The year’s biggest breakthrough has to be 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, who delivered the year’s best cinematic performance in the year’s best movie, Blue is the Warmest Color.
American actress Brie Larson‘s star-making performance Short Term 12 showed her to be a big-time talent, possibly another Jennifer Lawrence.
Other remarkable breakthrough acting performances:
- Elle Fanning in Ginger & Rosa (in which she, at her actual age of 14, played a 17-year-old).
- Michael B. Jordan, thoughtful and charismatic in Fruitvale Station.
And here are the filmmakers whose work showed special promise:
- Jan Ole Gerster‘s debut feature was the German dark comedy Oh Boy.
- Ryan Coogler for Fruitvale Station.
- Lake Bell for the year’s best comedy, In a World..., in which she also starred.
- Destin Crettin for Short Term 12.
- David Lowery for writing and directing Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and editing Upstream Color and Sun Don’t Shine,.
- Rebecca Thomas for Electrick Children
- Christopher Munch for Letters from the Big Man
- Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin for the 2013 Oscar-winning documentary Undefeated.