10 Underrated Performances by Great Actors

Awards season is well underway, and with it brings both joy and disappointment. It’s always great to see filmmakers and actors one admires get nominations from the Academy Awards or any other awards body (and it’s even better if they win), but by that same token, people or movies getting overlooked or snubbed can be saddening. Recent years have been no exception to this bittersweet fact of life, and numerous great performances have been snubbed, particularly by the Oscars.

What follows are some performances that, for one reason or another, felt underrated or overlooked. Some of these come from critically acclaimed movies, and some of these performances were admittedly well-received… but arguably deserved more love and attention thrown their way and, with that, perhaps awards recognition, too. In no particular order, these are some great performances from (mostly) great movies that could’ve and should’ve set the world on fire come their respective award seasons.

10 Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart

‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (2023)

It’s no secret by now that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have a great working relationship, having first collaborated back in 2002 with Gangs of New York. Daniel Day-Lewis might’ve stolen the show in that one, but then DiCaprio proved himself a force to be reckoned with when it came to the likes of The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street. This Scorsese + DiCaprio hot streak continued with 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is an epic historical crime/drama that received nine Oscar nominations.

It’s great to see Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively, but DiCaprio was similarly great in what was overall a fantastic and brilliantly acted movie, so seeing him left out of the nominations feels a little surprising. Still, he’s earned Oscar gold before and has plenty of nominations, and given most still appreciated his work in Killers of the Flower Moon (and how different his character was to anyone he’s played before), it’s not the most egregious of snubs; just a little odd.

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9 Margot Robbie as Nellie LaRoy

‘Babylon’ (2022)

Well, Babylon was never going to be for everyone. Damien Chazelle took a big risk, coming off the successes of Whiplash, La La Land, and First Man (the last of those doing well critically, but not financially), making a sprawling epic over three hours long about Hollywood in the 1920s and ‘30s. It was a love letter to cinema but a scathing takedown of the film industry itself, praising the work created but condemning the way beloved films are made.

The message got lost in the length and on-screen depravity for many viewers, but it was still a technically excellent film in many ways, and Margot Robbie’s performance as Nellie LaRoy, an aspiring actress with a tragic rise-and-fall story, was captivating. Robbie missing out on a nomination for her starring role in Barbie has been more publicized, but Babylon contains what might be her wildest, gutsiest, and most complex performance yet, and both the film overall and her role within it don’t get enough love.

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8 Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick

‘Saltburn’ (2023)

Speaking of risky movies that weren’t always going to be for everyone, Saltburn ended up being one of the most discussed films of 2023, likely due to several disturbing and gross sequences that people couldn’t help but react to and talk about. Its story about one young man integrating himself into the life of a wealthy family is an engrossing one that allows plenty of actors opportunities to shine, but Barry Keoghan, as the protagonist, is the cast member who shines the brightest.

Keoghan’s been great in just about everything he’s shown up in over the past few years, but his lead role in Saltburn is next-level stuff, and well and truly helped establish him as one of the great young actors working today. His character is complex, sometimes tragic, often twisted, and always fascinating, and Keoghan was somehow up to the task of conveying all of this. His performance works even better when one knows how Saltburn ends, given the twists and turns that recontextualize the main character and demonstrate that Keoghan was giving an even more complex performance than initially seemed.

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7 Jodie Comer as Marguerite de Carrouges

‘The Last Duel’ (2021)

With a huge filmography that’s spanned close to 50 years at this point, Ridley Scott’s the kind of filmmaker who’s made so many films that a few are going to get inevitably overlooked. The Last Duel was a regrettable financial failure in 2021, perhaps a victim of COVID-19, but it was also a bold film that might not have had mass appeal even if released in a less restricted year, given the heavy themes it tackled within a historical context.

Perhaps the unique structure turned some off, as the story itself might’ve also done, but a performance as great as Jodie Comer’s being overlooked come Oscar season seemed ridiculous. Her character, Marguerite de Carrouges, is at the center of the film’s conflict, but feels so much more than just a victim within a story principally focused on men. The final act takes place from her perspective, establishing her as essentially the lead of the film. Her work here is magnetic, complex, moving stuff, and perhaps the high point of an overall bold and memorable film.

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6 Oscar Isaac as Llewyn Davis

‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ (2013)

In the worst universe imaginable, Inside Llewyn Davis would’ve received exactly zero Oscar nominations. In our current not-great universe, it did still manage to scrape by with two nominations during Oscar season: Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing. Still, in a better universe, it would’ve received half a dozen nominations or more, at the very least, including one for Oscar Isaac’s performance in the titular role.

