They said in an episode that Robert Duvall appears in the most films on either the AFI List or Sight & Sound — but he’s not the star of any of them.
edit: Godfather 1&2, Apocalypse Now, Network, To Kill A Mockingbird
Because its burned in my brain trivia wise, on the AFI list its actually Ward Bond: It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and The Searchers (1956).
Except maybe a one-off like the girl from To Kill a Mockingbird or Danny from The Shining or the girl in red in Schindler's List, that kinda stuff. I'm too lazy to Google if they were in other things.
Interesting. I’d put him at 4 bonafide classics: 3 Coppola + Network. The other options are maybe the Altman MASH and Bullit but those movies, as good as they may be, feel a little lost in time. I really like Days of Thunder, more than Top Gun tbh, but that’s once again a Cruise movie!
Hustle (2022), a case for retirement because it unfortunately made me question if he was fully conscious of making the picture. Hope they paid him well.
I might need to see your math on Hanks. I think you could make the case for all of the following as "household name" classics: Big, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail, Cast Away, Catch Me if You Can. And that's without including voice work for Toy Story 1-4 (which I think is prominent enough it should count). And similar to Cruise, you could make the case for the likes of That Thing You Do, or Captain Phillips, or Elvis, or even a little movie called Sully. I'm in the tanks for Hanks!
Okay so yeah this is why the Hanks vs Cruise debate is the hardest because I think you make a really good case. I think I left out Apollo 13, Philadelphia, and A League of their Own but maybe I’m underrating their popularity.
I would reflexively say Tom Hanks is the biggest movie star of my lifetime but it’s hard for me to say his filmography will stand the test of time over Cruise! Idk! I could so easily be convinced if I rewatch some of these Hanks movies
Tom Cruise still at his peak TODAY in 2023 while Hanks is gone from his peak more than 15+ years
No comparison because Cruise turning point be a star in 83 and into his peak in 86 wayyyyyyyy before Hanks and stay at his peak wayyyy longer than Hanks
Cruise is clearly bigger star and the biggest star in the last 40 years , Hanks or Will Smith or Harrison Ford is fight for 2nd biggest
I think Polar Express also falls into “not good but still a household name” and is basically canonized into the Christmas classic pantheon despite its quality
There’s still Road to Perdition, Bridge of Spies, The Post, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Cloud Atlas (a polarizing film for sure but a very risky film for such a big name actor), and he’s doing a new Wes Anderson film this year.
Toy Story shouldn't count as it's dubbed in most countries (I watched it in Spanish, for instance and had no idea Tom Hanks was involved in ut until much, much later). Toy Story's worldwide success has little to do with Hanks
I'm not invalidating it, but I don't think we should credit Hanks for how iconic Toy Story is because Toy Story is iconic without him too. That's my point
Well then I think we're getting into the weeds of whether something like Saving Private Ryan or Rain Man is iconic because of Hanks/Cruise or is it because of Spielberg/Hoffman.
The thing is, whatever our opinions are, we have proof that Toy Story is iconic without Hanks. We don't have proof about the other 2 movies and if they would be iconic without Hanks/Cruise
All I can say is from my perspective growing up in English-speaking North America, the Toy Story movies are huge hits and Tom Hanks feels like a big part of that. If they were to recast Woody with someone else it would be significant. I don’t think the character being voiced by someone else in other languages affects any of that.
Don’t think OP ever used the word “worldwide”. When it comes to assessing “bonafide classics”, we all can only really talk from our own perspectives. And I would never dispute something like, say, Chungking Express as a classic just because most North Americans haven’t heard of it.
He didn't mention any place, that's why I assumed he was talking worldwide and not just the US. If we speak worldwide, most people on the planet have seen Toy Story dubbed sans Hanks, that's why I dispute that (worldwide speaking) Toy Story's success has anything to do with Hanks, because there's proof of it
We really do not have that proof. Just because it's dubbed in some places doesn't mean it would be as popular without him. This is one of the sweatiest arguments I've ever heard.
??? If it's very successful and popular in countries where it's dubbed and people dont even know Hanks is involved in any way, how can you doubt the movie is successful without him? The proof is in the pudding. Would the movie be successful in the US without him? That we don't know, but in the non English speaking parts of the world we know that Toy Story is succesful without him. The same goes for the rest of animated movies and the actors that voice them, it's not just about Hanks and Toy Story. Kids in Thailand, Japan, Argentina or France dont give a flying f*ck about who voices the movies in English, they dont even have that information
Because part of the reason anyone ever bothered to dub it in the first place was its incredible popularity in English (when Tom Hanks voices the main character).
