2015 has been one of the best years for ensemble acting in recent memory. From the smallest independent films like Tangerine on up to the biggest studio films like Bridge of Spies, ensembles drove the season probably more than any leading performances did. We’re at the end of the year and the only film left to see is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Films this year went far into the past, glided through the 1950s, dug through the 1990s and soared through to the future of mankind.
In a year with so many choices, finding a consensus is going to be tricky and we might see several shakeups and upsets, even among the big guilds. But today, let’s talk about the actors who brought it all together on screen.
The Best Ensemble of the Year
1. The Martian
Ridley Scott’s superb film about hope for the future of humanity, about science, and cooperation is so popular it has already earned over $220 million. And it did so without being a pre-sold brand, a sequel or a remake. It did it on sheer word of mouth to become Scott’s highest grossing film. If we know our industry attitudes, that can sometimes turn out to be a liability, as they are still stuck in the days when money makers were a negative thing because they represented compromise and mass entertainment. In my book, reach as many people as possible with a message as positive as this movie offers, and there is no end to what it can acheive, even as “just entertainment.” In an era where our space program is wilting and dying on the vine, The Martian attracted so much attention that it shut down the Jet Propulsion Lab with overflow crowds during a recent open house. The future of mankind, not that anyone is paying attention, rests on our investment in getting off of the planet whose environment we are destroying. The Martian offers hope, both in saving our own planet and in maybe figuring out how to get off of it. It did this through crowdsourcing and sciencing the shit out of urgent problems. Andy Weir took the premise — what would it take to survive on Mars — and wrote a self-published novel asking for help from his readers. What they came up with is a low tech feat of human ingenuity called The Martian. What Drew Goddard did with that book is turn it into a vibrant, funny, moving work of art. It then rested on Sir Ridley to make the movie work and to do that he had to rely on a team of actors to make us believe this could actually happen. They did more than that. They came together to represent the human race as a collaborative, communal, bold, risk-taking species worth saving. In my dark nights of the soul I often ask myself — why bother trying to save a species that is so destructive? Art is the answer, in part. Love is another answer. The Martian, a film that appeals to — gasp, the masses — highlights these worthy themes with elegant emotional resonance. And almost all of that can be credited to the actors. Of course, all under the adept eye of Ridley Scott. Ask questions and solve problems.
Unlike Spotlight which has no single lead role, The Martian is driven by Matt Damon’s warm, funny, and at times deeply moving performance as a man about to die on the surface of Mars. The other half of the movie is populated by an ensemble of fine actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Benedict Wong, Michael Pena, and Donald Glover – to name a few. The reason The Martian occupies my number one spot among many outstanding ensembles is because, in addition to it being one of the most well acted and entertaining ensembles, is because it does what few films in the Oscar race have done this year: it offers up an ethnically diverse cast that tells young ones buying tickets that the most important jobs aren’t just reserved for white men. Women can be commanders, engineers and tech nerds. A black scientist can come up with the genius secret to solve the biggest problem in getting Mark Watney home. It isn’t that one man’s life is any more important than any other – it’s that science wins. Science wins. Science wins. When the occasional laboratory monstrosities aren’t killing us every day, of course.
2. Spotlight
The one thing you notice immediately about two of the year’s best films, is that they are both driven by an acting ensemble who mesh like precision clockwork with a great director and a great screenplay. The subtle flourishes of the supporting players, from the smallest to the biggest, matter in a film like this. In Spotlight, Stanley Tucci, LLiev Schreiber, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, John Slattery, Billy Crudup — there isn’t a weak link in the bunch. It’s such a strong ensemble, in fact, that no one actor stands out all that much more than any other. That’s what is so interesting about Spotlight – it keeps the focus on its subject, which is “getting the story right.” The film that is probably winning Best Picture works hard to make sure it is authentic, not overly dramatic in any one place because a journalist’s job is not to inject his or her own emotion but rather to let the emotions of others speak out. It is an important story, bringing the news of molestations in the Catholic church, buried for hundred of years, to light in a city that had long been victimized by the church’s dominance. Boston was the subject of this film, and Black Mass. And Boston was the scene of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which blended the two stories in a way – trust and betrayal in the highest offices and the most secretive cloisters. Spotlight is likely to win the SAG Award for Outstanding Ensemble and who knows what else, perhaps even Best Picture and Director on Oscar Night. It will do all of this because its team of actors do such magnificent work with its extraordinarily well-written screenplay.
3. Steve Jobs
The film that probably allows actors the opportunity for more graceful swagger than any other is the Aaron Sorkin/Danny Boyle showcase, Steve Jobs. Why, because the film is dependent almost entirely on actors delivering lines with aplomb on a stage. To that end, it feels a lot like theater. Actors “doing Sorkin” is like actors doing Mamet, or Shakespeare. They inhabit the world of Sorkin dialogue, which is no easy feat. Say what you will about Steve Jobs but the one thing you can’t say is that it isn’t dependent upon balancing the performances. The cast swirls around Michael Fassbender, but occasionally lands on a different, equally brilliant performance, like Jeff Daniels, or Kate Winslet, or Katherine Waterston. In this film, the actors are the visual effects, their abilities on full display. It isn’t a film about its subject matter so much as it is a film about the human ego, the Achilles heel of human excellence.
