10 Movie Stars Who Gave Their Best Ever Performance On TV

Matthew McConaughey's career underwent a much-needed "McConaissance" between 2011 and 2014, culminating in a 2014 Best Actor Oscar win for his superb performance in Dallas Buyers Club.

But the very same year, mere weeks before he scooped the Oscar, McConaughey outdid his most-awarded performance with what remains his career-best work to this very day.

In early 2014, McConaughey appeared in the first season of HBO's outstanding crime series True Detective, playing brilliant-yet-tortured detective Rust Cohle to absolute perfection.

With an epic canvas spanning almost two decades, the part gave McConaughey a ripe opportunity to play two sides of the same coin - a cynical, thoughtful cop who, years later, is a smoked-out shell of his former self.

It's transformative work for an actor who only years earlier was best known for starring in a glut of commercially successful yet critically maligned rom-coms.

McConaughey clearly relished sinking his teeth into the part and hanging on every eloquent syllable of Nic Pizzolatto's gorgeous dialogue, while paired with an almost equally excellent Woody Harrelson as his cop partner Marty Hart.

Though the part ultimately didn't net McConaughey much in the way of major awards, there's a haunting quality to the performance that ensures it'll stick around longer than even the role that won him an Oscar.