the things missing in above mentioned performances are present here.
just cannot get my head around seeing DiCaprio the revenant performance ahead of something like Tony Leung in 2046. Jeff bridges right next to PSH’s the master performance and ahead of heavy hitters.
Thanks @Surak Singh, no offence taken at all – disagreements naturally arise over these sorts of lists.
I stand by the character arc in The Revenant pretty firmly. I think a lot of people underrate that as being a purely physical performance for DiCaprio, and overlook the richness of his characterisation. I see an enormous spiritual transformation in Hugh Glass, overcoming his desire for vengeance with an acceptance of nature’s course. It’s hard to go past those close-ups highlighting DiCaprio’s eyes – so much of the development happens right there.
I agree that Chinatown is much more of a narrative piece, but you only need to look at that final scene to see how much Nicholson has gone from cynical disillusionment to total investment and then falling back down to crushing defeat over the course of the film.
Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t have as pronounced a character arc as either. There is definitely one there in Indiana’s acceptance of mystical forces beyond his comprehension, but Ford is mainly here for the pure confidence and star power radiating from the screen playing one of cinema’s great action heroes. The role isn’t the same with any other actor playing it – same can be said of Bridges’ take on the Dude which might be one of the most idiosyncratic performances on the list.
You could be right that Affleck is miss. It has been a long time since I have seen The Assassination of Jesse James, so I would need a refresher on that.
I think the Pacino performance in Dog Day Afternoon outside the top 50 is a major miss. It’s a towering performance always on the edge. I’ve come to accept even though I really like Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest it’s not much of a stretch for him and that Pacino’s performance in Dog Day Afternoon is quite a bit superior and should have won him the Oscar. In fact, I feel like all three Pacino performances in the early to mid 1970’s should be around the top 10. He is insanely internal and subtle here in these performances it’s hard to see even Pacino since the 1980’s let alone any other actor pulling these roles off.