20. Auli’i Cravalho
It’s rare, if not unheard of, for a star to be created through a voice performance on its own, but Auli’i Cravalho looks to have shattered that particular rule. The Hawaii native was just 14 when she was cast in the title role of Disney’s “Moana,” apparently having been the last person to audition, and her delightful vocal turn — witty, vulnerable, fiery, funny, belting out the great song “How Far I’ll Go” like a Broadway veteran — is a big reason that the film turned out to be the best Disney Animation since the early 90s. A killer performance at the Oscars (unflappable in the face of dancers trying to hit her with flags) proved that she was more than just a voice artist, and she’ll soon be making her proper live-action debut on “Fame”-esque TV drama “Rise,” one of NBC’s big hopes for the fall.
19. James Laxton
There are already a lot of slots filled on this list by alumnus of Barry Jenkins‘ wonderful Best Picture winner “Moonlight,” but one area we couldn’t ignore is the contribution by Oscar-nominated cinematographer James Laxton. That’s in part because the dreamily gorgeous photography therein is an integral part of what makes “Moonlight” such a stunning and immersive cinematic experience, but also partly down to surprise: We’re not sure we’d have believed you if you’d told us a year ago we’d be swooning over the work of a DP whose previous biggest titles were Kevin Smith movies “Yoga Hosers” and “Tusk,” with indies like “Camp X-Ray” and “For a Good Time Call” rounding out his well-populated CV. But one achingly beautiful film and an Academy Award nomination later, and Laxton has shot to the top of our must-watch cinematographers, and with love story “Anything” as well as at least one epsiode of Alan Ball‘s Holly Hunter-starring TV drama “Here, Now” upcoming, we won’t have too long to wait to see more.
18. Lena Waithe
Hands-down winner of the “Most Surprising IMDB profile” award for this list has to be Lena Waithe. Best known and beloved as Denise, the lesbian friend of Dev (Aziz Ansari) in “Master of None,” the actor is also a writer, working on forensic procedural “Bones,” as well as a co-creator credit on the web series “Hello Cupid.” Unexpected as all that might be, Waithe’s irregular, laconic and offbeat energy as Denise really broke through in the second season of “Master of None,” and in particular with season highlight “Thanksgiving,” which makes a lot of sense when you realize that Waithe also wrote that episode. Focusing in a lighthearted and immensely relatable way on Denise’s struggles with her family over her sexuality across multiple Thanksgivings, it’s the kind of “bottle episode” that can be hard to pull off, but one that ultimately enriches one of the show’s supporting characters in a thoroughly satisfying manner. To boot, Waithe also produced the critically acclaimed Justin Simien film “Dear White People” and has written upcoming TV project “The Chi,” the pilot for which will be directed by Rick Famuyiwa (“Dope“), while her acting talents will get their widest exposure yet when she appears in Steven Spielberg‘s “Ready Player One.” World domination awaits.
17. Sabaah Folayan
In the next four years, as events in Charlotteville once again reminded us at the weekend, documentary film is going to become ever more vital and in need of protection, and no non-fiction film this year feels more vital than documentary “Whose Streets?” from first-time directors Sabbah Folayan (with co-director Damon Davis). Coming from a background in activism as well as in theater, Folayan was an organizer at the Ferguson protests as well as documenting, and her film does a great job at balancing activism with journalism, displaying different perspectives and voices while still making clear when injustices are being done. Few voices to emerge this year feel as important.
16. Brian Tyree Henry
We have to say, we were so convinced by Brian Tyree Henry’s spectacularly good performance as rapper Paper Boi on “Atlanta” that we assumed he was some local Atlanta hip-hop star picked out for the show. In fact, Henry is a stage actor of some repute (he was in the original Broadway production of “Book of Mormon”), who’s rightfully exploded since Donald Glover’s show debuted last fall. Henry’s also cropped up on the small screen in HBO’s “Vice Principals” and with an Emmy-nominated guest turn with real life best pal Sterling K. Brown on “This Is Us.’ But he’ll be even busier on the big screen in 2018: he’ll reteam with Brown in Drew Pearce’s actioner “Hotel Artemis” also starring Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista and Jeff Goldblum, he’s in “White Boy Rick” with Matthew McConaughey, he stepped in when Andre Holland dropped out of Steve McQueen’s “Widows,” and he’ll voice the dad of Miles Morales in the animated “Spider-Man” movie. All that plus “Atlanta” season 2.