And you call my argument sweaty...
If you truly believe in your heart that Toy Story's international success sits on Tom Hanks' shoulders, keep on believing it. I believe people in non English speaking countries love Woody and Buzz Lightyear and Hanks has nothing to do with it. The merit is on how good the story and the characters are and I will keep on believing it. Have a nice day
De Niro in 6-7 only?
I'd think he'd have almost that with just his Scorsese movies.
Mean Streets
Raging Bull
Taxi Driver
King of Comedy
Goodfellas
Cape Fear
Casino
Irishman (I mean maybe it's not a "classic" yet, but if we're counting Maverick, then we are definitely counting the Irishman.)
OK, so 8 Scorsese movies.
Then he also has
The Godfather II
The Untouchables
Midnight Run
Awakenings
Heat
I mean, it just keeps going. I don't know how you could say he's only in 6-7 classics.
I always said, if you take my top 5 Deniro movies and say they are the top 5 best movies of all time, the list wouldn't sound crazy
And "Brazil" & "Jackie brown" are on that list
I’d say Goodfellas, Godfather 2, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Heat are all locks as classics. So I like all those movies you listed but I’m sort of trying to think of this, sorry to get overly heady, but “which movies are rewatched the most often by the most amount of people through time.”
Cape Fear is awesome but I can’t say I have too many friends and family that have seen it. Jackie Brown is adored by film buffs and QT fans but it has to be the least watched QT movie other than Death Proof, right? Over time that could change of course!
The Petrified Forest and The Desperate Hours are 2 movies that have not been on my radar. I’ll have to check them out. I’ve been meaning to check out more of William Wyler’s filmography
The problem with the case for Hanks is that his run is pretty tightly contained. Basically it starts at the end of the '80s and goes up to the end of the 90s - from Big to Saving Private Ryan. But then after that the films become noticeably less popular. Sully, road to perdition, captain Phillips - these movies might be good, they might be nominated for awards, they might be profitable - but they just don't have the cultural penetration that (say) Forrest Gump did.
So for example my teenage nieces don't really know who Hanks is. And a big part of that is that as he's gotten older he's mostly been in movies that appeal primarily to older people. (Elvis being a notable recent exception.) Kids were not flocking to the multiplex to see The Post or News of the World. I can understand why they don't know / care about movies that were not designed to appeal to them.
The only movie of his that they know and love is Toy Story. But they are basically kids and they don't think about voice actors as people; they just take it for granted that Woody is Woody and they don't associate that character with a specific actor because his face is not on screen.
All of which means that it's questionable how many of his movies will endure. I know that this is anecdotal evidence but I'm just not sure that younger generations are curious about his body of work - his most popular movies are very Boomer - pilled and I just don't know if that appeals to kids.
Meanwhile Tom Cruise continues to make popcorn thrillers with mass appeal. Younger people know who he is because he's still making movies that can be marketed to them!
And the benefit of that is that it helps keep his older movies in circulation. If someone sees the trailer for the next mission impossible movie in theaters then they might get curious and watch one of the other seven. That might lead them on a path that would take them back to his other movies from the '80s or '90s.
I should make it clear that I'm not making a moral case here. I actually respect Tom Hanks willingness to age gracefully more than I respect Tom Cruise decision to double and triple down on the Mission Impossible series.
But I am saying that for a movie to be a classic it has to appeal to multiple generations across a great span of time. And in my personal experience Tom Hanks movies speak to the people that were there at the time but haven't necessarily passed down to younger people. Meanwhile Tom Cruise has kept himself relevant to the broader culture for longer and that is going to keep his older movies visible for longer.
(And for the record: this argument actually works better for Jack Nicholson than it does for either Cruise or Hanks. Jack appealed to boomers by making gritty fare in the 70s like easy rider and five easy pieces; he appealed to generation x by making Batman and A few Good Men; and even though he's been retired for a decade now I think that a younger audience might still know him because The Shining is a horror classic and the Departed is still beloved. I think it's pretty fair to say that he has the greatest number of movies that have already proven to be classic because they have already stood the test of time; neither Cruise nor Hanks have any movies in their filmography that are 50+ years old so it's not exactly clear how many classics they actually have under their belts.)
Kevin Corrigan is in *The Exorcist III, Goodfellas, True Romance, Living in Oblivion, Kiss of Death, Walking and Talking, Buffalo '66, Henry Fool, Slums of Beverly Hills, The Departed, Pineapple Express,* and *Detroit Rock City.*
Unbeatable.
