5 Favorite Daniel Day-Lewis Performances

I usually do this when a beloved actor/actress that I have admired has passed on. But, in a shocking twist of events, a spokesperson has said that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to be retiring from acting following his movie called Phantom Thread coming out on Christmas Day this year. He is collaborating with director Paul Thomas Anderson in this 1950s fashion era film, which sounds a bit odd but we'll see because they have worked on There Will Be Blood, which was undoubtedly one of the best movies of the 2000s.

It is unfortunate because he is one of the best actors of our generation. But, given how private he is and how dedicated to his craft in picking the best projects between 2-5 years, I understand his decision. He deserves to maintain his privacy and to be happy with his wife and three children. So, in recognizing his work, I want to look at 5 of my favorite performances in his resume amongst his great performances.

My Left Foot

This is the first performance that garnered him the Oscar actually in an upset against a couple of favorites. But, it is not an upset in my mind as he gave a fantastic performance as a person who is suffering from cerebral palsy who becomes a writer and artist in the Irish family drama from director Jim Sheridan.

The Last of the Mohicans

I believe that his performance is one of his most underrated ones. He plays an adopted white Mohican who was raised by the chief played by Russell Means and his son, Uncas, played by Eric Schweig. The romance between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe is the driving force of the movie amongst the French-Indian War. It is corny at parts but it is helped by Trevor Jones' great score.

Gangs of New York

The movie is not as great as his excellent performance as the villainous Bill the Butcher who is fierce and menacing as he is goes mano-a-mano against Leonardo DiCaprio's character in this Martin Scorsese epic. He goes from charming and discipline-filled to a man filled with inner range that boils into his bones. It is a revenge story that has a predictable but great arc but the movie gears into another notch because of Day-Lewis' performance.

There Will Be Blood

This movie was one of the top highlights in the pantheon of filmmaking in the 2000s as director Paul Thomas Anderson's magnum opus of narrative drive along with one of the best male performances ever. It is about a man who is on a quest for wealth during the oil boom in Southern California. This man seizes the opportunity to get started in the business, adopt's a dead man worker's son and sells himself as a "family man" to grasp the opportunity and become rich and become a reclusive, greedy man who has everything but has lost his soul in the end.

Lincoln

Even by looking at the poster, you can see that the actor is gone. He is Abraham Lincoln, a beloved president. It is one of Steven Spielberg's best movies in a long time which combines the politics, the war, the history and surprisingly the comedy of Tony Kushner's screenplay to create a remarkable drama of a portrait of a man who wants to have the 13th Amemdment passed and to end the Civil War during his final months of his life. It is truly a great performance that earned him the 3rd Oscar, which made him the first actor ever to receive 3 Best Actor trophies.

Honorable mentions:

In the Name of the Father

The Age of Innocence

The Boxer

Here are some clips:

The Last of the Mohicans - I Will Find You!