Top 20 Incredible Performances From First Time Actors

#20: Julia Fox

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“Uncut Gems” (2019) This Adam Sandler-led crime thriller was one of the most acclaimed movies of 2019. It follows a gambling addict and jeweler named Howard who plans on selling a special opal to pay off his exorbitant debts. Howard is married to Idina Menzel’s Dinah, but he’s also seeing a young woman named Julia on the side. Julia is played by first-time actress Julia Fox. Fox was working as a clothing designer, photographer, and Playboy model, and she earned the role through her personal connection with writer-director Josh Safdie, whom she had known for about a decade. Fox performed exceptionally well, and she more than handled her own next to screen veteran Adam Sandler.

“Come and See” (1985) Young Aleksei Kravchenko was just fourteen years old when filming started on “Come and See,” and he gave a performance of an experienced actor three times his age. Based on the novel “I Am from the Fiery Village,” “Come and See” is an anti-war film that follows a teenager named Flyora, who joins the Belarusian resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Belarus. It’s one of the most brutal and uncompromising World War II films ever made, and it’s made even more impactful through Kravchenko’s incredible lead performance. Kravchenko later joined the Soviet Navy and wouldn’t appear in another movie until 2000, when he starred in the Russian Christmas film “The Christmas Miracle.”

“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” (2020) This drama was widely acclaimed as one of the best films of 2020. It follows a 17-year-old girl named Autumn, who discovers that she is ten weeks pregnant. Not wanting the baby, she travels with her cousin to New York City to undergo an abortion. Autumn is played by Sidney Flanigan, who won numerous awards for her breakout performance. Flanigan had reportedly met the movie’s writer-director, Eliza Hittman, while Hittman was filming a documentary at the communal home that Flanigan’s boyfriend was staying at. It certainly proved a fortuitous meeting, as Flanigan is now the award-winning star of a widely acclaimed movie.

#17: Jason Schwartzman

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“Rushmore” (1998) The son of Talia Shire and a member of the legendary Coppola family, Jason Schwartzman has always been in the Hollywood elite. However, his acting career didn’t begin until he was 17 years old. Wes Anderson was looking for a lead in his new movie “Rushmore,” and the movie’s casting director met Schwartzman with some help from Sofia Coppola. Schwartzman was eventually cast as protagonist Max Fischer, a 15-year-old teenager who is put on academic probation and quickly finds himself entangled in a love triangle. The quirky film received strong reviews, and Schwartzman became a frequent collaborator with director Wes Anderson.

“Whale Rider” (2002) When “Whale Rider” was filming in 2001, 11-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes was forced to alternate between the movie’s set and her Auckland school. All that work was undoubtedly worth it. “Whale Rider” opened to incredible acclaim, and Castle-Hughes became the youngest person to ever be nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award (a record that has since been broken). It was one of the finest debut performances in movie history, and Castle-Hughes would go on to appear in the likes of “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith” and “Game of Thrones,” in which she played Obara Sand throughout season five.

“The Rider” (2017) Directed by Chloé Zhao, “The Rider” primarily concerns a young cowboy named Brady Blackburn, who recently suffered a serious head injury after being thrown from his horse. The Blackburn family - which consists of Brady, Wayne, and Lilly - are played by the real Jandreau family. Brady Jandreau plays Brady Blackburn, and for an untrained and inexperienced actor, he does a superb job. “The Rider” was named one of 2017’s best films on various critic year-end lists, and while Jandreau didn’t receive any significant awards, his stellar performance undoubtedly aided in the movie’s strong reception.

#14: Danny Trejo

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“Runaway Train” (1985) Danny Trejo is one of the most popular character actors in modern movie history, typically relegated to playing big, tough, gravelly-voiced characters. Trejo spent most of his early life in and out of prison before landing a job as a youth drug counselor. One of his patients was working on the set of a movie called “Runaway Train,” and one of the movie’s screenwriters recognized Trejo from San Quentin State Prison, where Trejo had gotten heavily into boxing. He was hired to train Eric Roberts for one of the movie’s boxing scenes, and the director eventually gave him the role of Boxer. It was a small role, but one that proved good enough to launch a decades-long career in film and television.

