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In cinema, it's always a risky bet when casting children in key roles. Pick incorrectly and it could derail the whole enterprise.
Find the right person, though – someone with the right blend of confidence, naivety and unselfconsciousness – and the results can be breathtaking.
This week sees Jacob Tremblay continue his run of impressive roles with Good Boys , which follows three sixth grade boys who ditch school and embark on an epic journey while carrying accidentally stolen drugs. Before that, he starred in the 2015 drama Room, giving a performance that was as deserving of an Oscar as his co-star Brie Larson , who took home Best Actress. And he’s still only 12.
In celebration, we've counted down the 18 most memorable performances by children in cinema. Click through the gallery below to see who made the cut.
Show all 18 1 /1818 best child performances in film history 18 best child performances in film history Christina Ricci in The Addams Family (1991) In the 27 years since she was transferred to the big screen via Christina Ricci, Wednesday Addams has become less a character and more a mood, a religion and a lifestyle. Ricci’s deadpan performance is so gloriously apathetic and mean that she comfortably steals the show from her adult co-stars, and deservedly had her role beefed up for the film’s sequel. (AW)
Columbia Pictures Corporation
18 best child performances in film history Saoirse Ronan in Atonement (2007) Since Atonement, Ronan has become one of the most accomplished actors of her generation. And it’s no surprise, given how convincingly she brought to life, at the age of 13, Ian McEwan’s precocious and stubborn protagonist Briony Tallis, whose misinterpretation of a romantic encounter between her sister and her childhood friend wreaks havoc in the lives of those around her. (EH)
Universal Pictures
18 best child performances in film history Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) Quvenzhané Wallis is proof that lying sometimes gets you places. As a five-year-old, the child star convinced her parents to let her fib about her age so that she could audition for Beasts of the Southern Wild – their minimum age was six. So impressed was director Benh Zeitlin by Wallis that he changed his entire script so that the character of Hushpuppy matched her stubborn personality. At the age of nine, she became the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscars history. (JS)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
18 best child performances in film history Aleksei Kravchenko in Come and See (1985) Horrific war film Come and See – which depicts Nazism through a child’s eyes – is a nightmarish but essential experience, if only to witness the performance of Aleksei Kravchenko. It would have been tough for an actor of any age to film the scenes asked of him by director Elem Klimov let alone a 14-year old one, but Kravchenko commits so nobly it’s hard to tear your eyes from the screen. He found the shoot so troubling that he reportedly developed grey hair. (JS)
Sovexport Film
18 best child performances in film history Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows (1959) Jean-Pierre Léaud was one of several hundred boys who François Truffaut auditioned for The 400 Blows and it’s easy to see why he won the role. In Truffaut, Léaud found a mentor – he took control of the 15-year-old's upbringing when shooting ended after he was expelled from school and kicked out of his carers’ home – and Léaud would return as the character five more times. (JS)
Cocinor
18 best child performances in film history Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (1990) Considering he starts Home Alone as an obnoxious “little jerk”, it’s a testament to Macaulay Culkin’s skill that Kevin McCallister manages to worm his way into viewers’ hearts . Culkin has insane amounts of fun ruling the roost when his family accidentally forget to bring him on their Christmas holiday, and it never fails to be a gleeful experience watching Kevin runs rings around bumbling burglars Harry (Daniel Stern) and Marv (Joe Pesci). (JS)
20th Century Fox
18 best child performances in film history Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Breslin became one of the youngest Oscar nominees of all time when she received a nod for Best Supporting Actress for her performance, aged 10, as Olive Hoover in the beloved 2006 road movie. She played an underdog youngster on a mission to win a beauty contest, accompanied by her quirky and dysfunctional family, with real wit and flair. (EH)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
18 best child performances in film history Alex Hibbert in Moonlight (2016) Giving a performance in perfect symmetry to the film around him, Alex Hibbert is one of a number of brilliantly subtle actors in Moonlight. Only on screen for the film’s first third, he mostly inhabits a quiet and devastating yearning, embodying a character buried under the emotional weight of playground bullying and constant domestic upheaval, and desperate for someone to show him compassion and answer his questions. If Hollywood has any sense, Moonlight will be just the first of many incredible opportunities for the young star. (AW)
A24
