The best performances we saw in 2014

Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler

There was a brief time when it seemed like Jake Gyllenhaal, one of the best actors of his generation, might get swallowed up into the Hollywood blockbuster machine that churns out dreck like 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. But when his would-be franchise failed to launch, Gyllenhaal went back to the kinds of indies that launched his career, putting out a series of impressive (and often overlooked) performances in End of Watch, Prisoners, and Enemy.

Impressive as those performances are, they feel like an appetizer for the feast he offers in Nightcrawler as the skin-crawling opportunist Lou Bloom. Bloom, a freelance crime journalist who sells gory footage to news outlets, is the year's most fascinating movie character. Gaunt and bug-eyed, Gyllenhaal plays Bloom as a sociopath who has spent his life internalizing every cliché about self-actualization and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. He's a pure sociopath, but he's found a language he can speak in the glib, buzzy jargon of middle-management and motivational speakers, and he uses his expertise to manipulate or destroy anyone in his way.

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"What if my problem wasn't that I don't understand people, but that I don't like them?" he says in a blistering monologue near the end of the film. It's one of the only times Lou Bloom drops his act and lets you inside, and the chilling honesty of his warped worldview cuts straight to the bone. --Scott Meslow, entertainment editor

Ethan Hawke, Boyhood

I've never really liked Ethan Hawke. There was something about his studiously unkempt look, his vaguely pretentious forays into writing novels, and his work in the capital-T Theatre. I avoided his movies like they were C-grade cinematic detritus.

That all changed after seeing Boyhood. Richard Linklater's masterfully constructed movie, which was filmed over 12 years to follow the real-life growth of the child protagonist, Mason Evans, Jr., is a triumph for Hawke as Mason, Sr., whose internal transformation is as profound as the physical changes his son experiences. Boyhood revels in life's mundanity without descending into predictability — often because of the profound emotional truth Hawke locates in simple moments as a struggling, sometimes-absent dad trying to connect with his kids. Hawke's Mason, Sr. isn't fascinating in a grand, cinematic way; he's engrossing in the same small way that life itself often is. And when you consider the unique, years-long process of making Boyhood, Hawke's performance is that much more stunning. He didn't live Mason, Sr.'s life — it just feels, beautiful moment by beautiful moment, like he did. --Mike Barry, senior editor of audience development and outreach

Beyonce Knowles, On the Run

Beyonce went on tour this year with her husband, Jay Z — though his presence seemed almost immaterial. There was no question about who the crowd was there to see.

The On the Run tour, like Beyonce herself, was both intimate and outsized. (I saw it live at The Meadowlands in New Jersey, but anyone who couldn't score a ticket to the show could get a taste of it in the subsequent HBO special of the same name.) The performance was over the top — replete with back-up dancers, costume changes, and pyrotechnics. Video footage telling the love story of a Bonnie and Clyde-esque couple, played by Bey and Jay, were woven into the performances, turning the concert into a story with Beyonce at its center.

But for all the spectacular production, the thing that makes Beyonce such an incredible performer is her ability to mix the show-stopping with the personal and authentic. As the concert crescendoed, the audience was told, "This is real life," and the show ended with home footage and the Carters looking not at the audience, but at a video of their daughter. (Yes, rumors persist about the stability of the Knowles-Carter marriage — but if this was an act, I fell for the whole thing.) It was the perfect capper to the best show of the year. --Marshall Bright, digital production assistant

Michelle Monaghan, Fort Bliss

If you saw Michelle Monaghan at all this year, it was probably in HBO's True Detective, where she played an embittered woman who would eventually sleep with her husband's partner. The show received well-deserved criticism for its underdeveloped female characters. Fortunately, her starring turn in the little-seen Fort Bliss serves as an answer to that problem, as Monaghan commands every scene with a mix of vulnerability, fierce independence, and warmth.

Monaghan plays Maggie, an army medic who returns to her son and ex-husband after a tour overseas. She struggles to maintain a normal life after being away so long. Fort Bliss tackles difficult topics, including the cognitive dissonance between the allure of service and the military's rape culture, but it's never preachy or melodramatic. In the hands of a lesser actor, the material would be way too manipulative — but Monaghan makes it all work perfectly. --Alan Zilberman, writer

Elisabeth Moss, Listen Up Philip

Listen Up Philip is one of the best movies of the year, and it includes one of the best performances of the year, too. Elisabeth Moss plays Ashley, the ex-girlfriend of the titular character. While much of the movie focuses on how Philip's professional successes come at the cost of his qualities as a human being, Ashley is having the same problems as she navigates the sudden end of their long-term relationship.

Listen Up Philip makes a bold choice when it deserts its main character in the middle of the movie for an extended interlude about Ashley — and in Moss' capable hands, Ashley proves infinitely more sympathetic than Philip. Moss conjures up a version of the steel she flashed as a detective in Top Of The Lake, using her stunning range as an actress to convey emotional insecurity rather than rage. The performance builds to the scene when Philip finally tries to return to Ashley, only to learn that the power dynamics have shifted. It's both sad for him and triumphant for her — a balancing act that would difficult to imagine in another film, or with another actress. --Eric Thurm, writer

Chelsea Perretti, One of the Greats

I'm not usually one to hit "play" on whatever stand-up special Netflix recommends for me, but Chelsea Peretti's One of the Greats caught my eye for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a bandwagoner, and everybody seems to be on the Peretti Train these days. Second, she's a woman — and having once worked in a male-dominated industry myself, I figured there was some "solidarity, sister" juju to be passed on by spending an hour watching her special.

