10 Actors Who Won Everyone Over With ONE Performance

Throughout the 2000s, Kirsten Dunst demonstrated herself to be a charming, affable presence in a ton of movies - Bring It On, the Spider-Man trilogy, Wimbledon - but appeared in little that truly showed off her acting ability.

But that all changed beyond compare in 2011, when Dunst starred in Lars von Trier's sci-fi drama Melancholia, portraying Justine, a depressed woman who gets married shortly before a rogue planet is scheduled to collide with Earth and destroy it.

Dunst's performance remains one of cinema's all-time great depictions of depression, avoiding easy acting tics and cliches associated with the condition, and instead perfectly conveying how it can flatten a person's entire aura. 

Dunst went on to win the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival following Melancholia's premiere there, and though many expected her to also receive an Oscar nomination, it frustratingly never came to pass.

All the same, it remains the high point of Dunst's entire acting career, and assured even her biggest detractors that she was capable of delivering an incredibly subtle, nuanced performance in a Serious Drama.