18 best child performances in film history Mara Wilson in Mrs Doubtfire (1993) Mara Wilson is one of those great child star success stories, immortalised in at least three classic movies while still in single-digits, retiring early, and now writing, podcasting and saying smart, funny things on Twitter. But while 1996’s Matilda is often talked about as her best work, she was somehow even more brilliant in Mrs Doubtfire three years earlier, where she is adorable and grouchy and seems to possess a beautifully sincere, if today bittersweet, joy over merely being in Robin Williams’s company. (AW)
20th Century Fox
18 best child performances in film history Isabelle Fuhrman in Orphan (2009) Isabelle Fuhrman is scarily convincing in her role as Esther, the sickly-sweet orphan girl turned murderous dwarf asylum escapee. The sexual and violent nature of some scenes may be uncomfortable to watch, but there is no denying Fuhrman executes them perfectly. (MH)
18 best child performances in film history Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon (1973) Tatum O’Neal was, and still is, the youngest person to ever win an Oscar for her role as the sassy, smoking, swindling tomboy Addie in Paper Moon. Addie may or may not be the daughter of con man Moses, who is reluctantly saddled with the youngster before realising she can help him with his scams. Moses is played by O’Neal’s real-life father Ryan O’Neal, and there’s just no faking that kind of chemistry. (AP)
Paramount/Rex
18 best child performances in film history Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) Lohan was just 12 when she played identical twins Annie and Hallie in the 1998 classic. While the sisters were of course impossible to distinguish by their looks, their personalities and backgrounds could hardly have been more different: one was a well-to-do Londoner, the other a boisterous American tomboy. The young star impressed audiences with her ability to switch effortlessly and convincingly between the two. (EH)
Rex Features
18 best child performances in film history Heather O’Rourke in Poltergeist (1982) Heather O’Rourke tragically died aged just 12 in 1988, but she will long be remembered as the ethereal blonde Carol Anne Freeling. Cast after a chance meeting with Steven Spielberg, she captivates the audience as a little girl who can communicate with “the other side” through the family television set. (MH)
18 best child performances in film history Jacob Tremblay in Room (2015) Egregiously overlooked for an Oscar in 2016, Jacob Tremblay's performance in Room will pull out heartstrings you never knew you had. As Jack, a long-haired five-year-old who has been imprisoned in a garden shed all his life and is oblivious to the outside world, he not only raises the film's cute quotient, but also brings surprising depth. His is a turn of great maturity, one that scratches away at the fact that Jack has never had any male interaction. Brie Larson, who plays his mum, did win an Oscar for her role here. (PS)
StudioCanal
18 best child performances in film history Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) Haley Joel Osment’s performance as Cole Sear, a young boy tormented by his ability to see and talk to the dead, is so strong that he remains the most memorable part of the M Night Shyamalan film, despite a career-best turn from Bruce Willis and one of the most effective twists in cinema history. (JS)
Buena Vista Pictures
18 best child performances in film history River Phoenix in Stand by Me (1986) One of the few comforts to cling onto when thinking of River Phoenix’s tragic death aged 23 is that he was at least able to showcase his vast acting range before he died. The actor, whose brother is Joaquin Phoenix, played everything from tortured teenagers to tough adventurers and street hustlers. But perhaps his finest work came early, in 1986’s Stand by Me, when he played a sensitive pre-teen who masks insecurity and self-loathing beneath a veneer of macho posturing. It’s a staggering bit of acting from someone so young. (AW)
Columbia Pictures
18 best child performances in film history Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit (2010) It’s probably not true to say that Hailee Steinfeld is the only person who could have pulled off the role of the fearless Mattie Ross in the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Charles Portis novel True Grit – but from the moment she arrives in Fort Smith with plans to hunt down her father’s killer, she makes you feel like she is. How she didn't win Best Supporting Actress at the 2011 Oscars will remain a mystery. (JS)
Paramount Pictures
18 best child performances in film history Heather Matarazzo in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) Generally speaking, children acting in Todd Solondz movies need to have nerves of steel and far more self-confidence than average youngsters. But it takes a child of unusual gutsiness to enact the horrors inflicted upon poor Dawn Wiener in his 1995 film Welcome to the Dollhouse. A yearning, eager loner played to perfection by Heather Matarazzo, Dawn is the recipient of a level of casual cruelty that would feel fetishistic if it weren't so tragically true to life. When she was killed off before the credits in Solondz’s 2004 film Palindromes, the collective mourning it inspired in his fanbase was only a result of how powerfully Matarazzo’s performance lingered. (AW)
Sony Pictures Classics
Good Boys is in cinemas now
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