"Dying is easy, comedy is hard." So goes the old adage, and for good reason. Ask anyone in acting circles and they're likely to tell you that comedy is infinitely harder than drama. There's something intangible about eliciting a laugh; a tip-of-the-tongue unknowable element beyond timing and physicality that demands complete command from the performer. It's also infinitely trickier to manipulate. There are countless cinematic scores that can bring you to tears or twist your innards in curdling anxiety, but you'd be hard pressed to find compositions that make you bust a gut.

Then there's the inherent bond between comedy and tragedy, the grinning and grimacing masks eternally side-by-side, opposite sides of the same coin; the tone of the human experience determined by the lens of the author and the scope of the story. Take the enduring image of a man slipping on a banana peel. It's hilarious, but if that fall is too shattering or followed by bankrupting medical bills, suddenly, not so much. And that iconic comedic bit also speaks to the underlying darkness of most comedy, which more often than not comes at the expense of someone. Falling on your ass is funny, but it also hurts. All of which is to demonstrate why it makes perfect sense that so many performers who establish themselves as adept comedic talents so often deliver tremendous dramatic work when they're given the chance.

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Image via Focus Features

In what is fittingly perhaps a fool's errand I've attempted to narrow down the wealth of comedian-gone-dark roles to a semi-concise list of the best. I'll be honest, this was a much more difficult list to put together than I expected. To survey the history of film comedians' turning against type is to suffer from choice. There have been so many excellent, surprising dramatic turns from the comedy community that the list could easily grow so long it ceases to have meaning. And while some performers have one standout film that demonstrated their dramatic chops, others have such a wealth of dramatic work it becomes a daunting task to choose only one.

There are plenty of films and performances it pained me to leave off the list. Adam Scott and Jason Bateman's nasty, image-eschewing work in The Vicious Kind and The Gift, respectively. Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People. Patton Oswald in Young Adult and Big Fan. Jonah Hill's career-shifting turn Moneyball. Both Melissa McCarthy and Ryan Reynolds in a pet favorite film of mine, The Nines. Maya Rudolph's warm, commanding and all-too-rare leading turn in Away We Go was on the list until the final round of cuts, as were Cloris Leachman's Academy Award Winning turn in The Last Picture Show and Jack Black's deliriously dark performance as Bernie. There are impressive turns in dramedies that veer a little too far into the comedy side, like Seth Rogen in 50/50 and Amy Schumer's star-making turn in Trainwreck. And just to get this out of the way, you won't find any Jamie Foxx and that's an intentional decision because, despite his roots in comedy, he has firmly entrenched himself as a primarily dramatic actor over the last decade with so many standout roles it could fill a list of its own. (Jonah Hill is almost past that threshold, but not quite.)

So yeah, culling the tremendously talented herd was quite the challenge, but one attempted in earnest. Let's see how I did in the list below.

Jason Segel, 'The End of the Tour'

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Image via A24

Writer-director James Ponsoldt has a gift for merging the ordinary and the extraordinary by taking the most exquisite and despairing moments of the human experience and boiling them down to a bracingly honest universal simplicity. Which is probably what made him the perfect director to offer Jason Segel the opportunity to explore his previously hinted-at depths as David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour. Based on a series of conversations between the celebrated Infinite Jest author and Rolling Stone reporter David LipskyThe End of the Tour is a poignant portrait of a genius mind and an incisive commentary on celebrity culture that hinges on the volleying between two men toeing the line between affection and antagonism.

Unlike the majority of films you'll find on this list, which tend to showcase their stars in a turn against type, The End of the Tour leans into the affable everyman persona Segel has perfected over his career, but to a much more earnest, stripped down effect. The result is Segel's inherent sweetness and melancholy applied gingerly to the tragic genius of the ill-fated author, which is casually devastating in its candid assessment of the human condition. The key to the success of Segel's performance is subtlety. Gone are any affectations of bumbling physical comedy or the usual veneer of simplicity tacked over Segel's obvious intelligence, and what remains is a pure performance of a good, brilliant man without the adequate emotional armor to shield himself from the failings in the world -- failings he sees all too clearly and feels all too sharply.

