The example I have is The Lords of Flatbush (1974). Three of the four stars are Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler, and Perry King. All near the beginning of their careers.
I have to disagree with several of these choices. The cast of The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai (1985) were modestly well known. Uncommon Women and Others (1917) is a little dubious. Jill Eikenberry in an early lead role is interesting. Swoozie Kurtz is further down the cast list. Meryl Streep is even further down the cast list. Alexander Scourby was already well known. Nobody else has had much of a career.
I’m not sure what you mean by “ensemble casts,” but here are three classics:
Citizen Kane
Orson Welles
Joseph Cotton
Agnes Moorehead
Ruth Warrick
Ray Collins
Everett Sloane
The actors were appearing in their first major film, and many went on to long careers.
MASH
Donald Sutherland
Elliott Gould
Tom Skerrit
Robert Duvall
Sally Kellerman
Roger Bowen
Gary Burghoff
Rene Auberjonois
John Schuck
Michael Murphy
But Cort
All were virtual unknowns when the movie was made. Only Sutherland made any important movies.
American Grafitti
Ron Howard
Harrison Ford
Richard Dreyfuss
Cindy Williams
Candy Clarke
Mackenzie Philips
Joe Spano
Suzanne Somers
Paul Le Mat
Charles Martin Smith
Howard, of course, was known as Opie, but was not a movie star and was only appearing sporadically as an adult actor.
By the standards of this thread just about any movie could qualify. Wow, turns out the entire cast were a bunch of random actors, who proceeded to make some other movies as well. Big whoop.
It’s hard to believe the fat kid from that film grew up to be so handsome.
The Outsiders had a fair few, none of who had (according to the IMDB) been in anything big before:
Matt Dillon … Dallas Winston
Ralph Macchio ... Johnny Cade
Patrick Swayze ... Darrel Curtis
Rob Lowe ... Sodapop Curtis
Emilio Estevez ... Two-Bit Matthews
Tom Cruise ... Steve Randle
I haven’t included C. Thomas Howell as I don’t think he counts as famous enough afterwards, or Sofia Copolla because her main success if as a director, not an actress.
It’s also an actual ensemble cast, to satisfy the purists.
Not quite along the same lines, but as a friend pointed out to me recently- who thought the two leads in Ten Things I Hate About You would end up two of the most respected actors of their generation?
I think of these as “Hey, I didn’t know HE was in this” movies. The classic example is Cool Hand Luke, which included a cast of mostly vaguely-familiar-looking unknowns. For many years afterwards, every time we watched it on television, another “unknown” would have become famous in the interim, e.g., a very young Dennis Hopper.
Mind you, this is different from many examples above in that CHL did not make them famous (except for George Kennedy, who won an Oscar).
I think there’s one shining HIDKHWIT in each generation, but it won’t be recognized until twenty years later (for obvious reasons). For forty-somethings (pushing fifty, yikes) I give you Hamburger Hill.
Revenge of the Nerds definitely falls into this category.
Among other actors, it features:
-Anthony Edwards (ER)
-James Cromwell (Babe, LA Confidential)
-Ted McGinley (famous for causing TV shows to jump the shark)
-John Goodman
Along with a bunch of less well known people who have shown up all over the place
-Timothy Busfield (West Wing, Field of Dreams)
-Donald Gibb (Bloodsport)
-David Wohl (Saving Private Ryan)
-Bernie Casey (Bill and Ted)
Lead-billed Robert Carradine is still working steadily, but has never really made it big.
“Can’t Hardly Wait” had a solid soon-to-be-mainstays of Cable Television cast.
Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Seth Green, Peter Facinelli (most recently on Nurse Jackie)Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez and Eric Balfour (all were on Six Feet Under) and a score of folks. Jason Segil and Jamie Pressly also had small parts.
Hard to believe, but the cast of Carrie was pretty much unknown in the film world when the movie was made
Sissy Spacek as Carrie White
Piper Laurie as Mrs. White
Amy Irving as Sue Snell
William Katt as Tommy Ross
Betty Buckley as Miss Collins
Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen
John Travolta as Billy Nolan
While not exactly unknown at the time, the cast of Boogie Nights still only had one Oscar nominee (William H. Macy) among them when it was released.
10 years later, that number had jumped to seven, adding Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Mark Wahlberg in the interim.
The Bounty had then-unknown Daniel Day Lewis and Liam Neeson in small parts. Mel Gibson (already a star) headed the cast which also featured Anthony Hopkins, who was known at the time, but was not the A-Lister he became later (after Silence of the Lambs).
