Something else I was thinking about while I couldn't sleep last night:
Ten Favorite Screen Performances
1. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung - In The Mood for Love (2000)
3. Warren Oates - Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
4. Ben Gazzara - Husbands (1970)
5. James Gandolfini - The Sopranos (1999)
6. Juliette Binoche - Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)
7. Delphine Seyrig - Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
8. Isaac De Bankole - Ne Fear, No Die (1990)
9. Julianne Moore - Safe (1995)
10. Vincent Gallo - Buffalo '66 (1998)
All from very interesting actors, if not all the ones most would jump to for having given traditionally essential top 10-esque performances, aside from possibly my top picks. Also happy that only one of the represented films would fall within my top 10, though obviously they're all films I have great adoration for as well. Also surprisingly few Asian performances perhaps, but I could have easily included any of a dozen other Tony Leung roles, or Lee Kang-sheng from Vive L'Amour, Banlop Lomnoi in Tropical Malady, Leslie Cheung in Days of Being Wild, any number of Setsuko Hara's turns in Ozu films, Tadanobu Asano in Last Life in the Universe, one of many Beat Kitano performances, Chang Chen in Three Times etc.
Some others that are right up there would be Q'orianka Kilcher in The New World (actually probably does deserve to be on the list), Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks, Homayoun Ershadi in Taste of Cherry, Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York, probably so many more it was extremely hard to narrow this down.