19. ROBERT DE NIRO
Mean Streets (1973)

Pick any scene of Martin Scorsese's big Little Italy masterpiece: Johnny Boy tossing a bomb in the mailbox and grinning. Or walking into the bar with a hippie chick under each arm and ''Jumpin' Jack Flash'' on the soundtrack. Or doing an improvised duet with Harvey Keitel. Or swinging wild in a pool-hall brawl. Pick any scene and see De Niro raw, hardly seeming to act, just behaving with crazed charisma. The Godfather Part II would put him on the Oscar map a year later — and a year late.