5. Anne Hathaway
There's a moment in this film that just drops everyone's jaw, and when I saw it sat in a room full of fellow awards voters, you could have heard a pin drop. This moment was after Anne Hathaway finishes her rendition of Fantine's "I Dreamed A Dream", which is easily the most iconic song in the show and one of the most famous musical pieces of all time. Hooper, fully aware of its importance, pulls out all the stops, by filming Hathaway's performance of the song in one single take, meaning that she didn't have any margin for error. Though we have no idea how many takes it took to get it right, Hathaway's rendition, all the more impressive because it's live singing, is easily the film's stand-out moment, and all Hooper has to do is point a camera at her face, going through all the emotions of the piece, to get sure movie magic. Even as someone not too high on musicals, I was stunned by the majesty and beauty of what I had just witnessed. Hathaway manages to get the double-header of this sort of work right; she's got a wonderful voice, but she also throws herself into the physicality of the song, therefore accentuating its wrenching emotional anguish. Audiences aren't going to know what hit them.