Who is the best living actor of Philip Seymour Hoffman's generation?

man i'd take river phoenix and hoffman over anyone above and i'd probably extend the parameters to include joaquin phoenix who might've gotten my vote. as it is i guess robert downey jr though it'd be nice to have something recent to back the argument up.

i was surprised not to see leo on the list but apparently he was born one year after your cut-off

Yeah, extending it just one year in either direction would bring actors like Kenneth Branagh, Sean Penn, Leo DiCaprio, Joaquin Phoenix, and Christian Bale into the mix. Which could've been interesting to include, but with everyone else born in 1960 and 1974, it would've been over the poll limit.

penn and branagh feel very much like a different generation, penn esp. by the time psh was just getting started ppl were wondering if/when penn would act again and writing concerned pieces about the finest actor of his generation just walking away from his talent etc.

tom cruise being pretty much the same age as ralph fiennes and just a year older than johnny depp and brad pitt is one of those things that makes sense if i think about it but seems so weird on its face.

it almost feels like cruise has been with us for centuries and centuries

Glad Daniel Day-Lewis isn't on here (1957, after checking). I'd have to think about this, but my favourite performances would be: Tim Roth in Reservoir Dogs, Forest Whitaker in Smoke, Don Cheadle in Boogie Nights, John C. Reilly in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me and Zodiac, Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men, Robert Downey, Jr. (who I generally don't like) in Zodiac, and Matt Damon in Rounders. So probably one of them. Jude Law is one of our finest actors, but he won't win.

man i'd take river phoenix and hoffman over anyone above

You know, when I had the idea for this thread, it was really to say "OK, who is it now?" -- but including Hoffman and River Phoenix (was there anyone else? I don't recall) might've been worthwhile to simply test the argument that Hoffman was the best.

Brits born in 1960 who wd be in the discussion: Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance. The youngest US film actor I think has been consistently good to great is Sean Penn, also born '60.

Branagh has done mostly crap on film for the last 15 years, of course, ditto David Thewlis.

Nicolas Cage reportedly has a solid serious indie perf coming up this year, but he's been a joke for years.

I need to see a guy onstage to call him great, but that's just me maybe.

i'm tempted to say giamatti but his scope seems too limited. didn't realize cranston was so much older than these guys (though obv has no oscar nomination)

When these guys act it all seems the same to me so I'll just go with the guy who gave the performance I enjoyed the most (Hugh Jacman in The Wolverine)

Michael Shannon, b. 1974!

Assorted others born during 1961-73 (no Oscar nominations):

Simon Russell Beale, Jared Harris, Andre Braugher, Matthew Broderick, Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Michael Chiklis, David Thewlis, Crispin Glover, Rob Lowe, Keanu Reeves, Mathieu Amalric, Kyle Chandler, Alan Cumming, Tracy Letts, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeremy Piven, Ben Stiller, Jeffrey Wright, Vincent Cassel, John Cusack, Guy Pearce, David Schwimmer, Kiefer Sutherland, Will Ferrell, Liev Schreiber, Rufus Sewell, Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Billy Crudup, Aaron Eckhart, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Rockwell, Michael Stuhlbarg, Owen Wilson, Jack Black, Peter Dinklage, Michael Sheen, Raul Esparza, Vince Vaughn, Bobby Cannavale, Sacha Baron Cohen, Michael C. Hall, Jon Hamm, Ewan McGregor, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Wahlberg, Ben Affleck, Idris Elba, Patrick Wilson, Neil Patrick Harris.

yeah i'd agree w/ penn being the youngest i can think of w/ consistent greatness - so many of them i look at and think of blown potential to a certain extent (norton, ruffalo, cheadle in a way - certainly little has approached his performance in devil in a blue dress imo), that might just be a reflection of the industry at large, just alot of time in amusement parks and comic books up there.

man include that no oscar nod group and i change my vote to jeffrey wright

man i thought dinklage was nominated for the station agent

Harrelson, Bardem, Renner and McConaughey (of late) don't disappoint me often if ever. I also think Wahlberg is better than half these guys, but that's cuz they are mostly movie stars. Carrey is snubbed bcz comedy.

