20 Actors Who Just Gave Their Best Performance Ever
18. Sally Hawkins - Bring Her Back
Sally Hawkins is a phenomenal actress with a bevy of outstanding performances to her name - most prominently in Happy Go-Lucky, Blue Jasmine, and The Shape of Water, the latter two earning her Oscar nominations.
And while Hawkins almost certainly won't be nominated for her performance in Danny and Michael Philippou's savage horror Bring Her Back, she'd absolutely be worthy of not just a nod but an outright win.
As Laura, a grieving mother whose despair pushes her to enact a ritual to resurrect her dead daughter, Hawkins is hypnotically frightening, operating in a register we've never seen from her before.
And as squirm-inducingly uncomfortable as it is to watch Laura carry out her grim plan against her new foster children, neither the Philippous nor Hawkins ever lose sight of Laura's pervading humanity.
She's ultimately a desperate, broken person trying to triumph over the most apparently final of things - death.
In a just world Hawkins would end up a Best Actress Oscar nominee next year, but given the Academy's overarching bias against the genre - save for occasional exceptions like last year's The Substance - it's definitely not happening.