Oh, what an hour it is. Peretti sends up the typical comedian intro, showing footage of herself riding to the Bay Area theater on a motorcycle and claiming to be a direct vessel of God. That's chutzpah I can get behind. The special proceeds to edit in absurdist shots instead of the usual cutaways of audience members laughing — think five dogs happily panting on plush, red-velvet auditorium seats, or a clown that looks suspiciously like Peretti dancing menacingly toward her.

As for Peretti's own performance, it truly is one of the greats. She deftly swings from cutting, dark material to light-hearted bits, pulling out a variety of spot-on impressions along the way. (Her take on a girl named Cassandra Instagramming a #NoMakeup moment is both hilarious and all too accurate.) I found myself thanking the stars that my roommate was gone as I sat on the couch, cackling maniacally by myself for more than 60 minutes. Chelsea Peretti, take a bow. --Sarah Eberspacher, associate editor

Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

A biopic based on a genius suffering from a crippling illness: Eddy Redmayne's performance as Stephen Hawking in James Marsh's The Theory of Everything is practically catnip for Oscar voters. But once you've actually seen the British actor's performance as the legendary physicist, it's hard to argue with anyone who puts him on the top of this year's Oscar ballot.

Redmayne plays Hawking from his time at Cambridge — when he was first diagnosed with motor neurone disease — to the publication of his bestselling A Brief History of Time. It's a transformation like nothing else you'll see on the big screen this year. Redmayne studied his subject obsessively, forensically examining Hawking to exactly replicate the physicist's physical appearance. The end result is so uncanny that Hawking said he thought he was watching himself. But the real brilliance of Redmayne's performance is that it goes beyond mere imitation. Instead, it's the depth he personally brings to the role that truly captivates. The minutiae of emotion, which he manages to capture in the merest of facial expressions, adds up to one of the boldest performances I've seen in quite some time. --Daniel Bettridge, writer

Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin

Adapting a Spanish soap opera about a pregnant virgin for an American audience is no small task. But The CW has done it, remarkably, with Jane the Virgin — thanks, in no small part, to Gina Rodriguez's stellar title performance. Too often, people who abstain from casual sex are portrayed as religious stereotypes in pop culture (if they exist at all). But Rodriguez's Jane is remarkably dimensional and surprisingly relatable.

During the show's second episode, Jane has a heartfelt conversation with her mother and grandmother, urging them to call her fetus, which was conceived when she was accidentally artificially inseminated, a "milkshake" instead of a baby. In that scene, all of the show's ridiculousness melts away, and the audience is left with a scared young woman who's unprepared to be a mother — a situation plenty of people can emphathise with. Rodriguez even brings raw, real emotion to the show's more farcical elements — her proposal to her fiance is blockbuster rom-com worthy, and even her WebMD-induced health fears seem legitimate, because Rodriguez presents them with such honesty. Jane the Virgin was one of 2014's most unexpected successes, and it's all because Gina Rodriguez is killing it every week. --Meghan DeMaria, staff writer

J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Whiplash, Damien Chazelle's 90-minute panic attack, would not be half the film it is without J.K. Simmons. The veteran actor's head-turning performance as a tyrannical, ruthless teacher at a prestigious music school is the most terrifying performance of the year.

We've always known Simmons had the capacity to play a hothead. (See: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.) But what makes his performance in Whiplash so great is how seamlessly he transforms from a cool-headed music teacher to a raving lunatic who seems like he's a thread away from lunging at his pupil and strangling him to death. As the film progresses, the psychological mind games Simmons' Terence Fletcher plays become less explosive and more methodically sinister. By the end of the film, he'll be in your head too. --Matt Cohen, writer

Jenny Slate, Obvious Child

Jenny Slate's performance as stand-up comedian Donna Stern in Obvious Child was one of the most fixating, vulnerable, and hilarious I've seen all year. Obvious Child finds Donna at her lowest point. She's losing her job, her boyfriend is cheating on her, and she's pregnant after a sloppy drunk one-night stand. Slate plays Donna's messiness to perfection. She's at her best when she's being open and vulnerable, from her tearful admission to her mother about her pregnancy to her triumphant, hilarious stand-up set about her impending abortion.

Pivotally, Donna's messiness is never played bitterly by Slate, even when it could be. As you watch Donna grow into embracing the situations that she can't control, seizing that vulnerability to be a more honest version of herself, Slate beautifully captures the complexity of Donna's story, in all its gross vulnerability, with grace and humor — even as the hopeful uncertainty of everything still looms when the credits roll. --Kerensa Cadenas, writer

Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Jeffrey Tambor's niche appeal in The Larry Sanders Show and Arrested Development probably helped convince viewers to watch Amazon's new series, Transparent — but when I watch the show, I simply don't see him. Tambor quietly disappears into the role of trans woman Maura (formerly Mort) Pfefferman, telling her story from the high of coming out as trans to the low of watching her children abandon her while she performs in a "Trans Got Talent" show.

Tambor's Maura will win over even the most skeptical viewer by the second episode, when her grown daughter Sarah (Amy Landecker) unexpectedly encounters her father dressed as a woman, prompting an impromptu coming-out talk. "Are you saying you're going to start dressing up like a lady all the time?" Sarah asks in tearful confusion. Maura clarifies: "No, honey. All my life, my whole life, I've been dressing up like a man." Her eyes well with tears as she musters the strength to finally add, "This is me." Through Tambor's performance, we really do see Maura completely. --Samantha Rollins, news editor