Wright is formidable but I haven't seen him in much lately, and not onstage since Angels in America.

he was in the last hunger games w/ psh

you and i do not have conversations on this board, but yeah i know they both did paycheck shit

There some very good actors on this list mixed in with a lot of meh. Harrelson's a very strong actor. Bardem always interesting (except for in pap like Skyfall). Roth was a very good/great for a time now not so sure.

Crazy that Shannon is a year younger than me but somehow looks and plays 10 yrs older

Voted for Brolin as much on the strength of Milk as NCfOM. Obviously, Milk is nowhere near as good a film, but he's incredible in it.

this has got to be cage

Kinda inclined to go w Harrelson here. Does both comedy and drama really well. Almost always reliable to deliver an interesting performance. Love a lot of these other folks in individual things, but a lot of crap on everybody's resumes. Morbz comment on some other thread about available material not meeting the quality of available acting talent is otm.

Wright and Cassel and Mikkelsen definitely interesting too. Pearce a good actor. Danny Huston (also from the Proposition very good).

does he? i'd have guessed 40. xxxxp

also, why limit this to men?

Of jaymc's non-Oscar list, crispin glover all the way

who's the "best living actor" up there, the way joe dimaggio was the "best living ballplayer" even though ted williams and willie mays were alive and well. thinking depp was it but maybe there's been enough of a backlash that it's someone else (downey maybe). clooney would be a good candidate except his mystique or whatever is tied to his being a great movie star, he's maybe taken too seriously as an actor but he's not taken that damn seriously as an actor (ie if he'd somehow gotten an oscar nod for gravity it would definitely be him). what two guys up there would you pick for the equivalent of those james earl jones - malcolm mcdowell commercials? forest whitaker and ralph fiennes?

Sorry I didn't even see Fiennes up there. This is pretty easy. Fiennes definitely a better actor than anyone I named initially.

also, why limit this to men?

yeah was thinking the actress list might be more interesting and i'd have more confidence in my vote

jaymc marky mark got an oscar nomination for the departed

From the also-list, I was really liking Billy Crudup during his Without Limits/Jesus' Son/Almost Famous run. He seemed to disappear after that, although checking his IMDB page, he was still making a film a year, just stuff I rarely saw. I don't even think he registered with me in Public Enemies until the credits.

and obv ben affleck has had multiple oscar nominations and wins ;)

abstaining from voting due to marky mark snub

ok, but wtf is the throughline in Crispin's roles since George McFly? I can't think of any leads I've seen him in other than Willard and Bartleby (in which he is admittedly better than the movies)

xxxxxxxp

yeah Fiennes has chops and has been good or near-great in Schindler's, Spider, The End of the Affair, Coriolanus.

Crispin's not really a lead guy, it's true

Oh man forgot about Wahlberg! Oops.

The fact that Affleck has 2 Oscars and neither is for acting or directing is amusing to me.

xpost he was the true lead of river's edge

From jaymc's list of "others" above, Amalric, Wright, MGregor, Sarsgaard (plus dark horses Carrey & Wahlberg) are contenders for me. Gotta think on the poll list some more.

Probably just an optical/ temporal illusion, an aftereffect of PSH's death, or an arbitrary artifact of Hollywood career vicissitudes, but this Gen X cohort as a whole seems outshone by generation before and after (like, just by a year).

while the absence of marky still renders this poll a sham, gonna vote for clive owen just cuz that dude is not having the career he should have and i feel for him

Marky has of course been in what some consider two of the worst US films of last year

was also in the most extraordinary war film since saving private ryan iirc

broken city sucked and i haven't seen lone survivor or pain & gain, but if 2 guns is one of those movies, those "some" are welcome to feel the vibrations

actors on this list where i'd probably see (or at least, start) any movie they're in (if it's on hbo or netflix, not buying a ticket necessarily): cruise, cage, dillon, owen, reilly, brolin, downey, smith, damon, hawke, renner

and of course, marky

that dude is not having the career he should have and i feel for him - this is like most of the list for me

dillon really croup?

also not getting the plum gigs he deserves but i dig his vibe

he's doing some canadian heist movie with kurt russell that i sure hope appears on "recently added" soon

lol

I keep forgetting that films are just more TV these days

man someday owen's gonna get to play a dad in a movie (or maybe an hbo show) someone actually wants to see and his moment will come. unfortunately no wants to see a euro-snooze about the boogeyman or a film about web predators directed by david schwimmer.

ha, same here^

I feel like Danny Huston and Jeffrey Wright are a couple of heavyweights and should-be leading men/household names.

