Best Actors of the '50s

The Top Ten
1 Marlon Brando Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor, film director, and activist. He is credited with bringing a gripping realism to film acting, and is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time. He died on July 1, 2004 at the age of 80.
2 Toshiro Mifune
3 Montgomery Clift Edward Montgomery "Monty" Clift (October 17, 1920 – July 23, 1966) was an American film and stage actor. Along with Marlon Brando and James Dean, Clift was one of the original method actors in Hollywood and was one of the first actors to be invited to study in the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg ...read more.
4 Burt Lancaster
5 William Holden
6 Richard Widmark
7 Jimmy Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 - July 2, 1997), also known as Jimmy Stewart (although he seldom used that name in formal credits), was an American actor and military officer, known for his distinctive drawl and down-to-earth persona. He starred in many films that are considered to be classics, ...read more.
8 Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor, filmmaker, author and centenarian. He was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age. After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of ...read more.
9 Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American screen actor whose performances in iconic 1940s films noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep earned him status as a cultural icon.
10 Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades.
The Contenders
11 Alec Guinness Sir Alec Guinness was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters.
12 Takashi Shimura
13 James Dean James Byron Dean was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark.
14 Charlton Heston Charlton Heston was an American actor and political activist. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years.
15 Robert Ryan
16 Sterling Hayden
17 Arthur Kennedy
18 Cary Grant Cary Grant, born Archibald Alexander Leach (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor, known as one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He began a career in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and became known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, and light-hearted ...read more.
19 Lee J. Cobb
20 Max von Sydow
21 Spencer Tracy Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 - June 10, 1967) was an American actor, noted for his natural style and versatility. During his career, Tracy appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors.
22 Rock Hudson Rock Hudson was an American actor, generally known for his turns as a leading man during the 1950s and 1960s.
23 Karl Malden
24 Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. ...read more.
25 Danny Kaye
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