Best performance by a kid

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

As Andy Townsends Tactics Truck points out in the St Vincent thread, young Jaeden Lieberher puts in quite a performance against Bill Murray.

Other good stuff by kids in film. (and I don't mean just sitting there being cute like the lad in Jerry Maguire).

Haley Joel Osment in The sixth sense (I'm sure there's at least one person here who will disagree. Probably because Bruce Willis is in it or something)

Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild

The obvious, Jodie Foster in Taxi driver

Jamie Bell as the lead in Billie Elliot

Another obvious, Christian Bale in Empire of the sun

I always liked Freddie Highmore who among other things was Charlie Bucket in the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the chocolate factory.


Henry Thomas as Elliott in ET should also be a given.

River Phoenix in Stand by me

and finally Salvatore Cascio as young Toto in Cinema Paradiso


Your turn

[Thierry Ennui]

Best performance by a kid

Justin Henry in Kramer vs. Kramer has always been a favourite of mine. Effortlessly naturalistic for someone so young, he manages to steal all of his scenes with Dustin Hoffman.

Aleksey Kravchenko in the Soviet WW2 film Come and See is brilliant. The expression of pure horror on his face for most of the film was harrowing when I saw it, and my expression was pretty similar by the end.

Aleksey was apparently really into his method-acting even at 14 - live bullets were often used in scenes, leading to him having "grey hair" upon his return to school.

[Giggler]

Best performance by a kid

The lad who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story, my favourite Christmas film. Caught what it was the be 11-years-old perfectly.

[Ginger Yellow]

Best performance by a kid

Let The Right One In.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Best performance by a kid

You've covered a fair few of them PPV, but of the ones that remain, I did think of Natalie Portman in Leon.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Best performance by a kid

Abigail Breslin does a good turn in little miss sunshine, especially when she dances to Rick James' superfreak in a wholly inappropriate manner.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Best performance by a kid

Jackie Coogan in, what else, The Kid

Also several kids from the Our Gang series, particularly "Spanky" McFarlane and "Alfalfa" Switzer.

Special mention to Haley Mills in Whistle Down the Wind.

[G-Man]

Best performance by a kid

and finally Salvatore Cascio as young Toto in Cinema Paradiso

Excellent call.

The kids in Once Upon A Time In America were very good as well.

Natalie Wood in Miracle On 34th Street.

[G-Man]

Best performance by a kid

And then there are all the kids on TV shows, but maybe that ought to be a different thread.

[Giggler]

Best performance by a kid

Amor de Cosmos wrote:
Special mention to Haley Mills in Whistle Down the Wind.

And her screen brother. "You rotten cows!" is a staple insult in our family.

[evilC]

Best performance by a kid

Does Aleksei Kravchenko in 'Come And See' count, or is he too old in that?

(edit: Ah, I see Thierry Ennui did mention it, above. Kudos!)

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If not, then Hunter Carson was pretty good in 'Paris, Texas', I feel.

[evilC]

Best performance by a kid

Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería in 'The Spirit Of The Beehive' - in particular the scene where they're in bed, talking to each other.

Haley Joel Osment in 'A.I.' springs to mind, too, although the knock against that performance will always be that he's only having to act like an android!

Jackie Coogan in 'The Kid'. (edit: As mentioned by Amor.)

[Come along, Min]

Best performance by a kid

Noah Wiseman in The Babadook. Extraordinary performance for a seven year old.

Looking at those Come And See photos, I'm getting flashbacks. Uggh

[Haddock]

Best performance by a kid

Not the best performance as such but the best moment featuring a kid. From Howard Hawks's Monkey Business. The ten seconds or so from here.
More of the same kid and his gang from the same film here

[Cal Alamein]

Best performance by a kid

The kids from the original Bad News Bears were superb.


Mike Baldwin was great in Kenny and Company and in Phantasm.

[Slightly Brown]

Best performance by a kid

The two lads in The Selfish Giant made what could have been a maudlin effort into something quite, quite brilliant.*

*although the writing and direction were also key in that.

[Slightly Brown]

Best performance by a kid

For the ensemble award (docs included), I'd go for one of Once Upon A Time in America, Être et Avoir, Bugsy Malone and The Goonies.

Notable mention: City of Men.

[Elvis Wilbury takes a turn]

Best performance by a kid

Wot, no Shirley Temple? America's sweetheart of the 30s.

Tatum O'Neil in Paper Moon was ace.

[Slightly Brown]

Best performance by a kid

Elvis Wilbury takes a turn wrote: Wot, no Shirley Temple? America's sweetheart of the 30s.

Tatum O'Neil in Paper Moon was ace.

No, no, no, no, no - we can't have Shirley Temple in this thread. She was appalling on very level I can think of. To be fair, I'm not thinking about too many, but she is still, decades later, the archetype of terrible kid performances.

Good shout on O'Neil, though.

The fantastically named Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild was also brilliant. ]

Charlie Highmore in Finding Neverland was also terrific, and elicited maximum boo-hoos with the closing scene on the bench.

[Beatle Simon]

Best performance by a kid

Mary Badham in "To Kill A Mockingbird"

[multipleman78]

Best performance by a kid

Brett Kelly as Thurman Merman in Bad Santa. Not as good as those mentioned above but since they were taking i am putting him forward.

My number 1 choice would be Henry Thomas in E.T.

[Fussbudget]

Best performance by a kid

The kids in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon are excellent, especially the pastor's children. Creepy as hell.

[MsD]

Best performance by a kid

The boys in Changeling were all very good.

[G-Man]

Best performance by a kid

Enzo Staiola in The Bicycle Thieves

[multipleman78]

Best performance by a kid

The wee boy's face in Terms of Endearment when he says goodbye to his dying mother is heartbreaking. It is so real looking that it seemed he really thought she was dying. I haven't seen the rest of the movie so i can't say it is a great performance but i thought that those couple of minutes were excellent.