20 Best & Worst Movies From 2018 Oscar Nominees

9. Lesley Manville

Best: Another Year (2010)

Given that she's rightly considered one of Mike Leigh's preferred talents, it should come as no surprise that Manville's best work is in one of his films. And since the director prefers to film without a script, that's all the more impressive.

In Another Year, she offers a delicately touching, at times devastating portrait of loneliness and emotional vulnerability. She is anxious to be loved, desperate even after her divorce and the unhappiness that seeps out from under her facade is so tangible it's almost heart-breaking. This is subtle, affecting acting at its best.

Worst: Rupture (2016)

A world away from Leigh's gentle, delightful drama is this wayward sci-fi based on evolutionary horror starring Noomi Rapace as well as Manville. It's dumb and dopey and far away from director Steven Shainberg's wonderful Secretary, which feels like it must have been made by another director entirely. A much more capable one, obviously.