5. Barry Keoghan
For the next short while, Irish actor Barry Keoghan is going to be best known as **SPOILER** “the young guy who dies on Mark Rylance‘s boat” **SPOILER ENDS** in Christopher Nolan‘s “Dunkirk.” But once his starring role in Yorgos Lanthimos‘ terrifyingly chilly “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” is revealed to the world, the image of him as a noble, doomed naif caught up in the gears of WWII, may well evaporate forever. Keoghan’s turn in ‘Sacred Deer’ is not simply revelatory for the actor, it’s the pivot on which the whole film hinges, and amongst the reliably brilliant cast led by Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell (the Greek Lanthimos clearly has an odd affinity for Irish actors) Keoghan doesn’t just hold his own as the unknowably malevolent teenager threatening the central “perfect” family, he convincingly terrorizes them. He’s been around a while, with a small role in Yann Demange‘s terrific “‘71” and a 6-episode arc on Irish TV touchpoint “Love/Hate” among his credits, but 2017 is going to the year his truculent talents blow up, and by the time Irish famine epic “Black 47” rolls around he’ll no longer be a well-kept secret.
4. Tiffany Haddish
It’s been a little while since someone exploded thanks to a supporting role in a big hit comedy, but Tiffany Haddish made up for that this summer: her movie-stealing role in “Girls Trip” instantly made her a force of nature in the comedy world, and she’s likely to be launched to a similar trajectory as Steve Carell did after “Anchorman” or Melissa McCarthy after “Bridesmaids.” Haddish began her career as a stand-up, with a few guest appearances on TV shows before landing a starring role on Tyler Perry’s OWN network soap “If Loving You Is Wrong” (the same show that Trevante Rhodes got his first break on). But she left after the first season to star on the excellent, though now sadly-cancelled “The Carmichael Show,” and nearly stole “Keanu” away from Key & Peele before her outrageous, gut-busting turn as Dina in “Girls Trip” made her an instant icon. She’ll star in the fall with Tracy Morgan in TBS sitcom “The Last O.G,” but being on TV shows didn’t hurt McCarthy or Carell’s movie stardom: bet your bottom dollar that studio executives are scrambling to find a vehicle for her.
3. Timothee Chalamet
The completely magnetic and entirely endearing turn by Timothee Chalamet in Luca Guadagnino‘s gorgeous, sun dappled young-gay-love story “Call Me By Your Name” is such a revelation that it sort of feels like you haven’t seen the actor before. But of course you have, whether during his 8-episode arc on “Homeland,” as the young version of Casey Affleck in “Interstellar” or in the pivotal role of Billy in Julia Hart’s excellent “Miss Stevens,” though the last is unlikely as that film was sadly underseen. Whatever the case, “Call Me By Your Name” is every inch the breakout for him, and he’s truly a marvel. As the callow young man falling for Armie Hammer‘s visiting grad student (and with Hammer at his tanned, athletic, rudely clean-cut best, who wouldn’t?), he is the magnetic north toward which the film points at all times. His progress through all the unsureness and glory of hesitant first love is made of pure, aching empathy, and though he has a host of high-profile titles lined up to come, in Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles,” Felix Van Groeningen’s “Beautiful Boy” and Woody Allen‘s next project, it’s hard to believe he will ever possibly top this one for sheer, supernova impact.
2. Janelle Monáe
Unlike most of the people on this list (though curiously, something that she shares with the person that pipped her to the number one slot), Janelle Monae has been, if not a household name, then a familiar face for a while, as a magnetic, Grammy-nominated singer who’s been putting out some of the most interesting soul/r’n’b around for nearly a decade. Aside from cameos in, uh, “Stargate Universe” and “Rio 2,” she’d never appeared on film, but she suddenly exploded last year with two very different Best Picture nominees. She shone as Teresa, the girlfriend of Mahershala Ali’s Juan, and surrogate mother figure to Chiron, in “Moonlight,” and was arguably even better as Mary in “Hidden Figures,” displaying def comic timing along with her luminous screen presence. And she looks to be in the acting game for the long haul: she’ll appear in an episode of Amazon’s “Black Mirror”-ish anthology series “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” with Juno Temple, and just joined the cast of Robert Zemeckis’ new movie, a remake of documentary “Marwencol” with Steve Carell.
