The Bride! is one of those 2026 movie releases that a lot of audiences missed in theaters but may check out now that it’s streaming at home. Maggie Gyllenhaal's dark romance flick divided critics and sadly lost millions at the box office. Still, I say it's definitely worth a watch. Now, in honor of the film's arrival on HBO Max, I'm reviving CinemaBlend's chat with the cast about Christian Bale’s notable role as Frankenstein’s monster, including one of his most eclectic attributes.

Christian Bale's Frankenstein Transformation Shocked His Co-Stars

Just ahead of The Bride’s release back in February, CB had the chance to speak with all the big stars in the movie along with writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal. More specifically, when we chatted with Penelope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard about their first time seeing Bale as the iconic monster, Cruz said this:

The Oscar-winning actress had a good idea of what Jessie Buckley was going to look like as the modern take on the titular character from the 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein movie. However, Cruz was amazed by the person in front of her when Bale came out in full costume, and I can understand her feelings. As for Sarsgaard, he had this to say:

Needless to say, both Sarsgaard and Cruz had their observations when Bale appeared before them in costume. You can check out their comments in the interview clip below:

In the movie, Sarsgaard takes on role of Jake Wiles, a police detective, while Cruz plays his assistant, Myrna Malloy. Throughout the film, both characters pursue The Bride and “Frank”. All in all, Frank proves to be quite an interesting character -- right alongside the film's titular protagonist -- and there's one quirk that really needs to be discussed.

Why Is Christian Bale's Version OF Frankenstein’s Monster Such A Big Movie Buff?

Aside from Christian Bale’s electrifying transformation as the famed movie monster, I was really moved by his take on the brute in smaller respects. Something that really caught my eye was the imposing character's obsession with going to the theaters and watching films. Here’s what Bale told us about this unique piece of the beloved creature's characterization:

It’s a great point, and this is an element I never thought viewers would get in a new adaptation of Frankenstein. As the actor added:

This cerebral kind of thinking is what makes Bale one of the most thoughtful actors of his generation. And, of course, credit goes to Maggie Gyllenhaal for molding this iteration of the monster. When we sat down with Bale, he also shared his thoughts on The Bride! being a love story and what’s going on with the movie’s ending. Check out our conversation with the Academy Award winner below:

There've been a lot of versions of Frankenstein’s monster over the years, but it’s pretty special to see the Batman actor put his spin on it in a story that focuses on him getting a companion in The Bride! Christian Bale clearly went all out on the role between the physical transformation and thinking deeply about what it would be like to be a lonely monster in 1936 Chicago. This certainly won’t be the last Frankenstein adaptation, but it's my hope that Bale's version will be held in high regard as the years go on.

Do yourself a favor by checking out Bale's stellar work in The Bride! now. It's a fun film, and it has cult status written all over it.

After years of talk about Hollywood reimagining The Bride of Frankenstein for the modern age, Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! is among new 2026 movies out this week, and it’s time to talk about the ending. This is your SPOILER WARNING for the rest of this article. Go see it in theaters before reading on.

Christian Bale On The Final Shot Of The Bride!

At the end of the movie, Christian Bale’s Frank gets gunned down by the police, leading Jessie Buckley’s The Bride to return to Dr. Euphronious’ labs and ask for him to be reanimated. However, the police are hot on her trail and shoot her too, leaving them both dead on the operating table. But in the final moment of the movie, we see lightning flash and their pair of hands clutch onto each other as the credits role. Here’s what Bale said of the scene during our interview:

So perhaps The Bride and Frank have been reanimated once again! Bale brought up a great point in our interview that the final moment of the film thematically is telling the audience that “reinvention is essential.” Through the science fiction storyline of The Bride!, maybe this unlikely pair will get yet another chance together.

And, Why Does The Bride! Reclaim Her Name?

I also had to ask writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal about The Bride deciding to reclaim her name as The Bride rather than going with the name from her former life, Ida, or a different one. Here’s what she shared with us:

1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein had Elsa Lanchester portraying the role of The Bride. However, the character at the time was barely explored and barely appears in a film named after her. In Gyllenhaal’s version, she was able to explore who she is in depth. As the filmmaker continued:

While The Bride! may have an ambiguous ending, it also gets across its message about these misfits ending up in the same place by the end, and the movie leaving the audience off on a rebellious place like the movie’s main character. They may even have a chance at a happier next life together, whether that’s in the human world or one beyond.

The movie has earned a glowing five-star review from our critic, along with opinions all over the map from other viewers thus far. Where do you land on this new retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic and the ending?

There have been about a bajillion adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, and in fact, Guillermo del Toro’s version has racked up several Academy Award nominations for next week’s ceremony. Already, however, we’re turning our attention to the next iteration, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, which promises to be something completely unique, as the monster, "Frank," seeks a companion creation. Critics screened the film ahead of its release on the 2026 movie calendar, and they have strong — but divisive — opinions.

Jessie Buckley — an Oscar nominee this year herself — portrays the titular creation, with Christian Bale playing Frankenstein’s monster and Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious, the scientist tasked with creating life from the body of a murdered woman. That’s not where the talent or the surprises end, either as CinemaBlend’s review of The Bride! calls it “a masterpiece on every level.” Nick Venable rates it a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, writing:

Tomris Laffly of RogerEbert gives it 3 stars out of 4, calling it “a fantastical creative explosion you can’t look away from.” It’s fun to see Jessie Buckley go fully unhinged, but it may be even more satisfying to see Maggie Gyllenhaal follow up The Lost Daughter with such a big swing that shows her operating with no limits. Laffly says:

Luke Hicks of AV Club gives the upcoming horror movie a B+, noting that Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jessie Buckley are intentionally making the audience uncomfortable, as the latter portrays her character with a brilliant, vile, vigorous, take-no-prisoners attitude that Frankenstein never had. Hicks continues:

To that end, there are indeed some less-than-complimentary reactions, with IGN critic Hanna Ines Flint giving it a "Mediocre" 5 out of 10 and calling Maggie Gyllenhaal’s movie a “gaudy feminist reimagining.” The critic writes:

Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post straight-up calls it “one of the worst movies I’ve seen in this job,” and awards it zero stars. The script, Oleksinski says, feels like something scribbled down at 4 a.m. in a dream journal. The critic continues:

With critics’ ratings ranging from 0 to 5 stars, you’ll have to use your judgment — with the help of these opinions — to decide if Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second directorial effort is one you want to partake in. The best part is, you don’t have to wait. The Bride! hits theaters on Friday, March 6.

From everything we’ve seen so in The Bride's trailer and promotional material, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new horror film doesn’t exactly look subtle. The 2026 movie calendar release leans hard into gothic romance, blood, and big swings, which makes it all the more amusing that the film apparently came with some equally dramatic studio notes. Chief among them? Frankenstein was absolutely not allowed to “lick black vomit off the Bride’s neck.” Yes, really.

Gyllenhaal pulled back the curtain on what it took to get her ambitious second feature across the finish line during an interview with Variety. While she’s been clear that she had a strong creative partnership with Warner Bros., she also admitted there were moments when her vision tested the limits of what the studio was comfortable with. As she put it:

Honestly, if that’s the note that made it into the press, I can only imagine what didn’t. But that wasn’t the only point of contention. Because The Bride! is a big studio movie starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, it went through extensive test screenings. And according to Gyllenhaal, one of the biggest recurring critiques centered on the film's violence.

Warner Bros. ultimately asked her to pull back some of it, which means the version of The Bride! that will be released in theaters this weekend is already a slightly tempered cut. Still, Gyllenhaal was adamant about not stripping the remaining violence of its emotional impact. For her, the goal wasn’t shock for shock’s sake. She added:

As for the sexual violence, the director acknowledged that some test viewers simply didn’t want to see it depicted at all. Gyllenhaal understands that reaction, but she also argued that ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. If it’s portrayed, she believes it should be uncomfortable, because it is uncomfortable in real life. It’s a theme she’s explored since Secretary and one she doesn’t seem interested in backing away from now.

The Bride! marks her first foray into large-scale studio filmmaking after the critical success of The Lost Daughter. And while navigating notes about vomit-licking Frankensteins and audience sensitivities might sound chaotic, Gyllenhaal insists the process was challenging in a productive way.

Difficult? Yes. But not adversarial. Just the messy, fascinating reality of trying to make a bold book-to-screen adaptation inside a system designed to sand off the edges. Whether audiences embrace those edges or recoil from them, we’ll find out when The Bride! hits theaters March 6.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on The Bride of Frankenstein officially comes alive among a slew of new 2026 movie releases coming to theaters this weekend. If you’ve been wondering whether The Bride! is a romance between two “monsters” brought to life by electricity, we have Christian Bale’s take on the question to ponder.

CinemaBlend interviewed the Oscar winner in London over the weekend, asking him whether The Bride! is a love story in his book. Here’s what he had to say:

Now, it doesn’t sound like Christian Bale frequents romance movies due to thinking they are often “disappointing” and “boring” much of the time. And as he explained, he didn’t count The Bride! among the genre when he first read the script from Maggie Gyllenhaal either. Bale has talked before about being shocked by the “way too risky” script of The Bride! at first, mistaking it for an indie film rather than the big-budget Warner Bros. movie it is. However, he had a change of heart the more he thought about it. Here’s what else he told us:

Bale was attracted to playing his own version of Frankenstein’s monster in The Bride! of course, but the idea of it being a “love story” at first wasn’t necessarily one of the reasons. There’s a lot of things the actor was excited by, and one of them is what makes it a “love story” in a unique way – which is between Hamnet Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley’s three characters of Ida, Mary and The Bride! in his reading of the film.

The Bride! has Christian Bale playing Frankenstein’s monster (known as Frank in the movie) in 1930s Chicago after he’s been alive for over 100 years. He ventures to find Annette Bening’s Dr. Euphronius in hopes of her making him a companion like him. They end up digging up a dead body of a woman formerly known as Ida and giving her the afterlife as his bride. Frank and The Bride go on a Bonnie & Clyde-type road trip on the run from the police full of romance and sparking radicalism along the way.

The reimagining of 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein offers a modern spin on the monster story that includes a version of Frankenstein’s author Mary Shelley (also played by Jessie Buckley) as well. You can decide whether The Bride! is a love story yourself when the movie comes to theaters this Friday, March 6.

Alongside such literary icons as Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, and James Bond, one of the most oft-adapted characters for live-action (and otherwise) is the anatomical monstrosity simply known as Frankenstein’s monster. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel has proven to be a seemingly unstoppable inspiration over the last 116 years, starting in the silent era with J. Searle Dawley’s Frankenstein, with James Whale’s 1931 adaptation and its 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein viewed as the true classic iterations. But only because 1930s audiences didn’t get to meet Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride.

If they had, they likely wouldn’t have known how to handle themselves around the whirlwind of Jessie Buckley’s constantly in-motion character, who adopts several different personas throughout the movie. She’s a gangster moll, a supernatural totem to feminism, and an extension of our current understanding of Mary Shelley’s radical (for the time) philosophies and motivations. She’s never only any one of these things, but rather an all-encompassing force to be reckoned with by those who adore her, fear her and wish her dead.

No one feels more strongly about the Bride than Christian Bale’s creature, who has lived a covered-up existence on the fringes of society, with the pangs of loneliness becoming increasingly louder with time. To seek his ultimate mate, he visits Annette Bening’s Dr. Euphronious, a more empathetic and level-headed “mad” scientist in place of Ernest Thesiger’s more clearly antagonistic Dr. Pretorius from The Bride of Frankenstein. Everyone gets far more than they bargained for (audiences included) when this resurrected coupling tears loose.

Maggie Gyllenhaal had more to bring to the screen than just a monster movie remake, and it’s impossible to nail down exactly what the finished product is. “A darkly hilarious true crime monster movie” comes close, but isn’t quite enough. Maybe it’s best to just say The Bride! is a motherf--king masterpiece.

The Bride! pays loving tribute to a wide array of Frankenstein-centric fiction.

While not a direct take on the Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester-starring The Bride of Frankenstein, The Bride! does draw from certain story beats and themes, including the initial conceit of Mary Shelley herself being the character who kicks the narrative off (also played by Buckley). Instead of narrating objectively from the background, Shelley instead injects her raging spirit into the body of the somewhat able, and mostly non-willing host Ida. She goes so far as to use the term "possession," and it's an apt one.

The Bride! is not beholden to its two most obvious pieces of source material , however, and it almost surreally incorporates an inspired assortment of nods to the Monster's pop culture impact as a whole. Without being so exhaustive as a spoof movie in that respect, Gyllenhaal still weaves a surprising number of on-the-busted-nose references into some of this film’s most vital scenes, and such moments left me downright giddy. It’s like when modern Batman stories make sure the infamous Shark Repellant used by Adam West’s Caped Crusade is featured in the background somewhere.

From more obvious projects like Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein to more cult-level films like Frankenhooker, this movie celebrates them all. Was I disappointed to not see anyone eating Frankenberry cereal at a breakfast table? Certainly – though I’m willing to concede that it happened when I wasn’t looking. The love for this universe’s lore carries on right into the credits’ familiar ditty.

Christian Bale is a surprisingly charming and sympathetic monster, but this is Jessie Buckley’s movie from the first minute to the last.

As both Patrick Bateman and Batman — him again? — Christian Bale exuded the same amount of ego through two very different prisms, and his performance in The Bride! comes from the opposite end of that self-confidence spectrum, albeit with similar inclinations to use violence as a means to an end. He is the Monster, after all, so all he's ever been seen as is a freakish outsider when he's not fleeing torch-wielding mobs.

All he's really looking for is a friend to share his interests, the biggest of which is a long-gestating obsession with the singing-and-dancing Hollywood megastar Ronnie Reed, as portrayed by a most debonaire Jake Gyllenhaal. Reed's movies are the buoy that stops Frank from hitting rock bottom, both emotionally and physically, and there's a natural desire to see him get what he wants, even knowing that it will result in a wave of murderous mayhem. Despite so many past iterations out there, Bale's Frank is a beast all his own, inspiring laughter, longing and horror in equal doses.

But let's not beat around the bush(y hair) here. Jessie Buckley could have been acting opposite babies and tennis balls on strings, or opposite the greatest actors of the past 116 years, and The Bride! would still be her movie through and through. As Mary Shelley, the actress is cynical, patronizing and proud, strengthened in those scenes by Maggie Gyllenhaal's black-and-white camerawork, which utilizes shadowy filmmaking tricks from horror cinema's earliest days.

As Ida, both before and after her death and resurrection, Buckley bounces from charismatic to vulnerable with an almost childlike temperament. It's in part due to her loss of memory, which Frank is happy to replace with his manufactured version of their relationship details. I'll let you guess how well that goes in the long run.

The best of all worlds comes when Mary's vindictive spirit takes over Ida's broken brain, causing her to sporadically rattle off at the mouth with rhyming streams of consciousness as one accent morphs into another from across the pond. All the awards buzz that Buckley has earned for Hamnet will not fade away once The Bride! has been awakened.

Ida’s kinetic journey veers down a trail of brutal and influential justice across the country, Bonnie Parker-style.

Not that this movie solely hinges on just those two characters' multi-leveled performances. Once The Bride! brings Frank and Ida together (with Mary), the story shifts in part from creature feature to crime spree thriller. Ida's unlawful connections to Chicago mobster Lupino, which lead to her corporeal conclusion, return to haunt her after Dr. Euphronious brings her back, resulting in a shocking act of violence that cements their fate as fugitives and sets up a dangerous precedent for the rest of the movie.

Enter Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard), whose partner Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz) is more adept in every way, despite not being given the proper consideration for earning the badge. The amount of times she has to defensively stand up for herself amidst seas of male cops would be comical if it wasn't 100% drawn from reality. In that way, Myrna's journey works in conjunction with Ida's, as she and Wiles both have reasons to not pursue the pair of monstrous murderers making national headlines.

Frank and Ida easily share space with Natural Born Killers' Mickey and Mallory as sensational cults of personality whose anti-establishment views are embraced by others regardless of their more malicious actions. Perhaps the more pointed comparison would involve the aforementioned film's own inspiration, real-life criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, though The Bride! very pointedly makes sure to ground the public influence in Ida's "I am woman, hear me roar" vibes as opposed to glorifying murders.

Really, everything about this movie works for me. Buckley's hair and black-stained makeup are instantly iconic. The choreography and dance numbers are energetic and never out of place. The way Frank's love of the movies becomes a visual storytelling element is bizarre and magical. Cruz and Sarsgaard are magnetic enough to lead their own two-hander spinoff. (Possibly chasing an invisible man...?)

From the first second to the last, however, the biggest share of the accolades have to go to Maggie Gyllenhaal. From bringing the Riot Grrrl energy to showcasing the unflinching violence to spinning a remotely plausible love story with these two misbegotten souls, the filmmaker pulls off a tour de force with her second feature that won't easily be replicated.

Through all my praise, I know The Bride! isn't for everyone. And to those who speak the loudest against it: watch out for splinters while holding those torches and pitchforks all day long.

Based on everything we’ve seen from the new horror film, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! appears to be quite the wild vision. Its starting point is the classic tale of Frankenstein’s monster finding his better half (semi-adapted from the work of Mary Shelley), but that setup spins out as a gothic romance set in 1930s Chicago. It’s the kind of original take that we don’t see a lot of in big budget filmmaking these days, and perfectly illustrating that point is the fact that its originality led star Christian Bale to think that he had gotten his hands on a “wrong” script.

Almost exactly two years after initially starting production, The Bride! is set to arrive in theaters this week on the 2026 movie release calendar, and while speaking with Deadline on a red carpet before the film’s recent premiere, Bale explained how his first read of the screenplay led to some confusion. While he had been told that the plan for the project was to make a big studio feature, he thought the material was so audacious that it would have a hard time finding a real budget. Said the actor,

At a time when studios are tending to play things safe due to waning audiences going to see movies in theaters, Bale wasn’t expecting a vision like the one he experienced on the page reading Maggie Gyllenhaal’s script to be properly funded. When he discovered the reality of the situation, however, he was impressed by the executives at Warner Bros. and their investment in the gamble. He continued,

Per The Numbers, The Bride! was made with a reported $80 million budget – not including marketing and publicity costs. Based on the trailer, all of that money is going to be featured on screen, as the movie sports a brilliant ensemble of stars to go along with some out-there production design, costuming, makeup, and more.

Jessie Buckley (who earned her first Oscar nomination for her turn in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter) stars opposite Christian Bale’s Frankenstein’s Monster as the titular Bride, and the impressive cast also includes Jake Gyllenhaall, Annette Bening, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, and Penélope Cruz. See it in theaters everywhere this Friday, March 6.

Simply put, when you think about the career of Christian Bale, your first thought isn’t “he’s hilarious!” The man has an absolutely stacked filmography full of hugely successful movies and acclaimed performances, and they almost all learn toward the dramatic – even including his two collaborations with director Adam McKay. He has a reputation for being serious… which makes it all the more delightful that I found myself guffawing hearing his recent answer to a question about the anticipated upcoming crime thriller Heat 2.

Bale is attached to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio for the project, which is a sequel to Michael Mann’s beloved 1995 epic. The original film memorably features a stacked ensemble headlined by Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, but when he recently spoke with Extra TV on a red carpet about having “big shoes to fill” in the making of the film, he didn’t namedrop any of those legendary talents, instead saying:

Indeed I do, sir, and it gave me a good laugh. And for those who don’t get it, I’ll ask you to rewind your mental clock back to the year 2013 when director Paul Feig – fresh off the success of Bridesmaids – put together a buddy cop comedy titled The Heat featuring the stars that Bale mentioned.

Watching the brief interview, one gets the sense that the actor was giddy to have the opportunity to make that joke, but he did also have a sincere thought to offer about the project, specifically in offering praise to the filmmaker at the helm. Said Bale,

Fans will remember that Heat 2 is going to be a reunion for Christian Bale and Michael Mann. They previously worked together in the making of 2009’s Public Enemies, the biographical drama that saw the Dark Knight star playing FBI agent Melvin Purvis opposite Johnny Depp’s John Dillinger.

Currently in pre-production and set to start filming later this year (Leonardo DiCaprio is presently busy working with Martin Scorsese and Jennifer Lawrence on the atmospheric horror film What Happens At Night), Heat 2 is an adaptation of the novel of the same name co-written by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner and published in 2022. The story serves as both a prequel and a sequel to its predecessor and is a globe-trotting adventure set across the final two decades of the 20th century. The project is targeting a theatrical release date in 2027, but Amazon MGM (which is set to distribute) has not yet planted a flag in a specific weekend.

It was almost 20 years ago that Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal first shared a spotlight in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Respectively playing Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman and Rachel Dawes, their characters had a deep history, with a childhood friendship developing into a tragic romance. The work required closeness between the two talents, but in a recent interview, they both explained why they had a much closer bond while recently collaborating on the upcoming horror movie The Bride!

The release date for the new 2026 film is coming up soon, and Gyllenhaal and Bale spoke about their reunion making the wild new release with Entertainment Weekly. The latter stars in the movie as Frankenstein’s monster a.k.a. Frank (opposite Jessie Buckley as the titular protagonist), but unlike the Dark Knight experience, the former is behind the camera and credited as the writer and director. Gyllenhaal spoke about getting to have a much closer relationship with her former co-star during production compared to the Batman blockbuster, saying,

I suppose this makes sense when you think about it from a purely logical perspective. As co-stars, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Christian Bale could connect through the relationship of their characters, but as director and actor, there is a greater license for her to get into the weeds and for them to talk about his approach to his performance.

Of course, one special advantage that Gyllenhaal has as a director is that she understands the unique language of actors, and Christian Bale explained that was a tool that she put to good use as they were making The Bride! together. Praising her as a true collaborator, he explained,

As alluded to, The Bride! is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second time helming a feature after 2021’s The Lost Daughter – and while her sophomore effort looks like a total different beast, it also looks like the exciting result of a specific artistic vision. Featuring an awesome ensemble that also includes Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Penélope Cruz in addition to the aforementioned Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley, the film will be arriving in theaters in just over a month on March 6.

Easily my most anticipated 2026 movie release whose title boasts an exclamation point, among many other metrics, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is closer than ever to bringing Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale’s monstrous coupling to audiences. As the upcoming horror film’s latest trailer was released, co-star Jake Gyllenhaal took to social media not only to share the bonkers preview, but also to heap a bunch of loving praise onto his filmmaking sister.

The Road House star recently filmed with two internationally beloved directors in Guy Ritchie (for the action-drama In the Grey opposite Henry Cavill) and M. Night Shyamalan (for the psychological thriller Remain), but one can assume that getting to work on his older sibling’s second movie meant just a little bit more on an emotional level. Speaking to that, Gyllenhaal hit up Instagram with only kind words, as seen below:

Well now the question has to be, "Who does Jake Gyllenhaal look up to more than Maggie?" Hopefully the answer to that isn't "Victor Frankenstein," because yikes.

More seriously, though, that message is as sweet and supportive as could be, and he no doubt would have been just as braggy about it even if he wasn't in the movie at all. The Presumed Innocent vet does show up in the latest action-filled trailer, though it doesn't exactly bode well for his character Ronnie Reed's survival, as Buckley's Bride is holding him at gunpoint in front of a bunch of other fancily dressed people.

If his character does get killed off, I bet it's in a spectacular fashion. One cannot just simply kill a sibling off quietly with zero pizzazz.

This of course won't be the first time that the Gyllenhaal siblings have worked on the same project. They first shared the screen in 1993's A Dangerour Woman, starring Debra Winger and Barbara Hershey, as that was actually directed by their father Stephen, who also helmed 1998's Homegrown, which also featured the duo. They later played on-screen brother and sister in 2000's cult classic Donnie Darko, and Jake co-starred in Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut, 2021's psychological drama The Lost Daughter (which also co-starred The Bride!'s Jessie Buckley).

Check out the latest trailer for The Bride! below.

Beyond The Bride! and the two aforementioned movies from Ritchie and Shyamalan, Jake Gyllenhaal has Road House 2 on the docket, and is reportedly in the midst of filming that currently. In the last year, he was attached to a TV adaptation of comic scribe Mark Millar’s series Nemesis (with the Russo brothers producing), as well as the quirky thriller Collision.

Before any of that, though, catch him opposite two of horror cinema’s most celebrated monsters when The Bride! finally hits theaters on March 6, 2026. Hopefully the previous premiere date delays were totally worth waiting through!

There are many ways that an actor can approach a role, but one of the most talked about is what’s called “method acting.” While what method acting really is is often confused, actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale have built their reputations around allegedly never breaking character during a production. However, Bradley Cooper, Bale's former co-star, reveals that’s not quite the way it works.

Many actors have talked about the experience of working alongside a method actor. We’ve heard bizarre stories from the set of Suicide Squad and the crazy things Jared Leto allegedly did when he played the Joker. Bradley Cooper recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he said that until he met Christian Bale on the set of American Hustle, he really had no idea how the process worked. He explained…

However, it turns out that at least for Christian Bale, he wasn’t fully immersing himself in his American Hustle character, but rather fully immersing himself in his accent. Bale kept his New York accent throughout American Hustle, but he had no problem talking to his co-workers simply as himself. Cooper continued…

Bradley Cooper says he borrowed the accent trick when he made American Sniper, and it helped him feel more comfortable when portraying his character. That's in spite of director Clint Eastwood apparently making fun of him on set for continuing to talk in his on-screen accent.

Considering that Bale was nominated for an Oscar for American Hustle and Cooper did the same in American Sniper, there's clearly something to be said for this process. To be fair, some directors hate method actors, and some actors who used to do it, like Meryl Streep, have stopped method acting.

While there may have been a particular form of “the method” decades ago, what’s clear now is that every actor simply does whatever they need to do to inhabit a character. Some may go to extremes of not breaking character, but some just hang on to the right accent.

I have been following the entire Heat 2 development saga since I first heard that Michael Mann was adapting his 2022 novel of the same name into a big screen affair. Over the past few months, it has started to look like the sequel to one of the best ‘90s movies will feature a cast that’s just as stacked as the epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and the late Val Kilmer that came out 30 years ago this December.

While I am excited about the possibility of Leonardo DiCaprio and fellow Oscar winner Christian Bale getting major roles in the upcoming book-to-screen adaptation, all this recent news has me wondering about something. What’s happening with a pair of actors who were rumored to be starring in Heat 2 when the project started picking up steam, when the hotly-anticipated sequel was announced well over a year ago?

The Idea Of Leonardo DiCaprio And Christian Bale Leading A Crime Epic Has Me Excited

First, the idea of Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale sharing the screen is something that has me even more excited about Heat 2. It’s like our generation’s version of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally having a scene together after all those years, with the only difference being that these two have never been in the same movie. Both have worked with directors like Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson, but never on the same picture.

Back in October 2025, Deadline reported that DiCaprio, hot off the decorated One Battle After Another, was in talks to play Chris Shiherlis, the character first brought to life by Val Kilmer in the original Heat. The following month, Deadline published a report stating that Bale, who’s set to appear in The Bride! next March, would be playing an undisclosed part. Could he be playing Neil McCauley? Vincent Hanna? Waingro? We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

Also, What Does This Mean For Those Rumors About Adam Driver And Austin Butler?

Though I am excited to see two of the greatest living actors tear it up on screen and be involved with some high-stakes heists, I can’t help but wonder what this means for those rumors about Adam Driver and Austin Butler being in Heat 2. Over the past couple of years, outlets like The Hollywood Reporter have brought up Driver and Butler’s names as possibilities to play central characters, but nothing’s come of it.

I mean, Driver, who has worked with director Michael Mann on Ferrari, would be perfect as a younger Neil McCauley (the movie has two timelines – one before the events of Heat, the other after the 1995 film). Something similar could be said about Butler, whose skills would be perfect to play Chris Shiherlis. However, there haven’t been any updates about these two, and Butler is now being eyed to lead Joseph Kosinski’s Miami Vice adaptation alongside Michael B. Jordan. As much as I want these to happen, I just don’t know if they will.

It’s not yet known if Heat 2 will take up a spot on the 2026 movie schedule or later on. That said, I’ll be there the day it opens, even if my early actor wishlist doesn’t happen.

We’re coming up on the 30th anniversary of Heat, the Michael Mann-helmed crime drama starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the first movie where they shared screen time together (obviously that didn’t happen in The Godfather: Part II). While Heat still works just fine as a standalone story, in 2022, Mann co-authored the novel Heat 2 with Meg Gardiner, and now a film adaptation of that sequel is in development. The latest update on that front is that it looks like Leonardo DiCaprio will be joined by a fellow Christopher Nolan alum in the upcoming movie.

Following a little over a month after it was reported that Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists would take over making Heat 2 from Warner Bros. Pictures, Deadline has shared that Christian Bale is in talks for a “major role.” Although DiCaprio is believed to be playing Chris Shiherlis, whom the late Val Kilmer played in Heat, no details were provided about whom Bale would play if a deal is reached. The film version of Heat 2 is gearing up to begin production next year, so ideally we’ll know sooner rather than later if Bale signs on or not.

For those unaware, Heat 2 follows in The Godfather: Part II’s footsteps by serving as both a prequel and sequel to its predecessor, one of the best movies of the 1990s. The prequel portion of the story takes place in 1988 and follows Shiherlis, Neil McCauley and their crew committing heists in Chicago, while at the same time, Detective Vincent Hanna is investigating a separate case in the same city focused on a gang of violent home invaders. The sequel portion takes place from 1995 to 2000 and follows Shiherlis evading the authorities after the events of Heat.

Taking all this into account, and assuming his deal is finalized, I would not be surprised if Christian Bale ends up playing McCauley or Hanna in Heat 2, i.e. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s respective characters in the original. Those two roles would certainly fit an actor of his caliber, and since Leonard DiCaprio would appear across both time periods if he is indeed playing Chris Shiherlis, then he and Bale would get to share screen time if the latter ends up being cast as McCauley. Of course, Christian Bale goes way back with Christopher Nolan thanks to the Dark Knight trilogy and The Prestige, while DiCaprio starred in Inception.

Or maybe I’m way off base and Christian Bale would instead play one of the new characters introduced in Heat 2. Whatever the case, I’m excited by the prospect of him and Leonardo DiCaprio finally getting to star in a movie together. Both are Academy Award-winning actors, the former for The Fighter and the latter for The Revenant, so you know it’s going to be electric when they’re paired together onscreen.

As we wait for official confirmation about Christian Bale’s involvement in Heat 2, remember that he’ll next be seen on the 2026 movies schedule playing Frankenstein’s monster in the Bonnie and Clyde-like The Bride!. Leonardo DiCaprio’s most recent movie, One Battle After Another, can now be rented or purchased digitally.

There are a lot of 2026 movie releases I’ve been looking forward to, and as of today, the Maggie Gyllenhaal-helmed The Bride! is added to the list. This Frankenstein-inspired flick already piqued my curiosity with Gyllenhaal writing and directing, as well as Christian Bale playing Frankenstein’s monster. But now I definitely plan on seeing this Jessie Buckley-starring upcoming horror movie because of the Bonnie and Clyde vibes the first trailer for The Bride! is giving off.

Pulling chiefly from 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, The Bride! sees Frankenstein’s monster asking Annette Bening’s Dr. Euphonius to create a companion for him in 1930s Chicago. This leads to the “birth” of Buckley’s titular character, and it’s outright said in the preview that her original self was murdered in order to fulfill The Monster’s desire. From there, the two go on the run and raise hell in a way that’s reminiscent of what outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow did from 1932 to 1934. Those two, of course, were the subjects of the 1967 movie Bonne and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

The longer a story has been around, the harder it becomes to adapt said story and make it stand out from what’s come before. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is already drawing early mixed critical reception for its more faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking novel, so we’ll have to see what the rest of the world thinks when the movie becomes available to stream with a Netflix subscription starting October 17. In The Bride! ’s case though, its looser handling of the source material definitely works to its benefit.