Inside Llewyn Davis is a bleak character drama, containing some humor but less than one would expect from a Coen Brothers movie. Anchoring the film is Isaac, playing a flawed, tragic, and sometimes sympathetic struggling folk singer whose life goes from one misfortune to another over the span of just under two hours. It was the film that well and truly established Oscar Isaac as leading man material, but to date, this Oscar has gone unrecognized by the Oscars, without even a nomination so far. Hopefully, that’ll change one day.

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5 Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie

‘BlackBerry’ (2023)

The biopic genre is already a well-established one, and there are plenty of formulaic life stories told on film that for one to stand out nowadays, it has to do something different… and even then, sometimes that’s not enough. Case in point is BlackBerry, which takes a similar structure and premise to The Social Network and turns it all into a tragicomedy, far more than it is a drama (and that’s no knock on The Social Network; that’s still a great – and unique – movie).

It’s a film about the rise and fall of the titular product; a smartphone that was once all the rage, before a series of fatal mistakes led to it getting crushed into obscurity. Glenn Howerton shines here as volatile businessman Jim Balsillie, and though his comedic chops had already been well-established thanks to starring in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, this is a different sort of character (and in a film with a different sense of humor) that demonstrates Howerton’s surprising range. BlackBerry sadly didn’t make enough of a splash to be an awards contender, but it’s one of 2023’s more underrated films, and Howerton’s performance is a highlight.

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4 Park So-dam as Ki-jung

‘Parasite’ (2019)

One of the most thrilling (and arguably best) Best Picture winners in Oscar history, the praise for Parasite came thick and fast throughout 2019, and into early 2020, when it won big at the Academy Awards. It’s a tense, sometimes funny, and ultimately tragic story about two families coming into conflict because of class division and wealth inequality, with fantastic performances from everyone in the cast.

Seriously, every member of the film’s main cast is phenomenal, and they’re all worth highlighting, because not one got an Oscar nomination. So, here’s to Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin, Park Myung-hoon, Jung Ji-so, and Jung Hyeon-jun. Still, the Oscars don’t give awards for casts, so if one member has to be singled out, it should perhaps be Park So-dam, playing the daughter in one of the families, bringing a particular degree of complexity and humanity to her ultimately tragic character.

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3 Colin Farrell as David

‘The Lobster’ (2015)

Yorgos Lanthimos would find greater Oscar success with films like The Favourite and Poor Things, but The Lobster was perhaps the first that got him true international recognition, even if it didn’t quite reach the heights of those aforementioned later movies. It’s an admittedly odd satirical dramedy/romance/sci-fi film, with its premise revolving around single people getting rounded up and forced to find a romantic partner within a certain amount of time. If they fail this, their punishment is getting turned into an animal of their choosing.

Pulling off the miraculous task of grounding such an odd movie, Colin Farrell’s performance here might be the best of his career yet, portraying a sad, silly, and sympathetic man forced to take part in this convoluted and bizarre practice. It was great to see him get recognized seven years later for The Banshees of Inisherin, but he should’ve been nominated for his role here as The Lobster’s unlikely hero, David.

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2 Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner

‘Uncut Gems’ (2019)

There are plenty of less-than-great Adam Sandler movies, and no one’s going to deny he’s been in his fair share of lowbrow comedies that were more financially successful than they were critically acclaimed. Yet Sandler’s a surprisingly brilliant actor when he’s placed in something a little more out-there, demonstrated as early as 2002, with Punch-Drunk Love, and then shown even more clearly in 2019, with his lead role as Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems.

This is a blisteringly fast-paced and stressful crime/drama/thriller/dark comedy movie from the Safdie Brothers, following Howard as he tries to score big through hustling, gambling, and pawning various items, only to find himself in increasing danger when he antagonizes the wrong people. The commitment Sandler brings to the role is astounding, and his energetic (yet Oscar-snubbed) performance is a huge reason why Uncut Gems works as well as it does. Truly, Adam Sandler’s performance here might be one of the best of the entire 2010s.

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1 Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Neil

‘Mysterious Skin’ (2004)

Initially released in 2004, but getting a wider release in 2005 (and becoming one of that year’s best movies), Mysterious Skin is a challenging, heart-wrenching, and grim coming-of-age drama. It’s about two young men with equally troubled pasts eventually coming together and realizing some truths about their respective lives, with much of their histories shown throughout a series of flashbacks that are initially as perplexing as they are confronting.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt had been established prior to Mysterious Skin, but this ended up being the kind of performance that demonstrated his full potential, taking him from the realm of good actors into the realm of great ones. He’s incredible here, and though Mysterious Skin as a whole was probably too confronting to get the kind of popularity needed for awards success, Gordon-Levitt’s role here still feels like it should’ve been appreciated to a wider degree.

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