25 Greatest Actors of all Time
by reapersplaytoy | created - 30 Mar 2011 | updated - 30 Mar 2011 | PublicSome of the greatest actors listed from best to still great.
1. Bruce Campbell
Actor | Bubba Ho-Tep
In 1979 with his Detroit friends, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell raised $350,000 for a low-budget film, The Evil Dead (1981), in which he starred and co-executive produced. Completed piecemeal over four years, the film first gained notoriety in England where it became the best-selling ...
The greatest B-movie actor of all time should have been an even bigger A- lister.
2. John Malkovich
Actor | Being John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, to Joe Anne (Choisser), who owned a local newspaper, and Daniel Leon Malkovich, a state conservation director. His paternal grandparents were Croatian. In 1976, Malkovich joined Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, newly founded by his friend Gary ...
A unique actor that is somewhat differnt and always great.
3. Johnny Depp
Actor | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one ...
Has done more with his roles then problably any other actor. His dark roles are the greatest.
4. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
Problably the greatest living actor of his generation. His roles have gotten even better even with them being limited to his age. Even with Ledger's amazing job as the Joker, Nicholson's Joker was better.
5. Michael Keaton
Actor | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Quirky, inventive and handsome American actor Michael Keaton first achieved major fame with his door-busting performance as fast-talking ideas man Bill Blazejowski, alongside a nerdish morgue attendant (Henry Winkler), in Night Shift (1982). He played further comedic roles in Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny...
A really underrated actor. His job with Beetlejuice and as Batman were amazing. His role of Batman was way better then the hack Christian Bale.
6. Sean Connery
Actor | The Rock
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he ...
The best James Bond. Any movie he has been in is great.
7. Simon Pegg
Actor | Shaun of the Dead
English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was ...
Still early in his career, yet from Shaun of the Dead to The Big nothing he has been amazing.
8. Sam Rockwell
Actor | Moon
Sam Rockwell was born on November 5, 1968, in San Mateo, California, the only child of two actors, Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. The family moved to New York when he was two years old, living first in the Bronx and later in Manhattan. When Sam was five years old, his parents separated, at which ...
Another actor early in his career. Yet with roles between Choke and Moon and smaller roles in Iron Man 2 Rockwell is showing himself to be a rising star.
9. Steve Buscemi
Actor | Fargo
Steve Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Dorothy (Wilson), a restaurant hostess, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker. He is of Italian (father) and English, Dutch, and Irish (mother) descent. He became interested in acting during his last year of high school. After graduating, he moved to...
A Coen Brother's and Quentin Taratino favorite, he has become a favorite in several films. In Taratino films such as Reservoir Dogs where he played Mr. Pink to The Big Lebowski where he played Donnie. Buscemi is always entertaining.
10. John Turturro
Actor | Fading Gigolo
Highly talented, lightly built American actor who always looks unsettled and jumpy has become a favourite of cult/arthouse film aficionados with his compelling performances in a broad range of cinematic vehicles.
Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American parents, Katherine (...
Another favorite of directors. The Coen Brothers and Spike Lee are almost always using Turturro. Turturro is somewhat different.
11. Val Kilmer
Actor | The Doors
Val Kilmer was born in Los Angeles, California, to Gladys Swanette (Ekstadt) and Eugene Dorris Kilmer, who was a real estate developer and aerospace equipment distributor. His mother, born in Indiana, was from a Swedish family, and his father was from Texas. Val studied at Hollywood's ...
Kilmer is such a unique actor that people in Hollywood have had problems using him. Top Secret!, Tombstone, Heat, The Doors,and Willow have been some of the greatest movies of the last thirty years.
12. Jim Carrey
Actor | Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jim Carrey, Canadian-born and a U.S. citizen since 2004, is an actor and producer famous for his rubbery body movements and flexible facial expressions. The two-time Golden Globe-winner rose to fame as a cast member of the Fox sketch comedy In Living Color (1990) but leading roles in Ace Ventura: ...
