Famous Actors: Ranked by Popularity (Page 3 of 29) | Who Shares My BirthdayThe most famous actors in history, ranked by historical popularity: film, TV and stage stars with their birthdays, nationality and best-known work.An actor becomes notable when audiences remember the person as well as the part. Some earn that through a single role that enters popular culture, others through careers spanning decades of film, television and theatre. The actors near the top of this list are recognised across many countries and languages, not just in the industry where they made their name.This list covers the film, television, stage and voice actors in our database, from silent-era stars to today's leading performers. We rank them by historical popularity, not by awards or box office, so the order reflects who people around the world still look up most.Who is included: everyone in our database whose primary occupation matches this list. Each person must have an English Wikipedia article and a full date of birth recorded on Wikidata. A growing share of people also have an original profile, written to our editorial rules and marked with a Last reviewed date.Most famous actor: Charlie Chaplin. Highest historical popularity score (HPI 89.8).Most common birth month: April. 149 of 1,443 were born in April.Living vs deceased: 1,031 / 412. 71% are still living.Most common nationality: American. 818 people, 57% of the list.Editor-written profiles: 318. 22% have a full original profile so far.101. Charlton Heston (1923–2008), American: Played Moses in The Ten Commandments and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ben-Hur.102. Donald Sutherland (1935–2024), Canadian: Starred in M*A*S*H and Klute, and later played President Snow in The Hunger Games films.103. Ben Affleck (1972), American: Actor and director who won Oscars for writing Good Will Hunting and producing Argo.104. James Mason (1909–1984), British: Earned an Oscar nomination for playing the alcoholic actor Norman Maine in A Star Is Born.105. Johnny Depp (1963), American: Played Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, earning an Oscar nomination for the first.106. Diane Keaton (1946–2025), American: Won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the title role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall.107. Charlotte Rampling (1946), British: Film actress who earned acclaim in The Night Porter and received an Oscar nomination for 45 Years.108. Gary Cooper (1901–1961), American: Won Academy Awards for Sergeant York and High Noon, becoming a model of the quiet Hollywood hero.109. Peter Falk (1927–2011), American: Played the rumpled, shrewd detective in the television series Columbo, winning four Primetime Emmy Awards for the role.110. Samuel L. Jackson (1948), American: Actor famed for playing hitman Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction and Nick Fury in Marvel films.111. Roger Moore (1927–2017), British: Actor who played James Bond in seven films, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill.112. Cary Grant (1904–1986), British-American: Debonair leading man of Hollywood's golden age, starring in Bringing Up Baby and North by Northwest.113. Jane Fonda (1937), American: Two-time Oscar winner for Klute and Coming Home, also known for her workout videos and activism.114. Burt Lancaster (1913–1994), American: Hollywood leading man who won the Best Actor Oscar for Elmer Gantry and starred in From Here to Eternity.115. Bill Paxton (1955–2017), American: Played Private Hudson in Aliens and starred in the HBO drama Big Love.116. Keanu Reeves (1964), Canadian: Starred as Neo in The Matrix films and as the vengeful assassin in the John Wick series.117. John Travolta (1954), American: Starred as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever and as Danny Zuko in the musical film Grease.118. Jean Gabin (1904–1976), French: Leading star of French cinema, remembered for his roles in La Grande Illusion and Pépé le Moko.119. Tony Curtis (1925–2010), American: Hollywood leading man who starred opposite Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot.120. Val Kilmer (1959–2025), American: Played Jim Morrison in The Doors and later took on the role of Batman in Batman Forever.121. Yves Montand (1921–1991), French: Singer and actor who starred in the thriller The Wages of Fear and made the song Les Feuilles mortes famous.122. Christopher Plummer (1929–2021), Canadian: Won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Beginners, and played Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music.123. Gwyneth Paltrow (1972), American: Actress who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Shakespeare in Love and later founded the lifestyle company Goop.124. Raul Julia (1940–1994), American: Stage and screen actor remembered as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family films.125. Helen Mirren (1945), British: Won an Academy Award for playing Elizabeth II in the film The Queen.126. Jane Birkin (1946–2023), British: Actress and singer who recorded Je t'aime... moi non plus with Serge Gainsbourg.127. Orson Welles (1915–1985), American: Director, co-writer and star of Citizen Kane, who also caused panic with his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.128. Tommy Lee Jones (1946), American: Won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor playing Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive.129. Paulette Goddard (1910–1990), American: Hollywood leading lady who co-starred with Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times and The Great Dictator.130. Klaus Kinski (1926–1991), German: Volatile screen presence who starred in Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, among more than a hundred films.131. Judi Dench (1934), British: Won an Oscar for playing Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love and played M in Bond films.132. Roberto Benigni (1952), Italian: Comic actor who won Oscars as director and star of Life Is Beautiful.133. Tyrone Power (1914–1958), American: Swashbuckling leading man of Hollywood's golden age, famous for The Mark of Zorro and Witness for the Prosecution.134. Robert Duvall (1931–2026), American: Actor who played the consigliere Tom Hagen in The Godfather and won an Oscar for Tender Mercies.135. Jason Statham (1967), British: Led the Transporter action films and later joined the ensemble cast of The Expendables.136. Michael Gambon (1940–2023), Irish: Acclaimed stage actor who played Albus Dumbledore in six of the Harry Potter films.137. Pran (1920–2013), Indian: Hindi cinema's most feared screen villain for decades, later also admired in character roles in films such as Zanjeer.138. Christopher Lloyd (1938), American: Played the eccentric inventor Doc Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy.139. Robert Forster (1941–2019), American: Character actor who earned an Oscar nomination as bail bondsman Max Cherry in Jackie Brown.140. Mel Gibson (1956), American-Australian: Actor and director who starred as Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon and won an Oscar for directing Braveheart.141. Monica Bellucci (1964), Italian: Model turned actress of Malèna, The Matrix sequels and the Bond film Spectre.142. Michael York (1942), British: English actor of Cabaret and The Three Musketeers, later Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers films.143. Demi Moore (1962), American: Hollywood star of Ghost and A Few Good Men who became the highest-paid actress in the world by 1995.144. Susan Sarandon (1946), American: Actor of Thelma & Louise who won an Oscar for Dead Man Walking.145. Rita Hayworth (1918–1987), American: Hollywood star of the 1940s whose title role in Gilda made her one of the era's great screen icons.146. Jean Renoir (1894–1979), French: Director of La Grande Illusion, a humane prison-camp drama set in the First World War, and The Rules of the Game.147. Irene Papas (1926–2022), Greek: Greek actress who appeared in Zorba the Greek and The Guns of Navarone.148. Spencer Tracy (1900–1967), American: Natural, versatile screen actor who won consecutive Oscars for Captains Courageous and Boys Town, and made nine films with Katharine Hepburn.149. Christoph Waltz (1956), Austrian: Won an Academy Award for playing the chilling SS officer Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.150. Rutger Hauer (1944–2019), Dutch: Played the rebel replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, delivering the famous "tears in rain" speech.How we rank and selectRanking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.Last reviewed: October 2026Sources: Pantheon: Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rankings, Wikidata: birth dates, death dates and occupations, Wikipedia: biographies behind our summaries and popularity scores. Who Shares My Birthday.

