The Informant!

Matt Damon isn't a showy actor. He doesn't serve up wacky accents or exaggerated physical tics. But in his own sly way, he can be wonderfully funny, revealing a character's essence in the subtlest of movements. Take the tiny tug he makes on his character's toupee late in The Informant!, director Steven Soderbergh's surprisingly hilarious, true-life account of how Mark Whitacre (Damon), a rising exec at agri-industry behemoth Archer Daniels Midland Co., cooperated with the FBI (even wearing a wire) to get the goods on corporate price fixing in the 1990s. Whitacre truly believed he'd be promoted to head of the company for doing it. Damon's single tug-blink and you'll miss it-nails Whitacre's vast vanity, self-delusion and justified nervousness in a gesture. He's a hoot, and so is the movie.