He’s elegant, and menacing. And after he hits you with an ambiguous gaze that refuses to let you know if he is going to greet you or eat you, he starts talking with that oily voice. Scarier than Hannibal Lecter. He won an Oscar for exactly that sort of uncomfortable ambiguity, playing Klaus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune. Regardless of how you feel about spoilers, don’t let anyone tell you anything about the last minute of the film.

He’s the star of the amazing Dead RIngers, playing twins using an early version of computerized camera tracking that’s common now, but was a real wonder than. He plays twin ob/gyns, creating two characters with fully differentiated personalities who run a switcheroo on women to keep their love life interesting, a decision that eventually leads to messy problems. I always found it interesting that when he gave his acceptance speech for the well-deserved portrayal of Mr von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune, he went way out of his way to thank David Cronenberg, the director of the previous year’s Dead Ringers for teaching him so much about acting.

Ten best roles

10) Being Julia 9) The Merchant of Venice 8) Damage 7) Waterland 6) Love For Lydia 5) The French Lieutenant’s Woman 4) Reversal of Fortune 3) Moonlighting 2) Betrayal 1) Dead Ringers

Percentile rating

97.02

He’s Welsh. I remember him mainly as the stoner flatmate in Notting Hill, and I know I have seen him in Human Nature, in which he played some sort of ape-man in an early Charlie Kaufman-written script, and I saw him in what I would consider his most normal-guy role, playing a man who loses his job, and in a drunken state, attaches a large number of helium-filled weather balloons to his Deckchair and sails away into the clouds, only to land in an isolated community. It’s essentially a farcical take on the Man Who Would Be King, as he becomes a community leader even as his old life is coming after him. Supposedly it’s based on a true story, but that probably just means it was based on a news item in which a want-to-be deckchair pilot fell into a tree soon after leaving the ground.

In the films I seen featuring him, he’s not established any kind of persona that really sticks with me. That may be an excellent attribute of his acting chops, but I am not sure it says much about his star power.

Ten best roles

10) Notting Hill 9) Hotel 8) Heart 7) Elizabeth: The Golden Age 6) Janice Beard 45 WPM 5) Twin Town 4) You’re Dead 3) Human Nature 2) Danny Deckchair 1) Once Upon a Time In the Midlands

Percentile rating

79.29

Speaking of renaissance men. He’s not really a film actor, as such, he’s a very funny member of probably the greatest comedy troupe of all time, a troupe which managed to produce a hilarious TV series along with a couple of the funniest films of all time. But the very nature of what he and his Python cohorts did well (rapidfire gags and non-sequitars and multiple characters, often requiring cast members to play two or more parts in the same scene) seems antithetical to the sort of complex character-building necessary to play the lead in films.

And dear God, has he been in some bad ones, as his best 10 will reveal. It’s no great criticism that he doesn’t score very highly on this list, because he’s been such a comedic success in other areas.

Ten best roles

10) Dudley Do-Right 9) Nuns On the Run 8) Missing Pieces 7) Casper 6) And Now For Something Completely Different 5) Splitting Heirs 4) Mr Toad’s Wild Ride 3) Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 2) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 1) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Percentile score

74.69

Ice Cube has spent his whole career, first in music, and more often in recent years in film, quietly outshining his colleagues with a higher celebrity profile. But while many people were looking away, he’s accumulated a filmography that would be the envy of many of his peers.

He’s versatile as an actor as well. His ten best roles are roughly split between straight comedy, straight drama, and pure action films. And with his latest move into family comedies, he’s got as wide a demographic fanbase as anybody currently working. And he directs!

In the late 80’s, David Byrne was widely tauted as a renaissance man; Ice Cube could be the closest current thing to Byrne’s earlier takeover of multiple entertainment arenas, and at this point his total body of artistic achievement is likely to outshine Byrne’s.

Ten best roles

10) Anaconda 9) Torque 8) Barbershop 2: Back in Business 7) First Sunday 6) The Glass Shield 5) Dangerous Ground 4) Friday 3) Barbershop 2) Three Kings 1) Boyz n th Hood

Percentile rating

88.69

Clearly I will never be a journalist. Sincerely, I am sorry.

