1. Marion Silver - Requiem For A Dream (2000)
Darren Aronofsky likes to mess with your head. His films are hugely ambitious, visually extravagant, narratively complex and often push the boundaries of what an audience can stand, in terms of taste or style of storytelling. But for all the ambition of The Fountain or the madness of Black Swan, he still hasn't come close to matching his second film. Requiem for a Dream remains unequalled, in his filmography and in Connelly's. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream follows the downward-spiralling lives of four characters - elderly widow Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), her son Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion Silver (Connelly) and their friend Tyrone C. Love (Marlon Wayans). All four characters have their lives destroyed by addition: Sara drives herself insane to look her best for a TV game show, while the others are ravaged by heroin. Suffice to say, it doesn't have a happy ending. Even though Clint Mansell's soundtrack has become a cliché, Requiem for a Dream remains a gruelling masterpiece which explores addiction in all its forms and severely indicts both hedonism and materialism. Each of the central performances is a revelation, but Connelly is especially brilliant. She nails Marion's descent into debasement and sexual depravity, with every sad smile or flicker of her eyes being imbued with deeper meaning. It's unlike anything she's done before or since, and it remains her finest performance.
Having enjoyed (and endured) the highs of Connelly's career, let's turn our attention to the times when things didn't go quite so well...
