From young kid in Donnie Darko to old, scarred but hard-hitting bouncer in the trashy Road House... Gyllenhaal has grown up in the film world and here are his top five performances
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(5) Enemy (2013)
In Denis Villeneuve's stylish thriller, Jake plays dual roles as both Adam and Anthony, two people whose appearance is almost identical but who differ markedly in personality. Here, Jake succeeds in the best of ways to offer two interpretations that, without tropes or overacting, differ enough for us in the audience to distinguish them but not so much that either feels flat or unbelievable. There is subtlety in his acting here that works wonders for both characters.
(4) Brokeback Mountain (2005)
He has told us afterwards that everyone, including his agent and manager, advised him against accepting the role of Jack Twist in Ang Lee's remarkable drama, but almost 20 years later we know with great certainty that it was of course a heavenly luck that he refused to listen. Because here, of course, Jake is brilliant. Gyllenhaal portrays Jack as an initially cheerful, curious, bouncy and idealistic young man who slowly-but-surely grows into the person he condemned as a young man. Anger, regret and disappointment fill his broken heart in a performance that still enchants after all these years.
(3) Donnie Darko (2001)
Playing a sleep-deprived teenager with no ambition, who wants nothing more than to revolt - while large parts of life collapse shortly after an aeroplane engine crashes into the house where you live, is of course easier than mixing that interpretation with a hypnotised, murderous young man who is asked to carry out various acts of violence via a ghost in a rabbit costume in this remarkable classic. Gyllenhaal's performance in Donnie Darko will forever be one of those breakthrough roles that we remember with joy and fascination.
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(2) Prisoners (2013)
There is an inherent darkness inside the detective Loki in Denis Villeneuve's magical, dark thriller, and much of this has to do with Jake's acting. He brings his character to life by initially trying to subdue and stifle a desire to pursue truth and justice by causing perpetrators the same pain that their victims have been forced to endure - only to succumb to these primitive emotions. Loki is a side character in a story about a father desperately searching for his kidnapped daughter, but despite great acting from the likes of Hugh Jackman, it is still Loki that I am most curious about long after the credits have rolled.
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JAKE GYLLENHAAL'S BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE:
(1) Nightcrawler (2014)
There's something slightly absurd, almost maddening, about the fact that Gyllenhaal didn't win an Oscar for his role as Louis Bloom in Dan Gilroy's magically intense, dark and deeply fascinating character study in which Jake takes on the role of a manic freelance photographer. On the neon-lit nights of Los Angeles, he shoots fatalities as if they were real estate ads, literally walking over corpses to get the shot, with a conviction and intensity that's as watchable today as it was ten years ago. Jake is really furiously good in this role, which he also slimmed down considerably for, and he should obviously have won the Golden Boy for this role.