I’m a sucker for period pieces set in the first half of the 20th century, and I’m more specifically a fan of movies like Bonnie & Clyde, The Untouchables and Public Enemies that explore bank robbers and organized crime in the 1930s. So if you give me a movie where Frankenstein’s monster and his new “bride” are being pursued by the police and igniting fear in the general populace in the aftermath of the Prohibition era, I’m hooked! I didn’t know I needed to see those characters robbing a bank until now, and I’m crossing my fingers tightly we’ll get to see them wield Tommy guns.

On a more complex note, I’m also intrigued by how The Bride! may put a different twist on the Bonnie and Clyde dynamic. While those two criminals were heads over heels for each other until they were gunned down by lawmen, who’s to say that Frankenstein’s monster and his bride will always feel the same way? While I suspect Christian Bale’s character will always be obsessed with the woman who was “made” for him, we could easily see Jessie Buckley’s character realizing she wants to embark on her own path and get away from him, if not simply grow to hate him.

Whatever happens, I’m excited to see what The Bride! delivers when it’s released on March 6, 2026. Bale and Buckley are joined in the cast by Peter Saarsgard, Penélope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal and Dancing with the Stars’ Julianne Hough, among others, and it’ll go up against Pixar’s Hoppers that opening weekend.

Warner Bros announced some changes to its upcoming release schedule earlier this week. Typically, that’s not the sort of thing that should cause alarm, given movies shuffle around all the time based on a variety of factors, but in the specific case of Christian Bale’s new movie, there might be a genuine cause for some concern. The Bride has now changed distributors, moved release dates and been the subject of much speculation around its budget and alleged test screenings that may not have gone well.

Let’s back up real quick and talk about the movie itself first before we get into all the whispers because there’s a lot here to be excited about and also a lot to be confused about. The film is called The Bride, and it’s a sequel to the 1931 version of Frankenstein or maybe a reimagining of 1935’s Bride Of Frankenstein. It’s definitely a musical and maybe also a horror movie and maybe also a future Oscar contender and maybe also some kind of arthouse project. It stars Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz and a bunch of other big names, and it’s being helmed by actress turned director Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose debut The Lost Daughter was very well received.

The movie was originally supposed to be made through Netflix, but at some point, the popular streamer backed out of the project. Some claim it was because the Hollywood strikes altered the timeline. Some claim it was because the movie was going to cost way more to make than originally thought. Some claim it was because Netflix instead wanted to make a Frankenstein movie with Guillermo del Toro. Regardless, Warner Bros eventually stepped in and supposedly green lit the movie with an $80M budget and promises to let Gyllenhaal execute her vision.

Earlier this year, however, some concerning behind the scenes stories started to leak out. World Of Reel claimed the film had some test screenings that didn’t go well. Puck talked about worries in the context of Warner Bros’ expensive slate of upcoming titles maybe not being commercially viable. At some point, people started referring to it as a $100M movie. Now we have the official release date change, from Septemer 26th, a prime Oscar debut date, to March 6th of next year. In its write-up about the schedule change, The Hollywood Reporter referenced a “challenging post production period.” Some are speculating the studio may be forcing reshoots. More generously, some are thinking March could just be a spot with less competition.

I’m not some Hollywood insider. I read and write a lot about the movie business, but I don’t have my own sources. I’m not here to tell you what’s going on or what’s not going on. Instead, I’m here to tell you I’m confused and frustrated as a fan of horror and weirdo arthouse movies that really wanted to see this. I’m also a little bit confused.

A Maggie Gyllenhaal directed horror musical about the Bride of Frankenstein starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale was always going to be weird. I don’t think there was any way she could have put together these ingredients that would have appealed to casual movie fans. So, if the rumors about bad test screenings and the studio considering reshoots are true, that probably means one of two things. Either the movie is bad and needs reshoots or the movie is exactly as bizarre as you’d guess, isn’t playing well with the type of focus groups filled with the wrong people and now the studio is freaking out because they spent $100M on it.

Or maybe it’s just moving release dates, and the reason for that has nothing to do with any of these sketchy rumors. I just don’t know. We need to wait and see what happens over the next few months.

I’m going to see The Bride regardless because I’m the type of person who watched I’m Thinking Of Ending Things the day it came out. I need to see what Maggie Gyllenhaal is doing here, but whenever I do watch it, I really hope I get to watch whatever movie she wants me to watch and not some Frankenstein cut the studio feels could play a little better with people who were never going to pay to see it anyway.

Considering how many child stars have walked away from Hollywood, it is always so inspiring to see an actor who started early and continues to act to this day. Of course, some of them would walk away from the spotlight or experience a bit of a career hiccup before making an impressive return, either with more acting roles or in a new medium altogether. See for yourself by taking a look at these former child actors who went on to impress us as adults.

Mayim Bialik

After hitting it big as the title character of the hit '90s sitcom Blossom, Mayim Bialik lived a normal life that included earning a neuroscience degree and starting a family. She made her major industry return by joining the Big Bang Theory cast as neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, which led her to lead another sitcom called Call Me Kat and host Jeopardy! for a short time.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

After getting his start in movies like Angels in the Outfield and A River Runs Through It and playing an alien posing as a human teen on the great ‘90s TV show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt never really went away from Hollywood. However, he did experience a moment of relative obscurity before roles in the likes of (500) Days of Summer, a few great Christopher Nolan movies, and his many collaborations with Rian Johnson put him on the A-List.

Jurnee Smollett

Jurnee Smollett made a grand impression in her youth with a recurring stint on Full House and as the title role of the acclaimed Black horror movie, 1997's Eve’s Bayou. Her career would take an astonishing turn toward A-list success in 2020 after her Emmy-nominated turn in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, which was followed by her role as Black Canary in DC’s Birds of Prey, her great performance in Amazon Prime’s The Burial, and more.

Jason Bateman

Following his debut appearance on Little House on the Prairie, his roles on sitcoms like Valerie (later called The Hogan Family after some major casting shake-ups), and his lead part in Teen Wolf Too made Jason Bateman an '80s heartthrob. Years later, playing Michael Bluth in the Arrested Development cast made him a comedy icon before his Emmy-nominated turn as Marty Byrde in Netflix's Ozark cast further proved his remarkable versatility.

Keke Palmer

Keke Palmer – who proved she was an acting powerhouse at 9 years old with her debut role in Barbershop 2: Back in Business before scoring her first lead role in 2006's Akeelah and the Bee – never needed a comeback moment because her notoriety never really stopped. However, it is clear that the multi-talented Emmy winner was never more popular before her scene-stealing performance in Jordan Peele’s 2022 alien invasion movie, Nope.

Josh Brolin

After making his acting debut at 17 in 1985's The Goonies cast, Josh Brolin rarely had another role quite as successful until, at 39, he was cast in 2007's instant classic Western movie, No Country for Old Men, as Llewellyn Moss. The son of James Brolin went on to receive an Oscar nomination for 2008's Milk, was cast as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first big bad, Thanos, and has given commanding performances in various other acclaimed films.

Drew Barrymore

Many forget that, years after 1982's E.T. the Extra-terrestrial made her a sensation at just 7 years old, Drew Barrymore had a few career shake-ups due to personal drama including addiction. Yet, her astonishing performance in the opening scene of 1996’s Scream brought her back to the A-List and earned her roles in blockbusters like Charlie's Angels and TV shows like Santa Clarita Diet before she found later success as a daytime talk show host.

Neil Patrick Harris

Playing the prodigious title role of Doogie Howser M.D. made Neil Patrick Harris a household name, at least for a while. His popularity would skyrocket, however, when he played Barney Stinson in the How I Met Your Mother cast, which opened up many avenues for the now multi-Emmy-winning performer, from working with David Fincher on Gone Girl to hosting award shows and taking the stage on Broadway.

Gaby Hoffman

Gaby Hoffman had an amazing run as a child actor in the late 1980s and early 1990s with roles in movies like Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Now and Then, and Sleepless in Seattle. After stepping away to focus on her education, she resurfaced as a sought-after talent with her Emmy-nominated starring role in the Amazon Prime original TV show, Transparent.

Ke Huy Quan

Following his iconic roles in classic '80s movies Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as Short Round, and The Goonies, as Data, Ke Huy Quan’s role offers began to disappear. That would change decades later when he won an Academy Award for his uplifting performance in A24's acclaimed multiverse movie, 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Anna Chlumsky

For years, Anna Chlumsky was best known for her heartbreaking performance as 11-year-old Vada in 1991's My Girl. Years later, she significantly increased her star power with her multi-Emmy-nominated role in the hit HBO series, Veep, as Amy Brookheimer.

Macaulay Culkin

One of the most essential examples of a “former child star” is Macaulay Culkin, who had Hollywood in the palm of his young hands after leading the original Home Alone cast as Kevin McCallister. He still acts from time to time, having shown up in the American Horror Story Season 10 cast or on HBO's The Righteous Gemstones, is in a power couple with Brenda Song, and finally received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.

Christina Ricci

Christina Ricci would continue to find notable acting roles beyond her star-making turn as Wednesday Addams in 1991's The Addams Family and 1993's Addams Family Values. However, starring in Showtime’s Yellowjackets cast did wonders for her modern notoriety before she revisited her breakout role with a fun part in Netflix’s Wednesday cast, opposite Jenna Ortega.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale owes his fame to starring in Steven Spielberg's 1987 period drama Empire of the Sun and the cult-favorite 1992 musical Newsies but his menacing turn in 2000's American Psycho earned him wide respect as an adult. However, leading Christopher Nolan's live-action Batman movies as Bruce Wayne made him one of the top actors of his generation, leading to his Oscar win for 2011’s The Fighter.

Danica McKellar

Danica McKellar embodied the ultimate girl next door when she was cast in the original Wonder Years as Winnie Cooper from 1988 to 1993. Much later in her career, she would acquire a much different fanbase when she became one of the most prolific stars on the Hallmark Channel with roles in movies like Christmas She Wrote and Swing into Romance.

Cole Sprouse

Cole Sprouse had already acted alongside his sibling, his identical twin brother Dylan, numerous times (such as in Big Daddy) before Disney Channel’s The Suite Life franchise made them teen idols. However, you could argue that Cole was never more popular after he joined the Riverdale cast as Jughead Jones.

Hilary Duff

There were few teen Disney Channel stars who became quite as iconic and as quickly as Hilary Duff after she starred in the title role of Lizzie McGuire. She would find later success in the scene-stealing supporting role of Kelsey Peters on TV Land’s Younger and as the lead protagonist of Hulu's short-lived but well-liked How I Met Your Mother spin-off, How I Met Your Father.

Josh Peck

Josh Peck first rose to fame on Nickelodeon by scoring major roles in kid-friendly comedies like The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh. He would later prove his worth as a versatile actor with more mature roles, such as on Fox's Grandfathered or in Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture Oscar winner, Oppenheimer.

Vincent Kartheiser

Vincent Kartheiser first made a name for himself by appearing in ‘90s teen movies like Alaska and Masterminds. However, he would find later and greater success after starring in AMC's Mad Men cast as Pete Campbell.

Kurt Russell

Following his feature debut in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair alongside Elvis Presley, Kurt Russell continued to have success as the star of light and funny Disney movies like The Strongest Man in the World. In 1981, he reinvented himself as an action movie icon after playing Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, which led to plenty more awesome movie roles, such as R.J. MacReady in The Thing and Coach Herb Brooks in Miracle.

Kieran Culkin

Kieran Culkin was previously best known as Macaulay Culkin’s younger brother, who also showed up in the Home Alone movies and played Matty Banks in the Father of the Bride movies. However, he would become one of the more prolific Culkin siblings following his Emmy-winning turn in the Succession cast as Roman Roy and other widely acclaimed performances.

Johnny Galecki

For years, Johnny Galecki was best known for playing the third Rusty Griswold in 1989's National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and David Healy on Roseanne. He would later reprise the latter role on The Conners years after experiencing a career resurgence by playing Leonard Hofstadter on CBS' The Big Bang Theory.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Thomas Brodie-Sangster made an impressive feature film debut as Liam Neeson’s onscreen stepson in the 2003 rom-com, Love Actually. The British actor would later surprise audiences with his role as Jojen Reed in the Game of Thrones cast, leading to parts in the Maze Runner movies and Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit.

Tyler James Williams

Tyler James Williams became a bonafide sitcom star by playing a young Chris Rock on Everybody Hates Chris, which led to more interesting roles, such as Lionel in the acclaimed 2014 indie comedy, Dear White People. However, his recurring role on the Walking Dead cast and multi-Emmy-nominated turn as Gregory Eddie on the Abbott Elementary cast earned him wide respect as an adult actor.

Alisan Porter

Alisan Porter only appeared in a handful of movies, including Ron Howard's Parenthood and John Hughes' Curly Sue in the title role, before she walked away from acting when she was still very young. She would later reinvent herself as a talented musician when she competed in and won the tenth season of NBC's hit singing competition show, The Voice.

Ashley Johnson

Ashley Johnson broke into the business when she joined the Growing Pains cast as the Severs' youngest child, Chrissy. She is best known these days as a prolific voice actor who has breathed life into iconic roles such as Gretchen on Recess and Ellie in the hit post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us, which was adapted into an HBO series that she cameoed on.

Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy became one of the most promising young talents to break through on Nickelodeon, having been cast on iCarly as the charmingly bullish Sam Puckett. However, she became better known and even better respected years later for her acclaimed, revealing 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, which focuses on her life as a reluctant child actor.

Natasha Lyonne

Natasha Lyonne began her career early in life – notably appearing on Pee-wee's Playhouse – and seemingly hit her peak in her late teens and early 20s with the American Pie movies and But I'm a Cheerleader before substance abuse caused her career to slow down. Years later, Emmy-nominated turns on TV shows like Orange is the New Black, Russian Doll (which she co-created), and Poker Face and a few acclaimed movie roles reignited her wonderfully versatile career.

Mara Wilson

Following her star-making roles in Mrs. Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street, and Matilda, Mara Wilson walked away from the spotlight soon after starring in Thomas and the Magic Railroad. She would later take up minor, infrequent parts after becoming better known for writing about her experiences as a top child actor.

Haley Joel Osment

Haley Joel Osment would never go on to play a role quite as iconic as young medium Cole Sear in, arguably, the best M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Sixth Sense (which earned him an Oscar nomination) at 11 years old. However, his work as an adult – such as recurring roles on hit series like Silicon Valley and The Boys and memorable parts in movies like Kevin Smith’s Tusk – has been nothing short of exciting.

Taylor Momsen

Taylor Momsen made a charming debut as Cindy Lou Who in 2000's How the Grinch Stole Christmas and, in her teens, made an impression on the Gossip Girl cast as Jenny Humphrey. She would later reinvent herself as the frontwoman of a successful rock group called The Pretty Reckless.

Lukas Haas

Following an acclaimed run as one of the most revered child actors of the 1980s for his roles in Witness and Lady in White, Lukas Haas went on to take progressively smaller roles as he grew up. However, much of the projects he has taken in his adulthood – including movies like Inception and Babylon and TV shows like The Righteous Gemstones and War of the Worlds – have been met with great receptions.

Some of the most extraordinary performances in movie or TV history have seen the actor completely disappear into a role, not only changing their appearance but also adopting a voice almost entirely different from their own. Take a look at some of the most impressive voice alterations that an actor took on to perfect their unique portrayal of a now iconic character (or characters).

Robert De Niro (Cape Fear)

One thing that makes the 1991 remake of Cape Fear one of the most amusing Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro collaborations is the actor's approach to playing Max Cady. The Academy Award-winning Italian-American dons a thick, over-the-top Southern accent but is still no less chilling as the sadistic, recently released convict seeking revenge on the defense attorney (Nick Nolte) who put him away.

Lupita Nyong'o (Us)

One of the scariest modern horror movie villains is Red (Lupita Nyong'o) from writer and director Jordan Peele's 2019 sophomore feature, Us. The Academy Award winner brilliantly differentiates the vengeful, "tethered" person from her above-ground double, Adelaide, and gives her an even more unsettling presence, with a raspy voice inspired by a condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which inhibits airflow and is commonly a symptom of traumatic experiences.

Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

As he would with any other role, Daniel Day-Lewis went to great lengths to become the sixteenth President of the United States for his Oscar-winning performance in Steven Spielberg's 2012 biopic, Lincoln. He even made sure to match Honest Abe's voice, which was high-pitched and reedy (according to the Library of Congress), as opposed to the low bellow many previous portrayals mistakenly attempted.

Mel Blanc (Looney Tunes)

To this day, it is almost shocking to learn that most of the original Looney Tunes characters were brought to life by just one actor. Until he passed away in 1989, Mel Blanc provided the diverse voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and plenty more favorites under the Warner Bros. animation umbrella.

Austin Butler (Elvis)

The key to portraying Elvis Presley is nailing his distinct Southern drawl, which Austin Butler went to great lengths to perfect when he was cast as the influential musician in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 biopic. The work he put into the voice seemed to have a lasting effect on the actor, whom audiences could not help but notice continued to speak in the same accent during public appearances.

Seth MacFarlane (Various)

In addition to being one of the creative forces behind two of TV's longest-running hit animated shows for grown-ups, Seth MacFarlane is also responsible for bringing many of their most important characters to life. He voices Peter, Stewie, and Quagmire on Family Guy and plays Stan and Roger on American Dad – all of whom require him to be completely unrecognizable, while Family Guy's Brian is no different from his real voice.

Catherine O’Hara (Schitt's Creek)

What makes Moira Rose (Catherine O'Hara) one of the funniest characters on Schitt's Creek is the way she pronounces certain words with her over-the-top, posh accent. Classic examples include "baby" (beh-beh) and "enchiladas" (ahn-chuh-lah-dahs).

Jim Carrey (How The Grinch Stole Christmas)

It is still sometimes hard to believe that it is Jim Carrey playing the title role in Ron Howard's live-action adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas from 2000. Not only is he covered head-to-toe with green skin and matching fur in the Christmas movie classic but the comedic mastermind disguises his voice with an accent that earned comparisons to Sean Connery, as he told Entertainment Weekly.

Eddie Murphy (Coming To America)

Eddie Murphy started a career staple of playing multiple roles in the same movie with 1988's Coming to America. He dons an African accent to play Prince Akeem and brings his voice to higher octaves as Randy Watson and Clarence, but he undergoes the most intensive alteration of both his appearance and voice when playing elderly barber shop patron, Saul.

Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

The Dark Knight is a superhero movie that won Oscars for Sound Editing and for Heath Ledger's astonishing, transformative performance as The Joker. No matter how many times you watch Christopher Nolan's acclaimed 2008 sequel to Batman Begins, it is always shocking to hear that wheezy, menacing voice coming from the late Australian actor.

Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons)

If you have ever seen any of comedian Dan Castellaneta's live-action acting credits, it might shock you to learn that his most famous role is Homer Simpson. However, the Simpsons cast member provides the voice of plenty more characters than the infantile, Duff-swilling family man, including Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and Groundskeeper Willie.

Bill Skarsgård (Nosferatu)

Bill Skarsgård is no stranger to dramatically altering his appearance and his voice for the sake of scaring the living daylights out of audiences, having played Pennywise in back-to-back creepy clown movies, It and It Chapter Two. However, his transformation into Count Orlok for Robert Eggers' 2024 reimagining of Nosferatu was an even more challenging process, requiring a month-and-a-half of vocal training to perfect the vampire's dread-inducing growl.

Joaquin Phoenix (Walk The Line)

Joaquin Phoenix did all of his own singing when portraying Johnny Cash in James Mangold's acclaimed music biopic, 2005's Walk the Line. While appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that year, the future Oscar winner told the late night talk show host that he worked with a dialect coach to replicate the Man in Black's deep baritone voice as authentically as possible.

Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout)

For her Emmy-winning performance on the Hulu original true crime miniseries, The Dropout, Amanda Seyfried had the challenge of imitating the infamous low voice of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of the fraudulent blood-testing company Theranos.

Hugh Jackman (X-Men)

Many have been shocked to learn that Hugh Jackman is an Australian as his most famous role is the Canadian-native, Adamantium-clawed mutant, Wolverine. Of course, the Tony winner does more than just drop his natural accent for the X-Men movies but also incorporates a deep, nigh-animalistic growl.

Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

When Stephanie Beatriz debuted in the Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast, she used her natural, higher-tone voice to play Det. Rosa Diaz. However, over time, the character's voice became progressively deeper until the actor settled on a low, more gruff tone that better suited the cop's hard-edged exterior.

Christian Bale (The Dark Knight Trilogy)

To play the lead in Christopher Nolan's beloved live-action Batman movies, Christian Bale pulled double-duty on changing his voice. In addition to dropping his Welsh accent when appearing as Bruce Wayne, he adopted a gravelly, identity-concealing growl when patrolling Gotham as the Dark Knight.

Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

Kristen Stewart did more to earn her Academy Award nomination for portraying Princess Diana in the 2021 biopic, Spencer, than donning a blonde hairdo and an English accent. The actor revealed to Howard Stern that she went so far as to dramatically evolve her vocal inflection by opening her mouth more widely than she normally would and, as a result, practically altered her physical appearance in the film.

Phil LaMarr (The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius)

Prolific voice actor Phil LaMarr, in addition to his transformative characters as a MADtv cast member, has made himself unrecognizable for countless iconic animated roles, such as John "Green Lantern" Stewart on Justice League or the title hero of Samurai Jack. However, no blip on his resume is nearly as surprising as the recurring role of foreign exchange student Bolbi Stroganofsky on Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

Mark Hamill (Batman: The Animated Series)

There are two different kinds of Mark Hamill fans. There are those who know the actor as Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars movies and then there are those who know him as The Joker on Batman: The Animated Series and many subsequent animated Batman movies. The voice he puts on for the role – a wonderful mix of comically over-the-top theatrics and scintillating intimidation – has been recognized as the definitive portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime in the eyes of many DC fans.

Robin Williams (Popeye)

Robin Williams proved that he was the perfect choice to lead director Robert Altman's live-action adaptation of the Popeye comic strip. He matched the brave, spinach-swilling sailor's fast-paced growl, as originated by voice actor Billy Costello, to a tee in the 1980 film.

Maggie Wheeler (Friends)

Maggie Wheeler stole the show from the Friends cast with her recurring role as Janice Hosenstein, who was famous for her signature catchphrase, "Oh. My. GAWWWWWD!" What sold the character was her thick, nasally Brooklyn accent, which the actor came up with when she auditioned to play the character, as she revealed to Access Hollywood.

Idris Elba (Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom)

Idris Elba earned rave reviews for his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the Oscar-nominated 2013 biopic, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Being raised by West African immigrants helped the English-born actor develop an appropriate dialect to play the influential South African President, as he revealed to Oprah Winfrey.

Mia Goth (X)

Mia Goth played dual roles in Ti West's acclaimed A24 horror movie, 2022's X – both of which required her to conceal her mousy English accent. She spoke with a raspy Southern drawl as young aspiring starlet Maxine Minx and sounded similar, but significantly aged up, when playing homicidal elder, Pearl.

Megan Mullally (Will & Grace)

Megan Mullally absolutely earned her two Emmy Award wins for her committed performance as Karen Walker on the classic TV sitcom, Will & Grace. The key to the spoiled socialite's scene-stealing presence was her ear-piercing voice, which truly sounds nothing like the actor in real life.

Ana De Armas (Blonde)

Cuban-born actor Ana de Armas is known for having a strong accent, which she concealed in order to portray Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. Her commitment to matching the Hollywood icon's dialect in the 2022 Netflix original biopic would earn her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Billy West (Various)

Billy West could be called the Mel Blanc of his generation as he can claim to have played about as many memorable animated characters as the iconic voice actor behind much of the Looney Tunes line-up did. To list just a few of West's best-known credits, he was both of the title characters from The Ren & Stimpy Show, took over as Popeye at one time, led Futurama as Fry, and plenty more.

Nicole Kidman (Being The Ricardos)

Nicole Kidman's Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Lucille Ball in 2021's Being the Ricardos was achieved with more than just makeup. The actor shed her Australian accent and added a smokiness to match the I Love Lucy star's natural voice but was also challenged to imitate the more high-pitched tone of the comedy icon's onscreen alter ego.

Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory)

Dr. Bernadette Maryann Rostenkowski-Wolowitz easily boasts one of the most impossibly high-pitched voices in sitcom history. However, The Big Bang Theory cast member Melissa Rauch actually sounds nothing like Howard Wolowitz's bride, yet maintained the façade convincingly for 10 seasons on the hit CBS comedy.

Chris Pratt (The Super Mario Bros. Movie)

Despite making "total sense" to the directors of Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, fans of the original Nintendo video game series had some initial hesitation over Chris Pratt's casting as the older Mario brother. However, the actor wisely avoided the plumber's stereotypical Italian dialect from the games in favor of a Brooklyn accent that effectively masked his natural voice.

Robert Pattinson (Mickey 17)

Robert Pattinson plays the title role of Bong Joon-ho's 2024 sci-fi comedy Mickey 17 with an entirely unrecognizable and, admittedly, kind of goofy voice. According to IndieWire, the English actor based the voice for his "expendable" character and his many clones off of comedian Steve-O.

Johnny Depp (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory)

Say what you want about Tim Burton's 2005 adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but you have to admit that Johnny Depp did try something amusing with the role of Willy Wonka. To play the eccentric chocolatier, he adopted a high-pitched wheeze that almost makes you question if it really is the same guy who played Capt. Jack Sparrow under that top hat.

Actors playing multiple roles in entertainment go back to the dawn of drama. Even the ancient Greeks did it. This is certainly true of the film era, where actors have been playing roles all the way back to the beginning. Sometimes it's as simple as playing twins, like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin in Big Business, and sometimes it's more complex, like the great Peter Sellers playing three very different roles in Dr, Strangelove. In honor of those actors, here are some of our favorite examples of actors playing multiple roles in movies.

Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove

No list like this would be complete without the great Peter Sellers in his three fantastic performances in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sellers plays the resourceful Captain Mandrake, the bumbling President of the United States, and the completely over-the-top Dr. Strangelove in the movie. Sellers was also supposed to play the character Major Kong, but injured himself on set and the the role went to Slim Pickens instead.

Kate Hudson - Alex & Emma

Films with stories within stories are often a good place to find actors playing multiple roles, as is the case with Kate Hudson in Alex & Emma. In the "real" story, Hudson plays Emma, a stenographer helping Alex (Luke Wilson) complete his novel. As Alex and Emma work on the story, viewers are taken inside the story of a novel where both Wilson and Hudson play characters in the novel. Hudson, in fact, plays four different versions of a nanny in the book.

Michael J. Fox - Back To The Future Part II

While nothing will ever live up to the original Back To The Future, Back To The Future Part II is still pretty fun. One of the things that make it so is Michael J. Fox playing Marty (of course), and his son Marty, Jr., and his daughter Marlene in the movie. Thomas F. Wilson, who plays Biff Tannen, also plays multiple roles in the movie as the various members of the Tannen family.

Jodie Comer - Free Guy

This one is a little bit of a fudge, because in Free Guy, Jodie Comer is playing her character and her character's avatar. So in some ways they are kind of, sort of the same character. Still, she plays the roles different and for that reason, she deserves to be on this list.

Rory Kinnear - Men

Men is an odd movie, but in a good way. Rory Kinnear is what makes it unique. On the surface, Kinnear plays the owner of an inn in a small town, but he also plays most of the rest of the men in the town, all of whom are pretty odd characters.

Lupita Nyong'o - Us

Jordan Peele's horror classic Us features all of the cast members playing both their main character and "Tethered" character with that excellent cast being led by Lupita Nyong'o, who plays Addy and Red. It would be fair to put any of the cast members on this list though, about 20 in total, but we don't want to make this whole list about Us, despite how great it is.

Paul Dano - There Will Be Blood

It'll come as no surprise that a few entries on this list are actors playing identical twins in a movie. We had to include Paul Dano as both Paul and Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood because Dano's performance, especially as the preacher Eli, is transcendent. The final scene between Eli and Daniel (Daniel Day-Lewis) is one of the most intense scenes ever to appear in a film.

Scarlett Johansson - Astroid City

Director Wes Anderson's Astroid City has a movie within a movie telling the story of the movie. As such, and as you'd probably expect, there are a few actors playing both their "real life" characters and the actors playing them in the movie inside the movie. Scarlett Johansson plays both Midge Campbell and the actor playing Midege, Mercedes. Jason Schwartzman also plays two roles, as do Matt Dillon, Maya Hawke, and others.

George Burns - Oh, God! You Devil

The legendary George Burns played God in not one, but three movies in the Oh God series. In the third installment, he added another character, the Devil. The best scene in the movie comes when God and the Devil play a game of poker for the soul of Bobby Shelton, played by Ted Wass.

Bette Midler And Lily Tomlin - Big Business

Movies about twins separated at birth have been popular in Hollywood forever, but in 1988, director Jim Abrahams upped the ante with two sets of twins separated at birth. Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler are two sets of sisters who discover they were separated from their identical twin. It's a decent movie that hasn't really been remembered by many movie fans.

Eddie Murphy - Coming To America

Of course, we had to include Eddie Murphy on this list! There are multiple movies where the great comedian plays multiple roles, but in the interest of brevity, we're just including the best Eddie Murphy movie, Coming To America. Murphy's main character, Prince Akeem, is the only one that he plays in the movie. Clarence, the barber, is also Murphy, as is Saul, the guy who just hangs out at the barbershop all day. Finally, Murphy also plays the character you may remember from the "What's Going Down" episode of "That's My Mama," Jackson Heights' own Randy Watson!

Christian Bale - The Prestige

The Prestige is a movie that gets a little lost in director Christopher Nolan's fimography, though, like most of his movies, it's excellent. Nolan teamed up with Christian Bale again on the heels of Batman Begins for this movie about rival magicians. Bale plays Alfred Borden and Borden's assistant, Fallon, who are living with a secret that we'll keep in case you haven't seen the movie.

Mel Brooks - History of the World, Part I

Mel Brooks is a one-man force of nature. Not only did he write, direct, and str in most of his movies, but he usually played multiple roles as well. One of the best examples was in History of the World, Part I, where he plays four characters, one in each segment of the film.

Tilda Swinton - Suspiria

There is little that Tilda Swinton can't do, including playing multiple roles in movies. She first did it in 2002's Teknolust, before playing oddball twins in the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! In Suspiria, she plays three roles, Madame Blanc, Dr. Josef Klemperer, and Mother Helena Markos.

Leonardo DiCaprio - The Man In The Iron Mask

The titular character in The Man in the Iron Mask, was, supposedly, a prisoner kept by King Louis XIV during his reign. In the movie, the mysterious prisoner is Louis' twin brother, the fictional Philippe Bourbon. Both the king and the man in the iron mask are played by Leonardo DiCaprio in this historically dubious retelling of a classic Four Musketeer tale.

Janelle Monáe - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

As the title implies, there are a lot of layers in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. by writer and director Rian Johnson. One of those layers is just who Janelle Monáe's character is, either Andi Brand, the ex-partner of Edward Norton's character, or Helen Brand, her twin sister investigating Andi's unexpected death.

Arsenio Hall - Coming To America

Like his co-star Eddie Murphy, Arsenio also plays multiple roles in Coming To America. His main role, Semmi, is Murphy's trusted servant. Hall also plays one of the women the two meet at a club and one of the barbers, but the funniest character he plays has to be the preacher. Every line he delivers is hilarious.

Armie Hammer - The Social Network

Of all the double (and more) roles on this list, maybe the easiest to do double duty for is that of the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network. Don't get us wrong, Armie Hammer nails the role(s) as the swarmy twins who actually came up with the idea that would become Facebook. They may have had a case against Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), but that didn't make them good people.

