MARION COTILLARD
Past Gem: A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Cotillard gives a haunting performance as legendary French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, but she was also memorably bleak in her supporting role in A Very Long Engagement. Paralleling the main plot, about a sweet but determined young woman (Audrey Tautou) searching post-WWI France for the fiancé she is certain is still alive, Cotillard's Tina Lombardi prowls the same turf, seeking inventively gruesome vengeance for the death of her lover.