3. Lennie - Of Mice and Men
Filling the shoes of a character written by John Steinbeck is no mean feat, yet Malkovich pulled it off with tremendous grace in 1992's Gary Sinise-directed Of Mice and Men. He plays Lennie (John Malkovich), a dim-witted but physically strong man who is trying to make a life for himself in Depression-era America alongside his smart but physically much smaller friend George (Sinise). With Malkovich's pitch-perfect performance, he ably conveys the harsh times of the period, but also themes of friendship and hope even when things seem their absolute darkest. Of course, things go south when Lennie accidentally kills a woman, and a lynch mob comes after him. George, wanting to spare him a painful death, shoots him in the back of the head as they fantasise about owning a farm one day. Malkovich's delivery of these closing lines in particular and his physical performance makes for a devastating exclamation point on which the film ends. That he wasn't nominated for an Oscar is a genuine shame.