Tom Hardy’s 10 Most Impressive Performances

3) The Dark Knight Rises

Whatever your take is on The Dark Knight Rises, there can be no denying that Tom Hardy makes for one hell of a villain. Almost completely freed of backstory – director Christopher Nolan allegedly filmed a potted history for TDKR‘s big bad, then removed it in editing – Hardy’s Bane is a total mystery aching with the suggestion of a troubling, warped past. It’s all in the eyes and, yes, in that occasionally unintelligible voice.

Trust Tom Hardy to create something so complex out of a super-villain who kills without a second thought. For all his imposing menace, his psychotic and duplicitous malice, Bane feels like a tortured soul who genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing. There’s no 2D villainy here – Bane is a comic book cartoon with life breathed into him by one of the most intelligent actors out there. Bane is a formidable, uncompromising beast, but one that still – amazingly – manages to elicit sympathy.