Did you know a whippet was originally slated to play the alien in Alien 3? It’s true. At least in some scenes. They made a costume for it and everything. A whippet is a small sight hound. It looks like a cross between a Disney princess and a spaghetti noodle. I have two of them. To say they’re less ferocious than a Xenomorph is to radically understate the case. One of mine is named Lilybean, and that makes her sound tougher than she is. The greatest battle of her life is against pillows that aren’t soft enough. As far as I can see, a whippet and a Xenomorph have precisely five things in common:
- They enjoy inappropriately close contact with humans.
- But listening to or obeying humans? Not so much.
- They follow you from room to room in a skittering fashion.
- They eat things you wish they wouldn’t (whippets: the pumpkin bread you left on the table; Xenomorphs: the skin you left on your face).
- They view themselves as superior beings who may exploit you as they see fit, and are correct.
It didn’t work out with the movie. They got the whippet all dressed up in the alien costume, including the terrifying Olympic bike-helmet head, but when they made it walk anywhere, its little whippety trot was too cute. There’s footage of this; it’s conclusive. The audience would have wanted to pick the monster up and ask it who was the best alien in the whole wide world. The whippet had to go.
I’m thinking about this story because The Ringer is looking back at great film performances this week, and I’m wondering where animals fit into the project. The whippet in Alien 3 couldn’t conceal its essential nature, even in a latex exoskeleton. But can any animal really deliver a great movie performance, given that an animal doesn’t know what a movie is, or what performing is, or why all these people in headsets are running around behind the big lights, or why none of them are apparently aware that there’s a squirrel right over there?
To help answer this question, I’ve decided to revisit 10 of the standout animal performances of the 21st century. We’re going to look at dogs, horses, and goats, among other mammals (no fish made the list). We’re going to rate them in the categories of craft, screen presence, and emotional impact.
And don’t think I’ll go easy on any of these animals just because they’re animals. We’re evaluating art; we have standards to maintain. Please take this exercise seriously.
The Best Movie Performances of the Century
10. The Rabbit That Gets Stepped on by Emma Stone (The Favourite, 2018)
The role: It’s the early 1700s. The queen of England has 17 pet rabbits. They are sooooo cute, oh my God. The queen’s psychosexually manipulative servant/lover/frenemy, Abigail (Emma Stone), likes to step on the rabbits when the queen isn’t around. Just go with it. At the end of the movie, she steps on this rabbit, and it makes a pained little sound like: chreep.
Craft: With its timing, its breath control, the pacing of its blinks, and the perfectly pitched tone of its tiny squawk, this rabbit, though uncredited, pulls out all the stops to take the viewer to an uncomfortable place. An adherent of Method techniques, the bunny drew on its innate dislike of getting stomped in order to realistically portray “bunny unhappy about getting stomped.” 10/10
Screen presence: It’s hard to have much screen presence when most of your body is covered by a shoe. However, this rabbit’s natural magnetism, and also its ears, shone through. 5/5
Emotional impact: Emma Stone reportedly cried for an hour after pretending to step on the rabbit. Enough said. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
9. Daisy (John Wick, 2014)
The role: A retired assassin receives a beagle puppy as a gift from his wife, even though she’s dead. This is the most realistic thing that happens in this or any subsequent John Wick film. The puppy charms the assassin before being killed by some Russian mobsters, thereby precipitating the vengeance quest that drives the plot of the movie.
Craft: Daisy was played by a promising newcomer called Andy, who, at the age of just 12 weeks, beat out two dozen other puppies for the role. Despite his inexperience, Andy fully embodies Daisy’s complex, three-dimensional persona, combining cuteness, a love of cuddling Keanu Reeves, a love of scampering near Keanu Reeves, and a love of Keanu Reeves in general. A stunning performance. 10/10
Screen presence: Every 12-week-old puppy has incandescent screen presence. This is the entire premise of Instagram Reels. 5/5
Emotional impact: Look, John Wick doesn’t spawn an entire franchise if Daisy’s death doesn’t make the entire audience want to embark on a blood-soaked trail of vengeance. Just thinking about Daisy’s death makes me want to embark on one right now. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
8. War Horse (War Horse, 2011)
The role: World War I is raging across Europe. A horse has to go and do stuff in it, unfortunately.