Of the big names up top I voted Downey Jr. w/ his rockist range and physicality. One of the handful of actors I'll stop to watch when flipping channels.

but he just does 'franchise' shit now

he was gonna star in the next PTA but i think the schedule didn't work out or something.

haha Downey, Jr. is actually the kind of actor Alex in SF should be suspicious: a star bringing a bag of mannerisms and ticks to every role as he "plays himself"

*should be suspicious of

while his schedule is indeed full of sherlock and stark, he also did Due Date in '10 and has two comedies coming out this year - admittedly nothing overtly oscarific since the soloist.

cage probably the most compelling actor on the list in terms of drawing you in to the worst fucking movies

idk how you judge any of this shit tho

(not an invitation for ppl to explain to me)

actually, turns out of one of the comedies is being planned for the '14 awards season, despite being directed by the dude from Wedding Crashers.

rdj will play a hotshot attorney going back to a hometown full of people like Melissa Leo and Billy Bob Thornton when his father, Judge Robert Duvall, is accused of murder.

in a wild road-trip w/ co-star zach galifianakis

i don't allow anybody to draw me into the worst fucking movies

he also did Due Date in '10

is this supposed to be a defense?

Downey has maybe the most disgusting four "known for" titles on his iMdB page: Avengers and three Iron Mans. Gee, where's The Gingerbread Man?

...in the $3 bin @ Big Lots where it belongs.

Now Back To School...

http://media1.onsugar.com/files/2010/05/18/4/192/1922283/rdj-back-to-school/i/Back-School-1986.jpg

howbout Short Cuts and Wonder Boys?

anyway he's too old for this thread.

surprised you aren't championing Two Girls and a Guy?

never saw that, but my fave moment in his career is probably when Mike Tyson slaps him in Black & White.

(he needs slapping more often)

anyway, thread needs more French and Asian actors

(sorry, he's not too old. i was anesthetized about 3 hours ago)

howbout Short Cuts and Wonder Boys?

Those I can get behind. (And TGM isn't ultra-bad, it's just that if Altman hadn't been involved, I'd have had no time for it.)

that's a big caveat! ditto Pririe Home Companion, OC and Stiggs, etc.

I don't know his exact age and he may be a little too old, but I'm going to say Naeem Uzimann.

I'd probably vote Damon. Second maybe Russell Crowe, though he's in a lot of crap.

Michael J. Fox (1961) is excellent in Casualties of War and Bright Lights, Big City.

xp Re: Jeffrey Wright. I heard the NYT theatre critic saying that about 10 years ago they had to decide who to name the best actor on Broadway and the top three contenders were Hoffman, Wright and Liev Schreiber. Given that I live in London and don't see many plays anyway, I love hearing about this side of things. Weird that 2/3 ended up in The Hunger Games.

no weirder than Mike Leigh's rep company filling out the Harry Potters

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

were sam rockwell eligible he'd probably be my actual vote.

xp Good point Morbs. I guess I'm just more used to seeing British stage actors in all kinds of things.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Two Will Smith votes making me laugh a little.

wait how many times did horseshoe vote

RUFFALO RUFFALO RUFFALO RUFFALO RUFFALO

Rark Muffalo.

The answer is obviously Drake.

lol i did not vote at all but otm!

about ruffalo, i mean

lol who are the two people who voted for paul giamatti?!

Love Ruffalo!

happiest @ Crowe getting 0

about 2 dozen of you are grounded

Depp's taken a hit. He probably would have won this 8-10 years ago.

Weird to think of Jared Leto and Jackie earle Haley as being in the same "generation"

Very surprised to find I voted for the winner here. (And in the actress thread, too!) Of everyone named in this thread, though, it probably should have been Tony Leung.

once again eddie gets robbed

Ha, just realized that I forgot someone else who technically qualified for this poll: Justin Henry, born in 1971, nominated at age 8 for Kramer vs. Kramer.

All those 0 votes could make a great heist movie together.

xp Well that changes everything.