The 20 Best Breakthrough Film and TV Performances of 2023

1. Gabriel Basso, “The Night Agent”

We’ve had taciturn action stars and wisecracking action stars but, with Gabriel Basso’s performance in Season 1 of the Netflix hit, we got a soulful action star. Yes, his work is personal (there’s a disgraced father subplot) but Basso turns disappointment in the limitations (and perversions) of bureaucracy into something bordering on the profound, even as he’s executing some jaw-dropping chases and other requisite action sequences. As he protects the sole witness to an assassination and looks for someone in the U.S. government to trust, the tropes of the genre feel refreshed and vibrant — without ever skimping on what we all expect from an action series. That’s a tall order for any actor; Basso makes it look as effortless as that Episode 1 car chase. —MP 

2. Abby Ryder Fortson, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret”

Every choice Kelly Fremon Craig makes in her winning, sure-to-be-a-classic adaptation of the beloved Judy Blume novel of the same name is the right one, but none of it would hold together quite so well without a winning Margaret at its very center. Young star Abby Ryder Fortson isn’t new to the Hollywood game — she’s a Marvel gal! — but her experience in the realm doesn’t amount to any of the usual pitfalls of a lead performance that rests on the shoulders of someone who can’t even drive yet. She’s not precocious. She’s not cloying. She’s not stiff. She’s not too-too. She’s, simply, Margaret.

What’s most charming about Ryder Fortson work here is how she taps into Margaret’s iconic relatability without missing a hitch. Sure, “Are You There, God?” is set in the 1970s, but what Ryder Fortson so effortlessly slides into isn’t the period trappings (cough cough, laugh laugh) of the story, but the elements of it that remained totally unchanged. Being a girl is always tough, always fraught, always crackling with both pain and pleasure. Coming of age? It’s not getting any easier! That’s what made Blume’s book so special when it was first published, and why it continues to endure today. 

Ryder Fortson’s turn as Margaret always feels rooted in truth, because it is. The young actress was so taken by the role that, in full Margaret fashion she even wrote Fremon Craig and producer James L. Brooks a letter to prove her passion. “I actually wrote a letter to Kelly and Jim, just explaining why I loved it so much and how much I related to Margaret because I was going through the exact same stuff that she was at the exact same time that she was,” the actress told IndieWire earlier this year. It was on the page, it seems – and on the screen. —KE 

3. Marshawn Lynch, “Bottoms”

Apologies to Travis Kelce, but there is another football player having an amazing pop culture year. NFL all-star running back Marshawn Lynch is hysterical in Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” as high school teacher Mr. G, who has had it with the increasingly insane high jinks going on around him in the queer teen comedy. Partial credit must be given to Seligman and star Rachel Sennott’s sharp script, but Lynch’s deadpan delivery of lines like, “Is this about the time I said Amelia Earhart was a fake hero? Because it’s true!” and hilarious cutaway gags of him reading pornography in class made sure that he was a standout among a stellar ensemble. The fact that this is his first big non-football project (give or take a few cameos)? Well, that makes his improv-heavy role all the more impressive. Give this guy a buddy comedy! —ES 

4. Rosy McEwen, “Blue Jean”

Georgia Oakley’s lovely and authentic “Blue Jean” snaps us back in time to a period that feels unfortunately recognizable: Margaret Thatcher’s homophobia-peddling England. English actress Rosy McEwen, who won a British Independent Film Award for her powerful turn here and previously made small waves in minor TV roles, plays a queer PE teacher caught in a political crossroads, lying to her coworkers about her sexuality and whereabouts to save her job, while also trying to live freely as a lesbian when off the clock. All around her, the ripples of proposed Section 28 legislation are being heard on the radio and seen on TV as Thatcher’s government prepares a crackdown on homosexual activity. 
Jean’s journey becomes heartbreaking as she has to push away her live-in girlfriend and tangle with educators when she becomes a confidante to a curious female student. McEwen is vivid and compelling throughout this cliché-skirting drama, but a late-breaking scene in which she comes out to her family, only to burst into laughter at the end of the throwdown-emotional moment, is a masterful feat of acting that Oakley wisely chooses to hold in long take. What we’re witnessing is a discovery come to life in real time, on several fronts. —RL 

