10 Amazing Acting Performances To Watch On Netflix

Any of Closer’s four leads (Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen and Jude Law) could’ve realistically occupied a space on this list, but Natalie Portman just shades it for the immense vulnerability she brings to the role of Alice, an adolescent American beauty living in London.

Adapted from Patrick Marber’s play, Closer goes deep between the sheets of two highly sexual couples whose paths cross at differing points in their respective lives. In this carnal, somewhat Updikeian drama of unlikeable people, it’s Portman’s character who escapes with the most refreshing arc (though Clive Owen gets all the best lines), and her shift from punk-haired bohemian, to pink-haired stripper, to natural-haired woman is played with a doe-eyed earnestness by an actress always willing to commit herself fully to a role.

The scene in the strip-club, in which Portman and Owen basically have sex through dialogue, is one of the best sexual back-and-forths in recent memory.