1FF's top 100 actors/actresses

[SALTIRE]

I'm a big fan of Fassbender, he was terrifying in 12 Years a Slave, great turns in Eden Lake and Fish Tank early on in his screen career too. Can't wait for the upcoming Macbeth.

Oh yeah he has a broad, eclectic body of work behind him already. His breakout role in Hunger was breathtakingly good and harrowing to watch simultaneously. He has since moved effortlessly between genres doing roles in Eden Lake, The Devil's Whore, Inglorious Basterds (haven't seen it but those that like Tarantino rave about it), the X-Men series where he is excellent as the warped but likeable Magneto, A Dangerous Method giving a great performance as a Yung who tries to be in control of his emotions but they are bubbling away under the surface, Shame playing a sex-addict, Frank (superb little film), Prometheus, 12 Years A Slave, MacBeth, Steve fucking Jobs and he is doing Assassin's Creed as we speak.

Great versatility and I think he would be a tremendous Bond as well as he has the wild Celtic looks with a touch of danger about him that always makes for the best Bonds, but I hope he doesn't take it if offered as it would typecast him a bit in Hollywood as has happened to the brilliant Daniel Craig, and that would be a shame.

 

[This Charming Mike]

I love Morrissey.

 

[lordofthepies]

Kinski was my number 2. I love pretty much all of his work with Herzog and he plays a very convincing maniac, although it sounds like it probably came kinda naturally to him.

Fassbender was pretty high up on my list too.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Klaus Kinski

Spoiler: tldr

Again, not much into navel gazing thesps, but when you live it 24/7 like something out of Spinal Tap then fair play. Tales of his exploits are legion (including some of a deeply un-lol-able nature from his daughter), but the tendency to paint him as some sort of lunatic cartoon character shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he was a force of nature on screen. An odd wee rodent of a bloke, angular features and physically slight, but a prolific producer of outsized performances. Best when playing obsessive types in the throes of some sort of psychological collapse, which played right back into his rep for off-screen madness, a distinction further muddied by his prolific self-mythologising.

Known mostly for a small number of movies with Werner Herzog (another of those very productive love/hate director/star relationships), but did crap loads of other stuff. Cut his teeth doing krimis (which have yet to receive the kind of hipster rehab granted to the giallo and spaghetti western...) and then segued into doing all manner of cheapo Italian gubbins. My personal fave being Bloody Hands of the Law, a zero budget bin job in which he wears shades, says literally nothing the entire film, and burns of a rapist’s genitals with a blowtorch. I can never picture him on the sets of those ones, but he did a chuff of a lot more of them than he did Sisyphean schleps through the Amazon.

 

[Oaf]

With a point more than Daniel Day Lewis on 52 from 4 lists is...

7th:
Kevin Spacey
You may remember me from such films as: American Beauty, House of Cards, The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential, Se7en
Oscars: One best actor win for American Beauty and a best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects

Another actor I really like. And I know he's supposed to be great in House of Cards, even though I've not seen that yet. Hell, this guy was even fantastic in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, a series with typically forgettable throwaway stories/villains.

 

[Oaf]

On 54 points and appearing on 4 lists is a man who actually led this thing for quite a long time near the start and for a brief moment looked as if he may have ran away with it in the early stages.

6th:
Tom Hanks
You may remember me from such films as: Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Castaway, Toy Story
Oscars: Won best actor two years running, in 94 for Philadelphia and then again in 95 for Forrest Gump. Has also been nominated for it another 3 times.

 

[Oaf]

Next up is the highest rated English actor on this entire list. He managed to get a point more than Hanks with 55 out of the four lists he was voted on.

5th:
Gary Oldman
You may remember me from such films as: Leon, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Harry Potter
Oscars: A single nomination for best actor in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

 

[Oaf]

A single point, once again, separates this next person from the previous one. This person managed to get 56 points, but managed to do so from just the three lists they were nominated on. That's an average of 18.6 points from each list (which I believe is the highest average score for any person on this list that received more than one nomination), meaning they averaged the 2nd or 3rd spot on all three of them...

4th:

James Stewart*
You may remember me from such films as: Rear Window, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, Anatomy of a Murder
Oscars: One best actor win for the Philadelphia story and another 4 nominations. Also won an honorary award in 1985.