Sarah Silverman, 'I Smile Back'

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Image via Broad Green Pictures

Sarah Silverman has built a career as a cheeky, fearless comedian who's never played nice or shied away from getting as foul-mouthed and nasty as the boys. To think of Silverman's comedy persona is to imagine a grinning, sharp-eyed provocateur who's already perfecting the next joke. Which is what makes her complete transformation in the relentlessly dark I Smile Back such an astonishing achievement. Silverman is Laney Brooks, a loving wife and mother of two who also happens to be an unhinged addict with a history of severe mental illness. I Smile Back finds Laney at the nadir of a downward spiral, doing blow in the bathroom during family dinners and sleeping around indiscriminately, and follows her attempts to get her life back on track before she loses her family for good.

Silverman is unflinching in her portrayal of Laney's cycle of destruction, letting the honesty of her struggles carry the weight of her horrible actions rather than softening any edges that might tear at the character's likability. But it's not just Silverman's willingness to get pitch-black with the material that makes it such a standout role, but the way she so completely transfigures herself into a new, entirely foreign woman. Silverman talks different, she moves different, she is somehow harder and softer than her stage persona, her entire presence not just reconfigured but wholly converted. In short, acting. Really, really good acting. It's a completely unexpected turn, and that's what makes it such a pleasure to watch.

Steve Martin, 'Shopgirl'

You wouldn't expect a movie written by Steve Martin, starring Steve Martin to make a list of dramatic performances, but we live in a world of wonders. That's not to say Shopgirl isn't funny, it does come from the mind of one of comedy's great inimitable minds, after all, but Martin certainly isn't playing for comedic relief. That would be Jason Schwartzman as the earnest, awkward layabout competing with Martin's sophisticated, composed businessman Ray Porter for the affections of Claire Danes' titular Shopgirl. That's, of course, selling Martin's tender little story a bit short. Based on his novella of the same name, Shopgirl is less of a love triangle and more of a kaleidoscopic view of falling in and out of love and the way affections intersect, overlap, and dance in and out of view, even within a single relationship.

Martin's gone serious before, most notably with Pennies from Heaven and his sharp, slippery performance in David Mamet's overlooked The Spanish Prisoner, but there's a soulful maturity to his work in Shopgirl that's a somewhat singular entry in his career. As Ray Porter, Martin embraces the gentle loveliness that has made him such a successful paternal figure in family comedies, but he also brings a worn-in loneliness and emotional reserve unlike any other performance on his resume.

Jerry Lewis, 'The King of Comedy'

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What do you do with a legendary slapstick comedian looking for career redemption after a disastrous attempt at drama halted his career for a near decade? If you're Martin Scorcese, you expertly set him up to play against type in a grounded, no-nonsense role unlike any other in his career. In The King of Comedy, the former Dean Martin collaborator and man behind The Nutty Professor sheds his goofy guy image down to the bone, honing a mean 10-yard glare as Jerry Langford, the king of late night TV who becomes the object of obsession for a hungry comedian desperate for his taste of the limelight (played exquisitely by Robert De Niro).

Lewis plays Langford with a steely misanthropic edge, introducing a world-famous man who takes no joy in his privileged lifestyle, having grown weary of the constant invasions of privacy from zealous fans and demanding upstart comedians (especially those who kidnap him and tie him up). While we've come to know Lewis as a staunch curmudgeon and notable sexist in his later years, The King of Comedy was a career revelation for the veteran comedian who was still recovering from the complete misfire of his still unreleased holocaust drama The Day the Clown Cried. As Langford, Lewis is brusk and hardened but it's also easy to conjure sympathy for the world-weary celeb who wants to do his job and be left alone, and he's at his best when he's pitted against Sandra Bernhard (who's also excellent in an against-type role as Langford's stalker) and De Niro's fits of maddening madness, which only spiral further out of control with every encounter. Lewis toes that line to perfection, keeping Langford in the sympathetic zone while doling out withering looks and exasperated invective with succinct straightforwardness.

Whoopi Goldberg, 'The Color Purple'

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While Whoopi Goldberg is best known for a career as a movie star comedian (or somewhat tragically as a host on The View because we live in very dark times), she began her career as a Broadway sensation  when the late, great Mike Nichols discovered her and cast her in the stage role that caught the eye of none other than Steven Spielberg. Odd though it may seem, Goldberg's breakout film role- wasn't funny in the slightest, but a very straight if occasionally errantly sentimental adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

As Celie Johnson in Spielberg's 1985 drama, Goldberg plays a beaten-down woman trapped in a life of servitude to her abusive husband, Albert (un uncharacteristically despicable turn from Danny Glover), who slowly discovers the strength and self-respect to leave him. While Spielberg may not have been the ideal candidate to helm the dark feminist text, and his nice-making tidiness rankles at moments, the result is such a profound and inspiring celebration of survivor's strength that the film's less resonant qualities are easy enough to forgive. And Goldberg, who gives a performance that makes her a strong contender for one of the all-time best film debuts, its beyond reproach.

Jim Carrey, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

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Image via Focus Features

There's something about Jim Carrey that perfectly encapsulates the tragic nature of the sad clown archetype. Perhaps it's the fact that he spent a near two decades as a rubber-faced goon before we finally got to see the sensitivity and intelligence behind the buffoonery. But once Carrey got on a dramatic roll, he turned out a series of tremendous performances. First earning heapings of well-deserved praise the genial purity of his turn as Truman Burbank in The Truman Show, a role that gave him a chance to showcase his range while infusing a healthy dose of his comedic gift. Then came fantastic work in the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon and Frank Darabont's under-watched mistaken identity drama The Majestic. But his magnum opus came Michel Gondry's extraordinary, mind-bending treatise on love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

In Eternal Sunshine, Carrey gives (pardon the pun) an unforgettable performance as Joel Barish, running a perfect marathon through all the wonders of romantic love -- the intoxicating whimsy of infatuation, the rigors of commitment, the savage festering hurt of heartbreak -- with the delicate sensitivity and understated hand of a true artisan. When Joel learns that his ex-long-term girlfriend Clementine, played with utmost verve by Kate Winslet, has had all memories of him erased in a breakthrough psychiatric procedure, he opts to do the same. What comes after is a staggering journey through Joel's mind, rendered with an unusual bounty of creativity and inventiveness thanks to Gondry's keen direction of Charlie Kaufman's brilliant script. As Joel realizes the error of his decision, he fights as best he can to hold onto the traces of the blaring, brilliant memories he shared with Clementine, and Carrey's performance guides the audience through every step of that journey -- through the desperate immediacy of the present day scenes and the wild playfulness of his memory loops -- with refined nuance.

Lily Tomlin, 'Grandma'

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There are some roles you were just born to play, and such is unequivocally the case with Lily Tomlin in the touching, 80-minute-tight treat that saw the legendary comedian deliver the role of her career. Tomlin stars as the titular Grandma, Elle -- a caustic, uncompromising, once-lauded intellectual who goes full-on hell or high water when her teenage granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner), shows up in search of money for an abortion. Elle, who's having a life crisis of her own, doesn't have the cash, but she leaves no stone unturned in her quest to help Sage, despite her regular reminders that it's an unholy stupid situation Sage got herself into. Along the way, there are surprising and captivating appearances from Judy Greer as Elle's recently abandoned lover, Laverne Cox as Elle's deadly charming tattoo artist, Sam Shepherd as a former flame with whom Elle shared a messy history in a time before she was secure in her identity, and Marcia Gay Harden as Elle's estranged daughter (Sage's mother) who is an uptight A-type with little patience for her mother's unconventional lifestyle.

