W.C. Fields famously advised against ever working with children or animals. While any discussion of animal thespians can wait for another day, I come to the defense of child actors, many of whom have delivered outstanding performances in the movies. Hopefully the gifted actors listed below weren’t subjected to the sort of head games inflicted on Jackie Cooper for 1931’s Skippy. Director Norman Taurog, irked that Cooper could not cry on cue, told the 9-year-old his dog would be shot unless he got the waterworks going.
The director got his desired shot, but the boy was traumatized. Cooper became the youngest person ever nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but it is unlikely he cared much for Taurog, who was also his uncle.
10. Jackie Coogan in The Kid (1921, dir. Charlie Chaplin)
Long before he was Uncle Fester in television’s The Addams Family, Jackie Coogan was a 4-year-old in vaudeville when he caught the attention of Charlie Chaplin. In The Kid, in which Coogan plays an abandoned child adopted by Chaplin’s Little Tramp, the boy elicits laughs and tears in equal measure, matching his director at every turn.
9. Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, dir. Benh Zeitlin)
Quvenzhané Wallis was only 5 when her mother brought her to an audition seeking girls ages 6 to 9. The gambit paid off spectacularly. As Hushpuppy, Wallis is an economy-sized force of nature in Beasts of the Southern Wild and became the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscar history.
8. Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976, dir. Martin Scorsese)
Jodie Foster embodies streetwise bravado and vulnerability as the 12-year-old sex worker whom Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is determined to rescue. The role earned an Academy Award nomination, but her on-set experience with De Niro had longer-lasting implications. “He had really made me understand what it was to create a character, something I didn’t know at 12 years old,” she told W Magazine in 2016. (See more in “The 15 best neo-noir films” and “The 10 best performances by film directors not typically known for acting” lists.)
7. Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
“I see dead people,” says Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear, the 9-year-old Philadelphia boy burdened with paranormal abilities in a city teeming with ghosts—and you believe the anguish in his whispered words. The actor, whose performance earned an Oscar nomination, carries M. Night Shyamalan’s chiller on his capable shoulders, grounding its supernatural story in credible childhood terror. (See more in “The 10 best films that contemplate an afterlife” list.)
6. Henry Thomas in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Amid the whimsy and special effects, it is easy to overlook how pivotal 10-year-old Henry Thomas is to the emotional power of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Thomas thought he had bombed the audition until Steven Spielberg asked him to improvise a scene about losing his best friend to the government. For that, Thomas drew on the memory of watching his pet Chihuahua attacked and killed by the dog next door. Spielberg, his eyes welling with tears, cast Thomas on the spot. (See more in “The 10 best alien encounter films that are not about invasion” list.)
5. Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows (1959, dir. François Truffaut)
Jean-Pierre Léaud so completely inhabits Antoine Doinel, the misunderstood 14-year-old protagonist of The 400 Blows, that it is difficult to imagine the actor and character are not one and the same. François Truffaut later said the film became better than his screenplay because of Léaud. The director would follow Antoine—his on-screen alter ego—through four additional films over the next 20 years.
4. David Bennent in The Tin Drum (1979, dir. Volker Schlöndorff)
Eleven-year-old David Bennent faced the challenge of playing a child who wills himself to stop growing at age 3. His Oskar Matzerath embodies rage and fear amid a world gone mad, with haunting eyes and a scream that can shatter glass—not to mention nerves. The Tin Drum is a polarizing and difficult film, but Bennent’s fearless commitment is beyond dispute.
3. Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon (1973, dir. Peter Bogdanovich)
Tatum O’Neal brings a withering glare and impeccable comic timing to her role as Depression-era orphan Addie Loggins. At 10, she became the youngest actor ever to win a competitive Academy Award. She certainly steals the movie from her real-life father and on-screen costar, Ryan O’Neal. (See more in “The 10 best road trip films” list.)
2. Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker (1962, dir. Arthur Penn)
By the time the play The Miracle Worker received the Hollywood treatment, teenager Patty Duke had played Helen Keller hundreds of times on the Broadway stage and knew the role inside and out. It is no surprise that she brings remarkable physical intensity and emotional power to Arthur Penn’s film adaptation. Duke was 16 when she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. (See more in “The 10 most memorable movie teachers” list.)
1. Aleksei Kravchenko in Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov)
Arguably the most devastating war film of all time is anchored by an actor who was 14 when production began. Aleksei Kravchenko plays Flyora, a child battered physically and psychologically after joining the Belarusian resistance fighting the Nazi occupation during World War II. The director was reportedly concerned enough about the effects of the film that he arranged for a psychotherapist to try to hypnotize Kravchenko before shooting the most violent scenes. Whatever psychic distance the actor maintained during production is nowhere apparent on-screen; his performance is harrowing.
Honorable mention: Frankie Corio in Aftersun (2022, dir. Charlotte Wells), Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade (2018, dir. Bo Burnham), Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun (1987, dir. Steven Spielberg), Jurnee Smollett in Eve’s Bayou (1997, dir. Kasi Lemmons), David Bradley in Kes (1969, dir. Ken Loach), Shirley Temple in Little Miss Marker (1934, dir. Alexander Hall), Victoire Thivisol in Ponette (1996, dir. Jacques Doillon), Ana Torrent in The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, dir. Victor Erice), Mary Badham in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan), Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider (2002, dir. Niki Caro)