Charlton Heston

Donald Sutherland

Charlotte Rampling

Samuel L. Jackson

Christopher Plummer

Gwyneth Paltrow

Tommy Lee Jones

Paulette Goddard

Roberto Benigni

Christopher Lloyd

Monica Bellucci

Christoph Waltz

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Famous Actors

The best-known film, television and stage actors in our archive, ranked by historical popularity.

1,443 actors in our database, ranked by historical popularity. Page 3 of 29.

Most famous actor

Charlie Chaplin

Highest historical popularity score (HPI 89.8)

Most common birth month

April

149 of 1,443 were born in April

Living vs deceased

1,031 / 412

71% are still living

Most common nationality

American

818 people, 57% of the list

Editor-written profiles

318

22% have a full original profile so far

The ranked list (from #101)

How we rank and select

Ranking: people are ordered by their Historical Popularity Index (HPI) from Pantheon. HPI combines how many Wikipedia language editions have an article about a person, how many page views those articles get, how evenly the views are spread across languages and how long ago the person lived. People Pantheon does not yet cover are listed after them, ordered by our own popularity score (the number of Wikipedia language editions with an article about them).
Membership: each person appears in one occupation list only, based on their primary occupation as classified by Pantheon (for example, a queen who wrote poetry is listed as royalty, not as a writer). Kings, queens, emperors, sultans and royal consorts are not listed as politicians or writers: anyone who held a monarch's office on Wikidata, and never served as a president or head of government, counts as royalty. For the few people Pantheon does not cover, we use the primary field recorded in our database.
One-line summaries: each summary is an original line written for this site with AI assistance under our editorial rules, then checked against the Wikipedia introduction so no wording is copied.
Statistics: every figure on this page is calculated live from our database each time the page loads, so it changes as we add people.

Further reading

Reviewed by the Who Shares My Birthday editorial team.

Last reviewed: October 2026

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