Graham Chapman - Monty Python And The Holy Grail

This is really an entry for all of the members of Monty Python, as all of them play at least four different roles in the movie. Graham Chapman plays King Arthur, so naturally, he gets top billing, but John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Eric Idle deserve the spotlight here. Actors Neil Innes, Sandy Johnson, and John Young also play multiple roles in the movie.

Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Ben Whishaw, And More - Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas tells a story that spans centuries and in each timeline, the same core group of actors play different roles. This includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, and many more. It's a wild movie to follow, but all the actors are on point, for sure

Jack Nicholson - Mars Attacks!

While Mars Attacks! may not be the first movie you think of when you think of the great roles Jack Nicholson has played over the years, you should because he's actually really great in both of the roles he plays. It's not often thought of as one of Nicholson's best movies, but maybe it should be, because it is hilarious and he's a big reason why,

Hayley Mills - The Parent Trap

Both versions of The Parent Trap, the original starring Hayley Mills as twins separated at birth and the remake starring Lindsey Lohan as the twins are great movies. Mills and Lohan are both great at playing the dual roles of the twins who discover their parents separated them when they were babies and they never knew.

Mike Myers - Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

As the Austin Powers franchise chugged on, Mike Myers kept adding roles, but in the original, he started brilliantly as both the hero, Austin Powers, and the villain, Dr. Evil. It's hard to decide which character is funnier, but it's safe to say that without Myers playing the roles, neither would be as iconic and we wouldn't have as many classic lines from Myers.

Peter Sellers - The Mouse That Roared

While Dr. Strangelove is the most famous and revered example of Peter Sellers playing multiple roles in a movie, it wasn't the first time he did. A few years before the Stanley Kubrick classic, Sellers started in the wildly underrated war movie farce The Mouse That Roared. Sellers carries the movie in three different, ridiculous, and hilarious roles and it really should be better remembered today.

Margaret Hamilton - The Wizard Of Oz

Margaret Hamilton plays two different villains in The Wizard Of Oz. Of course, she plays the iconic Wicked Witch Of The West and Dorothy's obnoxious neighbor Almira Gulch, who takes Toto after claiming to be bitten by the innocent dog. Hamilton isn't the only actor in the movie to play dual roles, but both of her characters are the most developed of them.

Eddie Murphy - The Nutty Professor

Coming To America may be the best example of Eddie Murphy playing multiple roles, but The Nutty Professors and its sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps definitely has him playing the most characters. Across both movies, he plays eight different characters. While both movies have their moments, neither quite reach the comedic heights of Coming To America.

Mia Goth - X

In The X series, Mia Goth plays both Maxine Minx and Pearl Douglas. the former is in Goth's wheelhouse, but the latter, an elderly woman who is the villain of both of the first two movies, X and Pearl. Goth is unrecognizable and brilliant in both.

Richard Pryor - Which Way Is Up?

Years before his Harlem Nights co-star Eddie Murphy started starring in multiple roles in movies, Richard Pryor pulled off the feat in Which Way Is Up? in 1977. While it's an uneven movie, it does have some funny moments, especially Pryor in one of his roles, the Reverend Lenox Thomas.

Cate Blanchett - Coffee & Cigarettes

Director Jim Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes is a collection of short stories, 11 in total, that pay tribute to, you guessed it, those two popular vices. In one of them, Cate Blanchett plays a fictionalized version of herself and her fictional cousin, Shelly, who meet for a coffee and a smoke. The story is really just an uncomfortable conversation between Cate and the jealous Shelly, but it's one of the best stories in the movie.

Tom Hardy - Legend

Tom Hardy is never afraid to take on a tricky role and in Legend he takes on two, playing the psychotic Cray twins, Reggie and Ronnie. Based on the true story of the mobsters who gained fame in the mid-'60s as the owners of a popular nightclub frequented by celebrities in the "Swinging London" era.

Hilary Duff - The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Okay, we'll admit the plot of The Lizzie McGuire Movie is pretty silly. In it, Lizzie, played by Hilary Duff, of course, travels to Rome on a school trip and ends up in a weird love triangle of sorts with her Italian doppelganger, Isabella. Is it a great movie? Nah, not really, but it does fit on this list.

Adam Sandler - Jack And Jill

If you're an Adam Sandler fan, then you'll love Jack And Jill because you get twice as much Sandler as usual, as he plays the brother and sister, Jack and Jill. Honestly, unless you're a big Sandler fan, this is a movie you can skip, though it does seem to have fans for some reason.

The 21st century has brought us some of the best movies to date, from Gladiator to Interstellar to Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. With so many formidable actors who have uniquely contributed to this century’s cinema, it's incredibly hard to try and rank only 60 of them. Yet that is what one outlet decided to do. With that, celebrated actress Emma Stone received a high ranking, even above stars like Christian Bale and Denzel Washington. With that, fans aren't holding back their thoughts.

Just recently, The Independent shared its 60 Best Actors of 21-Century Cinema list. The No. 1 spot was bestowed upon the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, while Emma Stone was behind him at No. 2. That not only put her above Bale (No. 14) and Washington (No. 4) but also in front of the likes of Viola Davis (No. 39), Frances McDormand (No. 32), Joaquin Phoenix (No. 26) and more.

It shouldn't be all that surprising that people took to social media to weigh in on the rankings. And, while some declared their love for the Cruella star, they simultaneously couldn't accept the standings. Check out what user @LucaGuadagnegro had to say:

Some commenters were a bit more blunt when sharing their thoughts on the matter. For instance, @sewelankoana shared a brief assessment that was particularly blunt:

For the most part, people’s qualm was not in regards to Emma Stone being included on the list but rather her being placed in the second highest spot. Many X users even stated who they thought should be above the Amazing Spider-Man actress. Check out some more responses:

• Love me some Emma Stone and Florence Pugh, but i think even they agreed that to put them top 10 above Viola Davis, Amy Adams or Kate Winslet is a bit too much recent bias -@Lyta232323
• How tf is Emma Stone higher than DDL?!?!? -@davesteele71
• Emma Stone being above Isabelle HUPPERT, Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett is a joke - @kalatozov
• Emma Stone?! Go home, you’re drunk. 🙄 - @Archimusik

While I don’t think we need to outright dismiss the entire list based on one ranking, I think the line of questioning is valid. It certainly is a tough decision to make, to say the least. That's especially true when you have an actor like Christian Bale finding his stride in some of the best movies of the 2000s, with performances as Batman, Patrick Bateman and more.

Then, of course, there's Denzel Washington, who has the uncanny ability to steal a scene. Washington's best films more than convey his range as an actor. Malcolm X, Training Day, Flight and Gladiator II represent just a few of the strong performances he's put in. So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that he's within the Top 5 of the list.

It’s important to emphasize that the majority of people are not questioning her talent. In my opinion, and I’d bet most people would agree that Emma Stone deserves to be on this list. Stone's catalog of films convey her impressive range in acting, from her impeccable comedic timing in movies like Easy A and Zombieland to her ability to deliver raw emotional moments like in Birdman and The Favourite. The Battle of the Sexes actress has certainly proved she has longevity in this biz, and of course, she has two Oscars to her name. With that, she won Best Actress for La La Land and earned the same award for Poor Things.

Ultimately, no online ranking is ever going to be able to please everyone who reads it. People have inherently different tastes from one another, which The Independent even acknowledged in the intro of its list, alongside their ranking criteria: only films, not TV, released post-2000 could be taken into consideration for an actor’s spot on the list. Most likely, this is why certain celebrated actors like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks were ranked lower on the list, having experienced their prime years in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

At the end of the day, do I think the list is perfect? No, I don’t. I have my own opinions just like everyone else. However, I respect the folks who made this list simply because it reignites healthy debate and conversation around cinema, which I love to take part in. And, of course, I also love Emma Stone, who deserves to be mentioned alongside the best actors working today.

You can stream Emma Stone's latest film, Kinds of Kindness, which is currently streamable with a Hulu subscription. Be sure that you also keep your eyes peeled on the 2025 movie schedule, as she has films set for release on it.

Great actors don't need a lot of makeup or total body transformations to improve their performance, but when you get the combination of a great and those things, the effect can be amazing. Sometimes the effect is so good the actors become completely unrecognizable, like the examples in this list where actors like Jared Leto and Gary Oldman were completely transformed for roles.

Jared Leto - House Of Gucci

It's fair to say that House Of Gucci was, at best, an uneven movie. It was a daunting challenge for everyone involved and none more so than Jared Leto. Leto played the legendary Paolo Gucci, and while his accent was a little shaky, his look and his mannerisms were completely on point. It's one heck of a transformation.

Charlize Theron - Monster

There is no more intense transformation for a role than Charlize Theron's performance as real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. Theron completely embodies the monster that Wuoronos was, while also subtly allowing the audience to understand how the killer became the way she was. Theron rightfully won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the brutal murderer.

Christian Bale - Vice

Christian Bale is one of the best actors of his generation and he's never been afraid to alter his look for a performance. The Machinist is one excellent example, but even that transformation pales in comparison to the way he completely became Dick Cheney in Vice. Not only does he look just like the former vice president, but he nails his speech pattern and mannerisms as well. It's remarkable.

Lily James - Pam & Tommy

When Lily James was cast as Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy it raised a few eyebrows. The actress seemed like a complete opposite in every way, especially her looks, as the blonde bombshell. Yet, when the movie came out, people were amazed at how well James pulled it off. No, it's not the best movie, but James was the spitting image of Anderson.

Gary Oldman - True Romance

One actor who is truly a master of disguise is Gary Oldman. He seemingly looks completely different in almost every role he plays. One of the most astounding transformations was early in his career when he played a pimp in True Romance. He literally looks and sounds nothing like himself in the film, to the point where if you didn't know it was him, you'd never guess.

Jessica Chastain - The Eyes of Tammy Faye

You know when a film wins the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Best Actress, the role is going to be special. Such is the case for Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Chastain is completely unrecognizable in the role of the wife of the infamous Jim Bakker and is simply incredible in the movie.

Margot Robbie - I, Tonya

Turning Margot Robbie into a street tough figure skater like Tonya Harding is no easy feet. Through a combination of incredible makeup work and even better acting, Robbie completely disappears into the notorious skater made famous for her part in attacking her rival Nancy Kerrigan before the 1994 Olympics.

Glenn Close - Hook

Steven Spielberg's 1991 Hook isn't generally remembered as the legendary director's best work, but it is chock full of fun cameos and one of the hardest to spot is Glenn Close. The actress plays one of the pirates on Captain Hook's ship and if you don't look closely, you'll never notice the multiple Oscar nominee under the beard and makeup turning her into a male pirate.

Tilda Swinton - Trainwreck

The most remarkable thing about Tilda Swinton's transformation in the rom-com Trainwreck is just how conventional she looks. Swinton has one of the most unique looks in Hollywood and most of the time that look is enhanced by the roles she plays, it's part of what makes her so great. Her "normal" look in Trainwreck is made remarkable by that,

Mike Myers - Bohemian Rhapsody

Mike Myers took a long hiatus from acting in the 2010s and when he returned in Bohemian Rhapsody, audiences had to do a triple-check to make sure it was him in the role of a record executive arguing with Queen about the song that the movie is named after. With sunglasses and a full blonde beard, Myers looked nothing like his normal sense and his performance was excellent.

Colin Farrell - The Batman/The Penguin

When the trailer first dropped for The Batman, people were astounded at how Colin Farrell looked as Penguin. When the movie came out and we all watched his performance, it was even more shocking (in a great way). When he took the role to HBO for the TV show named after the character, we were all completely lost in it, because he was just so great. Though he says the suit and makeup aren't worth it, we have a feeling he'll be back as the Gotham-based villain.

50 Cent - All Things Fall Apart

50 Cent has proven to be quite the actor. The rapper has branched out into producing, even. Perhaps his best performance was as the fallen football star in All Things Fall Apart. His body transformation to play a pro athlete in peak physical condition who falls victim to cancer is incredible

Sarah Paulson - Impeachment: American Crime Story

Sarah Paulson knows how to completely disappear into a role. She was as incredible as Marsha Clark in The People Vs. OJ Simpson and she was even more remarkable as Linda Tripp in Impeachment: American Crime Story. Seriously, if you didn't know it was her, you'd never guess. She looks more like Tripp than Paulson in every way.

Billy Bob Thornton In U-Turn

Billy Bob Thorton is one of the most fun actors to watch in everything he is in. Take, for example, his role in Sling Blade, in which he looks completely different from himself. Another fine example is as the mechanic in U-Turn with Sean Penn. If it wasn't for his distinctive voice, you'd never know it was him.

Eddie Murphy - Coming To America

For a while there, Eddie Murphy made it his job to look completely different in his movies like The Nutty Professor, but at no point in any of those movies did he transform quite like he did to play the Jewish guy who hung out in the barbershop in Coming To America. Even his role as the barber in the movie was more recognizable. We also have to give props to Arsenio Hall for his various roles in the movie as well.

Mia Goth - X

Mia Goth playing the elderly Pearl in X is fantastic. Though you can tell it's her as Maxine, if you just walked in on the movie as those scenes of her as the older Pearl was playing, you'd never know who it is.

Tom Hardy - Bronson

Tom Hardy has never been shy about taking on challenging roles that require him to transform completely. He changes so much, that you almost feel like you don't know what he actually looks like in real life. Bronson is one of his finest transformations as he looks way more like the notorious British prisoner than like himself in the movie. It's so much more than just a mustache, that's for sure.

Donnie Wahlberg - The Sixth Sense

Mark Wahlberg may be the more famous brother, but Donnie Wahlberg also has some incredible acting chops and his performance comes in his minor-ish role in The Sixth Sense. It's clear that the former (and current) New Kid On The Block lost a ton of weight for his haunting performance in the movie.

Steve Carell - Foxcatcher

Murderer John du Pont of the famous du Pont family was a unique-looking guy. In Foxcatcher, Steve Carell completely embodies that uniqueness, It's almost unsettling how much Carell looks like du Pont and not like himself in the disturbing movie about the murder the scion of the wealthy family committed in 1997.

Cate Blanchett — I’m Not There

The legendary Bob Dylan has been played on screen a few times and remarkably the actor that pulled off his look and mannerism best is the amazing Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There. Of all the actors who play a version of the folk singer, Blancett is the most convincing and she looks nothing like herself in the movie.

Zac Efron - The Iron Claw

Early in his career Zac Efron was kind of typecast as the goofy good-looking guy. In 2023's The Iron Claw he completely upends that as he embodied the late Kerry Von Erich in the fantastic biopic about wrestling's first family, the Von Erichs

Renée Zellweger - The Thing About Pam

After a little bit of a career lull that included a four-year break from acting, Renée Zellweger returned in a big way in the late 2010s, culminating in an Oscar-winning performance as Judy Garland in 2019's Judy, which completely revived her career. Her best was yet to come because despite not getting the same accolades in the press, her performance as murderer Pam Hupp in The Thing About Pam was a complete transformation

Jared Leto - Chapter 27

Turning someone as good-looking as Jared Leto into someone as despised as the man who killed John Lennon is no easy feat. Leto's performance as Mark David Chapman is incredible and even though the movie has flown under the radar for years, it's worth seeking out just to see how different Leto can look from himself.

Missi Pyle - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

How do you take a beautiful woman like Missi Pyle and make her look like a deranged Eastern European dodgeball player? Ask the makeup department for Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. The work they did, along with Pyle's acting, was amazing. There's no way to know it was her in any way unless you double-check the credits.

Sebastian Stan - A Different Man

A Different Man tells the hilarious and heartwarming tale of a struggling actor with a condition known as neurofibromatosis. Sebastian Stan plays the actor under a whole ton of wonderful makeup and despite the obvious limitation that makeup puts on the actor, Stan puts in a career-defining performance.

Chris Hemsworth - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

While it isn't the most extreme example on this list, Chris Hemsworth's look in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is amazing. The only reason you really know it's him is that he uses his natural Aussie accent in the movie, which he doesn't do all that much these days. He's even won awards for the performance!

Ryan Reynolds - Blade: Trinity

Okay, we'll admit this isn't the biggest transformation on this list, but you can't deny that Ryan Reynolds has a completely different, more sinister look in Blade: Trinity. It's way different from what you expect from a standard Reynolds performance.

Nicole Kidman - Birth

Nicole Kidman is an amazing actress, but she's not one of those actors you expect to completely change her look for a role. Her part in Birth shows that she certainly can do that, and do it in spectacular ways.

Robert De Niro - Raging Bull

Robert De Niro famously put on a ton of weight for his role as Al Capone in The Untouchables. He also got completely jacked for Cape Fear. He did both for his incredible performance in Raging Bull. As a young Jake LaMotta he was cut and fit and as an older version of the boxer, he was flabby and overweight. Either way, De Niro looks less like himself and more like the real-life boxer. He certainly deserved the Oscar he won for the role.

Margot Robbie - Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots had a unique look that was only enhanced by the odd style of 16th Century Scotland. Still, Margot Robbie nails the look of the queen in a way that leaves the audience squinted to see if it's really the Australian actress.

Gary Oldman - The Darkest Hour

No one transforms quite like Gary Oldman. He's completely different in every role he plays and in The Darkest Hour, he completely embodies his role as Winston Churchill. It's not just the makeup, though that is perfect, it's also the voice and mannerisms he brings to the role that makes you believe you're actually watching the legendary prime minister.

Charlize Theron - Bombshell

Bombshell is one of those movies where you might think you're watching the real-life characters that the cast of Bombshell are playing. Charlize Theron's portrayal of former Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly tops the performances. It's pitch-perfect in every way.

Learning that Mike Flanagan is writing a movie about Clayface is, personally, one of the most exciting updates to the slate of upcoming DC movies I have heard in a long time (especially when considering how slow progress for Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II appears to be going). The announcement of the Clayface movie has brought up some questions, such as who is directing and whether or not Batman will appear, but what I am most curious about at the moment is who will take on the title role.

According to Variety, Flanagan (the mind behind some of the best horror movies in recent memory) previously pitched the idea to DC Studios as a “horror/thriller tragedy,” which suggests to me that portraying this villain – basically a humanoid blob who can imitate any person he wishes – is going to take some heavy lifting. Below, I have a few ideas of what actors could handle the weight of playing Clayface in what is technically an upcoming Batman movie. Who might be in the best shape to mold the character into perfection?

Christopher Abbott

Clayface has taken on many different iterations in the pages of DC Comics and in adaptations but two of the most definitive aspects to the criminal’s story are elements similar to a body horror movie and themes of identity loss. Christopher Abbott – who recently played a villiain in a the new superhero movie, Kraven the Hunter – is an actor who has tackled both, as a man who loses control of his body in 2020’s Possessor and a husband and father undergoing a grotesque transformation in Blumhouse’s Wolf Man movie, which is due in 2025.

Brad Pitt

The first and most famous version of Clayface is Basil Karlo – a 1940s B-movie actor who takes on the eponymous moniker, based on a character he once played, after being passed for the opportunity to reprise another famous role drives him to madness. Despite the homicidal tendencies, the character reminds me a bit of Brad Pitt’s tragic role in Babylon as Jack Conrad – an aging actor longing to reclaim his glory days – which is why I believe the Academy Award winner, who is also lacking in many comic book roles, would be a great fit for the part.

Brendan Fraser

An Academy Award winner who has real-life experience with the struggle of fading in and out of the spotlight is Brendan Fraser, who has already dipped his feet in the world of DC as Robotman on Doom Patrol. However, he came oh so close to shining in a DC villain role (Firefly) before the nearly finished Batgirl movie was cancelled, and I think leading Clayface would be a wonderful consolation.

Zach Gilford

An actor whom I believe would also be a great choice to portray the vain and self-destructive tendencies of Clayface is Zach Gilford, based on his performance as a younger Roderick Usher in the great Netflix horror TV show, The Fall of the House of Usher. The miniseries is actually just one of a few acclaimed Mike Flanagan TV shows he has starred in (also including Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club), which could also increase his chances of landing the gig.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen

Another alum of the Flanagan Family whom I really admire is Oliver Jackson-Cohen, whose performance in 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House as recovering addict Luke Crain shows he has also mastered playing self-destructive characters. However, it is his performance as the ghostly Peter in The Haunting of Bly Manor that convinces me he is even better at portraying characters who are sinister but somewhat sympathetic, which would be key to playing Clayface.

Paul Mescal

Taking the necessity of making Clayface sympathetic into account, a performer who especially comes to mind as a perfect fit in that regard would be Paul Mescal. The Irish actor and Gladiator II star pours raw emotion in every role he plays and someone with his skills would make this strange comic book villain more real than ever.

Bill Skarsgård

For some, Bill Skarsgård’s attempt at playing a comic book hero with the 2024 reboot of The Crow serves as further proof that the star of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu especially shines as a villain. Perhaps, by channeling the shapeshifting entity he previously played in the creepy clown movies, It and It Chapter Two, he could make an astounding DC movie debut as the most intimidating Clayface ever.

Ron Perlman

Most fans might agree that the absolute strongest performance as Clayface in an adaptation yet was voiced by Ron Perlman in one of the best episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, “Feats of Clay.” Combining both elements of Basil Karlo’s Silver Age and Post-Crisis iterations, the portrayal is recognized as one of the most definitive versions of the villain. Thus, the former Hellboy actor understands the role on a deeper level than just about anyone else, making him deserving of the chance to bring him to life in live-action.

Christian Bale

Since appearing in one of the recent Marvel movies (Thor: Love and Thunder) as Gorr the God-butcher, people have been curious if one of the best Batman actors, Christian Bale, could return to the world of DC Comics in another role one day. Would it not be amazing to see the chameleonic Academy Award winner make his return to the DC movies by leading Clayface as a, literally, chameleonic actor?

As noted in one of Adam Holmes’ own questions about Clayface, it is possible that Alan Tudyk already has the role, because the beloved actor already voices him for both Harley Quinn and James Gunn’s new DC TV show, Creature Commandos. Of course, that would depend on the continuity followed by this new DCU movie, which could be another Elseworlds story set in Matt Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga. Until we know for sure, any of the actors above have my vote to play Clayface.

One of the best horror movies of all time is getting a remake, or rather, one of the best modern horror novels is set for another Hollywood retelling. Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho is set for a brand new adaptation whose existence is already justified due to the director bringing it to life: the Zendaya-starring Challengers and horror-romance Bones and All helmer Luca Guadagnino. Now, an actor from mega-producer Ryan Murphy’s talent stable has voiced an interest in portraying horror’s most stylish slasher Patrick Bateman.

Fittingly enough, at least in some ways, the actor voicing interest in following Christian Bale in the role is Cooper Koch, one of the stars of Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's true crime anthology series. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the actor before has likely seen him everywhere since the show debuted in mid-September. Speaking with THR, Koch quickly named the horror remake as a follow-up to his high-profile gig as Erik Menendez, saying:

At this point, nothing is in place to officially loop Cooper Koch into Luca Guadagnino's latest film, which will follow his next two films, with Daniel Craig's Queer hitting the 2024 movie schedule, and Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield's After the Hunt being a 2025 theatrical release. That said, him naming American Psycho amidst all the new offers he's been getting could be just what's needed to convince the filmmaker Koch is right for the gig.

The actor continued, pointing out that Bateman would be a very different role from playing convicted killer Erik Menendez. As he put it:

What's more, Cooper Koch also put it out there that his favorite movie of 2024 to date has been Challengers, with the explanation that he's "a big gay tennis boy." So if Guadagnino is the kind of director who is swayed easily by compliments, that's a foot in the door right there. If Koch starts appearing at publicity events wearing blood-covered rain slickers while blasting Huey Lewis & the News from a boombox, that could lock it all down right there.

At this point, Scott Z. Burns is handling scripting duties for the new iteration of American Psycho, and he's reportedly set to deliver an original take on the Ellis novel's storyline of a Wall Street businessman who suddenly begins killing the greed-fueled people he's surrounded by, all while being investigated by Willem Dafoe's wonky detective. But is that actually what's happening? And what happened to that cat?

Presumably these details and more will be explored in the new story, which is coming together nearly 25 years after Mary Harron's original film hit theaters. A modest hit at the time, the film has gained a huge fanbase and reputation as a classic psychological horror that still feels modern despite its unmistakably '80s setting. And Monsters technically hit a lot of the same kinds of period-piece throwback scenes, giving fans a vague idea of what Koch could look like in the role. Just imagine what Erik Mendendez would look like showing off eggshell and bone-white business cards.

It's probably no surprise that someone from Ryan Murphy's expansive list of familiar actors, considering at least half of them at this point have played killers of some kind. I'm not sure if there's a point where Evan Peters hits his limit on playing creepy sickos, but I'd love to see him in the mix as well. Even if he's not Patrick Bateman and only plays one of the other yuppie douches in Patrick's circle of friends, it'd be a treat.

We see it all the time, serious actors with some major dramatic skills tearing it up in lighter, more comedic roles. Actors who’ve made us cry in Best Picture winners have gone on to make us fall over with side-splitting laughs, which can sometimes be harder than you’d think.

In the past, we’ve talked about some of the great dramatic performances by comedians, but today we’re going to turn our attention to the other side of that coin and highlight 32 serious actors who crushed in in comedic roles.

Robert De Niro (Meet The Parents)

Robert De Niro, an Oscar-winning actor known for serious parts in some of Martin Scorsese’s best movies, including Raging Bull and Goodfellas, as well as his turn as a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, showed the world that he was also one of the funniest stars in Hollywood with his portrayal of the iron-fisted Jack Byrnes in Meet the Parents. The deadpan expressions, the playing on his gangster roles, and his chemistry with Ben Stiller make this an all-time classic.

George C. Scott (Dr. Stranglelove)

George C. Scott will always be remembered for his portrayal of U.S. General George S. Patton in Franklin J. Schaffner’s Patton, but the acclaimed actor also crushed it in a more comedic role a few years earlier. His take on General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove is nothing short of magnificent and hilarious as it gets. The satirical tone of this iconic anti-war film is biting, as is Scott’s legendary performance.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Along Came Polly)

Though we could have included Rusty from Twister or Brandt from The Big Lebowski, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in Along Came Polly is just too good to overlook. Though he’s atrocious at basketball (and in most social situations), Sandy Lyle is a force of comedic nature. It’s crazy that Hoffman went from Cold Mountain to this 2004 rom-com to Capote in the span of three years.

Tom Cruise (Tropic Thunder)

Tom Cruise steals the show in Tropic Thunder, which is no easy feat considering Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. sit atop the cast of this outrageous 2008 action comedy. But hey, Les Grossman, Cruise’s over-the-top and ill-tempered Hollywood exec is unforgettable in every single one of his scenes, especially whenever he dances.

Meryl Streep (Death Becomes Her)

Though not a slapstick or “laugh-a-minute” comedy, Death Becomes Her does feature some wild and hilariously comedic performances from the likes of Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, and Meryl Streep, who kills it with her portrayal of Madeline Ashton. The Oscar winner does get to show off her serious skills in the movie, but her character’s darkly humorous personality is worth a watch.

Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!)

It’s wild to think that Leslie Nielsen, an actor mostly remembered for spoof films, started out as a very serious dramatic actor. But that all changed with landmark comedies like Airplane!, where his deadpan humor and signature charm truly shined.

Kate Winslet (The Holiday)

Kate Winslet is known for dramatic movies like Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Revolutionary Road, but the talented dramatic actress was able to show off her comedy chops in The Holiday. This 2006 Nancy Meyers romantic comedy showed off a different side of Winslet, one we haven’t forgotten nearly 20 years later.

James Caan (Elf)

James Caan wasn’t really known for his comedy. Sure, his characters had some humorous lines in The Godfather and Thief, but drama was always his bag. And that’s what makes his performance in Elf so great. We weren’t used to seeing Caan share the screen with someone like Will Ferrell, and that juxtaposition of personalities made it so much fun to watch.

Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty)

Morgan Freeman will go down as one of the best dramatic actors of all time, and for good reason. His work in The Shawshank Redemption, Glory, and countless other movies is the stuff of legend. However, let’s not forget that he also put on one of the funniest performances when he played God in Bruce Almighty.

Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

A little more than two decades after playing the vile Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List (and only a few years after portraying Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies), Ralph Fiennes proved he was a great comedic actor with his take on M. Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Equal parts hilarious and charming, this performance was a breath of fresh air.

Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon)

After playing more serious roles in films like The Color Purple, Witness, and Silverado, Danny Glover showed off his comedy skills in Richard Donner’s iconic buddy cop action film, Lethal Weapon. Though he was more straight-laced compared to Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs, Roger Murtaugh gave us some laughs.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Kidergarten Cop)

Kindergarten cop isn’t just one of the funniest Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, it’s also one of his best. Featuring some of the actor’s most memorable one-liners, this 1990 action comedy showed that the Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor was more than an ice-cold robot or trained killer.

Jeff Daniels (Dumb & Dumber)

Two years after playing Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in Gettysburg, one of the best Civil War movies ever made, Jeff Daniels played a vastly different type of character in Dumb and Dumber. The obnoxious and absurdly dim-witted Harry Dunne would end up becoming one of the more dramatic actor’s most famous roles.

Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets)

Jack Nicholson, one of the most well-known dramatic actors of the 20th century, has popped up in comedies over the years. Perhaps the best of the bunch, As Good as It Gets earned the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Terms of Endearment star his third Oscar.

Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski)

Whenever the topic of the best Jeff Bridges movies comes up, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to turn to The Big Lebowski. Still considered to be one of his most iconic roles, the performance also showed that the largely dramatic actor could pull off an incredibly funny and beloved character.

Liam Neeson (Extras)

Liam Neeson is best known for his work in dramas like Schindler’s List and the Taken action movie franchise, but the decorated actor with that ice-cold delivery has shown off his funny side over the years. His attempt at improv on Extras is the stuff of legend, as is work in The Lego Movie.

George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)

George Clooney often rides the line between comedy and drama in the likes of the Ocean’s movies and several Coen Brothers projects, and one of the best examples of that is found in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a 2000 loose adaptation of The Odyssey. The scheming and conniving Ulysses Everett McGill is one of the all-time great movie characters.

Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie)

The Graduate, Kramer vs. Kramer, Midnight Cowboy, and All the President’s Men were just a few of the movies that showed off Dustin Hoffman’s incredible dramatic acting skills. It’s a similar story with Tootsie, the beloved 1982 comedy in which Hoffman plays an unlikeable and hirable actor who decides to dress like a woman to land a gig on a daytime soap opera.

Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire)

Cuba Gooding Jr. was out of this world in early 1990s dramas like Boyz n the Hood and A Few Good Men, but he was even better in Jerry Maguire as Tom Cruise’s titular character’s temperamental and needy client Rod Tidwell. The over-the-top performance was hilarious beyond belief.

Timothy Dalton (Hot Fuzz)

Timothy Dalton, an actor best known for playing James Bond and showing up in adaptations of Jane Eyre, got to show off his comedy chops in Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright’s satirical action comedy. His take on Simon Skinner is just as great all these years later.

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Leonardo DiCaprio teamed up with Martin Scorsese for the fifth time in 2013 to make The Wolf of Wall Street. While previous collaborations like Gangs of New York and The Departed were far more dramatic, this hopped-up and raucous biopic allowed the actor to be outrageously funny on screen, and it paid off.

Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa)

Up until starring in Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton was mostly known for dramatic roles in films like Monster’s Ball and Sling Blade, but this 2003 R-rated comedy changed all of that. Over the line, vulgar, and one of the funniest performances of the 2000s, Thornton’s take on a mall Santa was an instant classic.

Brad Pitt (Burn After Reading)

Burn After Reading isn’t the best Coen Brothers movie, but it does feature one of Brad Pitt’s funniest performances. Chad Feldheimer, Linda Litzke’s (Frances McDormand) lovable yet moronic coworker is just so silly, so memorable, and so dumb. You just can’t help but love him.

