2. Swimming With Sharks - "You. Have. No. Brain"
Spacey has played the boss from Hell more than once in his career, but we'll gloss over the awful Horrible Bosses and focus instead on this earlier gem from 1992. He plays Hollywood producer Buddy Ackerman, a man whose methods and manner are so brutal that you'd quite happily tie him to a chair and torture him for hours. Sadly for Ackerman, his downtrodden protégé, played by the excellent Frank Whalley, has much the same idea. Why this sequence of events occurs is obvious after watching the scene I've chosen here. After receiving the wrong kind of sweetener for his coffee, Ackerman cuts the unsuspecting youngster in half with a monologue which leaves him in no doubt as to how low down in the food chain he is. This is probably about the most pleasant the devious, cold Ackerman will be towards him, which doesn't bode well for the future. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo8o-J5nips While other scenes in the film also feature mesmeric acting by Spacey, the sequence in which Ackerman reveals why his attitude hardened over the years being prime amongst them, this part has some fantastic dead-eyed malevolence from the actor. It looks like he was having enormous fun filming the scene, and it's indicative of the direction he takes the character in throughout the rest of the film.