5. Charles Melton, “May December”

Breaking out of his “Riverdale” jock bonafides, Charles Melton is the eyes, ears, and eventual soul of Todd Haynes’ perversely complex “May December.” As Joe, he’s at the center of the psychological tennis match between Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Elizabeth (Natalie Portman). Gracie is his much-older wife, the woman who seduced him when he was just a kid while working together at a pet shop, and Elizabeth is the actress set to play Gracie in a middling indie movie. As part of Elizabeth’s “method,” she’s shadowing Gracie and Joe in their Savannah home, absorbing Gracie’s quote-unquote naïve toxicity, and part of that means slipping into the woman’s skin, seducing Joe herself.

Now a radiology technician in his early 30s, Joe finds himself being manipulated by yet another woman after having been groomed by one through his childhood and into his adult life. Melton makes Joe inscrutable until an emotional outpouring in the final act, where Melton finally rewrites this aloofly drawn tale in cathartic terms. He grounds what could’ve been a post-MeToo caution about consent into real, compelling human drama. Another scene finds Joe on the roof with his young son, getting stoned and paranoid about the precarious world he’s contributed to building for his family. Here, Melton, a brave and curious performer, is the heart center of a film that keeps such a thing at far remove. —RL 

6. Tia Nomore, “Earth Mama”

Casting first-time actress Tia Nomore, best known as a popular Bay Area rapper, in the starring role of “Earth Mama” “took a few moments,” filmmaker Savanah Leaf told IndieWire earlier this year. “The first time she read the scenes with our casting directors, she was very present. She was looking and responding and listening very honestly. That really stood out, because I think a lot of people, when they’re acting for the first time, they try to put on a show. She wasn’t really doing that. I was nervous, because when you’re rapping, you’re putting on a show, but she has to pull away from that. When I saw her and she was willing to go there and be vulnerable, that was really exciting.”

Their next meeting? Leaf carefully termed it “not necessarily great.” Nomore came to see the “Earth Mama” team after a rap performance, “and she came straight from it and was all done up, and it was hard for me to really see her then,” Leaf said. And the meeting after that? “She took all that makeup off and she just became more grounded again. That was really the moment, because I could see her, yes, she might have this other side to her, but she’s willing to pull it all away.” 

Once Nomore, who turns in a stunning, lived-in, heartbreaking performance in Leaf’s feature directorial debut, snapped up the role, her vulnerability became her greatest asset. She got deep into the role, as a struggling single mother attempting to get her life on track so that she may get her kids back (they’re in foster care, as she has one more on the way), using her own experience as a new mom to touch something profound, coming away from “Earth Mama” with yet another example of her talent and reach: and it all comes from inside. —KE

7. Vivian Oparah, “Rye Lane”

The annals of classic romantic comedies are filled with standout genre queens: Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon, Regina Hall, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Lopez, Lana Condor, Gabrielle Union, the list just keeps on going. And as the rom-com continues to bend (and snap?) into new shapes (from box office old-reliable to the stuff of streaming platform dreams), there’s suddenly room for many more starlets to take up the mantle. Which is what makes Vivian Oparah’s work in Raine Allen-Miller’s Sundance charmer so thrilling: she somehow adheres to old conventions (her Yas is at loose ends, made crazy by love, kinda goofy) while injecting the role with fresh energy.

Part of that is due to the film Yas is placed inside of – a classic-sounding rom-com of boy meets girl, has a great day together, maybe can’t quite make it all work just yet – that similarly combines old gems with new takes, part of that is the delightful chemistry she shares with her male lead (David Jonsson as the very emotional Dom), and part of that is her megawatt charisma. Yas is clearly a queen, rom-com and beyond, but Oparah is somehow at her most delightful when Yas is at her most, well, not really delightful. 