Here’s the current top 100. At this pace, I hope to have the whole list in place no later than my retirement.

1) Robert DeNiro 2) Woody Allen 3) Dustin Hoffman 4) Clint Eastwood 5) Catherine Deneuve

6) Gene Hackman 7) Robert Duvall 8) Harrison Ford 9) Gerard Depardieu 10) Julie Christie

11) Sean Connery 12) Johnny Depp 13) Richard Dreyfuss 14) Nicolas Cage 15) Jeff Bridges

16) John Cusack 17) Tom Hanks 18) Anthony Hopkins 19) Mel Gibson 20) Albert Finney

21) William Hurt 22) George Clooney 23) Bruno Ganz 24) Michael Caine 25) Michael Douglas

26) Kevin Costner 27) Tom Cruise 28) Isabelle Huppert 29) Mia Farrow 30) Jane Fonda

31) Daniel Auteuil 32) Ellen Burstyn 33) Ralph Fiennes 34) Bob Hoskins 35) Judy Davis

36) Dennis Hopper 37) Alan Bates 38) Emmanuelle Beart 39) Maggie Cheung 40) Matt Dillon

41) Richard Gere 42) Faye Dunaway 43) Juliette Binoche 44) Matthew Broderick 45) Isabelle Adjani

46) Glenn Close 47) Anjelica Huston 48) Russell Crowe 49) John Hurt 50) Leonardo DiCaprio

51) Leslie Caron 52) Holly Hunter 53) Albert Brooks 54) Ethan Hawke 55) Peter Fonda

56) Jodie Foster 57) Jim Carrey 58) Jackie Chan 59) Ian Holm 60) Sandrine Bonnaire

61) Willem Dafoe 62) Antonio Banderas 63) Morgan Freeman 64) Gabriel Byrne 65) James Caan

66) Keith Carradine 67) Helena Bonham Carter 68) Julie Andrews 69) James Garner 70) Laruen Bacall

71) Kevin Bacon 72) Elliott Gould 73) Bruce Dern 74) Colin FIrth 75) Anne Bancroft

76) Ed Harris 77) Cameron Diaz 78) Michel Bouquet 79) Kirsten Dunst 80) Hugh Grant

81) Alan Arkin 82) Jacqueline Bissett 83) Woody Harrelson 84) Anouk Aimee 85) John Goodman

86) Steve Buscemi 87) Giancarlo Giannini 88) Matt Damon 89) Angela Bassett 90) Peter Boyle

91) Danny Devito 92) Annette Bening 93) Alan Alda 94) Jim Broadbent 95) Danny Glover

96) Richard Benjamin 97) Harriet Andersson 98) Laurence Fishburne 99) Jennifer Connolly 100) Jake Gylenhall

I am aware that a few of these folks have passed on (James Garner most recently, bless his heart), but the qualification for getting on the list is that at the time I get to them, they have appeared in a theatrical release within the last 3 years. When I complete the list, theoretically it will be much quicker to update the entries, and that is when the recently departed will be moved over to the former actors list.

Please feel free to discuss these ratings; it won’t change them (after all, this is science) but it will be fun.

When I was 12, I was taking golf lessons in a public park program in Nashville. My dad was a solid working class golfer; he was never going to join a country club, but on the public courses he was pretty solid, generally shooting 8-10 overpar for 18 holes. He was very encouraging, and even though we were not rolling in dough, he and Mom scraped together the cash for me to take these lessons, 3 days a week throughout the summer.

One perk of taking these lessons was automatic entry into a city-wide tournament. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was played on “Little Shelby”, a par 29 course shoe-horned in between a longstanding rowhouse neighborhood and the Cumberland River. It was something like Nashville Junior Golfers Open, and was open to golfers between the ages (I think) of 8 and 15.

