NYT: The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century

Kind of shocked that Philip Seymour Hoff wasn’t in the mix

Ed Harris is the greatest living American actor (only because he's still working, and Gene Hackman has retired). Fuck this list.

Is this a ranked list?

where the fuck is channing tatum he is the only good actor

I think I need two separate lists to work with, Best Actors and Best Movie Stars, several ppl on this list aren't really the former but certainly qualify as the latter

Keanu Reeves? Woah!!! #onethread

Hoffman should definitely be here.

Voting for Day-Lewis purely on the strength of his two PTA collaborations (I still haven't seen Lincoln). Elsewhere, I can think of one performance each that I've really liked for a few of these--McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me, Ali in Moonlight, Kidman in Birth--but no one I'm consistently wowed by from one film to another.

I don’t even think about movies this way

My favourites are Phoenix and Ali. My two favourite actresses, Elizabeth Moss and Carrie Coon, aren't on there.

Shirley and Invisible Man is a good one-two much of Moss for the 2020

*punch

With both, their best work is on TV, and I don't know if they factored that in (they ought to).

No Gandolfini on the list! Well, he’s no Melissa McCarthy

Whether I agree with it or not, I like that McCarthy's on the list. Movie critics are usually incredibly shitty about judging comedic performances.

I love Keanu but no way is he one of the top 25 actors of the 21st century. Think he would agree with me.

Because You Can Count on Me (2000) gets in just under the wire, I'd consider both Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo.

Heath Ledger

They must have meant living actors, right?

Willem Dafoe? lol

Seconded

several of these seem like "we liked them in the 90s, so they're grandfathered into this list"

That was my first reaction to Dafoe, too, but when I looked up his filmography, he has done a few significant films since 2000. I can sort of see it.

Yeah, I thought about voting Day-Lewis, and then realized that I was mostly thinking of his early performances and I've avoided his 21st century movies because for the most part they seem like overhyped star vehicles.

I did like Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood

apparently I can only vote once for Viola Davis -- honestly I think that the greatest test of acting ability is a TV series ...

I could see voting for Davis. She's done some really great work. I'm looking forward to seeing Ma Rainey's Black Bottom on Netflix next month.

Marion Cottilard
Sarah Paulson
Adèle Haenel

I'm glad the Swinton blurb singles out Julia. Great movie and her best performance.

Re Hoffman:

We LOVE him, promise. But we had to make a lot tough choices and one choice we made was to stick with actors who are alive. Otherwise we would have also chosen Toshiro Mifune, Bette Davis, Ruby Dee, Gary Crant, Michael Lonsdale, Laurence Olivier, Setsuka Hara, James Cagney, Miche https://t.co/qw2kzQ07pX

— Manohla WE ONLY CHOSE LIVING ACTORS Dargis (@ManohlaDargis) November 25, 2020

Cary Grant and Bette Davis, two of the best actors of the 21st Century.

lol. silly list

Oscar Isaac? I can't pinpoint one movie where I would say he was great.

Binoche would be in my top five.

wow, she's not on the list?!

Cary Grant and Bette Davis, two of the best actors of the 21st Century.

― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 7:55 PM bookmarkflaglink

he said GARY CRANT, cant u READ

Ruffalo is one that I would have included (largely on the strength of YCCOM, but he's been good in a lot of things since).

Dafoe is very good in both The Florida Project and Pasolin, and I wasn't even crazy about either of those films. The Lighthouse and At Eternity's Gate have their fans as well (haven't seen either).

its sad to learn this way that meryl streep has died

it's ok, you're with friends now

Does Gary Crant make lo-fi hip-hop beats to study/relax to?

I don’t even understand that tweet since most of those actors died before 2000?

I didn't realize Joaquin Phoenix was still alive. Yes I know River Phoenix died, I'm not confusing them. I just assumed they had both died.

xpost they didn't understand their own tweet either

Shit list but Deneuve or Swinton take this easy for me

i picked one of the people i'd never heard of

He is also known for portraying Sagat in Street Fighter (1994).

He is the only actor to appear in all six of Marvel's Netflix television series.

A few of the missing include Kaitlin Dever, Merritt Wever and Toni Collette... and that's just the cast of Unbelievable!

which is to say this is a very silly list

03. Daniel Day-Lewis
04. Keanu Reeves

i like keanu as much as anyone but this is a pretty hilarious juxtaposition

Keanu absolutely belongs on this list

I loved her confronting the woman who stole her belongings in Ash Is Purest White

Yeah, I'm just going to say: Keanu Reeves is not a good actor. Sorry.

I don't know, the story he tells Lori Petty in Point Break is pretty convincing.

All boxes checked!

Kind of shocked that Philip Seymour Hoff wasn’t in the mix

No Gandolfini on the list! Well, he’s no Melissa McCarthy

you've probably avoided some bad news about them by not reading articles

Whether I agree with it or not, I like that McCarthy's on the list. Movie critics are usually incredibly shitty about judging comedic performances.

yeah, especially satisfying that they went so hard on Spy in the piece

Which, I mean, I love Deneuve, but why is she on a 21st century list?

if only there was any kind of answer to this in the mini-essay about her approach and performances

How the heck is Hoffman not on this list?! Ledger?