Grandma isn't Tomlin's first dramatic turn. She was a standout in a number of Robert Altman films, most notably as the emotional anchor to the satirical masterwork Nashville. But Grandma is tailor-made to Tomlin's strengths, created specifically for her by filmmaker Paul Weitz, and she commands the film like it's her birthright. Her ferocious wit and her gift for no-frills authenticity are on display in equal measure as she tears through the film like pure passion incarnate, making for a performance that will cut you off mid-laugh with a gut punch of profound emotional connection, only to leave you smiling wryly as Tomlin barrels her way into the next scene. It's the kind of performance the overused phrase "tour de force" was invented for. A thoroughly entertaining rollick from beginning to end, Tomlin navigates through the fallout of a life lived to the fullest, including all the bitter mistakes that come with it, easily carrying the film to an end that stuns and surprises with emotional resonance.

Ben Stiller, 'Permanent Midnight'

Ben Stiller has tried his hand at dramatic work regularly throughout the decades of his career, peppering serious turns throughout the somewhat insane amount of crowd-pleasing comedies he's made over the years. He was a perfect part of the perfect ensemble in Wes Anderson's most melancholy film, The Royal Tenenbaums, and he's mined some exciting performances out of his recent collaborations with Noah Baumbach on Greenberg and While We're Young. But Stiller's most impressive and unexpected role came early in his career with the drug addiction drama Permanent Midnight.

To this day, Stiller's turn as real life heroin-hooked Hollywood screenwriter Jerry Stahl remains the deepest and darkest Stiller has gone for a role, completely abandoning any goofiness, smugness, or wry banter for a bleak look at the insanity of addiction and the hellish thrall of heroin. He's also got a sort of laid-back sexiness that never really manifested itself again in his on-screen work. Permanent Midnight itself is a fairly flawed film, hindered by an unwieldy narrative, and is probably best known for the sick-making metaphorical moment when Stiller repeatedly lunges at a skyscraper window after getting hopped up on crack. However, for all of the film's flaws, Stiller is not one of them. He's the backbone. He's what makes it work when scripting issues get in the way. And he's completely horrifying for the way that he portrays Jerry as a mostly decent, rational man except for the black-tar obsession that threatens to burn through his entire life. It's not just a fantastic piece of acting, but a fascinating one for the way it hints at an alternate career path that might have emerged had the film matched the quality of his performance.

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, 'The Skeleton Twins'

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Image via Roadside Attractions

Remember when I said this list was dreadfully difficult to trim down? Well, here's where I pull a piece of fancy footwork and drop a two-for-one. And you know what? I don't even feel a little bit bad about it because it's not just their fine work as individual performers that make The Skeleton Twins shine, it's their endearing and fearless chemistry. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader star as Maggie and Milo Dean, a pair of deeply depressive estranged twins who are still broken by their father's suicide and find themselves regularly flirting with the same destiny. After Milo's most recent suicide attempt, which subverts Maggie's own set of end-it-all plans, he moves in with his and her Golden Retriever of a boyfriend (Luke Wilson), freshly exposing years of hurt and animosity while also promising the potential for mutual salvation in the rekindling of their once inseparable bond.

The former SNL cohorts are in top form as the destructive duo, bringing an electric intimacy and complete abandon to their roles. Wiig reveals untold depths as Maggie, never shying from the despicable moments of a woman who is not caught in a downward spiral, but a full-time resident of rock bottom. But as Milo, Hader is simply next level, revealing the cracks in his psyche by letting us see the beautiful, broken person underneath. Then there's the fact that, to put it crassly, Hader plays gay better than 90% of actors out there, and not in a Stefon way. Hader ditches sketches of static affectations in favor of a much richer, more complex understanding that Milo's sexuality is an integral part of not only his personality, serving as the tragic underpinning to much of his internalized self-loathing, but also his persona, an evolving intuitive response to social cues used alternately for seduction and emotional armor. Though The Skeleton Twins can be bleak, Hader and Wiig never let it become dreary; a feat they pull off not by falling back on their comedic skills, but by doubling down on the specific relationship of the film and infusing every moment with a sense of the unspoken and the unfulfilled.

