Wednesday
Jun202012
What's Your Number One Nicole?
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 at 4:50PM .
.JA from MNPP here, daring to tackle one of Nathaniel's sacred cows on her 45th birthday - the lovely and not at all cow-like yet entirely sacred, the very very talented Nicole Kidman. Earlier today I was reading through this fine list by the fine folks at The Playlist of what they deem her five greatest performances (all lists will be null and void once she pees on Zac Efron) and they're all choices that are pretty darn hard to argue with (my own personal favorite is easily To Die For)... and yet, yet! I still feel nagged at by the absence of Alice in Eyes Wide Shut...
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... and Grace in The Others...
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...and what the heck about Satine?!?!?
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But then this is Kidman, and the riches run very deep.
So what's your favorite Nicole Kidman performance?
Quick, just one!
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tagged Birthday, Nicole Kidman
Birthday, Nicole Kidman
Reader Comments (77)
"Just Go With It"
kidding..
Moulin Rouge!
Bith and To Die For :)
I think her performance in The Paperboy will enter in my top 5 for sure.
Rabbit Hole! Great (and underrated) movie too.
Moulin Rouge. Done. How could you presume to make a list of Nicole Kidman performances and not include the Sparkling Diamond? Inconceivable!
Rabbit Hole
followed by To Die For and Eyes Wide Shut. But really, I've never seen a performance of hers I didn't like/love. Maybe I've just seen the right movies, but even in movies I didn't like (Bewitched) I liked her.
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, is my favorite Kidman movie, but picking a single performance from her filmography, my choice is Margot from Margot at the Wedding. She plays the ultimate super bitch without character redemption, yet for you root and feel for her anyway.
Rabbit Hole...she blew me away and deserved that Oscar...but I have a soft spot for Far and Away...her most successful comedic performance.
The Hours... it may be more the character than the performance itself that appeals me... but, man, was she great as VW!! I could see the last minute of the movie with the closing of the 3 women's days and Nicole's monologue as she walks into the river over and over and OVER again! Brilliant!
Kidman as Grace in Dogville
A very close runner up is as Anna in Birth
"The Others" followed by Rabbit Hole and Eyes Wide Shut..
Birth. Easily.
But Margot, Satine, Rabbit Hole, Grace and Virginia aren't far behind.
Rabbit Hole for sure. She so deserved the Oscar.
The Portrait of a Lady. She unpacks the layers of emotions in a stunning way.
"Quick, just one!"
Hahaha...you're funny.
Birth, Moulin Rouge!, The Others, Dogville and To Die For are at the top of my list, but I've never not enjoyed her work.
I go with Alice in Eyes Wide Shut. I LOVE that movie.
Oh man that gif... To Die For brings back nostalgia of being a teenager and being acutely aware of such things for the first time.
Anyway best performance, I go with Birth.
01. RABBITT HOLE
02. TO DIE FOR
03. THE HOURS
04. THE OTHERS
05. MOULIN ROUGE
06. EYES WIDE SHUT
07. DOGVILLE
08. BIRTH
09. MARGOT AND THE WEDDING
10. PORTRAIT OF A LADY
To Die For. I'm not a fan of Kidman, but that role was wonderful and she was perfect in it.
1. Birth
Followed by.....
2. To Die For
3. Rabbit Hole
4. Moulin Rouge!
5. Margot at the Wedding
6. Dogville
Moulin Rouge! No question! Possibly my favorite performance of all time.
But their list is solid otherwise. I really need to see The Portrait of a Lady. Seeing all the responses in this thread makes me smile.
Nathaniel's right though - if she'll be peeing on Efron, all bets are off.
1. Dogville
2. The Hours
3. Eyes Wide Shut
4. To Die For
5. Birth
Rabbit Hole would be mine for sure, though it's hard as hell to pick just one.
Obviously Moulin Rouge (my favourite movie) and The Hours (possibly my second favourite movie?)
Moulin Rouge is my default answer for most questions so i have no problem stating that as my number one.
I'll go with Birth (the opera scene), Dogville (the ending), The Golden Compass (the "don't fuck with me" gaze at the dinner scene), Rabbit Hole (pretty much the whole movie) and To Die For (plotting to kill her husband) as the runners up.
Birth for sure followed by Dogville and Rabbit Hole...and then Moulin Rouge and the Others...we cannot forget To Die For and Margot at the wedding as some of the great acting works...Ops...How could I forget The Hours - her oscar winning performance...and then Eyes Wide Shut and the incredible monologue...Damn it...There so also interesting things in the her work in The Golden Compass and Nine (not great movies in fact) also of course their first well known movie Dead Calm!!! Oh..and then there is Charlotte Bless in The paperboy...We haven't seen this one yet...but I got the felling it will be just amazing.
