10 Best Movie Casts

Forget your huge explosions and CGI extravaganzas – there is nothing more awe-inspiring to watch on screen than a great line up of famous actors bouncing off each other.  

This here list disregards ‘ensemble casts’ – movies that follow multiple storylines and are often somewhat cynically designed to sell on the strength of the line-up alone.  So recent efforts such as He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Day don’t count, and neither do all-star disaster flicks.  I also discounted multiple interlocking epic story type efforts, so much of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson’s output.  In short, no movie that feels like it’s trying to have a star-studded cast. Which also, sadly, rules out the Expendables films, which are heavily marketed around their gimmicky casts.

Each entry had to have at least ten names in the cast list that can legitimately be described as ‘recognisable’ – either by name or face.  So although I considered titles like Glengarry Glenn Ross, The Big Chill and Troy, for all their quality they simply don’t have the quantity.

So here’s the top ten (and a couple of special cases):

10. Top Gun (1986)  AKA ‘The 80s Special’




Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis,  Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Tim Robbins, James Tolkan

See also: Silverado (1985)

9. The Departed (2006)  AKA ‘The Awards-baiter’

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson, David O'Hara

See also: JFK (1991)

8. Out of Sight (1998)  AKA ‘The Soderbergh Brigade’

George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, Luis Guzmán, Isaiah Washington, Nancy Allen, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson

See also: Traffic (2000)

7. A Time to Kill (1996)  AKA ‘The Courtroom Collaboration.’

Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson,  Kevin Spacey,  Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Brenda Fricker, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Patrick McGoohan, Ashley Judd, Chris Cooper, Kurtwood Smith, M. Emmet Walsh

See also: A Few Good Men (1992)

6. TrueRomance (1993)  AKA ‘The Tarantino Collection’

Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Saul Rubinek, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Samuel L. Jackson

See also: Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. Enemy of the State (1998)  AKA ‘The Young Cast Showcase’

Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Barry Pepper, Ian Hart, Jake Busey, Scott Caan, Jason Lee, Jack Black, Jamie Kennedy, Seth Green, James LeGros, Gabriel Byrne, Philip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight

See also: The Outsiders (1983)

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)  
AKA ‘The Fantasy Folio’

Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian Holm, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee

See also: any of the Harry Potter movies (2001–2011)

3. Heat (1995)  AKA ‘The Crime Spree’

Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner, Natalie Portman, Tom Noonan, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Piven, Xander Berkeley, Mykelti Williamson

See also: Snatch (2000)

2. Mars Attacks (1996)  AKA ‘The Comic Ensemble’

Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Pam Grier, Lisa Marie, Jack Black, Christina Applegate, Paul Winfield

See also: Tropic Thunder (2008)

And the winner is:

1. Sin City (2005)  AKA ‘The Rodriguez and Pals’

Mickey Rourke, Jaime King, Carla Gugino, Elijah Wood, Rutger Hauer, Josh Hartnett, Clive Owen, Benicio del Toro, Rosario Dawson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Alexis Bledel, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Michael Madsen, Nicky Katt

See also: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

Honourable mentions

Ocean’s Twelve (2004)  AKA ‘The Love-in’

This would have certainly won, were it not for being firmly in the consciously-starry camp.  But it deserves recognition for being possibly the most smugly self-aware movie of all time, that Julia Roberts/’Julia Roberts’ skit alone being so brazenly arrogant that it’s actually quite charming in its audacity.

Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Casey Affleck

Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison, Elliott Gould

Jared Harris, Vincent Cassel, Eddie Izzard, Robbie Coltrane, Albert Finney, Bruce Willis

See also: Ocean’s Eleven/Ocean’s Thirteen (2001/2007)

The Thin Red Line (1998)  AKA ‘The We’re-all-Brothers-in-War’

Again, without my selection criteria this would have been well up there.  But having every principal character be a soldier makes the actors (literally) too uniform, diluting their star power.  And they often feel like merely faces in the background anyway, as Terence Malick focuses his true attention on a tree, or an insect, or a blade of grass.

Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Jared Leto, Tim Blake Nelson, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, Thomas Jane, Miranda Otto, Nick Stahl

And a whole host of stars turned up on set, only to be cut from the final print:

Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas,

Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen, Mickey Rourke

See also: Black Hawk Down (2001)