Kevin's Watch

We may want to break this down a bit:

I'd argue that Kirk Douglas wins it by default simply because he's outlasted everyone else, so let's do this generationally.

Geezers:
- Kirk Douglas
- Sophia Loren

Neither of them really need any explanation.


Old but still acting:

- Robert DeNiro. This one is tough, because there are so many great actors of his generation, like Duval, Pacino, Nicholson, McKellen, Caine, Hopkins, and Freeman. But Bobby D, excepting the vast majority of his work over the last decade, has cut a huge swath across the screen with classics like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Midnight Run, and Heat.

- Meryl Streep. Tough one here as well, especially since I don't care for most of her films. That said, I'm not aware of a single bad movie she's made.

Upper Middle Aged:

- Bruce Willis. Yeah, I know he's made a ton of shit, but he's also done a few fantastic ones as well. Willis, for better or worse, is the best that this generation has to offer. Runners-up to include Kevin Costner and Willem Dafoe.

- Joan Allen. Thin resume, but her portrayal of Pat Nixon was astonishingly good. Check out two great performances in The Ice Storm and The Contender. Honorable mentions to Holly Hunter and Geena Davis.

Cail's generation.

- Robert Downey Jr. And no, it has nothing to do with Iron Man. The guy was flat-out amazing in Less Than Zero and Chaplin. What really makes him great are the roles in garbage movies where he shines through, like Gothika and In Dreams. Honorable mention to Edward Norton.

- Jodie Foster. OK, Flightplan was lame, but there's really nothing else in her filmography that you can say that about.

The 30-somethings.

- Christian Bale. Not much explaining needed here either. Excellent screen presence and he picks great roles.

- Elizabeth Banks. Partly because I want to make sweet, sweet love to her, but because she can actually act. She's got fantastic comedic timing, and she's got some dramatic depth as well.

I can't go any younger.

But as I was typing this out, I got to thinking about "those guys". You know, like James Cromwell or Ted Levine (or M. Emmett Walsh, or Catherine Keener). No one's ever going to rank those guys with a DeNiro, but is that really fair?

Dennis Hopper, Donald Sutherland, and Cristopher Walken should all at least be in the running?

Cool subject. I, however, am totally incapable of completely separating "great" actors from "actors I really like". So I will just include the following snippet from an Empire Magazine Poll just for the sake of discussion (www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/ind ... ctors.html):

Poll conducted by Empire magazine.

The top 20 Greatest Living Actors:
1. Robert De Niro
2. Al Pacino
3. Jack Nicholson
4. Paul Newman
5. Marlon Brando - died before voting was complete
6. Anthony Hopkins
7. Morgan Freeman
8. Dustin Hoffman
9. Clint Eastwood
10. Sigourney Weaver
11. Gene Hackman
12. Harrison Ford
13. Sean Connery (Bond, Jamessh Bond)
14. Meryl Streep
15. Ian McKellen
16. Christopher Lee (Scaramanga)
17. Sidney Poitier
18. Robert Redford
19. Alan Rickman
20. Judi Dench (M)

As for me, from this list I love Eastwood, Poitier, Ford, DeNiro, Rickman. I also really like Ed Norton and others that I am surely forgetting. I do not like Depp, Cruise, Pitt (though his comedic turns in Mr & Mrs Smith and Burn After Reading have helped his case for me.)

For my personal tastes I like younger Mickey Rourke, and there are some others that should be mentioned like Day Lewis and isn't Sidney Poitier still alive? I love De Niro but my overall favorite for body of work would have to be Pacino:
Serpico
And Justice for All
Dog Day Afternoon
Scarface
Sea of Love
Frankie and Johnny
Scent of a Woman
Heat
City Hall
Donnie Brasco
Any Given Sunday
and of course those Godfather films

I find it interesting that his grandparents came from Corleone, Sicily.

Poitier is still alive, but better than Kirk Douglas?

Didn't even think about Eastwood....Damn.

Or Kathy Bates.....

"Greatest" based on what?
Robert DeNiro is good but he's pretty much the same in every movie.
You can anticipate his facial features and how he's going to react.
Even his comedy roles act out the same way.
To me that's not good acting.

Although I don't like many of his movies I think Johnny Depp is outstanding just because of his wide range of the type of characters he portrays.

Jimmy Stewart, to me is outstanding (I know he's dead).
I enjoy every movie he's in, even the obscure ones but again it's always a Jimmy Stewart type character.


This one is for you Cail: youcantmakeitup.blogspot.com/2005/06/gr ... armon.html

I personally prefer Poitier's overal body of work and intensity. Agreed Douglas stared in three of the most influential movies of his time: Spartacus, The Vikings and Detective Story and I love The War Wagon, Shootout at the OK Corral, Lonely are the Brave, Lust for Life and Young Man with a Horn. But Poitier had three excellent films that went a long way towards breaking down racial barriers: To Sir with Love, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and of course the landmark In the Heat of the Night, and you can't doubt his worth in A Raisin in the Sun, Lillies of the Field, The Long Ships, The Bedford Incident, They Call me MISTER Tibbs! and The Jackal.

They're both great, but I give the edge to Poitier.

Douglas:

Out of the Past (one of my favorite movies)
The Glass Menagerie
Detective Story
The Bad and the Beautiful
The List of Adrian Messenger
Seven Days in May
In Harm's Way
The Final Countdown

And the films you mentioned.


Poitier made some great movies too, and I'll grant that he was groundbreaking, but based on talent alone, I feel pretty comfortable with Douglas.

HLT- I don't see many similarities between Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta.

Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman and Eastwood, among those I've seen mentioned so far. Richard Dreyfuss, Denzel Washington, Tommy Lee Jones and Billy Bob Thornton I haven't seen mentioned yet but are pretty darn good.

It's all a matter of personal tastes-it's very hard for an actor to be a terribly diverse actor, one might say that Pacino, Eastwood, Nicholson and Hackman have a hard time breaking away from their own mold. As far as popping up in roles where you have a hard time recognizing him I'll have to give some props to Gary Oldman-he's one strange bird. Kevin Spacey, Kevin Braughnan and to some degree Norton and Depp-not to mention Philip Seymore Hoffman (who can go from MI3 bad ass to Truman Capote) are fairly diverse. Sean Penn tries, I'll give him that, he tries...

John Cazale is my favorite actor. And I'd daresay he's the best character actor who ever lived. Toshiro Mifune is up there with Brando, Pacino, and De Niro for me. Daniel Day-Lewis is also able to give transcendent performances.

Peter O'Toole, if just for Lawrence of Arabia.

I've not seen enough Kirk Douglas to judge. He just looks like a guy with a big chin, an action-hero version of Michael Douglas. Of course, first impressions can be brutally wrong.

Some interesting nominations by all.

The whole issue of breadth of work versus a more one dimensional character actor is why I have such a hard time personally judging acting talent. I am not calling Mr. Eastwood one dimensional mind you, but if he never made any movies other than the spaghetti westerns or the Dirty Harry series he would still be one of my favorites. Christopher Walken had the same delivery movie after movie but I love him (quirky SOB.)

Not sure but did anyone mention John Malcovich (spelling?) yet? He's one guy I wouldn't rent an apartment next to...

Cazale was a fantastic actor-I did tell you before that I saw him live in the play The Contractor at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn in 1972, right?

danlo wrote:It's all a matter of personal tastes-it's very hard for an actor to be a terribly diverse actor, one might say that Pacino, Eastwood, Nicholson and Hackman have a hard time breaking away from their own mold. As far as popping up in roles where you have a hard time recognizing him I'll have to give some props to Gary Oldman-he's one strange bird. Kevin Spacey, Kevin Braughnan and to some degree Norton and Depp-not to mention Philip Seymore Hoffman (who can go from MI3 bad ass to Truman Capote) are fairly diverse. Sean Penn tries, I'll give him that, he tries...

Kevin Spacey and Gary Oldman, both very excellent, and have played many very different roles.

Alec Baldwin

In all seriousness, Baldwin is one helluva actor.

I really liked him in Heaven's Prisoners and Mercury Rising.

Yeah, Heaven's prisoners is a really underrated film.

So, I assume this is limited to actors who appear in English-language films?

Lots of good choices so far, but has anyone mentioned Ben Kingsley? Anyone who can go from Ghandi to Don Logan and do both so utterly convincingly is in the running for greatest living actor, for sure.

i can't believe someone else saw Heaven's Prisoners besides me! i was skeptical of baldwin doing dave robicheaux but i thought he did a remarkably good job. the opening monologue is excellent.

to weigh in on this topic, i would be hard-pressed to call any actor the "greatest living actor."
there's just too many great ones and everyone likes who they like for a wide variety of reasons. (montressor's case for kingsley, case in point)
versatility would certainly be one of my conciderations were i attempting to whittle down the field a bit.
many of the actors mentioned have done more than one role that would near qualify them for the title (i.e. deniro in raging bull, etc so on and so forth)

i'll just throw out a name not yet mentioned, i don't know that he's the "greatest living" but he's certainly up there in my book for The Lion in Winter alone. Peter O'Toole.

that said, i'm a huge Pacino fan.