I'd like to make an honorable mention to all Robert Altman movies. I am not much of an Altman fan as a storyteller, but his casts were impeccable pretty much every single time out. Can't pick just one cast, he always had great ones.
And I was going to include Big Night, my favorite movie, but I write about it so much that I wanted to highlight other films. So just consider it an honorary #1 on this list.
10. Movie 43
One of the greatest collections of talent comes in the form of one of the worst movies ever made. It's not a bad idea, necessarily, because Movie 43 is an anthology film. 14 short comedy films put together for feature run time. It's like an episode of SNL. It's like a baaaaaad episode of SNL. Many of the shorts aren't terrible as sketch ideas, but the execution of those ideas is awful. It's obvious many of the cast didn't really want to be in it, and from behind the scenes stories they were often guilted into shooting just a couple of days so that they'd stop getting hassled. The results show on screen. Still, with a cast highlighting Oscar winners like Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, and Emma Stone, as well as talents like Hugh Jackman, Chris Pratt, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Dennis Quaid, Naomi Watts, Kristen Bell, and many more, it should be on this list.
9. Out of Sight
One of the first movies that came to mind when making my initial shortlist for this topic was Steven Soderbergh's remake of Ocean's 11. But then I started looking and saw that the superior movie in Soderbergh's catalog is the great Out of Sight, which boasts a cast including George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Don Cheadle, Viola Davis, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Nancy Allen, Luis Guzman, and Catherine Keener. It's not just a great movie, but has an astounding cast even if you only look at their names and not their terrific work in the movie.
8. Nine lives
Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives is another anthology movie, but unlike Movie 43, it's not terrible. It's made up of nine short films, all filmed in one shot, all focused on a short moment in one woman's life. The movie is filled to the brim with great actresses doing great work, my favorite being Robin Wright, who stars in the section "Diana", where she runs into her old flame, Damien (Jason Isaacs), and all this past pain and love comes up to intrude on their seemingly perfectly happy lives. It's an extraordinary piece of storytelling and acting, and it's not the only one, as the other stories are filled up with great actors like Sissy Spacek, Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates, Dakota Fanning, Amy Brenneman, Ian McShane, Amanda Seyfried, Joe Mantegna and others. A great cast and a movie definitely worth checking out.
7. Crash
Ah, Crash. It's become a joke. It's become a whipping boy for every "the academy fucked up again" story writer. I saw it when it came out because it had some really good actors in it and I loved it. It wasn't universally loved, but it was well received and didn't become hated until it beat the more beloved Brokeback Mountain at the Oscars. But even for those who dislike the movie it's hard to argue against the cast. Matt Dillon does the best work of his career, Terrence Howard gives a really thoughtful and sensitive performance, Thandie Newton finally delivered on the promise she'd shown before, even Ryan Phillipe is good. And there are so many little roles here and there by actors like Keith David and Tony Danza that are really good and add to the overall tapestry of characters on display. And I hadn't even mentioned Don Cheadle, Michael Peña, Larenz Tate, Sandra Bullock (who didn't do anything better until Gravity), Ludacris, Brendan Fraser,
6. The Thin Red Line
Terrence Malick assembled his greatest cast in The Thin Red Line. Now, I feel like it's the least of his movies, but it's the best of his casts. Sean Penn, John Cusack, Nick Nolte, and Elias Koteas all do really good work in the meandering pseudo-philosophical movie, and they're surrounded by a ridiculous amount of terrific actors like John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, Jim Caviezel, George Clooney, John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, and Jared Leto. The problem becomes that some of them aren't great in the movie (Travolta) or their presence is distracting. Clooney, in a blink and you'll miss it cameo, was supposed to have a much larger role, and when Malick informed him of how little his part became in the final cut, he asked Malick to cut him out completely so that his presence wouldn't be a distraction for the audience. Brody's character was supposed to be the main character, according to the script, but with Malick's approach of shooting an ungodly amount of footage and then finding the movie in the editing room, his work was cut out almost completely. But still, as uneven as some of the work is, the collection of talent is nearly unmatched.
5. Pulp Fiction
A terrific cast all the way around, featuring the best work of almost everyone's career, Pulp Fiction had to end up on this list. Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, and Bruce Willis are the leads of the movie, and are all tremendous in their different ways. They are all doing some of their best work. Ving Rhames, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, Maria de Medeiros, Amanda Plummer, Rosanna Arquette, and of course the two standouts of the supporting cast, Christopher Walken and the justly Oscar nominated Uma Thurman are all up to the standards set by the leads. Of course it's Quentin Tarantino's directorial style and writing that lifts the movie up into the stratosphere, but this cast is a big reason it is so good in the first place.
