5. Arbitrage
Nomination deserved: Best Actor - Richard Gere Arbitrage is a potboiler of a film. It builds and builds until you don't think it can anymore and with so much at stake, you wonder how everything will turn out. Richard Gere, in the performance of his career, plays Robert Miller, a troubled hedge fund magnate desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire who makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help. As I mentioned above, Richard Gere gives the performance of his career. He plays an immensely unlikeable character, a dishonest, corrupt businessman, who just happens to be an adulterer as well, but somehow manages to gain your empathy...before making you angry for giving it to him in the first place. Gere pulls no punches and never tries to make Robert Miller likeable, instead opting to show glimpses of a desperate man who is in too deep and is grasping at straws trying to climb out; no matter who he drags down in the process. Tim Roth, Nate Parker, Susan Sarandon, and Brit Marling turn in solid performances as well, but Richard Gere leaves them all in the dust. It was truly one of the best performances of the year and it is a crime it didn't get more attention.