You know it’s been a great year for actors when the line of performers snubbed from major critics’ honors is long and varied. Sadly, many superb performances didn’t make The Playlist’s selection either. Yes, we’re looking at you Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”), Maya Erkshine (“Mr. & Mrs. Smith”), Aunjanue Ellis Taylor (“Nickel Boys”), June Squibb (“Thelma”), Julianne Nicholson (“Janet Planet”), John Magaro (“September 5”), Andrew Scott (“Ripley”), Justice Smith (“I Saw The TV Glow”), Walton Goggins (“Fallout”), Natasha Lyonne (“His Three Daughters”), and many, many others. Don’t worry, you won’t be forgotten.
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Movies of 2025
What this compilation does include are actors from all across the globe and from a variety discipline of genres. Some will surprise you, some won’t, but they all deserve their flowers. Keeping all that in mind, The Playlist’s best performances from film and television for 2024.
Follow along for all our Best Of The Year and Most Anticipated coverage here.
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Marianne Jeanne-Baptiste, “Hard Truths”Pansy is a handful. The middle-aged homemaker, portrayed by Jean-Baptiste, can barely get through an excursion to the grocery store without getting into an argument with someone. She is unfiltered to an extreme, but an extreme that you believe. That’s partially thanks to Mike Leigh’s delicate hand shaping the entire “Hard Truths” narrative, but mostly because of a thunderbolt of a performance by Jean-Bapstiste. This is a woman who is wounded. One who can no longer communicate with the people in her life who are supposed to care for her the most, her family, without wounding them. Jean-Baptiste will make you laugh and make you cry. She somehow reverberates Pansy’s pain through your screen. And the experience will linger with you for days. – Gregory Ellwood

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Mikey Madison, “Anora”It’s hard to call Madison’s turn in Sean Baker’s celebrated dramedy a “star is born” moment. Frankly, despite her youthful 25 years, Madison has been a fixture on the big and little screen for a decade. Not even her role in the critically acclaimed Pamela Adlon series “Better Things,” could have prepared audiences for the charismatic and deceptively subtle turn as Anora. Madison has you rooting for this erotic dancer from the jump. And when she gets screwed over, you may even have a hard time wondering why she’d fall for one of her adversaries. But she’s so good. She’s such a firecracker that you suspend your disbelief. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is pure gold talent. – GE

Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain” As with so many characters up for discussion at year’s end, Benji Kaplan is in pain. His soul is broken and neither he nor his family know how to fix it. But Benji has a secret weapon. A charismatic wit that allows him to befriend almost anyone and to make that depression by firing an entertaining quip (or three). That is until his frustration mounts and he lashes out in the most unbecoming of ways. For Culkin, who won accolades recently for playing an asshole masking his anguish on “Succession,” this could have been a road too familiar. Neither Culkin nor writer/director Jesse Eisenberg had any intention of letting that happen. The Emmy-winner crafts Benji as a distinct character all his own. And despite his often crass outbursts, Culkin makes him feel a bit too close to home. We all have a little bit of Benji in our families, our friend groups, or, often, ourselves. And Culkin makes you want to fix Benji. To help him get out of that funk. Despite the fact anyone watching knows you can’t. – GE

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Ariana Grande, “Wicked” Everyone knew the Grammy-winning Ariana Grande could sing. That was obvious. And if you’d watched her host “Saturday Night Live” a few weeks before Jon M. Chu‘s musical arrived in theaters you likely realized what a talented comedic performer she is. What “Wicked” demonstrated, however, is Grande’s ability to infuse nuance into Glinda. This wannabee sorceress isn’t just the superficial dummy she often plays up in front of her classmates at Shiz University. There is something beneath that polished exterior. And, at the end of the film, when Glinda has to tell her friend Elphaba (the fantastic Cynthia Erivo), that she can’t go with her, Grande emotes a sadness that strikes the movie like a lightning bolt. You see it in her eyes and you realize that Grande is not here to play. And, at that moment, every casting director, producer, and filmmaker in the industry saw her in a completely different light. She isn’t just a pop star, she’s a movie star. – GE

Chris Hemsworth, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”Chris Hemsworth has experienced some trouble with his performances outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps all he needed was a prosthetic nose and the freedom to go wild in the desert. In “Furiosa,” Hemsworth plays Dementus, a charismatic leader of a biker horde that terrorizes the wasteland. And holy shit, you can see just how much fun the actor is having with such a meaty role. He’s over-the-top in the best possible way, stealing scene after scene. It’s almost surely the best thing Hemsworth has done outside of the MCU. Even though ‘Furiosa’ wasn’t the box office hit people were hoping for, the film will live on for years to come, thanks in no small part to Hemsworth’s performance. – Charles Barfield