Boyega for "Attack the Block"

For me, there's no more enduring performance this year than John Boyega's in "Attack the Block," Joe Cornish's slick, propulsive small-scale action-comedy hybrid which rose through the ranks of genre festivals to become one of the more noteworthy debuts of the year. 
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Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more comically-styled homeboys to become the center of a film that subversively turns into more of a "Die Hard" action film than a "Shaun of the Dead" level satire. 
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And if you ask me, a good portion of the credit needs to go to Boyega, whose transformation from expressionless, hesitant slum rat to exterminating hallway-dashing hero provides the backbone for the film, which poignantly ends with his much-deserved final-reel appreciation.