(10) Daniel Day-Lewis
We consider My Left Foot and Lincoln to be Daniel's best acting performances where he really enchants, while his acclaimed performance in There Will be Blood tends to be a bit too overplayed blustery without any real nuances. We also love Daniel in the drama In the Name of the Father and in The Last of the Mohicans.
(09) Robert De Niro
Raging Bull, Cape Fear, The Godfather II, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter are the ultimate proof of how great Robert De Niro is, or was. For the last 15 years the old man has mostly made silly rubbish but once upon a time he was the best, of them all.
(08) Leonardo DiCaprio
The Wolf of Wall Street, Aviator, Django Unchained, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Shutter Island, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood... Leo's merit list is long, and filled with truly remarkable performances that make him our given eight.
(07) Anthony Hopkins
Sir Anthony's performances in films such as The Silence of the Lambs, The Father, The Edge, and The Remains of the Day are nothing we would ever underestimate and there is no doubt that he is one of the finest male actors of modern times.
(06) James Stewart
Rear Window, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo... Stewart was the very definition of a movie star once upon a time, and his stoic yet vulnerable demeanour and natural presence in dozens of great films makes him our obvious six.
(05) Tom Hanks
Cast Away, Forest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Captain Philips, Road to Perdition, The Green Mile, Toy Story... Tom Hanks is now a cultural icon and has mastered so many roles, genres and types of films that he's a natural here.
(04) Christian Bale
Vice, American Psycho, The Fighter, Out of the Furnace, The Dark Knight, 3:10 To Yuma... Bale has sailed high on the charts in a relatively short space of time and is sure to continue to subscribe to the Oscars and wow cinema audiences with his amazing intensity and ability to never repeat himself.
(03) Marlon Brando
The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront... Brando's acting is now used as a point of reference by everyone from DiCaprio to Edward Norton to Bale, and of course we understand exactly why. He was the giant of giants.
(02) Philip Seymour Hoffman
The Master, Capote, Magnolia, Mission Impossible III, 25th Hour, Moneyball, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights... The amount of genuinely original, believably memorable acting this chap accounted for during his career is properly well-stocked. A magical presence and the capacity to play forlornly shy and neurotic one day, and icily psychotic the next.
(01) Denzel Washington
Fences, Training Day, Man on Fire, The Hurricane, Flight, He Got Game, Malcolm X, and Philadelphia are but a paltry selection of all the phenomenal roles Denzel is responsible for and just the thought that by his own admission he's only "halfway there" career-wise gives us all the hope we need for future films. He's the best... Best of the lot.