No love for Laurence Olivier or Alec Guiness?
Movies only?
Men:
Jimmy Stewart
Warren Oates
Women:
Meryl Streep
Sissy Spacek
Male- Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman.
Female- Meryll Streep and Jodie Foster.
Other- Jaye Davidson and Linda Hunt
She was phenomenal in her first feature role, Heavenly Creatures, and did the best portrayal of Ophelia I’ve seen in Branaugh’s Hamlet. While Jane Austen stories aren’t generally to my taste, she very clearly stood up to the more experienced Emma Thompson, and was the best thing about Holy Smoke and the histrionic Quills. If anything, I’d have to say that were 20th Century output, as limited as it is, was consistently better than her post-2001 films in which the only real standout roles were in Iris and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I haven’t seen The Reader or Revolutionary Road so I can’t comment on that, but the rest of her work this decade has been largely indifferent to awful; even she couldn’t sell The Life of David Gale.
See post #10. Olivier was really a stage actor, and when he came to doing more naturalistic roles in film that weren’t play adaptations he always seemed a little stiff and stagey. Guinness, on the other hand, is the consummate character actor who could disappear completely into a role. I think his best work was in the little seen but highly topical The Prisoner, and his role as aged spymaster and weary cuckold George Smiley in the BBC mini-series adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the sequel Smiley’s People.
Stranger
Men:
Jack Lemmon
Russell Crowe
Women:
Meryl Streep
Judi Dench
Others who came thisclose to making the cut: Daniel Day-Lewis, Helen Mirren, James Stewart, Marlon Brando, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edie Falco, Ian McShane, Gary Oldman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, James Gandolfini, John Malkovich, Glenn Close, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, Christopher Plummer
And post #11.
“Greatest Actor” is a tough one, mostly because I know so little about stage acting in the epoch. “Greatest Film Actor” is easier, I suppose:
Humphrey Bogart
Jack Nicholson
For a while it looked like DeNiro and Hoffman would have taken these honors, but the work just hasn’t been there.
Were I to list my two personal favorites, I’d say John Wayne and Boris Karloff. Both had vastly underrated range, but I’d be a fool to say they were actually better than the names above.
Contenders:
Paul Newman
Robert Redford
Gene Hackman
Dustin Hoffman
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Robert DeNiro
Al Pacino
Marlon Brando
Alec Guiness
Laurence Olivier
Humphrey Bogart
Jack Nicolson
Jack Lemmon
Tom Hanks
Gary Oldman
James Cagney
…
Man…there’s a lot. Is that even half the likely suspects?
Anyway, for my money - Nicolson and DeNiro
Women would be - Hepburn and Streep (Seems like they’ve mostly seperated themselves from the pack).
I haven’t watched many old movies, so I’ll go with Oldman and DeNiro. And I think Tom Hanks is terrible.
I tend to agree with this. She must be either at the top or in the running for best actress of the 21st century. What’s remarkable with her is (just like Hepburn) with her looks she really didn’t need talent. She would have been a star just based on her beauty. Instead, she turned out to be a hugely talented actress.
Also, I’d like to put in the discussion Paul Giamatti. I don’t think he’s the best, but awfully close.