15 Actors With Two Standout Performances in 2016
Amy Adams
In ‘Nocturnal Animals’ (right), Adams played an art gallery owner forced to look back into her own personal history after her ex-husband's novel lands in her life. In ‘Arrival’ (left), she starred as a linguistic professor trying to communicate with aliens who’ve come to Earth. (Photo: Paramount/Focus Features)
Joel Edgerton
Edgerton hit a double with writer-director Jeff Nichols: In ‘Midnight Special’ (left), he played a cop guarding a secret; in ‘Loving’ (right), he and Ruth Negga portrayed the real-life interracial couple who married in 1958 and became unlikely activists after the state of Virginia banished them for being in love. (Photo: Warner Bros./Focus Features)
Michael Stuhlbarg
The chameleonic actor seems to be everywhere these days. Two of his 2016 highlights: His role as a CIA operative in ‘Arrival’ (left), and as the corrupt former colleague and current rival of Jessica Chastain’s cutthroat lobbyist in gun-control drama ‘Miss Sloane’ (right). (Photo: Paramount/EuropaCorp)
Denzel Washington
The Oscar winner got back in the saddle as a fierce warrant officer in Antoine Fuqua's remake of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (left). Then, in the big-screen adaptation of ‘Fences’ (right), which Washington also directed, he stars as a disenchanted garbage man who squashes his son's football dreams. (Photo: Columbia/Paramount)
Andrew Garfield
So long, Spidey! As Tom Holland inherited the superhero suit, his predecessor has moved on to acclaim for his back-to-back roles as a World War II conscientious objector in Mel Gibson’s ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ (left), and as a 17th-century Jesuit missionary in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ (right). (Photo: Lionsgate/Paramount)
Janelle Monae
After making her big-screen debut as the surrogate mom to a boy struggling with his sexual identity in ‘Moonlight’ (left), Monae reached for the stars in ‘Hidden Figures’ (right), adapted from the eponymous book about the black, female mathematicians whose critical work at NASA helped launch the space age. (Photo: A24/Fox)
Ryan Gosling
L.A. stories were good to Gosling in 2016: In ‘The Nice Guys’ (left), an old-school buddy comedy set in the 1970s, he played a private eye opposite Russell Crowe. Then, he charmed us all as a jazz pianist who falls for an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) in ‘La La Land’ (right). (Photo: Warner Bros./Lionsgate)
Ralph Fiennes
After slaying it as a frustrated 1950s movie director in the Coen Brothers comedy ‘Hail, Caesar!’ (left), he roamed to ‘A Bigger Splash’ (right) , where he danced to the beat of his own drummer (and to the Rolling Stones) as the former flame and manager of a rock star (Tilda Swinton). (Photo: Universal/Fox Searchlight)
Keegan Michael Key
Key and comedy-team partner Jordan Peele played na?ve cousins who infiltrate a street gang to rescue a kitten in ‘Keanu’ (left), then Key flew solo to honor his improv roots in ‘Don't Think Twice’ (right), about a group of six funny friends whose relationships are tested when talent scouts come sniffing. (Photo: Warner Bros./The Film Arcade)
Colin Farrell
Before clawing into J.K. Rowling’s universe as Director of Magical Security for MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) in ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ (right), Farrell packed on the pounds for his role in the dystopian loneliness comedy ‘The Lobster’ (left). (Photo: A24/Warner Bros.)
Greta Gerwig
The mumblecore muse found her voice as a free-spirited art photographer who influences the life of an adolescent boy in ’20th Century Women’ (left), and as the longtime friend and social secretary of Jacqueline Kennedy in ‘Jackie’ (right). (Photo: A24/Fox Searchlight)
Michael Shannon
The actor disappeared into the role of "the King" opposite Kevin Spacey's corrupt 37th President In ‘Elvis & Nixon’ (left), then reappeared as a Texas detective with nothing left to lose in ‘Nocturnal Animals’ (right). (Photo: Amazon/Focus Features)
Michelle Williams
Williams in 2016 went from the American Northwest, playing one of the characters trying to make sense of her life in ‘Certain Women’ (left), to New England opposite Casey Affleck in ‘Manchester By the Sea’ (right), as the ex-wife of a handyman who made a terrible mistake. (Photo: IFC/Roadside Attractions)
Isabelle Huppert
In the Paul Verhoeven thriller ‘Elle’ (left), Huppert played a sexual assault survivor who refuses to be a victim; in ‘Things to Come’ (right), she was a stoic philosophy professor struggling to reassemble a life that had fallen apart. (Photo: Sony Pictures Classics/Sundance Selects)
Kate McKinnon
The ‘Saturday Night Live’ scene-stealer busted guts as much as ghosts as a kooky inventor in ‘Ghostbusters’ (left), then capped off her 2016 at the ‘Office Christmas Party’ (right) as a holiday-obsessed HR employee. (Photo: Columbia/Paramount)
It’s impressive enough to have one movie role in a calendar year that gets fans and critics talking; to do it a second time is a real charm. So say this about 2016: It was a very good year for some fine actors, who impressed us more than once, demonstrating both versatility and consistency. Click through the photos above for our salute to the past year’s two-hit wonders.