 

[SALTIRE]

Had Spacey, Stewart and Oldman in my lists, tremendous actors all of them.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

James Stewart

Spoiler: tldr

My last man standing. Another pantheon of classic Hollywood type.

Did a squillion films, so this is a little reductive, but broadly speaking he had a great two act career. Made his name in comedies and playing folksy everymen for Capra and the like, and then had a great mid career reinvention, trading that light-hearted charm for something grittier as a star of westerns and thrillers. The best of his latter films traded on that initial bloke-next-door persona, keeping a vestige of it, and parachuting it into much darker territory - Vertigo and the Anthony Mann westerns being the best examples.

Was a very modern sort of a performer for his time. Idiosyncratic in mannerism and delivery in a way that might see him pigeon holed as a character nowadays. Could certainly play smooth and debonair, but had a nervous energy about him too. Was also a staunch GOP man and hawkish in the extreme, a fact lost on witless, pavlovian nuance-phobes who would juxtapose him with John Wayne. I have not put any particular thought into this (so...), but must have been the star of as many capital G Great films as anyone ever.

 

[SALTIRE]

Stewart was my number two pick, he was just so watchable in everything he did, from the early and late comedies, to the darker Hitchcock stuff where he played around with his own image and took risks with it, and wasn't afraid to do so; he could play sons-of-bitches as in Vertigo and in The Flight Of The Phoenix. He also had great warmth as an actor, you could really get caught up with him when he was doing his philibustering in Mr Smith Goes To Washington, or when he is suicidal in It's A Wonderful Life. He had great personality on screen and off, and was just so consistently good to watch. The greatest Hollywood actor and star of them all for me.

Gary Oldman was my favourite actor growing up, I first saw him in Sid And Nancy, playing Sid Vicious and laughed heartily at his antics and saw his all-too-real progression into drug abuse and worse. Next saw him in State Of Grace where he played a volatile gangster and he showed his excellent mimicking ability with voices where he put on such a great New York accent, you couldn't believe he was a Londoner. He then did great starring runs in JFK and Dracula making the jump into the a-list category and showing just how versatile he was in anything. My favourite Oldman film is Immortal Beloved, where he plays an idol of mine in Beethoven, and he did it with great gusto and actually played the taxing piano pieces having wanted to be a great pianist when he was young; it was a moving performance of a tragic but life-affirming man. Also putting in great cameo's in True Romance, Lost In Space, Air Force One and The Fifth Element, he showed he could play those roles in his sleep. Alongside them, he did great turns in Leon, Hannibal, Prick Up Your Ears, The Contender and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead along with one or two other notable roles. He directed the harrowing and moving Nil By Mouth, played a hooligan in The Firm, and did an adequate job of George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor; and has took on side roles in Harry Potter and the Nolan Batman films as well as many other big budget roles in movies to come. He is still very much in demand, and I hope he tests himself in many other parts, as he is perhaps the finest character actor of his generation and certainly the greatest British screen actor of the last 30 years imo.

 

[lordofthepies]

Stewart was my number 1. I just bloody love him. I can't really add anything to what Cadel and Saltire have said though, so even as I type this post, I realise that it's pretty much pointless.

 

[Oaf]

Right, let's finish this off with the top three, RIGHT. DAFUQ. NOW.

After being very close for the most part so far with 1 point separating most positions, we actually had quite a jump for our top three. After James Stewarts 56 points, this next person has 69 points from 4 lists... and of the four lists he was on, he actually topped two of them. Only this person and the person who finished in the top spot managed to get the top spot on more than one list.

Going to do these top three in a new, special, MOAR EPIK style, for the EPIKZ.

3rd:

You may remember me from such films as:

The Shawshank Redemption

Seven

Bruce Almighty

Invictus

Driving Miss Daisy

Oscars: One best supporting actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby

Morgan Freeman

DAT voice though. I could listen to him read a fucking shopping list for an hour straight and I'm sure he'd make it epic. The man managed to literally play God in Bruce Almighty and I'd totally fucking buy him in that role.

