10 Amazing Acting Performances To Watch On Netflix

10. Michael B. Jordan - Fruitvale Station

A prescient performance if ever there was one, Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of Oscar Grant is an achingly convincing piece of acting. Grant, whose death at the hands of a white police officer was famously captured on video in 2008, was unarmed and cuffed when he died. That sense of injustice rings throughout Jordan’s sensitive performance as we see a likeable, admittedly troubled young man live out what would be his last day on earth.

Jordan, better known elsewhere as Wallace from The Wire, plays Grant as loyal friend, son, and father, but there is always a feeling of trouble around the corner, and the film and its central role have an impending sense of doom about them. A key scene in the film sees Grant tend to a dead dog on the side of the road. It’s touching in its nature, and Jordan plays the scene wonderfully, never getting overly emotional but definitely sensing something powerful in the fatality of the incident.

The real-life incident is an all-too-familiar occurrence stateside, so Jordan’s performance consequently takes on an extra-air of unfortunate significance.