Craft: Technically, the horse is named Joey in the film, but I’m sorry: If you’re the horse in a movie called War Horse, your name is War Horse. Life’s too short to memorize unnecessary horse names. The amazing thing about the War Horse character is that it was brought to life by no fewer than 14 different equine thespians—14! Animal performances are often collaborative endeavors, because even the greatest animal actors can only focus on their art for so long before they need to wander off and smell a cup someone left on the ground. Still, 14 is a ridiculous number of horses to play one part, and I honestly had no idea they weren’t all the same horse. Unbelievable ensemble work. 10/10
Screen presence: War Horse hearkens back to earlier classics about human-animal relationships, films such as Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar, which use the animal primarily as a lens through which to view human cruelty and kindness. So War Horse isn’t really intended to be charismatic. He’s an everyhorse. Still, he’s a horse. You have to admit that’s pretty cool. 5/5
Emotional impact: War Horse is not my favorite Steven Spielberg movie, but the horse is definitely the bright spot. Watching the horse endure the horrors of war was gut-wrenching. A horse could just stand there doing nothing and still have a pretty huge emotional impact. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
7. Zoonie, Berry, and Foofoo (Parasite, 2019)
The role: Three spoiled dogs live in a posh house with a rich family, where they enjoy more luxury than the poor humans conspiring to infiltrate the rich family’s life.
Craft: Characters as pampered as these could easily come across as unlikable, but this Oscar-winning South Korean drama’s trio of dog actors—Gamja, Mangchi, and Mungchi—locate a core of honesty in their portrayals that keeps them on the right side of the audience’s sympathy. When they eat kangaroo jerky, you really believe they like eating kangaroo jerky. 10/10
Screen presence: Their impact on the plot might be limited, but the dogs know how to own the camera. Sometimes, when they were on-screen, I’d forget to concentrate on Bong Joon-ho’s viciously incisive social satire. “That’s a dog!” I’d exclaim happily to myself. “Wow!” 5/5
Emotional impact: You can only hit the pitches they throw to you, and in fairness, Zoonie, Berry, and Foofoo don’t get a lot of emotionally meaty material to work with. However, they do get a lot of other meaty material to work with—mostly in the form of literal meat—and they attack it with gusto. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
6. Baxter (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, 2004)
The role: San Diego anchorman Ron Burgundy has a pet dog. He is a little gentleman.
Craft: Ask any veteran of the art and they’ll tell you: Sometimes acting is about reacting. When you’re playing a comic sidekick, you have to let the star cook, and no one knows that better than Peanut, the border terrier who shares the screen with Will Ferrell in Adam McKay’s comedy. Whether soaking in praise for eating a wheel of cheese or being punted into a river by an irate motorcyclist, Peanut hits all his marks like a true pro while letting Ferrell carry the script. 10/10
Screen presence: Not many actors have “it,” especially when “it” is defined as the ability to say “I pooped in the refrigerator” without using words. In Anchorman, Peanut has it. 5/5
Emotional impact: “I’m in a glass case of emotion!” Ferrell wails after Peanut’s punting. Thanks to Peanut, so are we. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
5. Jack, the Dog (The Artist, 2011)
The role: A struggling silent film artist is assisted in his endeavors by a plucky dog.
