Leonardo DiCaprio: Ranking Every Performance From Worst To Best

5. Calvin Candie - Django Unchained

Leo's first and only truly villainous role to date, Django Unchained saw the actor stepping into new, crazed territory as Southern plantation owner Calvin Candie - a despicable fellow if ever there was one - in Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti western blaxploitation mash-up. Clearly relishing the opportunity to chew the scenery as an unhinged madman, DiCaprio manages to be both smooth and diabolical all at once, made better by his on-screen chemistry with Sam Jackson. It's a delicious role, and DiCaprio gets to drink out of a coconut. Lucky guy!

4. Arnie Grape - What's Eating Gilbert Grape

What is eating Gilbert Grape? We'd all love to know, I'm sure. It sure as hell wasn't the amazingly confident and brilliantly complex performance that ol' Leo put in when he was just twenty-years-old, though - one which nabbed him an Oscar nomination, don't you know? Yes, he's playing a mentally-challenged fellow, but it doesn't come across in that "Give me an award!" Dustin Hoffman Rain Man way at all: there's a lovely sort of innocence about DiCaprio's acting here, almost like he's... not really acting? Not to imply that he's mentally-challenged. Just... it doesn't seem calculated at all.