10 Glorious Examples Of Overacting in Movies

by Edward Owen

as we've covered before. Yet most of the time, the term 'overacting' gets caught up with the term 'hamminess,' implying that in some way, throwing everything you have at the performance is a bad thing which should only be seen in the campest of films. Now I guess there is a school of thought for that argument, but I'd argue that it's a lot more nuanced than that. Sure, the occasional gut-busting performance can overshadow and sink a movie, but when overacting isn't necessarily a bad thing. Often, when actors turn up the ham factor, we receive a performance so memorable that it completes the movie. This isn't the case all the time and there are some stinkers out there (one or two will be mentioned in this article), but to disregard any sort of overacting completely would be doing the actors a huge disservice. Some of our best roles and performance come from going hell for leather, and I hope to identify a few of them in this list. So without further ado, here goes. Keep in mind that a SPOILER WARNING is in effect.

Contributor
Contributor

Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.