Forgotten Great Film Performances
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Forgotten Great Film Performances
@performances.bsky.social
Underseen, undersung, and/or underrated. Let us recall them.

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Ron Perlman - 📽️ The Name of the Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986)

The studious and precise Perlman had impressive, convincing commitment to the hunchback speaking mixed-language sentences of six languages at once. It guaranteed him a long genre career as frightening misfits and loners with a heart.
November 23, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Lara Flynn Boyle - 📽️ Red Rock West (John Dahl, 1994)

Dahl’s neo-noir is one of the most memorable of the ‘90s for its western setting and its headliners—Boyle, plus fellow David Lynch alums Nicolas Cage and Dennis Hopper. The eternally underrated actress makes a terrific unpredictable femme fatale.
November 23, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Mercedes Ruehl - 📽️ Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme, 1988)

Demme ensembles were often toweringly great, and Ruehl shone as the jealous wife of mob boss Tony “The Tiger” Russo (an Oscar-nominated Dean Stockwell). In her unhinged rampage after Michelle Pfeiffer, she channels some hysterical demon.
November 23, 2025 at 3:14 AM
Kayvan Novak - 📽️ Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010)

Novak is a relentless source of laughs in one of the best 21st Century comedies as Waj, clueless but conflicted cousin to Riz Ahmed’s Omar. They play attempted homegrown terrorist Jihadis, and Novak anchors the twisted emotional climax with Ahmed.
November 22, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Stephen McHattie- 📽️ A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)

“I said… COFFEE!”

The versatile Canadian actor relished a brief but vital tone-setting role as the diner robber in Cronenberg’s terrific thriller. His snarling showdown with Viggo Mortensen is a tense highlight, hooking you early.
November 21, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Tom Hollander - 📽️ Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)

Equaling or eclipsing David Bamber (in the miniseries) as the definitive portrayal of the famously dull and status-obsessed Mr Collins, Hollander became booked forevermore. He finds a way to make him creepy and annoying, but still sympathetic.
November 19, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Colleen Camp - 📽️ They All Laughed (Peter Bogdanovich, 1981)

Camp is so charming in this stacked ensemble romantic comedy, Bogdanovich’s favourite of his own films. Her showcase parts are always spunky, sexy, funny, and more memorable than the written role. Her acting while singing here is divine.
November 19, 2025 at 6:17 AM
Dianne Wiest - 📽️ Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell, 2010)

It’s hard to imagine a stronger ringer than Wiest, the only living person to win Best Supporting Actress twice. Mitchell deploys her as one of Nicole Kidman’s best-ever scene partners, with a monologue on grief that’s the film’s best scene.
November 17, 2025 at 9:04 PM
George Gaynes - 📽️ Police Academy (Hugh Wilson, 1984)

This movie is so stupid. A lot of the time, it barely even has real jokes. So it’s a lot more watchable than it should be with the help of cast standouts like G.W. Bailey, Bubba Smith, Michael Winslow, and Gaynes—who channels Leslie Nielsen.
November 16, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Tatsuya Nakadai - 📽️ The Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966)

In one of his best performances, the Japanese legend plays a swordsman protagonist who is nastier and more bloodthirsty than you’ll ever see in classic Samurai films.

RIP to one of the most versatile, mesmerizing actors of the century.
November 14, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Stephen Geoffreys - 📽️ Fright Night (Tom Holland, 1985)

If you know, you know. Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall get earned plaudits for this film, but don’t forget Geoffreys as the strangest and grossest of all, complete with an unforgettable ending. He grants the film energetic, funny personality.
November 9, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Andrea Riseborough - 📽️ Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020)

This is a gross and unique take on possession horror, and a lot of it rests on Riseborough’s blank, bizarre, detached character. It’s probably her best work, winning a film that has Christopher Abbott, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Sean Bean.
November 8, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Mark Strong - 📽️ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

This movie is so damn good that it’s hard to pick standouts from the supporting cast, but my mind always drifts to Strong—who everyone rushes to cast after this. He opens the movie, haunts its margins, and serves as its conscience.
November 7, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Angela Bettis - 📽️ May (Lucky McKee, 2003)

Another case of “the less I tell you about this movie’s plot, the better”, but a lot of cult movie fans already know. Bettis holds her own as the star opposite Anna Faris, Jeremy Sisto, and James Duval as our unforgettably unhinged (yet sweet) protagonist.
October 31, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Ian McKellen - 📽️ The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)

Mann’s gonzo horror-fantasy epic was a maligned failure that has since amassed a cult following. The early McKellen role is one of the highlights; he’s the historian entangled in doing the bidding of the demon Molasar. Nobody sells hot nonsense better.
October 18, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Lisa Bonet - 📽️ Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)

This casting was the subject of much debate and controversy at the time. Revisited today, it’s clearly one of the great debuts in a major film. Bonet learned the voodoo and stood out in a film with Mickey Rourke, Charlotte Rampling, and Robert De Niro.
October 18, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Riley Keough - 📽️ It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults, 2017)

As a horror-mystery, Shults’ movie was wildly divisive. But most people would agree the cast is one of its top strengths. The always immersed Keough is best in show, and her tense talk with Kelvin Harrison Jr. is the film’s high point.
October 18, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Diane Keaton - 📽️ Mrs. Soffel (Gillian Armstrong, 1984)

Every Keaton performance is too undeniable to call forgotten, but this is definitely one more young film fans should see. It’s a complex moral balance of tone work from a great director, and rests on her expressive face. RIP to one of the best.
October 17, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Adrian Grenier - 📽️ Trash Fire (Richard Bates Jr., 2016)

The less revealed about this haunting horror-dramedy, the better. But Grenier does the depressed, pained, best work of his career here sparring with greats like Sally Kirkland and Fionnula Flanagan. Buried family secrets ensue and explode.
October 13, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Isla Fisher - 📽️ Definitely, Maybe (Adam Brooks, 2008)

Every studio romcom with a stacked ensemble is bound to have at least one knockout performance bringing their A-game. Armed with Hollywood’s best fake American accent, Fisher charms every second as the lovable and darkly funny April.

#filmsky
October 12, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Chi McBride - 📽️ The Frighteners (Peter Jackson, 1996)

Everyone brings their A-game in Jackson’s horror-comedy, but McBride’s permanently ‘70s-styled, shouting ghost is a real treat. He exists for jokes but has an emotional arc too, and lovely banter throughout with Michael J. Fox and Jim Fyfe.
October 11, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Don Harvey - 📽️ Casualties of War (Brian De Palma, 1989)

Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn go so big in this movie that the supporting cast’s naturalism saves the tone of the harrowing true story. Harvey is haunting as the most monstrous and animalistic of the soldiers. He deserves a comeback film role.
September 24, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Paul Dooley - 📽️ A Perfect Couple (Robert Altman, 1979)

Often the best romcom stars are those who never expected to lead one, and career character actor Dooley is the epitome. As square Alex, he blusters around making mistakes with his girlfriend (Marta Heflin) and domineering father (Titos Vandis).
September 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Robert Redford - 📽️ A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977)

This entrance must be seen to be believed. Redford was always at home bouncing off the world’s other greatest actors, and few casts were ever this stacked. Somehow even a man this striking knew how to blend in and still stand out. RIP
September 18, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Barbara Loden - 📽️ Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961)

It makes perfect sense someone with instincts this keen, specific, and unexpected would fast become one of the important and iconic female filmmakers. Loden shoulders strange and dark scenes as Warren Beatty’s sister, a 1920s flapper.
September 12, 2025 at 9:23 PM