9 Bad Actors Who Have Recently Given Oscar Worthy Performances

9) Shia LaBeouf – Fury

That Shia LaBeouf, eh? Like a mix of a parody of Tom Hardy and a less-productive James Franco, LaBeouf is both an intensely angry method actor and a kind of meta-person that’s managed to turn his own life into an art installation.

Despite all his headline-grabbing role preparation, LaBeouf has largely failed to channel it through his performances, all of which have been virtually identical since his Transformers days. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Lawless, The Company You Keep, Charlie Countryman – all have LaBeouf playing basically the same character, only with a slightly different haircut.

But then you have Fury.

David Ayer’s brutal WWII ensemble tank drama features the performance that anyone who ever had faith in Shia LaBeouf had been waiting for. The actor’s dedication reached new heights, seeing him train, mutilate himself and refuse to bathe in order to get into character, only this time it paid off – LaBeouf inhabits the role of a tank-gunner close to mental and physical collapse so truly that he could bring you to tears by the time his third-act fate has been sealed.