From watching Jane die to his “I am the one who knocks” speech, the five-season run of Breaking Bad gave Bryan Cranston plenty of opportunities to show off his impressive acting range. Cranston had to play moments where Walt is genuinely broken up, like when his estranged son wishes him dead, and moments where Walt is a cold-blooded monster, like when he tells Hank to “tread lightly.” His performance walked the line between these two sides of the character spectacularly for a truly well-rounded, three-dimensional portrayal of a complex antihero.

Cranston’s turn in Breaking Bad is the benchmark against which all TV antihero performances are judged. Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series a grand total of four times for his work in Breaking Bad, and deserved every single one of them (and arguably deserved the other two he was nominated for, too). Throughout Breaking Bad’s five seasons, Cranston delivered a bunch of iconic moments that still hold up today.

10 Walt Convinces Jesse He Didn't Poison Brock

After realizing Gus will kill him if he doesn’t kill Gus first, Walt finally formulates a successful plot to assassinate the meth-and-chicken kingpin in season 4, episode 13, “Face Off.” But in order to kill Gus, he has to get Jesse back on his side, and to do that, he has to convince Jesse that Gus poisoned his girlfriend’s eight-year-old son Brock. Jesse initially suspects that Walt poisoned the boy, but Walt manages to convince Jesse that it was Gus, which paves the way for his assassination plot to succeed.

What makes Cranston’s performance in this scene so impressive is that Jesse isn’t the only one he convinces that he didn’t poison Brock. He fools the audience into thinking he’s innocent, too. The final shot of the lily of the valley in Walt’s backyard wouldn’t hit so hard if Cranston’s performance hadn’t successfully convinced viewers he was innocent.

9 Walt's "Confession" Tape

Cranston’s most powerful acting moments in Breaking Bad are when Walt is giving his own performance, meaning Cranston has to give a performance within a performance. In season 5, episode 11, “Confessions,” Hank has finally figured out that Walt is Heisenberg and Walt is running out of options to evade capture. With his back against the wall, Walt comes up with the ingenious idea to use the implausibility of Hank’s obliviousness against him.

Walt records a fake “confession” tape in which he claims that Hank is the mastermind behind the Heisenberg operation, and he’s been forcing Walt to produce meth for him. The genius of this fake confession is that it’s actually more believable than Hank not realizing his own brother-in-law was a drug lord. Cranston’s performance as Walt performing as an innocent man is a masterclass in multidimensional acting.

8 Walt Calls His Son From A Bar In New Hampshire

In the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad’s entire run – season 5, episode 15, “Granite State” – Walt successfully avoids capture and escapes to a hideout in New Hampshire, where he lives off the grid with a new identity. But it’s not much of a life. He can barely leave the house, his cancer has come back more aggressive than ever, and his only human is a monthly visit from disappearer Ed Galbraith.

Walt goes to a bar and considers turning himself over to the authorities. To see if there’s any hope whatsoever of reconciling with his family, he calls his son Walt, Jr., who not only rejects his attempt at reconciliation, but furiously wishes his dad dead. Cranston’s performance in this scene, as a heartbroken Walt realizing he’s lost everything, made viewers empathize with a cold-hearted monster.

7 "Tread Lightly"

The Breaking Bad writers wasted no time following up on the shocking midseason twist in season 5, episode 9, “Blood Money.” After realizing Walt is Heisenberg while reading a book on the toilet, Hank races home and goes over the DEA’s case files. As he connects the dots, he’s horrified to realize that the elusive Heisenberg is his own brother-in-law. When Walt realizes Leaves of Grass is missing from his bathroom, he pieces it together and races over to Hank’s house.

Hank tells Walt he doesn’t even know who he is anymore, and Walt ominously tells him that if that’s true, “then maybe your best course is to tread lightly.” By this point, the audience is already well-aware that Walt is evil, but this is the first time that Hank sees what a monster his brother-in-law is. Cranston’s delivery of the line sends shivers down every viewer’s spine.

6 Walt Tells Skyler The Real Reason He Became A Drug Lord

In Breaking Bad’s stunning series finale – season 5, episode 16, “Felina” – Walt returns to Albuquerque to settle all his old scores. He pays a visit to Skyler to give her the coordinates of Hank and Gomez’s graves, so she can use that information for a decent plea bargain. Walt goes to tell Skyler why he committed all the crimes he committed.

