1. JIMMY STEWART
Vertigo (1958)

For great swaths of his career, Jimmy Stewart played wholesome, aw-shucks kinds of fellows who stood knock-kneed before the opposite sex. That's why he remains such a revelation as Scottie Ferguson, the acrophobic, borderline-necrophilic detective of Vertigo. Stewart's Scottie is sympathetic as he becomes attracted to an unfaithful wife he's hired to tail. He's moving when he witnesses her apparent death. He's creepy when he finds another woman he wants to make over in his dead amour's image. And he's genuinely frightening when he discovers his love object may have betrayed him — all sweaty rants and shaking-hand-across-the-lip fury. Nothing gee-whiz about it.
MORE SNUBS: See Nos. 100-76, Nos. 75-51, and Nos. 50-26