Yas makes a lot of mistakes over the course of “Rye Lane” (and the film’s script cleverly builds in hints as to a lifetime of general fuck-it-up-ness), but Oparah makes them all feel rooted in humanity (a tough ask when we see our leading lady engaging in everything from light break and entering and full force career sabotage). It’s that stuff that makes us love her – Yas, Oparah, the very concept of a leading lady – and want to see her succeed. We feel the same way about the star. —KE

8. Lewis Pullman, “Lessons in Chemistry”

Book readers are a finicky bunch when it comes to adaptations. It can be tricky to embody someone people already have in their heads. Pullman’s performance as Calvin Evans, however, was so appropriately charming and charismatic that the Apple TV+ adaptation of the beloved bestseller actually inserted the character more than in the novel – to the show’s great benefit. As Elizabeth Zott’s (Brie Larson’s) lab mate-turned-lover, Pullman has to get the prickly Zott — and likewise the audience — won over quickly. Thanks to sweet line delivery; great eye contact (always under-appreciated!) and excellent, sorry, chemistry with Larson, his performance affirmed a thrilling new talent to watch, following turns in films such as “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Bad Times at the El Royale.” —ES

9. Cailee Spaeny, “Priscilla”

Twenty-five-year-old actress Cailee Spaeny won an unexpected Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup for Best Actress for extraordinarily internalized — until she isn’t — performance as Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s pastel-painted psychological portrait “Priscilla.” She plays Priscilla as a caged bird (in a gilded cage no less) desperately seeking the adoration of her husband Elvis Presley, here seen as an elusive weirdo who wanted a Madonna under a bell jar.

Spaeny is a quarter-century old herself but spans Priscilla in her teenage years living on an army base in West Germany, where she met Elvis, all through finally leaving Graceland in search of an identity outside her husband’s intoxicating shadow. Working off Priscilla’s own memoirs, Coppola allows Spaeny moments of almost transcendent manipulation: When Elvis (Jacob Elordi) threatens to break up with a then-very-pregnant Priscilla for no good reason at all, she says, OK, fine, walking patiently out the bedroom door, waiting for him to, nevermind, take it all back.

Such subtle twists in Spaeny’s performance — adorned by hair and makeup appropriately ill-fitting a young Priscilla and designed by Elvis himself — are terrific fun to watch in a movie that could’ve been just another Sofia Coppola film about a burdened, poshly miserable wife who hates her life. (See “Lost in Translation” and “Marie Antoinette,” and as great as those movies are, there’s a conspicuous pattern here.) She’s saucer-eyed over Elvis but never stupid. 

Spaeny previously made an impression in franchise offerings like “The Craft: Legacy” and “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” as well as a hostage-turned-killer in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” But here she embodies a historical figure who’s still alive with the best kind of acting, which turns a real person into a real character, whose slow but steady climb to escape and eventual redemption we care about. —RL 

10. Wesley Taylor, “Only Murders in the Building”

Wesley Taylor made a name for himself with indie web series like “Indoor Boys” and a series regular role on “Smash” (not to mention a Broadway résumé that includes “Rock of Ages” and “SpongeBob SquarePants”), but he blazed into the star-studded third season of the Hulu hit like a fresh discovery. Taylor nailed the laughs of his mama’s boy producer character — and the stress dancing — but it was in the final episodes of the season that he unleashed his full range, centering the character’s obliviousness within an abrupt swerve into the dramatic as the mystery is solved. Whether he was half of a terrifying close mother-son relationship with Linda Emond or threatening to throw himself through a trap door, Taylor made every second count. He didn’t get to sing in “Death Rattle Dazzle,” but he left viewers humming his name. —MP 

