Best Actor/Actress of the 1990’s

Welcome back to the top ten countdown of the best actors/actresses of the 1990’s. Let’s do a quick recap of picks ten through four.

10. Tim Allen (The Santa Clause, Toy Story, Toy Story 2)

9. Kathy Bates (Misery, Titanic, The Waterboy)

8. Joe Pesci (Goodfellas, Home Alone, JFK, Home Alone 2)

7. Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Liar Liar, The Truman Show)

6. Mike Myers (Wayne’s World, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Austin Powers)

5. Adam Sandler (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy)

4. Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, The Man in the Iron Mask)

Now… numbers three, two and one:

3. Jodie Foster

Notable movies from 90’s: The Silence of the Lambs, Contact

Well, although I only mentioned two movies from Foster’s 1990’s, she was in others, just ones that I have not heard of. Don’t be turned off though by only two movies showing up. The Silence of the Lambs has the value of like ten movies combined. Foster was not only a great actress during the 90’s, but her career began successfully all the way back in the 1970’s. Her breakout hit was probably Taxi Driver. She also was in the original “Freaky Friday” in 1976. Essentially, Foster’s success has spanned nearly 40 years, because she is still starring in solid movies today. I loved her in “Panic Room” (2002) and “Flightplan” (2005) was pretty good.

2. Robin Williams

Notable movies from 90’s: Hook, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Jack, Good Will Hunting, Patch Adams, Bicentennial Man

The 1990’s were simply stacked with good Robin Williams movies. I think that Williams is definitely one of the funnier men alive. It seems like he had a good movie pretty much every year in the 90’s. It started off with “Hook”, basically an interesting version of Peter Pan. Then he of course provided the voice of the Genie in Aladdin. Next was maybe my favorite performance of his from the decade, Mrs. Doubtfire. Jumanji I thought was an awesome movie as a kid, and it also had Bonnie Hunt and a young Kirsten Dunst in it. “Jack” was a funny, and touching movie, that also had Sally Field and Jennifer Lopez in it. Next, Good Will Hunting was probably his most successful and well-known film from the 90’s. Patch Adams is next, and that definitely was a brilliant acting job by Williams, and had me tearing up at the end. Last, but definitely not least, “Bicentennial Man” was an amazing movie. Williams spent half of the movie has a robot, but he was still funny, entertaining, and there were a few tear inducing moments in that film as well.

and now I’m sure you can guess it  by process of elimination… the number one actor/actress of the 1990’s is…

1. Tom Hanks

Notable movie from 90’s: A League of Their Own, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, Toy Story 2

The movies that I mentioned above are simply my favorites from Hanks during the 90’s. I did not even mention: Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, or The Green Mile. Clearly, Hanks was the best actor of the 90’s. Other movies which he starred in: Splash (1984), Big (1988), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), The Polar Express (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Toy Story 3 (2010). Probably in each and every one of these films, Hanks had at least a couple of classic lines, and scenes that will ever live in movie lore. A few examples: “There’s no crying in baseball” (A League of Their Own), too many to name (Forrest Gump), “Houston We Have a Problem” (Apollo 13), so many from all three Toy Stories, and finally “Wilsonnnnnnn” (Cast Away).

Congratulations to Tom Hanks, the number one actor/actress of the 1990’s! Stay tuned soon for more posts!