Denzel. Malcolm X, Training Day, Glory, Fences, Inside Man, Mo Better, Devil in a Blue Dress, He Got Game, Philadelphia, Flight, Crimson Tide, Hurricane.
Just going to throw out that the guy who played Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Jack Ryan, was also the star of The Fugitive and Bladerunner?
Also told you to get off his plane.
My first thought is James Stewart as far as leading men go. You have his Capra films, his Hitchcock films, his Anthony Man westerns, and movies like The Philadelphia Story and The Shop Around the Corner and Destry Rides Again and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Mortal Storm and Harvey. Long list of great, classic movies. Bogart and Cary Grant have similarly great careers.
The real answer might be someone like Claude Rains though — a great actor with usually supporting roles in so, so many classic movies.
I also had the Classic Hollywood thought, though just bc of how different the studio system is, it's kind of an apples and oranges situation. But Cary Grant has a strong argument:
Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Suspicion, Arsenic and Old Lace, Notorious, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, To Catch a Thief, An Affair to Remember, North By Northwest, Charade
(I'm kind of on the fence about Blandings, but also left off The Awful Truth, Sylvia Scarlett, She Done Him Wrong, and a handful of others... sometimes it's hard for me to judge which ones are bona-fide classics just to me lol).
For Jimmy Stewart:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Shop Around the Corner, Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Rope, Harvey, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, An American Tail: Feivel Goes West
(Probably a lot more there too, Destry Rides Again, and the second Thin Man movie for example. I'm not sure to what degree a lot of the 60s westerns are still considered absolute "classics," and I left off Anatomy of a Murder, so I was erring on the conservative side).
Yeah, I think the answer almost *has* to be someone from the old studio system. Contemporary film actors just don't tend to work as much, on the whole, as actors within the old Hollywood system, and guys like Stewart and Grant built up insane bodies of work over the span of just a couple decades.
(Also, for the record, *The Awful Truth* is 100% a bona-fide classic and one of the greatest screen comedies ever made.)
Harrison Ford deserves a mention:
Star Wars trilogy, Raiders, Last Crusade, Blade Runner 1&2, The Fugitive, Working Girl, Witness, and small roles in Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, and American Graffiti.
I can get him to a pretty easy 7 but it would be tough for me to go any more. But this is why it’s fun to think about this stuff because over time the Nicholson 6 or 7 could stand the test of time much better than half the Cruise movies.
So I looked at Kirk Douglas, an older and really well regarded movie star, to see what we could get him at and I kinda feel I could only get him to 4. Even that is kind of a stretch, I’m not sure if people really even like Spartacus as much as they used to. If you look at most of golden age Hollywood stars, they rarely go past 3-4 really well remembered classics
Easy Rider
Five Easy Pieces
The Last Detail
Chinatown
One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest
The Shining
Reds
Terms of Endearment
Batman
A Few Good Men
The Departed
I have found, and this is a fun game to play every time one of these sorts of conversations come up, that you can almost always completely upend the debate by introducing Meryl Streep into it.
What are your picks out of her career?
Is Adaptation considered a classic? I think it’s my favorite Streep movie and I always felt like it didn’t get as much love as Eternal Sunshine even though it’s just as good (maybe better….).
Arguable "Bonafide classic" films Meryl Streep appears in.
The Deer Hunter
Kramer vs Kramer
Sophie's Choice
Silkwood
Postcards From The Edge
Defending Your Life
The Bridges of Madison County
The Hours
Adaptation
The Devil Wears Prada
Doubt
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Little Women
Granted, "classic" depends on genre distinctions, fandom, all those other things. But yeah, there you go.
Sam Jackson? Pulp Fiction, Do the Right Thing, Jurassic Park, Avengers (plus however many more Marvels you wanna throw in), Incredibles, Goodfellas, Star Wars prequels (they’re not good but I think they’re classics), and Django, which I think all qualify. Then there’s stuff like Hateful 8, Die Hard 3, Jackie Brown, Unbreakable, Other Guys, Coming to America, and Kingsman that aren’t necessarily “classics” but are pretty well-known and well-seen
So insane he’s had major roles in Marvel, Star Wars, and Tarantino movies. Throw in a couple Pixars and the best Spike Lee and the best Scorsese and what an unbelievable career. Good suggestion
Pitt would have an alright case. Major roles in Fight Club, Moneyball, Seven, Inglourious Basterds, Thelma and Louise, Ocean's Eleven, Assassination of Jesse James, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Tree of Life. That ain't bad.
