The OTHER 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century

The movie critics at New York Times released their list of the 25 greatest actors of the past 20 years last week and let's just say there was much to be desired. How could you have a list of the best actors and leave out Christian and Cate, Leo and Charlize? Meryl Streep should just be a default for any list of best actors in the last century. But the Times compiled a unique list perhaps hoping to spark debate, diverse with actors best known for supporting roles, arthouse and world cinema as well as obvious picks such as Daniel Day Lewis, Viola Davis, Juliane Moore and Joaquin Phoenix. They even threw in Keanu for kicks -- the John Wick trilogy is bad ass and I have no problems with his addition. But, the fact they didn't recognize the McConaissance is malarkey so I'm making things right with an alternative list. 

While I'm not assigning any rankings to mine, the NYT ranked the actors with Denzel landing at #1, of which I find little room for debate (I still think he was robbed of his second Best Actor Oscar for Fences). Yet how one ranks Toni Servillo before Joaquin Phoenix is beyond me. So here's my list:

 

Christian Bale   
Leonardo DiCaprio

Cate Blanchett
 
Phillip Seymour Hoffman


Lupita Nyong'o

 
 
Meryl Streep
 
Jamie Foxx

Tony Leung

Penelope Cruz

Matthew McConaughey

Adam Driver


Chadwick Boseman

Jennifer Lawrence


Richard Jenkins


Mark Ruffalo

 
Charlize Theron

Toni Collette


Benicio del Torro

Jake Gyllenhaal

Zhang Ziyi

Scarlett Johansson


Steven Yeun
                                                                         

Ryan Gosling

Sally Hawkins


Frances McDormand




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