Michael Caine (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)

On top of being an actor who’s appeared in the most Christopher Nolan movies, Michael Caine is also one of the all-time greats of screen and stage, with dozens of iconic films to his name. And while he’s mostly known for his dramatic work, his portrayal of the dastardly Lawrence Jamieson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is so dang good.

Matt Damon (Dogma)

Long before he showed up as an actor playing Loki in Thor: Ragnarok, Matt Damon did it for real in Kevin Smith’s 1999 comedy, Dogma. Sandwiched between Rounders and The Talented Mr. Ripley, the actor’s portrayal of a fallen angel banished to Wisconsin was great and showed a funnier side.

Samuel L. Jackson (The Other Guys)

Samuel L. Jackson in The Other Guys is on a whole other level and is funnier than anything else the actor has done over the years. Sure, Pulp Fiction and Jurassic Park are better movies, but his short yet memorable performance as a gung-ho cop who throws caution (and himself) into the win is comedy cold.

Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest)

Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Alexander Dane, a Shakespearean actor fed up with life and his career direction in Galaxy Quest, is so funny yet so heartbreaking. The way the Die Hard actor (who was also classically trained) finds the balance between comedy and tragedy is perfection.

Russell Crowe (The Nice Guys)

Russell Crowe made a career out of giving commanding, and largely dramatic, performances in everything from Romper Stomper to Gladiator, so it was great to see him play a more comedic role in The Nice Guys. This 2016 Shane Black film also starring Ryan Gosling, felt like a throwback to buddy action movies of yesteryear, and allowed Crowe to try a different approach to character-driven stories.

Mandy Patinkin (The Princess Bride)

Tony and Primetime Emmy Award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin has given incredible dramatic performances in movies like Yentl and shows like Homeland, but he’s probably best known for his portrayal of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. The skill with a sword, the dashing good looks, and a killer backstory make this not only a great cinematic character but also a hilarious icon of the fantasy genre.

Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda)

Kevin Kline is great in just about everything (especially The Big Chill and Dave), and that includes some great comedies. One of the best featuring a serious and dramatic actor’s work is A Fish Called Wanda. The despicable and charismatic Otto West steals the show whenever on screen.

Christian Bale (The Big Short)

Though not the most standard comedy of the past few years, The Big Short is funny in a frightening and thrilling kind of way. Adam McKay’s biographical crime dramedy about the events that led to the 2007 housing market crash and subsequent economic crisis does feature one of Christian Bale’s most interesting and hilarious performances with his take on hedge fund manager Michael Burry. Not a totally likable guy, but a great character without a doubt.

Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Ragnarok)

Thor: Ragnarok is still considered one of the best Marvel movies years after its release, and that’s mostly because of Chris Hemsworth’s new and improved portrayal of the “God of Thunder.” While the character was more serious in the first two movies (and two Avengers films), the more light-hearted and silly superhero was a comedy tour de force.

Batman is one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, so he's been adapted for film a number of times. Fans love to rank the Batman movies, and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (which is available to stream with a Max subscription) usually ranks quite high. Christian Bale's performance was universally acclaimed, although he shared the funny story behind what it was really like to fight Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

New information is constantly coming out about the Dark Knight trilogy, which is regularly re-watched by fans. In an interview that's circulating around Instagram, Bale revealed the truth about that final battle against Bane. He said:

Talk about a challenge. These comments make a great deal of sense, given the scale of The Dark Knight Rises' final battle. It's a huge scene with a ton of extras doing battle, so there was understandably a ton of noise around them. Add in those costumes like Batman's cowl, and hearing dialogue had to have been a struggle.

So what was the solution? In the same interview, Christian Bale went on to explain how he and Tom Hardy managed to do their jobs without really being able to communicate verbally. As he put it:

Honestly, who doesn't love to see how the sausage gets made? Filmmaking is so often about solving problems in order to appropriately capture a scene. And while the final battle of The Dark Knight Rises is epic, actually filming it seems a bit less glamorous. Still, the efforts by Bale an Hardy helped make the acclaimed threequel what it is.

All eyes are on what Batman will be up to in upcoming DC movies. That includes both the sequel to The Batman, as well as the version of the character who will make it into James Gunn's developing DCU.

The next DC movie hitting theaters is Superman on July 11th, 2025. In the meantime, check the 2025 movie release dates.

Perfect casting doesn’t always mean a successful movie, and you don’t need to look through the 2024 movie schedule to prove that fact. As luck would have it, some movie fans have started discussing great casting choices wasted on bad films and/or dead end franchises. While Henry Cavill has taken the lead as the patron saint of this particular subject, there are plenty of other candidates that make just as much sense.

The Many Wasted Opportunities Of Henry Cavill

To start us off right, I’m going to include the full prompt that saw the users of Reddit sending their regards to the former Witcher star. It seems only fair, because it’s not just bad movies that are on the menu here. So for a full picture of what we’re dealing with, read the following question:

Unsurprisingly, Henry Cavill’s work on The Witcher rose through the ranks to be one of the highest rated comments from this pool of Redditors. There's also mention of the failure to capitalize on the franchise potential started in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Between that mention and the comment that someone posts about Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond movies wasting his talents in the role, my spy movie-loving heart feels quite wounded.

However, the post’s inspiration came from a more common thorn in the side of cinematic aficionados that I can totally identify with. You see, folks: the Redditor who posed this question used a photo of Cavill from Man of Steel as the bait for this particular hook.

Considering how there are still teases hinting towards a potential future for DC’s Snyder-verse, I still feel those pangs of pain rather freshly – especially since that hot topic in particular lead to a whole raft of A-list comic casting that ultimately went nowhere.

The Graveyard Of Wasted Comic Movie Casting Is Pretty Expansive

Forgive me if this write-up turns into a therapy session for some pretty huge whiffs in the world of comic casting, but the folks on the internet seem to be stuck on that subject. At least that’s what it looks like when it came to further responses on this question of the moment.

Check out these further suggestions, one of which is mourning an upcoming Marvel movie before it’s even happened:

• “This was the very first thought that crossed my mind when this question was asked. Bale gave an absolutely stupendous and genuinely creepy performance [in Thor: Love and Thunder]...Just to have shrieking goats in the very next scene.” - @0hMyGandhi
• “I have such mixed feelings about [Birds of Prey]. On the one hand, it's incredibly fun and well cast. On the other hand, what the fuck did they do to the characters? Huntress and Montoya were ok, I can forgive Black Canary, but that was Cassandra Cain in name only ... It felt almost disrespectful.” - @mahnamahnaaa
• “Jim Carrey as The Riddler. Too campy, they ruined it by pairing him Tommy Lee Jones. He's natural ability, could have been an absolutely terrifying version of an Unhinged Genius puzzler.” - @HangmanGentry11
• “I feel like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man is the easiest choice.” - @Enderstone_360
• “Mahershala Ali as Blade. Can’t believe Marvel fumbled that level of tone and talent.” - @Nylese

Ok, that comment about Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot feels like a sore spot just waiting to happen, so I’m glad someone got ahead of the curve and addressed it now. But reading over that reminder of Jim Carrey/Tommy Lee Jones’ history of beef on the set of Batman Forever has me ready to defend the performance we got while also wanting to see the darker Riddler the comments above suggested.

Adding to my frustrations is the fact that the closest thing to fulfilling that prospect is the the well intentioned but seriously misguided The Number 23, which was also directed by Batman Forever helmer Joel Schumacher. If you want to see what a wasted opportunity really looks like, watch that movie and behold a novel premise absolutely failing in execution.

As you can see, there are plenty of examples of good casting being wasted in movies that were either bad or underappreciated at the time of release. And I’m willing to agree with the good people of Reddit that Henry Cavill has that unfortunate crown for the time being.

Fingers crossed those reports about Amazon’s supposedly troubled Warhammer 40K development process don’t add another jewel. In the meantime, if anyone else wants to metaphorically pour one out for Cavill or his fellow DCEU castmates, you can make use of your Max subscription and start streaming the once promising past of Warner Bros.’ legacy comic brand.

In our lifetimes, the only turn of a century we’ve witnessed is the move from the 1990s to the 2000s. It was an exciting time in the world of Hollywood, between superhero franchises like the Spider-Man and X-Men trilogies making comic books mainstream and adaptations of book series like Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films becoming some of the biggest blockbusters of the decade. But, many of the best movies of the 2000s wouldn’t have been possible without the star power of several actors of the time. 

In celebration of an incredible decade in movies, we chose the quintessential film of 32 actors of the 2000s. Check it out: 

Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl)

Johnny Depp was unquestionably one of the biggest stars of the 2000s after previously making a name for himself throughout the 1990s, most notably with his work with Tim Burton and in the independent film space. Looking back, the No. 1 movie of his was his debut as Captain Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2003. The actor helped create the best fumbling pirate we’ve ever seen before, going on to make four more of its kind. Fans are still talking about this movie and even writing and signing petitions for the actor to reprise the role. 

Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!)

Nicole Kidman was one of the most in demand actresses of the 2000s, so much so that she did an average of three movies a year across the first half of it. Her greatest movie of the decade is actually the first of them from that time period: Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! The jukebox musical was a commercial success, award season darling and we’ll always go back to her role as Satine. 

Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) 

After Robert Downey Jr. was in the public eye for addiction-related setbacks, he found a way to make a comeback throughout the 2000s with a ton of great movies like Zodiac, Good Night and Good Luck and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. But the best of the best was his turn as Iron Man in 2008. 

Samuel L. Jackson (Unbreakable) 

Samuel L. Jackson was a major fixture of the 1990s, between saying “Hold onto your butts!” in Jurassic Park, starring in Pulp Fiction or starring with Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance. His prominence as an actor remained strong in the 2000s with all sorts of roles, including as Mace Windu in Star Wars, but his greatest is in M. Night Shyamalan’s unique superhero film, Unbreakable. 

Scarlett Johansson (Lost In Translation)

Scarlett Johansson was a major star in the 2010s, especially as an Avenger, but she really blossomed into this throughout the 2000s, between movies like Ghost World, Match Point, The Island or The Prestige. The performance that really carried the audience’s love for her throughout the decade was in Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation alongside Bill Murray, where they play unlikely friends who meet in Tokyo. 

 Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness)

After Will Smith had a hugely successful decade in the '90s between Bad Boys, Independence Day and being The Fresh Prince, Smith notably took his career a step further in the 2000s. He took on a number of more dramatic roles like Ali and Seven Pounds during this time that deserved the actor an Oscar, but there’s no movie more special than 2006’s The Pursuit of Happyness. In the film, he helped tell the true story of a homeless salesman and his son. 

Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde)

“What, like it’s hard?” Of course, the defining Reese Witherspoon movie of the 2000s is Legally Blonde! The 2001 movie continues to be one of the most quotable comedies and Elle Woods is a beloved heroine in modern pop culture. As a whole, Witherspoon was serving throughout the decade by also starring in things like the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line or the rom-coms Sweet Home Alabama and Just Like Heaven.

Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds)

The 2000s was a huge decade of career expansion for Brad Pitt after his heartthrob beginnings in critically-acclaimed '90s flicks such as Interview with a Vampire, Seven, Fight Club. The cream of the crop for a very busy Pitt during this time has to be Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, where he played Lt. Aldo Raine in an alternate history story about World War II. 

Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind)

The stardom of Jim Carrey was deep in the fixture of 2000s movies through a ton of big movies like How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Bruce Almighty or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. But one of the actor’s most dramatic roles, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, stands as his best of the decade. The sci-fi romance imagines a world where one could have a procedure to forget their ex, and asks big questions about memory and love. 

Kate Hudson (Almost Famous) 

Kate Hudson has called Almost Famous “the beginning of everything” for her, and it really was career-wise for the actress. When the movie came out in 2000, it started a massive decade for her that would have her in flicks like How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, The Skeleton Key and Nine among a ton of roles. The Cameron Crowe movie had Hudson playing Penny Lane, a groupie of a '70s band. 

Tom Hanks (Cast Away)

The 2000s marked Tom Hanks third decade as a movie star and it was another solid time for the actor, particularly for more serious roles. While there are a lot of close contenders like Road To Perdition, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal, his greatest movie of that time was Cast Away. Hanks gives an all-time performance as a man who gets stranded on an island alone. We never knew we could cry over a volleyball before the 2000 movie. 

Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!)

Meryl Streep turned 50 in 1999. While that historically has spelled bad news for female actors in Hollywood, Streep proved she could still be one of the biggest stars in her middle-aged years with a ton of performances in the 2000s. From Adaptation to The Hours, The Devil Wear Prada, Lions For Lambs, Doubt, Julie & Julia, Fantastic Mr. Fox and It’s Complicated, this time was an embarrassment of riches for the actress, but if we had to pick one, the iconic Mamma Mia! is the one we’re still singing all the words to. 

Denzel Washington (Training Day)

Denzel Washington’s place as one of the most impressive living actors was apparent in the 2000s through a productive decade full of critically-acclaimed performances. The ultimate Washington movie of the time we’ve chosen is 2001’s Training Day, which in turn earned him his second Oscar win. But, the actor made a ton of great hits during this time like Remember The Titans, Antwone Fisher, Man on Fire, Inside Man, American Gangster and The Great Debaters. 

Tom Cruise (Minority Report) 

After Tom Cruise starred in movies like Rain Man, Top Gun, the first Mission: Impossible and Magnolia in the '80s and '90s, he continued to be a major actor into the 2000s with a ton of fresh roles. His best of the decade is arguably one of his two collaborations with Steven Spielberg, Minority Report. The sci-fi flick has Cruise’s character on the run for a crime he has not committed in an imagined 2054. 

Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich)

Julia Roberts made a string of romantic comedies in the ‘90s, but when the new century came along, she diversified her career with a lot more dramatic roles. Her best movie during this time was in 2000’s Erin Brockovich. The biographical movie from Steven Soderbergh about groundwater contamination also earned Roberts an Oscar for Best Actress. 

Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity) 

It felt like Matt Damon was in all the movies back in the 2000s after he and Ben Affleck wowed Hollywood with Good Will Hunting in 1997. The actor was in 20 movies across this decade, but the best of them was 2002's action thriller The Bourne Identity. He would go on to star in an entire trilogy as Jason Bourne. 

Leonardo DiCaprio (Catch Me If You Can) 

Leonardo DiCaprio became a verified movie star when he said “I’m king of the world!” in 1997’s Titanic. As he moved into his mid-twenties and thirties in the 2000s, he started working closely with Martin Scorsese in a series of movies (Gangs Of New York, The Aviator and The Departed). However, his best comes from Steven Spielberg with Catch Me If You Can. The biographical crime comedy had DiCaprio playing a con man alongside Tom Hanks. 

Kirsten Dunst (Marie Antoinette)

Kirsten Dunst got her start as a child actor in the '90s in movies such as Jumanji and Interview with a Vampire before starring in films like The Virgin Suicides and Drop Dead Gorgeous at the tail end of the '90s. Dunst officially became an adult in the 2000s and made tons of movies, from being Mary-Jane Watson in the Spider-Man movies to being in Bring It On. Her second collaboration with Sofia Coppola as the famed French archduchess is her best work of the decade. 

Adam Sandler (Punch-Drunk Love)

Even though the 2000s didn’t quite top Adam Sandler’s amazing Saturday Night Live star into movie star turn, he was in all sorts of memorable movies in the 2000s. The one that sticks out the most is his collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson with 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love. Unlike his screwball comedies, it’s an earnest rom-com that may not have been popular, but it is unforgettable. 

Will Ferrell - Anchorman

Will Ferrell’s acting career really took off in the 2000s in a massive way. He left Saturday Night Live in 2002 after seven seasons on the sketch show and became one of the funniest Hollywood movie stars. His most hilarious leading role has to be in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, where he played a 1970s news host. 

George Clooney (Ocean’s Eleven)

It’s not easy to choose the best George Clooney role of the 2000s given the sheer amount of solid movies he starred in at the time. From his Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? to his Oscar-winning role in Syriana. But, it simply wouldn’t have been the 2000s without Clooney leading the pack in Ocean’s Eleven (and the trilogy it became). He’s effortlessly cool as the master plotter of a casino heist. 

Gwyneth Paltrow (The Royal Tenenbaums) 

Paltrow was in a load of films during this decade, coming off her Oscar win in Shakespeare In Love. But, among a cast including Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Margot stole the show and therefore finds a spot as her No.1 2000s role. 

Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) 

The 2000s was an iconic moment for Halle Berry, who became Storm in X-Men and starred in Catwoman and as a Bond girl in Die Another Day. Her best role is her Oscar-winning lead in 2001’s Monster’s Ball. The movie is about a widower who unknowingly begins a relationship with a corrections officer who assisted in the execution of her late husband. 

Christian Bale (The Dark Knight) 

Christian Bale started the 2000s as the star of American Psycho and ended it as the star of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies alongside Johnny Depp. But unquestionably, Bale’s performance in one of the most seminal movies of the 2000s, The Dark Knight, is our pick. His second outing as Bruce Wayne/Batman is elevated when Heath Ledger’s haunting Joker struts into Gotham. 

Jennifer Garner (13 Going On 30) 

During the 2000s, Jennifer Garner became famous for starring in the TV show Alias. But at the same time, she established herself as a movie star, too. What caught our hearts the most was her role in 13 Going On 30 alongside Mark Ruffalo. It’s a blast to see the actress play a teen in an adult’s body. 

Ben Stiller (Tropic Thunder) 

The 2000s had Ben Stiller becoming a movie star in his own right, between the hilarious Meet The Parents in 2000, to Zoolander and Along Came Polly. His best movie of this era was one he wrote, directed and starred in. Tropic Thunder is a hilarious satirical action comedy with a star-studded cast that we’re still laughing about over a decade later. 

Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) 

After becoming a familiar face for his roles in the '90s, Russell Crowe became an all-time great actor of the 2000s by starring in Gladiator, Cinderella Man, American Gangster, Master and Commander and 3:10 To Yuma. If you’ve seen his performance in 2001’s A Beautiful Mind, you likely never forgot Crowe’s inspired performance as schizophrenic mathematician John Nash. 

Nicolas Cage (Adaptation) 

Nicolas Cage’s third decade in movies was a busy one that had him in more big-budget movies than ever between National Treasure and Ghost Rider, but Spike Jonze’s Adaptation takes the prize as he played twin brothers, one struggling with writer’s block and the other deciding to copy his brother’s ambitions.

Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice) 

Keira Knightley turned fifteen when the 21st century began, but it wasn’t long before she became a movie star – leading movies like Bend it Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean and Love, Actually. The defining Knightley performance of her first decade as a big-screen actress was in the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. 

Jack Black (School of Rock) 

Jack Black had a massive decade in movies in the 2000s, but one cannot forget how perfect he was in the role of Dewey Finn in School of Rock. The 2003 movie allowed the actor to flex his musician muscles and unique charm as he played a failed rock star turned imposter substitute teacher. 

Drew Barrymore (50 First Dates)

Drew Barrymore had the chance to come into her own as a movie star in her adulthood in the 2000s following being a child actor in films like E.T. and Firestarter. She had an awesome decade that included Charlie’s Angels, He’s Just Not That Into You and Whip It, but her role with Adam Sandler as a forgetful love interest remains one of her best and most hilarious (yet heartwarming) roles. 

Hugh Jackman (The Prestige) 

Hugh Jackman started his career in theater in the '90s, but in the 2000s he quickly became a big star. Sure, he became Wolverine for the first time in the X-Men movies, played Van Helsing and starred in Kate & Leopold, but it was particularly special to see his role in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. He’s amazing as a magician who feuds with Christian Bale’s character over the ultimate magic trick. 

Anyone else feeling nostalgic for the decade of the 2000s, now? It was an amazing time for great movies and the movie stars we saw everywhere like the people above. 

If you know me, you know I love animation. I’ve always been a fan, from the latest animated movies coming out as part of the 2024 movie schedule to classics that I could rewatch again and again. I also love animation on television, something that I grew up on and have come to appreciate even more. But there are just some characters voiced by actors that I genuinely could not imagine another actor voicing them – and today, we’ll be going over them. 

Robin Williams As Genie (Aladdin)

This is the obvious answer. Robin Williams as the Genie in Aladdin was honestly one of Robin Williams' best roles, and he wasn’t even on screen. He was able to give so much energy, wit, and fun to a character that was drawn, and it almost made you feel like Genie was a friend rather than some random side character.

Tim Allen As Buzz (Toy Story Franchise)

Toy Story is hands down one of the best Pixar films, and a big reason for this is the natural partnership between Buzz and Woody. Of course, I had to put Tim Allen as Buzz here. I’m pretty sure we can barely think of Buzz in any other way aside from Allen doing it, even if Chris Evans did give it his all in the Lightyear cast. 

Dante Basco As Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

“Hello, Zuko here,” is a line that has lived in my brain since I was literally a child and will forever be there. Dante Basco as Zuko is iconic. Not only is Basco basically the biggest Avatar: The Last Airbender fan out there, but he’s also voiced not one but two characters in the ATLA universe. However, he, like Zuko, can’t be beaten, and we will always love him voicing one of the best redemption arcs on television. 

Bryce Papenbrook As Eren Yeager (Attack On Titan)

Let me preface this by saying that yes, I know the primary voice roles for anime are the Japanese voice actors but have you ever heard an English dub actor who is just so good that it makes it almost impossible to watch it in Japanese? That’s Bryce Papenbrook with Eren Yeager in Attack on Titan. As one of my favorite anime, I started this series listening to Papenbrook, and I ended it with him, too, when I watched the finale again with the dub. He does Eren so well, and it’s hard to picture anyone else but him. 

Eddie Murphy As Mushu (Mulan)

Eddie Murphy is one of those actors where it feels like he plays himself in his voice roles, and he, as Mushu, is certainly one of them. I cannot tell you how often I quote this character. “Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!” I mean, only Murphy could have that kind of delivery. 

Tara Strong As Timmy Turner (The Fairly Oddparents)

There are some voice actors out there who ultimately defined my childhood, and Tara Strong is one of them. I could put so many of her characters on here from multiple different TV shows, but I think the best one has to be Timmy Turner from The Fairly Oddparents. I couldn’t imagine Timmy having a distinct voice, and Strong brought so much character to his iconic kid. 

Seth MacFarlane As Stewie Griffin (Family Guy)

Family Guy has cemented itself as a show that just won’t stop, and the voice actors have pretty much stayed the same since the beginning. One that hasn’t changed is Stewie Griffin, who is voiced by the creator of the show, Seth MacFarlane, and obviously, he has to be here. I’m pretty sure Stewie is probably the most iconic character from the show, and it’s because of MacFarlane’s delivery and his hilarious lines. 

Tom Hanks As Woody (Toy Story Franchise)

Come on. You knew Tom Hanks would be here. Hanks is like the grandfather of our generation when it comes to voice roles, and his role as Woody will live on in our memories long after we’re all gone and Toy Story becomes a certified classic (if it isn’t already). Hanks is just that good, and I will listen to him voice Woody over and over again. 

Ellen DeGeneres As Dory (Finding Nemo)

Ellen DeGeneres isn’t exactly known for her movies, as she was mainly a daytime talk show host for many, many years, but her voice acting as Dory in Finding Nemo is top-notch. Dory wound up becoming just as big as the clown fishes that we followed in the movie and became a loveable character that children all around the world flocked to, and that’s because of DeGeneres and her voice skills. 

Jay Baruchel As Hiccup (How To Train Your Dragon)

Even though there’s a live-action How To Train Your Dragon set to release, you can’t beat the animated movies, and of course, Jay Baruchel is voicing Hiccup, the main character. Honestly, I think Hiccup would have been really tough to nail if the voice actor wasn’t right. Baruchel had to find the delicate balance between a surprisingly brave warrior and a kind of wimpy teenager and build on that for three movies straight – and he rocks it. 

Eddie Murphy As Donkey (Shrek)

Eddie Murphy as Donkey is everything. Look at me. Look at me and tell me you can picture someone else as Donkey because I surely can’t. This talking animal has cemented itself into pop culture with hilarious lines, memes, and so much more, and it’s because of Murphy’s delivery. Now I’m gonna go and make some waffles. 

Kaiji Tang As Gojo (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Kaiji Tang is an example of an English dub actor in anime who knocks it out of the park. I honestly love any version of Jujutsu Kaisen, and Season 2 was one of my favorite anime of 2023, but let me tell you, Tang, as Gojo, made it so much better. His line delivery is just phenomenal – it’s no wonder the character is, like, the anime community’s crush. With that smooth voice, it’d be hard not to crush on him.

Trey Parker As Eric Cartman (South Park)

There are so many outrageous episodes in South Park that make you squirm, and you want to know who’s behind most of them. Eric Cartman, because he’s a menace to society – so, of course, one of the creators is the voice behind him. Trey Parker is a naturally funny person, so he as Eric Cartman makes sense – only he could think of the most ridiculous and awful lines to say for a literal fourth-grader. 

Billy Crystal As Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc.)

When making this list, I thought about putting maybe John Goodman as Sully, but then I really thought about it and realized that Mike is actually low-key more iconic. Mike, in general, is a great character with a good backstory and a hilarious sense of humor, but you want to know why he’s so funny? It’s because of Billy Crystal—I can almost feel him through Mike. Mike is Billy, Billy is Mike. 

Shameik Moore As Miles Morales (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse)

Miles Morales proved anyone can wear the mask in Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, a film that became a huge hit and spawned a sequel and another movie coming out soon enough. However, a big reason why Miles is such a great character is because of the voice behind him, Shameik Moore. Since the first film, Moore has brought humility to Miles, but also that kind of smooth swagger that we know only he could have. He’s excellent, and I can’t wait to hear more from him. 

Tom Kenny As Spongebob (SpongeBob SquarePants)

How could I not include Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants from the SpongeBob SquarePants series here? This man is my childhood. Sure, there are impressionists out there who believe they can impersonate SpongeBob, but no one can do it like Tom Kenny, and I stand by that. 

Kaley Cuoco As Harley Quinn (Harley Quinn)

There have been multiple people who have voiced Harley Quinn in Batman TV shows and animated movies, but I’m sorry. Kaley Cuoco takes the cake, and I want her to be the animated version of Harley Quinn from now on. Her take on Harley in the TV show Harley Quinn is hilarious, on-brand, and unforgettable, and if you haven’t had the chance to watch her voice the heck out of his classic DC villain/antihero, then you have to. 

Mike Myers As Shrek (Shrek)

Obviously, I had to put Mike Myers on this list. While I do think Donkey is a little more iconic, Mike Myers as Shrek is pretty much the same as butter and toast, or Oreos and milk, or popcorn and movies—you get my gist. Myers as Shrek is pretty much the standard for celebrities voicing animated characters, and he’s quite hard to beat. 

Dakota Fanning As Coraline (Coraline)

Coraline is one of the best stop-motion films out there, and surprisingly, no matter how creepy it might be to others, it’s a comfort film for me. And, of course, I can’t imagine anyone else voicing Coraline other than Dakota Fanning. She was so young at the time but still brought so much sass and wonder to the character, and it made me love Coraline for the explorer she was. 

Dan Castellaneta As Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)

Oh, you know he would be here. The Simpsons is hands down the most iconic TV series of all time and has been around since the 1980s. Dan Castellaneta has voiced the patriarch of the Simpsons family since the very beginning and has cemented himself in television just as much as the rest of the cast. But you can’t get more iconic than Homer freaking Simpson. 

Christy Carlson Romano As Kim Possible (Kim Possible)

Kim Possible was a show from my childhood on The Disney Channel that made me want to be a spy. It likely led to a few injuries when I jumped from trees to show how cool I was. Either way, it was mainly because of Kim and how kick-butt she was while also being a remarkable teenager, and thanks to Christy Carlson Romano’s voice acting, she was made all the better. 

Christian Bale As Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Howl’s Moving Castle is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies, and I have to admit that for this, I do like the English dub better because, come on, you can’t beat Christian Bale as Howl! That man has a voice as smooth as butter, and you will find yourself falling for Howl so quickly because of how he voices the character. Ugh, I’m getting butterflies just thinking about it. 

Antonio Banderas As Puss (Shrek 2)

Shrek has plenty of iconic voices, but you want to know who has one of the best ones? Antonio Banderas didn’t even show up in the Shrek franchise until the second movie. But Banderas’ voice was so popular that he spawned not one but two spin-off films – the second of which featured one of the best DreamWorks Animation villains of all time, so you know he’s iconic. 

Jeff Bennett As Johnny Bravo (Johnny Bravo)

Okay, so, if we’re being honest, Johnny Bravo is actually a pretty lousy person and very misogynistic, but man, is it funny to get his butt handed to him in so many situations? It’s because of Jeff Bennett and the way he voices him. He’s just so funny in a messed-up way. I love it. 

Matthew Mercer As Levi Ackerman (Attack On Titan)

Attack on Titan is a case where I tend to lean more towards the English dub than the Japanese because of some of the voice-acting choices, and Matthew Mercer as Levi Ackerman is just *chef’s kiss.* Don’t get me wrong, the Japanese voice actor Hiroshi Kamiya does a great job, too, but when I think of Levi, I think of Matthew Mercer’s voice, and that just means I literally cannot imagine anything else.

Jack Black As Po (Kung Fu Panda)

Po the Panda is one of those characters that has become a pretty big name for DreamWorks Animation. In reality, it’s really just Jack Black behind a microphone in the sound booth voicing some of the most hilarious moments ever. Sometimes, it feels like I’m almost just watching Jack Black on screen because Po is as funny as him.

Helena Bonham Carter As Emily (The Corpse Bride)

The Corpse Bride is an excellent stop-motion animated film that certainly has a specific group of people who watch it every year (me included during Halloween). I could talk about Johnny Depp as Victor, but I have to point out Helene Bonham Carter as Emily. She voices the character so well and gives so much life to a literal corpse. It’s one of Carter’s best movies. 

Chris Rock As Marty (Madagascar)

Chris Rock as Marty makes sense. While there were only three Madagascar movies, Rock voiced the zebra in each of them and killed it every time. I could literally watch an entire spinoff film on just Marty. I want more, Marty. Please give me more hilarious lines like “Oh, sugar honey iced tea!”

Bill Fagerbakke As Patrick Star (SpongeBob SquarePants)

You can’t have SpongeBob without his best friend, and Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick Star is a match made in heaven. Since the show’s beginning, Fagerbakke has voiced the sea star, and he’s perfect for the role. Honestly, I almost want to watch him and Kenny voiceover the Super Bowl again next year because he as Patrick and them together is just perfect. 

Matthew Lillard As Shaggy (Scooby Doo)

There have been many voice actors who have come and gone to voice Shaggy, but let’s be honest here – Matthew Lillard has become Shaggy. Ever since he did the live-action version of Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo films, we’ve loved seeing him as Shaggy, and then he began doing the animated version. He’s been voicing the character (except for Velma, but we don’t talk about that), and he’s fantastic. 

Oscar Isaac As Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse)

Oh, Miguel. TikTok’s boyfriend of Summer 2023. The man, the myth, the legend that somehow captured my heart and reminded me that I have a thing for fictional brooding men. Either way, Oscar Isaac voices Miguel, and yes, this man is Miguel, and I will not accept any other person voicing him. 

Idina Menzel As Elsa (Frozen)

I had to put Elsa here somehow. Frozen is one of the biggest animated franchises of all time, and it’s mainly because of Elsa, her ice powers, and the incredible force of Idina Menzel’s voice. There isn’t another singer/actress on the planet that could belt like that.

While there are plenty of other animated characters we could discuss, these were just some of the first ones that came to mind—and now I feel like having an animated movie marathon. 