1. Jordan Peele
When a well-known actor makes their directorial debut, we can’t help but feel a bit hesistant: we’ve sat through enough vanity projects to know that for every Clint Eastwood or George Clooney, there’s a dozen Ryan Goslings or Ewan McGregors. But given that his sketch show “Key & Peele” always seemed so steeped in cinephilia, it was a pretty safe bet than Jordan Peele would be one of the better ones. But few could have anticipated exactly how good his directorial debut “Get Out” would be, or how enormously successful it was. Flying low under the radar until a terrific trailer debuted last year, the film took a visually stylish, breathlessly tense approach to the low-budget horror-thriller, eliciting tremendous performances from its cast, and tapping into Trump-era anxieties in a way that resonated instantly. And boy did it resonate: it’s taken $250 million worldwide, literally 50 times its budget, and outgrossing the new “Pirates Of The Caribbean” and “Transformers” movies domestically. Peele had his pick of tentpoles to choose from, but turned down projects like “Akira” and “The Flash” to focus on making further ‘social thrillers’ for Universal, and its that more than anything, that he’s come to virtually create a genre all to himself and is so committed to it, that meant he was such a no-brainer for the number one slot this year.
As you might imagine, with just 50 on the list covering every form of filmmaking, there’s plenty of other people we could have included here. We’re going to keep the honorable mentions as brief as we can, but to name a few who were very close to the list, there’s “Wonderstruck” star Mililcent Simmons, Betty Gilpin, who stole the show in “GLOW” and “American Gods,” “Dear White People” lead Logan Browning, “Search Party” actor John Early, “Beach Rats” star Harris Dickinson, Garance Marillier from “Raw,” “Get Out” breakout Lil’ Rel Howery, Babou Ceesay from “Free Fire” and “Guerrilla,” Kelvin Harrison Jr of “It Comes At Night” and the upcoming “Mudbound,” and Hannah John-Kamen, who’s about to have a big 2018 with “Tomb Raider,” “Ready Player One” and “Ant-Man & The Wasp.”
Also on the actor side, we’d keep an eye out for BAFTA-winning “Big Sick” supporting player Addel Akthar, Zoey Deutch (who’s superb in the upcoming “Flower”), “Hunt For The Wilderpeople” breakout Julian Dennison, soon to head to “Deadpool 2,” “Dunkirk” lead Fionn Whitehead, Lily Gladstone from “Certain Women,” Florence Pugh from “Lady Macbeth,” the kids from the upcoming “It’ remake, “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr, who has a plum role in the upcoming “Murder On The Orient Express,” Gayle Rankin, who’s gone from “GLOW” to “The Meyerowitz Stories” to playing Ophelia to Oscar Isaac’s Hamlet on stage, William Jackson Harper from “Paterson” and “The Good Place,” Rachel Keller of “Fargo” and “Legion,” Akwafina from next year’s “Ocean’s 8,” Tony-winner Cynthia Erivo who’ll make her big-screen debut in Steve McQueen’s “Widows,” and “Get Down” DJ turned Aquaman villain Yayha Abdul-Mateen II.
One more batch of actors? Sure, why not. There’s also Laura Verlinden and young Fantine Harduin from Michael Haneke’s “Happy End,” “Jeune Femme” star Laetitia Dosch, Josh O’Connor of “God’s Own Country,” Hong Chau, who stole scenes in “Inherent Vice” and “Big Little Lies” and apparently has a big role in Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,” Roberta Colindrez from “I Love Dick,” Bria Vinaite from “The Florida Project,” Ana De Armas and Sylvia Hoeks who both have big parts in “Blade Runner 2049,” “Get Down” and “Patty Cake$” actor Mamoudou Athie, Taliah Webster from “Good Time,” Billy Howle from the upcoming “On Chesil Beach” and “The Seagull,” Naomi Scott who’s going from “Power Rangers” to Jasmine in Guy Ritchie’s “Aladdin,” “Moonlight” breakout Ashton Sanders, Callum Turner from “Tramps” and “Fantastic Beasts 2,” Virginie Efira who’ll star in Paul Verhoeven’s next film after teaming with him for “Elle,” and Amiah Miller, the mute kid in “War For The Planet Of The Apes.” And of course, about five dozen others.
And below-the-line, we considered people like “13th” and “Queen Sugar” DP Kira Kelly, “Menashe” director Joshua Z. Weinstein, “Kicks” helmer Justin Tipping, “Wonder Woman” DP Matthew Jensen, Darren Tiernan who’s shot “Westworld” and “American Gods,” “Novitiate” helmer Margaret Betts, “La La Land” and “Greatest Showman” songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “Edge Of Seventeen” director Kelly Fremon Craig,” “Insecure” helmer Melina Matsoukas, “My Entire High School…” director/animator Dash Shaw, Joshua James Richards, the DP of “God’s Own Country” and “The Rider,” “The Villainess” director Jung Byung-gil, “Fargo” and “Legion” composer Jeff Russo, and Matthew Orton, who’s writing both Oscar Isaac’s Nazi-hunting movie and Ridley Scott’s Battle Of Britain film.
Also keep an eye out for Ruben Impens, DP of “Raw” and the upcoming “Beautiful Boy,” Nanu Segal who shot “The Levelling,” Chris Urch who’s writing both the upcoming “McQueen” and Steve McQueen’s BBC TV series, “Roxanne Roxanne” and “Patti Cake$” DP Federico Cesca, Drew Daniels who shot “It Comes At Night,” Alexis Zabe who’s gone from Reygadas’ movies to “The Florida Project,” Isaac Adamson, the Black-List topping writer of Taika Waititi’s upcoming “Bubbles,” “71” and “White Boy Rick” DP Tat Ratcliffe (who given his close relationship with Yann Demange, might well be the guy shooting the next Bond movie…) , “Arrival” and “The Leftovers” composer Max Richter, “I Love Dick” showrunner Roberta Colindrez, and “American Made” writer Gary Spinelli.
And for one last grouping, let’s go for Lyle Vincent, who shot “The Bad Batch” and “Bushwick,” Rob Hardy, who’s gone from lensing “Ex Machina” to taking over from Robert Elswit on “Mission Impossible 6,” “Their Finest” screenwriter Gaby Chiappe, “The Lure” director Agnieszka Smoczynska, “The Void” helmers Steven Kostanski & Jeremy Gillespie,” “The Lost City Of Z” composer Christopher Spelman, “The Ghoul” director Gareth Tunley, “Patti Cakes” helmer Geremy Jasper, fellow Sundance breakouts Janicza Bravo and Justin Chon of “Lemon” and “Gook,” “Tragedy Girls” director Tyler MacIntyre, John Pollono, the writer of “Stronger,” “To The Bone” director Marti Noxon, Eric Pearson, writer of the upcoming “Thor: Ragnarok,” Geneva Robertson-Dworet who penned next year’s “Tomb Raider,” Christian Rivers who’s helming the Peter Jackson-produced “Mortal Engines,” “GLOW” creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, “Get Out” DP Toby Oliver, Jaron Presant who’s shooting the upcoming “Rampage,” “Force Majeure” and “The Square” DP Frederik Wenzel, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom who lensed “Uncle Boonmee” before doing this year’s “Call Me By Your Name,” electronica legend Matthew Herbert who’s now Sebastian Lelio’s composer on “A Fantastic Woman” and “Disobedience,” and Shay Hatten, who wrote “John Wick” spin-off “Ballerina” before he was out of his early 20s.
Anyone else? Seriously? *Throws hands up in the air* No, of course there’s more — shout out who you have your eyes on in the comments. – with Rodrigo Perez