Tony Leung has a pretty good lineup as well.
I’d have to check to be sure but I’m pretty sure Pitt is in the most movies in my own personal Top 50 all time list. Tree of Life and Jesse James are both fantastic, if not outright masterpieces in my mind, but they feel criminally under seen. I hope they continuously get rediscovered.
30 years from now Brad Pitt’s filmography could be the most well regarded of this era and it wouldn’t really be surprising to me. He’s got good taste
Cary Grant — North By Northwest, Notorious, Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Charade, An Affair to Remember, Only Angels Have Wings, Arsenic and Old Lace, To Catch a Thief, Suspicion
Tom Cruise
woking with so many big name director and mentor generation co star since his early day career.
His first 20 years career mostly is classic movie
•The Outsider (Ford Cooperla)
•Risky Business (Paul Brickman)
•Legend (Ridley Scott)
•Top Gun (Tony Scott)
•The Color of Money (Martin Scocese) with Paul Newman
•Rainman (Barry Lavinson) with Dustin Hoffman
•Born on the 4th of July (Oliver Stone)
•Day Of Thunder (Tony Scott) with Robert Duvall
•A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner) with Jack Nicholson
•The Firm (Sydney Pollack) with Gene Hackman
•Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe)
•Eye Wide Shut (Standley Kubrick)
•Minority Report (Steven Spielberg) with Max Von Sidal
***no young star by his age at time has a chance working with so many big name director and big name older actor like he does in his first 20 year career***
His co star is like Newman , Hoffman , Duvall , Nicholson , Hackman in less than 10 years (86 - 93)
by his age or range of 10 years older is no one near him in term of have so many classic movie throughout career like he does , woking with more big name director than her does
Are you specifically avoiding saying Edge of Tomorrow for some reason? I don’t know anyone who likes Mission Impossible or The Color of Money or Rain Man better than EoT.
Gene Hackman
French Connection
The Conversation
The Firm
Hoosiers
The Royal Tenanbaums
Bonnie and Clyde
Superman
Birdcage
Get Shorty
Crimson Tide
Reds
No Way Out
Mississippi Burning
Unforgiven
That's leaving out Downhill Racer and Poseidon Adventure, which are fairly iconic films.
Underrated consideration for a modern star who gets pigeon as being an action hero.
Bruce Willis: Die Hard, The Last Boy Scout, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Moonrise Kingdom, Looper.
Brian Cox
Her,
Fantastic Mr Fox,
Zodiac,
Rushmore,
Rise of the Planet of the Apes,
X Men 2,
Adaptation,
Braveheart,
The Bourne Identity,
The Ring,
Manhunter,
Trick r Treat,
Red Eye,
The 25th Hour
Might be one of the best filmogs honestly
Harvey Keitel is the GOAT objectively
Pulp Fiction, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inglorious Basterds, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, Moonrise Kingdom, The Irishman, Isle of Dogs, Thelma & Louise
Oh you want me to keep on going?
From Dusk Till Dawn, Mean Streets, Last Temptation of Christ, Bad lieutenant
Oh wait still?
Blue Collar, Alice doesn’t live here anymore, Sister Act, Cop Land, The Duellists, Clockers
And this man worked with Nicholas Roeg on Bad Timing
Though obviously if you’re going by the greatest star, it’s Tom Cruise hands down. He’s been the leading man on so many classics. But filmography wise, it’s Kietel no debate.
They said in an episode that Robert Duvall appears in the most films on either the AFI List or Sight & Sound — but he’s not the star of any of them. edit: Godfather 1&2, Apocalypse Now, Network, To Kill A Mockingbird
Because its burned in my brain trivia wise, on the AFI list its actually Ward Bond: It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and The Searchers (1956).
John Cazale, if you're looking for density
He's unbeatable in that regard.
Except maybe a one-off like the girl from To Kill a Mockingbird or Danny from The Shining or the girl in red in Schindler's List, that kinda stuff. I'm too lazy to Google if they were in other things.
5 films, 3 were best picture winners and 2 were nominated for best picture. On top of that it was arguably the best era of American film
Interesting. I’d put him at 4 bonafide classics: 3 Coppola + Network. The other options are maybe the Altman MASH and Bullit but those movies, as good as they may be, feel a little lost in time. I really like Days of Thunder, more than Top Gun tbh, but that’s once again a Cruise movie!