Moulin Rouge... always.
Bar none Birth. (Or Trespass -- it's so hard to choose!)
How come noboby mentions the masterpiece that is Cold Mountain? I kid, I kid.
I love Nicole Kidman. My favorite performance of hers is in The Others, followed closely by To Die For and Rabbit Hole. Moulin Rouge and Dogville close my top-5.
I'm one of the few (sigh) who thinks she was third best in The Hours...
Birth, probably. It's such an insanely difficult role, and she pulls it off superbly. But really, just one?
To Die For
It's a toss-up between To Die For and Rabbit Hole .. She has made a lot of poor choices in her movies... I am not sure her upcoming movie(s) are going to change that factor .. The Paperboy looks pretty raunchy and overdone to me...??
Just one!?! Impossible! This is KIDMAN. But, if I had to pick a single moment, I have to go with the opera scene from Birth. Few things compare. Even then you still have the breakdown in Rabbit Hole, "Sparkling Diamonds" in Moulin Rouge!, the hummel scene in Dogville, "this house is ours" in The Others, just being damn sexy in Eyes Wide Shut, I could go on all day! Happy Birthday Ms. Kidman! May you stay forever a bold and fearless creature.
This will not be the popular opinion but I loved her in Cold Mountain. I also loved her bitchness of the awful remake of Stepford Wives, but you said pick just one so I have to go with...
Margot at the Wedding.
1) Practical Magic
2) The Others
3) Moulin Rouge
I like Practical Magic because she's wicked, fun, and sexy, and so on top of it, and perfect in it. I like seeing her sense of humor.
Hey! I'll stick up for Kidman in Cold Mountain. I enjoyed her performance as Ada, and I think the film overall is often completely trashed when it really only has a handful of flaws. No need to throw the baby out with Zellweger.
Gah! Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes her in Cold Mountain!
The Others is tops for me, followed by Birth and Dogville. Still need to see Rabbit Hole. That makes me a bad John Cameron Mitchell fan and a bad Nicole Kidman fan.
I must hug JA virtual-wise for doing this post on a very rough day in which i haven't been near a computer. LOVE NICOLE KIDMAN. LOVE THE POST. Love "MOULIN ROUGE!" most of all. but really "just one" is an impossibility.
Rabbit Hole followed by To Die For. The Hours comes in a distant third. Rabbit Hole was a profound film with an outstanding performance by Kidman.
I'd have to say To Die For, followed closely by Birth and The Others. And I'll join in on the bandwagon and say that I loved Cold Mountain and thought she was great in it. Even in slightly low-brow fair(Trespass, Stepford Wives, The Invasion) she's very good to great.
Margot at the Wedding is, I think, her best performance. Not many like that movie, though.
Jesus, I've never had to single out my favorite Kidman performance before. Moulin Rouge! is unquestionably her best film in my eyes, but is it her best performance? Perhaps. But maybe Rabbit Hole or Birth? But then there's Dogville and Eyes Wide Shut. I CAN'T CHOOSE.
Birth is my favorite. And for an A-lister, it's amazing to see that she hardly has a "repeat"/similar characters.
There are quite a few I haven't seen, but of the ones I've seen, it's between Moulin Rouge and Rabbit Hole for me. Moulin Rouge might be a little biased since it's my favorite film, so I might give the edge to her performance in Rabbit Hole.
Portrait of a Lady and Golden Compass. The Others. I first saw her in flirting when it came out. I haven't loved everything, but these four have been good because of the other strong players who were more interested in telling the story rather than showing us their chops.
Not even peeking at the other votes - Virginia Woolf in "The Hours" .
It's hard to pick one, but if I had to, I'll have to go with To Die For. It's the ultimate Kidman performance. She was spectacular. (Dogville, Birth, Far and Away, MOULIN ROUGE!, and of course The Hours are great too!!!!)
Okay, shoot me. I don't care for Nicole Kidman's acting. I think she is the most overrated acrtess working today. And don't even get me started on how she robbed Julianne Moore in '02.
Did someone really just cite her work in "Far and Away?"
God, just going through her body of work and filmography is insane! She has done so much... all varied.
The Stepford Wives!
"Rabbit Hole" with "Margot at the Wedding" a close second. I'm actually surprised how much love it's gotten on here. I love it, but I've always thought of the film as VERY underrated.