What’s the Best Acting Performance of the 21st Century?

It’s been a slow news day, and I’ve been meaning to ask readers this for a few weeks...

My question is simple: what’s been the best, most towering performance, male or female, of the 21st century? We had an all-timer this past year with Cate Blanchett’s Lydia Tár.

However, the 21st century … that’s 23 years of performances. I won’t add Blanchett or Goth’s performances below, we’ll let them simmer in our subconscious for a few years.

I don’t think anything comes close to Daniel Day-Lewis’ work as Daniel Plainview in “There Will Blood” and Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell in “The Master.” Both characters are absolute ticking time bomb creations from Paul Thomas Anderson.

I went through my archives to find the performances that blew me away since 2000. There were too many, and I might have forgotten a few, but these were the obvious candidates:

Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Leonard Dicaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher)
Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive)
Denis Lavant (Holy Motors)

Only three of these performances won acting Oscars. Go figure. If I had an honourable mentions list then it would definitely include Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Denzel Washington (Training Day), Nicole Kidman (Birth), Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast), Anna Paquin (Margaret), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Sean Penn (Mystic River), Steve Buscemi (Ghost World), Ellen Burstyn (Requiem For A Dream), Bjork (Dancer in the Dark) Joaquin Phoenix (Two Lovers)

Is Joaquin Phoenix the best actor of the 21st century? It’s certainly a conversation worth having. Certainly Daniel Day-Lewis should be a contender. However, Phoenix’s eccentricly unpredictable acting style matched the last decade’s mood quite perfectly.

On the female side, there will be debate over whether Cate Blanchett or Isabelle Huppert deserve the crown. Blanchett, just barely, wins it for me, there is no more talented actress than her. I don’t know how much more she has to prove to be crowned the undisputed GOAT.