Few things delight moviegoers more than watching an actor lose themselves in a role. When it happens, you believe who the actor says they are. You're disappointed with every scene void of their presence, waiting impatiently as this villain, womanizer, hero, or heroine reappears. They are no longer the actor you paid to see. Instead of the ability to change colors, like the chameleon, the performer changes moods to keep the audience spellbound.

These actors completely disappeared into a role, reminding us why they're some of our favorite performers.

10 Robert De Niro in Raging Bull

Raging Bull
United Artists

It takes more than a prosthetic nose and a 60-pound weight gain to disappear in a role. Actor Al Pacino told his colleague, Robert De Niro, that De Niro's performance as Ray LaMotta in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull was the greatest in film history. Enunciating in a Bronx-Italian accent, De Niro's masterful interpretation of an arrogant, obnoxious, wife-beating boxer is exceptional standing alone. However, Scorsese surrounds the protagonist with all the extras, maximizing De Niro's acting genius. The director drapes the film in black-and-white and adds Joe Pesci and Robbie Robertson's exquisite score, all of which are the antithesis — more velvety, smooth, satiny — of LaMotta's persona.

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De Niro's boxing intro, set to Robertson's music, is as eloquent as a ballet dancer's. His scenes are too sophisticated for the Nutcracker, so the most elegant ballet, Swan Lake, will have to do for comparison. Like the Swan performance, "energy, space, and time" fills De Niro's routine. Resembling the dancers, the actor's "[dimensions] of [his] movements [are] simultaneously deep, wide, and high. [His] tempo changes from quick to slow, and the energy of the [performance] is rather delicate and strong." De Niro was nominated for Best Actor in the 1980 film and won, ending his famous speech with, "I love everybody."

9 Al Pacino in Scarface

Al Pacino in Scarface
Universal Pictures

It's not a mystery why Al Pacino's performance in 1982's Scarface is beloved in the hip-hop community. It's an over-the-top felonious rags-to-riches story, mirroring most rappers. Actor Robert De Niro told Pacino that if he didn't jump on the role, he was going to do it (he would have been incredible, too). But, Pacino slid into the part with a Cuban accent as Tony Montana that many critics panned, claiming he exaggerated his dialect too often throughout the film. It is difficult for some fans to decide whether the coke-snorting, gun-toting Cuban character with a quick temper gave birth to a great actor. What is certain is that Pacino delivered ideas of machismo through a Brian de Palma/Oliver Stone screenplay and his vivid imagination.

8 Jack Nicholson in Batman

Michael Keaton as Batman facing Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 film
Warner Bros.

Many fans love a villain more than the bad guy's irksome hero. When Jack Nicholson surfaced as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, there was no room for his co-stars to shine. The actor's incandescence didn't complement the other actors. It blinded audiences from their performances, giving validity to the Joker's villainous image. Nicholson inadvertently achieves this, but the flamboyant clown makeup doesn't help.

The actor is outright ridiculous but in an erudite manner. Prince's ostentatious soundtrack escorts Nicholson through the movie, astounding fans with wicked dance moves. They're not as elegant as a ballet dancer, but Nicholson pulls off a stunning and charming performance that earned him one of the most lucrative deals in Hollywood's history.

7 Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd

Andy Griffith in Matlock
CBS Television Distribution 

Hollywood's surprise performances aren't rare, but seldom enough that audiences and critics applaud the actor's presentation decades after the film's release. The LA Times describes Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) in the 1956 drama, A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan as "a hard-drinking, womanizing hobo with a gift of gab who becomes an overnight radio and TV sensation thanks to an enterprising young radio producer."

Fans who hadn't seen the film could hardly picture Griffith as a wretched rolling stone, and neither could screenwriter Budd Schulberg. He envisioned a rougher performer than Griffith, but the actor convinced Schulberg when he auditioned in a popular evangelist persona.

6 Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote

Capote
Sony Pictures Classics

Had Douglas McGrath's 2006 Infamous come out first, actor Toby Jones may have won the Best Actor Oscar. But, the Academy honored Philip Seymour Hoffman for his performance as writer Truman Capote in Bennett Miller's 2005 film Capote. In his acceptance speech, Hoffman said the small movie started as a favor he did for his friends. The viewers suspend reality, forgetting Hoffman is a burley 5-foot 10-inch man playing a 5-foot 3-inch Capote.

Fans are familiar with Hoffman's brawny voice but don't miss it. They're too impressed by the actor's skills. While Hoffman never made the cover of People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, he emulated Capote's peculiar appearance with confidence and style. Capote was a gifted, gossipy socialite, whom the upper crust of society loved, and Hoffman hammered the role.

5 Mo'Nique in Precious

Mo'Nique
Lionsgate

Fans who watched Phat Girlz knew comedian Mo'Nique could act. The 2009 hard-to-watch drama, Precious, created the ultimate movie-going experience. When a character delves into a role and induces an audience to cry, laugh, and be appalled together, they've done their job. Mo'Nique was a vile, grotesque, draconic mother to an overweight teenage daughter who, by all accounts, should not have survived. Mo'Nique's performance is one that you pray isn't life, imitating art. Her character is a loveless mother with no future, few options, and help is nowhere in sight. Mo'Nique as Mary repulses audiences and wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2010.