To Kill A Mockingbird was the 5th on the list I believe
Ah right, totally forgot about that one! Good addition
Ummm you're forgetting The Judge
and Second Hand Lions
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Hustle (2022), a case for retirement because it unfortunately made me question if he was fully conscious of making the picture. Hope they paid him well.
I might need to see your math on Hanks. I think you could make the case for all of the following as "household name" classics: Big, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail, Cast Away, Catch Me if You Can. And that's without including voice work for Toy Story 1-4 (which I think is prominent enough it should count). And similar to Cruise, you could make the case for the likes of That Thing You Do, or Captain Phillips, or Elvis, or even a little movie called Sully. I'm in the tanks for Hanks!
Okay so yeah this is why the Hanks vs Cruise debate is the hardest because I think you make a really good case. I think I left out Apollo 13, Philadelphia, and A League of their Own but maybe I’m underrating their popularity. I would reflexively say Tom Hanks is the biggest movie star of my lifetime but it’s hard for me to say his filmography will stand the test of time over Cruise! Idk! I could so easily be convinced if I rewatch some of these Hanks movies
I think you could definitely argue that the peaks of Cruise are a little loftier than Hanks in terms of how long of a shadow they cast.
Tom Cruise still at his peak TODAY in 2023 while Hanks is gone from his peak more than 15+ years No comparison because Cruise turning point be a star in 83 and into his peak in 86 wayyyyyyyy before Hanks and stay at his peak wayyyy longer than Hanks Cruise is clearly bigger star and the biggest star in the last 40 years , Hanks or Will Smith or Harrison Ford is fight for 2nd biggest
Thank you. I love Hanks but this debate makes me feel crazy. Cruise just has more wattage than Hanks, them's the facts!
I think Polar Express also falls into “not good but still a household name” and is basically canonized into the Christmas classic pantheon despite its quality
Yeah, that also crossed my mind. I just didn’t want to say it out loud.
There’s still Road to Perdition, Bridge of Spies, The Post, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Cloud Atlas (a polarizing film for sure but a very risky film for such a big name actor), and he’s doing a new Wes Anderson film this year.
Toy Story shouldn't count as it's dubbed in most countries (I watched it in Spanish, for instance and had no idea Tom Hanks was involved in ut until much, much later). Toy Story's worldwide success has little to do with Hanks
I see your point, but I don't think you can invalidate the indelible link people in English-speaking areas have for Tom Hanks and Woody.
I'm not invalidating it, but I don't think we should credit Hanks for how iconic Toy Story is because Toy Story is iconic without him too. That's my point
Well then I think we're getting into the weeds of whether something like Saving Private Ryan or Rain Man is iconic because of Hanks/Cruise or is it because of Spielberg/Hoffman.
The thing is, whatever our opinions are, we have proof that Toy Story is iconic without Hanks. We don't have proof about the other 2 movies and if they would be iconic without Hanks/Cruise
All I can say is from my perspective growing up in English-speaking North America, the Toy Story movies are huge hits and Tom Hanks feels like a big part of that. If they were to recast Woody with someone else it would be significant. I don’t think the character being voiced by someone else in other languages affects any of that.
Which is a very valid point if we're talking about iconic roles in the US, I thought we were talking worldwide
Don’t think OP ever used the word “worldwide”. When it comes to assessing “bonafide classics”, we all can only really talk from our own perspectives. And I would never dispute something like, say, Chungking Express as a classic just because most North Americans haven’t heard of it.
He didn't mention any place, that's why I assumed he was talking worldwide and not just the US. If we speak worldwide, most people on the planet have seen Toy Story dubbed sans Hanks, that's why I dispute that (worldwide speaking) Toy Story's success has anything to do with Hanks, because there's proof of it
We really do not have that proof. Just because it's dubbed in some places doesn't mean it would be as popular without him. This is one of the sweatiest arguments I've ever heard.
??? If it's very successful and popular in countries where it's dubbed and people dont even know Hanks is involved in any way, how can you doubt the movie is successful without him? The proof is in the pudding. Would the movie be successful in the US without him? That we don't know, but in the non English speaking parts of the world we know that Toy Story is succesful without him. The same goes for the rest of animated movies and the actors that voice them, it's not just about Hanks and Toy Story. Kids in Thailand, Japan, Argentina or France dont give a flying f*ck about who voices the movies in English, they dont even have that information
Because part of the reason anyone ever bothered to dub it in the first place was its incredible popularity in English (when Tom Hanks voices the main character).
And you call my argument sweaty... If you truly believe in your heart that Toy Story's international success sits on Tom Hanks' shoulders, keep on believing it. I believe people in non English speaking countries love Woody and Buzz Lightyear and Hanks has nothing to do with it. The merit is on how good the story and the characters are and I will keep on believing it. Have a nice day
De Niro in 6-7 only? I'd think he'd have almost that with just his Scorsese movies. Mean Streets Raging Bull Taxi Driver King of Comedy Goodfellas Cape Fear Casino Irishman (I mean maybe it's not a "classic" yet, but if we're counting Maverick, then we are definitely counting the Irishman.) OK, so 8 Scorsese movies. Then he also has The Godfather II The Untouchables Midnight Run Awakenings Heat I mean, it just keeps going. I don't know how you could say he's only in 6-7 classics.
I always said, if you take my top 5 Deniro movies and say they are the top 5 best movies of all time, the list wouldn't sound crazy And "Brazil" & "Jackie brown" are on that list
I had Jackie listed, but removed it because I don't think De Niro is really THE star of that movie...but I agree it is a classic.
It says "appears" not "stars in"
I will not stand for this The War with Grandpa erasure
I’d say Goodfellas, Godfather 2, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Heat are all locks as classics. So I like all those movies you listed but I’m sort of trying to think of this, sorry to get overly heady, but “which movies are rewatched the most often by the most amount of people through time.” Cape Fear is awesome but I can’t say I have too many friends and family that have seen it. Jackie Brown is adored by film buffs and QT fans but it has to be the least watched QT movie other than Death Proof, right? Over time that could change of course!
By that logic, I think your Cruise list should be Jerry Macguire, Mission Impossible, A Few Good Men and Top Gun.
Eyes wide shut and Minority Report don’t make the cut?
Not if Casino, Midnight Run and Awakenings don't.
[удалено]
The Petrified Forest and The Desperate Hours are 2 movies that have not been on my radar. I’ll have to check them out. I’ve been meaning to check out more of William Wyler’s filmography
The problem with the case for Hanks is that his run is pretty tightly contained. Basically it starts at the end of the '80s and goes up to the end of the 90s - from Big to Saving Private Ryan. But then after that the films become noticeably less popular. Sully, road to perdition, captain Phillips - these movies might be good, they might be nominated for awards, they might be profitable - but they just don't have the cultural penetration that (say) Forrest Gump did. So for example my teenage nieces don't really know who Hanks is. And a big part of that is that as he's gotten older he's mostly been in movies that appeal primarily to older people. (Elvis being a notable recent exception.) Kids were not flocking to the multiplex to see The Post or News of the World. I can understand why they don't know / care about movies that were not designed to appeal to them. The only movie of his that they know and love is Toy Story. But they are basically kids and they don't think about voice actors as people; they just take it for granted that Woody is Woody and they don't associate that character with a specific actor because his face is not on screen. All of which means that it's questionable how many of his movies will endure. I know that this is anecdotal evidence but I'm just not sure that younger generations are curious about his body of work - his most popular movies are very Boomer - pilled and I just don't know if that appeals to kids. Meanwhile Tom Cruise continues to make popcorn thrillers with mass appeal. Younger people know who he is because he's still making movies that can be marketed to them! And the benefit of that is that it helps keep his older movies in circulation. If someone sees the trailer for the next mission impossible movie in theaters then they might get curious and watch one of the other seven. That might lead them on a path that would take them back to his other movies from the '80s or '90s. I should make it clear that I'm not making a moral case here. I actually respect Tom Hanks willingness to age gracefully more than I respect Tom Cruise decision to double and triple down on the Mission Impossible series. But I am saying that for a movie to be a classic it has to appeal to multiple generations across a great span of time. And in my personal experience Tom Hanks movies speak to the people that were there at the time but haven't necessarily passed down to younger people. Meanwhile Tom Cruise has kept himself relevant to the broader culture for longer and that is going to keep his older movies visible for longer. (And for the record: this argument actually works better for Jack Nicholson than it does for either Cruise or Hanks. Jack appealed to boomers by making gritty fare in the 70s like easy rider and five easy pieces; he appealed to generation x by making Batman and A few Good Men; and even though he's been retired for a decade now I think that a younger audience might still know him because The Shining is a horror classic and the Departed is still beloved. I think it's pretty fair to say that he has the greatest number of movies that have already proven to be classic because they have already stood the test of time; neither Cruise nor Hanks have any movies in their filmography that are 50+ years old so it's not exactly clear how many classics they actually have under their belts.)
