20 Most Intense Movie Performances Of All Time

6. Don Logan (Sir Ben Kingsley) - Sexy Beast

There's something about gangster movies that just breeds intense performances: perhaps it's because no audience would believe that such criminal activity could be committed by normal people, requiring the film-makers to draw cartoonish thugs and pantomime villains?

Whatever the agenda or reason, Jonathan Glazer and Sir Ben Kingsley crafted one such character who fit that description rather perfectly for 2000's Sexy Beast.

Don Logan is exacrtly what you'd expect of a man whose reason d'etre is recruiting the worst of the worst for his underworld bosses. He's darkly charming, completely unhinged and so obsessively convinced of his own persuasiveness that it barely matters what his targets feel. He's a whirlwind that progressively spins wilder as he's rejected in his agenda and by the time he's necessarily killed off, he's absolutely monstrous.

It's no real wonder Kingsley picked up an Oscar nomination for the performance. Logan would have been furious he didn't win, though.