I can understand how a big film like Annie Hall could have jumpstarted the careers of a lot of new actors–or they recognized talent early, maybe like in The Sentinel–but how did so many of them end up in both films? What’s the common thread?
Huh? I only count three people who are in both films - Beverly D’Angelo Christopher Walken, and Jeff Goldblum. That’s not surprising for two films made the same year. What do you mean?
OK, I stand corrected. But what other films are like that, then?
The Outsiders - Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane (didn’t know that one)
School Ties - Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O’Donnell, Cole Hauser, Ben Affleck
Dazed and Confused - Jason London, Adam Goldberg, Matthew McConaughey, Cole Hauser, Milla Jovovich, Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck
and Parker Posey
With the exception of Ron Howard, most of the young actors in American Graffiti were relatively unknown until the film made them into Big Names. Richard Dreyfuss, Suzanne Somers, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, and others.
No, I know a single successful film can jumpstart a slew of careers. Diners, etc. But there’s two of them in the OP that have significant overlap. OK, Wendell Wagner says it’s only an overlap of three, but I would think even one would be surprising: relatively unknown gets small part in two movies, both of which have a lot of the younger actors go on to very successful careers.
Those three actors didn’t get discovered in either Annie Hall or The Sentinel. You could make a better case for Next Stop, Greenwich Village, which came out the year before, as being the movie that Goldblum and Walken were discovered in. But that’s not really true either.
Look, I remember quite clearly seeing Annie Hall when it first came out. I was already 25 and had already been a big fan of Woody Allen’s films for several years and was already somewhat of a film freak. When I saw Jeff Goldblum in Annie Hall, I said to myself, “Hey, there’s that guy that had small roles in both Nashville and Next Stop, Greenwich Village.” Although I didn’t see Death Wish and California Split until several years later, if I’d been a little bit more of a film freak I would have recognized him from those two films. And he’d also done two more films that I haven’t seen yet.
Similarly, I remember saying to myself, “Hey, there’s that guy played the best friend of the hero who steals the hero’s girlfriend in Next Stop, Greenwich Village.” I also remembered him from the trailer of Roseland. He’d also done six other films that I haven’t seen yet by that point.
Beverly D’Angelo was somewhat of a newcomer to acting. She had already had short careers as a cartoonist and a singer in a rock band. She’d already been in one film.
The major casting directors in 1977 already knew Walken very well and Goldblum fairly well. Walken was 34 and had been acting in New York since he was 9. He had been doing major work on the New York stage for over a decade. A year before Annie Hall came out, Walken was only narrowly beaten out by Harrison Ford for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars. Goldblum was 25 and had been acting in New York since he was 17. Far from being unknowns to the major casting directors, Walken and Goldblum were so well known that they were, in some sense, pretty obvious choices for their roles in Annie Hall.
It’s hard for me to tell now if D’Angelo was known to casting directors in 1977. Annie Hall is full of performances by people who were only known within the acting community in 1977 but are now fairly well known to the movie public. (I don’t know whether to credit Woody Allen or the casting director of the film for this.) D’Angelo only appears in Annie Hall in a TV show seen on a TV screen. Tracey Walter, who also only appears in that TV show within the movie, is another person with some recognition by casting directors but none by the general public at the time. There’s two even stranger small roles. Sigourney Weaver appears in a six-second role in a long shot as Woody Allen’s date at a movie. She was originally supposed to have Shelley Duvall’s role in the film, but she decided she would rather do a stage role that would take up too much of her time to do the movie. She agreed to instead do the six-second role as a favor. Strangest of all, there’s a scene in Annie Hall where Allen and Keaton are making funny comments about people passing by. Allen refers to one person as the winner of a Truman Capote look-alike contest. That person was played by Capote himself in an uncredited role.
I usually just have a friend open the emergency exit for me.
Most actors and actresses have histories, before their first “big” part. The Olsen twins, I dunno. But I would be interested in other examples like this, if you say that it is not surprising.
Not sure about the others, but i think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that American Graffiti turned Harrison Ford into a big name. He was still struggling to become famous when he got the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, and even after that his career was not really established until he did Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Blade Runner in back-to-back-to-back years.
OK, let me see if I can specify the question better. A big star is someone who has had a successful big role, and gone on to other successful big roles. That rules out actors who have had big successful roles tailored to them, but don’t go on to other successful projects. So, are there other pairs of movies made about the same time that both have a large number of big stars before they were big stars, and the two movies share some (even one) of these?
I’ll accept varying definitions of “successful”, “big role”, and “large” 
You’re right. Although American Graffiti provided Ford with a bit of exposure, it didn’t make him a star. I recall seeing an interview in which he said that he was still making most of his income from carpentry for quite a while after Star Wars.
MAS*H made stars of Elliot Gould, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall (though he had been in quite a few movies before that), Donald Sutherland, Jo Ann Pflug (briefly), and Fred Williamson. It also was a showcase for Tom Skerrit (why it took him years to be recognized is a surprise, since his role was the equal of Gould’s or Sutherland’s), Rene Auberjonois, Gary Burghoff, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, Bud Cort, and Roger Bowen.
I’d be looking for pairs of such movies.