Picking the Decade’s Best Directors, Performances

By now, most of America’s film critics have weighed the 1980s and sorted out the 10 films they considered the decade’s best. But how about the best director and the best performances?

The Times’ Sheila Benson, Peter Rainer, Kevin Thomas and Michael Wilmington have submitted their five favorites in the four acting categories and their choices of the five best-directed movies of the decade.

Best Actor

Sheila Benson: Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull”); Daniel Day-Lewis (“My Left Foot”); Burt Lancaster (“Atlantic City”); Jeremy Irons (“Dead Ringers”); Robert Duvall (“Tender Mercies”).

Peter Rainer: Albert Finney (“Shoot the Moon”); Bob Hoskins (“Mona Lisa”); Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull”); Dustin Hoffman (“Tootsie”); Steve Martin (“All of Me”).

Kevin Thomas: Burt Lancaster (“Atlantic City”); Klaus Maria Brandauer (“Mephisto”); Erland Josephson (“The Sacrifice”); Yves Montand (“Jean de Florette”/”Manon of the Spring”); Max von Sydow (“Pelle the Conqueror”).

Michael Wilmington: Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull”); Bob Hoskins (“Mona Lisa”); Robin Williams (“Moscow on the Hudson”); Gerard Depardieu (“The Return of Martin Guerre”); Jack Nicholson (“The Witches of Eastwick”).

Best Actress

Benson: Meryl Streep (“A Cry in the Dark”); Sally Kirkland (“Anna”); Jacqueline Bisset (“Under the Volcano”); Sandrine Bonnaire (“Vagabond”); Andie MacDowell (“sex, lies, and videotape”).

Rainer: Vanessa Redgrave (“The Bostonians”); Judy Davis (“High Tide”); Marilia Pera (“Pixote”); Irene Papas (“Erendira”); Diane Keaton (“Shoot the Moon”).

Thomas: Glenda Jackson (“Stevie”); Meryl Streep (“Sophie’s Choice”); Sally Kirkland (“Anna”); Carmen Maura (“Law of Desire”); Stephane Audran (“Babette’s Feast”).

Wilmington: Gena Rowlands (“Love Streams”); Meryl Streep (“Silkwood”); Maggie Smith (“The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn”); Katharine Hepburn (“On Golden Pond”); Sabine Azema (“A Sunday in the Country”).

Best Supporting Actor

Benson: Morgan Freeman (“Street Smart”); James Mason (“The Shooting Party”); John Lithgow (“The World According to Garp”); John Heard (“Cutter’s Way”); Dennis Hopper (“Blue Velvet”).

Rainer: Morgan Freeman (“Street Smart”); Jason Robards (“Melvin and Howard”); Mickey Rourke (“Diner”); Dennis Hopper (“Blue Velvet”); Ray Liotta (“Something Wild”).

Thomas: Sean Penn (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”); Morgan Freeman (“Street Smart”); Martin Landau (“Crimes and Misdemeanors”); Martin Landau (“Tucker”); Alec Guinness (“Little Dorrit”).

Wilmington: Morgan Freeman (“Street Smart”); Dennis Hopper (“Blue Velvet”); John Heard (“Cutter’s Way”); James Earl Jones (“Matewan”); Raul Julia (“Tempest”).

Best Supporting Actress

Benson: Anjelica Huston (“Enemies, a Love Story”); Lisa Eichhorn (“Cutter’s Way”); Linda Hunt (“Waiting for the Moon”); Cathy Moriarty (“Raging Bull”); Diane Wiest (“Hannah and Her Sisters”).

Rainer: Linda Hunt (“The Year of Living Dangerously”); Peggy Ashcroft (“A Passage to India”); Coral Browne (“Dreamchild”); Anjelica Huston (“The Dead”); Cher (“Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”).

Thomas: Barbara Hershey (“Hannah and Her Sisters”); Kate Reid (“Atlantic City”); Marilia Pera (“Pixote”); Billie Whitelaw (“The Dressmaker”); Joan Greenwood (“Little Dorrit”).

Wilmington: Meg Ryan (“Promised Land”); Peggy Ashcroft (“A Passage to India”); Angela Lansbury (“The Company of Wolves”); Ellen Barkin (“Diner”); Anjelica Huston (“Prizzi’s Honor”).

Best Director

Benson: Martin Scorsese (“Raging Bull”); Woody Allen (“Hannah and Her Sisters”); Philip Kaufman (“The Right Stuff”); John Huston (“The Dead”); David Lynch (“Blue Velvet”).

Rainer: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (“The Night of the Shooting Stars”); David Lynch (“Blue Velvet”); Kon Ichikawa (“The Makioka Sisters”); Satyajit Ray (“Home and the World”); Fred Schepisi (“The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith”).

Thomas: Claude Lanzmann (“Shoah”); Andrei Tarkovsky (“The Sacrifice”); Woody Allen (“Crimes and Misdemeanors”); Spike Lee (“Do the Right Thing”), R. W. Fassbinder (“Berlin Alexanderplatz”).

Wilmington: Ingmar Bergman (“Fanny and Alexander”); Akira Kurosawa (“Ran”); Andrei Tarkovsky (“Stalker”); Robert Bresson (“The Devil”); Martin Scorsese (“Raging Bull”).