23 secretly brilliant performances in awful movies, from Margot Robbie to Florence Pugh

There is, it’s fair to say, nothing more important to the movies than actors.

The right performance can tip a film into the realm of greatness; a bad one can doom an otherwise promising project to mediocrity or ridicule.

What would There Will Be Blood be without Daniel Day-Lewis at its centre? Would The Godfather still sparkle without Al Pacino and Marlon Brando?

These are not questions anyone is keen to know the answer to. The best performances are irreplaceable; they are key to the very essence of cinema.

But what happens when one good performance isn’t enough to save a film? When a terrific performance is wasted on a substandard story?

From Anthony Hopkins to Leonardo DiCaprio, many of the finest actors working today have lent their talents to inferior projects. Sometimes they simply phone it in, but other times, they manage to shine despite the material.

Here’s The Independent’s list of 23 secretly brilliant performances in bad films…

Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Along Came Polly (2004)

The late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman was that rarest of things; an actor who brought depth to even the flimsiest of roles, from The Hunger Games’ Plutarch Heavensby to Mission: Impossible III’s villainous Owen Davian. The critically lambasted romcom Along Came Polly may be the best example of this, however, as Hoffman delivering a coruscating comic turn that stole not just a scene but the whole film from under Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston’s noses.

Margot Robbie – Suicide Squad (2016)

One of the worst blockbusters in living memory, David Ayer’s supervillain dirge Suicide Squad was met with unanimous damnation from the critical community. Reviews were also unanimous, however, in their praise for Margot Robbie’s performance, with the Australian star later reprising the role in two subsequent movies.

Tom Hanks – The Ladykillers (2004)

The Ladykillers is rightfully considered the nadir of the Coen brothers’ otherwise pretty miraculously consistent filmography. But that’s not at all down to Tom Hanks, who compellingly reinvented a role so brilliantly inhabited by Alec Guinness in the classic Ealing original. Unctuous, erudite and deeply sinister, the felonious band leader is a far cry from any other character Hanks has tackled; he devours the Coens’ typically sardonic dialogue with a grin.

James McAvoy – Split (2016)

M Night Shyamalan’s pulpy multiple-personality horror Split had plenty of issues, but James McAvoy’s showstopper performance wasn’t one of them. Playing, essentially, eight characters in one is a tough task to pull off, but McAvoy manages it with theatrical aplomb.

Kristen Stewart – American Ultra (2015)

Though Kristen Stewart has been in a few of the best films of the last 10 years, she’s still had her fair share of misfires. The 2015 stoner-thriller American Ultra was inarguably a misfire, as she played the girlfriend and handler of Jesse Eisenberg’s amnesiac government sleeper agent. It’s a bad film that never lives up to its larger-than-life premise, but Stewart turns in some remarkably good work here.

Peter Dinklage – Pixels (2015)

There’s almost nothing good to say about this insipid Adam Sandler video game comedy from 2015. But what little there is exclusively concerns Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage, who turns in an incongruously funny performance as obnoxious video game champion Eddie “The Fireblaster” Plant.

Xural.com