Some actors are best known and even defined by a single character that has captured the hearts of audiences all over the world. However, in many cases, said iconic character does not necessarily reflect the performer’s strongest performance, which they often tend to save for the role that they hope will earn them an Academy Award nomination or, at least, challenges them the most. The following is our attempt to distinguish the most iconic roles from our choices picks for the absolute best roles of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

Chris Evans

The role that skyrocketed Chris Evans to the A-list and the one he will always be most famous for is Steve "Captain America" Rogers from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, his talents are even better utilized in his scene-stealing performance in the Knives Out cast as the hilariously smug and conniving Ransom Drysdale.

Amy Adams

The world first fell in love with Amy Adams when she absolutely nailed the Disney Princess schtick as Giselle in 2007’s Enchanted. Yet, she is truly a captivating, commanding, and heartbreaking force to be reckoned with in Denis Villeneuve’s powerful 2016 alien invasion movie, Arrival, as linguistics expert Louise Banks — which, surprisingly, is not one of the six roles that earned her an Oscar nomination.

Kurt Russell

For many people, when they see Kurt Russell, they see the dystopian anti-hero Snake Plissken in Escape from New York from 1981 or helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in another great John Carpenter movie, 1982’s The Thing. Yet, even the actor’s biggest fans might agree that those performances pale in comparison to his acclaimed portrayal of Wyatt Earp in the 1993 Western movie classic, Tombstone.

Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie first captivated audiences everywhere as Naomi Lapaglia in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street and her portrayal of Harley Quinn in the DCEU immediately became one of the Batman villain’s most essential iterations. However, the Australian actor gave, arguably, her most captivating and essential performance as infamous figure skating champion Tonya Harding in the 2017 biopic, I, Tonya, which also earned her her first Oscar nomination.

Nicolas Cage 

Nicolas Cage is at his most iconic when he is at his most unhinged and few characters define that better than Castor Troy — a ruthless terrorist who switches faces with FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) in Face/Off. Of course, it is Cage's performance as severe alcoholic Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas that earned him an Oscar win.

Julia Roberts 

Having been referred to as the Queen of rom-coms, it would make sense to call Julia Roberts’ strongest contribution to the genre — Vivian Ward from 1990’s Pretty Woman — the most iconic of her career. Yet, her strongest contribution to cinema might actually be her Academy Award-winning performance in the title role of 2000’s Erin Brockovich, which is based on the true story of a legal assistant’s crusade in a California water pollution scandal. 

Tom Hanks

Our choices for both the most iconic role and the best role of Tom Hanks’ career each earned him an Academy Award. While the lovable title hero of 1994’s Forrest Gump is easily the more famous, the actor is at his most gripping and moving as gay, HIV-positive lawyer Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia from the previous year.

Ryan Gosling

Playing Noah in 2004's romantic instant classic The Notebook broke Ryan Gosling into the mainstream and playing the nameless wheelman protagonist of 2011's Drive showed his action star potential. The first time critics and audiences truly began to notice his strengths as a versatile performer, however, was when he played a teacher wrestling with his vices in 2006's Half Nelson.

Robert Downey, Jr.

There was no better choice to play Tony "Iron Man" Stark — the role that effectively resurrected Robert Downey Jr.'s career — in what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet, has the actor truly ever been better than when he played Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer cast in 2023? Just ask the Academy.

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence breathed refreshing new life into the cinematic version of YA dystopian novel hero Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games movies. She especially breathed refreshing life into the already beautiful story of love and self-acceptance at the center of Silver Linings Playbook with her Oscar-winning performance as the widowed Tiffany Maxwell.

Jim Carrey

The one role that best represents Jim Carrey’s one-of-a kind erratic style of physical comedy is the ceaselessly goofy title hero of 1994’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. There are certainly traces of that persona in unwitting TV star Truman Burbank from 1998’s The Truman Show, but the performance brought out a certain emotional depth and devastating earnestness we had not yet seen from the actor.

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson was already a top A-lister when she was cast as Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff for the MCU — a role that, arguably, became bigger than the actor herself. Yet, her infectious, Oscar-nominated performance in 2019’s Jojo Rabbit as Rosie — the mother of a young aspiring Nazi who is secretly hiding a young Jewish woman — is the heart and soul of Taika Waititi’s dazzling World War II-era satire.

Matt Damon

Is there anything better than watching Matt Damon kick butt in the Jason Bourne movies as the titular amnesiac spy? How about watching him pour out his heart and soul as a young and brilliant, but emotionally troubled custodian in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which he also co-wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay for?

Jamie Lee Curtis

Playing Laurie Strode in Halloween may have made her the ultimate horror Scream Queen and playing IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre in Everything Everywhere All at Once may have finally earned her an Oscar, but neither reflect her absolute best work in our opinion. Her Golden Globe-winning role as Helen Tasker — a woman who discovers her husband (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a spy — shows the extent of her versatile range and is easily the performance from 1994’s True Lies.

Michael Keaton

When you think of Michael Keaton, the first character you picture could be Bruce Wayne from Tim Burton's live-action Batman movies or the title role of another Burton classic called Beetlejuice. Yet, the actor's defining role might really be the one that earned him his first Academy Award nomination: down-and-out actor Riggan Thomson in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).

Adam Driver

Typically, any Star Wars actor can call their role in the celebrated sci-fi franchise the most famous character they have ever played and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is certainly no exception. His performance as the Sith Lord is an essential highlight of the sequel trilogy, but his rich, emotionally devastating, and uniquely funny performance as Charlie Barber in 2019’s Marriage Story — his second Oscar-nominated role — really proved he was a force to behold.

Clint Eastwood

The Mount Rushmore of Western Movie Stars undeniably includes Clint Eastwood, whose own carving into the monument would probably be dressed like his three roles from Sergio Leone's "The Man with No Name" or "Dollars" Trilogy — made of up A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Well, forgive us, but we believe that coldblooded-killer turned mild-mannered family man William Munny from 1992’s Unforgiven — which he also directed — is his stronger and deeper contribution to the genre.

Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams is transcendent as the ultimate ruthless teen queen, Regina George, in the 2004 high school movie classic, Mean Girls. Yet, she is at her most grounded and most captivatingly understated in her Oscar-nominated portrayal of Boston Globe investigative journalist Sacha Pfeiffer in 2015’s Spotlight.

Tom Cruise 

Among Tom Cruise’s many iconic roles — especially Maverick in the Top Gun movies and Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies — we are not sure that we would include Ron Kovic in that least. Yet, we do believe the actor has never been better than in his impassioned, Academy Award-nominated portrayal of the real-life Vietnam vet-turned-war-protester in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July.

Emma Watson

Most people — especially Harry Potter fans — still see Hermione Graigner whenever they see Emma Watson. However, one role that came closest to replacing the talented wizard as the British actor’s most celebrated work is Sam Button from the tender 2012 coming-of-age drama, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford is the face of two of cinema’s most iconic action movie heroes: Indiana Jones and Han Solo from the Star Wars movies. Yet, we have seen the legend give a performance as intense, grounded, and human as Detective Captain John Book in Witness, which also earned him his sole Academy Award nomination.

Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges had already achieved a storied and widely acclaimed career by the time he landed his definitive role as freewheeling burnout, The Dude, in Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 cult favorite comedy classic, The Big Lebowski. It would take another 12 years before he gave his definitive performance as disillusioned country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, which made him an Oscar winner.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Jack Dawson from James Cameron’s high-grossing Best Picture Oscar winner, 1997’s Titanic, remains the one role Leonardo DiCaprio is most often associated with despite winning his Oscar for 2015’s The Revenant. However, it is his remarkable portrayal of Howard Hughes, from his rise as an inventive aristocrat to his falls as a disturbed recluse, that earns the highest praise from us. 

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has an extraordinary collection of unique characters under her belt, but none are quite as distinct or recognizable as Satine in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 musical smash, Moulin Rouge! Yet, the following year saw her give a transformative, Oscar-winning performance in The Hours as renowned author Virginia Woolf during a dismal time in her life.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale had audiences floored by his performance as Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, which solidified him as one of the best Batman actors in cinematic history. However, we believe we already saw him at his best in 2000’s American Psycho, giving a brilliantly nuanced performance as a strangely compelling sociopath named Patrick Bateman.

Natalie Portman

Rewatching the Star Wars prequel trilogy is made easier for even its harshest critics by Natalie Portman’s empowering, grounding, and ultimately heartbreaking performance as Naboo’s queen-turned-senator, Padmé Amidala. Yet, we have it on good authority that even those fans of a galaxy far, far away would rather rewatch 2010’s Black Swan and experience her unsettling, bravura, Academy Award-winning turn as Nina Sayers — a ballerina driven mad by her devotion to the lead role of Swan Lake.

Daniel Radcliffe 

Daniel Radcliffe certainly made for a great “The Boy Who Lived” in the Harry Potter movies, but even some of the franchise’s biggest fans might agree that the English actor has only gotten better since exiting the Wizarding World. In fact, some might say he has gotten better as the roles got weirder, and none have been weirder than when he starred in 2022’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story as a hilariously exaggerated version of the legendary musical parodist.

Kate Winslet

Much like Titanic made Leonardo DiCaprio a star, starring in the blockbuster historical tragedy as Rose Bukater turned Kate Winslet into one of the top actors of her time. In spite of her wonderful performance there, many would agree the role mainly paved the way for even better opportunities, such as her Oscar-winning performance in 2008’s The Reader as Hanna Schmitz.

Oscar Isaac

Oscar Isaac was certainly on the path to achieving A-list status before joining the cast of 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but playing the charming resistance pilot was his one-way ticket across the bridge. That same year, however, he delivered a captivatingly complex and intriguingly layered performance as tech innovator Nathan Bateman in Alex Garland’s classic A24 sci-fi drama, Ex Machina

Reese Witherspoon

As Elle Woods in 2001’s Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon brings warmth, humor, and authenticity to a character who could have easily been an annoying, one-note stereotype. As June Carter Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line, she absolutely steals the show from Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash with her powerful, Oscar-winning portrayal of the legendary singer.

Henry Cavill

Being, essentially, the spitting image of Clark Kent made Henry Cavill an ideal choice to play Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel, but not quite the perfect choice. The English actor’s signature charm, charisma, and sense of humor shine through much stronger as American secret agent Napoleon Solo in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which we think is gleaming proof of his 007 material.

Brie Larson

You could say that Carol Danvers has become such a popular character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because Brie Larson is the one portraying her in Captain Marvel and subsequent films. For that, we can likely thank her magnificent, heart-wrenching, Oscar-winning performance in 2015’s Room as a single mother held captive with her son.

There are the characters we cherish and the performances we adore. Both are equally important reasons for why we love our favorite actors.

Grammy-winning, Oscar-winning platinum artists, they say the darndest things! Ahead of Billie Eilish going to the Academy Awards next weekend for her viral Barbie song, the 22-year-old singer shared the most random anecdote about a time when Christian Bale factored into her decision to break up with a former boyfriend. And let me say, it really gets one thinking. 

While Billie Eilish and Finneas sat down with Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg ahead of the prestigious Oscars Luncheon, the comedian interviewer asked if Billie wrote her first hit “Ocean Eyes” about Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy. The question segued the conversation into other Christopher Nolan movies like his Dark Knight trilogy. After sharing that his Batman movies are her jam, Eilish said this: 

Do we have context as to why… no? Is it still newsworthy… yes. Why? Because Christian Bale actually led her to end a relationship with someone. In the video on the Oscars YouTube channel, it doesn’t sound like Billie Eilish is messing around either. And hey, that’s the power of Christopher Nolan movies. The director bends your mind and gets you thinking – even about whether your man is right for you. 

Billie Eilish’s incredibly random dream sounds like the ending of The Dark Knight Rises, when Bruce Wayne gives up his alter ego and ends up sitting in a cafe somewhere with Anne Hathaway’s Selena Kyle. That, or the character died and Michael Caine’s Alfred hallucinated him. Anyways, I really cannot claim to understand how that mental picture of Bale led the singer to end things with a significant other, but perhaps it was because her boyfriend wasn’t literally Christian Bale? This may soon become one of the world’s greatest mysteries. 

We don’t know who Billie Eilish is talking about specifically, but it’s currently rumored that the singer is single. Back in May, it was reported that she and The Neighborhood frontman Jesse Rutherford, who were 10 years apart in age, split up after less than a year of dating. It’s more likely Eilish is talking about her ex Matthew Vorce, whom she allegedly split with in May 2022. No matter what, now I want to rewatch all the Dark Knight movies!! What transformative decisions will it entice me to do? 

Billie Eilish and her brother/collaborator Finneas O’Connell are up next weekend for their second Oscar for Best Original Song for Barbie’s “What Was I Made For?” Eilish has called it one of her best vocal performances, but how will it stack up with the other 2024 Oscar nominees? You can tune into the ceremony on Sunday, March 10 to find out! 

Christian Bale is one of the best actors of his generation. His commitment to his roles is astounding, and he's often unrecognizable on screen. From losing over 60 pounds for his harrowing role in The Machinist, to gaining 40 pounds to play Dick Chaney in Vice, Bale has consistently put his body through the ringer to transform for a role. The intensity of his acting process is well known, but a video that compiles a number of his various performances really puts it all in perspective. 

One user on X recently put together a handful of clips from some of Christian Bale’s most extreme body transformations over the years. It went viral, with many applauding the actor for his high level of commitment to his craft. While many were aware that Bale has disappeared into different movie roles, this video shows how drastic some of these changes truly are. You can see the video below:

The transformations are very striking, but what is most notable to me is how little time there is between each movie role. The A-lister went from his impossibly skinny, meek appearance in The Machinist to his traditionally masculine, built body for Batman Begins within a year. For context, he was so thin in The Machinist, he lost elasticity in his muscles. His ability to bulk up in such little time is astounding and seems almost impossible. The amount of work and control you have to have over your own body to make such a change is mind-boggling, and something I don’t think we’ve seen from any other actor.

Christian Bale has made massive changes on the other end of the spectrum as well. After gaining a significant amount of weight in 2018 for Adam McKay’s Vice, he shrunk down to an abnormally skinny size only a year later for 2019’s Ford v. Ferrari. According to the video, there is an over 70-pound difference between those two roles, which is hard to wrap my head around. Not only is this incredibly difficult to do over and over, but it also isn’t great for the human body. Bale himself has admitted to trying to limit his own body transformations going forward, no matter how much of a committed actor he still is. 

Just because the star has lessened his weight fluctuation, that doesn’t mean he is any less of a transformative actor, though. A few years ago, the Oscar winner transformed to play Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder. That role allowed him to become unrecognizable with the use makeup and prosthetics, in addition to some weight loss. Also, the leading man will be playing Frankenstein in an upcoming project from Maggie Gyllenhaal, which will also likely allow him to employ the same methods. His more extreme weight transformations shown in the viral video may now be a thing of the past, yet The Dark Knight star still remains one of the most metamorphic actors of our time. 

You can see Christian Bale in his latest transformative role in Thor: Love and Thunder, which is currently streaming with a Disney+ subscription. In addition, fans of the actor should also check out some lesser known flicks starring the Fighter star. 

As Bradley Cooper receives acclaim for helming and starring in his upcoming film Maestro, the actor has lined up a new project called Best of Enemies. The movie has become the latest of upcoming book adaptations nabbed by Hollywood, and it will re-team Cooper with Christian Bale years after the pair of great actors starred in American Hustle together. 

Best Of Enemies is a spy thriller that was just snatched up by Amazon and MGM Studios, per Deadline. The movie is about an unlikely friendship that forms between a CIA agent and KGB agent during the Cold War. It will not only reunite American Hustle’s two stars, but it also a host of filmmakers behind the scenes of the 2013 flick, including its co-writer Eric Warren Singer, who is set to write the script, and producer Charles Roven in the mix. 

Amazon and MGM reportedly fought for the rights to the film alongside eight other studios, notably duking it out with Warner Bros. before winning the bid. The studios are set to pay the American Hustle writer, who also notably co-wrote 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, in the neighborhood of $5 million. With those points in mind, it sounds like Best Of Enemies could be a huge movie! Plus, it’s apparently possible that Cooper could direct after previously helming A Star Is Born and Maestro. 

The film is based on 2018’s Best of Enemies: The Last Great Spy Story of the Cold War, which is based on the true story of CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko as they become the best of friends rather than enemies. Cooper will play Platt and Bale will play the Russian agent. The story takes place in 1978, and it also involves the unlikely pair solving some of the most famous spy stories of the 20th century. 

Interestingly enough, Best of Enemies shares a similar time period to American Hustle, which was set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, though David O. Russell's film focused on an FBI Abscam operation rather than the ongoings of the CIA and KGB. When American Hustle came out a decade ago, it was nominated for a whopping 10 Oscars, including nods for both Cooper and Bale. Although it didn’t take home any prizes, clearly the two actors have been itching to work with one another and have finally found the right project to do so. 

Cooper is also set to work with Steven Spielberg on a remake of the 1968 Steve McQueen film, Bullitt. The actor is also reportedly in production on another directing effort with Will Arnett called Is This Thing On? Bale on the other hand is part of the English cast of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, and he is set to star in The Church of the Living Dangerously based on the Vanity Fair article of the same name. 

As Best of Enemies gets moving at Amazon and MGM, make sure to check the 2023 movie schedule so you can see Bale in The Boy and the Heron and Cooper in Maestro, both in theaters now.

Fashion can truly make an impression with any character you’re trying to get across; especially with the figures we’re about to discuss. Clothing is definitely not optional, it’s a way of life for some of the snazziest dressers in all of cinematic history. So straighten your tie, smooth out your sweater, and slip on your glasses to take a look at these shining examples of sartorial supremacy.

James Bond (The James Bond Movies)

How can you not admire the costume design throughout every era of James Bond movies? No matter your chosen actor for the job, 007 has made his way into the world with a fine style that matches his cutting wit. His fashion is forever.

Holly Golightly (Breakfast At Tiffany’s)

Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) became a fashion icon for the ages in 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s certainly not hard to see why, as Hubert De Givenchy and Edith Head’s talents gave this movie its signature looks; chiefly among them some little black dresses that launched a thousand party outfits.

Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Casino)

How mythic is the wardrobe of Robert De Niro’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein from Casino? There are whole YouTube videos and posters designed to show them off. Not to mention even some of the oversized glasses that Martin Scorsese’s protagonist wears during the film have become the stuff of legend. Better still: Ace isn’t afraid to wear pink, and it suits him to a tee.

Lorelei Lee (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

Sure, as a musical showgirl, it was technically the job of Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) to always be on point with her looks. But at the same time, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes certainly snazzed her up in everyday life, thanks to some beautiful use of patterns and color. And of course, who could forget the iconic pink dress Monroe wore during “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend?”

Django (Django Unchained)

Once he entered the world of bounty hunting, Django (Jamie Foxx) took a lot of the advice Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) gave him to heart. And part of that package was the note that your wardrobe is basically your costume for the moments in your life. Everything from rough and tumble western wear to a natty blue velvet suit with ruffles resulted from that viewpoint, and we’re all the greater for it.

Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada)

If one is going to help make the decisions that puts cerulean sweaters on the backs of those who pretend to hate fashion, one needs to look like they’ve earned that right. The Devil Wears Prada’s Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) definitely earned that right, and then some. While Streep gave up Method acting because of the character’s miserable nature, her style never looked anything less than top-flight.

Caesar Flickerman (The Hunger Games Trilogy)

Oh Stanley Tucci: the respected actor that, early in his career, was a beefcake model for Levi’s. The man’s style sense has never left him, with Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games trilogy being one of his more outlandish cases of style. Bursting with color that matched his energy, it’s hard to hate Panem’s prince of propaganda.

Cruella DeVil (Cruella)

Cruella reinvented the Disney villain from 101 Dalmatians into someone who dug a lot more than Dalmatian spots. Emma Stone’s titular icon of villainy actually changed her tone in this reimagining, setting her sights on revenge in the fashion world, and adopting a sort of punk rock couture aesthetic to do so. Vengeance looked amazing in her hands.

Jinx (Die Another Day)

Yes, Halle Berry’s freezing James Bond entrance in Die Another Day showed her rocking an impressive bikini. But her outfits throughout the rest of the film didn’t slouch either, especially the red leather number that kept her warm in the ice palace of Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). Though it probably also came in handy that time she was nearly carved up by lasers too. 

Charon (The John Wick Movies)

The entire John Wick universe is dressed to the nines, exuding a style profile that puts most action movies to shame. But if I were to highlight anyone, I’m afraid it’d have to be Charon, played by the late great Lance Reddick. Then again, The Continental is one of those places where you always have to be on your fashion game; so maybe this choice was easier than I thought.

Emily Nelson (A Simple Favor)

Paul Feig’s cinematic adaptation of A Simple Favor saw Blake Lively dipping her toe into all corners of the fashion spectrum. Through looks borrowing from both traditionally masculine and feminine modes, it all looked deadly beautiful throughout her neo-noir character’s arc. 

The Protagonist (Tenet)

Inspired by Sean Connery’s James Bond fashion, Tenet costume designer Jeffrey Kurland crafted fashions for The Protagonist (John David Washington), as well as his accomplice Neil (Robert Pattinson) that evoked the classic era of 007. Kind of fitting for a movie where incremental time travel is the game, and Christopher Nolan’s discipline for panache is also very much present. 

Astrid Leong (Crazy Rich Asians)

Astrid Leong (Gemma Chan) has a heart of gold, and the fashion sense to match it. Throughout the entirety of Crazy Rich Asians, she never failed to show up in some of the most gorgeous outfits; even in moments where her heart was breaking in devastating detail. Every time she’s on screen, it’s like watching a fairy tale.

Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby)

When you’ve got a character that’s described as “the man in the cool beautiful shirts,” your costume design needs to measure up. Director Baz Luhrman’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby used the talents of costume designer Catherine Martin to do just that, giving Leonardo DiCaprio’s interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic character the finest threads money could buy. 

Tracy Chambers (Mahogany)

Mahogany’s Tracy Chambers (Diana Ross) has aspirations to be a fashion designer herself. So it’s only fitting that she not only found her way into modeling, but also onto this list of snazzy dressers. Epitomizing the color and opulence of the disco era, her cautionary tale saw Tracy looking absolutely fabulous, even in her most dire moments. 

Nigel (The Devil Wears Prada)

If you haven’t heard it before: Stanley Tucci is a man of great fashion. One of the best examples of this is the role of Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada. While he’s a bit nicer spreading the gospel of fashion than his boss Miranda (Meryl Streep), Nigel doesn’t let up in his keen eye for style in the process.

Jackie Brown (Jackie Brown)

Whether she’s coming home from flying the friendly skies, or keeping one step ahead of her criminal compatriots, Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) always looks fantastic. Of course, her striking blue uniform for her day job is what’s always stuck out in Quentin Tarantino’s film. That being said, Ms. Grier’s civilian clothes are no slouch either, especially in that food court outfit where she’s stylishly wearing a Kangol cap.

Thomas Crown (The Thomas Crown Affair)

Billionaire by day and thief in his downtime, The Thomas Crown Affair’s titular rogue is always sharply suited for the occasion. Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond movies certainly set a similar expectation, but this 1999 remake gave the actor some room to roam; even if he wasn’t contractually allowed to be seen in traditional black tie. 

Foxy Cleopatra (Austin Powers in Goldmember)

Borrowing from the rich fashion history of blaxploitation heroines, Austin Powers in Goldmember gave Foxy Cleopatra a whole lot of looks for a whole lot of woman. Then again, when you’ve cast Beyoncé as your female lead, it’s kind of hard to make her look anything other than stunning. Still, an abundance of color and flare is seen through every costume change in this spy movie spoof.

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

‘80s business attire was a unique beast that had stock brokers ready to step out into the night once the closing bell had rung. Using GQ and Esquire as a bible, it’s no wonder how American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) always looked as sharpened as a kitchen knife. Though spare a thought for the man’s dry cleaners, as he does have a bit of a temper.

Niobe (The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions)

Pretty much everyone in The Matrix is a snazzy dresser, especially when they're in The Wachowski's cyberspace playground which gives the film its title. But extra credit has to be given to Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), as she's not a simple black-and-white dresser. With a long red coat that sets her apart from the rest, reflecting her colorful wardrobe in the real world, The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions were a bit brighter when she battled it out on screen.

Marvello Rubini (La Dolce Vita)

There are certain fashion touchstones of cinema history that will never, ever go out of style. And one such look is the classic suit and sunglasses worn by Marcello Mastroianni’s Marvello Rubini, in one of the greatest Italian movies of all time, La Dolce Vita. You can never go wrong with that black suit, but the eyewear that Federico Fellini's protagonist wears throughout the picture really clinches the win every time.

Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)

Pink is a hard color to work with because, in the wrong context, it could be seen as much too loud. Meanwhile, Legally Blonde icon Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) never met a shade of this pigment she didn’t like. Her signature hue throughout both films, this legal eagle soars high in the sky with flying colors; and it never goes out of style. 

Danny Ocean (Ocean’s Eleven)

A friend once told me, “no one looks as cool as Danny Ocean getting out of prison.” Judging by the look George Clooney’s Ocean’s Trilogy mastermind is rocking at the beginning of that first movie, it’s hard to argue. It’s even more difficult to argue that through all three films, the man isn’t bringing his A-game every single time he steps out.

Annie Hall (Annie Hall)

Blazing a trail for women’s fashion, Annie Hall’s eponymous figure took what was traditionally seen as “men’s clothing” and used it as her own statement to the world. Played brilliantly by Diane Keaton, her keen fashion sense was matched by her wicked wit, more often than not being deployed against lovelorn Alvy Singer (Woody Allen). 

Frank Abignale (Catch Me If You Can)

What is it about confidence crooks that gives them such brilliant fashion sense? Perhaps when Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) told his young son Frank Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) about how those Yankees pinstripes bedazzle the competition, he was onto something. As a result, Catch Me If You Can’s “real fake” is seen kitted out in everything from pilot’s uniforms to orange sweaters, and he’s always looking dapper as a result. 

Reynolds Woodcock (Phantom Thread)

“Meticulous” is one word that sums up Phantom Thread’s Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis). Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy about romance, fashion, and all the illnesses in between saw the Academy Award-winning legend retire in literal style, playing a fashion designer who would never step foot out the door with even a hair out of place.

Ginger McKenna (Casino)

Martin Scorsese’s Casino shows Las Vegas through some of its most tumultuous years. And one of the indicators of how time passes is in the fashion, as Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) goes from good-time gal to the trusted wife of casino manager Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert DeNiro). Gliding through the years with an effortless eye, Ms. Stone’s costumes maintain an air of control, even when her character seems to be losing that very grasp in life.

Cher Horowitz (Clueless)

Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) is the ‘90s, period. A fashionista who made something like yellow with black plaid into a work of art, our Clueless hero is anything but when she’s putting together her outfits. Who could ever forget the first time they saw some of Cher’s most signature looks in play?

Jules Winfield (Pulp Fiction)

The look of a simple black suit cannot be understated, especially when someone like Samuel L. Jackson is the person wearing it. As imposing fixer Jules Winfield in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Jackson wears this outfit for most of the movie’s running time; save for those sequences taking place after one catastrophic accident. Even in a random t-shirt and shorts, the man knows how to make an impression and keep all the Fonzies in the room cool. 

Rachel Chu (Crazy Rich Asians)

While Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) isn’t from the same sort of world as the family of her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding), that doesn’t stop our Crazy Rich Asians lead from engaging in a makeover. As the film progresses, and through some friendly makeover advice from her best friend (Awkwafina), confidence and fashion are both boosted in equally impressive ways.

Trent (Swingers)

Most would remember the lead characters of Swingers for their big band revival threads that play a big part in their trip to Vegas. However, if you look at the styles that Trent Walker (Vince Vaughn) displays throughout the movie, he is a true example of making anything work. Even his outbursts in a late-night dining situation look sharp, as he knows how to crush a look when he’s relaxed or when he’s switched on. 

If you were looking for some style icons to look up to for a near-future wardrobe refresh, look no further than these movie mavens. With all sorts of looks at work for all types, there’s bound to be something here that could give you the upgrade you’ve been hoping to achieve. And now that you’ve read through this handy guide to such delights, don’t you think you’ve earned it?

December is a great time to plan a trip to the theater, and this year especially seems to have something to satisfy fans of every genre. You don’t have to tell anime fans that, though, because they’re likely all too aware that the next project from famed director Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron, hit theaters on December 8. The animated feature was produced by Studio Ghibli, which is known for some of the most iconic movies in the genre, and from the looks of the reviews, Miyazaki doesn’t disappoint.

The story follows a young boy Mahito (voiced by Luca Padovan in the English dubbing), who crosses into a world between the living and the dead in search of his mother. The Boy and the Heron boasts an A+ dub cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Mark Hamill and Willem Dafoe (whose project Poor Things is also debuting to rave reviews this weekend). Katie Smith-Wong of FlickFeast rates The Boy and the Heron 4 out of 5 stars, calling it the most personal story of Miyazaki’s career. She writes: 

Ben Travis of Empire gives The Boy and the Heron 5 stars out of 5, calling it an “astonishing, sumptuous animated fantasy featuring everything you love about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.” The critic continues: 

Justin Chang of NPR says the movie combines the excitement of a child's grand adventure with the weight of an older man's reflection, eliciting the kind of emotion you'd expect to get from watching every Hayao Miyazaki movie in succession. Chang writes: 

Luke Y. Thompson of AV Club grades the film an A-, saying that if this is the final film for Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki, it can be considered a victory lap. Thompson writes:  

Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert gives the movie another perfect score, rating it 4 out of 4 stars, noting that the patience required in the first hour is rewarded in the movie’s final scenes, when the emotions really land. The colorful animation is bolstered by a gorgeous score by Joe Hisaishi, which Tallerico calls his favorite this year. The critic continues: 

The Boy and the Heron is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with 95% rating from more than 140 critics and an 88% audience score, as of this writing. Where will The Boy and the Heron fall in the ranking of Hayao Miyazaki films? You can make that judgment for yourself, as the movie is in theaters now, available both in Japanese with English subtitles and in dubbed English. Take a look at our 2023 movie calendar to see what else is hitting the big screen before the end of the year. 

Typically, actors will work their hardest to promote a film to the best of their ability... at first, that is. Sometimes, years (or months) after said movie releases, the stars will not hold back on their true feelings. See for yourself by taking a look at some of the, so-called, worst movies starring famous actors who would admit that even they agree with the most brutal critiques.

Ben Affleck (Daredevil)

Most would agree that he is one of the best live-action Batman actors, but Ben Affleck’s first stab at playing a superhero in 2003 was not very well received. The actor himself wasn't pleased either, as he told EW (via E!) that he agrees Daredevil “didn’t work, at all.” However, he later explained that what he appreciates about DD is that his commitment to accurately portraying Matt Murdock’s blindness paid off, at least.

Christian Bale (Newsies)

Newsies — a musical retelling of the 1899 New York newsboy strike — was a flop for Disney in 1992 but gained a cult following that star Christian Bale is not a part of. He told EW that the “wounds” he feels he suffered from starring in it healed over time. We suppose leading some great live-action Batman movies and winning an Oscar for The Fighter helped him as well. 

Halle Berry (Catwoman) 

When Halle Berry accepted her Razzie for Worst Actress of 2004 for Catwoman in person, she was one of the few actors to do so and thanked Warner Bros. for putting her in such a “god-awful movie.” At least the actor — who also has an Oscar for Monster’s Ball and a few well-received comic book movies under her belt (the X-Men movies) — has a sense of humor about starring in a DC movie that even John Rogers, one of its writers, thinks is bad.

Josh Brolin (Jonah Hex)

Future MCU and Deadpool 2 star Josh Brolin made his comic book movie debut in 2010 as the titular character in the DC Comics-inspired Western, Jonah Hex. The actor (and star of one of the best Neo-Westerns and, simply, best movies of the 2000s, No Country for Old Men) later told CBR (via CinemaBlend) that he would remake it if he had the chance, as he was not happy with how it turned out.

