Vol 3: Four Underrated Film Performances You Should Watch

As we turn the gear through fall and into awards season, the number of performances that are going to be discussed will continue to grow and grow. The more we find new things to watch and new performances to appreciate, the more hidden gems can slip into the background. As cinephiles, there are so many wonderful film performances out there to watch and appreciate. If you’re looking to watch some great acting, here are four more performances you should watch!

Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket (1964)

Since it is “spooky season”, it’s only right to start off this list with a horror performance! Crawford conveys a campy and fun scream queen performance that has an appropriate balance of melancholy, which is conveyed excellently. There is a very specific element of modernism in many of the great performances from the 1950s and 1960s that is evident amongst many of the great performances of those times. Certain deliveries of lines, for example, the stumbling nature of Anthony Perkins’ performance in Psycho, seem like how people would talk in today’s society, and certainly seem outside the box for a somewhat rigid understanding of film acting for its time. Crawford is so modern in her execution in Strait-Jacket. Every look in her eyes, every pause she takes before she says what she wants to say to her daughter in the film, and the subversion of whether she really is clinically insane or not are both suspenseful and fun. 

Al Pacino in Cruising (1980)

Al Pacino has no shortage of amazing performances. So finding one under the radar can be difficult, but his leading performance in William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 film Cruising fits the bill: a great performance that got lost in the Al Pacino of it all! Pacino plays a cop hoping to move his way into the detective force who goes undercover in the 80s leather S&M scene as a gay man to explore a series of murders of men happening in the community. This film was panned when it came out, and Friedkin and Pacino famously butt heads behind the scenes and neither enjoyed working with each other. 

Looking back on this film decades after its release, there’s something about Pacino’s frustration during this project that bleeds through so beautifully for the character he’s playing: a straight man who is uncomfortable dipping into a world foreign to his own. That hesitance is something that serves as a guide through the narrative wonderfully, and the movie has so much life and beauty to it that not only Pacino’s character discovers, but the audience along with him. Even if the experience is bad as an actor, any acting teacher will tell you the same thing: Use it!

Stephen Dorff in Somewhere (2010)

This is an example of less is more to the extreme. Stephen Dorff barely says anything in Somewhere, but through his body language and the way he interacts with both people and objects around him, he conveys this extremely impactful picture of an actor who’s lost his way in life, fighting for a reason to pick himself up and be the kind of man he needs to be for his daughter, who was also played beautifully by Elle Fanning. It’s even more impressive when you follow Dorff throughout the film with the character’s broken arm; so not only is he having to be a character with little to no lines, but he has to have so much attention to where he places his arm to keep the believability of it being broken for most of the film. The way Dorff would pick up glasses when he takes a drink, how he interacts with his broken arm, or even smaller moments, such as a sigh or how he looks at his car, are devastating. This film is a slow burn from Sofia Coppola, but Dorff as the vessel of the film pays off in the end and is a film definitely worth watching just to say a wonderful central performance.

Danielle Brooks in If I Go Will They Miss Me (2026)

This is actually the most recent performance highlighted in this series, and it is for very good reason. Walter Thompson-Hernandez’s Sundance breakout If I Go Will They Miss Me is a moving coming-of-age story, and there are many reasons why it resonates, from the gorgeous cinematography and score to the grounded performances from every central cast member. The more I’m removed from watching the film, the more my opinion is even more cemented that Danielle Brooks’ performance as Lozita, a mother in the projects struggling with being present for her children as her husband comes back from prison, is the heartbeat of the film. She conveys so much in this film as a loving mother; you hope for her to keep it all together and wish nothing but the best for her. She is funny, heartbreaking, and captivating to watch and does so in such a naturalistic and understated way. Brooks is wonderful, and I will certainly be interested to see what she has next!

List Courtesy of Justin Duggan

Feature Image via Sundance Film Festival