10 Actors Who Gave Their Best Performances In Movies Nobody Saw

4. James McAvoy - Filth

james mcavoy filth
Lionsgate

James McAvoy is one of those actors who brings 100% every single time he steps up to the plate, and while he rightly garnered enormous praise for his multi-faceted performance in M. Night Shyamalan's Split, it's still not quite his acting peak.

McAvoy delivered an even more astonishing turn in 2013's black comedy Filth - based on the novel of the same name from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh - playing a bipolar, corrupt junkie cop in the midst of a self-destructive downward spiral.

McAvoy is disturbingly convincing as the Edinburgh cop shuffling himself ever-closer to the mortal void, painting a can't-look-away picture of unchecked mental illness and addiction.

It's one of those rare great scumbag performances that truly makes you want to take a shower afterwards - the disgrace just reeks out of the screen.

Though McAvoy did win the British Independent Film Award for Best Actor, the film's general edginess likely prevented it from enjoying further awards success.

While it managed to pull in a not-bad $9.1 million at the box office, Filth quickly fell out of the cultural consciousness and is rarely talked about today, for shame.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.