Sandra Bullock (Speed 2: Cruise Control)

Speed is considered one of the best action movies of all time, but Speed 2: Cruise Control is not remembered so fondly by most, including star Sandra Bullock. The Oscar winner brought up the 1997 sequel — which is set on a cruise ship — when asked by TooFab about movies she was initially embarrassed by before coming around later. However she never actually changed her tune on this one.

George Clooney (Batman & Robin)

While there are some people who actually do enjoy Batman & Robin, George Clooney — who played Bruce Wayne in the 1997 flop — is not one of them. On The Graham Norton Show, the Oscar winner talked about his propensity to constantly apologize for, as he believed at the time, ruining the Dark Knight’s big screen legacy forever, before Christopher Nolan saved it.

Sean Connery (The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

It's a shame to learn that an actor is not proud of their final live-action acting credit and such is the case with the late Sean Connery and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The former James Bond actor recalled in a 2007 interview unearthed by Heat Vision (via THR) how he tried to salvage the 2003 Alan Moore adaptation in the editing room and described director Stephen Norrington as insane.

David Cross (Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked)

According to The Washington Post, David Cross once felt the need to defend his participation in 2007’s Alvin and the Chipmunks, but he wasn't so kind about its 2011 threequel. During an appearance on Conan, the comedian recalled his “miserable” experience making Chipwrecked and recommended that the audience that was present not see the family film.

Viola Davis (The Help)

Even though her performance as 1960s Mississippi maid Abilene expanded her notoriety and earned her an Oscar nomination, Viola Davis regrets starring in 2011’s The Help. As she told Vanity Fair, “there’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth]” and was “created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism.” 

Colin Farrell (Miami Vice)

When Michael Mann brought Miami Vice to the big screen in 2006, the action flick did not get the best reviews, based on its Rotten Tomatoes score of 47%. Lead actor Colin Farrell wasn’t too hot on it either, revealing to Total Film (via Far Out) that he “didn’t like it so much,” adding he felt it was “style over substance." Additionally, he even accepts some of the responsibility for that.

Crispin Glover (Back To The Future)

How could anyone dislike one of the best time travel movies ever made, 1985's Back to the Future? Well, George McFly actor Crispin Glover told AV Club that he felt the ending — which saw Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly return to an alternate present in which his family is rich — sent a misguided message, which is why he opted not to appear in the sequels.

Alec Guinness (Star Wars)

The Force was not strong with the Star Wars movies’ original Obi-Wan Kenobi actor, Alec Guinness, apparently. In 1975, the Oscar winner wrote a letter to his friend, Anne Kaufman — which was quoted in his biography and republished by Business Insider in 2013 — describing George Lucas’ script as “fairy-tale rubbish.”

Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up)

In 2008, Knocked Up cast member Katherine Heigl told Vanity Fair that it was “hard for [her] to love the movie,” as she believed it portrayed women in an unfavorable light. While the 2007 comedy is still remembered as one of the best Judd Apatow movies, the former Grey’s Anatomy cast member’s honest comments about sexism would have a negative impact on her career, unfortunately.

Bob Hoskins (Super Mario Bros.)

In 2011, the late Bob Hoskins was asked by The Guardian about his worst job, biggest disappointment, and element he would edit out from his past? His answer to each question was the infamous video game movie adaptation, Super Mario Bros., from 1993.

Jennifer Lawrence (Passengers)

Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence revealed to The New York Times that Adele actually recommended she should say “no” to 2016’s Passengers — in which she and Chris Pratt's characters wake up from a commercial interplanetary journey way too early. Lawrence then said she wished she hadn't ignored the advice from the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.

Lindsay Lohan (I Know Who Killed Me)

According to a 2013 report by The Daily Mail, Lindsay Lohan was once tweeted at by a fan who told her she had watched I Know Who Killed Me twice the night before. The Parent Trap star replied by saying this fan had watched the 2007 psychological thriller “two times too many.”

Bill Murray (Garfield)

When Bill Murray said he regretted making Garfield during his iconic Zombieland cameo, that was not just a joke. In fact, it was during an interview with GQ that Murray said the only reason he agreed to voice the 2004 live-action movie’s titular cat was because he thought one of the Coen Brothers was writing it, only to learn too late that the scribe was Joel Cohen.

Paul Newman (The Silver Chalice)

According to the Irish Film Institute, Paul Newman’s choice for the “worst motion picture produced during the 1950s” was his screen acting debut: The Silver Chalice. Despite his feelings about it, the late, legendary actor actually received a “Most Promising Newcomer” Golden Globe nomination for playing the Holy Grail’s sculptor in the 1954 drama.

Robert Pattinson (Twilight)

There's no denying that playing Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies made Robert Pattinson the star he is now, but that doesn't change the fact that he's not big on the films. His 2011 interview with Vanity Fair, in which he says “representing something you don’t particularly like” is “weird” in reference to the teen vampire romance stories, is just one of many times the Batman actor has admitted to this.

Christopher Plummer (The Sound Of Music)

When asked about his most challenging role during a roundtable interview with THR, Christopher Plummer’s answer was Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. His reasoning was nothing akin to Julie Andrews’ rough time shooting the iconic hill sequence, but was that he found the beloved 1965 musical itself to be “so awful and sentimental and gooey.”

Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern)

Has an actor ever been more shamelessly and frequently vocal about their disdain for their own work than Ryan Reynolds with Green Lantern? Most recently, Reynolds shared his horrified reaction to the 2009 DC flick at London’s Just for Laughs festival in 2023 (according to The Independent). But his most public and unapologetic expression of disappointment can be seen in both Deadpool movies.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Red Sonja)

While recognized as a cult favorite today, Red Sonja — which is being rebooted — is certainly not a film Arnold Schwarzenegger would call one of his best movies. In fact, the former California governor is quoted in Far Out as saying that he used to punish his children by forcing them to watch the 1985 comic book adaptation, which stars Brigette Nielsen as the titular warrior.

Sylvester Stallone (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot) 

Apparently, Sylvester Stallone has Arnold Schwarzenegger to blame for his decision to star in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which the Rocky star later told Ain’t It Cool News was “one of the worst movies in the entire solar system.” According to SlashFilm, the Terminator star revealed he tricked his then-rival, Stallone, into signing on for the panned 1992 comedy by feigning interest in the script.

Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra)

Radio host Howard Stern once named G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra as guest Channing Tatum’s star-making moment. In turn, Tatum bluntly admitted he hates the 2009 cinematic adaptation of the action figure line, claiming he was “pushed into” making it by Paramount. That explains why he requested to be killed off in the 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Charlize Theron (Reindeer Games)

Academy Award winner Charlize Theron did not hold back when telling Esquire that she believes 2000’s Reindeer Games is a “bad, bad, bad movie.” However, she does not regret starring in the Ben Affleck-led Christmas action flick, as it a gave her the chance to work with director John Frankenheimer.

Mark Wahlberg (The Happening)

On a ranked list of M. Night Shyamalan movies, most people might put The Happening at a pretty low spot, including one of its stars. During a press conference for The Fighter, Mark Wahlberg admitted that he does not like The Happening either in an expletive-filled tirade. This came after he revealed that Amy Adams was up for Zooey Deschanel’s part in the unintentionally hilarious 2009 disaster thriller.

Sam Worthington (Clash Of The Titans)

Despite the fact that 2010's Clash of the Titans remake is one of his bigger hits outside of the Avatar movies, Sam Worthington is not a fan. He revealed to IndieWire that he put the blame on his “bland performance” as Perseus and promised to make up for it with the 2012 sequel, Wrath of the Titans.

Gwyneth Paltrow (Shallow Hal)

When Gwyneth Paltrow tested her friend and assistant Kevin Keating’s knowledge of her for a video on Netflix’s X account, he (almost) correctly names her least favorite performance of hers as Rosemary in Shallow Hal. The Academy Award winner and MCU star then describes the Farrelly Brothers’ 2001 fantasy rom-com, which also stars Jack Black, as a “disaster.”

Nicole Kidman (Australia)

Nicole Kidman revealed in an interview with a Sydney radio station (via Daily Mail) that she rarely watches her own movies but did attend the premiere of Australia, which reunited her with Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann. However, she found herself squirming in her seat over her performance in the 2009 romantic period drama, which paired her with Hugh Jackman.

Alec Baldwin (Rock Of Ages)

His fondness for director Adam Shankman and admiration for the all-star cast, including Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones, convinced Alec Baldwin to star in Rock of Ages. However, as he revealed in a 2013 interview with American Magazine Media Conference in New York (via The Wrap), the 2012 movie based on a Broadway hit featuring ’80s rock tunes was a “complete disaster” in his eyes.

Brad Pitt (The Devil’s Own)

An action movie starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt sounds like a surefire success by those details alone but, as Pitt would share with Newsweek, The Devil’s Own is not all it's cracked up to be. Apparently, the 1997 thriller was a disaster from behind the scenes with the cast and crew being forced to make up the story as they went along after the previous “great script” was “tossed for various reasons.” In addition, Pitt and Ford couldn't get on the same page.

James Franco (Your Highness)

When James Franco jokes about not wanting to do a homemade sequel to 2011’s Your Highness in This is the End, he wasn't exactly kidding. The actor told GQ in 2013 that he thinks the medieval stoner comedy from director David Gordon Green “sucks."

Whether or not you agree with these celebrities’ opinion of their own films, you cannot deny that it takes guts for an actor to admit when one of their own films missed the mark in their eyes.

Though Hollywood A-listers make more money for one movie that some of us will see in a lifetime, there are times where even some of the highest grossing actors of all time didn’t make as much as you'd think. Over the years, stars like Robert Downey Jr., Julia Roberts, and Brad Pitt have brought in massive paydays for acting and producing, but those same stars have also seen incredibly small paychecks for one reason or another.

If you’ve ever wanted to know about 33 actors who made way less than you’d think for a beloved movie, look no further…

Robert Downey Jr. Made $500,000 For Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. was the first major star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and would be a staple of the Infinity Saga for more than a decade. During this time, he made a ton of money for his superhero performances. However, he only took home a comparatively small payday of $500,000 for 2008’s Iron Man, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Bill Murray Made $9,000 For Rushmore

Bill Murray is one of the most beloved actors of all time and a frequent collaborator of Wes Anderson’s ever since the release of Rushmore back in 1998. That fruitful partnership started out modestly for the SNL alum, as he was paid $9,000 for his take on Herman Blume, per Vulture.

Gal Gadot Made $300,000 For Wonder Woman

When Gal Gadot first signed on to portray Diana Prince in the DCEU back in 2014, Variety reported that the Fast & Furious star would take on a salary of $300,000 per movie, including Wonder Woman, which was released three years later.

Julia Roberts Made $300,000 For Pretty Woman

Though she had some success at the box office prior to its release, Julia Roberts turned into a massive star thanks to 1990’s Pretty Woman and one of the most well-known A-listers on the planet. However, Roberts, who would go on to earn a ton of cash for movies like Erin Brockovich years later, reportedly received a modest sum of $300,000 for her role in the all-time great romantic comedy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Hilary Swank Made $3,000 For Boys Don’t Cry

Hilary Swank won her first Oscar and became one of the most talked about actresses thanks to her transformative portrayal of Brandon Teena in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry. When appearing on Women’s Dinner Party years later, Swank revealed she was paid $3,000 for the role, which wasn’t enough to qualify for health insurance.

Tom Hanks Made $50,000 For Toy Story

Tom Hanks, who won two Academy Awards prior to the 1995 release of Toy Story, was reportedly paid $50,000 to provide the voice of Woody in the landmark Pixar film, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the same article, the publication reported that Hanks made $5 million upfront for its 1999 sequel.

Oprah Winfrey Made $35,000 For The Color Purple

Oprah Winfrey received an Oscar nomination for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple back in 1985. The media mogul, who is worth billions today, later told Essence she was paid $35,000 for portrayal of Sofia.

Robin Williams Made $75,000 For Aladdin

Aladdin will forever be remembered as one of the best Robin Williams movies, and rightfully so. And while the late actor provided countless hours of incredible lines for his co-starring performance, he only made $75,000 for his troubles, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Jamie Lee Curtis Made $8,000 For Halloween

John Carpenter’s Halloween, one of the best horror movies, turned Jamie Lee Curtis into a scream queen almost overnight. However, the Academy Award winner later told People Magazine that she only made $8,000 for her portrayal of Laurie Strode.

Nick Castle Made $25/Day For Halloween

Nick Castle has played Michael Myers a total of five times over the years, with the most recent being 2022’s Halloween Ends. Though the role made him a horror icon, Castle told Vanity Fair he was only paid $25 for each day of shooting in the original back in 1978.

Matthew McConaughey Made Less Than $200,000 For Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club, a role that ushered in a new era of his career. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he was paid less than $200,000 upfront for the movie9 but did receive an undisclosed amount on the backend.

Chris Evans Made $300,000 For Captain America: The First Avenger

Chris Evans was a driving force for the first few phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and was paid handsomely for his efforts later on. However, when he was cast to play Steve Rogers in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, he reportedly only made $300,000, per The Guardian.

Jeff Daniels Made $50,000 For Dumb And Dumber

Jeff Daniels, who was mostly known for his dramatic roles at the time, was cast to appear alongside Jim Carrey in the Farrelly Brothers’ 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber despite New Line Cinema wanting someone else. Years later, the directors told The Hollywood Reporter that the studio low-balled him with an offer of $50,000, thinking he’d say no. You know the rest.

Taraji P. Henson Made $150,000 For The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Taraji P. Henson received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a performance that netted her a great deal of screen time. However, as she later told Variety, she was only paid $150,000 for the gig, which was several hundred thousand dollars less than her initial request of $500,000.

Jonah Hill Made $60,000 For The Wolf Of Wall Street 

Jonah Hill was paid $60,000 for his portrayal of Donnie Azoff in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 epic comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. While that may seem small considering the size of his role, Hill later told Howard Stern (via BBC) that he immediately took the offer, adding that he would have sold his house and given all his money to work with the acclaimed director. 

Orlando Bloom Made $175,000 For The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy 

Orlando Bloom was an instrumental part of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with his character, Legolas, being featured heavily throughout all three movies. During a 2023 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the actor revealed he was paid a total of $175,000 for the entire project.

Jon Heder Initially Made $1,000 For Napoleon Dynamite 

Napoleon Dynamite pretty much came out of nowhere and took the world by storm in 2004, partly because its star, Jon Heder. A few years after the film’s release, Heder told Stuff Magazine that he initially made $1,000 from the movie but was later able to negotiate his deal after MTV picked up distribution.

Daisy Ridley Made Between $100,000 And $300,000 For Star Wars: The Force Awakens 

Daisy Ridley was a relatively unknown actress when she was cast in one of the lead roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which might explain her low salary for the 2015 blockbuster. According to Variety, that number was reportedly between $100,000 and $300,000.

John Boyega Made Between $100,000 And $300,000 For Star Wars: The Force Awakens 

John Boyega’s Finn was one of the most heavily featured characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the young actor reportedly only received a payday somewhere between $100,000 and $300,000, per Variety.

James Earl Jones Made $7,000 For Star Wars

James Earl Jones’ dynamic voice gave Darth Vader a menacing edge in George Lucas' 1977 film Star Wars (and the rest of the franchise), but did you know that he was only paid $7,000 for the first movie? When speaking with the American Film Institute, the legendary actor admitted that he thought that was good money at the time.

Mel Gibson Made $9,000 For Mad Max 

After appearing in Mad Max, Mel Gibson would go on to lead some of the best action movies of all time, but back when he was cast in the late ‘70s, he was a broke college student. That’s why, as he told ExperienceWith.com, his $9,000 salary for George Miller’s dystopian thriller seemed like a fortune.

Seann William Scott Made $8,000 For American Pie 

American Pie was one of the biggest movies of the ‘90s, and Seann William Scott’s Stifler was its breakout character. So, how much did the young actor make for his career-defining role? Well, as he told The Rich Eisen Show in 2023, he was paid $8,000, most of which he spent on a used Thunderbird.

Christian Bale Made The Minimum Salary For American Psycho 

Christian Bale’s take on the unhinged Patrick Bateman in 2000’s American Psycho is one of the actor’s most unforgettable performances, but it could very well be one of his smallest paydays. Though he didn’t reveal the exact number in a 2022 GQ profile, the actor did say it was the “absolute minimum they were illegally allowed” to pay him.

Michelle Williams Made $625,000 For All The Money In The World 

Michelle Williams was reportedly only paid $625,000 for her portrayal of Gail Harris in Ridley Scott’s 2017 biographical crime thriller All the Money in the World, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Though this is a hefty fee, her co-star, Mark Wahlberg, was reported to have taken home $5 million for his role.

Barkhad Abdi Made $65,000 For Captain Phillips 

Barkhad Abdi became an overnight sensation following the release of Captain Phillips, in which he plays lead pirate Abduwali Muse. According to the New Yorker, Abdi’s acting debut and Oscar-nominated performance earned him $65,000.

Jennifer Lopez Made $0 For Hustlers 

Jennifer Lopez received a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Hustlers, a movie she made for free. During a GQ breakdown of her biggest career moments, the multi-talented star said she starred in and produced the movie for no upfront money, as she was investing in herself. However, it wasn’t disclosed as to how much she made on the backend of the film’s release, which was $157.6 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Gunnar Hansen Made $800 For Texas Chain Saw Massacre 

Gunnar Hansen’s Leatherface is an instantly recognizable horror villain thanks to his mask made of human flesh and signature chainsaw. But did you know that the actor was only paid a three-digit sum for his performance in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre? In 2013, the actor told Fast Company that he made $800 for his part in the iconic ‘70s horror movie.

Dustin Hoffman Made $20,000 For The Graduate 

The Graduate was the movie that turned Dustin Hoffman into a young Hollywood star, but it was also one that didn’t earn him a whole lot of money. According to a 1968 New York Times article, Hoffman reportedly made $20,000 for his career-defining role, but he only ended up keeping $4,000 of that after expenses and taxes were taken out.

John Candy Made $414 For His Home Alone Cameo 

The late John Candy appears in Home Alone for only a few minutes, but it’s still wild to think that his cameo only netted the actor $414. In the Home Alone episode of Netflix’s The Movies That Made Us, it is revealed that Candy’s unforgettable portrayal of Gus Polinski, the Polka King of the Midwest, didn’t necessarily break the bank.

Jessica Chastain Made $1.75 Million For The Martian 

Jessica Chastain’s paycheck for The Martian was shockingly low. Around the time of the film’s 2015 release, there was a report that the actress made $7 million from her part, but she told The Huffington Post that she actually made around a quarter of that, which would be around $1.75 million. The film’s star, Matt Damon, reportedly made between $15 and 25 million for his part.

Brad Pitt Made $6,000 For Thelma And Louise 

Brad Pitt is one of the biggest and highest paid actors around today and has been that way for the better part of the past 30 years. However, that wasn’t always the case. According to the Daily Mail, the actor was paid just $6,000 for his breakout performance as JD in Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise.

Jon Voight Made The ‘Minimum’ Salary For Midnight Cowboy 

Jon Voight received all kinds of nominations for his performance in Midnight Cowboy, but the actor was paid the “minimum” for his portrayal of Joe Buck. When disclosing this to The Guardian decades later, Voight also revealed he received a $14.73 charge for meals on the final day of the shoot.

Adam Levine Made $0 For Begin Again 

Maroon 5 frontman and former coach on The Voice Adam Levine appeared in John Carney’s 2014 musical dramedy, Begin Again for free. When speaking with USA Today around the time of the film’s release, Levine explained that he did the movie “for no money,” stating that he had made enough through his other ventures and wanted the experience.

It’s safe to say that all of these actors have done okay for themselves over the years after making relatively small salaries throughout their career. But it’s still wild to think about Robert Downey Jr. only making half-a-million to play Tony Stark. What a steal.

Yesterday we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company. But if there’s another name that means almost as much as Disney in the world of animation, it’s Miyazaki. Hayao Miyazaki has surpassed even Disney among some fans of animation. His brand new film The Boy and the Heron (the legendary director’s first in a decade) is sure to be a big deal when it hits theaters in December. The movie’s English voice cast has now been revealed and it’s absolutely stacked, including a two former Batman and a Black Widow.

The full English voice cast for The Boy and the Heron has been announced and THR reports that it includes numerous A-list names, including Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Davie Bautista, Mark Hamill, and Dan Stevens. It’s an incredible list of performers and shows just how profile this movie is.

Young actor Luca Padovan will voice the main character Mahito Maki, and Pattinson will voice the Grey Heron. The film tells the story of a young boy whose mother dies in 1940s Japan. But when the mysterious Grey Heron tells him that his mother is still alive, and inside a magical world, the boy crosses over. 

The director of such popular anime films as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki had announced his retirement back in 2013. He made an animated short a few years later, but we thought we had seen his final feature. This makes The Boy and the Heron all the more highly anticipated as it will likely be the final feature from the 82-year-old auteur. 

The best Hayao Miyazaki movie is going to be a topic of endless debate, but anybody who knows Miyazaki's work knows he has one of the most prolific, and successful catalogs of films of any director in Japan-- in animation or otherwise. 

The movie was released in Japan in July and it broke box office records and already has received a massive outpouring of positive response from critics who have seen the Japanese version. So it seems likely that the film will be worth the wait for fans. The Boy and the Heron has been in production for years but was moving at a slow pace even before the global pandemic delayed things even further. The movie is entirely hand-drawn, yet another reason that the film has taken its time to get here.

If you’re a Miyazaki fan but one that comes from the “subs not dubs” school of viewing anime, you’re still in luck, as The Boy and the Heron release date of December 8 is a dual release . It will be available in theaters in both English and Japanese, so fans who want to experience the film in its truly original version can do so, but the movie will still be made more accessible to fans through the well-known voice cast.  

When you look at the landscape of Hollywood A-List actors, it’s hard to believe how many haven’t been nominated for an Oscar. Even crazier is looking back on previous nominees like Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman’s careers and seeing where their first brush with golden glory came from. That’s what we’re gathered together to do today, as we look back on a who’s who of acting talent, and those first projects that put them on The Academy’s map! 

Meryl Streep - The Deer Hunter

Where does one begin when talking about Meryl Streep’s own personal golden dynasty? Well, if you want to start at the beginning, you’d take it all the way back to 1978. That’s when Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter put Ms. Streep on the Academy’s radar for the first time. At the time of publication, Streep is the most nominated person at the Academy Awards, thanks to a whopping 21 nods.

Daniel Day-Lewis - My Left Foot

The year 1990 marked an important moment for iconic actor, and three-time Academy Award winner, Daniel Day-Lewis. The now-retired thespian found himself winning on his first time out, with his nomination for the role of Irish writer and painter Christy Brown in My Left Foot. His portrayal of Brown, who created art while living with Cerebral Palsy, was only the beginning of a legacy involving method acting, which led to several more nominations and wins in the process.

Amy Adams - Junebug

Let’s put aside the fact that Amy Adams and Arrival were failed by awards boards in the 2016- 2017 season. Outside of that grudge that some still hold dear, Adams has a total of six Oscar nominations to her credit. That’s pretty amazing, with the first nod coming from her performance in 2005’s Junebug. With that noted, we can go back to grousing about how she deserves to be at seven nods, thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s brain-breaking masterpiece.

Leonardo DiCaprio - What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

While Leonardo DiCaprio could finally call himself a winner as part of 2016’s Academy Award nominees, the path to that victory for The Revenant kicked off in 1994. A hot young talent, DiCaprio’s first nomination was for his role alongside Johnny Depp in the drama What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Turns out, when it was winning time for Leo, the answer to that question was, “A bear.”

Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

One of America’s sweethearts, Sandra Bullock can be counted as a member of the First Timer's Club. Her first nomination was also the one that won her the trophy, as the 2010 Academy Awards yielded a golden win for her role in The Blind Side. Despite the recent controversies and lawsuit from Michael Oher that have hit that film’s story about the football player and the Tuohys, this is a hard-earned win, and the first of two nominations so far for Ms. Bullock. 

Tom Hanks - Big

We all know that Tom Hanks is Academy Award-winning royalty, as America’s Dad has six nominations and two wins under his belt. Looking back at the fact that his first competition for Oscar glory came from 1988’s Big, it’s an impressive feat for happening so early in Hanks’ career as an actor. It’s even more stunning when you take into account that it was for a comedy performance, which isn’t as prevalent at the Oscars as one would hope.

Viola Davis - Doubt

Despite the title of the film she was first nominated for, there was absolutely no Doubt when it came to Viola Davis’ status as an Oscar contender. Her first round came in 2008, through that very film mentioned; and she would eventually be nominated three more times, at the time of this publication. Her first win came in 2016 after she starred with fellow Oscar titan Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of Fences. (It's also worth mentioning that this actress is also in the elite club of EGOT winners.)

Peter O’Toole - Lawrence Of Arabia

Tied with Glenn Close for the most Oscar nominations without a win, the late great Peter O’Toole banked his first Academy Awards nod with the movie you’d most expect. Thanks to the director David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia, O’Toole began a dance with Academy voters that only saw him net a 2002 Honorary Academy Award. 

Jodie Foster - Taxi Driver

In the world of Disney actors turned Academy Award contenders, Jodie Foster will always be one of the most notable in that field. At the age of 15, Foster saw her first nomination through her only Best Supporting Actress nod to date. The eventual victor for films like The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie first competed for Oscar glory through the role of child prostitute Iris Steensma in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. 

Morgan Freeman - Street Smart

Even movies with Oscar buzz can become buried in the sands of time. Just ask Morgan Freeman, who first saw himself nominated at the Academy Awards in 1987 for Street Smart. A crime drama starring Christopher Reeve as an ambitious reporter profiling Freeman’s pimp character Leo “Fast Black” Smalls Jr., it’s a movie that most wouldn’t remember; especially when compared to the other films the prestigious actor would be nominated for.

Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth

Playing royalty almost feels like a shortcut to winning big-time gold. However, Cate Blanchett is one of those exceptions that sets the rules. While she would later win trophies for The Aviator and Blue Jasmine, Blanchett’s first bid for an Academy Award came in 1999, thanks to the titular role in director Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth. 

Anthony Hopkins - The Silence Of The Lambs

Horror is one of those genres that doesn’t seem to get much love on the awards circuit. However, when the results are something as chilling as director Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, containing Anthony Hopkins’ equally unsettling performance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, it’s hard not to take notice. Score another First Timer’s Club victory, as Hopkins took home the gold his first time up.

Charlize Theron - Monster

Portraying the criminal mind provides such an allure for actors and auteurs alike. A case proving that point was Charlize Theron’s portrayal of convicted killer Aileen Wuornos in Patty Jenkins’ film Monster, her first nomination out of three at the time of this writing. Theron won the Best Actress trophy on the first try in 2004, all thanks to this tale of true crime. 

Christian Bale - The Fighter

Able to disappear completely in any character he plays, Academy Award winner Christian Bale has four nominations to his name. Equally split between Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor accolades, his first roll of the dice in 2011 landed him a win in the former category; thanks to David O. Russell’s The Fighter. 

Kate Winslet - Sense And Sensibility

The works of Jane Austen are another one of those sources that seem to periodically score nominations at the Oscars. Kate Winslet’s first is part of the proof, as the first of her current total of seven Academy Award nominations (and one win) came from 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. Ms. Winslet’s heart would go on to win Best Actress…in 2009, for Stephen Daldry’s The Reader.

Denzel Washington - Cry Freedom

Let’s see if King Kong knows this piece of movie trivia. Actor Denzel Washington has had 10 Oscar nominations, with two wins coming from that pool. While most would be tempted to cite his win for Glory as the first time he was nominated, that is incorrect. Washington’s first Academy Awards ceremony happened two years earlier in 1988, for his part in the film Cry Freedom. 

Kathy Bates - Misery

Frightening characters can make for the most golden of dreams, as was proven with 1991’s Academy Awards. Kathy Bates took home her first award on her first nomination, through the role of Anne Wilkes in Rob Reiner’s Misery. A “brilliant” adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, this fan favorite is one of many that’s seen the famed horror author’s work turning in some of the most well-regarded films and performances of all time.

George Clooney - Good Night, And Good Luck/Syriana

Here’s a wild story: George Clooney’s first Oscar nominations came from not one, but two films he was involved with. 2006’s Academy Awards saw the ER veteran land and win Best Supporting Actor for his role in Syriana, while one of CinemaBlend’s 100 best movies of the 2000s, Good Night, And Good Luck., netted him a Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nod in that same contest.

Helen Mirren - The Madness Of King George

Did you know that half of Helen Mirren’s four Oscar nominations came from playing royalty? Surely most know of Mirren’s win in 2007 as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. But, dear readers, another queen marked the start of Dame Helen’s Academy Awards history. Her Best Supporting Actress nod in 1995 for The Madness of King George would be her initial foray into this circuit, playing Queen Charlotte to Nigel Hawthorne’s titular monarch.

Judi Dench - Mrs. Brown

Dame Judi Dench is another regal figure that practically screams “Oscar” when you see her. Another member of the club of actors winning as royalty, Dench would win in 1999 for her as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. That was only on her second try, because in 1998 Dame Judi received her first nomination, playing Queen Victoria in the film Mrs. Brown.

Dustin Hoffman - The Graduate

And here’s to you, Mr. Hoffman; Oscar came a’calling very young. At 30 years old, Dustin Hoffman saw his first Academy Award nomination through starring in 1967’s The Graduate. What may be more surprising than the actual 6-year age gap between himself and co-star Anne Bancroft is that his first Oscar win would take place 12 years later, with 1980’s Kramer vs. Kramer.

Susan Sarandon - Atlantic City

Five nominations and one win are actor Susan Sarandon’s Academy Award legacy, at the time of this writing. But her first nomination was from an Oscar-buzzed title that most folks may not remember: 1981’s Atlantic City. With nominations in “The Big Five” categories, Sarandon and the film at large walked away empty-handed that year.

Russell Crowe - The Insider

Before his name was Maximus Decimus Meridius, Russell Crowe found himself heading to the Oscars under a different moniker: Jeffrey Wigand. Nominated for the first time in 2000, Crowe’s role in Michael Mann’s whistleblower drama The Insider gave the Australian actor his first golden thrill ride. One that he’d repeat in 2001, and win for through the strength and honor of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.

Angela Bassett - What’s Love Got To Do With It

Surprisingly, Angela Bassett only received her second nomination as part of 2023's Academy Awards, thanks to Marvel Studio’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Bassett’s first nomination came from playing royalty of a different type, as her lead role in the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It saw her walking the Oscar red carpet in 1994.

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Count this as another shocker in Oscar nominations history: Gary Oldman only received his first Academy Awards nomination in 2012. You’d think the Bram Stoker’s Dracula actor would have had more than the three nods and one win he currently holds. However, his dreams of golden splendor only started after he played George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 

Julia Roberts - Steel Magnolias

With three nominations and one win, Julia Roberts’ odds of firing you up or making you cry with her Academy Award-nominated projects are officially even. Her first time in the race came in 1990, in the dramedy classic Steel Magnolias. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, we’ll leave it to you to find out which bucket this particular nom falls into on your own time.

Al Pacino - The Godfather

Some roles are such an indelible part of an actor’s career, they just had to land an Oscar nomination for it. Al Pacino is certainly one of those cases, as he would turn his first Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Godfather into a Best Actor nod in The Godfather Part II. Both stem from his portrayal of Michael Corleone, the favorite son who descended into darkness and power.