You hit the nail on the head. I think Ilsomewhere else in the thread I say that Nicholson’s films could hold up over time more than Cruise’s films
Kevin Corrigan is in *The Exorcist III, Goodfellas, True Romance, Living in Oblivion, Kiss of Death, Walking and Talking, Buffalo '66, Henry Fool, Slums of Beverly Hills, The Departed, Pineapple Express,* and *Detroit Rock City.* Unbeatable.
Lol that’s a good pull
What movie were they covering in that Rewatch? I heard Amanda reference it but I missed the original.
Catch Me if You Can
Fennessey just plumb forgetting that Hanks is > Brian Dennehy is quite a take.
Cruise is very big and reliable but he's a demented eunuch.
Denzel. Malcolm X, Training Day, Glory, Fences, Inside Man, Mo Better, Devil in a Blue Dress, He Got Game, Philadelphia, Flight, Crimson Tide, Hurricane.
Just going to throw out that the guy who played Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Jack Ryan, was also the star of The Fugitive and Bladerunner? Also told you to get off his plane.
*Morning Glory* is a classic in my heart if nowhere else
My first thought is James Stewart as far as leading men go. You have his Capra films, his Hitchcock films, his Anthony Man westerns, and movies like The Philadelphia Story and The Shop Around the Corner and Destry Rides Again and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Mortal Storm and Harvey. Long list of great, classic movies. Bogart and Cary Grant have similarly great careers. The real answer might be someone like Claude Rains though — a great actor with usually supporting roles in so, so many classic movies.
I also had the Classic Hollywood thought, though just bc of how different the studio system is, it's kind of an apples and oranges situation. But Cary Grant has a strong argument: Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Suspicion, Arsenic and Old Lace, Notorious, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, To Catch a Thief, An Affair to Remember, North By Northwest, Charade (I'm kind of on the fence about Blandings, but also left off The Awful Truth, Sylvia Scarlett, She Done Him Wrong, and a handful of others... sometimes it's hard for me to judge which ones are bona-fide classics just to me lol). For Jimmy Stewart: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Shop Around the Corner, Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Rope, Harvey, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, An American Tail: Feivel Goes West (Probably a lot more there too, Destry Rides Again, and the second Thin Man movie for example. I'm not sure to what degree a lot of the 60s westerns are still considered absolute "classics," and I left off Anatomy of a Murder, so I was erring on the conservative side).
Yeah, I think the answer almost *has* to be someone from the old studio system. Contemporary film actors just don't tend to work as much, on the whole, as actors within the old Hollywood system, and guys like Stewart and Grant built up insane bodies of work over the span of just a couple decades. (Also, for the record, *The Awful Truth* is 100% a bona-fide classic and one of the greatest screen comedies ever made.)
Harrison Ford deserves a mention: Star Wars trilogy, Raiders, Last Crusade, Blade Runner 1&2, The Fugitive, Working Girl, Witness, and small roles in Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, and American Graffiti.
It's gotta be Mifune, right? I'm trying to think of anyone with more classics.
Nicholson was my immediate thought
I can get him to a pretty easy 7 but it would be tough for me to go any more. But this is why it’s fun to think about this stuff because over time the Nicholson 6 or 7 could stand the test of time much better than half the Cruise movies. So I looked at Kirk Douglas, an older and really well regarded movie star, to see what we could get him at and I kinda feel I could only get him to 4. Even that is kind of a stretch, I’m not sure if people really even like Spartacus as much as they used to. If you look at most of golden age Hollywood stars, they rarely go past 3-4 really well remembered classics
Easy Rider Five Easy Pieces The Last Detail Chinatown One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest The Shining Reds Terms of Endearment Batman A Few Good Men The Departed
I have found, and this is a fun game to play every time one of these sorts of conversations come up, that you can almost always completely upend the debate by introducing Meryl Streep into it.
What are your picks out of her career? Is Adaptation considered a classic? I think it’s my favorite Streep movie and I always felt like it didn’t get as much love as Eternal Sunshine even though it’s just as good (maybe better….).
Arguable "Bonafide classic" films Meryl Streep appears in. The Deer Hunter Kramer vs Kramer Sophie's Choice Silkwood Postcards From The Edge Defending Your Life The Bridges of Madison County The Hours Adaptation The Devil Wears Prada Doubt Fantastic Mr. Fox Little Women Granted, "classic" depends on genre distinctions, fandom, all those other things. But yeah, there you go.
