PhilipRomanoPhoto · CC BY 4.0

Broke through as the alienated teenager navigating time-travel visions in Donnie Darko (2001), then earned an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA for playing Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (2005), a role that reshaped how mainstream Hollywood treated a gay love story. He went on to lead films as different as the true-crime thriller Zodiac, the journalism drama Nightcrawler, and the boxing picture Southpaw, building a career on unglamorous, often unnerving characters rather than repeat blockbuster leads.