Craft: Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier who plays the dog in this Best Picture–winning comedy, won the Palm Dog at the Cannes Film Festival for this homage to the great dog roles of Hollywood’s Golden Era. (Yes, the Palm Dog is a real award. Don’t make it weird.) His performance evokes true showbiz icons, characters such as The Wizard of Oz’s Toto, The Thin Man’s Asta, and Air Bud’s Buddy. 10/10
Screen presence: This one’s easy: Uggie, who died in 2015, was unquestionably one of the great dog stars of the modern era. He also starred in Water for Elephants, inspired a campaign to nominate him for human acting awards, and published a memoir titled Uggie: My Story. Legend. 5/5
Emotional impact: The overwhelming emotion that The Artist made me feel was irritation, but the parts with the dog were less irritating than the rest. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
4. Brandy (Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, 2019)
The role: The faithful, enormous, and extremely hungry pit bull companion of Hollywood stuntman Cliff Booth.
Craft: It takes a special actor to embody physical menace and sweetness simultaneously. The three pit bulls who collaborated to create Brandy pulled off the trick. I absolutely believed she could castrate a ruthless killer from the Manson family, and I also wanted to give her one million scritches. A breathtaking display of range. 10/10
Screen presence: Brandy stole scenes from Brad Pitt. You don’t have to be conventionally beautiful to be mesmerizing. 5/5
Emotional impact: The entire film builds up to the moment when Brandy attacks the Mansons. Brandy was responsible for an entire Quentin Tarantino production, and Brandy delivered, which is more than you can say for the all-star cast of The Hateful Eight. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 30
3. Jenny, the Miniature Donkey (The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022)
The role: On a hardscrabble farm on a rural Irish island, a miniature donkey is allowed to come inside for some reason.
Craft: Jenny, the miniature donkey, was played by a first-time actress named Jenny, who is a miniature donkey. Calling on her own wealth of experience to add verisimilitude to the role, she stood around blinking, walked, and chewed exactly as a miniature donkey would do those things in real life. Her performance transcended mere impersonation: She became a miniature donkey. 10/10
Screen presence: There’s just … something about a miniature donkey that makes you want to look at it? 5/5
Emotional impact: Jenny was reportedly a difficult costar to share a set with. She was stubborn. Her own trainer called her a “diva.” At one point, she kicked Colin Farrell in the knee. Great artists have always been temperamental in the pursuit of their craft. Jenny may have been uncompromising during the production of the film, but the gentle tinkling of her bell as she follows Farrell around the island (moving slowly, probably because his knee hurt) is the emotional ground note against which Banshees’ drama takes place. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 50 (plus 20 bonus points awarded for kicking Colin Farrell in the knee; nothing against Colin Farrell, he just seems like someone who would have a funny reaction if you kicked him in the knee)
2. Snoop (Anatomy of a Fall, 2023)
The role: The beloved but tragically poisonable guide dog of a young boy with limited vision whose father has died under mysterious circumstances.
Craft: Where to start? Animals may not know what acting is, but Messi, the French border collie who plays Snoop, delivers a performance more nuanced than that of many human actors who’ve studied the art all their lives. This is a dog that had to pretend to be dying of poison and made the scene feel horrifyingly real. Of course, Messi is a border collie and therefore can probably read three languages and drive a forklift. Those dogs are so smart it’s unreal. 10/10
Screen presence: Messi is probably the only animal in this roundup who’s more famous under his own name than under the name of his character. Messi does red carpets. Messi does late night. Messi was born for this. Messi is a star. 5/5
Emotional impact: I never want to feel as panicked as I felt during the poisoning scene ever again. I want to feel as relieved as I felt after Snoop survived the poisoning scene every day for the rest of my life. 15/15
Final score (out of 30): 12,000
1. Black Phillip (The Witch, 2015)
The role: A Puritan family has a goat. The goat is also the devil?????
Craft: OH MY GOD NO NO NO WHY IS THIS GOAT SO FUCKED UP NO STOP LOOKING AT ME GOAT.
Screen presence: DO NOT SUMMON ME TO THE WOODS BLACK PHILLIP I CANNOT GO WITH THEE.
Emotional impact: BLACK PHILLIP WHY DOST THOU CALL TO ME YES BLACK PHILLIP LET US GO TO THE WOODS AND HAVE WICKED REVELS AROUND THY TERRIBLE FIRE.
Final score (out of 30): 666
