Rebecca Hallis one of the most dependable artists working in film who consistently delivers exceptional work. As a performer, she is always taking chances on challenging material and delivers performances brimming with interior life. Seemingly every year, she is the lead of an independent movie not a lot of people see and delivers work that should beOscarworthy every single time out. Then this past year, she even stepped behind the camera for the first time withPassing, the story about two light skinned Black women in 1920s New York, where she has earned nominations from the BAFTAs and Director’s Guild for her directorial debut.
While she has been on the awards press circuit for that film, she also headlined the psychological horror filmResurrection, one of the best movies to premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It is another bold, challenging film with a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination. Despite Hall being such an accomplished actor, she has rarely been recognized by any major awards bodies for her work. No Oscar nominations, not even an Independent Spirit Award nomination (except for as part of an ensemble, one time). Well, let’s give her the proper respect she deserves by counting down her top seven performances of all time.
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7. Rebecca Epstein inStarter for 10(2006)
As of late, Rebecca Hall works on a lot of heavy material, particularly in horror. She is often traveling to the darkest recesses of her mind. Her first film performance, however, was as a charming romantic interest forJames McAvoyin the coming of age dramedyStarter for 10. As a film,Starter for 10is not much to write home about. It’s charming in fits and starts, McAvoy convincingly plays a nerdy bookworm despite being one of the most beautiful people alive, and the casting director deserves a lot of credit. Not only does the film star McAvoy and Hall, but it also featuresAlice Eve,Dominic Cooper,Benedict Cumberbatch,Charles Dance,Lindsay Duncan,Catherine Tate, andJames Corden. Not too shabby. But Rebecca Hall, playing a politically active leftie university student has such an immediate presence that screams, “Movie star!” the second she appears on the screen. Had she decided to go down this more lighthearted path in her career, she would have undoubtedly succeeded, and hopefully, she will return to this mode again because of how deftly she handles being a rom-com leading lady.
6. Vicky inVicky Cristina Barcelona(2008)
Look, there’s just no getting around this one. Yes,Vicky Cristina Barcelonais directed byWoody Allen. you’re able to condemn him all you want, but a ton of decent people put in great work to make this film. It isn’t just his movie. One of those people is Rebecca Hall, playing the titular Vicky. In almost every Woody Allen film, there is a character who is the Allen stand-in, a neurotic person trying to understand the world around them and how they fit into it. Often this part is played by Allen, but when it isn’t, it can go so wrong, so fast, creating a totally insufferable character. Rebecca Hall not only plays the comic neurosis perfectly but adds her own warmth and humanity to the part rarely found in any of the other Allen surrogates.Penélope Cruzwas the standout performance when the film was released, winning her first Academy Award for it. That win was well deserved, but as time goes on, it is Rebecca Hall’s Vicky that truly makes the film sing.
5. Rebecca inPlease Give(2010)
Rebecca Hall is one of our most underappreciated actors, andNicole Holofceneris one of our most underappreciated filmmakers. Each of her works are so precisely observed in their commentaries about privilege and the guilt it comes with, andPlease Givebreaks that open more than anyone. Rebecca Hall, playing another character named Rebecca, stars as a mammography technologist who is taking care of her ailing grandmother (Ann Morgan Guilbert). Rebecca stands in contrast to Kate (Catherine Keener), with Rebecca being the actually giving, empathetic person that Kate wants to be. Instead, Kate makes a living buying the furniture of dead people and selling them at a higher price. Not only does Hall play the dignity of someone trying to do good to others beautifully, but she also expertly taps into the resentment that comes with the constant burden of being the reliable one.Please Giveis a proper ensemble film, and her energy meshes perfectly with everyone else’s. It may not seem like an obviously complicated or challenging performance, but it takes so much skill to pull a character like this off.
