20 Actors Who Just Gave Their Best Performance Ever

As insufferable as many find the man's public persona, Sean Penn is one hell of an actor, as he's proven in a widely celebrated body of work, culminating in two Best Actor Oscars for Mystic River and Milk.

And there's a good chance that Penn walks away with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his phenomenal work in Paul Thomas Anderson's new epic One Battle After Another.

Penn is simply magnificent as the film's unforgettable villain, Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw - an Extremely Pathetic Man with a terminal case of cognitive dissonance. 

Despite being a man who literally wants to join a club for white supremacists, he has a sexual fascination with Black women to ends that are ultimately his darkly hilarious undoing in the film's madcap finale.

Penn makes all the right choices here, making Lockjaw a villain by turns terrifying and pitifully desperate, yet never crossing over into full-on caricature. 

From the man's cardboard-stiff walk to his errant facial tics, every second he's on screen exudes pure, distilled unease. 

In a career lined with banger performances, it's surprisingly easy to argue that this is his best work yet.