10 Actors Who Won Everyone Over With ONE Performance

Now to be completely fair to Adam Sandler, he did sprinkle a few roles throughout his earlier career that weren't ultra-broad studio comedies - in 2004 alone, he turned heads with his fine work in both Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish, and in 2007 played a grieving husband and father in Reign Over Me.

But in the decade-plus that followed, Sandler largely doubled down on collecting paychecks for no-effort comedy roles aimed at the lowest common denominator - Grown Ups, Jack and Jill, Pixels, and so on.

Yet even those adamant that Sandler was a blight on the film industry couldn't deny the brilliance of his performance in the Safdie Brothers' 2019 thriller Uncut Gems. 

As gambling addict and jeweller Howard Ratner, Sandler slams into a gear most didn't think he had, persuasively portraying a sleazy, anxiety-inducing individual whose compulsions seem destined to be his undoing.

Sandler's work was largely hailed as the finest of his career, and though he sadly failed to secure a Best Actor Oscar nod, he did win the Independent Spirit award for Best Male Lead.

Needless to say, for as often as Sandler squanders his talents on forgettable comedies, he's clearly capable of giving an absolute knockout of a performance when he wants to put the work in.