Favorite performances by child actors

What about half the cast of Let the Right One in?

So noted

I’ll have to add Anton Glanzelius in My Life As A Dog, his astonishing dedication to the character’s quirky traits and emotional scenes is heart-warming.

LINDA MANZ!!
my favorite performance of hers is in OUT OF THE BLUE but we shouldnt forget her in DAYS OF HEAVEN either!

Christian Bale in “Empire of The Sun”.

Gisèle Echevarría in Tras el cristal / In a Glass Cage

Hannah Montana in the Hannah Montana Movie.

I think the question is, can it ever be topped?

You do present us with a conundrum, Herr Robley…

Roddy McDowell in how green was my valley
One of my all time favorite movies.

Agree about Catinca Untaru in THE FALL.
Also would add the kid who plays Ralphie in A CHRISTMAS STORY…actually, many of the kids in that do a great job.

haley mills in tiger bay.

Ana Torrent – The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena)

I always remember the children from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” – both Roy Neary’s (Richard Dreyfus) kids (especially Shawn Bishop) and little Cary Guffey.

Also, that creepy little kid from “The Third Man”.

Just saw Claire Denis’ Chocolat, and I was really taken with the child who played France.

モニカ agreed! It probably doesn’t get better than Ana Torrent in Spirit of the Beehive.

Danny Lloyd in The Shining. I don’t generally like kids, but he’s the most adorable little boy I’ve ever seen and he did an amazing acting job.

I thought that Haley Joel Osment was very good in The Sixth Sense, just off the top of my haead.

The little girl in Spirit of the Beehive was wonderful to watch

Margaret OBrien was intense! she was actually christened Angela but changed her name after the success of Journey for Margaret

Basically with kids on screen I am happy/grateful if they don’t annoy me – often they don;t succeed in this

ana torrent in cría cuervos. por qué te vas?

I share the love for Ana Torrent. There are many great perfomances already mentioned here, so I will add some that maybe have yet to be mentioned, especially concentrating on some older notable films:

The contenders:

Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street
Roddy McDowall in Lassie Come Home (with a young Elizabeth Taylor the year before her starring role in National Velvet)
Freddie Bartholomew in Little Lord Fauntleroy, Captains Courageous – one of the best child actors ever.
Claude Jarman, Jr. in The Yearling
Virginia Weidler as Katharine Hepburn’s younger sister in The Philadelphia Story
Billy and Bobby Mauch in The Prince and the Pauper
Peter Miles in The Red Pony
Dean Stockwell in The Boy with Green Hair, The Secret Garden
Margaret O’Brien in The Secret Garden – always gave a good perfromance in any film she was in.
Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin in The Innocents and Pamela Franklin again in Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – all the girls in Miss Brodie’s class deserve praise.
Mary Badham and Phillip Alford – Gregory Peck’s kids in To Kill a Mockingbird

My favorite performances:

Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker the girls in The World of Henry Orient. These were both perfect as the besotted pre-adolescents chasing that heel played by Peter Sellers. They capture their age with natural poise and grace, and are my pick for personal favorite of this illustrious group.

A few of these like Roddy McDowall, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, and Dean Stockwell went on to succesful careers as adult actors, but for many of the above, their careers end with their childhood.

Mean Creek!

Ricky Schroder could possibly have sued retrospectively for imposed trauma for the performance extracted from him in The Champ

I was going to create a topic with this subject, but since it already exists, let me use it.

I just watched “Nobody Knows”, and, inspired by it, thought about some great child performances:

- AIDA MOHAMMADKHANI, in “The White Ballon” (Jafar Panahi)
- MINA MOHAMMAD KHANI, in “The mirror” (Jafar Panahi)
- Jackie Coogan, in “The kid” (Chaplin)
- MICHALIS ZEKE and TANIA PALAIOLOGOU, in “Landscape in the mist” (Theo Angelopoulos)
- THOMAS DORET, in “Le gamin au vélo” (Dardenne brothers)
- The 4 kids in “Nobody knows” (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Also:

- Linda Manz, in “Days of heaven” (Terrence Malick)
(I love her narration and her accent in this movie)

Still:

- Almost every kid in “The White Ribbon” (Michael Haneke), but specially Roxane Duran and Miljan Chatelain.
- Vinícius de Oliveira, in “Central Station” (Walter Salles)
- DOUGLAS SILVA, in “City of god” (Fernando Meirelles) [He is the young “Zé Pequeno”]
- Everybody in “The class” (Laurent Cantet)
- Ivana Baquero in “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Guillermo del Toro)
- Subir Banerjee in “Pather Panchali” (Satyajit Ray) [He was Apu]
- The two young protagonists in the first part of “Farewell, my concubine” (Chen Kaige)

Tatum O’Neal as Addie Pray (Paper Moon)

I’ll add – Hunter McCracken (and the other child actors) from The Tree of Life. I thought they were fantastic.

patricia gozzi – sundays and cybele (1962)

Recent:
Hunter McCracken, The Tree of Life
The entire cast of children in The White Ribbon
Chloe Grace Moretz- Kick-Ass (Personally, no movie moment in 2011 can top Hit Girl’s introduction)
Jamie Bell, Billy Elliot
Tyler Hoechlin, The Road to Perdition
Ivana Baquero, Pan’s Labyrinth
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Alakina Mann and James Bentley, The Others
Judith Vittet, The City of Lost Children

Classics:
Philip Alford and Mary Badham,To Kill a Mockingbird
Jodie Foster, Bugsy and Taxi Driver (yep, those films- two peas in a pod)
Danny Lloyd, The Shining (I know both he Duvall and even Nicholson have been criticized for their performances but I really love his performance and appropriately, he never did a film again)
Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker
Jean Pierre Leaud, The 400 Blows

Jean-Pierre Leaud in The 400 Blows, Peggy Ann Garner in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Anna Paquin in The Piano and Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker.