The 25 Greatest Movie Character Actors: WEJB/NSU vs. IMDB

By Nicholas Stix

Outside of diehard Mets fans, the nickname “the amazin’ Mets” was born as mockery and the characteristic mangling of the English language affectionately known as “Stengelese.” The Mets’ first skipper, Casey Stengel, said exasperatedly of the worst team in big league history, “They’re amazin.’”

And so it is increasingly the case with IMDB.com. One of the many features that make IMDB amazin’ is its lists, which are typically compiled by people who seem to be, on average, 12 years old. But it goes deeper than that. They’re not movie lovers! Passionate, sophisticated, 12-year-old movie lovers would come up with vastly superior lists.

Thus, we have sethgecko61’s list of The 25 Best Character Actors of All Time. Most of these men are fine actors, but the “25 Greatest”?
 

By sethgecko61

1. R. Lee Ermey
2. Ben Johnson
3. Jack Elam
4. Robert Shaw
5. Claude Rains
6. John Cazale
7. Warren Oates
8. Edward G. Robinson
9. James Cromwell
10. Tom Sizemore
11. Peter Lorre
12. Brendan Gleeson
13. Keith David
14. F. Murray Abraham
15. Harry Dean Stanton
16. Geoffrey Lewis
17. Walter Huston
18. Burt Young
19. Liev Schreiber
20. Kevin Pollak
21. Michael Parks
22. George Kennedy
23. James Gammon
24. Robert Ryan
25. Levon Helm
 

Where’s Walter Brennan? Thomas Mitchell? Karl Malden? Ward Bond? In my book, those rank as the four greatest movie character actors. So, I decided to come up with my own list. Only three members of the above list—Shaw, Rains, and Ryan—made mine.

In the following list, the first four names are in order of stature. The remaining 21 are in arbitrary order.

By Nicholas Stix

1. Walter Brennan
2. Thomas Mitchell
3. Karl Malden
4. Ward Bond
5. Frank Morgan
6. Arthur Kennedy
7. Martin Balsam
8. Mickey Rooney
9. Martin Landau
10. Anthony Quinn
11. Edmond O’Brien
12. Peter Boyle
13. Barry Fitzgerald
14. Lionel Barrymore
15. Richard Basehart
16. Claude Rains
17. Pat O’Brien
18. Jack Palance
19. Jon Voight (later work)
20. Ernest Borgnine
21. Robert Ryan
22. James Whitmore
23. Clifton Webb
24. Lee J. Cobb
25. Robert Shaw