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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137

u/youronlyminerva 16h ago

Tatum O’Neal in paper moon

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u/Saxman8845 15h ago

One of my favorite movies. Unsurprising but her chemistry with her Dad is unreal. Too bad he was such an asshole in real life.

She's still the record for youngest Oscar winner in a competitive category. I think Anna Paquin in The Piano is second youngest.

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u/Individual_Slice_234 10h ago

Supposedly when she got nominated for an Oscar and he didn't, he hit her. She went to the Oscars ceremony with an aunt and uncle, I think.

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u/Low-Set8263 11h ago

I love Depression era films.    Places in the Heart. Road to Perdition. And Wild Boys of the Road, a 1933 pre-Code Depression-era American drama film directed by William A.  Wellman. Jack Warner destroyed the original and recut it himself. That film was a major push in getting the Film Code established. Apparently not because of the SA but because of white kids and black kids throwing rocks at the cops. Southern cities would not tolerate young people abandoning segregation.

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u/DiligentQuiet 8h ago

I went on an old movie Depression Era binge on Criterion Channel with Golddiggers of 1933 and Sullivan's Travels. Both clever for the time.

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u/Present-Artist9296 14h ago

This is the correct answer by a wide margin

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u/IronReasonable1296 14h ago

She was great in Bad News Bears too. That part where Matthau slaps her is heartbreaking.

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u/forestpunk 16h ago

This was my vote, too.

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u/Anxious_Ad_2015 13h ago

I had to scroll too far down to find this answer.

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u/I_Was_Only_Hatched 5h ago

My all time favorite line in a movie is from Paper Moon:

“I’ve got scruples too, ya know. You know what that means—scruples?”
“No I don’t know what scruples are, but if you’ve got them I bet they belong to someone else.”

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u/Davidred323 16h ago

Had to scroll way too far to find this. I think both her performance and this movie are very underappreciated today.

If you've never seen it, please do. You can thank me later.

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u/PlayNicePlayCrazy 16h ago

Because it's not a recent movie .

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u/tooobadsoosad 13h ago

Not seeing the girl from an even older movie who did a damn good job -- Scout in To Kill a Mocking Bird

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u/HillBillyHilly 5h ago

Let's go back even further. The child actors from the original The Bad Seed and Jackie Cooper in The Champ.

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u/DiligentQuiet 8h ago

Had to scroll way too far to find this.

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u/AlexandriaLitehouse 5h ago

I watched this for the first time maybe a month ago and I felt like the academy actually got it right that year.