What actor and actress stayed/have been on the A-List for the longest period of time?

[RickJay]

@acsenray

Former A-listers include Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Julia Roberts

Willis, Carrey, Murphy and Roberts aren’t A-listers? They still make movies built around them.

[Tom_Scud]

@Sam_Stone

Nonetheless, he was at best a co-star in both of those films. He didn’t get nearly as much screen time as Alec Baldwin in The Hunt For Red October, and Baldwin played Jack Ryan, the main action hero. Connery was first billed though, so you could make the case that it was a starring role.

And the movie poster is an enormous portrait of Sean Connery.

Still you have a point, I just thought you were overstating it. There was a push for him as a true A-lister in the 90s & early 00s, but the movies where he was the star (aside from Hunt) were at best kinda disappointing (Entrapment) and at worst total stinko flops (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

In any event, even with those two films included he hasn’t had anywhere near the ‘A’ list longevity as some of the other actors mentioned, nor was he ever an iconic star like John Wayne, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, or Clint Eastwood.

[Number]

@Tom_Scud

I think ZARDOZ basically knocked him out of the A list for the better part of a decade.

Here’s a more detailed analysis of both Connerys’ career arcs.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Tom_Scud

And the movie poster is an enormous portrait of Sean Connery.

Still you have a point, I just thought you were overstating it. There was a push for him as a true A-lister in the 90s & early 00s, but the movies where he was the star (aside from Hunt) were at best kinda disappointing (Entrapment) and at worst total stinko flops (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

Still, both of those grossed plenty more than double their budget at the box office ($212 million and $179 million, respectively), sure as his top-billed performance in THE ROCK helped it along to plenty more than quadruple ($335 million) likewise. Factor in the return on investment for FINDING FORRESTER and RISING SUN and FIRST KNIGHT and putting him in a leading role pretty much spells “profit” over the good-sized span of years in question.

[Little_Nemo]

If we’re going to define the A-List as those actors who had the lead in the top-selling movie of the year and won the Best Acting Oscar, then nobody has been on the list for more than a year or two. To have any meaningful discussion, you have to climb down a little from the pinacle.

I’d define a A-List actor as somebody who is consistently being cast in the lead role of mainstream films. It doesn’t have to be every part they play - Bruce Willis didn’t fall off the A-List because he took a supporting role in Assassination of a High School President or a cameo in The Expendables - he also had the lead roles in Live Free or Die Hard, Surrogates, Cop Out, and Red during the same period.

[Little_Nemo]

@Tom_Scud

I think ZARDOZ basically knocked him out of the A list for the better part of a decade.

How? The year after he had the lead in Zardoz, he had lead roles in Ransom, The Wind and the Lion, and The Man Who Would Be King. Followed by lead roles in Robin and Marian, The Next Man, The First Great Train Robbery, Meteor, Cuba, and Outland.

[Superhal]

Ah I guess a lot of us didn’t see that the OP put a definition of “a-list” in the OP:

@Sampiro

I’ll define A-list as:

-Always either received or shared top billing in a movie
-Continued to get plum roles in big budget movies
-Continued to be critically and commercially successful (everyone can have a few flops, but I’m talking actors who at least most of their projects work financially and critically)

Although, I would argue that critical AND commercial success rarely go hand in hand.

In this case, I think only the all time greats mentioned would qualify, e.g. Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, etc., back in the days when a handful of actors would get rubber stamped by critics no matter what kind of doodoo they were in that week.

Nowadays, a lot of popular actors get panned by critics in their big budget releases, so they have to do art house work to get critical acclaim. Will Smith, for example, never gets good reviews for his work in summer blockbusters, but usually gets good reviews in his “serious” roles like Ali, 7 Pounds, Pursuit of Happyness, etc.

So, if we allowed more modern actors to have commercial and critical success in separate films, I would nominate Clint Eastwood. On the female side, Sigourney Weaver has had a pretty impressive modern run starting in Alien (1979) all the way up to Avatar (2009) with Ghostbusters III (2012) around the corner, with a ton of award winning/nominated films along the way from Gorillas in the Mist to Working Girl.