Top 25 performances from a comic book movie or TV show
18. James McAvoy as Professor X
Appears in: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix
It’s a challenge to get inside the mind of a character who can get inside people’s minds. James McAvoy had a level of comfort playing a young version of this X-Men icon. He’s particularly good at developing the relationships between Charles Xaviar and other members of his team, particularly those who will go to be his Professor X’s enemies. The fallout between Charles, Erik (Magneto) and Raven (Mystique) is hugely important to making these movies a success, and we feel it mostly because McAvoy is so good at playing this basically decent man who’s willing to put himself in harm’s way even for people with whom he has deep disagreements, and even if he suffers because of it. That’s the spirit McAvoy brings to this character.
His performance in Days of Future Past is particularly riveting. As an alcoholic, powerless, and destitute version of Charles, McAvoy shows us a side of the character we hadn’t seen before, although we still see the core of who Charles is beneath those layers of self-pity. His journey to become the man of hope we know him to be is what makes that movie so compelling. The scene where he sits with his older self is one of the best scenes from any superhero movie to date.
17. Wesley Snipes as Blade
Appears in: Blade, Blade 2, Blade: Trinity
Marvel didn’t really have any successful movies before Blade. The MCU may not exist if it weren’t for the wacky, blood-soaked nightmare fuel that was the Blade trilogy proving that people would go see movies about lesser-known superheroes. The trilogy also showed that a Black superhero could draw crowds to theaters long before Black Panther hit the screen.
Snipes may not say much as the titular vampire slayer, but he doesn’t need to. He plays every wise crack, smug look, violent outburst, and moral dilemma in perfection, helping set the tone for how superheroes will act in many movies to come.
Snipes’ Blade is charming, but he’s also a lonely creature who’s isolated from the human beings he’s chosen to protect from monsters. Snipes takes both of these sides of the character and brings them together, giving us an anti-hero to remember.