Gene Wilder, 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Bear with me here. I hear you. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a children's movie. And Gene Wilder is funny in it. But he's also delivering some genuinely extraordinary dramatic acting in the process. It's clear from the get-go that Wilder takes Wonka very seriously (he insisted on the limp/summersault introduction for the Wonka to ensure the audience wouldn't know what to make of his character), but over the course of the film, the outcast candymaker's seething resentment becomes a force of frenzy, articulated alternately in aloof, sneering side-eye (and an expert judgmental face that would launch a thousand memes) and wild, vitriolic outbursts that Wilder executes with complete commitment, never playing it for yucks. Wonka may decorate himself with eccentric panache and express himself with pithy one-liners, but underneath is a soulful man with an ocean of pent-up pathos.

And the duality of that performance is a key component in what makes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory one of the finest family films of all time. Thanks to his dedication to fully realizing the character, Willy Wonka functions on two very different levels for children and adults. What you may have once seen as a fantastical journey through a wondrous candy factory becomes a much more intimate film about a lonely and essentially kind-hearted, if embittered, man seeking an heir. It's that affectless honesty that was so sorely missing in Johnny Depp's 2005 revival of the character (which Wilder decried as "an insult"), and it's what has made Wonka's most iconic role, and indeed, one of the most iconic film characters of all time.

Eddie Murphy, 'Dreamgirls'

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Image via DreamWorks/Paramount

Eddie Murphy's career is a bit of an oddball. Once a searing, unstoppable force of stand-up comedy, and the man credited with reviving SNL after a prolonged subpar spell, Murphy ultimately conceded to upstaging himself with one role more ridiculous than the next in his string of late-career family films. He's also committed himself pretty purely to comedy, with Dreamgirls emerging as the sole straight dramatic role of his career until this year's Mr. Church. But sometimes one shot is all you need if you've got the talent to shoot as straight and surefire as Murphy did in Bill Condon's 2006 adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls.

For his Oscar-nominated turn as the R&B star James "Thunder" Early, Murphy cleverly embraces his ego and wildfire charisma, lending it a darker bent as the musician headed for a fall from grace as his Supremes-inspired opening act supersedes his stardom. Murphy is supercharged and dynamic as Early, a sort of mishmash of famous R&B singers of the period, commanding his performance sequences as surely as Early commands his crowds. He is rambunctiously charming in a way we've rarely seen from Murphy since the peak of his stand-up comedy days, a fact that makes it easy to fall under his thrall. And ultimately a fact that makes it wrenching to watch as the tide turns and his fortune fades.

John Lithgow, 'Love is Strange'

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John Lithgow is one of those prolific journeyman performers with a resume so extensive it practically needs footnotes. He's also an actor with the kind of rigorous theatrical training that you usually find in the Shakespeare-laden resumes of British masters of the stage. As such, he has delved into the realm of dramatic acting plenty of times throughout his career, earning Oscar nominations for Terms of Endearment and The World According to Garp, but has oddly remained best known for his zany characters and first-rate physical comedy (no doubt thanks in part to the six years he spent delightfully yucking it up on Third Rock from the Sun). Audiences who knew him only for his comedic virtues were thrilled to discover in untapped sinister side in his remarkably creepy stint as the Trinity Killer on Showtime's Dexter, but for my money the finest of his dramatic roles came in the recent Love is Strange.

Lithgow stars as an amiable late-career artist Ben who has spent the last forty years of his life in a devoted partnership with Alfred Molina's George. When they seize the opportunity to finally get married after the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, their quiet life together is upended when George loses his job as a result. Unable to afford their Manhattan apartment, the newlyweds are forced to separate as they shack up on the couches and bunk beds of their friends and family. Lithgow fully embraces the sweetness that has made him such an instantly identifiable on-screen presence over the years, keeping composure the best he can without the love of his life by his side. As Ben, Lithgow is effete in a charmingly innocent way, but those characteristic affectations only emphasize a quiet strength that he brings to the heartbreak without any flashy moments of emotional bravery. And most beautifully, in superb tandem with Molina, Lithgow creates an on-screen romance for the ages with a well worn-in love that radiates off the screen.