4. Bridge of Spies
With its wonderful guiding performance by Tom Hanks, the ensemble in Bridge of Spies must recreate the 1950s in every aspect, which meant conveying the hidden paranoia embedded in every aspect of American life. Hanks is the bridge from the warnings of the past to present day about our growing fear of our enemies, real and imagined. Bridge of Spies makes a comparison between the Red Scare and how sometimes the first thing sacrificed to “protect our freedoms” are basic human rights. It would be one thing if it was just a “message movie,” though it works on that level, but it’s also just brilliant, from one shot to the next, every single performance hitting the right notes. Spielberg is becoming a more subdued filmmaker and has made, yet again, one of his best films. What a director he is.
5. Brooklyn
Saoirse Ronan heads up one of the best-acted ensembles of the year, and almost all of them relatively unknowns. What is most surprising and unique about Brooklyn is that it’s a story of women helping women get along. They’re competitive, sure, and occasionally bitchy but in the end, they depend upon each other, especially immigrants but any woman trying to make it in the big city. In addition to Ronan ad Julie Walters, other great turns include Fiona Glascott, Eva Birthistle, Emory Cohen, Jessica Pare and Domhnall Gleeson.
6. Carol
When acting in a Todd Haynes film, surely any much must remain acutely aware of the this director’s concepts of visual beauty. How things look to Haynes discerning eye matter so much. Hairstyles, lighting, costume, makeup, physicality all has to be meticulously authentic. Watch Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara capture everything about the period, including facial expressions and subtle changes in dialect, even something as specific as smoking or sitting on the floor. Repeat viewings of Carol reveal more of these painstaking specifics that have to come across effortlessly but require intensive research from the actors to pull off. What a glorious thing Carol is. Beauty itself.
7. Joy
There isn’t a better director of actors currently working than David O. Russell. He’s willing, in almost every film he makes, to give his actors greater importance than any other aspect on screen. The actors lead. Their performance lead. He shapes his story around their performances. Driven by Jennifer Lawrence holding the whole thing down with her character’s focused leadership, she is joined by Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Edgar Ramirez, Virginia Madsen, Dascha Polanco, and Isabella Rossellini. Joy is a movie about small things. It’s a movie about courage and risk taking. It is a movie about all women who who make the world go round yet go mostly unnoticed. They’re usually the ones in the background making things run smoothly to allow the men in their lives to focus on their own success without having to do those things. Joy is driven both by its ensemble and by its central female performance, the talented Jennifer Lawrence.
8. Mad Max
Not all of them may be actor actors in this densely inhabited film but it’s hard not to notice such a big and wildly diverse cast as this, all flailing around in various sub-groups as one of the last surviving conclaves of humans left on the planet. Like The Martian, this is a film about our ultimate fate, what we choose to do with it, and which of our values get abandoned first. Mad Max is also just a vivid, wild, spectacular painting on film, one of the most beautiful of the year. With Charlize Theron literally at the wheel, she leads a cast that includes Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult and others. Somehow, it all just works, proving that you don’t need computers to make visual effects when you have this many actors who want and need to work.
9. Creed
Who would have ever thought that Sylvester Stallone would emerge as one of the most exciting screen presences of the year. Probably no one did, just as no one expected Creed to become such a runaway hit. Ryan Coogler has blended diversity into Creed without breaking a sweat – but he has cleverly flipped the dynamic present in the original Rocky. Where white working-class mugs once hung around the boxing rings, it’s now the black working-class kids in Philly trying to grab that life-altering match. Creed brings the two worlds together, and smartly unites black and white without ever seeming preachy or driven by agenda. It reflects much of the real world, places where there isn’t so much sharp division. Who knows how many young people will be inspired by Coogler’s inspiration to make Creed. But one thing is sure: the industry could use more filmmakers like Coogler, and more films like Creed that entertain and help shape a different national narrative moving forward. Mostly, like The Martian and Spotlight and all of the best films this year, Creed is just a good fucking movie. Here’s to its continued success throughout the season.
10. Love & Mercy
Love & Mercy, like Carol, is mostly a film that focuses on its central performances, but it’s hard to ignore such a stellar ensemble and in that ensemble one has to include Brian Wilson whose music floods the film and whose “two lives” are lived out in painful ways as portrayed by Paul Dano and John Cusack, both giving among the best performances of the year. Elizabeth Banks holds the entire film together with her own steady, focused, strong performance. Paul Giamatti, and all the other musicians who play alongside Wilson help make Love & Mercy what it is. Actors often gravitate towards performances of people dealing with mental illness, and they gravitate toward artists driven mad by their own work, but it is the rare capture that illustrates art emerging from mental illness despite how easily it could have been smothered. It grows, it thrives, it is responsible for the best music around. Yes, even still. It didn’t kill the music but it almost killed Brian Wilson.
11. Room
Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay almost represent the entire ensemble for Room. They would, of course, if they never got out of there. Once they do, however, there is Joan Allen, there is William H. Macy and team of other actors working with them, most of them relatively and virtually unknown. What’s key to this ensemble, however, is that they keep the focus on the mental health of mother and son. They are all in this together.
Honorable Mention.
For its wild comedy, The Big Short. For its powerful all-female cast, Suffragette. From the big stars working with the up-and-comers all juggling Boston accents, Black Mass. From the sweet dynamic of tiny glimpses of humanity that thread through Beasts of No Nation, to the brilliant work by the daring actors who did what was required in The Hateful Eight, through the trials of all the real-time hardship the actors endured to creat one of the best films of the year in The Revenant. The moving and important work of the actors in Concussion. Finally, the star power of Youth, from Jane Fonda to Michael Caine to Harvey Keitel to Rachel Weisz to Paul Dano, makes this a standout, too, even if only for its acting alone.
There are so many great ensemble performances this year because it is an extraordinarily good year for movies overall. How can any of us choose the best?