There were plenty of great performances in 2025. Some were better than others. Here are, in no particular order (except maybe for the first one), my personal favorite performances of the year. And again, these are my, James Jay Edwards’, favorite performances and no one else’s.
So, on with the Best Film Performances of 2025 list…
1 – Indy the Dog/Good Boy
At the top of this list has to go Indy the Dog, the canine protagonist in Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy. Dog or not, Indy’s performance is special. He expresses more emotion and charisma in a single glance than most actors can muster in a whole movie. Of course, some of the credit here has to go to Leonberg, since Indy is his dog and the movie took a year and a half to shoot, even with its meager 73-minute run time. But still…as the owner of three dogs, I can say there’s no way I could have gotten a performance like Indy’s out of any of my mutts, no matter how many takes we did.
2 – Amy Madigan/Weapons
This year’s “that was her?!?” award has to go to Amy Madigan in Zach Cregger’s Weapons. Her chameleonic transformation into the wicked Aunt Gladys is nothing short of remarkable. Not only is her performance memorable, but she also seems to be having a blast doing it. Madigan created a horror villain for the ages and got to have fun at the same time. She definitely understood the assignment.
3 – Rose Byrne/If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Although the movie itself is kind of uneven, Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You features a powerhouse performance from Rose Byrne. Byrne plays a woman named Linda whose world is collapsing around her, with her having to take care of a chronically ill child and needing to deal with a massive housing catastrophe, all while her husband is away on business. Byrne simultaneously captures the essence of hopelessness and hopefulness, seeming both optimistic and pessimistic while she tries to hold it together for the sake of her daughter. And her portrayal is nothing short of career-defining.
4 – Jessie Buckley/Hamnet
Jessie Buckley has established herself as one of her generation’s premier actresses, and her performance in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet further solidifies that ranking. Hamnet is essentially about William Shakespeare, but the story belongs completely to Buckley’s Agnes, who is the wife to Will’s absentee husband. Agnes deals with loneliness and the challenge of raising her family alone while Will is away writing, and this eventually leads to the loss of one of their children.
Buckley portrays Agnes’s constantly on-the-edge persona effortlessly, able to get an emotional reaction out of the audience with little more than a facial tick or a half smile. Some of the performances on this list will go unrecognized, but Buckley will be an Oscar frontrunner.
5 – Jennifer Lawrence/Die My Love
There seems to be a theme with absentee/neglectful fathers this year. Lynne Ramsey’s Die My Love is another movie about a woman on the edge, although Jennifer Lawrence’s Grace is a bit more on the edge than the others. Die My Love is a movie about hardcore postpartum depression, and Lawrence has a field day with it.
It’s a Lynne Ramsey movie, so it’s a bit disjointed and erratic, but that just adds fuel to the fire for Lawrence’s visceral performance. J-Law dials it up to eleven, and there are no brakes on that freight train.
6 – Zoë Kravitz/Caught Stealing
Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing was a bit of a disappointment, but the film has two bright spots. One is Tonic the Cat, who has since been overshadowed by Indy the Dog as Animal of the Year. The other is Zoë Kravitz. Her character is essentially the “love interest,” but she provides heart and soul to an otherwise sterile film. And honestly, she’s the only likeable character in the movie, so she’s the only one the audience actually cares about.
And now, let’s move on to the men…
7 – Dwayne Johnson/The Smashing Machine
There’s no argument that former professional wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a movie star, but can he act? His performance in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine answers that question with a resounding YES. Oddly enough, the role of pioneering UFC fighter Mark Kerr seems as if it would be the closest to The Rock’s actual persona, but this feels like the first time audiences have seen him not just as himself but as an actual three-dimensional character. And he’s awesome.
8 – Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis/Bugonia
With Bugonia, it seems as if auteur Yorgos Lanthimos took the reins off of his actors a bit and let them go outside of the usual stoic, wooden vibe of his earlier movies. Lucky for him, he assembled an amazing cast to cut loose.
Jesse Plemons’ Teddy is an eerily controlling conspiracy theorist who always seems right on the verge of losing control. His partner in crime, Aidan Delbis’ Don, is the reluctant voice of reason, always questioning Teddy even though he goes along with him. Together, their dynamic crafts a powerful tension that always feels like it’s going to boil over. Bonus points to Emma Stone for completing the trio in this movie, and it says a lot about the guys that her performance is the weakest of the three. It’s not weak at all, but Plemons and Delbis are just better.
9 – Michael B. Jordan/Sinners
For my money, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was hands-down the best movie of the year, and Michael B. Jordan was the anchor. He played a set of twins, so there’s twice the Jordan in the movie, and he was able to give each of the guys their own separate personality aside from just wearing a different outfit or which one was smoking a cigarette. It’s a powerful performance in a powerful movie, and all from a powerful actor.
10 – All the kids in The Plague
Writer/director Charlie Polinger’s The Plague is about a water polo camp where the participants, all early teen boys, go through typical early teen things like bullying and discovering girls. While the name above the title is Joel Edgerton, the real stars of the movie are the boys.
Kenny Rasmussen plays the target of the bullying (the one with “The Plague”), and Everett Blunck portrays the one boy who is on the fence about joining the bullies or being friends with the outcast. The rest of the campers are played by Kayo Martin, Lennox Espy, Lucas Adler, Elliot Heffernan, Colton Lee, and Caden Burris. The Plague is a pure ensemble movie, and every cast member pulls his weight. These are names to remember.
(Honorable mention goes to the ensemble in Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk, which includes Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer, Garrett Wareing, Ben Wang, Joshua Odjick, Jordan Gonzalez, and Tut Nyout. These names are worth remembering as well, although they’re a bit older than the kids in The Plague and have been around the block a few more times.)