“Heaven Knows What” (2014) The Safdie brothers are really good at finding hidden talent. Like Julia Fox, Arielle Holmes also made her acting debut in a Safdie brothers movie - the 2014 psychological drama “Heaven Knows What.” The movie is based on Holmes’ memoir, which Joshua Safdie encouraged her to write. Most of Holmes’s life was mired in drug use and homelessness. She smoked crack with her mother at 12, dropped out of school, got into heroin at 17, and lived homeless with her boyfriend. She later worked as an unpaid intern in New York’s Diamond District, which is where she met Joshua Safdie. “Heaven Knows What” is a captivating glimpse into Holmes’s tragic life, and while it doesn’t make for easy viewing, it’s worth viewing for Holmes’s performance alone.

#12; Tatum O’Neal

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“Paper Moon” (1973) At the 1974 Academy Awards, Tatum O’Neal made history by becoming the youngest actor to receive an Oscar, having taken home the trophy for Best Supporting Actress. She was ten, and she had never acted before. Director Peter Bogdanovich had worked with O’Neal’s father Ryan in the past, and Bogdanovich’s ex-wife recommended he hire Ryan and his young daughter Tatum for the roles of Moze Pray and Addie Loggins, respectively. It certainly proved the right decision, as Tatum O’Neal’s performance was widely acclaimed by critics, and she took home the Oscar, a Golden Globe, and the David di Donatello Award.

#11: Steven Prince

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“Taxi Driver” (1976) There’s a scene in “Taxi Driver” that sees Travis Bickle buying guns from a very enthusiastic black market seller. Known as Easy Andy, this gun dealer is played by a man named Steven Prince. Prince was a personal friend of director Martin Scorsese, and he served as the road manager for Neil Diamond. Scorsese would later release a documentary called “American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince,” which detailed his life as a heroin addict and his time with Diamond. Acting alongside the legendary Robert De Niro is no easy feat, but Prince certainly holds his own. For those unaware, Prince may seem like a seasoned performer and not a hotshot road manager.

“Precious” (2009) Gabourey Sidibe was raised in Harlem and worked as a receptionist before the release of “Precious.” The movie is based on Sapphire’s novel “Push,” and it was co-produced by director Lee Daniels and Oprah Winfrey (among many others). To cast protagonist Claireece Precious Jones, the movie’s casting director held an open call audition in New York. Sidibe attended the audition, despite having never acted before. That little fact didn’t matter. She was eventually chosen over 300 others and earned widespread praise for her performance, earning both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

“The Florida Project” (2017) This drama, co-written and directed by Sean Baker, concerns an unemployed single mother and her six-year-old daughter living in a shabby motel near Walt Disney World. Playing unemployed mother Halley was Bria Vinaite, a Lithuanian-born actress who was discovered by director Sean Baker through Instagram. Baker got in contact with Vinaite, and she commenced three weeks of acting classes before filming began. The movie premiered at Cannes in the spring of 2017 and earned instant acclaim, and Vinaite received numerous award nominations - including the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Performer. She later earned a role on Netflix’s “The OA”, playing Darmi.

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” (2012) Keisha Castle-Hughes set the record for the youngest performer to be nominated for Best Actress, but Quvenzhané Wallis broke it. In 2012, she starred in “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” playing a six-year-old Louisianian girl named Hushpuppy. The movie was shot on location in Louisiana, and five-year-old local Quvenzhané Wallis lied about her age to audition for the lead role (the minimum age of eligibility being six). She impressed the casting director with her reading, screaming, and burping on command (yes, burping), and she was given the role of Hushpuppy. She subsequently became the youngest person to be nominated for Best Actress, being just nine years old.

