Meryl Streep: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Sister Aloysius Beauvier €“ Doubt (2008)

The late seventies and early eighties may have been the prime time for Meryl Streep as transcendent, cathartic performer, but she's not been dragging her weight since. Not by a long shot. Recently she's starred in the satirical The Devil Wears Prada and the dark farce of August: Osage County, but she reached the height of her controversial, complex and just straight up difficult to watch performances with 2008's Doubt. Opposite the other strongest actor of his generation (until his untimely death last year) Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Streep is absolutely electric in this adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize winning play. Spurred on by the suspicions of Amy Adams's Sister James, Streep's nun Sister Aloysius Beauvier investigates accusations of impropriety with an altar boy on the part of Hoffman's Catholic priest Father Brendan Flynn. It's a story that could so easily tip over into hysteria, or else broad parody, with the horrifying reality of widespread child abuse in the Catholic church a contemporary hot button topic. Everyone involved manages that aforementioned quiet dignity Streep essayed in The Hours, with the occasional explosions of emotion from her repressed nun being all the more powerful. A career-best performance to be sure. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for every film Meryl Streep has appeared in over the years...