The 10 Best Blockbuster Performances By Character Actors, Ranked

This week marks the arrival of "Twisters" (read /Film's review), a sequel arriving nearly three decades after the original blockbuster hit "Twister." Because of how much time has elapsed between films, the cast for "Twisters" is entirely different (in part because of the tragic and untimely passing of one of the original film's leads, Bill Paxton). Although "Twisters," like its predecessor, boasts plenty of flashy special effects to create the sensation of powerful tornadoes popping up throughout Oklahoma as it tracks different groups of storm chasers trying to wrangle these bouts of Mother Nature's anger, the film doesn't quite live up to the secret weapon that "Twister" had: surprisingly committed character actors delivering better-than-needed supporting performances. (It's worth noting that Glen Powell is a lot of fun in "Twisters," but he's playing the male romantic lead, which doesn't quite line up with the idea of a character-actor supporting turn.) But character actors popping up to steal the show in big-budget blockbusters isn't unique to "Twister" or its sequel, so let's rank the 10 best blockbuster performances by character actors.

With more than 25 years of hindsight, there's not too much to recommend in the 2001 remake of "Planet of the Apes," directed by Tim Burton. While the cast is notable, including Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, and Helena Bonham Carter, and the makeup is very impressive, the story itself is fairly lifeless until it arrives at an ending that still makes absolutely no sense. (Remember the ape version of the Lincoln Memorial?) But even disappointing blockbusters can have some positive aspects, and "Planet of the Apes" is fortunate enough to have Paul Giamatti. By now, Giamatti has proven himself as a leading man in indie films like "The Holdovers" and "Sideways," on premium-cable TV series like "Billions," and in brief roles in other notable late-90s/early-00s mainstream films such as "Private Parts," "The Truman Show," and "Big Fat Liar." But as Limbo in "Planet of the Apes," Giamatti stands out above the rest of the ensemble. Sometimes, all it takes for a character actor's supporting performance to stand out is to be fully aware of the movie you're in, and Giamatti very clearly understood the assignment, down to threatening to fire his agent if he wasn't given a chance to audition for the part. Limbo is a scummy type, but Giamatti makes him delightfully unlikable. This movie may not have stood the test of time, but like many of Paul Giamatti's performances, his work as Limbo does.

You can levy a lot of criticisms at the work of Michael Bay, but one area that he's undeniably very good in is casting character actors to fill out the ensembles of his action fantasias. Bay is clearly a fan of the Coens, considering the repeated presence of John Turturro and Frances McDormand in his "Transformers" series. But if that's not enough proof, consider another reliable presence in some of Bay's 90s-era films: the always enjoyable and squirrelly Steve Buscemi. A year after co-starring as a Hannibal Lecter-esque convict in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced "Con Air," Buscemi was one of the oil-rig workers-turned-astronauts in the splashy 1998 sci-fi epic "Armageddon." Though Buscemi's one of the good guys this time, as the geologist Rockhound, he's also saddled with a truly ridiculous subplot. (And considering that this movie is about oil-rig drillers destroying an asteroid ... it's saying something that this is a ridiculous subplot.) Specifically, once up out of the Earth's atmosphere, Rockhound suffers from space dementia while the rest of his crew is trying to save the world from annihilation. But plot twist aside, Buscemi does an excellent job of both playing the role as written while sneaking in just enough self-awareness to make the silliness less painfully obnoxious than has sometimes been the case with Bay and his character-actor performers.

It's a happy accident that a few of the people on this list appear in the aforementioned 1996 film "Twister," even though just one of those actors is going to be on this ranking specifically for their work in that film. Lois Smith does make a mark in "Twister," but that's not why she's on this ranking. The longtime stage and screen actor makes an indelible impression in just one very powerful and unnerving scene in Steven Spielberg's excellent sci-fi noir "Minority Report." Led by Tom Cruise, "Minority Report" is a Philip K. Dick adaptation set in 2049, in which something called "precrime" exists. It's a system in which three precogs (AKA three men and women who can see into the near future) are able to inform Washington, D.C. police when a murder is going to happen so that they can prevent it. Once the squad leader, John Anderton (Cruise), is accused of an upcoming murder, he goes on the run to clear his name. As part of his hunt, he makes his way to the creator of precrime, Dr. Iris Hineman, in her arid greenhouse. The purpose of this conversation is to establish the meaning of the film's name, the idea that one of the precogs may disagree with the others, thus creating a "minority report" that John can use to prove his innocence. But what makes the scene standout is how the maternal Smith balances the mundane chore of working on her gardening with a disturbing intensity matched by her character's deep knowledge of precrime. It's rare that actors can stand toe to toe with Tom Cruise and come out the victor, but such was the case with Lois Smith here.

