Best/Worst: Child Actors
Few things can kill one’s affection for a film quicker than a horrible child actor. Having children in films is a hard thing to pull off and more often than not it just simply doesn’t work. And when you hate the kid in a film it’s exceedingly hard to like the film as a whole.
Therefore, I present to you the Best / Worst child actors in cinema history (of course limited to films I’ve seen).
Just to clarify: I love children, just not that way.
The Worst
5. Madeline Carroll, Will Shadley & Alina Foley as Farren, Ian & Nora in The Spy Next Door (Age 14, 11 & 7)
The Spy Next Door is one of the absolute worst mainstream films of the last few years and as family films of that irk are want to do it included a bunch of terrible, annoying kids. These three collectively personify the clichéd horrible movie kid perfectly. While they might not be as fantastically awful as later entries on the list, they’re still gut wrenchingly bad.
4. Lacey Chabert as Penny Robinson in Lost in Space (Age 16)
She was a video blogger before YouTube even existed. Despite the gap in years she was just as annoying as today’s internet “stars”. Her shrieking voice doing nothing to make her the least bit likable, wearing you down to the point that you desperately want the film’s terribly CGI-ed monkey space creature to turn on her and murder the little brat. She did go on to make up for it though.
3. Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Age 10)
About as charming and likable as a wet piece of plywood slathered in anti-charisma cream. I’d say more but I might break my keyboard out of nerd-rage.
2. Mike Weinberg as Kevin McAllister in Home Alone 4 (Age 9)
There’s probably not a series out there with such a polarized set of child actors (more on that later). While Home Alone 3‘s main protagonist was only annoying, this kid takes it all the way up to eleven. You actively want the burglars to get their hands on him so the could beat the bad out of him. To rub even more salt in the wound, he’s supposed to be playing Kevin from the first two films. Thankfully, judging from young Mr. Weinberg’s IMDb profile he has seemingly retired from acting.
1. Noah Ringer in The Last Airbender (Age 13)
What is there left to say about this film and Ringer’s so-called “performance”? It’s more wooden than most forests and grates the nerves of the viewer so effectively it could be classified as a weaponized suicide inducer. The zenith of awful child acting and the nadir of good acting. That along with getting the audience to loath every single character is an achievement in and of itself on the part of Mr. Shamalyan.
The Best
5. Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (Age 14)
Stare into those eyes for just one second and tell me that you aren’t terrified. Now add projectile vomit, satanic dialog, a 360 degree head spin and pleas for a priest to violate her to the mix. To this day it remains horrifying and disgusting, a testament to the performance. Poor Linda wasn’t even allowed to see the finished film for years. Maybe that was for the best.
4. Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense (Age 11)
After The Sixth Sense Osment career skyrocketed (and quickly plummeted , but that’s not important) and rightly so. He completely sells you on the emotional and psychological turbulence that Cole goes through in film. He’s a scared kid and you better believe it. Osment is pretty much the antithesis of Noah Ringer, which brings up the question: Was Shamalyan ever good?
3. Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McAllister in Home Alone (Age 10)
Home Alone is a modern-day classic, a thoroughly enjoyable film. A staple of Holiday film viewing that holds up. Now imagine that with Home Alone 4′s Mike Weinberg in the role of Kevin? With that in mind it’s obvious that the reason the film works is Culkin. He dominates the screen-time and pulls off a great performance. His comedic timing is spot-on, complimented by great delivery. He’s resourceful, clever and above all, likable.
2. Carrie Henn as Newt in Aliens (Age 10)
One of the key elements to Ripley character development in Aliens is this little girl, Newt, played by young Ms. Henn. She’s clearly a badass as she survived for days alone in the base camp on LV-426, a place overrun by Xenomorphs that have no problem with slicing and dicing battled hardened space marines. There’s a primal innocence to her but what really makes the performance is her stone cold dead pan delivery of morbid dialog. She infuses the lines with dread and horror, and a pinch of humor as well, that not many fully grown adults can do effectively. For that, she gets her seat in the upper echelon of child acting.
1. Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard in Super 8 (Age 13)
Super 8 is a fantastic love letter to the Spielberg films of old, films that almost always included children so it’s appropriate that it features some of the best example of the fabled child actor phenomenon. While the entire cast is very strong (it would’ve been easy to fill the Best part of the list with them), one performance stands out. Elle shows that she’s a superior actress to her sister, Dakota, with a compelling and scene stealing turn. Her confession to the film’s main protagonist is so raw and emotional that it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. She’s simply pitch perfect, a paragon of child acting and the standard by which all other children must be judged.
Dishonorable Mentions: Alex D. Linz (Home Alone 3), Noah Ringer (Cowboys & Aliens), Hayden Christensen (Star Wars Episode II & III)(He whined like a little child, that’s for sure) and many many more (most of whom have had they’re names and faces mentally blocked).
Honorable Mentions: Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass), Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Saoirse Ronan (Hanna), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Dakota Fanning (Man on Fire) and the Cast of Stand By Me.
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In Lacey Chabert’s defense, the character was pretty much a throw-in, and was only there for the sake of continuity with the series. Her writing is what sucked, not her performance. Had they made the planned sequels, she probably would’ve gotten a fairer shake. She has sufficient cred from Po5 and Mean Girls to negate criticism of her talents… at least up until that point. Can’t say she’s done a day’s work since those and maybe The Lost if it hadn’t been destroyed by the retarded ending.
Jake Lloyd did pretty darn good with the onion he was handed. Actually, he acted a little TOO mature, except that living a hard life as a slave on a desert planet kinda makes you grow up quick, so really, he was pretty much spot on. Try not to judge an actor by the flop surrounding him/her.
Macauley Culkin, OTOH, seemed very wooden and artificial to me. Haven’t seen him in anything else, so I don’t know if that’s just how he is or if that was the character. Reminded me of Bill Paxton in almost everything he’s been in. The guy just can’t show emotion unless an alien is about to eat him.
Haley was top notch, I’ll give you that. And I think Hayden got his character right: whiney bitches ARE annoying and you WANT to strangle them. Again, don’t damn someone just because of a single movie. If we did that, they’d all be out of a job. (And in SOME people’s cases, even 20 tries wouldn’t be enough to judge their acting talents properly :cough: Lacey Chabert :cough:.) WE care about their ability to act, not their ability to pick a script, and THEY care about their ability to pick a source of income, which I believe all of them did correctly (enough).
The rest, I haven’t wasted my time/money on, so I’ll defer to your judgment.
Well, the whole point of the article is an assessment of a single performance being either great or horrible.
Good list, though I would question Macauley Culkin’s place on the list, when Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass), Lina Leandersson (Let The Right One In) and, probably the best child performance I’ve seen, Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth). None the less, I completely agree with everything else
I agree with your best list, but Jake Lloyd wasn’t THAT bad. Home Alone 4 was horrible and so was that kid.
[...] Best / Worst: Child Actors (filmophilia.com) [...]
[...] It waves its main character in front of us as to say: “Look, look! He’s so quirky and interesting. Look!” Oskar is simply a terrible protagonist. He’s a million different traits without a character. He’s possibly the most uninteresting and annoying central character in a mainstream film in years. Seeing his face and hearing his voice quickly becomes a grating experience. To the film’s even further detriment it relies heavily on his narration. The script also never decides whether or not Oskar has full-blown Aspergers or if he’s just really quirky. This refusal to commit is perhaps the main impediment in the formation of any emotional connection. That and Thomas Horn‘s acting. While not so bad as to earn a place on the worst child actors list he’s still several galaxies away from orbiting the best. [...]
Explain to me how Dakota Fanning is better in Man on Fire than she is in I Am Sam?
In fact, that’s the only glaring omission I can see from this list because I thought her performance actually made that movie and set the bar too high for what’s been a pretty underwhelming career considering the Hype.
Personally, I think that was the best performance by a child, especially considering she’s acting with a legend who like Sean Penn who also happens to be acting like a child.
I haven’t really liked her very much since, but that performance was pitch perfect to me.
Just my two cents.