Steve Carell, 'Little Miss Sunshine'

Steve Carell has always possessed a sort of pained desperation in his comedy, whether as a dramatic undercurrent in his breakout The 40-Year-Old Virgin, an enduring seven-year social torment on The Office, or amped up to a thousand as Brick Tamland in the Anchorman movies. And in recent years, he has translated that quality into a series of superb true-life inspired performances as the chilling John du Pont in Foxcatcher, the flamboyant activist Steven Goldstein in Freeheld, and the short-fused spitfire Mark Baum in The Big Short. But Carell really left it all on the table in his first major dramatic turn with the shell-shocked piss and vinegar of Frank Ginsberg in Little Miss Sunshine.

Playing the suicidal, Proust-obsessed brother/uncle figure in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Academy Award-winning dysfunctional family drama, Carell spends most of the film as the red-eyed ravages of heartbroken man in a peak moment of crisis. Buoyed by just about as exceptional a cast as you could possibly ask for, Carell's humor is still evidently but with dark pall cast over even his funniest moments. Carell is absolutely on fire as Frank, a quiet wildcard whose misanthropic anger manifests like a raw nerve.

Adam Sandler, 'Punch-Drunk Love'

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Image via New Line Cinema

Adam Sandler has spent the last decade as a foremost force behind an abnormally large amount of America's worst movies, so it can be easy to forget to take him seriously. But to do so not only undermines the excellent comedic work he did in his early career, embracing weirdness so thoroughly with his absurd Saturday Night Live sketches and films like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, it also ignores the equally impressive, if less consistent, dramatic work he's done in later years. Funny People embraced Sandler's real life persona in a uniquely dark, meditative dramedy about mortality, giving him the opportunity to play his straightest, least adorned role yet. Spanglish, Reign Over Me and The Cobbler all elicited strong performances, though in films that were inferior to that work. Hell, even his turn the misfire I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry had some humanity behind the broad antics of a Adam Sandler/Kevin James team up. But there's no doubt that Sandler's best performance comes from his turn as Barry Egon in Paul Thomas Anderson's beautiful beating heart of a movie, Punch-Drunk Love.

The brilliance of the role is the way it takes Sandler's quirks and oddities, the very same that have made him such a comedic force -- social awkwardness, explosive anger, emotional disconnect, emphasis on the infantile -- and reframes them in the light of the profound loneliness that accompanies severe emotional issues. Barry's outbursts aren't moments of comedic catharsis, they're alarming signifiers of instability. The seemingly unbridgeable gap between Barry and the people that surround him isn't fodder for fish-out-of-water laughs, it's a heavy, tangible source of pathos. And Sandler plays it all beautifully, never once winking through it, and never letting Barry's unusual, mathematical mind push him towards the mechanical. The film itself is a sensorial experience -- a gorgeous, textural onslaught of sound and color with a love so fierce and innocent you can almost taste it -- and Sandler's performance provides an ineffable sixth sense, a raw emotional core at the center of Anderson's exceptional technical work.

 

Albert Brooks, 'Drive'

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We've seen so many crime bosses brought to life on screen by so many legendary actors that it's hard to create a new one that still terrifies on a visceral level. But in DriveAlbert Brooks pulls off just that feat. As a comedian, Brooks is a tried and true affable on-screen presence, satirical mind, and humanist humorist behind films like Modern Romance and Defending Your Life. But as Bernie Rose in Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 arthouse thriller, he breaks the mold as a chilling, charming, and deadly mensch of a mobster

Drive certainly isn't the first time Brooks has taken on a straight drama, and he's often integrated the dramatic in his own comedy, but it is his most surprising and ultimately stunning of his turns against type. Or rather it twists his huggable good-guy persona into a truly terrifying deformity. As Rose, Brooks opts for subtlety over flourish, letting his rage boil until it can't be contained, erupting into viciously efficient violence. Even when Rose is at his most endearing, and indeed he can be quite pleasant, even borderline affectionate towards Ryan Gosling's nameless getaway driver, there is always menace there. But when the mask of geniality slips, Brooks unmasks a subtle, sinister horror show.

