As I wandered the streets of Brooklyn, guiding my child through the annual Halloween festivities, I found myself momentarily puzzled by a fellow dad’s costume choice. It wasn’t until I noticed the partial pack of Modelos he clutched that the character clicked into place. He was portraying Sergio St. Carlos, Benicio del Toro’s character from the film One Battle After Another. This iconic character famously answers a police officer’s inquiry about his drinking with the memorable line: “a few small beers.” If you frequent the online world, you would recognize the line, complete with del Toro’s mischievous grin.

The subtlety of del Toro’s delivery is a standout moment in One Battle After Another, a film primarily focused on the frenetic journey of Bob Ferguson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Ferguson is a former revolutionary on a mission to rescue his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), from the clutches of white supremacist soldier Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Lockjaw is intent on eradicating any trace of an interracial affair from his past. Sergio, known as Sensei to Willa for teaching her karate, is a pivotal community figure likened to a Latino Harriet Tubman. He aids undocumented immigrants in evading a fictionalized version of ICE, and his memorable “a few small beers” moment serves as a clever distraction, allowing Bob to evade capture and continue his mission.

Del Toro’s performance stands out precisely because it lacks the grandiosity typically highlighted in award considerations. His portrayal of Sergio is consistently understated, contrasting with DiCaprio’s more boisterous and comical performance. Even when Sergio encourages Bob to leap from a moving vehicle, invoking the name of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s former collaborator Tom Cruise, del Toro maintains a measured calm. His performance is not the heart or soul of the film but rather its steady, comforting breath.

Should del Toro earn an Oscar nomination, it would be a fitting conclusion to a year marked by noteworthy roles, including another collaboration with a different Anderson. In Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, del Toro takes center stage as Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, a midcentury industrialist plotting a significant infrastructure deal with the help of his almost-nun daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton). Del Toro’s nuanced approach aligns perfectly with Anderson’s signature style, where characters often deliver lines in a deadpan monotone. However, Phoenician Scheme injects humor by contrasting this with scenes of overlapping, heated exchanges.

In both roles, del Toro exudes a calm demeanor, though in differing contexts. As Sergio, he orchestrates the escape of immigrants with precision and urgency. Meanwhile, Korda’s calm is more self-serving, constantly asserting his safety amidst real threats to his life. His confidence is genuine, even as he nonchalantly distributes hand grenades like party favors. In both films, del Toro’s performances anchor the narratives, offering a masterclass in subtlety and restraint.

Like Bob Ferguson, Korda forges a stronger bond with his daughter through the events of the film, though the dynamics are interestingly reversed. In The Phoenician Scheme, Korda learns to be a parent not by providing much emotional support for his daughter (who is an adult, somehow well-adjusted and seemingly not much in need of it) but by learning from her to embrace a more modest and net-positive way of living in the world, rejecting his own past rapaciousness. That’s not something Bob particularly needs to learn in One Battle After Another – he’s done plenty of time trying to save the world from itself, however ineffective his group may have ultimately been. Instead, he grows to accept his daughter’s place in that dangerous, unruly world, and the idea that she might carry on his work in her own way. Del Toro isn’t the actual father in this scenario, but he embodies the good that can still be done in trying times, where control has largely been ceded to people like Korda.

It’s especially gratifying to see del Toro as the face of this sensibility because most of his other recent notable roles have emphasized a certain gray-area seediness, which he also excels at. He has the kind of rich, memorable face with the capacity for a range of moral shadings at once. Think of the gangster sucked into the noir plot of No Sudden Move, the ruthless assassin of Sicario, or even DJ, the thief who eventually betrays the heroes in The Last Jedi. He first gained notice in The Usual Suspects as Fenster, a character whose big hook was mumbly, colorfully garbled speech, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where he essentially placed in an addled ham-off with Johnny Depp. He’s long been up for the strange or inscrutable.

He’s not mumbly or shady or inscrutable in One Battle After Another – and though he’s morally shady, maybe even genuinely evil, at the beginning of The Phoenician Scheme, he’s also crisply upfront in manner, at least. Del Toro has the kind of charisma and adventurous spirit as an actor that can lead to plenty of catchy affectations – love his ch-ch-ch vocal bit in Last Jedi – but he’s also increasingly adept at stripping those away and giving his little showcase moments just the slightest bit of note-perfect spin. Hence the small beers, or the “ocean waves” he advises Bob to ride. One Battle After Another is a movie that feels big; even though much of it takes place in a small town and the surrounding desert, those rolling hills look massive during its climactic car chase. (Also, it’s a Paul Thomas Anderson movie with a climactic car chase.) DiCaprio usually goes big these days, too, often to great effect. But del Toro’s performance, in its simplicity, fills in the smaller spaces. It’s small-beer acting at its finest.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.