9 Distractingly Bad Performances In Otherwise Great Movies

Django Unchained was going so well...

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino
Miramax Films

The actors on-screen are always incredibly important in dictating how successful or unsuccessful a film is and over the decades, many movies have been absolutely torpedoed by terrible acting. Naturally, you'd usually expect to find Razzie-worthy acting in overall poor-quality films, but bad performances can sometimes be found within mostly great movies, which is the last place you'd expect to see them.

The following ten movies all contain particularly glaring examples of this. Whether it was due to miscasting, bad directing or a general lack of acting skills from the actor involved, these performances are huge distractions in otherwise superb viewing experiences.

All ten of these movies are still very much worth seeing, but they certainly had to overcome major obstacles thanks to one of their performances not being up to scratch. In fact, some of these films had to survive more than one terrible performance...

9. Contagion: Jude Law - Alan Krumwiede

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino
Warner Bros.

Contagion is a terrifying, dread-laced, realistic and exceptionally haunting look at the effects of a global pandemic that gets a huge lift from a great cast, Steven Soderbergh's precise direction, a fantastic score from Cliff Martinez and a smart script, but there's one person who really lets the side down and surprisingly enough that's Jude Law.

Jude Law is a talented actor and in his role as an amoral conspiracy theorist he does the mannerisms and expressions for the character just fine; it's his accent that's the problem.

Law does the character with a toe-curling, hideously awful Australian accent and this ruins the entire performance. Why didn't they just allow Law to use his native British accent? Why didn't they get an Australian actor? Who knows? Regardless, this is one of the worst fake accents in recent film history... in fact, maybe ever.

Contributor

Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.