11. Jessica Williams, “Shrinking”

The Apple TV+ series has a deep bench of comedy talent (and Harrison Ford), but Jessica Williams stole the show as hydrating queen Gaby. A foil for both Jason Segel’s grieving therapist and Ford’s brusque one, Williams holds her own while also tackling and selling plot points ranging from a divorce to an affair with her dead best friend’s husband to a burgeoning new friendship with the prickly Liz (Christa Miller). Anyone who enjoyed her stint as a “Daily Show” correspondent or “2 Dop Girls” knew that Williams is funny; with “Shrinking,” she proves adept at dramatics as well, seamlessly fitting into an ensemble populated with actors who excel in the environment. More importantly, she makes the platonic ideal of a work bestie seem both realistic and impossibly cool. —MP

12. Keivonn Woodard, “The Last of Us”

Child actors walk an impossibly thin tightrope. If they lean too far into cuteness, they can spiral into a cloying caricature. But if they’re not cute enough — aka stilted or unnatural, misplacing the natural innocence of youth — they stick out just the same. Keivonn Woodard kept his balance in two remarkable episodes of “The Last of Us,” finding joy and curiosity befitting his age, while conveying the fear and sorrow of a child in hiding. Sam, Woodard’s role, is endearing on his own. He colors pictures. He decorates a derelict hideout. He loves superheroes. Woodard embraces these attributes without overplaying them, while bringing a wide-eyed osmosis to the shattered world around him. Sam sees what’s going on. Some gets in, some stays out. He’s not shielded from problems meant for a later age, and that adds to the love and heartbreak for his character. When the Emmy nominations were announced five years ago (or so it seems), big name guest stars from “The Last of Us” dominated the category, from Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett to Melanie Lynskey. But Woodard’s nod elicited the biggest smiles. He deserves it. —BT 

13. Dominic Sessa, “The Holdovers”

Sessa was a high school senior at Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts when Alexander Payne did what he often does on his films: he auditioned possible extras at several of his locations. Sessa landed more than an extra role. As the movie’s start-date loomed, Payne was worried that he hadn’t found the obnoxious, entitled, bereft prep school guy whose newly married mother and stepfather leave him behind for their holiday honeymoon. The New York-based casting director went through some 800 submissions. When Sessa met with Payne, he suddenly found the rebellious student who has to endure Christmas with his most detested teacher (Paul Giamatti) and the school cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Sessa gets the audience to root for him, from the way he stands up to Giamatti to how he dissembles when a young girl asks if he’s looking down her shirt. Somehow, the movie taps into a large and hidden demo: Christmas orphans. Having held his own with veteran professionals, Sessa is now in his first year studying drama at Carnegie Mellon University. —AT

14. Leonie Benesch, “The Teachers’ Lounge”

As the idealistic teacher in “The Teacher’s Lounge” (Sony Pictures Classics, December 25) becomes enmeshed in controversy after a well-meaning attempt to identify a classroom thief, the audience is never quite sure how she’s going to behave, how she’s going to handle each succeeding situation. As both the teachers and students criticize her, is Carla going to break down under the stress? Is she going to make more mistakes? Not knowing how it’s going to turn out builds anxiety and tension. Carrying the movie on her capable shoulders is 32-year-old German actress Leonie Benesch, who grabbed attention 14 years ago in Michael Haneke’s “White Ribbon,” attending Cannes and the Oscar celebrations that year. But at 18 she wasn’t ready to pursue a career; instead she finished her A-levels and studied drama at England’s Guild Hall, which accounts for her plummy British accent. Since then she’s had steady work in Europe, but has never broken out, partly because she doesn’t seek the spotlight and isn’t on social media. That’s about to change. After “The Teacher’s Lounge” built buzz in Berlin, the movie swept the German Film Awards, winning five against “All Quiet on the Western Front,” including Best Actress, and became a box office hit. No wonder Germany chose the film as its official Oscar submission. —AT

15. Priya Kansara, “Polite Society”

In the ten years writer and director Nida Manzoor spent with the screenplay for “Polite Society,” one of her most persistent fears was not finding an actor capable of portraying the inimitable Ria Khan. Enter Priya Kansara, a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology with just two acting credits to her name. Kansara not only embodied, but worked deeply to understand Manzoor’s “bloody psychotic character,” writing letters to Ria during production and taking numerous martial arts classes (which she continued after the shoot because she enjoyed them so much). Without Kansara, “Polite Society”s “Scott Pilgrim”-meets-“Everything Everywhere All At Once”-meets-“We Are Lady Parts” ethos can’t possibly translate, but with her there is a riotous film and protagonist you can’t possibly forget. —PK

