27. Marlon Brando as Paul
      Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Already renowned as the greatest practitioner of the Method, for Tango Brando took Stanislavski’s ideas to their logical extreme, mining his memories, feelings, even biographical details to put what was, essentially, a broken version of himself up on the screen. Or did he? In one key scene, he breaks his character’s own rule by revealing intimate details of his past to his anonymous lover, then, laughing, reneges on them. In another, confronting the body of his wife, a suicide, he spews grief and rage and anguish so toxic, and seemingly so real, that we almost can’t bear to watch. So which is it: An actor exorcising his demons for the world to see, or cinema’s most elaborate fakeout? Wouldn’t we like to know.

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