 

[Oaf]

This next person appeared on more lists than anybody else on this thing, including the man who finished above him. He made it onto 6 of the fuckers, that's nearly half of the 13 total lists submitted for this thing, nabbing 75 points in the process. However, he didn't actually manage to grab the top spot in any of them... which is probably what cost him the top spot here... and I'd say the only reason that nobody wanted to put him at the top is that while he's been great in some things, right now he just really has just the one, single defining role that's made his career...

2nd:

You may remember me from such films as:

Argo

Drive

Godzilla

And TV shows such as:

Malcolm in the Middle

Breaking Bad

Bryan Cranston

 

[Oaf]

You've probably guessed who has the top spot by now.

He managed to get 84 points from his 5 lists and topped two of them.

1st:

You may remember me from such films as:

The Wolf of Wall Street

Inception

Titanic

The Departed

The Great Gatsby

Django Unchained

Shutter Island

Gangs of New York

The Aviator

Oscars: He may have topped this thing, but Oscars have eluded him. Three nominations for best actor in The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf of Wall Street, plus best supporting actor in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

He is of course:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Fair enough, I reckon. He is usually pretty damned great in anything he's in. As much as I liked him before it though, I found his best performance ever to be in The Wolf of Wall Street. So damned fun to watch and played that role to perfection. But other great performances have been littered all over his career, for me particularly his roles in Django, The Departed and The Aviator.

 

[SALTIRE]

Fucking hell Di Caprio and Freeman in the top three ffs!

Cranston is a mighty fine versatile actor and I have loved him since he appeared on Seinfeld and Malcolm In The Middle years back and I also remember his memorable turns on the X Files and in Babylon 5 way before his transformation as Walt in Breaking Bad. He shouldn't finish so high up but at least he's a proper actor unlike the other two!!

 

[mowgli]

Was i the only one who voted for John Thaw? Shocking!

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

particularly his roles in Django

He wasn't in that film, champ.

 

[spireite]

He wasn't in that film, champ.

Ok I'll bite - what?

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

This is Django. The greatest spaghetti western that doesn't have the name Leone in the credits, a cheap and nasty exercise in sand-blasted, mud-soaked gothicism.

This is Django Unchained, an 9 hour long exercise in self-administered proctology.

 

[spireite]

Aaah, i'm with you.

Although DeCap's performance in that dinner table scene where he inadvertently cut his hand open was one of the best I've seen tbh.

 

[SALTIRE]

A three year old girl could act better than Di Caprio. He is awful on all levels.

 

[spireite]

What do Scots know about acting anyway

 

[SALTIRE]

Obviously one of the members who picked Di Caprio then eh spire?

 

[iesty wfc]

Di caprio was my number 3 choice (had hanks and de niro above him)

Cant say he has been in many bad film's though, and from the trailer for his new film revanent I honestly think he will finally get his Oscar

Good list management oaf

 

[Craig]

Morgan Freeman was on my list. Glory, Se7en, The Power of One, Shawshank, his turns as Alex Cross among my faves.

I also rate Di Caprio, Salty is nuts.

Well run Oaf, quite enjoyed this one.

 

[SALTIRE]

Morgan Freeman was on my list. Glory, Se7en, The Power of One, Shawshank, his turns as Alex Cross among my faves.

I also rate Di Caprio, Salty is nuts.

Well run Oaf, quite enjoyed this one.

I'm disappointed in you Craig tbh, I thought you were better than Freeman and Di Caprio, seems I was wrong!

 

[SALTIRE]

Yes Oaf, I echo the above sentiments from above. Well done and well run on the lists, its been good fun!

Here's my top 20 actors list btw I submitted :

1 Alec Guinness
2 James Stewart
3 Katherine Hepburn
4 Chishû Ryû
5 Marlon Brando
6 Henry Fonda
7 Alastair Sim
8 Peter O'Toole
9 Meryl Streep
10 Dustin Hoffman
11 Gary Oldman
12 Jack Lemmon
13 John Mills
14 Kevin Spacey
15 Charlton Heston
16 Sean Connery
17 Cary Grant
18 Timothy Spall
19 Michael Redgrave
20 Peter Mullan

These were the other actors I chose from but didn't make it. Some are finer actors than the above but for various reasons they missed out (a lot of great stage names in there for example who haven't had a brilliant film career).