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married

“It came true.” Those three words marked the end of Anne Hathaway’s journey to Oscar gold, with her second nomination and first win for Best Supporting Actress in Les Miserables. But the beginning of Ms. Hathaway’s Academy Awards journey was in 2009, when she was nominated for Best Actress in Rachel Getting Married. 

Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck both won their first Oscars for Best Original Screenplay, thanks to 1998’s Good Will Hunting. But much like other members of the First Timers Club in this list, Damon’s first victory was also his first time at the dance. How ‘bout dem apples indeed.

Jennifer Lawrence - Winter’s Bone

The second time was the charm for Jennifer Lawrence, as her role in Silver Linings Playbook made her a winner in 2013. That wasn’t too long after her initial foray into Oscar victory, which came in 2011 thanks to her lead role in the neo-noir gem Winter’s Bone. Who’d expect any less from the eventual "girl on fire" that would lead The Hunger Games to box office domination?

Ben Affleck - Good Will Hunting

Sailing on the same current as his writing partner and longtime buddy Matt Damon, Ben Affleck’s first Oscar nomination came from his co-authoring of Good Will Hunting. And to think, if Damon and Affleck’s hijinks involving the script hadn’t worked, we may never have seen either contributor go on to the storied careers they enjoy today.

Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction

Fans of Samuel L. Jackson are about to engage in some harsh language, as the current MCU star only has one Academy Award nomination. While it’s rightful for his Best Supporting Actor-worthy role in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the man’s gone on to deliver several other powerhouse performances worth at least a nod or two. This is something that not even the tastiest beverage could wash away.

As an actor, you never know where that first win or nomination is going to come from. And when you're an A-lister as iconic as the people we've just discussed, those initial impressions are all the more interesting to look at as time goes on. Who knows where these blockbuster draws will find their next brush with golden glory, and how it will compare to these humble beginnings? 

The list of Best Picture winners is short, and exclusive, which means that even some of the most acclaimed, decorated, and generally well-liked actors of all time haven't taken home the grand prize at the Academy Awards. You might be surprised by the number of celebrities we have listed below — many of which have Oscars of their own — that have never starred in a Best Picture winner.

Denzel Washington

As one of a few actors who have two Oscars to their name, you might assume that some of the best Denzel Washington movies were also guaranteed a Best Picture win, right? Surprisingly, the star of Glory and Training Day has never made a movie that won the Academy's big prize, but at least he can say that King Kong still ain’t got nothing on him.

Heath Ledger

If what many consider to be one of the Academy’s greatest mistakes (awarding Crash Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain in 2006) had not happened, Heath Ledger’s name would not be on this list. However, the late Australian actor still left behind a stunning legacy only so many actors can dream of. Notably, he won a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the Joker in one of the best superhero movies, The Dark Knight.

Christian Bale

Five of Christian Bale’s best movies have been nominated for Best Picture (The Fighter, American Hustle, The Big Short, Vice, and Ford v. Ferrari), but to no avail. At least his performance in The Fighter — David O. Russell’s 2010 boxing biopic — earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Robert Downey Jr.

It is already hard enough to believe that Robert Downey Jr. has only two Oscar nominations (for Chaplin and Tropic Thunder), and that none of his many great movies outside of the MCU have achieved the highest honor, either. However, things could change at the 2024 Oscars, given his stunning work in the Oppenheimer cast and the promising chances for Christopher Nolan’s glowing biopic.

Toni Collette

Toni Collette is an extraordinarily talented actor with the accolades to prove it, including an Oscar nomination for 1999’s The Sixth Sense. However, the classic M. Night Shyamalan movie is also one of a few Toni Collette movies to be nominated for Best Picture (also including 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine), but she hasn't been in a winner yet.

Will Smith

From TV sitcoms to sci-fi blockbusters to critically acclaimed biopics, Will Smith’s filmography is pretty extraordinary, but it does not include Best Picture winners. If that does change for him soon, he may be unable to celebrate the honor in person. This is because he has been banned from future ceremonies for the next decade after slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars — which also happened to be the night he won Best Actor for King Richard.

Harrison Ford

Two of Harrison Ford's most iconic characters were featured in two Best Picture Nominees -- the original Star Wars movie, where he played Han Solo, and the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark -- but neither of them won. At least Ford, who does have an Oscar nomination for fellow Best Picture nominee 1985’s Witness, can say those films, among others, made him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.

Scarlett Johansson

Some of the most significant films of Scarlett Johansson’s career were Best Pictures nominees — such as her breakthrough role in one of the best movies of the 2000s, Lost in Translation, and her dual Oscar-nominated performances the same year for Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story. Of course, none of these films took home the top prize.

Ryan Gosling

There was a time when it seemed like Ryan Gosling would not be eligible for a list like this when we thought La La Land won Best Picture in 2017. However, it turned out to be a case of mistaken envelopes and the real winner was Moonlight. The Barbie cast member was also in the nominated film The Big Short, and there are sure to be more Ryan Gosling movies getting Oscar consideration.

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is one of those actors whose longtime losing streak at the Academy Awards — eight nominations, zero wins — continues to baffle audiences. Add on the fact that none of her best movies have won Best Picture either and the notion becomes simply unspeakable.

Jennifer Lawrence

The Academy loves Jennifer Lawrence — nominating her four times and awarding her the Best Actress Oscar for 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. However, they seem to like her just a bit more than Jennifer Lawrence’s best movies, none of which have received the Best Picture award.

Julia Roberts

I suppose Julia Roberts’ multiple nominations and one win — for Erin Brockovich — had me convinced that she had been in a Best Picture winner at some point. In truth, said biopic from 2000 is actually the only Best Picture nominee among Roberts’ filmography so far, and it lost to Gladiator.

Meg Ryan

Would you believe that Meg Ryan has never been nominated for an Academy Award? Well, what if I told you that none of her movies — which include some of the best romantic comedies of all time, like When Harry Met Sally — were considered for the top prize either? Some talents just do not get the recognition they deserve.

Laura Linney

Curiously, Laura Linney has been nominated for her performances in 2000’s You Can Count On Me, Kinsey from 2004, and 2007’s The Savages — none of which even received Best Picture nominations. She has been in a Best Picture nominee though — Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River — however, that did not win either.

George Clooney

For a while, George Clooney’s filmography seemed to consist primarily of Best Picture nominees, such as Syriana (for which he won Best Supporting Actor) and Good Night, and Good Luck (which also earned him nods for writing and directing). However, in terms of the Best Picture category, that’s all any of them ever amounted to being; nominee.

Samuel L. Jackson

With a resume as lengthy and renowned as his, you would think Samuel L. Jackson has been in at least one Best Picture winner but he has not… yet. He has starred in quite a few Best Pictures nominees — many of which are Quentin Tarantino movies like Pulp Fiction, for which he received his sole Oscar nomination.

Hugh Jackman

Tom Hooper’s 2012 adaptation of Les Miserables earned eight nominations including one for Best Picture and and another for Best Actor for Hugh Jackman, but those categories were not among the three it did win. At least the Australian X-Men movie star has had the honor of hosting an Oscar ceremony before.

Emily Blunt

Emily Blunt has won a Golden Globe for Gideon’s Daughters, a Screen Actors Guild Award for 2018’s A Quiet Place, and three BAFTA nominations for The Devil Wears Prada, a special “Rising Star Award” from the same year, and The Girl on the Train. However, never has the Academy given her a nod, nor have any of Emily Blunt’s movies even been nominated for Best Picture.

Jake Gyllenhaal

The fact that Jake Gyllenhaal has only been nominated for an Oscar once — for Best Supporting Actor in 2005’s Brokeback Mountain surprisingly enough -- is crazy. To learn that said LGBTQ+ romance movie is the only film of his to receive a Best Picture nomination is equally baffling.

Matthew McConaughey

Mathew McConaughey has starred in two films nominated for Best Picture — Dallas Buyer’s Club, for which he won his Best Actor Oscar, and The Wolf of Wall Street — which were both released in 2013. Even with favorable odds like that, neither acclaimed drama took home the gold that year.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman has been nominated for three Oscars, and she took home one in 2011 for Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky’s twisted tale of ambition gone too far is also the actor’s only film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman is one of those actors who was overdue for his Oscar for a long time before he broke the streak with his transformative performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. Before (and after) his win, the British actor appeared in just a couple of Best Picture nominees — namely Oliver Stone’s JFK and David Fincher’s Mank.  

Amy Adams

The fact that none of Amy Adams’ movies have earned a Best Picture Oscar — despite six being nominated, including American Hustle and Arrival — is not particularly shocking. What is shocking is that the actor also has six nominations of her own and has never won any of them.

Angela Bassett

Years after she was nominated for an Academy Award as Tina Turner in What’s Love Got To Do With It, Angela Bassett made history as the first actor to receive an Oscar nomination for a Marvel movie performance (as Queen Ramona in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). Yet, her first Marvel movie, 2018’s Black Panther, is her only Best Picture nominee. 

Jeff Bridges

In addition to taking home an Oscar for Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges has many Best Picture nominees under his belt, from 1971’s The Last Picture Show to Hell or High Water from 2016. Not a single one of them took him the grand prize, but I think the Academy’s biggest misstep in regards to acting legend was not nominating him for playing The Dude in The Big Lebowski.

Michael Caine

Despite two Academy Award wins to his name (one for 1986’s, Hannah and Her Sisters, and the other for 1999’s The Cider House Rules) Michael Caine cannot say he has starred in a Best Picture. Unfortunately, since the 90-year-old actor told The Telegraph that he is “sort of retired now,” he may never receive that honor.

Robin Williams

The late Robin Williams led a tremendous, widely beloved career that really made us laugh, through movies like 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire, as well as cry, like with his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting. That 1997 favorite and 1989’s Dead Poets Society are the only two Best Picture nominees he starred in.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry gave a landmark performance in 2001's Monster's Ball which earned her a historic Best Actress Oscar win. However, that film was not nominated for Best Picture, and neither has anything else the actor has starred in.

Sean Penn

Sean Penn has won Best Actor twice -- first for 2003's Mystic River by director Clint Eastwood and second for the title character of the powerful 2008 biopic, Milk. Neither of those acclaimed dramas got a Best Picture win, leaving the Fast Times at Ridgemont High cast member empty-handed in that particular regard.

Sandra Oh

With 13 Emmy nominations to her name, former Grey's Anatomy cast member Sandra Oh is better known as one of the greatest modern actors from the small screen. That would explain why her otherwise impressive big screen career -- which includes Alexander Payne's Best Picture-nominated Sideways -- does not include any grand prize winners at the Oscars at the moment.

Bradley Cooper

The otherwise bewildering fact that none of Bradley Cooper's many Oscar-nominated performances -- such as in 2012's Silver Linings Playbook or 2014's American Sniper -- nor his many Best Picture-nominated films -- including the two aforementioned films -- have resulted in any wins is not particularly a concern of mine. What I am surprised, and concerned, about is the snub for directing A Star is Born, which hopefully gets made up for when the upcoming Netflix movie, Maestro, comes out.

Viola Davis

I am happy that we live in a world in which an actor of momentous talent such as Viola Davis has been recognized and rewarded by the Academy with her Oscar win for 2016's Fences. That alone makes me, at least, content with the fact that there are still no Best Picture winners on her resume as of today.

Perhaps there will come a day when the names on this list change drastically and many of the actors above can say they have been in a Best Picture Oscar winner. For now, just keep cross your fingers and keep your hopes up for the next ceremony.

I finally got some of my friends to watch American Psycho – and it was lowkey hilarious. Let me preface this by saying that my friends don't like horror. They don't like psychological movies either. I am the complete opposite. 

While we are friends based on the type of TV shows we enjoy and love all the sublime details of Barbie, I also love horror movies, while they would instead do anything else besides watch them – which I can completely understand. 

But there are excellent films out there that I would call "starter horrors." These kinds of movies are not super gory, bloody or anything like that, and while blood is used, it doesn't make the whole film. More importantly, the stories are good, and it’ll make you sit there and ponder what you just watched after.

So I turned them on to American Psycho, one of the best movies of the 2000s. The film, released by the game-changing female director Mary Herron and based on the book of the same name, follows the story of a secret serial killer who works on Wall Street. My friends love Christian Bale, so they decided to give it a go, just for fun, even if it was technically a horror movie. And wow, it was enjoyable. Here's how it all went down. 

We All Agreed That Christian Bale Was The Best In The Role

As I said before, I'm a big Christian Bale fan, as are so many people The actor has been in some fantastic roles throughout his time in Hollywood. 

There's debate over his best film from those who have seen them all. Maybe superhero fans would point out his portrayal of Bruce Wayne in the Dark Knight trilogy. To me, though, he is the best person to play Patrick Bateman, and my friends all agreed. 

His performance blew them away, just as it did for me, and most were surprised when they learned that he wasn't nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the movie. It's not that rare that great performances in horror movies go unrecognized by the Academy, but they were still surprised. 

There is just something about Bale's performance that stands out from his others; how he's able to fully commit to the role of Bateman and show off his acting prowess. Bale can switch between these two personalities so quickly, it's almost scary – and I could see how much it unnerved my friends too, but in a good way. 

I Chuckled When They Realized Jared Leto Wasn't In The Movie For Very Long

"He died that quickly?!"

That was the response of one of my friends when they realized that Jared Leto was only in the movie for a short time. Another reason they decided to check out the film was because I told them Leto appeared, and honestly, Paul Allen is one of his best roles (and came during the same time period of the unforgettable movie Requiem for a Dream). 

But then he's killed off decently early into the movie, and most of my friends had their jaws on the ground, unable to believe what had just happened. I was the same way when I first saw the movie. 

In my friends' eyes, when they see that a big-name actor is in a movie, they almost expect them to last until the very end, but the fact that Leto was killed off decently quickly stunned them – and honestly, it made them want to watch more. 

They were at least happy that Reese Witherspoon was not killed off – and somehow was only in the movie for not that long either. That also jolted my friends, especially since they love her too and wanted to see more of her character.

I Didn't Expect Them To Laugh So Much At The Way Bale Killed Paul Allen

Okay, this sounds bad, but it's not the idea of Leto dying that made them laugh – it's just how Bale delivered the performance that earned them snicker. The fact that he was dancing and lecturing Allen about Huey Lewis and the News while doing that hilarious dance to "Hip To Be Square" before brutally killing Allen that tipped them off the deep end. 

Not only did they realize that it was this movie from which the popular meme online came from, but they could understand why that was one of the parts of the film that stood out from the rest. It perfectly captures what American Psycho is – a brutal tale about a serial killer with a hint of comedy and satire that makes the movie work perfectly. 

To be honest, I laughed hard when I first saw the film too. I still kind of do despite knowing what happens next. It’s hilarious in a dark way. 

Their Confusion At The Ending Was Hilarious Because I Felt The Same Way

When I first watched the ending of American Psycho, it was confusing as heck to me, and it made me glad because they felt the same way. It’s tough to grasp the first time around, and I was glad I wasn’t alone. 

Towards the end of the film, I would say we get to see the psychological aspect of American Psycho, where we learn that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. We don't even know if he killed Allen or if what he sees is real. Bateman himself can't separate reality from imagination, and the ending is him submitting to his mind and not knowing what is real. 

That had my friends interested. That made them wonder "What the heck is going on?" because the movie takes a turn that no one expects. And the way American Psycho ends had them perplexed as heck. 

But I Was Happy That They Collectively Decided To Watch It Again

But you want to know the good part? My friends wanted to watch it again. 

All of them wanted to see if they could pick up signs of where the movie started to stray from a reliable narrative. They wanted to see if we could spot differences and see if everything was just in Bateman's head or if he did kill those people. 

And you know what? This makes me extremely happy. There was a time when my friends were steadfast in never watching a horror or psychological movie. They were just never huge fans of them, and I never pushed them because I didn't want to be that person to force them to watch a film they didn't want to see. 

But on one fun day, they decided to give American Psycho a chance, and they loved it so much they wanted to watch it again. While this doesn't pave the way for them to watch movies like the Saw franchise or any of those terrifying horror movies with plenty of blood and gore, it could mean that this one film opened up a whole new world of films for my friends to enjoy. 

So, thanks, Patrick Bateman. I never thought I'd say that. 

American Psycho just celebrated its 23rd anniversary this year, so if you haven't gotten the chance to rewatch the movie in a long time, be sure to check it out below. It's worth your time and more – if not to celebrate Bale's fantastic performance. 

Stream American Psycho on Peacock.
Rent/Buy American Psycho on Amazon.

Like the great directors who came before and several of his contemporaries, Christopher Nolan is a filmmaker who likes to reuse certain creative elements in each of his movies. From messing with time to structuring nonlinear narratives to focusing on paradoxes (all three are present in his latest box office success, Oppenheimer), he seems to have some favorite techniques and he knows when to use them. At the same time, Nolan also appears to like to work with the same actors time and time again.

Similar to what we did with Wes Anderson’s go-to stars following the release of Asteroid City, today we’re going to break down 12 actors who show up in the most Christopher Nolan movies. With easy guesses and surprises alike, there’s a lot to go over, so let’s break down the director’s most prolific on-screen collaborators. 

Michael Caine - 8 Movies

Though Michael Caine does not appear in Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan told CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast that he was with the production in spirit before saying he and the two-time Academy Award winner have “had the most wonderful collaboration” over the years.

Together, Nolan and Caine have collaborated eight times over the course of the past 18 years. This started with the actor’s iconic portrayal of Alfred Pennyworth in Batman Begins (he would return for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises), continued with The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet. 

Cillian Murphy - 6 Movies

Having first entered each other’s orbits when Cillian Murphy auditioned for Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the actor-director duo have worked together a staggering six times, putting the versatile actor just two movies behind the legendary Michael Caine.

Prior to landing the lead role in Oppenheimer, some of Murphy’s best performances have been in Nolan’s movies like the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk, his take on a shell-shocked WWII soldier in the 2017 all-time great military drama being one of the most harrowing of his career. 

Russ Fega - 5 Movies 

The first pair of names on this list are two of the most well-known actors in Hollywood. Though Russ Fega might not be as recognizable as Caine or Murphy, the Hollywood location manager and occasional actor has more appearances in Christopher Nolan movies than just about anyone else.

Starting with his appearance in the Memento cast, Fega has popped up in five of Nolan’s movies, including The Prestige, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar. 

Christian Bale - 4 Movies

Christian Bale, who has worked with Christopher Nolan since first falling for the director’s vision for Batman Begins, has appeared in a total of four Christopher Nolan movies throughout his career.

After appearing in the 2005 superhero origin story, Bale gave an incredible performance in The Prestige, which he followed up with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Interestingly enough, Bale hasn’t appeared in a Nolan movie in more than a decade, but hopefully that changes whenever the auteur starts planning out his next film. 

John Nolan - 4 Movies

John Nolan, not to be confused with Christopher Nolan’s brother and collaborator Jonathan, has appeared in just as many of his nephew’s movies as actors like Christian Bale and Gary Oldman (more on him next).

After landing a small role as a police officer in Christopher Nolan’s directorial debut, Following, in 1998, John Nolan would go on to land the role of Wayne Enterprises board member Douglas Fredericks in Batman Begins (he would reprise the role in The Dark Knight Rises) and then later on as a blind man in Dunkirk. 

Gary Oldman - 4 Movies

One of the dozens of Hollywood stars in the Oppenheimer cast, Gary Oldman, who plays U.S. President Harry S. Truman in a heated scene with Cillian Murphy’s titular character, has worked with Christopher Nolan a total of four times over the course of his career.

Prior to landing the brief yet impactful role in the 2023 book-to-screen adaptation, Oldman famously played Jim Gordon as “a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended” in Batman Begins, the Gotham PD commissioner in The Dark Knight Rises, and a guilt-stricken cop in The Dark Knight Rises. 

Kenneth Branagh - 3 Movies

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Kenneth Branagh is another actor that Christopher Nolan has brought in for his movies more than once, as the Belfast writer and director has appeared in all three of Nolan’s most recent films in varying capacities.

From his stoic portrayal of Commander Bolton in Dunkirk, to his time-jumping villain Andrei Sator in Tenet to physicist Niels Bohr in Oppenheimer, Branagh has become one of Nolan’s go-to actors, and hopefully that trend continues.

Morgan Freeman - 3 Movies

Morgan Freeman is another actor who’s appeared in three Christopher Nolan movies, and unlike the rest of the list, all three are in the same franchise. 

From 2005 to 2012, Freeman portrayed Wayne Enterprises Executive Vice President Lucius Fox, a.k.a., one of Bruce Wayne’s closest confidants in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises. 

Tom Hardy - 3 Movies

If you were to look at the list of Tom Hardy’s must-watch movies, some of the titles near the top would all be collaborations with Christopher Nolan. In fact, one of the roles that started Hardy’s ascent was that of Eames in Inception.

Since then, he’s portrayed Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and Farrier in Dunkirk, bringing his total to three movies, even if his face was largely obscured throughout the latter two roles.

Larry Holden - 3 Movies

Larry Holden was a prominent player in some of Christopher Nolan’s earlier work and appeared in three movies in a row for the director in the early 2000s. From his portrayal of the drug dealer Jimmy in Memento to a cop named Farrell in Insomnia to Gotham City District Attorney Carl Finch in Batman Begins, he was one of Nolan’s go-to guys.

Sadly, Holden passed away at the age of 49 in 2011 after a battle with cancer, according to his obituary.  

Josh Stewart - 3 Movies

Josh Stewart has been a part of three Christopher Nolan movies throughout his career, but only physically appeared in one of those. You will probably recognize him from his portrayal of Bane’s right-hand man, Barsad, in The Dark Knight Rises, the first of three collaborations with the filmmaker.

Stewart provided the voice of CASE, one of the four robots that assisted Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his team in Interstellar, which he followed up with another vocal role in Tenet. 

Jeremy Theobald - 3 Movies

And then there is Jeremy Theobald, whose work with Christopher Nolan goes back to the director’s earliest productions. This includes the lead role in the director’s film debut, Following, a small part as a Gotham City worker in Batman Begins, and a brief appearance in Tenet.

It should also be noted that Theobald also appeared in Nolan’s first two short films – 1996’s Larceny and Doodlebug – prior to working with him on feature films. 

These are just the actors who have appeared in three or more of Christopher Nolan’s movies over the years, as Anne Hathaway, Tom Conti, Matthew Modine, Casey Affleck, David Dastmalchian, and multiple others have appeared in two of his previous efforts. If you want to go back and watch all of these actors’ performances, you can do that right now by checking our breakdown of how to watch Christopher Nolan’s movies streaming. 

In many cases, actors have to commit a level of physicality for a role, and that can mean losing weight to play a character. And Cillian Murphy went through that very thing for his latest flick. The star, who’s made appearances in Batman Begins, Dunkirk and other Christopher Nolan movies, reteamed with the filmmaker for Oppenheimer. As part of his prep to play the well-known physicist, Murphy had to shed some pounds. Interestingly, the Irish actor’s talk of his weight loss journey sounds very similar to the experiences fellow thespians Christian Bale and Benedict Cumberbatch had for their own roles.

Cillian Murphy has long wished to be the lead in a Christopher Nolan movie, so he was ecstatic when he landed the explosive (no pun intended) role of J. Robert Oppenheimer. One would imagine that it was daunting to step into the shoes of ht man responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb. But aside from the expectations, it sounds like the star also had to go through a bit in regard to his weight loss. While the 47-year-old Murphy didn’t disclose how much he lost or what the exact process entailed, he told The Guardian why he wouldn't recommend it:

You have to appreciate just how honest he is, and that candor certainly brings to mind others who've been in his position. His Batman co-star, Christian Bale, once explained that after doing Vice, he needed to stop changing his weight so much for roles. Years before he packed on almost 50 lbs. to portray Vice President Dick Cheney in the 2018 comedy, he lost 62 lbs. for the 2004 thriller The Machinist, and it had a horrifying effect on his ass. He later had to adjust his weight for 2005's Batman Begins not long after, in order to play the character of Bruce Wayne. (Just the thought of all this is exhausting.)

On the other hand, the Oscar winner didn’t mind the weight loss for his role in Thor: Love and Thunder, in which he played Gorr the God Butcher. However, the downside to that role is that he felt limited due to the fact that he had to wear long false nails.

The Red Eye actor was already preparing to play the lead role in Oppenheimer by doing research on the theoretical physicist. Losing weight for the part may not have been his favorite aspect of the prep, but Cillian Murphy admitted to The Guardian that the historical drama’s scheduling made it easier for him not to think so much about eating:

Apparently, the real Oppenheimer’s diet greatly consisted of Chesterfield cigarettes and double-strength martinis with rims dipped in lime. (That sounds like a breakfast of champions.) While the process may have been tricky, those dietary details do help one understand why the fit-looking 28 Days Later actor had to slim out a little bit (in a safe way).

If anyone can tell you about the importance of being healthy, it would be Benedict Cumberbatch who joined the Club of Actors losing weight for their roles playing British engineer and businessman Greville Wynne in The Courier. The Doctor Strange actor’s 21-pound weight loss involved dieting and extreme exercise. But having to shrink his body mass around muscle caused him to feel dehydrated, disoriented and hungry all the time, which led to him feeling vulnerable. Nevertheless, Cumberbatch’s transformation was in service to the character he was playing -- a man imprisoned due to his espionage-related activities. And ultimately, his work seemed to benefit the performance.

Cillian Murphy has apparently joined an exclusive group of actors. You have to appreciate the level of commitment that he and his peers have demonstrated for the craft. But at the end of the day, the most important matter at hand is their health and safety. You can see the culmination of Murphy's dedication when Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21 as part of the with the schedule of 2023 new movie releases.   

The opportunity to grace the stage at Studio 8H as a headliner for NBC’s premier sketch comedy series is a surefire sign that a celebrity has truly made it. However, the 32 A-listers we have named below stand out as an exception to the rule, having never hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live before.

Beyoncé

The pop superstar (an understatement here, really) has proven herself as a worthy actor and even showed solid comedic chops in her two SNL cameos, but Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has never headlined an episode before. Maybe, if and when she returns for her fifth musical guest appearance, she could do double-duty as host – for which an appearance alongside her frequent impersonator, Maya Rudolph, would be a necessity.

Angela Bassett

Thanks to her stint as a frequent American Horror Story cast member and her Academy Award nomination for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Angela Bassett is bigger than ever these days. Therefore, it would certainly be about time for the showbiz vet to finally grace the stage at studio 8H.

Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp is one of the most recognizable and critically acclaimed celebrities of his time, if not all time. Considering that and his decades in the industry – including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies – it’s surprising that he hasn’t ever hosted the long-running sketch comedy series. 

Angelina Jolie

Some might swear that they have seen Angelina Jolie on SNL before, but that could have been Abby Elliot’s pretty convincing impersonation. The Academy Award winner – last seen in Marvel’s Eternals cast – has never hosted the show, nor made any brief appearances.

James Marsden

With his charming wit and a successful career that includes blockbusters like the X-Men movies and the iconic romance drama, The Notebook, you would think James Marsden would have been on SNL by now, but not yet. Maybe his funny, self-effacive performance on the reality prank show, Jury Duty, will convince Lorne and co. he could lead a good show.

Zendaya

With her dual Emmy wins for leading HBO’s Euphoria cast and major roles in blockbusters like the Spider-Man movies and the Denis Villeneuve's Dune films, Zendaya is on top of the world and an established resident of it for sometime now. Maybe she has just been too busy to make time for an SNL hosting gig or her invitation got lost in the shuffle of her many other invitations to special events or casting calls.

Mark Hamill

Even though he was the top-billed star of one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, Mark Hamill's only appearance on SNL so far is a cameo in a sketch about a Star Wars-themed home shopping network program. The Luke Skywalker actor recently told Esquire that he suspects he has never been asked to host because he agreed to host an episode of rival sketch comedy series, Friday, in 1981.

Christian Bale

One of the few great live-action Batman actors to never host a Saturday Night Live episode is Christian Bale, who has worked with former series writer Adam McKay on acclaimed satirical films The Big Short and Vice, however. Intriguingly, the Academy Award winner was once impersonated on the show by his future American Hustle co-star, Bradley Cooper.

Sandra Bullock

Oscar winner Sandra Bullock has brought her killer acting skills and sharp sense of humor to many of her best movies, such as Miss Congeniality, or, more recently, The Lost City. However, she still has yet to utilize her comedic talents on an SNL episode, but did make headlines when former cast member Pete Davidson crashed a party of hers with her Bird Box co-star, Colson “Machine Gun Kelly” Baker, as the actor and musician revealed on The Tonight Show in 2022.

Carol Burnett

Few people are more beloved and influential in the world of sketch comedy as Carol Burnett, which is why it is shocking that none of the many great performances she has given in her long career include an SNL gig. That is, until you learn that the prospect of hosting the show she is said to have paved the way for does not interest her, as she told Fox News in April 2023.

Tom Cruise

As the lead of monster hits like the Mission: Impossible movies, among others, Tom Cruise is practically synonymous with the term “movie star,” but has never lit up Studio 8H. The closest we may ever get to seeing him in such a light is his bombastic performance as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder alongside SNL vets Bill Hader and Ben Stiller — the latter of which also impersonated the Top Gun: Maverick star in a funny Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch in 1998.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Perhaps the reason behind Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio’s lack of hosting gigs is due to a lack of comedy for much of his career, unless you count The Wolf of Wall Street or Don’t Look Up. However, when his co-star from both of those films, Jonah Hill, hosted in 2017, DiCaprio made one of the most surprising SNL cameos in the monologue, in which they recreated a famous scene from Titanic.

Vin Diesel

Many Fast and Furious actors — including Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot — have hosted Saturday Night Live, but the franchise’s leading star, Vin Diesel, is not one of them. Yet, he has been impersonated on the show to hilarious effect a number of times, such as by Taran Killam in one of the most popular videos on SNL’s YouTube channel, which reimagines Bambi as an action movie.

Chris Evans

Out of the many actors who have poked fun at their own Marvel movies in great superhero sketches when hosting SNL — such as Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth — Chris Evans is not one of them. This is particularly surprising since the MCU’s former Captain America has proven his comedic chops plenty of times, such as in the underrated Not Another Teen Movie and, more recently, Apple TV+’s action-packed rom-com, Ghosted.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman appeared on a 2010 edition of “What Up With That?” as himself, being interrupted by Diondre Cole (Kenan Thompson) as he dishes on what modern education is lacking. That marks the renowned Academy Award winner’s sole SNL appearance so far, having never been on the show as a host.

Harrison Ford

Saturday Night Live might really benefit from having someone known for such remarkable, dry wit as Harrison Ford on as a host. However, the closest we have seen to the star of the Indiana Jones movies and Star Wars’ original Han Solo actor making an appearance was an impersonation by Fred Armisen in a fake movie trailer.

Al Pacino

One of cinema’s all-time greatest living legends, Al Pacino, has been impersonated several times on SNL and by multiple actors — including Bill Hader and Alec Baldwin. Yet, the Academy Award-winning star of The Godfather and Heat has never hosted the show, let alone made an appearance of his own.

Jordan Peele

Keegan-Michael Key hosted a great SNL episode in 2021, but fellow sketch comedy performer Jordan Peele — whom he met as part of the MADtv cast before starting their own hit series together — cannot say the same. However, according to THR, the Academy Award-winning horror movie maestro could have been a cast member if MADtv had relieved him of his contract and allowed him the opportunity.

Michelle Pfeiffer

Kate McKinnon dressed in Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman suit alongside Zoë Kravitz when The Batman’s Selena Kyle actor hosted Saturday Night Live in 2022. However, the real star of Batman Returns and countless other classics throughout the decades has never set foot on Studio 8H's stage.

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt has appeared in two SNL cold opens: first in 1998 as David Spade’s therapist when the former cast member came back to host, and secondly as Dr. Anthony Fauci in a pre-taped, Covid-era show. The Oscar-winning star of Fight Club and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood even introduced that latter episode’s musical performance by Miley Cyrus, but that still does not count as an official hosting gig.

