10 Actors Who Gave Their Best & Worst Performance In The Same Year

1. Benedict Cumberbatch - 2021

Spider-Man: No Way Home/The Power of the Dog
Netflix/Disney

It may be a smidge controversial, but some people came out of Spider-Man: No Way Home thinking that Benedict Cumberbatch was a little, well, off as Doctor Strange.

This latest outing for Cumberbatch as the Master of the Mystic Arts wasn't exactly awful, but it's more that this was a mild misstep in a career that's been full of great performances. Whether it was how easy Strange caved to Spider-Man's pleas to erase all knowledge of his secret identity, how extremely cold he was in certain situations, or even how some fans went into No Way Home expecting Strange to possibly even really be Mephisto in disguise... things just didn't feel right.

Released less than a month before Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cumberbatch got to take centre-stage as Phil Burbank in Jane Campion's 1925-set The Power of the Dog.

Here, the Sherlock favourite gets to dig deep into a fascinating, multi-layered character who is quick to ridicule, easy to anger, brazenly jealous, yet has a whole lot more going on under the surface. The entire cast - which includes Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee - are all fantastic in The Power of the Dog, with Cumberbatch particularly shining bright.

For those who've seen this Netflix release, it'll come as no surprise to hear The Power of the Dog and Cumberbatch already in the conversation for next year's Academy Awards.

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