39. Laurence Olivier as Richard III 
      Richard III (1955)

Olivier’s murderous royal is the most audaciously modern of his filmed Shakespeare incarnations. From the visual (Richard’s hilariously razor-sharp nose, Olivier’s interaction with sets that are only slightly less artificial than the paintings in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty) to the actorly (Richard’s asides to the audience are delivered in the tone of a very posh, very sinister music-hall master of ceremonies), this is a performance that glories in the synthetic, and actually gains emotional power as a result.

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