Throughout the past quarter-decade, plenty of exceptional actors have proved themselves worthy of the votes of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There have been a hundred (soon to be a hundred and four) winners throughout the Oscars' four acting categories. A hundred performances of varying degrees of quality; some, frankly, quite forgettable; others great; and others, easily among .

It's hard to look across all the extraordinary performances contained in 100 winning portrayals and pick only ten that are the best of the best, but there are undeniably some that stand out among the rest. From scene-stealing supporting turns to titanic leading performances, these show just how far movie acting has come since the old days and how much the Academy's tastes have changed since they first gave out the Oscars back in 1929.

The incredible is undoubtedly best suited for a very particular kind of cinematic palate, and even still, it surprised everyone with how much universal praise it received during the 2022–2023 awards season. It went on to receive an admirable seven Oscars, among them three in acting categories. These three performances are fantastic ('slegacy Oscar win notwithstanding), but there's one that's easy to pick as the very best: as Waymond Wang.

Quan, who had disappeared from the spotlight for decades after his child star days, proved that he still very much had the spark with this unique comeback performance. His portrayal of Waymond is . Everything Everywhere isn't just a beautiful family dramedy but also one of the best action films of the 2020s, so, of course, Quan leveraged his martial arts experience to deliver some of the most staggeringly great action sequences of the decade so far. It's a performance that's equal parts . In other words, precisely the kind of male supporting performance that the Best Supporting Actor category was made to reward.

The are two of the greatest screenwriters and directors of their generation, the minds behind some of the greatest movies of the '80s, the '90s, and the 21st century. Among these masterpieces is , arguably their best film of the past 25 years. Through an intelligent discourse between tropes of the Western and noir genres, it's a riveting story about progress, aging, and societal decay.

No Country is one of the best Westerns of the 21st century, and like any great Western, it has a formidable villain. Anton Chigurh isn't just any old Western villain, though. In fact, he's much more akin to the kinds of monsters one would find in a horror movie. And if he's as terrifying yet fascinating a character as he is, with as many layers as he has, it's mostly thanks to . Never before in the history of movies had an actor so masterfully acted the living hell out of such a lamentable haircut. It will likely never happen again.

Controversial, subversive, and transgressive, 's is held together by a gargantuan performance by , which also meets those three qualities. Whether Stone deserved the win or actually took the Best Actress statuette from for is a debate for the ages, but what's undeniable is that speaking purely for the standalone merits of her performance, it was a well-deserved victory.

Poor Things has delightful visuals, great music, and one of the best screenplays of the past five years, but the anchor that makes everything flow perfectly is . Her comedic chops are both goofy and brilliantly sophisticated, and her more emotional moments land perfectly. The way Stone develops Bella's complex arc is the kind of actorial progression that only the best of the best are able to achieve.

In the realm of Oscar-nominated movies of the 2010s, many have been somewhat buried in oblivion. However, low-key though the film may be, will never be one of those movies, and the reason has a first and last name: . Playing a woman whose psyche is slowly chipped away at by the devastating power of Alzheimer's Disease, her performance is .

Still Alice is one of the best movies about memory loss in recent years. Whereas many directors could have gone with a much more melodramatic tone, and go for a quietly devastating approach, subtle yet absolutely heartbreaking. , embodying her character in a potently realistic way. This victory may have been somewhat of a legacy Oscar, but that doesn't mean it's any less unforgettable or extraordinary.

Several movies about real serial killers have been made, but not many manage to parallel the level of quality of 's portrayal of in . It's a dark and incredibly intense film, but it also takes a refreshingly layered, intelligent, and unbiased approach to tackling the psychology of serial killers and the background of Wuornos in particular.

The movie itself is fantastic, but there's one element of it that's typically agreed to be the main reason to watch it: . Completely stripped of any glamour that might have characterized Theron before this casting, her performance as the serial killer is . She disappears into the role and gives it her all physically, vocally, and emotionally, and getting to see the result unfold on screen is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

has stated that he was remarkably close to not making (many people's favorite film of his) because he thought that, in Hans Landa, he had written an unplayable role. That's until he came across , and the rest is history. Suddenly, this relatively unknown Austrian actor had become an Oscar winner, and his performance had joined the annals of movie history as one of modern cinema's greatest.

Tarantino's suspicions were most likely right: Inglourious Basterds might not have worked even half as well as it did if anyone but Waltz had played the role of Landa. In the actor's hands, the Nazi colonel is , a horrifying force of nature with a twisted sense of humor. Inglourious Basterds is one of the best war satires ever made, and that's in no small measure thanks to how Waltz sprinkles charm, seriousness, and subtle sadism onto who .

One of the most soul-scarring tearjerkers of the 2000s, is a coming-of-age drama like no other, and not just because it's a thousand times more depressing than most other entries in the genre. is astonishingly good as the titular protagonist, but it's the actress who plays her mother, comedian ,cast very much against type, who .

Mo'Nique's performance here is one of the most devastating pieces of acting ever delivered. What could have very easily been a cartoonishly cruel villain in a movie that definitely leans heavily toward melodrama is, instead, a complicated and deeply heartfelt performance. The way Mo'Nique takes a character that seems so detestable on paper and somehow makes her is incredible. Her Oscar was well-earned.

is one of the best World War II movies ever made, a gut-wrenching character study that focuses on the dehumanizing effects of the Holocaust as experienced by one man, . The task of portraying such a difficult role fell into the hands of , and at age 29, he's still the youngest man who has ever won the Best Leading Actor Oscar.

Such a record isn't lost on Brody's performance. His take on Szpilman is physically transformative, . The actor's portrayal is what the entire 150-minute runtime of the film hinges on, and he manages such a gargantuan task like an absolute pro. Brody's work in The Pianist is the kind of all-timer acting that the Academy Awards are meant to reward.

needs no introduction, and that's in huge part because of his timeless performance in , one of the most important superhero movies ever made. Even still, it's quite possible that such a label might not have applied to the film had anyone but Ledger portrayed the Joker, Batman's archnemesis. Pretty much universally recognized as the greatest performance in any comic book movie, the posthumous Supporting Actor Oscar that Ledger won for his work here was .

While the casting of Ledger in such a legendary and iconic role was at first criticized by fans, the actor silenced all naysayers by delivering . Everything, from his mannerisms and tics down to his creepy speech patterns and terrifying movements, makes this a masterclass in portraying a villain on film.

Many would agree that Daniel Day-Lewis's performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood may very well be the greatest acting that 21st-century cinema has ever been treated to, so it's no surprise that it's also easy to call it the best Oscar-winning performance of the past 25 years. Scary yet sympathetic, complex and endlessly mysterious, Day-Lewis's portrayal of Daniel Plainview is one of the best villain performances of any movie of the 2000s.

A depiction of suppressed pain and rage that very often explodes to the surface in spectacular fashion, Day-Lewis's Plainview is a morally complex figure made even more fascinating by his unique creative decisions in the departments of movement, mannerisms, gestures, and line delivery. The way the actor creates a character that feels so complete, well-rounded, and larger-than-life is a solid argument in favor of saying that Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest actor of his generation. What's certain is that his second Oscar-winning performance is the greatest of the past quarter-century.

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