Mo'Nique, 'Precious'

Undoubtedly the most surprising and disturbing performance on the whole list, Lee Daniels' adaptation of the literary sensation Push, Precious saw stand-up and sitcom comedian Mo'Nique transformed into the horrifically abusive mother of Gabourey Sidibe's titular downtrodden teen Precious on the search for a new lease on life. In a rare instance where a comedian's dramatic turn is actually awarded with an Academy win, Mo'Nique took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (as well as a BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, and countless critics society awards) in 2010 for her utterly unflinching vivisection of an everyday monster.

As Precious' mother Mary, Mo'Nique is revelatory, digging as deep as humanly possible into the very sick psyche of a dangerously mentally ill woman. There's no romanticizing the disease or pardoning her vile behavior. Raining down all kinds of torment on Precious, facilitating and actively participating in her daughter's physical and sexual abuse, Mary is fully shown for the terror she is. Until she is shown as something more. In an impeccable two-minute monologue that elevates Mo'Nique's performance from excellent to extraordinary, the actress explores the layers of guilt and resentment and selfishness and every other shade of dark, unspeakable human emotion as Mary is confronted with her evil deeds. An attempt at self-justification, her speech comes off more as a confession and Mo'Nique mines her pathos for everything it's worth, unearthing one moment of revelation and expiation after the next.

Robin Williams, 'The Fisher King'

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Image via Criterion

It's a testament to Robin Williams comedic genius that we still consider him a primarily comedic actor despite a resume packed with tremendous dramatic performances. Throughout his career, the late, great actor tapped into his Julliard-trained dramatic skills on numerous occasions in critically acclaimed films like Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society as well as less-remembered, odder fare like World's Greatest Dad and What Dreams May ComeOne Hour Photo offered Williams the opportunity for his most transformative performance, but Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King offered something even more impressive -- a role that singularly crystalized Williams' essence and reflected it in dazzling clarity, a gorgeous display of the countless facets that made him such a genius performer. As an actor, Williams always contained multitudes -- manic comedy, searing humanity, and quiet melancholy, to name a few -- and while many films channeled one or some of his talents, The Fisher King perhaps best articulated all of them in a single stunning character.

Williams plays Parry, a homeless man who rescues Jeff Bridges' suicidal radio jockey from a horrific murder -- the very same radio jockey whose tirade against yuppie culture some years earlier accidentally encouraged a mass shooting that ended in the murder of Parry's wife. That tragedy ever haunts Parry, driving him to a mental collapse wherein he envisions himself a modern knight on a quest for the Holy Grail. As Parry invites Jack into his rich Arthurian-rooted fantasy world, he is revealed to be so much more than the innocent, unwitting fool and Williams endows him with the utmost dignity and a raw, tangible grief as the promise of new happiness yanks open the wounds he's temporarily mended with that fantasy. As Parry, Williams never panders and never compromises, and he is as funny as he is devastating, embracing the infinite complexity of the human condition and serving it back to the audience with complete, unfettered honesty.

Peter Sellers, 'Being There'

Peter Sellers is one of the all-time greats. A prodigious comedic talent whose stacked resume inimitable roles (even the great Steve Martin failed the task) not only holds up, but seems to grow richer with time. And yet, as is the plight of the comedic actor -- even the legends -- Sellers only ever landed two Leading Actor Oscar nominations (and in a testament to the absurdity of industry awards, no wins), the first for his revered turn as the insane doomsday architect in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, and the second for his elegant, understated portrayal of Chance the Gardner in Hal Ashby's Being There. Without demeaning Strangelove, which is a classic well beyond needing my acclaim, Being There is the role of Sellers' lifetime and one of the finest performances ever committed to film. The two make a fine pairing to demonstrate Sellers' preternatural range and ability, but for all the screen-blazing zeal and eccentricity of his Dr. StrangeloveBeing There is an even more impressive trick for the surface simplicity that belies the rsoulfulness beneath.