Both Skyler and the audience are expecting yet another speech about how it was all for the family, but Walt surprisingly tells her he did it for himself. He liked being the best at something, and he liked feeling powerful after years of being a meek, mild-mannered nobody, so he kept cooking meth long after he had enough money to keep the family afloat. Cranston delivers Walt’s blunt honesty perfectly, and catches everyone by surprise, both on and off-screen.

5 "We're A Family!"

Season 5, episode 14, “Ozymandias,” is Breaking Bad’s most explosive episode. It’s the episode that the entire series had been leading up to, when Walt’s empire came crashing down. Hank was killed, Jesse was taken as a meth-cooking slave, and Walt, Jr. finally learned who his father really was. As Walt rushes home from the desert and tells Skyler that they have to pack their things and leave, she suspects he murdered Hank.

In the ensuing fight, Skyler grabs a kitchen knife to defend herself and Walt, Jr. jumps in front of his mom to protect her. As Walt realizes he’s standing over his wife and son with a knife and they’re both deeply afraid of him, he accepts that he’s lost them. Cranston nails Walt’s processing of these emotions as he goes from screaming, “We’re a family!!” to hopelessly uttering, “We’re a family...”

4 Walt's Meltdown In The Crawlspace

In season 4, episode 11, “Crawl Space,” Gus has finally had enough of Walt and threatens to murder his wife and children if he continues to interfere with his business. Walt goes straight to Saul and says he needs to recruit Ed’s services as a disappearer. Saul tells him this will cost half a million dollars and Walt races home to tell his family to pack and to collect the cash from the crawlspace. But when he gets down there, he’s dismayed to find that almost all of the money is gone.

Skyler tells him she gave the money to Ted to pay off the I.R.S. As a distraught Marie calls Skyler to tell her that Hank is being targeted by a cartel, Walt screams in horror. Then, his screams turn to maniacal cackling as Skyler watches on in terror. Cranston gave viewers chills with Walt’s unpredictable mania in this scene.

3 Walt Watches Jane Die

In season 2, episode 12, “Phoenix,” Walt becomes concerned that Jesse’s new girlfriend Jane is encouraging him to become more independent. This is great for Jesse, and just the loving he needs, but it’s bad for Walt, because it makes Jesse harder to control and manipulate. When Walt goes to Jesse’s house to talk to him, he finds both he and Jane ed out from a heroin binge. While trying to wake Jesse up, Walt accidentally knocks Jane onto her back and she starts choking on her own vomit.

Although he initially springs into action to save her, Walt instantly has second thoughts. He ultimately decides to let Jane die just because she was inconveniencing him. At first, he breaks down in tears before staring on with a cold-hearted look. In his memoir A Life in Parts, Cranston wrote that this was his “most harrowing” scene in Breaking Bad, because he imagined his own daughter in Jane’s place, allowing him to get to the right emotional state to sell Walt’s turmoil.

2 "I Am The One Who Knocks"

Walt delivers arguably his most iconic speech in season 4, episode 6, “Cornered.” When Skyler implores him to just it that he’s in danger, Walt furiously tells her that he’s not in danger – he is the danger. Walt proposes the hypothetical scenario of a guy who opens his door and gets shot dead (the exact same thing that happened to Gale on Walt’s orders), and Walt says he’s not that guy; he’s “the one who knocks.”

This brilliantly written monologue highlights both what a cold-blooded menace Walt has become and how fragile his ego is. Even when a drug kingpin is sending assassins to kill him, Walt can’t it that he’s vulnerable. And when Skyler suggests he is, he throws it back in her face. Cranston’s intense delivery brings this monologue to life and walks that fine line perfectly.

1 Walt's Phone Call Claiming Skyler's Innocence

Cranston’s most mind-blowing acting-within-acting moment arrives towards the end of “Ozymandias.” After realizing his family wants nothing to do with him and they don’t deserve the scrutiny that his life of crime is about to bring, Walt calls the house. Knowing that the police will be monitoring the call, Walt chastises Skyler for not helping him build his drug business, claiming that he ran the operation alone without her cooperation.

Although his anger seems totally real, when director Rian Johnson shows Walt’s side of the call, it’s clear that he’s devastated. He’s making all of this up to establish Skyler’s innocence before the inevitable investigation, and he’s heartbroken to be put in this position. This is the pinnacle of Cranston’s Breaking Bad performance: he sells the menace, but he also sells the heartache underneath it.