When he appeared as the villain in the 2000 adaptation of "Charlie's Angels," Sam Rockwell was not an unknown quantity as a film actor. The year before, he'd broken out in two very different roles: as a vicious prison inmate in "The Green Mile" and as a comically cowardly actor in the brilliant comedy "Galaxy Quest." (The latter film is a bit more low-budget than this one, but is also among the great comic performances of the last 25 years.) At first blush, Rockwell's performance as Eric Knox in "Charlie's Angels" seems much more in the latter vein, playing a nerdy software guru who gets emotionally and romantically close to one of the eponymous Angels before revealing his true colors as a man out for vengeance against Charlie himself. What people rightfully remember from Rockwell's performance here isn't the heel turn but his comedic and flamboyant style of performance, down to a brief dance he does after embracing his villainous side. One of the great things about Rockwell's acting style is that you never know what he's going to do, but that he throws his entire body into every performance, outlandish or not. Years before he would play the villainous flip side to Tony Stark, Rockwell established himself as a character actor to watch in major mainstream fare.

As noted above, it's rare that a character actor can go toe to toe with Tom Cruise and come out the victor. Lois Smith did it in "Minority Report," and Henry Czerny did it in the original "Mission: Impossible." Czerny's role in the 1996 action blockbuster is to play the company man chasing down our hero Ethan Hunt, who's been framed for the murder of his entire IMF team and is on the run to clear his name. But anyone who's watched the entirety of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise knows that Ethan Hunt runs up against company men often, from Laurence Fishburne in the third film to Russian cops in "Ghost Protocol." Only Czerny as Eugene Kittridge made enough of an impression that he not only returned for last year's "Dead Reckoning," but also received plenty of cheers from fans online when his casting was announced. Why? Aside from Czerny's dry and deadpan delivery throughout, it primarily comes down to his introductory scene, as Kittridge attempts to make nice with Ethan before revealing that he assumes Ethan is a deadly mole. Part of the energy of the scene comes from director Brian de Palma and his love of Dutch angles, but part of it also comes from the nervy back-and-forth energy between Cruise and Czerny. Yes, the scene ends with a cool explosion and Cruise running for his life, but before that, you get Czerny hissing out lines like, "You want to dance with the devil, that's fine with me. I just want to make sure you do it in Hell!" It's a hell of a scene, and a hell of a performance.

It's not really an exaggeration to acknowledge with shock how many well-known character actors popped up in "Twister," including Alan Ruck, Cary Elwes, and future director of "In the Bedroom" and "Little Children" Todd Field. But the cream of the crop has to be a young Philip Seymour Hoffman as the gregarious and wildly enthusiastic storm chaser Dusty. Hoffman was a year away from appearing in "Boogie Nights" and larger roles in films like "Almost Famous" and "Magnolia" were also further on the horizon. So, in "Twister," he's just a big ball of under-30 energy, embodying a level of inexplicable joy at the thought of the ever-present hurricanes in the middle stretch of America. When we see Dusty interacting with the soon-to-be-ex (Jami Gertz) of our male lead Bill Harding, you get the sense that she's mildly repulsed by his entire personality, but it's as charming now as it was back in 1996. It's worth noting that "Twisters" tries its best to replicate some of that energy with the "hillbillies with a YouTube channel" led by male lead Glen Powell, but none of the actors make quite the same mark Hoffman did. As dangerous as the storm-chasing crew is, Hoffman's live-wire performance is enough to make you almost understand what the appeal of putting yourself sometimes literally into the eye of a deadly storm can be.