4 Halle Berry in Monster's Ball

Halle Berry in Monster's Ball
Lions Gate Films

Many fans hail Halle Berry's portrayal of Dorothy Dandridge in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge as the role she was born to play. It may be, but it isn't the role in which she disappears. The actress faces as many obstacles in her career and love life as the late Dandridge. Berry was even born in the same state and hospital as her muse. It's as if the actress made a special appearance as "herself."

Director Marc Foster's 2001 Monster's Ball is where Berry becomes invisible, and a low-income, single mother with broken grammar emerges. In the film's finale, Berry discovers her current cop-boyfriend walked the father of her deceased son to his execution. Berry is shocked, emotionally operating from livid to realizing the insignificance of her find because her beau's love trumps his past career choices. A superior actor can say everything without uttering a word. Berry won the Best Actress Oscar for effectively conveying her feelings with only her countenance.

3 Sean Penn in Milk

Sean Penn in Milk
Focus Features

In 2008's Milk, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) says, "... They used to come in and beat us up just for fun." What fan can picture Penn allowing this to happen? The actor has coveted a "bad boy" image his entire career. In the 1980s, Penn played tough-guy characters, and his personal life wasn't without knocking photographers on their keisters. In Milk, Penn plays the first openly gay politician in America dedicated to the advancement of gay people. Caressed in the softness of his character, he supplies the audience with the plausibility they need while watching this reputable, hard-nosed actor, both on and off the screen, work his magic. This film differs from 2001's I Am Sam, where he plays a mentally challenged single father.

In Milk, fans see Penn gayer than they've ever seen him before, and he's believable. The sweet words Penn faintly delivers to his future male lover in the subway are endearing. The shyness on Penn's face takes viewers back to their first-time-we-met experiences, hoping that Milk's new love interest doesn't reject him, and he doesn't. The Academy didn't say no to Penn either. He won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Harvey Milk.

2 Farrah Fawcett in Extremities

Farrah Fawcett opposite James Russo in a scene from Extremities.
Atlantic Entertainment Group

Farrah Fawcett said her projects that ran so closely together, which include, The Burning Bed, Small Sacrifices, and Extremities, were such intense roles, she had to step away from acting for a moment. In the latter, released in 1986, Joe (James Russo) puts Marjorie (Fawcett) through a terrifying 20 minutes until she gains control of the home intruder. Unbeknownst to Marjorie, Joe is her same attacker from the night before. In the middle of his second sexual assault on Marjorie, she frees herself, ties him up, and tortures him for hours. The movie and the role are so demanding of Fawcett, fans may see why she needed to take a break from acting. In the Robert M. Young film, the actress uses her physical strength to drag a man around who's twice her size, and is visibly emotionally drained from the anxiety of her assailant and unconvinced roommates.

Fawcett had an eye for picking movies that brought out the best in her, and she was supreme in roles portraying women with complicated lives and those requiring a monumental transition. Just like musicians who go solo because their talents overshadow the other members of the group, Extremities is an example of why Fawcett had to leave Charlie's Angels.

1 Denzel Washington in Malcolm X

denzel-washington-malcolm-x (1)
40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks

Human Rights Activist Malcolm X, who director Spike Lee described as "A man among men," was a tall, slender, extremely fair-skinned Black man with a "brilliant smile" and a mind to match. Many critics say actor Denzel Washington was Malcolm reincarnated in Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X. It isn't just Washington's long, oval-shaped face handsomely supporting those vintage horn-rimmed frames and equally brilliant smile. His voice is a dead ringer for the late minister, whose power of speech hasn't been that well vocalized since. Lee said there were times when he yelled "cut," but Washington continued his speeches as Malcolm X. Washington and Lee said they knew the spirit of X was present. In the film's opening, video footage of the 1991 beating of Rodney King by four white police officers plays underneath a burning American flag over renowned jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard's blaring notes. It is Washington speaking in the thunderous voice of Malcolm X who adds profundity and the finishing touch to one of the greatest openings to a film in cinematic history.

Related: These Are Sean Penn's Best Movies, RankedThe guards dragging Washington into solitaire over his disobedience is reminiscent of Paul Newman with comparable trash-talking in Cool Hand Luke. But ominousness looms over Washington's character, for history provides audiences with a spoiler alert on Malcolm's fate at the end of this film. The movie's wrap leads to a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Washington. Actor Alec Baldwin said, "It's Denzel at his finest." Washington agreed. The actor told Barbara Walters about his Oscar nod in an interview aired the night of the ceremony, "At the risk of sounding egotistical, I expected to get nominated. I would have been surprised if I wasn't." Many fans and critics shared Washington's sentiment. In addition to his above-and-beyond performance, he breathed a new existence into Malcolm's legacy, prompting the appearance of "X"-caps and shirts everywhere during the actor's Malcolm X press tour and release. Washington lost the Oscar to Al Pacino's performance in Scent of a Woman, but his portrayal of Malcolm X has solidified the actor's status as one of the extraordinary performers of all time.