I could give you some bad news but you obviously don't read threads or articles (or display names, or tweets)

wait what happened to Heath? WHAT HAPPENED TO HEATH

his acting got worse so they left him off this list

Christ, you scared me for a minute!

Even if you like Daniel Day-Lewis more than I do--especially if you do--I'd count The Gangs of New York as a minus, not a plus.

My favorite thing about that film was Day-Lewis' acting in it, and his character. The rest of it around him seemed a bit much, but as a villain and a personality, he felt larger than life and I couldn't wait to see every second of his time on screen in it.

I don't recall ever watching a film just because of who was performing in it.

Not a judgement, just an observation: I'm guessing you'd have a hard time finding someone who shares that viewpoint.

I imagine one of the only times that was true for me was Dancer in the Dark.

I watched The Bishop's Wife last week cuz #CaryGrant. I should've stayed away because Loretta Young.

I'm in this camp, actors rarely if ever have anything to do w/ my seeing a given movie

"Actors doing the sort of thing they especially excel at" is a different factor to "actor is listed somewhere in credits"

I've watched so many movies just because it looked ordinary at worst (obviously I draw the line somewhere) and had Gene Hackman or Audrey Hepburn or somebody else I really like.

Instead of the director's cut of Superman II I watched, I would much rather have seen the Gene Hackman cut, with all the scenes of his that were discarded.

https://archive.org/details/supermanii-restoredinternationalalternativecut2005

times when i have watched a film specifically to see an actor in it tend toward the old (Mitchum, Chevalier, Welles) or action (Jaa, Chan) or because they ARE the show (Marx Bros)

Willem Dafoe? lol

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:53 PM (five days ago)

Seconded

― Robert Gotopieces (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:56 PM (five days ago)

several of these seem like "we liked them in the 90s, so they're grandfathered into this list"

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:56 PM (five days ago)

That was my first reaction to Dafoe, too, but when I looked up his filmography, he has done a few significant films since 2000. I can sort of see it.

― clemenza, Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:59 PM (five days ago)

What's wrong with him? He's one of those few I'm always happy to see.

agree, and loved him in The Lighthouse

Apparently he's great in Abel Ferrara's latest.

Keanu is an interesting case because he is entirely himself on screen and is always a compelling presence, and his wick performances have added a lot of shading to his stock character. he obviously doesn’t have “range,” but there’s something to be said for doing one thing extremely well

this was an interesting argument about the virtues of reeves, and really did change my thinking about him: https://www.rogerebert.com/features/bright-walldark-room-february-2016-the-grace-of-keanu-reeves-by-angelica-jade-bastién

Keanu’s failed performances are those that push him toward a theatricality against his natural instincts. They also tend to be the kind of roles actors use to challenge or prove themselves—difficult accents, lush period pieces, reliance on verbal dexterity (...) Total Film writes dismissively that “you can visibly see Keanu attempting to not end every one of his lines with ‘dude.’"

ROFL

btw, need to copy paste the link, think the accent makes it screw on ilx

*screwy

"Meryl Streep Isn’t on Our List of Greatest Actors. Here’s Why."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/insider/best-actors-list.html

An explainer!

Gary Crant!

I don't see Scoot McNairy on this list

voted song kang ho

I don't see Scoot McNairy on this list

Very disappointed his career hasn't taken the Sam Rockwell trajectory (in terms of visibility) I expected it to.

I am somewhat perplexed that Michelle Williams isn't on this list given that she has approximately 500 Oscars

Oscar nominations?

She has three fewer Oscars total than Green Book won last year.

Citizen Kane (10.0)
Mank (6.0)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (7.0)
Hillbilly Elegy (5.5)
Affairs of State (2.0)
Blume in Love (6.5)
Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (5.0)
The Parallax View (7.0)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (6.5)
The Net (6.5)

I have no excuse for last rating, other than to say it’s an example, for me, of some of what I was trying to say in this thread: NYT: The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century. Early in her career, I really liked Sandra Bullock.

Oops, wrong thread.

Julianne Moore turned 60 this week.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Departed from my initial post and voted for Nicole Kidman, possibly edged in that direction by seeing The Killing of a Sacred Deer (I want to give her credit for Eyes Wide Shut, too, which came out in the summer of '99 and maybe was still playing somewhere in January of 2000).

clem's accidental post above had me genuinely trying to work out which of these actors could have possibly appeared in Citizen Kane for oh, at least 10 seconds

God this list sucks.

List this God sucks

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

04. Keanu Reeves 5
21. Catherine Deneuve 1

never change ilx

1 dude in the top 5? I'll take it.

voted for Zhao Tao, would have liked to see Kim Min-hee get a vote or two

04. Keanu Reeves 5
21. Catherine Deneuve 1

never change ilx

― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 30 December 2020 00:24 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

1 dude in the top 5? I'll take it.

― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Wednesday, 30 December 2020 00:49 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Never change ilx

Whatever, dudes suck and you know it.

🎶Some dudes will
Some dudes wont 🎶

1 dude in the top 5? I'll take it.

― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Wednesday, 30 December 2020 00:49 (one hour ago)

Never change ilx

― spruce springclean (darraghmac), Wednesday, December 30, 2020 1:21 PM (one hour ago)

two Irish actors in the top 5? never change, ILX

this is not a poll to take too seriously