Top 10 Big Screen Performances by Small Screen Actors

6.

Helen Hunt

As Good As It Gets (1997)

This is one of the rare times that a television actor won an Oscar. Even though most people tend to disagree with her win, I think that it is one of the better Best Actress choices the Academy has made in the last 20 years. Her performance was nothing like any performance that has won the award since. Her comedic timing and dramatic tension are what make this James L. Brooks film work. Her brilliantly subdued performance never goes over the top and always is believable, which is all you can really ask for in a comedy-drama. Obviously, since winning her Oscar, she has become much more of a movie star, but she won 3 Emmys and 3 Golden Globes for Mad About You. It will be hard for her to ever outrun that show.