Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most bankable and reliable actors working in the movies today. He has flourished in all the stages of his career; beginning as a rising child star, to teenage hearthrob and often daring leading man. DiCaprio is one of the few actors in Hollywood who has the opportunity to work with the highest of caliber director and script time and time again, and he shows no signs of stopping. This year, his performance as an evil plantation owner in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is building serious buzz in what could finally land him his richly overdue Oscar. To celebrate the US release of Django Unchained this week, we count down the best work Dicaprio has given us in his versatile career, plus those dreaded performances that ran a muck... usually those from his earlier career.
5 That Were Awesome
5. The Aviator - Howard Hughes
In his 2nd outing with director Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio soars (no pun intended) in this masterful biopic of entrepreneur/madman Howard Hughes. DiCaprio manages to embody the younger years of Hughes as documented in this film with a deft skill, displaying the obsessive and passionate nature that Hughes put into every endeavor he tackled. DiCaprio moves through almost 30 years in his portrayal, and slowly turns up the intensity as the film moves on, ultimately climaxing nearing the dissent of both Hughes' career and sanity. There is never a moment in the film that we don't believe Hughes is a man capable of achieving anything, and this is all due to DiCaprio keeping his performance grounded to the core of Hughes' determination and his talents. DiCaprio's work here brought him much acclaim, a new found respect in Hollywood and his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor.