I think Magilla won’t mind if I post my own list here.
I’m actually one of those people who are usually opposed to the idea of ranking actors and performances, but after Magilla’s and Premier’s lists, I started to think about my own choices. Here’s what I came up with. I couldn’t possibly sort these performances in preferential order, however, and I only included one performance from each actor. I’ll see if I can make a similar list for actresses also.
1. Erich von Stroheim, Foolish Wives (1922)
2. Emil Jannings, The Last Laugh (1925)
3. Harold Lloyd, Safety Last (1926)
4. Buster Keaton, The General (1927)
5. James Murray, The Crowd (1928)
6. Peter Lorre, M (1931)
7. Fredric March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
8. Paul Muni, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
9. Groucho Marx, Duck Soup (1933)
10. William Powell, The Thin Man (1934)
11. Walter Huston, Dodsworth (1936)
12. Jean Gabin, Grand Illusion (1937)
13. James Cagney, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
14. Cary Grant, Bringing Up Baby (1938)
15. Clark Gable, Gone with the Wind (1939)
16. Laurence Olivier, Wuthering Heights (1939)
17. Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator (1940)
18. Henry Fonda, The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
19. Ronald Colman, Random Harvest (1942)
20. Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend (1945)
21. Nikolai Cherkasov, Ivan the Terrible Part II (1946/58)
22. James Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
23. Humphrey Bogart, The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
24. Spencer Tracy, Adam’s Rib (1949)
25. Toshiro Mifune, Rashomon (1950)
26. Montgomery Clift, A Place in the Sun (1951)
27. Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train (1951)
28. Carlo Battisti, Umberto D (1952)
29. Kirk Douglas, The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
30. Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
31. John Wayne, The Quiet Man (1952)
32. Burt Lancaster, From Here to Eternity (1953)
33. Chishu Ryu, Tokyo Story (1953)
34. Richard Widmark, Pickup on South Street (1953)
35. Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront (1954)
36. Bing Crosby, The Country Girl (1954)
37. Anthony Quinn, La strada (1954)
38. Frank Sinatra, The Man with the Golden Arm (1954)
39. James Dean, East of Eden (1955)
40. Robert Mitchum, The Night of the Hunter (1955)
41. Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
42. Charles Laughton, Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
43. Victor Sjöström, Wild Strawberries (1957)
44. Tony Curtis, Some Like It Hot (1959)
45. Jack Lemmon, Some Like It Hot (1959)
46. Alain Delon, Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
47. Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita (1961)
48. Peter O’Toole, Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
49. Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
50. Oskar Werner, Jules and Jim (1962)
51. Paul Newman, Hud (1963)
52. Peter Sellers, The Pink Panther (1963)
53. Eiji Okada, Woman on the Dunes (1964)
54. Richard Burton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
55. Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons (1966)
56. Warren Beatty, Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
57. Donald Pleasance, Cul-de-Sac (1967)
58. John Marley, Faces (1968)
59. Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy (1969)
60. Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy (1969)
61. George C. Scott, Patton (1970)
62. Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange (1971)
63. Topol, Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
64. Bunta Sugawara, Battles without Honor and Humanity (1973)
65. Vittorio Gassman, We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
66. Gene Hackman, The Conversation (1974)
67. Nino Manfredi, We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
68. Al Pacino, The Godfather Part II (1974)
69. Gene Wilder, Young Frankenstein (1974)
70. Michael Caine, The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
71. Sean Connery, The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
72. Tim Curry, Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
73. Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
74. Peter Finch, Network (1976)
75. William Holden, Network (1976)
76. Woody Allen, Annie Hall (1977)
77. Robert De Niro, Raging Bull (1980)
78. John Hurt, The Elephant Man (1980)
79. Ben Kingsley, Gandhi (1982)
80. F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus (1984)
81. Tom Hulce, Amadeus (1984)
82. Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot (1989)
83. Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society (1989)
84. Chow Yun-Fat, God of Gamblers (1990)
85. Gérard Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
86. Johnny Depp, Edward Scissorhands (1990)
87. Leslie Cheung, Days of Being Wild (1991)
88. Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
89. Denzel Washington, Malcolm X (1992)
90. David Thewlis, Naked (1993)
91. Tony Leung, Chungking Express (1994)
92. Temuera Morrison, Once Were Warriors (1994)
93. Nicolas Cage, Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
94. Morgan Freeman, Seven (1995)
95. Jim Carrey, The Truman Show (1998)
96. Ian McKellen, Gods and Monsters (1998)
97. Russell Crowe, The Insider (1999)
98. Edward Norton, Fight Club (1999)
99. Brad Pitt, Fight Club (1999)
100. Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys (2000)
Penelope wrote:Impressive list, Magilla. I'm curious about 2 things:
1. Are you considering reorganizing this list by preference rather than chronology? (I'm still working on my worst Oscars list, but as soon as that's done, I'm gonna compile my best performances list, and I'm wondering how to do that--I might follow your lead and do a chronological list first, then reorganize by preference. One other thing I will do is limit each actor [and actress, when I get to that list] to one performance only, which means some tough decisions....)
2. Maurice Chevalier but no Charles Boyer?
Preference is tough, so for the time being, no I'm not working on that.
Chevalier gave my second favorite lead performance in 1961, Boyer my sixth. It's always puzzled me how Boyer cold have won an Oscar nomination for Fanny over Chevalier whose performance was the best thing about the film.
Impressive list, Magilla. I'm curious about 2 things:
1. Are you considering reorganizing this list by preference rather than chronology? (I'm still working on my worst Oscars list, but as soon as that's done, I'm gonna compile my best performances list, and I'm wondering how to do that--I might follow your lead and do a chronological list first, then reorganize by preference. One other thing I will do is limit each actor [and actress, when I get to that list] to one performance only, which means some tough decisions....)
2. Maurice Chevalier but no Charles Boyer?
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
100 Great Performances by Actors in Leading Roles Since 1927 (the beginning of the Oscar era)
1. Buster Keaton in The General (1927)
2. Charles Chaplin in The Circus (1928)
3. Peter Lorre in M (1931)
4. Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
5. Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
6. Paul Muni in Scarface (1932)
7. Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)
8. Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934)
9. William Powell in The Thin Man (1934)
10. Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
11. Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
12. Walter Huston in Dodsworth (1936)
13. Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937)
14. James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
15. Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
16. Spencer Tracy in Boys Town (1938)
17. Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
18. James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
19. Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
20. Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941)
21. Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe (1941)
22. Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941)
23. Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
24. James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
25. Charles Boyer in Gaslight (1944)
26. Gregory Peck in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
27. Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945)
28. Edward G. Robinson in Scarlet Street (1945)
29. Fredric March in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
30. James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
31. Laurence Olivier, in Hamlet (1948)
32. Gregory Peck in Twelve O’Clock High (1949)
33. William Holden in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
34. Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
35. Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951)
36. Alastair Sim in A Christmas Carol (1951)
37. John Wayne in The Quiet Man (1952)
38. Montgomery Clift in From Here to Eternity (1953)
39. Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny (1954)
40. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954)
41. Bing Crosby in The Country Girl (1954)
42. James Dean in East of Eden (1955)
43. Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter (1955)
44. Kirk Douglas, in Lust for Life (1956)
45. John Wayne in The Searchers (1956)
46. Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
47. Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
48. Victor Sjostrom in Wild Strawberries (1957)
49. Spencer Tracy in The Last Hurrah (1958)
50. Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot (1959)
51. James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
52. Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960)
53. Maurice Chevalier in Fanny (1961)
54. Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
55. Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
56. Albert Finney in Tom Jones (1963)
57. Paul Newman in Hud (1963)
58. Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field (1963)
59. Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964)
60. Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek (1964)
61. Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools (1965)
62. Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons (1966)
63. Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night (1967)
64. Peter O’Toole in The Lion in Winter (1968)
65. Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy (1969)
66. Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy (1969)
67. George C. Scott in Patton (1970)
68. Peter Finch in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
69. Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange (1971)
70. Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)
71. Jack Nicholson in Chinatown (1974)
72. Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II (1974)
73. Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
74. Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
75. Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
76. Art Carney in The Late Show (1977)
77. Marcello Mastroianni in A Special Day (1977)
78. Jon Voight in Coming Home (1978)
79. Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond (1981)
80. Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie (1982)
81. Paul Newman in The Verdict (1982)
82. Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies (1983)
83. Albert Finney in Under the Volcano (1984)
84. Jack Lemmon in Mass Appeal (1984)
85. William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
86. Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
87. Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot (1989)
88. Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
89. River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho (1991)
90. Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
91. Denzel Washington in Malcolm X (1992)
92. Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (1993)
93. Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking (1995)
94. Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters (1998)
95. Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story (1999)
96. Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls (2000)
97. Jamie Bell in Billy Elliott (2000)
98. Michel Douglas in Wonder Boys (2000)
99. Michael Caine in The Quiet American (2002)
100. Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain (2005)
