10 Best Mark Ruffalo Performances
1. Ned Weeks - The Normal Heart (2014)
Few films of the last twenty years have been as emotionally powerful, insightful or affecting as Ryan Murphy's The Normal Heart. Based on the 1985 play of the same name by the late Larry Kramer, the television drama film stars Ruffalo, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina and more in a tragic tale about the 1980's AIDS crisis.
Every actor in this film is phenomenal, with several (Parsons and Bomer are particular standouts) giving career-best performances, but it is once more Ruffalo who rises above the pack as Ned Weeks, a gay rights activist who founds a prominent HIV advocacy group.
Not only is The Normal Heart a staggering and often infuriating drama, it is also a document of a dark and difficult time in human history. Ruffalo anchors the drama with a performance that is as tragic as it is visceral, as moving as it is sweet.
Mark Ruffalo has been many things - superhero, journalist, lawyer, business owner, slacker, detective - but he's never been better than he was in The Normal Heart, a film that I think everyone needs to see.