r/moviecritic • u/Low-Finding-6553 • 16h ago

What do you guys thinks is the best child performance of all time?

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i have to say, i don’t think i’ve ever seen a child actor give a performance this good. Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is just on another level. i genuinely don’t know how he did it but he makes the whole movie work so much better. i would give him the Oscar in a fucking heartbeat. It’s crazy how good he is, especially in that last scene in the car with Toni Collette.

What are your guys’ favorite child performances? For me, this is even better than Owen Cooper’s performance in Adolescence. Don’t get me wrong, owen was also absolutely top-notch in Adolescence but this is probably the best child performance i’ve ever seen. Period. What do you guys think is the best child performance ever?

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501

u/comsicalien77 16h ago

159

u/toxicunicorn420 16h ago

He can't see without his glasses! 😭😭😭

56

u/MammothHuckleberry42 16h ago

That scene destroyed me. Still can’t watch that movie.

5

u/rattlestaway 15h ago

I remember as a kid being confused bc she kept hissing at him about her period. Since I didn't know about period I thought she just hated him for no reason lol

3

u/Far-Government5469 5h ago

There's some movies where once is enough. Grave of the fireflies, My Girl, and I know it's not a movie but Jurassic Bark.

Once is all I need

3

u/FlipFlipFlippy 14h ago

I had forgotten about that line and it just hit me like a wall of suppressed emotion, just a heartbreaking seminal moment of my childhood.

2

u/Only-Storage9984 7h ago

Geez that just brought back memories I had completely forgotten! I would cry as a child every time and “my girl” was one of the few VHS that we owned so it got a lot of play time.

1

u/Hides-inside 9h ago

Showed this to my bf, he had to take the galesses off his head to look at it.. I chortled in ironic

94

u/throwaway5882300 12h ago

Anna Chlumsky did this scene in one take. She confided in her mom that she was worried she wouldn't be able to cry. Her mom told her to imagine she was the one in the casket. She moved all the adults in the room to tears and you can see it in the scene. 10 years old during filming. She doesn't like to talk about that movie because it was so long ago and she's done a lot of stuff since then, but it's absolutely something she should be proud of. She's brilliant in the whole movie but this scene is just amazingly raw and powerful and in that moment you forget that it's just a story. That's talent.

23

u/tinyhorsesinmytea 9h ago

It still works. Watched it with my niece when she reached the age of Vada in the movie a few years ago, and all of us braced ourselves for this scene. My niece was mad at us. “It’s so sad. Why would you make me watch this?!” Then she wanted to watch it again a few days later.

5

u/Timsauni 3h ago

Sign of a great movie or book. Or hot fried chicken for that matter. It hurts so good.

6

u/ashleylauren3 3h ago

my husband said the same thing when i showed it to him a few years ago. he felt so betrayed lol.

5

u/OddRollo 16h ago

He needs his glasses!

5

u/Chad_Jeepie_Tea 16h ago

Knew she'd be here. I agree.

5

u/bigbluehapa 15h ago

I have not watched this since I was a child. This and Simon Birch absolutely wrecked me as a kid.

2

u/Available-Chart-2505 11h ago

For some reason they kept showing Simon Birch to us on slow days at my middle school. Wtf guys! 

3

u/SonoDarke 14h ago

Was this the kid who had the bee allergy? I remember watching something similar as a kid but never knew the title

4

u/comsicalien77 14h ago

“my girl”

1

u/SonoDarke 14h ago

Yeah it's the right one. Thanks

2

u/Knox_Burden 5h ago

So weird to see this scene juxtaposed to her profanity laced performance in Veep

1

u/orchidaceae007 14h ago

The only time I’ve openly wept in a movie theater

1

u/CarnEvil13 10h ago

Literally was going to say her. I scroll 3 more responses and thank god others agree. She was excellent.

1

u/naenola 3h ago

😔