Here are 10 performances that gave me great joy or moved me deeply—or both—in the last year. Every one is a tribute to what actors, at their best, can do—and a reason to keep going to the movies, one of the best ways to feel connected to other humans in an often inhumane world.

She doesn't merely do a serviceable job for a mainstream horror movie - she commits fully to the script's intense demands and delivers a performance that, in a just world, would be courting awards buzz tight now.