OUR PERSONAL FAVORITE TOP TEN CHILD PERFORMANCES (alphabetical order)
1. Christian Bale
1987’s Empire of the Sun
2. Dakota Fanning
2001’s I Am Sam
3. Ivan Jandl
1948’s The Search
4. Danny Lloyd
1980’s The Shining
5. Sean Nelson
1994’s Fresh
6. Haley Joel Osment
1999’s The Sixth Sense
7. Natalie Portman
1994’s Léon: The Professional
8. Shirley Temple
1937’s Heidi
9. Henry Thomas
1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
10. Jacob Tremblay
2017’s Wonder
Honorable Mentions
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- Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
- Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter Movies
- Emily Watson in Harry Potter Movies
- Kristen Dunst in Interview With A Vampire
- Anna Paquin in The Piano
- Tatum O’Neal in The Bad News Bears
- Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
- Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz
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please consider
Jackie cooper the champ
roddy McDowell how green was my valley
macaulay culkin home alone
elizabeth taylor 13 national velvet
sophie nelisse the book thief
Margaret Obrien our vines have tender grapes
sue lyon 16 Lolita
Deanna durbin 15 100 men and a girl
BRUCE
Your list ls flawed because Mikey is missing!
Mikey? Mickey Rooney? Mikey from the Life cereal commercial? Oh all the pages we have, this is one of the few….personal preference pages….so as Yoda would say…”Flawed not it is, people pick can favorites own.” Lol.
Bruce, I’ve seen just 5 of your 10 personal favorite child performances – ET, The Sixth Sense, Empire of the Sun, Leon and The Shining. Good choices!
Can I think of any others I thought were pretty good? hmmm… coming to mind are the two kids in Jurassic Park, Linda Blair in The Exorcist, the little girl in Pan’s Labyrinth, Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl in Kick-Ass and Asa Butterfield in Hugo and Ender’s Game.
Vote Up!
Hey Steve. Thanks for checking out our Top 10 list. Currently the database is not working, so I had to do a page without stats. I just realized that the boy in Jurassic Park plays John Deacon in Bohemian Rhapsody….seen that movie twice, just did not figure that out. Fresh is an intense movie that I really love, if you ever see that one, you will realize why I included Sean Nelson. Chloe Moretz almost made our honorable mention but I was not sure how to spell her name, so I left her off. Good feedback.
I’ve never tried to come up with a top 10 child performance list. Most of my favourites are of course from the golden age of Hollywood and are made up of actors and actresses like Judy Garland, Jackie Cooper, Dean Stockwell, and Margaret O’Brien – only Garland has a page on UMR so far, I believe. There are others.
Instead, I will just mention which of your favourites and honorable mentions I have seen and briefly comment in alphabetical order. I have seen 6 of them overall.
Dakota Fanning in I Am Sam – saw this for Sean Penn
Ivan Jandhl in The Search – this is a haunting film I have seen several times
Danny Lloyd in The Shining – not usually a fan of post 1930s horror, but I enjoy this film
Shirley Temple in Heidi – I cannot decide which of Temple’s films are my favourite
Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver – finally saw this too violent for me film; won’t watch again
Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz – one of my all time favourite movies
I double-checked and Dean Stockwell does already have a page. But Jackie Cooper and Margaret O’Brien do not. Another child star you might consider is Freddie Bartholemew.
Hey Flora….thanks for the suggestions for future child actors. Dean got a page pretty recently…while Judy Garland has had a page from the HubPages days. Temple got her page a few years ago. Thanks again for the suggestions.
Hey Flora….this Child Top 10 has been rattling around in my head for awhile now…..today seemed like a perfect day to finally let it escape….lol. I agree 100% with you about The Search. Ivan Jandhl is so good in the movie, that he actually got a special Oscar for it. Dakota Fanning was awesome as a child actor. Danny Lloyd might be the best “one movie only” actor of all-time. Judy made my honorable mention because she was so much older than my other picks. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these child actors and your suggestions.
The 2 little boys in Detainment which is from Ireland and was up for best live action short this year.
Hey Dan….I have not seen that yet….but I will check it out. Thanks for the comment and this no stat page….it was so hard not to include a table of stats….lol.