4. Sarah Borden inThe Prestige(2006)
Starter for 10may have been Rebecca Hall’s first film, but her true breakout was getting a juicy supporting role inChristopher Nolan’s magician dramaThe Prestige. In a movie filled to the brim with gigantic stars, fromHugh JackmantoDavid Bowie, Rebecca Hall comes in, essentially as an unknown, and absolutely wrecks you with so little actual screen time. Her character has to represent the hope for a life beyond this petty battle between magicians and show the ultimate consequence for when you choose to avoid that hope. Christopher Nolan uses the trope of a dead wife in a number of his films, but never has one of those characters come close to creating the same impact as inThe Prestige. The writing may be a little better here, but most of that humanity and tragedy comes directly from Rebecca Hall.
3. Beth inThe Night House(2021)
The Night Houseoriginally premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was held from release until August 2021, unfortunately opening during the height of the Delta variant. It managed to make a few million dollars, but it went incredibly under seen. I was the only person in my theater when I saw it opening day. Had enough people actually gotten their eyes onThe Night House, people would be heralding Rebecca Hall’s performance as one of the great horror film performances of the last decade, with the likes ofToni ColletteinHereditaryandLupita Nyong’oinUs.The Night Houseis a portrayal of grief and depression so palpable that it makes your stomach ache. Watching Hall’s spiral further and further down into trying to understand why her husband committed suicide and why she also feels some ideation to do so herself is terrifying and utterly electric. As it is so under seen, spoiling some set pieces and scares would be malpractice, but keep in mind, this is not a fun, bump in the night haunting movie. This is a movie designed to make you psychologically queasy. It does feature one of the best jump scares in years, though.
2. Elizabeth Holloway Marston inProfessor Marston and the Wonder Women(2017)
Even with the pandemic,The Night House’s box office performance looks like a runaway compared withProfessor Marston and the Wonder Women. This film had a legendarily terrible box office run, with an opening weekend on over 1,200 screens that took in only a hair over $700 thousand. They may have thought that riding the coattails of the mammothWonder Womanwould be beneficial, and it most certainly was not. This telling of the life of husband and wife professors (Luke Evansand Rebecca Hall) and their polyamorous relationship with a student (Bella Heathcote) is an absolutely fascinating, forward-thinking biopic that deserved a much better release strategy. Obviously, the titular Professor Marston being the creator of the Wonder Woman character is what gets this film made, but it is the relationship, one of the few mainstream portrayals of polyamory and bondage, that makes this a compelling watch. Hall has tremendous chemistry with both Evans and Heathcote, and she perfectly plays a woman who is brilliant and knows it, yet the patriarchal society she lives in won’t make room for her. DirectorAngela Robinsoncrafted a film that, in many ways, has the look and feel of a traditional biopic, but its subjects are anything but. This is another unsung gem waiting to be dug up.
1. Christine Chubbuck inChristine(2016)
You know when you see a performance in a film, and you walk out of the theater thinking, “Well, if that person doesn’t win an Oscar, somebody made a huge mistake.” This was how I felt walking out ofChristineat Sundance 2016. Rebecca Hall playsChristine Chubbuck, a real life local news reporter in Florida in the 1970s who shot herself during a live broadcast. It is a tragic story that directorAntonio Campospresents with the utmost care. Rebecca Hall completely transforms into this woman without falling into so many biopic trappings. Just from the way Hall’s Christine sits in a chair, we see the weight of depression, stress, anxiety, and loneliness piled on top of her. She lets us empathize with her without shifting that to pity. She also has a way of interacting with people that let us see how they are truly hurting her, while in their minds are trying to be supportive.Christinewas distributed by The Orchard, which just did not have the proper infrastructure to mount a full-fledged awards campaign. This should have been a runaway Oscar win, but instead, people like me have to stand on rooftops to scream how you should see this movie. It is not just Rebecca Hall’s best performance, but it is one of the five best performances of the 2010s.
Had it been released,Resurrectionwould have landed fairly high on this list. She truly is one of the finest actors working today, and in a time when she has begun to make her own movies, here’s hoping she still continues to deliver tour de force performance after tour de force performance between those directing credits.