15. Kumail Nanjiani & Emily Gordon
If the rom-com has been dead on the big screen for a while (and that’s debatable, but plenty of think pieces have declared it so), then we have Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon to thank for its resurrection, and all it took was for them to put their own love story on screen. Their movie “The Big Sick” (which Nanjiani also stars in, with Zoe Kazan as the Gordon surrogate) recreates their cross-cultural courtship, their break up, and Kumail’s vigil when Emily was put into a coma by a life-threatening infection, and it’s been a deserved smash hit. Nodding to the rom-com greats but with an utterly specific perspective, and a generosity to every one of its characters (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano doing terrific work), it looks to be headed for awards buzz, launching Nanjiani into a legit leading man career, and the partnership as surely one of the most hotly-sought after comedy writing teams around.
14. Trevante Rhodes
Picking a favorite performance in “Moonlight” is a tough task — almost every different viewing could pick out a different turn, from Ashton Sanders’ quiet, utterly sensitive young Chiron to Naomie Harris’ mighty, decade-spanning take on his mother. But perhaps more than anything, we come back to the final section, and the gorgeous two-hander between previous On The Riser Andre Holland and the wait-where-did-they-find-this-guy breakout Trevante Rhodes. The 27-year-old hadn’t done all that much of note beforehand beyond a Tyler Perry TV series, but the shy ache of his performance as ‘Black’ in Barry Jenkins’ film (and his utterly endearing hand-to-the-heart reaction to the film’s Best Picture surprise) has instantly put him on the top of casting lists. And we’ll start to see him everywhere in 2018: first in Afghanistan war movie “Horse Soldiers” with Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon and Michael Pena, then in Shane Black’s “The Predator.”
13. Sarah Violet-Bliss & Charles Rogers
You get the sense that even its network, TBS, didn’t have particularly high hopes for “Search Party” — they dropped all ten episodes of the show over Thanksgiving weekend last weekend. But perhaps because they’re secret geniuses, the show took off regardless, winning rave reviews and a cult audience, and putting creators Sarah Violet-Bliss and Charles Rogers on everyone’s to-watch list. It looked from a distance like another “Girls”/“Broad City” type millennials-in-Brooklyn show (probably not helped because Violet-Bliss was a classmate and contemporary of Lena Dunham), but its mix of genuinely compelling mystery and unusually incisive satire ensured it stood apart, and between its sheer confidence and the quality of its execution, and the quality of their SXSW-prize-winning feature debut “Fort Bliss,” suggests that the duo are, to borrow a phrase, if not the voice of their generation, than a voice of a generation.
12. Issa Rae
Issa Rae isn’t the first person to achieve stardom through a web series — the “Broad City” duo went that route too — but she might well become the biggest. Rae, who was born in L.A. but grew up in Maryland, broke through thanks to “Awkward Black Girl,” a show that debuted in 2011 and racked up 20 million views over its run, bringing her to the attention of HBO. “Insecure” had a long gestation period, but its made up for lost time, its second season debuting this summer barely nine months after the first. And while it risked being lost in the mix first time around, the show’s now pulling bigger ratings than “Girls,” and winning more and more fans ever week. Partly that’s because of the smart-as-hell writing, but partly it’s because of how compelling Rae is as a performer: she’s got one of the great faces on TV right now, capable of both Lucille Ball-ish comedy and immense vulnerability. The movies are calling too: she’ll star with Bill Hader in the upcoming “Empress Of Serenity.”
11. Chloe Zhao
Winner of the top prize in this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Chinese director Chloe Zhao had already made something of a splash with her 2015 feature debut, Sundance premiere “Songs My Brother Taught Me.” Like ‘Songs,’ her sophomore title, “The Rider” takes place on a Native American reservation in which Zhao cunningly and artfully re-imagines the precepts of the Western to deliver a shimmering, elegiac, yet breathtakingly modern slant on this most classical (and classically masculine) of genres. It’s only been two films, but it’s rare to see a new director come along with such a refined sense of her own unique perspective on both society and cinematic history, with Zhao retaining a sense of an outsider’s perspective on the cultural iconography of her adoptive homeland. That perspective, as a non-American woman seems to give her extra clarity in drawing her unforgettable characters and laying bare the neuroses, frailties and historical injustices that underlie any vision of the American West.