4. JFK
Although I'm not as crazy about the film as some other people, JFK is a terrific movie with an astounding cast. Even with the occasionally wooden Kevin Costner in the lead role, when your supporting cast is filled out with names like Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon, Sissy Spacek, Gary Oldman, Jack Lemmon, John Candy, Walter Matthau, Vincent D'Onofrio, and others, how much more do you need to say? This is simply one of the greatest casts ever assembled. And while it doesn't have as powerful of work as writer/director Oliver Stone got in other movies (like Tom Berenger in Platoon or Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July), as an overall ensemble of actors, Stone never bested it.
3. The Departed
Martin Scorsese's best cast isn't in service of his best movie, but it's one of his most compulsively watchable. Leonardo DiCaprio takes his piercing blue eyes and tells his characters story looking shiftily from underneath his furrowed brow. Matt Damon grounds his Boston bravado in everyday believability in one of his best performances (and I think VERY highly of Damon as an actor, so that's saying something). Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin go totally over-the-top, but sell it so well that it still fits the overall film. Vera Farmiga is intelligent and mysteriously sexy and loving and strong and all kinds of other things in her best work. Sadly, the great movie tough guy Ray Winstone is hidden under an inconsistent accent and so loses some of his power. And Jack Nicholson gives into all his work instincts. It's still a good performance because Nicholson is one of our greatest actors, but his performance is the weak link in this otherwise impeccably acted movie.
2. Cloud Atlas
A great cast all acting across many timelines, roles, and sometimes even genders gives us one of the best casts you could imagine. While my favorite of the cast is Doona Bae, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, James D'Arcy, Keith David, and Hugh Grant all give performances that ground this time hopping movie in emotional realities that fit each and every one of their characters and stories. It's a movie that must be experienced to truly appreciate. I liked how Roger Ebert said it, which was "Even as I was watching "Cloud Atlas" the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time". It's one of the great movies, and with a collection of top actors doing amazing work (including one of the rare Tom Hanks villain roles, in which he's deliciously evil), Cloud Atlas has to be this high on the list.
1. The Godfather
The best mix of great ensemble talent, all giving great performances is here in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. Al Pacino and Marlon Brando highlight the cast, of course, but I think Diane Keaton's sensitive work as Kay gets overlooked. She's really wonderful in the movie. John Cazale, James Caan, and Robert Duvall are tremendous as the other "sons" of Brando's Vito. Cazale is the softer souled Fredo, Caan the hot headed Sonny, and Duvall the even tempered, intelligent Tom Hagen, the adopted son of the family. All fit their roles perfectly. Duvall, in particular, shines as Tom. Although Caan's role of Sonny is the flashy one, the scene in which Duvall tells Brando of Sonny's death is heartbreaking and perfect work from each actor.
Brando does some of the greatest work of his considerable career as Vito, giving the role the intelligence and gravitas that it requires, but also the sensitivity in needs. Pacino's Michael shares his father's brain, but has a character arc towards the cold hearted Michael we see in the second film. Pacino has the most to play in his character, as Michael changes the most of anyone, and I still think it's probably only second to his work in Dog Day Afternoon as the best work from my favorite actor.
All of that said, the smaller roles being filled out by actors like Sterling Hayden as the police chief, Al Lettieri as the drug dealing Sollozzo, Talia Shire as the victimized Connie, Richard S. Castellano as Peter Clemenza, Lenny Montana as Luca Brasi, and Abe Vigoda as Tessio. It's a perfectly cast movie in each and every role. It's what puts this movie as the #1 on my list because of the amazing talent in each role, but mostly because there's not a single line reading or character that isn't perfect.
All of that said, the smaller roles being filled out by actors like Sterling Hayden as the police chief, Al Lettieri as the drug dealing Sollozzo, Talia Shire as the victimized Connie, Richard S. Castellano as Peter Clemenza, Lenny Montana as Luca Brasi, and Abe Vigoda as Tessio. It's a perfectly cast movie in each and every role. It's what puts this movie as the #1 on my list because of the amazing talent in each role, but mostly because there's not a single line reading or character that isn't perfect.
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