With the decade coming to a close, it is worth exploring those fresh faces that emerged and defined the 10 years in film. Like with first-time filmmakers, first-time actors are expected to align themselves with their film’s overall vision. And it is fascinating to see actors and actresses in their film debuts to exceed expectations.
This list will encompass the decade’s best film debuts. Performers on this list can either have limited acting experience (or none at all) prior to their film debut. And their performance should grant them recognition. Here are the top 10 film debuts of the decade.
10 Millicent Simmonds in Wonderstruck
Millicent Simmonds read the ASL-translated version of Brian Selznick’s novel Wonderstruck and admired it. When she learned news of a film adaptation by Todd Haynes, she quickly got on board to play the film’s central figure: a deaf girl in the story’s 1927 period.
Her performance is lauded to be another extraordinary landmark for a performer with a disability. It then granted her an equally winning role in the acclaimed A Quiet Place and its sequel.
9 John Boyega in Attack the Block
Without Attack the Block, Boyega would not have played FN-2187 or Finn in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And yet, he makes a strong impression in the 2011 film Attack the Block, a great send-up of urban thriller and sci-fi horror.
He played Moses, leader of a hoodlum gang living in a block invaded by vicious ape-like aliens. Thanks to Joe Cornish’s crisp script, Boyega gave out an empathetic look on a street hoodlum.
8 Yalitza Aparicio in Roma
For Alfonso Cuaron’s opus that harkens back home, he opted to pick someone authentic and down-to-earth to play a housemaid on a 1970s Mexican household. For that, Cuaron scouted the then 25-year-old Yalitza Aparicio to play Cleo, a composite character of Cuaron’s maternal figures.
Her performance is purely authentic in this epic with the beach scene, showing her unable to swim like her character, as proof of her capabilities. Her Oscar nomination is most deserving.
7 Bel Powley in The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Bel Powley makes a strong impression as a hormonally active teenage girl in Marielle Heller’s coming-of-age comedy, based on her play. Her character as a daughter to a Bohemian mother makes for a poignant performance with clever wit.
Thanks to The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Powley bagged roles in Carrie Pilby, White Boy Rick and the upcoming King of Staten Island. And she even made her Broadway debut in Lobby Hero with Chris Evans.
6 Anya Taylor-Joy in The Witch
2016’s Puritan-centered horror film placed Robert Eggers in every film critics’ radar and also became a calling card for up-and-coming Anya Taylor-Joy as a modern-day scream queen. And seeing from horror films like Split, its sequel Glass, Morgan and the upcoming The New Mutants, Taylor-Joy is a reliable presence for horror movies.
As for The Witch, she plays Thomasin, a girl who delved to her madness that leaves one startled, even in her final shot.
5 Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild
Filmmakers nowadays are keen to recruit fresh faces who have no acting experience to achieve the authenticity they are looking for. In this case, director Benh Zeitlin found Lousiana native Quvenzhané Wallis and saw her strengths. That way, Wallis’ performance became her own that it carries the movie’s surrealist tone and strong urgency.
Thanks to Beasts, Quvenzhané Wallis was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and grabbed the titular role in 2014’s Annie.
4 Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project
Give it to Sean Baker for bringing the best of his first-time performers on his films Prince of Broadway, Starlet, and Tangerine. The best came from Brooklynn Prince, who made a great impression as Moonee, the girl at the center of a slice-of-life story in a rundown Florida motel.
Her innocent emotion and childlike wonder elevates the context of its subject above its bleak outlook. Like Wallis, her performance placed her on the filmmaking map.
3 Lakeith Stanfield in Short Term 12
Before he shouted “Get Out!” to Daniel Kaluuya and revolted against Armie Hammer in Sorry to Bother You, Lakeith Stanfield played one of the troubled teens in Destin Daniel Cretton’s breakout indie hit. His underplayed performance makes his character connect more to the audiences and elevates his arc from his heart-wrenching backstory.
His breakdown is one of the highlights of the movie, and one that cemented Stanfield for future projects, like this year’s Knives Out.
2 Auli’i Cravalho in Moana
It is a true privilege to headline a movie (let alone a Disney animated film) opposite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Yet, Hawaiian native Auli’i Cravalho lent a great vocal performance as Moana. Her character really entailed to overcome obstacles on her quest, all while achieving a fantastic singing voice for the film’s song “How Far I Go”.
Cravalho’s dazzling performance won her roles in the TV series Rise and the movie Sorta Like a Rockstar.
1 Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
The role of Mattie Ross for the second adaptation of the Charles Portis’ landmark novel had a lot of weight to achieve, given Kim Darby provided a compelling performance. Nevertheless, not only first-timer Hailee Steinfeld lent a great performance but it also exceeded expectations that made her the true gem of the 2010 Coen brothers Western. And from there, she proved herself a triple threat performer with coveted film roles in the Pitch Perfect movies, Begin Again, The Edge of Seventeen and 2018’s double whammy: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Bumblebee.
Honorable Mentions: Neel Sethi in The Jungle Book, Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips, Dafne Keen in Logan, Fionn Whitehead in Dunkirk, Ashton Sanders in Moonlight and Viveik Kalra in Blinded by the Light.
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