20 Actors Who Just Gave Their Best Performance Ever

20. Dwayne Johnson - The Smashing Machine

Though many joked that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson couldn't not give a career-topping performance in Benny Safdie's new sports drama The Smashing Machine considering how few genuinely dramatic roles he's taken to date, he still delivered a turn many didn't believe him capable of.

As embattled MMA fighter Mark Kerr, Johnson literally and figuratively transforms himself, donning makeup prosthetics to shed his popular countenance, while immersing himself in a character who pinballs from quiet reserve to explosive rage throughout the film's runtime.

It's Johnson like we've never seen him before, playing an extremely vulnerable and challenging character who isn't necessarily one audiences can easily connect or sympathise with.

Johnson has been widely lauded for his work here, enough that some believe he could even land himself an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. 

But even if he doesn't, it provides firm proof that he has far more to offer than generic action hero roles in swiftly forgotten blockbusters.

This won't be a one-off attempt to be taken seriously either, as Johnson is already set to star in a new Hawaii-set crime thriller to be directed by Martin Scorsese. What a world.