THR celebrates the most dazzling screen turns of the year — from a furious Marianne Jean-Baptiste to a kinky Nicole Kidman, a towering Adrien Brody to a magnetic Denzel Washington.

DAVID ROONEY Almost invariably when we start digging into our annual chat about the most memorable performances of the year, I look at my notes and find the women far outnumber the men. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t outstanding work from male actors, but several women pulled off astonishing high-wire acts that I’m still thinking about, in some cases many months after seeing the films.

Our investment is fostered especially through Pansy’s scenes with her younger sister, Chantelle, the only person neither scared off nor antagonized by her spikiness. Played with warmth and infinite compassion by Michele Austin, Chantelle weathers every brittle remark and scornful huff, making it clear that her bond is unbreakable, and compelling the begrudging Pansy to reciprocate.

LOVIA GYARKYE Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths also ranks highly for me. She imbues Pansy’s woundedness with a grace that allows us, as you pointed out, to see beyond her abrasive exterior. I’m fascinated by Leigh’s extended rehearsal process, in which he works closely with each performer to shape their character. Here, that effort manifests in understated moments that clue us in to how race, class and gender have shaped Pansy’s life as a Black British woman. Her lacerating words and actions seem like calluses, the collateral damage on a sensitive soul exposed to a harsh world.

I felt a similar sense of trust between Halina Reijn and Nicole Kidman in Babygirl. Reijn’s third directorial outing, about a tightly wound CEO who embarks on a steamy entanglement with a much younger intern, is billed as an erotic thriller. But it’s also a comedy. There’s humor in fulfilling sexual fantasies, which are inherently silly and playful. Kidman’s performance — especially in scenes with Harris Dickinson, who does excellent work as her affair partner — acknowledges the relationship between the explicit and the comic without mocking it.

Another instance of this actor-director symbiosis is Denzel Washington and Ridley Scott in Gladiator II. Washington is one of our greatest gifts, and in this muscular Roman epic, he plays a reptilian figure with shifty motives. The fluidity in his physicality — audaciously brandishing his ring-adorned fingers, haughtily sweeping his toga upon entering or leaving a space — coupled with his confident delivery is so much fun to watch. He’s working on a different plane from the rest of the cast.

As for Kidman, I’m impressed that four decades into her career, she keeps seeking out adventurous projects and pushing herself in daring new ways. Babygirl is juicy and perverse in its exploration of the pleasure to be found in relinquishing control, and Kidman is incandescent in it.

GYARKYE Pivoting to some newer faces, the teen-show-to-prestige-film pipeline remains strong, with Grown-ish‘s Ryan Destiny and Outer Banks‘ Drew Starkey in lead turns every bit as energizing as Riverdale alum Charles Melton’s in 2023’s May December.

In the unconventional boxing biopic The Fire Inside, Destiny manages the difficult task of honoring the tenacity of Olympic athlete Claressa “T-Rex” Shields without resorting to caricature. She nails the tenderness that reminds us that Claressa is still a teenager negotiating her place in the world. In one scene, set shortly after she’s told she needs to appear more feminine in order to secure sponsorships, Destiny applies lip gloss and smiles to herself in the mirror, before hastily removing all traces of makeup. The moment highlights the tensions she (like many women athletes) faces in her career, and her mourning for a compromised girlhood.