Score another one for the cast of "Twister." Jeremy Davies was, thanks to his role in that film as well as his leading turn in the indie "Spanking the Monkey," not a totally unfamiliar presence in the summer of 1998. But many people were truly introduced to him as the shaky and guilt-ridden Corporal Upham in Steven Spielberg's excellent World War II epic "Saving Private Ryan." More than a quarter century later, we know the movie for its gripping opening sequence on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944, but Davies made a haunting impression based on how his character arc takes him from being an interpreter with no combat experience to a shell-shocked survivor of brutal attacks by the Nazis. Davies is one of a large ensemble, and it's not that anyone else does a poor job. But there are few scenes in Steven Spielberg's filmography as terrifying and disturbing as watching a terror-stricken Upham unable to save his fellow soldiers when they're brutalized and killed by the Nazis. Upham is eventually able to overcome his fear, but only after his leader Captain Miller is murdered. Davies could have made this a much more one-note or obnoxious role, but his distinctive speaking style and emotion-wrenched face made for a spellbinding piece of acting.

After this, there will be no more cast members from "Twister" on the ranking, so keep that in mind. Although Bill Paxton is more of a straightforward leading man in that 1996 film, he'd had plenty of supporting work in the previous 15 years in genre films, and often collaborating with the legendary James Cameron. That specific working relationship started with the 1984 sci-fi film "The Terminator," but Paxton made his first real mark with Cameron two years later. In the thrilling and intense sequel "Aliens," Paxton plays Private William Hudson, one of a number of soldiers sent to LV-426, the same exomoon where the dreaded xenomorph once terrorized Ellen Ripley and the crewmates of the Nostromo. 57 years later, LV-426 is home to a terraforming colony and ... well, also a lot of xenomorphs. Ripley and the soldiers try to fend them off, though it's Hudson who's among the most memorable grunts from the very start. You don't need much prodding to envision Paxton nearly crying, "Game over, man! Game over!" But his first big scene, wherein the android Bishop shows off its remarkable skills with a knife being stabbed in between each of Hudson's fingers without leaving a mark, is hilarious and scary to watch all in one. Paxton's career would continue to thrive in the years after "Aliens," but his work as Hudson showcased his depth beyond standard leading fare.

Although Bill Paxton plays one of the key roles in Ron Howard's best film, "Apollo 13," and although the 1995 true-life drama is knee-deep in character actors, it's Gary Sinise who stands out most of all. As Ken Mattingly, Sinise has to play the one astronaut who doesn't get the chance he always dreamed of. Even before the Apollo 13 spacecraft has a debilitating malfunction that means its crew can't land on the moon and must desperately attempt to get home safely, Mattingly's heart is broken when he's exposed to German measles and ordered to stay home. While this means that Mattingly doesn't have the same life-or-death situation that Jim Lovell and the others on Apollo 13 must experience, he can't help but pitch in at Mission Control, working alongside Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) and many other NASA engineers to try and figure out the best and safest way for the astronauts to return home. Sinise had an incredible run of supporting performances in the 1990s, appearing films like "Forrest Gump" and "Ransom," but his stolid performance as the frustrated Mattingly, who ends up playing such a crucial, vital role in bringing his old crewmates home, is one of the reasons why this movie has become such a hallmark of Dad Movie cinema.

What you need from a movie like "The Matrix" is what the original "Star Wars" offered in Han Solo: just a dash of healthy skepticism. "Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?" is one way in which that skepticism rears its head in the form of Cypher, portrayed by consummate character actor Joe Pantoliano. There's plenty to be said about his entire career, with small but unforgettable work in everything from "Risky Business" to "Midnight Run" to "The Fugitive." But Pantoliano's work as Cypher in "The Matrix" not only serves a storytelling purpose, as his character becomes a Judas of sorts and betrays his fellow freedom fighters to Agent Smith. He also embodies the wisecracking, dubious role that a scofflaw like Han Solo served in the story of Luke Skywalker. It's easy to take the red pill and accept everything Morpheus tells Neo, but it's not unreasonable to take a brief step back and acknowledge how ridiculous it all sounds in hindsight. Pantoliano's career was at its height in the 1990s and early 2000s; just a year after this, he and his fellow "Matrix" co-star Carrie-Anne Moss would appear in Christopher Nolan's earth-shaking "Memento." Although the "Matrix" sequels have their impassioned fans, it's arguably the work of Pantoliano that helps make the original film seem a little lighter and less ponderous.