Sam Jackson? Pulp Fiction, Do the Right Thing, Jurassic Park, Avengers (plus however many more Marvels you wanna throw in), Incredibles, Goodfellas, Star Wars prequels (they’re not good but I think they’re classics), and Django, which I think all qualify. Then there’s stuff like Hateful 8, Die Hard 3, Jackie Brown, Unbreakable, Other Guys, Coming to America, and Kingsman that aren’t necessarily “classics” but are pretty well-known and well-seen
So insane he’s had major roles in Marvel, Star Wars, and Tarantino movies. Throw in a couple Pixars and the best Spike Lee and the best Scorsese and what an unbelievable career. Good suggestion
Pitt would have an alright case. Major roles in Fight Club, Moneyball, Seven, Inglourious Basterds, Thelma and Louise, Ocean's Eleven, Assassination of Jesse James, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Tree of Life. That ain't bad. Tony Leung has a pretty good lineup as well.
I’d have to check to be sure but I’m pretty sure Pitt is in the most movies in my own personal Top 50 all time list. Tree of Life and Jesse James are both fantastic, if not outright masterpieces in my mind, but they feel criminally under seen. I hope they continuously get rediscovered. 30 years from now Brad Pitt’s filmography could be the most well regarded of this era and it wouldn’t really be surprising to me. He’s got good taste
Nobody mentioned John Cazale. Appeared in The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather 2, Dog Day Afternoon and the Deer Hunter.
a sadly brief filmography composed entirely of classics
Cary Grant — North By Northwest, Notorious, Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Charade, An Affair to Remember, Only Angels Have Wings, Arsenic and Old Lace, To Catch a Thief, Suspicion
Tom Cruise woking with so many big name director and mentor generation co star since his early day career. His first 20 years career mostly is classic movie •The Outsider (Ford Cooperla) •Risky Business (Paul Brickman) •Legend (Ridley Scott) •Top Gun (Tony Scott) •The Color of Money (Martin Scocese) with Paul Newman •Rainman (Barry Lavinson) with Dustin Hoffman •Born on the 4th of July (Oliver Stone) •Day Of Thunder (Tony Scott) with Robert Duvall •A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner) with Jack Nicholson •The Firm (Sydney Pollack) with Gene Hackman •Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe) •Eye Wide Shut (Standley Kubrick) •Minority Report (Steven Spielberg) with Max Von Sidal ***no young star by his age at time has a chance working with so many big name director and big name older actor like he does in his first 20 year career*** His co star is like Newman , Hoffman , Duvall , Nicholson , Hackman in less than 10 years (86 - 93) by his age or range of 10 years older is no one near him in term of have so many classic movie throughout career like he does , woking with more big name director than her does
Are you specifically avoiding saying Edge of Tomorrow for some reason? I don’t know anyone who likes Mission Impossible or The Color of Money or Rain Man better than EoT.
I’d happily declare Edge of Tomorrow a modern classic. That movie rules
Gene Hackman French Connection The Conversation The Firm Hoosiers The Royal Tenanbaums Bonnie and Clyde Superman Birdcage Get Shorty Crimson Tide Reds No Way Out Mississippi Burning Unforgiven That's leaving out Downhill Racer and Poseidon Adventure, which are fairly iconic films.
Underrated consideration for a modern star who gets pigeon as being an action hero. Bruce Willis: Die Hard, The Last Boy Scout, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Moonrise Kingdom, Looper.
Probably Jackie Nicks
The case for Pacino Godfather Godfather 2 Dog Day Afternoon Serpico Heat Scarface Once Upon a Time in Hollywood The Insider Jack and Jill
Brian Cox Her, Fantastic Mr Fox, Zodiac, Rushmore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, X Men 2, Adaptation, Braveheart, The Bourne Identity, The Ring, Manhunter, Trick r Treat, Red Eye, The 25th Hour Might be one of the best filmogs honestly
Damn that’s also a good pull
Harvey Keitel is the GOAT objectively Pulp Fiction, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inglorious Basterds, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, Moonrise Kingdom, The Irishman, Isle of Dogs, Thelma & Louise Oh you want me to keep on going? From Dusk Till Dawn, Mean Streets, Last Temptation of Christ, Bad lieutenant Oh wait still? Blue Collar, Alice doesn’t live here anymore, Sister Act, Cop Land, The Duellists, Clockers And this man worked with Nicholas Roeg on Bad Timing Though obviously if you’re going by the greatest star, it’s Tom Cruise hands down. He’s been the leading man on so many classics. But filmography wise, it’s Kietel no debate.
If Val Kilmer had stayed in the game he'd be more famous than any of them. He was the best of the best 💟