12 Greatest 'Performance' Directors Of The 21st Century

11. Clint Eastwood

Directed Memorable Performances In: Million Dollar Baby (2004), Flags of our Fathers (2006), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), Changeling (2008) and Invictus (2009)

Best of the Best: Sean Penn in Mystic River (2003)

The "Man With No Name" got into directing in the early 70's with Play Misty for Me, continued with making revisionist westerns like The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider, and then made THE revisionist western in 1992 with Unforgiven giving Eastwood his first Oscar ever for directing new-age western. Continuing into the 2000's he started with the fun if not flawed Space Cowboys, then took a decidedly different course for the rest of the decade. Starting with the gripping, tense and horrifically real crime thriller Mystic River in 2003, he began his run of acclaimed character studies. It was in Mystic River, though, that he directed a lead performance to Oscar gold with Sean Penn's revelatory turn as the grieving, vengeful Bostonian Jimmy Markum. Devastated by the murder of his oldest daughter (Emmy Rossum), Markum can see only swift revenge as the answer to his unimaginable grief.

Most people would point to the infamous "Is that my daughter in there?" scene of Markum finding out that his daughter's body is lying in a Boston Public park as the defining moment of the performance. I would point to a much more calmer scene of Penn quietly accepting his personal tragedy, after years of exuding a tough-as-nails street-wise thug, he laments that he can't grieve for his unthinkable loss, he can't cry for her.

It is Penn's very best acting moment in a career full of tour-de-force performances. Eastwood's unseen hand in managing the actor's extreme emotions in grieving and anger are without a doubt is a large part of that.