Keanu Reeves

I think it would be hilarious to see Keanu Reeves cameo as himself going John Wick on the SNL cast out of revenge for the show’s many unflattering impersonations of him over the years. That would make up for the fact that we have never seen the beloved action movie star host an episode.

Julia Roberts

In an interview with Mario Lopez for Extra, Julia Roberts revealed that she once turned down the chance to host SNL out of fear that she would “blow it.” However, she later told Jess Cagle that she would do it if Alec Baldwin was involved.

Mark Ruffalo

Idris Elba once starred in an SNL sketch called “The Impossible Hulk,” in which his anger transforms him into an entitled white lady. How much funnier might that sketch have been if it was the MCU’s Bruce Banner himself, Mark Ruffalo, in the role? Hopefully, the Oscar nominee gets the chance to poke fun at his own superhero character as a host one day.

Zoe Saldaña

We know that Zoe Saldaña is funny from her roles in comedies like Guess Who and 2010’s Death at a Funeral, but hosting SNL would be the ultimate chance to prove her chops to the world. At least she can say that she is one of the top 10 highest grossing actors of all time with blockbuster credits like the Avatar movies and several MCU titles.

Susan Sarandon

Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon has been a movie star for as long as Saturday Night Live has been around, having made her breakthrough in 1975 with the musical horror comedy movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, her only contribution to the series so far is starring in Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s follow-up to “Dick in a Box,” called “Motherlover.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

After years of being imitated and idolized by Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey as Hans and Franz, Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear alongside the fictional Austrian bodybuilders in a couple of iconic SNL cameos. That is the extent of appearances by the Terminator movies star for now. 

Will Smith

It is surprising that a performer of such radiant fame as Will Smith has never hosted SNL, nor made a cameo appearance a single time during his remarkable, versatile career, but it looks like he will never get the chance. According to RadarOnline, the Men in Black star was reportedly banned from the show after slapping series veteran Chris Rock for a joke he made at the Oscars on the same night Smith won his Academy Award for King Richard.

Meryl Streep

For someone like me, it is a real “Sophie’s Choice” to decide which is the greater honor in pop culture: winning an Oscar or hosting Saturday Night Live. Well, at the moment, Meryl Streep has three of the former (for Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, and The Iron Lady), but zero of the latter.

Stanley Tucci

In 2018, SNL paid tribute to Stanley Tucci with a rap parody called “Tucci Gang,” performed by Pete Davidson and featuring host Sam Rockwell impersonating the actor, whom he worked with in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, while the Oscar nominee and restaurateur also made a brief cameo in the video himself, it remains his only appearance on the show to date.

Mark Wahlberg

Two weeks after Andy Samberg played Mark Wahlberg in a sketch called “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals,” the actor himself appeared on the show in a cameo-heavy episode pretending to be very unamused by the imitation. Because of this, I would love to see the one-time rapper and Oscar nominee host an SNL episode of his own.

Denzel Washington

Former SNL cast member Jay Pharaoh does an impression of Denzel Washington so spot-on that you might be easily convinced that you have seen him on the show before. In reality, the Oscar-winning star of Glory and Training Day has never even made a cameo, let alone appeared as a host.

Michelle Yeoh

Only a handful of Asian actors have hosted SNL (such as Jackie Chan, Awkwafina, and Simu Liu, for instance), but it is hard to believe that Michelle Yeoh is not included in that bunch, given her exceptional action star reputation over the last few decades. Perhaps her recent boost in popularity following her historic Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once could change that.

I wonder if we will ever see any of these celebs finally get the call from Lorne Michaels (or agree to it) and, perhaps, go on to earn a spot among the greatest SNL hosts of all time or join the Five-Timers Club, even. I mean, considering all the non-actors who have made great hosts on Saturday Night Live, these high-profile performers could absolutely rock 30 Rock to its core.  

Christian Bale has been in front of the camera for a long time. The American Psycho actor’s first significant role (besides a few television parts) was as a child in Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film Empire of the Sun. The actor is known for being all in and throwing himself into a role–like losing 70lbs for Ford v Ferrari–which, while appreciated by audiences for its authenticity, can take a toll on a performer. Now, in an interview for Netflix’s historical fiction horror film The Pale Blue Eye, Bale discussed his love-hate relationship with acting.

The leads of The Pale Blue Eye cast, Christian Bale and costar Harry Milling sat down for an interview with Hits Radio, where the pair talked about their time on the Scott Cooper-directed flick. The show’s host asked the pair of actors to discuss their first memories of acting, and The Dark Knight star was quick to point out he couldn’t remember his first time. Bale added that he has always had a love-hate relationship with his profession. He told the host:

This is not the first time The Fighter actor has spoken out about feeling somewhat unsatisfied with acting, even going as far as saying he would be “fucking ecstatic” with retiring. Still, Bale shows up and chooses the big screen because despite hating it, he also ‘does quite like it’.’

Bale added that he performed skits with his primary school friend when he was younger, and he immensely enjoyed that. And, despite the show host’s compliments, he’s not sure how long he’ll still go. He continued:

Here’s hoping Christian Bale keeps his career going because I couldn’t imagine the cinema landscape without someone like him pushing the envelope and dedicating themselves to the craft. There are few actors out there who bring the sort of intensity that the American Hustle star does with his performances, so it would be a bummer if he decided to call it quits. 

However, he hasn't yet as he appeared in The Pale Blue Eye, a murder mystery-thriller surrounding a fictional take on Edgar Allan Poe (Milling) while he attended West Point. Bale plays a world-weary detective hired to investigate the murder of a cadet, with the help of young Poe at his side. This movie marks another role that Christian Bale unabashedly threw himself into, and hopefully, there is more to come.

The Pale Blue Eye is currently available to stream for anyone with a Netflix subscription. If you want even more to watch after completing Scott Cooper’s new thriller, there are plenty of great movies on Netflix worth checking out.

Since making his debut with 2009’s Crazy Horse, which earned Jeff Bridges a Best Actor Oscar, Scott Cooper has managed to put together some of the best casts for his various directorial efforts like Out of the Furnace, Black Mass, Hostiles, and Antlers. Well, with the debut of the 2023 Netflix release of The Pale Blue Eye, that tradition looks to continue a little while longer.

The new mystery thriller, which centers on Christian Bale’s detective, August Landor, as he attempts to solve a murder at 1830s West Point, features multiple mainstays of the Harry Potter movies, superb character actors, and the star of one of the biggest TV shows of the 1990s. Here is where you’ve seen The Pale Blue Eye cast before.

Christian Bale (Augustus Landor)

Leading off the cast of The Pale Blue Eye is Christian Bale, who takes on the role of the film’s protagonist, Augustus Landor, a detective tasked with solving the murder of a West Point cadet, per Netflix's Tudum website.

This is Bale’s third movie directed by Scott Cooper, as the actor-director duo previously paired up for Out of the Furnace and Hostiles. Bale was most recently seen in Thor: Love and Thunder, in which he portrayed central antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher. However, Bale is best known for a different comic character thanks to his portrayal of Bruce Wayne and Batman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, another director whom he has worked with a considerable amount throughout his career.

Harry Melling (Edgar Allan Poe)

Harry Melling shows up in The Pale Blue Eye as a young Edgar Allan Poe, who helps Augustus Landor in his investigation after the renowned detective is summoned to the military academy.

Melling, who first came to fame with his portrayal of Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (he would go on to appear in four more Wizarding World movies), has become something of a hot commodity the past few years with a series of memorable film and TV appearances. This includes shows like The Queen’s Gambit and His Dark Materials, as well as a string of movies that includes The Old Guard, The Devil All the Time, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. 

Toby Jones (Dr. Daniel Marquis) 

Stepping in as West Point doctor Daniel Marquis in The Pale Blue Eye is veteran actor Toby Jones, who brings the mysterious figure to life.

Over the course of his career, Jones has appeared in multiple billion-dollar franchises including the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he played Arnim Zola in the first two Captain America movies), the Hunger Games movies, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and various Harry Potter titles, in which he voiced Dobby the house elf. But he’s also appeared in multiple decorated dramas like the Truman Capote movie Infamous, Frost/Nixon, My Week with Marilyn, and much more. He’s next set to appear in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. 

Gillian Anderson (Mrs. Marquis) 

Taking on the role of Julia Marquis, the matriarch of the Marquis family and wife of Daniel, is Gillian Anderson.

Prior to joining the Pale Blue Eye cast, Anderson earned a Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy (her second of each) for her depiction of former United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on The Crown Season 4. Best known for her portrayal of Dana Scully on The X-Files throughout the ‘90s, Anderson has gone on to appear on shows like The Fall, Hannibal, and Sex Education. 

Lucy Boynton (Lea Marquis) 

Lucy Boynton appears in The Pale Blue Eye as Lea Marquis, the daughter of Daniel and Julia who always seems to catch the eye of Cadet Poe.

Ever since making her feature film debut as a young Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter, Boynton has gone on to appear in movies like Sing Street, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Murder on the Orient Express, and Bohemian Rhapsody. During that same stretch of time, Boynton has popped up on TV shows like The Politician, Modern Love, and multiple others. 

Harry Lawtey (Artemus Marquis)

Next up is Harry Lawtey, who shows up in The Pale Blue Eye as Artemus Marquis, a cadet at West Point.

Over the course of the past decade, Lawtey has mostly found work on the small screen, with major roles on shows like Industry, The Letter for the King, and Marcella, though he has appeared in two movies: City of Tiny Lights and Benediction. Lawtey will likely become a bigger player in the coming years thanks to his casting in Joker: Folie à Deux alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. 

Timothy Spall (Colonel Thayer)

Taking on the role of West Point authority figure Colonel Thayer in The Pale Blue Eye is Timothy Spall, yet another Harry Potter alum to appear in the new Netflix movie.

Outside of playing the villainous Peter Pettigrew in all but the first two Harry Potter movies, Spall is probably best known for his six collaborations with director Mike Leigh, with the most recent being 2014’s Mr. Turner. Spall has also earned praise for roles in movies such as The King’s Speech, The Damned United, Enchanted, The Last Samurai, and dozens upon dozens of other productions.

Robert Duvall (Pepe)

Taking on the role of occult expert Pepe in The Pale Blue Eye is Academy Award-winning actor and Hollywood legend Robert Duvall.

If you pull up a list of the best movies of all time, you’ll also find memorable performances by Duvall, including titles like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Network, and To Kill a Mockingbird. But that is just a fraction of a fraction of Duvall’s work from throughout his career, as he has also given commanding performances on TV events like Lonesome Dove, The Man Who Captured Eichmann, and Broken Trail, to name just a few. Duvall previously worked with director Scott Cooper on Crazy Horse. 

Simon McBurney (Captain Hitchcock) 

Simon McBurney shows up in The Pale Blue Eye as Captain Hitchcock, an official at West Point.

Yet another member of the Pale Blue Eye cast to have also appeared in a Harry Potter movie (he voiced Kreacher the house elf in the penultimate chapter), McBurney has also appeared in movies like Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, The Manchurian Candidate, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and The Theory of Everything. His more recent TV credits include The Casual Vacancy, Carnival Row, and The Loudest Voice. 

Charlotte Gainsbourg (Patsy) 

And then there is Charlotte Gainsbourg, who appears in The Pale Blue Eye as Patsy, a local barmaid in the nearby village.

Over the course of her career, the actress and singer has appeared in movies like I’m Not There, The Science of Sleep, Happily Ever After, and a handful of films directed by Lars von Trier, including Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac, to name only a few. 

The Pale Blue Eye is currently available to stream for anyone with a Netflix subscription. If you want even more to watch after completing Scott Cooper’s new thriller, there are plenty of great movies on Netflix worth checking out.

 Stream The Pale Blue Eye on Netflix. 

Christian Bale is one of the most prolific actors working today. He has had iconic roles that range from a Wall Street killer in American Psycho, to the cunning former Vice President in Vice, to the Caped Crusader himself in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. You’d think at this point in his career, Bale would have his pick at any role he may want. However, it turns out that isn’t the case, as most of his roles are offered to fellow transformative actor Leonardo DiCaprio first. 

In a recent interview with GQ, the Ford vs Ferrari actor reflected on his career, and how he picks what roles he will take on. He surprisingly revealed that DiCaprio is often offered various film roles before they're eventually given to Bale. This also apparently isn’t unique to him, who also claims that almost every role in Hollywood is offered to the Wolf of Wall Street actor before anyone else. Bale details:

Well it’s great to hear that there are no hard feelings between these two. Bale seems grateful for the roles he has gotten to play because DiCaprio has passed on them. He clearly respects DiCaprio as an actor, even if his selection seems to go through The Revenant actor first. If this speaks to anything, it's to how in-demand of an actor DiCaprio is. The movie star is famously very selective about what projects he takes on and only seems to work with the best of the best when it comes to directors. DiCaprio tends to elevate every project he’s in, so it’s not surprising everyone in Hollywood wants him to star in their movies. 

This isn’t to say Christian Bale isn’t just as talented. He seems to fit the mold of whatever character he chooses to portray. He has transformed his body several times to play roles in movies like American Hustle and The Machinist, and won an Oscar for his unrecognizable performance in The Fighter. He and DiCaprio also have similar collaborators in directors like Adam McKay, Christopher Nolan, and Steven Spielberg. Maybe one of these days the two superstars will co-star in a film together. That would possibly be the film of the century, as long as DiCaprio doesn’t pass on it first.

It may be a while before the possibility of these two collaborating could come to fruition, as both actors have a lot of exciting projects coming down the pike. Bale has been announced to lead a film about a pastor drug-running for a Mexican cartel called The Church of Living Dangerously. In addition, DiCaprio stars in the Martin Scorsese crime film Killers of the Flower Moon, which is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next year. 

You can catch Christian Bale in The Pale Blue Eye, which will be available with a Netflix subscription on December 23rd. In addition, DiCaprio fans can watch his latest project, Don’t Look Up, which is also streaming on the platform. For more information on films coming to theaters and streaming later this year, make sure to check out our 2022 movie release schedule. 

I genuinely didn’t know Christian Bale was British until recently. In every movie I’ve seen him in, he’s expertly put on many different accents, most of which have been various dialects from the United States. So, when I found out he had trouble with accents and would find himself going between English and a given movie’s accent, I was shocked. The cherry on top though was hearing him explain the press tour for the Dark Knight movies and putting on a hybrid British-Batman accent, and it’s hilarious. 

I feel like this likely comes as a surprise to most, I know it did to me at least, but Bale said he’s not good at accents, saying he can’t turn it on and off. He explained in a BBC Radio 1 interview that when he’s filming if you watch behind-the-scenes footage you can see his accent is “half English, half the character.” The reason behind it is that it takes far too much energy to stay in character all the time. He continued by saying he “keeps one foot in both,” and then gave Batman as an example of this:

Personally, when it’s not directly in a Batman movie I find the Batman voice quite silly. Then, when you mix it with a light British accent it becomes funnier. I also think one of the reasons this is funny, is because Bale seems like an accent expert. On the 2022 movie schedule alone, he went from a British accent in Thor: Love and Thunder to a flawless American accent in Amsterdam, which is his third movie with David O. Russell. 

Bale is known for his physical transformations in films, but also if you watch his films, even his lesser-known ones, his accents are also part of his transformative performances. So, learning that one of the best actors of our generation struggles with accents sometimes is kind of wild. Also, the fact that he ends up in a hybrid of accents is hilarious, especially when it comes to his voice in The Dark Knight movies. 

Overall, Bale has been praised for his take on Batman, however, people laughed at him when he explained Christopher Nolan’s initial vision for the trilogy. Well, he proved the naysayers wrong, and now his version of Bruce Wayne and Nolan’s movies still receive lots of love all these years later. I think that because of how good Bale’s performance in the trilogy is, seeing his funky accent mix on the press tour is humorous. Who knows maybe we’ll get to see his stellar performance and mixed-up accent as Batman someday, he has said if Nolan ever comes back to direct the movies, he’d consider putting the super-suit back on. 

While that may be a far-off dream, you can catch Bale and his various accents, in his most recent films. To see his scary villainous character Gorr you can watch Thor: Love and Thunder with a Disney+ subscription, and you can watch his lighter, quirky character Burt in Amsterdam which is currently in theaters. 

John David Washington and Christian Bale are part of the cast of David O. Russell’s Amsterdam. Bale and Washington play World War I veterans who befriend each other after serving together. It turns out these two actors had a great budding friendship in real life, as Washington found the Batman actor to be “a great leader.” 

It can be easy to feel intimidated when you work on a set with people you’ve never worked with before. Luckily, Christian Bale helped make working on Amsterdam an effortless experience for John David Washington and felt like Bale was “a great leader.” As Washington said in an interview with Collider:

No wonder these two have amicable chemistry shown on screen. After all, you can see that in scenes like when they were clearly having the time of their lives singing with Taylor Swift in the movie. This duo admitted that during this scene, they felt their voices clearly didn’t stand up against the Grammy Award winner, so they decided to let her take the reins during the song. That was probably a wise choice, but with this movie being a comedy, I wouldn’t have cared how Bale or Washington’s voice would have sounded against Swift’s.

We already know that John David Washington receives acting advice from his father Denzel Washington. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the encouragement from The Machinist actor that motivated him to do well on set. He continued:

Something we know about Amsterdam is that David O. Russell not only directed this ensemble period comedy thriller, but he wrote the screenplay too. He told Collider that making this movie was actually a five-year process where he got together with Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie in a diner to talk about making never-before-seen characters. Besides Bale and Washington starring in it, we get an all-star cast of Robert De Niro, Taylor Swift, Chris Rock, Anya-Taylor Joy, Rami Malek, and many more. Russell has normally done a great job in bringing out the chemistry between people whether it’s between friends, couples or family to help make the story come alive.  

Christian Bale and John David Washington clearly had a great working relationship where Bale was a natural leader. Even if critics are split on Amsterdam, you won’t be able to deny how all of these actors play off each other so well in the film. You can see the newly released movie Amsterdam in theaters now.

I have heard some say that the age of the movie star is dead and that audiences no longer go to the cinema just to see their favorite actor’s latest release. However, I think that the large ensemble of stunningly talented A-listers from Amsterdam — in which three friends uncover a political conspiracy while investigating a murder in 1933 — might be the perfect way to challenge that theory. 

If you were not interested in seeing writer and director David O. Russell’s latest release — a captivatingly mysterious period piece — before, just learning who is in the Amsterdam cast might be enough to change your mind. See for yourself by reading on to see who is playing who and where you might know them from.

Christian Bale (Dr. Burt Berendsen)

Following his Oscar win for 2010’s The Fighter and nomination for 2013’s American Hustle, Christian Bale re-teams with David O. Russell to play kindhearted, one-eyed war veteran-turned-surgeon Dr. Burt Berendsen in Amsterdam — his latest of many period dramas, including Empire of the Sun, Newsies, The Prestige, and Rescue Dawn, to name a few. 

The Welsh actor is better known for darker roles, such as modern horror villain Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, Trevor Reznik in The Machinist, John Connor in Terminator Salvation, or Dick Cheney in Vice. Also in 2022, the Dark Knight Trilogy’s Batman actor returned to the comic book genre to play Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder, which his Ford v. Ferrari co-star, Matt Damon, also cameoed in.

John David Washington (Harold Woodman)

In his first collaboration with David O. Russell as lawyer and Burt’s Army buddy, Harold Woodman, we have John David Washington — who, like Bale, has also starred in a few period pieces (his film debut, Malcolm X, in 1992, and BlackKklansman and The Old Man and the Gun in 2018) and worked with Christopher Nolan (2020’s Tenet).

Denzel Washington's son really launched his acting career with the HBO series, Ballers, leading to roles in movies like the thought-provoking crime drama, Monsters and Men. Washington has also starred in a few Netflix original movies, such as when he played the title role of Beckett cast as and one of the titular duo from Malcolm & Marie in 2021.

Margot Robbie (Valerie Voze)

Also working with David O. Russell for the first time as Valerie Voze — who met Burt and Harold during World War I — is Margot Robbie, who also has a few things in common with Bale, having been in multiple DC movies (starring as Harley Quinn), made a cameo as herself in The Big Short, and once parodied one of his movies in the 2016 short, Australian Psycho. 

The Australian actor is also known for many historical/fact-based dramas, such as her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street, her Oscar-nominated performances in I, Tonya and Bombshell, and when she played a fictionalized version of Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Audiences may also recognize Robbie as Charlotte in 2013’s About Time, as Jane in The Legend of Tarzan, or from the Australian soap opera that jump-started her career, Neighbours, which she recently appeared on again 2022. 

Rami Malek (Tom Voze)

As Valerie’s brother, Tom, we have Rami Malek, who has won an Oscar for a biographical drama (as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody) and worked with John David Washington’s father in the 2021 detective thriller, The Little Things. 

After debuting with a small role on Gilmore Girls, he made his feature film debut as Ahkmenrah from the Night at the Museum movies and went on to star in acclaimed dramas like The Master and Short Term 12, and blockbusters like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 before achieving Emmy-winning success with USA series, Mr. Robot. Malek furthermore played a Bond villain in No Time to Die, and joined the cast of Christopher Nolan's upcoming Oppenheimer.

Anya Taylor-Joy (Libby Voze)

With her role as Tom’s wife, Libby, Amsterdam marks Anya Taylor-Joy’s latest effort to diversify her career outside of her enduring Scream Queen status, which she established with her (credited) feature film debut in 2016’s The Witch (her first collaboration with The Northman director Robert Eggers) and maintained with starring roles in Split, Thoroughbreds, Last Night in Soho, and The Menu, most recently. Her other, less scary period pieces include her stunning lead performance in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit cast, recurring role on the platform’s Peaky Blinders, and title role in the Jane Austen adaptation, Emma. 

Andrea Riseborough (Beatrice)

As Burt’s estranged wife, Beatrice, we have Andrea Riseborough, who has also acquired Scream Queen status in recent years from her chilling performance in one of the best Black Mirror episodes (“Crocodile”), devastating turn in the title role of 2018’s psychedelic revenge flick, Mandy, and arguably more devastating turn in Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor in 2020. 

Amsterdam is certainly one of the British actor’s more lighthearted credits, which also include 2008’s Happy-Go-Lucky, 2014’s Best Picture Oscar winner, Birdman, 2017’s Battle of the Sexes, and Amazon’s The Electric Life of Louis Wain, but does not include the otherwise notable Oblivion from 2013, 2016’s Nocturnal Animals, or the 2018 true crime miniseries, Waco.

Chris Rock (Milton King)

Milton King — Burt and Harold’s Army buddy — seems like a major departure for comedian and former SNL star Chris Rock, until you realize he effectively steals the show in Amsterdam with his humorous social commentary. Not to mention, the actor best known for comedies on both the small screen (he created and narrated Everybody Hates Chris, for instance) and the big screen (such as Head of State, the Madagascar movies, and several collaborations with his buddy, Adam Sandler) has explored various of genres. He has done crime thrillers (New Jack City and Fargo Season 4), action (Lethal Weapon 4 and Bad Company), and even horror (Spiral: From the Book of Saw, which he also wrote the story for).

Alessandro Nivola (Detective Hiltz)

Playing the overly suspicious gumshoe, Detective Hiltz, is Alessandro Nivola, who last worked with David O. Russell in American Hustle, but broke out in 1997 as Nicolas Cage’s on-screen brother in Face/Off. This led to roles in other major releases like the third of the Jurassic Park movies in 2001 and Oscar darlings like A Most Violent Year and Selma from 2014. In more recent years, he reunited with his Inventing the Applewhites co-star, Joaquin Phoenix, for the Amazon original thriller, You Were Never Really Here in 2017, appeared in Disobedience the same year, and starred in The Sopranos prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark, as Dickie Moltisanti.

Matthias Schoenaerts (Detective Lem Gitwiller)

As Hiltz’s partner and WWI veteran, Lem, we have Matthias Schoenaerts, who made his acting debut at 13 in the Oscar-nominated Belgian drama, Daens, years before working with director Paul Verhoeven on 2006’s Black Book, sharing the screen with Marion Cotillard in 2012’s Rust and Bone, and making his English-language debut the next year with the crime thriller Blood Ties. Also in 2014, Schoenaerts appeared in the American remake of his 2008 thriller, Loft, starred in a pair of acclaimed period dramas in 2015 (Far from the Madding Crowd and The Danish Girl), and starred in Netflix's The Old Guard cast as a badass immortal.

Michael Shannon (Henry Norcross)

As an American who comes to the main trio’s aid named Henry, we have Andrea Riseborough’s Waco and Nocturnal Animals co-star, Michael Shannon, who actually received an Oscar nomination for that 2016 film — his second after his supporting role in 2008’s Revolutionary Road. He should have received a nod, as far as I am concerned, for his performances in Take Shelter and probably every other movie he has done with director Jeff Nichols. Man of Steel's General Zod is also known for other acclaimed films like Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out cast in 2019, and (also in 2022) the Bullet Train cast. 

Mike Myers (Paul Canterbury)

As Paul (a character who slightly resembles his Inglourious Basterds role), we have Rami Malek’s Bohemian Rhapsody co-star and Margot Robbie’s Terminal co-star, Mike Myers — yet another SNL vet who is known for creating and portraying irreverent characters like the title role of the Wayne’s World movies, the title role of the Austin Powers movies, and most of the characters from Netflix’s The Pentaverate. His other notable credits include 1993’s So I Married an Axe Murderer, 1998’s 54, and, arguably, his definitive role as the titular ogre from the Shrek movies.

Timothy Olyphant (Milfax)

While he has played villains before (i.e. Scream 2 and Live Free or Die Hard), Chris Rock’s Fargo Season 4 co-star, Timothy Olyphant, has never played a character so menacing and physically transformative as Milfax in Amsterdam. The actor also previously starred alongside Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in a role that reflected his penchant for starring in Westerns and, often, to Emmy-nominated acclaim — such as when he led both the Deadwood cast on HBO and the Justified cast on FX, and guest-starred on the Season  2 premiere of The Mandalorian. 

Zoe Saldaña (Irma St. Clair)

I cannot say I have seen Chris Rock’s Death at a Funeral co-star and Christian Bale’s Out of the Furnace co-star, Zoe Saldaña, play a role quite the like the reserved yet radiant morgue nurse Irma St. Clair — save, perhaps, her characters from Drumline, The Terminal, and Guess Who, for instance. I am more used to picturing her as a fierce, ass-kicking action hero from such films as the more recent Star Trek movies as Uhura, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies as Gamora, and the Avatar movies as Neytiri, just to name a few.

Taylor Swift (Liz Meekins)

I also cannot say I have seen Taylor Swift — who has been acting since her first appearance on SNL, before nailing her sole hosting gig, more than a decade ago — give a performance quite as strong and convincing as when she played Liz Meekins in Amsterdam. The Grammy-winning musician’s other acting credits include a 2009 episode of CSI, 2010’s romantic ensemble comedy, Valentine’s Day, the animated Dr. Seuss adaptation The Lorax, the 2014 Lois Lowry adaptation, The Giver, and Tom Hooper’s 2019 adaptation of Broadway’s Cats.

Robert De Niro (General Gil Dillenbeck)

Last, but certainly not least, as respected military general Gil Dillenbeck, we have frequent David O. Russell collaborator Robert De Niro, who is also known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese — such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (which earned him his second Oscar) and Goodfellas — and plenty of other gangster movies, like The Godfather Part II (which earned him his second Oscar). The living legend is certainly not one to shy away from all kinds of genres, having done horror with Angel Heart, various comedies (one of the best being Meet the Parents), heist thrillers like Heat, and a comic book flick (2019’s Joker).

It is always a pleasure to see an ensemble as stacked and as stellar as the Amsterdam cast and, luckily, the film — now in theaters — is also worthy of their talent.

Christian Bale has been in the entertainment industry ever since he starred in a Lenor fabric softener commercial when he was 8 years old. He's been busy ever since, this year along he has three new movies coming out. He played a villain in Thor: Love and Thunder, he teamed up with David O. Russell for the third time in Amsterdam, which comes out this week, and he is starring with Gillian Anderson in The Pale Blue Eye later this year. While working so hard for so many years has made him think about retiring from acting, he’s got a good reason for never “seriously” trying to quit.

After being in the entertainment industry for 40 years, you’ve got to wonder if there was ever a time Christian Bale wanted to put the brakes on his career. The 48-year-old actor mentioned to GQ how happy he would be if he could just retire now, explaining he'd be "more than content" about the prospect.

Throughout his career, Christian Bale has never been an actor to just simply memorize his lines and play simpleton characters. His A-list career was launched with Steven Spielberg’s 1987 classic Empire of the Sun, and he gained wider recognition by shocking audiences with American Psycho. He drastically changed his appearance for The Machinist, and starred in one of the highest-grossing film franchises, Batman. He’s told the magazine that what he loves about acting is going above the limits of playing a role and the “insanity of the job itself.” 

However, considering Bale has been acting since he was a child. It has always been a part of his life and not something that he’s “seriously” considered leaving behind, even when he's tried on the idea before.

According to The Guardian, the fame he received from Empire of the Sun led to him getting bullied when he was in school, and he found the pressures that come with acting very challenging. But, he told GQ he felt obligated to continue acting to support his family and health reasons. 

Hopefully, the English actor continues with his acting career, because I think there are few actors who bring dedication to their roles as he does. But like Bale told GQ, he has to want to do it for himself, and no one else. You can see him play a glass-eyed doctor in the 2022 movie release of Amsterdam in theaters now as well as the 2023 movie release of Netflix's The Pale Blue Eye on January 6.

Christian Bale is one of the most dedicated actors in the industry. He is known for fluctuating in weight in order to suit a specific part and fully transforming himself to commit to his memorable characters. The Dark Knight actor performs alongside a star-studded cast in Amsterdam, the latest from David O. Russell. For this film, it seems like Bale used a different method to become his character in this film, and it (strangely) has to do with following around strangers.

In a recent interview, the actor talked about his process prepping for Amsterdam, and what went into him giving the best performance possible. The Fighter star gave a peculiar answer, citing an unlikely source of inspiration. He told EW he became a "weirdo stalker," explaining...

I am so curious if the man ever noticed Christian Bale, The Batman himself, following him around. Talk about a strange and bizarre experience. We all know Bale is a committed actor, but who knew he had the boldness to follow people on the street in order to use them as inspiration? I guess based on the incredible performances the Oscar winner has given in the past, we have to assume the actor knows what he’s doing. 

In the past, the actor has always gone the extra mile to prep for his films. He lost an exuberant amount of weight to play the lead character in The Machinist, which severely affected Bale's body. He also gained a significant amount to play a character in American Hustle, and to play Dick Chaney in Vice. This also isn’t the first time Bale has cited strange sources as inspiration for his performances. Bale famously once said Tom Cruise’s appearance on Oprah was a touchstone for his performance in American Psycho. I’m not sure how Tom Cruise feels about that one.  

Amsterdam isn’t the only film he has coming out this year. The actor is also starring alongside Gillian Anderson in The Pale Blue Eye. The film follows detective detective Augustus Landor (played by Bale) who enlists the help of a young Edgar Allen Poe to investigate some gruesome murders. The film will be available for Netflix subscribers in December. This sounds like an incredibly interesting film, and I can’t wait to find out what quirky process Bale went through to prepare for that role as well. Maybe he investigated an actual murder. I wouldn’t put it past him. 

Amsterdam is receiving mixed reviews, but I’m sure Christian Bale pulls out all the stops to elevate the film as much as possible. You can check out his performance when Amsterdam releases in theaters on October 7th. For more information on other films coming to theaters this fall, check out CinemaBlend's 2022 movie release schedule.