13 Bravest Acting Performances Of 2014

By Jack Pooley / January 10, 2015

Few great movies can be truly great without a stellar performance at the forefront, and this year delivered a smorgasbord of diverse, daring and outrageous turns from actors you might not have expected to stretch themselves so much. Everyone loves seeing an actor put themselves through the wringer and come out the other end with something truly special, and in these 13 instances, the results were nothing short of spectacular. While they might not all be catching Oscar attention (though some of them certainly are), each of these 13 performances, in everything from biopics to horror films, tiny indie dramas and massive tentpole blockbusters, all turned heads and made audiences pay attention to actors putting it all on the line. While each of these actors could have simply phoned in competent work, they instead pushed themselves the extra mile, and the results were weird, wonderful and often quite brilliant. From insanely chamelonic impersonations of famous musicians to mad transformations into monsters both literal and figurative, and having to act under some seriously performance-encroaching conditions, here are the 13 performances from 2014 that transcend merely great acting: they're 13 actors who showed that, male or female, they were in possession of a giant set of brass balls.