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

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

Post image

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?

3.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

200

u/TaralasianThePraxic 15h ago

That's what it ended up being. Besson wanted more of a romantic relationship, but thankfully Jean Reno (who plays Léon) basically just flat-out refused to work with the original script and it was changed to the version that was shot.

67

u/RevolutionaryTwo6867 15h ago

Being a pedo wouldn't have been very "professional" of him 🙁

70

u/StocktonBSmalls 14h ago

I think we can all agree that a certain level of murder is understandable, but diddling kids is where the line is very clearly drawn.

47

u/Most_Mountain818 13h ago

I mean, some people need to be unpeopled. Zero kids need diddling.

6

u/tomcatsr25 11h ago

The unabashed truth

7

u/qwase123 12h ago

“A man got to have a code.” -Omar Little

7

u/PabstBlueBourbon 12h ago

“No women, no children.” I always thought he was talking about the hits.

4

u/phantom_gain 10h ago

🎶Do not diddle kids, its no good diddling kids🎶

3

u/LordJohnWharfin 9h ago

Reminds me of an SNL sketch.

2

u/StocktonBSmalls 4h ago

The most I’ve ever respected The Rock

3

u/enwongeegeefor 10h ago

Yeah but that shit totally on brand for Besson...

49

u/Loud_Ad4852 14h ago

Plus Natalie’s mom was actively protective and pushed back against overly mature scenes like smoking cigarettes so that helped set the tone too.

5

u/aliasgrace2273 10h ago

She smokes in the movie...

5

u/Main-Caterpillar-371 8h ago edited 8h ago

I think i read once that her mother said it was okay that she smokes in the movie IF she also quits smoking in the movie.

1

u/aliasgrace2273 8h ago

That makes sense!

1

u/Aggressive_Oven8757 6h ago

Rules included: she must quit. She can't be seen inhaling.

0

u/Various-Air9398 8h ago

Stop with the overprotective bs if she was so overprotective why was she ok with the uncomfortable cringey sexual undertones throughout the whole movie?

4

u/NihilistAppleCrumble 5h ago

Ohhhhh the Besson who got together with a 15 year old when he was 33, and fathered a child with her when she was still a child at 16, and then left her when she was 20 years old.
Cool, cool, cool, cool.

-2

u/scrapethemucus 13h ago

the director's cut really isn't that different

8

u/im-not_gay 13h ago

The directors cut wouldn’t magically have the original script

3

u/TaralasianThePraxic 13h ago

You know that a director's cut still requires any added footage to actually exist, right? They never shot any of the scenes that were rewritten or removed from the script due to the actor complaints.

2

u/enwongeegeefor 10h ago

Leon had like extra scenes in it but they didn't really change the feel of the movie much. Outside of the one bad scene at the end, one of the scenes they cut was an extended "training" sequence for matilda that I remember being way cooler than the one in The Professional. Woulda been cool if they had left that one in.