Shane Carruth
Primer

Drawing attention to writer/director Shane Carruth's performance in Primer could almost be cruel — Carruth is doing the Texas no-budget indie-debut thing, so while it's unsurprising that the engineer-turned-filmmaker would also have to be the guy most frequently in front of the lens, it is a shock that he holds the camera so well. It's not an actorly role, which works in Carruth's favor — he plays an engineer given to speaking over his colleague's lines as they try to complete one another's thoughts — but it's a mistake to look at his performance as simple go-with-what-you-knowness. Carruth's role as Aaron, a scientist forced to stay three steps ahead of a life-changing invention, has to echo his own experience in making such an intricate, remarkable first film. This is not a performance for the ages, but watching Aaron master his invention feels like getting a peek into Carruth's mind as a director. If his filmmaking career fulfills the promise of his debut, that peek could remain fascinating for a long time. — Sean Weitner

Clive Owen
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

In the first half of the movie, Owen, hirsute and shabby, plays a self-exiled man trying to forget his criminal past. Barely speaking a word, he conveys a remarkable range of emotions almost entirely through expression, manner and movement. And the more silent he is, the more menacing he seems. It's the sort of low-key acting the Academy rarely lauds. But Owen raises the stakes with his second-half transformation: Once back in London, he can't help reverting to his natural, badass self. He's one nasty butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. — D.W. Young

Peter Sarsgaard
Garden State

In movies, secondary characters and the character actors that portray them have the ability to transcend the awful weight that comes with star power, that familiarity that clouds even the brightest lead actor's performance. Garden State's star power is limited to Princess Leia's mom, Bilbo Baggins and that guy you may or may not recognize from Scrubs, and either because of or despite this, the movie digs up an anthill of acting, in particular Peter Sarsgaard's Mark, the grave-digging best friend of the film's hero. Sarsgaard makes his working class antihero so accepting of his life that he's leagues more real than any sappy Terry Malloy type; Mark's not a contender, and despite some odd investment schemes he doesn't expect or care to be. Honest emotion, not melodramatic ball-grabbing, is the key to his performance, and it's his sober actions (soberly acted, anyway) that help lend Garden State its surprising depth. — Tony Nigro

Alfred Molina
Spider-Man 2

Yes, we know: You were hypnotized by his man-boobs. Get past that. Molina, like Willem Defoe before him, rendered a textured villain, ruined by his life's work going sour at the very moment before its expected culmination. Molina's Doc Ock does spot-on brusque deadpan, both before and after the accident that turns him into a monster caged by his own creations. There are hints of King Lear in this performance, the once-great man succumbing to the self-serving whispers of his courtiers. You don't expect finely honed characters in a blockbuster based on a comic book, but the Spider-Man franchise has been raising the bar in every category and Molina's turn is quite superb.— Martin Scribbs

David Thewlis
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

David Thewlis played mild-mannered wildlife enthusiast Professor Remus Lupin as a teacher, and that decision alone gave distinction to his performance. In a school filled with instructors in capes and robes lecturing about potions, spells and prophecies, Thewlis' Lupin worked in a coat and tie. You can hear it in his dialogue: While everyone else cringes melodramatically at the name of the franchise's biggest baddie, Thewlis doesn't blink as a way to get Harry to do the same. He talks the way our teachers talk, and he counsels Harry the way our teachers do. Thewlis played Lupin the steady and never deferred to the wonder of Harry Potter. It's amazing that someone playing normal can seem so unnatural, isn't it? Thewlis' Lupin fills a revolving-door role previously occupied by Kenneth Branagh's hammy Gilderoy Lockhart and to be followed by Brendan Gleeson's personality-described-twice-by-his-name Mad-Eye Mooney — two characters written for the comics. Playing it straight, even under the "your parents don't want a teacher like me instructing their child" allegory of the gay teacher, make Thewlis an actor to be commended. — Andy Stilp