As Chance, Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener who has spent his lifetime confined to a single home. Chance has no doctors, no friends and he's never ridden in a car or taken an elevator, experiencing the outside world solely through an intimate relationship with television. Until the owner of his home dies quietly in the night, leaving Chance cast out on the street. Unwaveringly pleasant and equipped with simple axioms about gardening, Chance the gardener is quickly mistaken for Chauncey Gardener, a genius strategist (in a delightful bit of political satire) when he crosses paths with an influential high-society family.

It sounds goofy, but it never is. Instead, it is consummately sweet without ever becoming saccharine, occasionally deeply moving, and unwaveringly intelligent. And it all hinges on Sellers, who fully commits to the restrained purity of Chance, crafting a character who is instantly and enduringly lovable, but never mawkish. Because Sellers understands that Chance is a complete, complex human being not in spite of his mental limitations, but because of singular beautiful worldview that come with them, he becomes the rare extraordinary character that is forever etched not only in your mind, but rather firmly in your heart.

Bill Murray, 'Lost in Translation'

Bill Murray, 'Lost in Translation'

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Image via Focus Features

Billy Murray's performance in Lost in Translation is essential, definitive stuff. It's one of the most celebrated of comedic forays into dramatic territory, and for good reason. Sofia Coppola's dreamy Tokyo-set meditation on loneliness and intimacy stars Murray as Bob Harris, a washed-up, rudderless movie star adrift in a disconnect to the foreign land where he's taken a commercial job shilling whiskey. There he meets Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte, a disenchanted, married young woman who's equally lost in the neon-drenched landscape. When the unlikely duo strikes up a connection after a chance bar-side meeting, they find, if only temporarily, a reprieve from their mutual isolation in their ephemeral heartfelt bond.

Murray's done the dramatic bit a few times now, often in lowkey projects like Broken Flowers and Get Low, and channeling his bleary-eyed weariness to expert precision for Wes Anderson on numerous occasions. But Lost in Translation gave Murray a career-redefining role that seemed to become almost instantly iconic. As Bob, Murray drops any hint of his trademark irony, toning down that enduring twinkle in his eye to its dimmest shine in a stunningly naturalistic performance that evokes a deceptive sense of effortlessness. Perhaps thats why, despite the fact that he earned heaps of awards for the role, he was ultimately beat out at the Academy Awards in a hotly debated upset by Sean Penn's (admitedly gutting, thought much showier) performance in Mystic River. The understated ease with which Murray inhabits the role belies the staggering sincerity and raw humanity of his elegantly controlled performance. Only a talent as supreme as Murray's could make the simple act of existing honestly on screen so enthralling.

Billy Murray's performance in Lost in Translation is essential, definitive stuff. It's one of the most celebrated of comedic forays into dramatic territory, and for good reason. Sofia Coppola's dreamy Tokyo-set meditation on loneliness and intimacy stars Murray as Bob Harris, a washed-up, rudderless movie star adrift in a disconnect to the foreign land where he's taken a commercial job shilling whiskey. There he meets Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte, a disenchanted, married young woman who's equally lost in the neon-drenched landscape. When the unlikely duo strikes up a connection after a chance bar-side meeting, they find, if only temporarily, a reprieve from their mutual isolation in their ephemeral heartfelt bond.

Murray's done the dramatic bit a few times now, often in lowkey projects like Broken Flowers and Get Low, and channeling his bleary-eyed weariness to expert precision for Wes Anderson on numerous occasions. But Lost in Translation gave Murray a career-redefining role that seemed to become almost instantly iconic. As Bob, Murray drops any hint of his trademark irony, toning down that enduring twinkle in his eye to its dimmest shine in a stunningly naturalistic performance that evokes a deceptive sense of effortlessness. Perhaps thats why, despite the fact that he earned heaps of awards for the role, he was ultimately beat out at the Academy Awards in a hotly debated upset by Sean Penn's (admitedly gutting, thought much showier) performance in Mystic River. The understated ease with which Murray inhabits the role belies the staggering sincerity and raw humanity of his elegantly controlled performance. Only a talent as supreme as Murray's could make the simple act of existing honestly on screen so enthralling.

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Image via DreamWorks/Paramount