Freshest Actor

Inspired by the Oscars, I was curious find a way to determine best actor of our generation. As not many critics review actors in a quantifiable way, I chose to instead determine which actors have been in the best movies, so this is not quite best actor, lets call it the freshest actor. For funsies, I wrote a program to scrape Rotten Tomatoes and gather the scores from each movie that every recent top actor has been associated with, take the average, and show a tomatometer-like score. Recent top actors being ones who have at least 10 fresh movies under their belt and who have worked in the last 10 years. Credits that didn’t have tomatometer scores were excluded, and I didn’t set the program to filter out non-acting credits, so the actors who dabble in writing, directing or producing got those credits included. Here is the list of the top 100 as of posting:

Rank Name Score Rank Name Score
1 Daniel Day Lewis 82.50 51 Brad Pitt 62.58
2 Marlon Brando 74.31 52 John Malkovich 62.48
3 Clint Eastwood 73.54 53 Harrison Ford 62.43
4 Hugo Weaving 73.52 54 Carl Reiner 62.30
5 Jack Nicholson 73.31 55 Leonardo Dicaprio 62.24
6 Judi Dench 71.94 56 Hugh Grant 62.12
7 Emma Thompson 71.42 57 Michael Douglas 61.76
8 Helena Bonham Carter 71.23 58 Liam Neeson 60.87
9 Matt Damon 71.13 59 Adrien Brody 60.32
10 Sean Penn 70.83 60 Tommy Lee Jones 60.23
11 Julie Andrews 70.74 61 Michael Gambon 60.20
12 Tom Hanks 69.21 62 Jet Li 59.92
13 Meryl Streep 69.15 63 Gary Oldman 59.81
14 Phillip Seymour Hoffman 69.08 64 Ethan Hawke 59.71
15 Robert Duvall 69.00 65 Kevin Costner 59.18
16 Robert Redford 68.48 66 Clive Owen 59.11
17 Jodie Foster 68.07 67 Donald Sutherland 58.90
18 Gene Hackman 68.00 68 Peter O’Toole 58.89
19 Johnny Depp 67.22 69 Steve Buscemi 58.88
20 Alan Rickman 67.19 70 Joaquin Phoenix 58.57
21 Kate Winslet 67.16 71 Joan Cusack 58.40
22 Dustin Hoffman 67.14 72 Patrick Stewart 58.35
23 Denzel Washington 67.05 73 Jackie Chan 58.22
24 Don Cheadle 66.92 74 Nick Nolte 58.08
25 John Cusack 66.63 75 Viggo Mortensen 57.53
26 Edward Norton 66.48 76 Kevin Spacey 57.51
27 Cate Blanchett 66.47 77 Mos Def 57.45
28 Anna Paquin 65.77 78 Jim Carrey 57.38
29 Al Pacino 65.65 79 Jon Voight 57.37
30 Ralph Fiennes 65.42 80 Anthony Hopkins 57.36
31 Quentin Tarantino 65.22 81 Liv Tyler 57.35
32 Marylouise Parker 65.21 82 Samuel L Jackson 57.23
33 George Clooney 65.19 83 Morgan Freeman 57.00
34 Richard Dreyfuss 64.96 84 David Morse 56.90
35 Christian Bale 64.77 85 Jude Law 56.82
36 Susan Sarandon 64.73 86 Mark Wahlberg 56.74
37 Seth Rogen 64.65 87 Colin Firth 56.69
38 Robert De Niro 64.28 88 Mark Ruffalo 56.52
39 Jeff Bridges 64.22 89 Nicole Kidman 56.43
40 Tom Cruise 64.08 90 Michael Keaton 56.32
41 Ian Mckellen 64.03 91 Keanu Reeves 56.10
42 Diane Keaton 64.03 92 Ben Affleck 56.05
43 Michael Caine 63.68 93 Drew Barrymore 55.91
44 Russell Crowe 63.67 94 Richard Gere 55.90
45 Sam Rockwell 63.52 95 Laurence Fishburne 55.89
46 Bill Murray 63.31 96 Peter Fonda 55.76
47 Mel Gibson 63.16 97 Colin Farrell 55.76
48 Sean Connery 62.94 98 Winona Ryder 55.63
49 Ed Harris 62.88 99 Robert Downey Jr 55.42
50 Jake Gyllenhaal 62.65 100 Daniel Craig 55.09

View the entire list here.

Before starting this project, my guess for who would be atop the list was Tom Hanks, and had it not been for some pre-Sleepless in Seattle flops, he’d definitely give Daniel Day Lewis a run for his money. My second guess would have been Robert De Niro, but he had the opposite problem of Hanks, his early movies were gold, but his recent movies are mostly bombs. Nothing against Seth Rogen, but seeing his name above De Niro’s is quite disheartening. Daniel Day Lewis is definitely a fitting #1 for the list – he chooses his roles carefully, and gets so into his character both on and off the set that he drives everyone around him crazy.

And here is the list of the top 10 actors with the most fresh movies:

Rank Name Fresh Movies
1 Robert De Niro 46
2 Clint Eastwood 43
2 Gene Hackman 43
2 Samuel L Jackson 43
5 Michael Caine 42
6 Jack Nicholson 41
6 Robert Duvall 41
8 Donald Sutherland 39
9 Steve Buscemi 38
10 Meryl Streep 35

View the entire list here.

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