Both his comedic and dramatic roles are always amazing. His one flaw was making Bruce Almighty.
13. Seth Rogen
Producer | This Is the End
An actor, comedian and writer, Seth Rogen has come a long way from doing stand-up comedy as a teen.
Rogen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Sandy (Belogus), a social worker, and Mark Rogen, who worked for non-profits. His father is American-born and his mother is Canadian. He is of Russian...
Almost every role he does is the same, but he at least does what he knows. Yet the Green Hornet was something slightly different.
14. James Garner
Actor | The Notebook
Amiable and handsome James Garner had obtained success in both films and television, often playing variations of the charming anti-hero/con-man persona he first developed in Maverick, the offbeat western TV series that shot him to stardom in the late 1950s.
James Garner was born James Scott ...
Another actor that has been lately limited to roles for the elderly. He will always be wonderful.
15. Ernie Hudson
Actor | Ghostbusters
As a child growing up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Ernie Hudson wrote short stories, poems and songs, always thinking that his words might one day come to life on stage. After a short stint in the Marine Corps, he moved to Detroit where he became the resident playwright at Concept East, the oldest ...
Hudson will always be a better actor then the hack Denzel Washington.
16. John Travolta
Actor | Pulp Fiction
John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, ...
Pulp Fiction is still his best movie, yet Travolta has alway delivered some entertaining films.
17. Nicolas Cage
Actor | Face/Off
Nicolas Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola in Long Beach, California, the son of comparative literature professor August Coppola (whose brother is director Francis Ford Coppola) and dancer/choreographer Joy Vogelsang. He is of Italian (father) and Polish and German (mother) descent. Cage changed his...
To me he is a truely goofball actor, never amazing but never bad. His role in Kick-Ass, Con-Air, Ghostrider, Matchstick Men, Adaption, and Wheather Man shows his flashes of genius. Sadly his horrible choices of roles such as Gone in 60 Seconds and The Wicker Man have personaly held him back.
18. Brad Pitt
Actor | Fight Club
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student ...
One movie alone speaks for Pitt, Fight Club. Yet if you most name another, Burn After Reading.
19. Samuel L. Jackson
Actor | Pulp Fiction
Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), ...
Pulp fiction is an amazing movie and Jackson is Jackson nothing else needs saying.
20. Dennis Quaid
Actor | Far from Heaven
Dennis William Quaid was born on April 9, 1954 in Houston, Texas to Juanita Bonniedale "Nita" Quaid (née Jordan), a real estate agent & William Rudy Quaid, an electrician. He grew up in the Houston suburban city of Bellaire. He was raised a Baptist, and studied drama, Mandarin Chinese, and dance ...
His brother has made it harder on him, but Quaid is great in almost every movie he has been in.
21. Will Ferrell
Producer | Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
John William Ferrell was born in Irvine, California, to Betty Kay (Overman), a teacher, and Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., a musician. His parents were originally from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Ferrell became interested in performing while a student ...
People will name some of his less unique films as his best. yet Stranger Than Fiction was his best.
22. John Goodman
Actor | 10 Cloverfield Lane
John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as ...
Goodman has mainly been a surrporting actor, but that has been what has made him better.
23. Sam Elliott
Actor | A Star Is Born
Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The ...
Between his voice and his mustache this actor has mostly done westerns.
24. Nathan Fillion
Actor | Castle
Nathan Fillion was born on 27 March 1971 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the son of Cookie (Early) and Bob Fillion, both retired English teachers, and has an older brother, Jeff. His father is of French-Canadian descent, and his mother is of English, German, Finnish, and Norwegian ancestry. In ...
Another B-Lister and television star, he has shown signs of genius.
25. Gérard Depardieu
Actor | Cyrano de Bergerac
Gérard Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to Anne Jeanne Josèphe (Marillier) and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, who was a metal worker and fireman. Young delinquent and wanderer in the past, Depardieu started his acting career at the small traveling theatre "Café de la Gare", along ...
Mostly acts in foreign films, however he is always amazing.
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