16. India Ria Amarteifio, “Queen Charlotte”

Netflix and Shondaland’s “Bridgerton” universe is nothing if not reliable; with each season and series viewers are guaranteed dazzling Regency costumes, gaspworthy needle drops, steamy sex scenes — and formidable new talent as the cast grows. “Queen Charlotte,” the spinoff/prequel helmed by Shonda Rhimes herself did just that with its cast, starring Amarteifio in the lead role. Not only does the sparkling actor have to do her best to embody a character already established by Golda Rosheuvel, but she has to do so while finding new depths and leading a series. Amarteifio does all that and more, finding strong connections and chemistry with costars Cory Mylchreest and Arsema Thomas. There’s no word on if “Queen Charlotte”s runaway success will earn a second season, but Amarteifio’s reign is just getting started. —PK

17. Molly Gordon, “The Bear” and “Theater Camp”

To hear “The Bear” casting director Jeanie Bacharach tell it herself, there was no one but Molly Gordon for the role of Claire. Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) old crush hits him like a hurricane in Season 2 of the FX comedy, a force of nature driven by Gordon’s accessibility and charm. She’s nothing like Rebecca-Diane in “Theater Camp,” Gordon’s flailing acting teacher paired in supreme chaos with Ben Platt (Gordon co-directed the film while Platt helped write the screenplay). Gordon’s summer 2023 filmography demonstrates that she can be wildly unhinged, deeply grounded, sweetly captivating,  and also wear the heck out of some very memorable clogs. It’s the kind of acting range that would make Rebecca-Diane proud (and THAT’S how she got into Julliard!). —PK

18 and 19. Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, “Dicks: The Musical”

There are those who said it could not be done, but Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp are living proof you can both be gay and finish a project. Before making their big Hollywood debut at the opening night for TIFF 2023, the twinning talents behind A24’s “Dicks: The Musical” spent a decade stuck in stage-to-screen development.

Their original show, “Fucking Identical Twins,” was performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade “clump style” — giving both actors two parts to play in their sexed-up “Parent Trap” sketch. But the multi-hyphenate artists bravely gave up one role each for the movie (which was again, brave) to make way for performances from Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane. Plus, it let the duo bring full energy to their starring roles as gay-straight-incest icons, Craig Tiddle and Trevor Brock.

The “Dicks” cast delivers a measuredly absurdist four-hander of a movie that values its balls as much as its balance. The comedians sing, shimmy, and teach a master class in playing it straight. With the cryptid Sewer Boys and Megan Thee Stallion enjoying the spotlight, getting out of the way has never looked like so much fun. Plus, with more cult classics sure to come from the breakthrough actors and auteurs, you can be sure fans of Jackson and Sharp will always remember this: the year that it is. —AF

20. Teo Yoo, “Past Lives”

He may have been GQ Korea’s 2021 Man of the Year, but 2023 was Teo Yoo’s pivotal year in Hollywood. With a starring role in Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” the German-South Korean actor gives a mesmerizing and poignant turn as Hae Sung, a man separated from his childhood sweetheart (Greta Lee) at age 12 and catching up with her over the years, wondering what could have been.

In the film, Hae Sung describes himself as “normal,” (Nora calls it “very Korean”), but embodying the character’s mild mannerisms and resonant heartache is exactly what makes Yoo so extraordinary. He can tug your heartstrings from a screen-within-a-screen, speaking volumes through the silence in Nora and Hae Sung’s Skype calls. He and Lee fill the space between them with hair-raising chemistry, especially in the final scene. And while Nora’s husband (John Magaro) and much of the audience can’t understand Korean, there’s no translation needed for yearning in Yoo’s words, or the talent exuding from his performance. —PK