“The Killing Fields” (1984) Cambodia native Haing S. Ngor was a practicing surgeon and gynecologist when Phnom Penh was overtaken by the Communist Party of Kampuchea. The regime persecuted intellectuals, so Ngor was forced to conceal his job as a practicing doctor. He and his wife were later thrown into a concentration camp and stayed alive by eating insects. His wife later died giving birth, and while Ngor could have saved her, doing so would have resulted in his entire family being killed. He later moved with his niece to America, and wishing to honor his wife’s legacy, starred in “The Killing Fields” - a movie about the CPK’s brief reign over Cambodia. His performance was widely acclaimed, and he won two BAFTAs, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award.

“Close-Up” (1990) Like “Heaven Knows What,” the Iranian film “Close-Up” tells a real story starring the real people involved. The movie revolves around a man named Hossain Sabzian, who conned a family by pretending to be Iranian movie director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Writer-director Abbas Kiarostami read about the story in a magazine and contacted the parties involved, all of whom agreed to re-create the events for a piece of docufiction. “Close-Up” is a wonderful bit of cinéma vérité, and Sabzian proves wickedly captivating as the complex and complicated protagonist.

“Roma” (2018) In 2018, Netflix proved its movie might with “Roma,” a Mexican drama that follows a maid named Cleo Gutiérrez. Playing Gutiérrez was newcomer Yalitza Aparicio, who had previously worked in a school with a degree in early childhood education. Both “Roma” and Aparicio’s lead performance were praised, and Aparicio received a slew of award nominations - including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The movie and performance also landed her a spot on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, with director Alfonso Cuarón calling her “a force of change and empowerment for indigenous women.”

#4: Oprah Winfrey

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“The Color Purple” (1985) In 1985, Steven Spielberg ditched the wondrous, kid-friendly adventure and science fiction that he was known for and directed a period drama called “The Color Purple.” It’s based on a Pulitzer-winning novel by Alice Walker and concerns the troubled life of an African-American woman named Celie Harris. At the time, Oprah Winfrey was serving as a popular morning talk show host in Chicago - the show would later become the iconic “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” But before that, she starred in Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” as an abused but tough housewife named Sofia. The performance brought Winfrey wide acclaim, and she was nominated for both the Golden Globe and Academy Award.

#3: Jennifer Hudson

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“Dreamgirls” (2006) Aside from some small-time community theater performances as a child, Jennifer Hudson did not have any acting experience when she was cast as Effie White in “Dreamgirls.” Rather, she had pursued a career in music and famously appeared on the third season of “American Idol.” Despite placing seventh, the show made Hudson a star. As Effie White is one of the most iconic characters in Broadway history, hundreds of singers auditioned for the part, including Hudson, Raven-Symoné, and fellow “American Idol” contestant Fantasia Barrino. The role went to Hudson, and she won the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award for her work.

“Captain Phillips” (2013) The Tom Hanks-led “Captain Phillips” tells the true story of the Maersk Alabama hijacking, which saw the cargo ship boarded and hijacked by Somali pirates. Playing head pirate Abduwali Muse is Barkhad Abdi, who himself was born in Somalia. By the early 2010s, Abdi was working various odd jobs in Minnesota and attended a casting call for the movie in Minneapolis. He was eventually chosen to play Muse and faced the enormous undertaking of acting alongside Tom Hanks. Some may argue that he even outperformed Hanks - including the Academy, who nominated Abdi for Best Supporting Actor but failed to nominate Hanks.

#1: Anna Paquin

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“The Piano” (1993) In 1993, a young Anna Paquin starred in Jane Campion’s period drama, “The Piano.” She plays Flora McGrath, the daughter of a mute woman who is sold into marriage by her father. Paquin learned about the role after her sister read about the open audition in the newspaper. The nine-year-old Paquin went to try out and impressed Campion with a particularly great reading of one of the movie’s monologues. She was eventually chosen for the role over thousands of other children, and her performance was immediately noted as a standout. In fact, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 66th Academy Awards, making her the second-youngest winner in movie history. Before that, Paquin had only played skunk at a school performance.