At the end of the first of a two-day tournament, I had somehow shot a 1 under par 28, and was in second place, only 1 shot back. My name was in the paper, and I could not sleep that night, worrying about round 2. Although I was not yet a teenager, I was filled with the terrifying thought that I may have just experienced the greatest day of my life, and that I was facing 60-80 years filled with days that could never ever be that good again. The next day I shot a 40, and finished about 50th.

All of that to say, when Ordinary People shows on TV, I immediately think of that day, and of how fond I am of Timothy Hutton, and how, although his best role probably occurred in his first theatrical feature, even when it’s that good early, it’s just a single good experience, and not the end of all of the good things in life.

I also LOVE Iceman, another 80’s film that hasn’t dated that well, but I don’t care. And for any FOT who might be tuned in…..Turk-182 it.

Ten best roles

10) Deliberate Intent 9) Deterrence 8) Stephanie Daley 7) Iceman 6) Daniel 5) Beautiful Girls 4) Taps 3) Q&A 2) Ordinary People 1) The Falcon and the Snowman

Percentile rating

89.70

It can’t be easy for an aspiring actress to grow up in the shadow of one of the greatest American directors. Huston started slow with bit parts and cameos. She’s got a very distinctive look that serves her better now as a middle-aged woman than it did as an awkward young woman. Her acting style has always projected confidence. She’s always in high demand, and her recurring role as the anchoring matriarch in Wes Anderson’s recent films has exposed her to a younger audience than she might otherwise enjoy. She’s also acquitted herself ably as a director in her own right, most recently with the Irish family comedy/drama Agnes Brown. By restricting herself to smaller film roles, she’s been able to appear in a dozen productions in the last 5 years, making her our new female Brian Dennehy.

Ten best roles

10) The Addams Family 9) Crimes and Misdemeanors 8) The Witches 7) Agnes Browne 6) Addams Family Values 5) The Royal Tenenbaums 4) Prizzi’s Honor 3) Enemies: A Love Story 2) The Dead 1) The Grifters

Percentile rating

96.64

I am led to understand that he’s got an enormous ego. That he would inform you that he is one of the greatest actors of his generation. At least we would have something to agree on.

I think that more than any other accomplished current actor, he projects absolute chilling cold in almost every performance. He comes across smart, intensely quiet, and sometimes cruel. He had this quality from his earliest film roles from his film debut in 1980 with Altered States. He’s appeared in around 60 films, and though he occasionally missteps, particularly in recent years, he still pulls in important roles with the likes of Cronenberg.

He’s also responsible for one of my favorite Saturday Night Live moments. When Kathleen Turner hosted, a few years after co-starring with Hurt in Body Heat, he appeared during her monologue to bemoan her appearance on a show that he would “never appear on.” It seemed so perfectly, condescendingly right, and this is coming from an admirer.

If you’ve not seen it in a while, I highly recommend Broadcast News; Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks are all perfect in it.

Ten best roles

10) Into the Wild 9) Gorky Park 8) Eyewitness 7) Altered States 6) The Accidental Tourist 5) Smoke 4) Kiss Of the Spider Woman 3) Children of a Lesser God 2) Broadcast News 1) Body Heat

Percentile rating

98.54

Frequently confused (by me) with Pamela Reed, although I don’t think Ms Reed ever appeared in a smart role in a Woody drama.

Like John Hurt, she scores with strong roles in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and recently (with 2006’s The Dead Girl), but her hottest period was 1989-1993 with the at-the-time-hilarious-but-may-not-have-dated-well Parents, Defenseless, Light Sleeper (under the direction of her husband Paul Schrader), and Six Degrees of Separation.

I find the quiet, intense, intellectual vibe she projects in Interiors and The World According To Garp appealing. I would like to see more of that in women’s roles, and fewer goofy sex kittens.

10) Parents 9) Light Sleeper 8) Chilly Scenes of Winter 7) Defenseless 6) Affliction 5) DARYL 4) Six Degrees of Separation 3) The Dead Girl 2) Interiors 1) The World According to Garp

Percentile rating

81.08