The Video Game Critic

Including the ladies.....my list....

1. Daniel Day Lewis
2. Marlon Brando
3. Robert DeNiro
4. Meryl Streep
5. Gene Hackman
6. Al Pacino
7. Bette Davis
8. Jack Nicholson
9. Edward Norton
10. Paul Giamatti

1-John Cusack

2-Christopher Lambert

3-Jeff Anderson

4-Roddy Piper

5-Clint Eastwood

6-Sylvester Stallone

7-Scott Bakula

8-Jerry Orbach

9-Sam Waterson

10-Daniel Bernhart

@matmico399 - That's a great list - can't really argue with anyone on it.

Purely subjective, of course - the top 2 are definitely my favorites while the rest can be taken in whatever order:

1. Daniel Day Lewis
2. Humphrey Bogart
3. Marlon Brando^
4. Steve Buscemi
5. Willem DaFoe
6. Henry Fonda
7. Cary Grant
8. Toshio Mifune
9. Peter Sellers
10. Klaus Kinski

*it's weird that I give Brando a pass for "losing it" as he got older but have trouble do the same for DeNiro and Pacino - maybe because some of his final roles were just so bizarre? Maybe outward contempt is more interesting to me than acquiescence?

^^It really sucks that I'm not including a single woman - I have no good explanation for this.

Instead of just choosing my favorites I'm choosing actors who can play many different roles successfully.

1. Boris Karloff - Usually played horror roles, but could play other roles well too. Hal Roach Jr. Produced an anthology series, The Veil, where Karloff played a different character in almost every episode. (About 10 episodes.)
2. Burgess Meredith - First saw him as Rocky's Trainer, and usually think of him as such, but in truth Burgess Meredith played many other rolls convincingly, including several on The Twilight Zone. Anyone who can play both Satan and an old librarian who won't give up his Bible has to be a good actor.
3. Ed Wynn - Yes, the vaudeville comedian. In movies and Tv he usually played comedy roles, but he also played a serious role in The Greatest Story Ever Told, a man Jesus healed. Saw his bit when flipping through channels one day and was shocked. He could act! I know that's a wrong thought; I know comedy's hard; I know comedy requires talent, but it was still surprising. I'd like to see more.
4. Rose McIver - Stars in the weird CW crime drama iZombie. The unusual plot sees her character taking on personality traits of the recently deceased. She pulls it off well.
5. James Stewart - Best known as the Everyman, but these roles could be quite varied. You have the hopeless romantic Everyman, seen in The Philadelphia Story; the panicked out-of-his-element every man seen in The Man Who Knew Too Much. It's A Wonderful Life put Stewart through his paces and shows what he could do.
6. Doris Day - Best remembered for Rom-Coms, but she could do much more. (Again, see The Man Who Knew Too Much.) Oh, and she could sing too.
7. Audrey Hepburn - I usually think of her as someone who played regal characters, but she played other roles well too. She played a beatnik girl in Funny Face, and, while I usually think of Breakfast at Tiffiny's as another "regal" role, there's a certain feeling about her character there which seems different. She also played a comic role in Paris When it Sizzles, a blind woman in Wait Until Dark, and a nun in The Nun's Story; she did well in all those roles.
8. Harry Morgan - The 2nd commander in M*A*S*H. Also played Sargent Friday's semi-comic partner in the 60's version of Dragnet.
9. Kurt Russell - One of the few child actors to succeed as an adult. Had played both comic and dramatic roles successfully.
10. Orson Wells

I'd like to mentions a 'younger' generation of actors

Jake Gyllenhaal
Denzel Washington
Clive Owen
Natalie Portman
Philip Seymour Hoffman

Fat actors are the best. Jackie Gleason, Chris Farley, and John Goodman. Politics aside, I think Roseanne Barr is a hell of an actress, and I thought that Rosie O'Donnell was great in "A League of their Own".

Herschie wrote:Fat actors are the best. Jackie Gleason, Chris Farley, and John Goodman. Politics aside, I think Roseanne Barr is a hell of an actress, and I thought that Rosie O'Donnell was great in "A League of their Own".

Outside of comedy, add in Sydney Greenstreet, Burl Ives, William Conrad, and Orson Welles.

No Kevin spacey?? Booooooo...

1. Cary Grant
2. James Stewart
3. Maureen O'Hara
4. Bing Crosby
5. Ginger Rogers
6. Fred MacMurray
7. Doris Day
8. Loretta Young
9. Claudette Colbert
10. Teresa Wright