Gene Hackman
Cate Blanchett
Willem Defoe
klaus Kinski
Toshiro Mifune
Daniel Day-Lewis
Peter Sellers
Glenn Close
Rod Steiger
Paul Newman
John Candy
Maggie Smith
Tilda Swinton
Jean Arthur
Ben Mendelsohn
Mads Mikkelsen
Charles Laughton
Charles Coburn
Christopher Lee
Robert Shaw
Albery Finney
Harvey Keitel
Brad Dourif
Walter Matthau
Denzel Washington
Harrison Ford
Jack Nicholson
early De Niro
Tom Hanks
Spencer Tracy
Lawrence Olivier
Humphrey Bogart
George C. Scott
Charles Chaplin
Richard Burton
Alan Arkin
Javier Bardem
Robert Redford
Steve McQueen
Robert Mitchum
Bette Davis
Ingrid Bergman
Edward G. Robinson
Peter Lorre
Michael Caine
Russell Crowe
Clint
Ian Holm
John Gielgud
Michael Gambon
Paul Scofield
Mark Rylance
Anthony Sher
Peter Cushing
Ian Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Nicol Williamson
Toby Jones
Bernard Hill
Ray Milland
Richard Harris
Robert Donat
Roger Livesey
Jack Hawkins
Trevor Howard
Dirk Bogarde
Tom Courteney
Alfred Molina
Ian Hart
Benedict Cumberbatch
Michael Fassbender
Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hardy
Al Pacino
Robert Carlyle
Guy Pearce
Brendan Gleeson
Simon Russell Beale
Ciaran Hinds
Hal Holbrook
Pete Postlethwaite

 

[spireite]

Obviously one of the members who picked Di Caprio then eh spire?

Nah I didn't put a list in. I never have the attention span to get past the first couple

 

[ZianfrancoGoal]

Yes Oaf, I echo the above sentiments from above. Well done and well run on the lists, its been good fun!

Here's my top 20 actors list btw I submitted :

1 Alec Guinness
2 James Stewart
3 Katherine Hepburn
4 Chishû Ryû
5 Marlon Brando
6 Henry Fonda
7 Alastair Sim
8 Peter O'Toole
9 Meryl Streep
10 Dustin Hoffman
11 Gary Oldman
12 Jack Lemmon
13 John Mills
14 Kevin Spacey
15 Charlton Heston
16 Sean Connery
17 Cary Grant
18 Timothy Spall
19 Michael Redgrave
20 Peter Mullan

These were the other actors I chose from but didn't make it. Some are finer actors than the above but for various reasons they missed out (a lot of great stage names in there for example who haven't had a brilliant film career).

Gene Hackman
Cate Blanchett
Willem Defoe
klaus Kinski
Toshiro Mifune
Daniel Day-Lewis
Peter Sellers
Glenn Close
Rod Steiger
Paul Newman
John Candy
Maggie Smith
Tilda Swinton
Jean Arthur
Ben Mendelsohn
Mads Mikkelsen
Charles Laughton
Charles Coburn
Christopher Lee
Robert Shaw
Albery Finney
Harvey Keitel
Brad Dourif
Walter Matthau
Denzel Washington
Harrison Ford
Jack Nicholson
early De Niro
Tom Hanks
Spencer Tracy
Lawrence Olivier
Humphrey Bogart
George C. Scott
Charles Chaplin
Richard Burton
Alan Arkin
Javier Bardem
Robert Redford
Steve McQueen
Robert Mitchum
Bette Davis
Ingrid Bergman
Edward G. Robinson
Peter Lorre
Michael Caine
Russell Crowe
Clint
Ian Holm
John Gielgud
Michael Gambon
Paul Scofield
Mark Rylance
Anthony Sher
Peter Cushing
Ian Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Nicol Williamson
Toby Jones
Bernard Hill
Ray Milland
Richard Harris
Robert Donat
Roger Livesey
Jack Hawkins
Trevor Howard
Dirk Bogarde
Tom Courteney
Alfred Molina
Ian Hart
Benedict Cumberbatch
Michael Fassbender
Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hardy
Al Pacino
Robert Carlyle
Guy Pearce
Brendan Gleeson
Simon Russell Beale
Ciaran Hinds
Hal Holbrook
Pete Postlethwaite

that's a lot of names!