Who is your favorite actor or actress? If you can’t wait for the next Leonardo DiCaprio or Jennifer Lawrence movie, does that make them your favorite actors? If you have rated on Criticker every movie you’ve ever seen, or in my case every movie seen in the last 15 years, the answer to these questions is just a click away.
Criticker has a number of neat tools on its website. One of my favorites is its Filmmaker List, which can be found by clicking the Explore button that appears along the top banner. You can rank Actors, as well as Directors or Screenwriters, using a variety of criteria. I like to rank actors based on the average rating I’ve given the movies that they’ve appeared in. Once you’ve ranked them, you can click on their name and see which of their movies you’ve seen and which ones you haven’t. You can also set a minimum number of movies for your rankings so that you can get the most representative sample that your number of ratings will allow.
For example, I have 1,999 movies rated in Criticker. If I set my minimum at 20 movies for Actors and rank them by average score, my top five favorite Actors are:
| Actor | Avg. Score | # of Movies Seen | Best Movie Not Seen |
| Tom Hanks | 85.88 | 26 | Cloud Atlas |
| Harrison Ford | 83.50 | 24 | The Conversation |
| Morgan Freeman | 82.50 | 22 | The Lego Movie |
| Phillip Seymour Hoffman | 81.18 | 22 | Boogie Nights |
| Samuel L. Jackson | 81.00 | 25 | Kingsman: The Secret Service |
Based on a 15 movie minimum, my favorite Actresses are:
| Actress | Avg. Score | # of Movies Seen | Best Movie Not Seen |
| Kate Winslet | 79.13 | 15 | Hamlet (1996) |
| Scarlett Johansson | 75.52 | 21 | Hail, Caesar! |
| Judi Dench | 74.22 | 17 | Hamlet (1996) |
| Laura Linney | 74.63 | 16 | Mr. Holmes |
| Natalie Portman | 74.35 | 17 | Paris, je t’aime |
| Meryl Streep | 74.28 | 18 | Fantastic Mr. Fox |
I included 6 on my Actress list because you just can’t leave Meryl Streep off of any list of the Best Actresses. Also, the Best Movie not seen is based on the highest predicted Criticker Score for movies I haven’t seen, or haven’t seen in the last 15 years.
There are a couple of surprises on my lists. Samuel L. Jackson is a surprise. I can’t say that I watch a particular movie because Samuel L. Jackson is in it. It does, however reflect how many quality movies he’s been in. Scarlett Johansson is another surprise. It’s amazing that I have seen 21 movies of hers and she is only 31 years old.
There are favorite actors of mine who didn’t make the list, such as Paul Newman and Jodie Foster. In Paul Newman’s case, he didn’t meet the 20 minimum and his average movie score wasn’t high enough (79.32 in 19 movies). Jodie Foster would have been the highest on my list with an average score of 79.64 but I’ve only seen 11 of her movies, under the 15 movie minimum I set.
When you first go to the Filmmaker List the default for the minimum movies rated is 3. Under that criteria my favorite actor of all time is Billy Dee Williams (95.67 and 3 movies). “I love Brian Piccolo”, and Lando Calrissian (Star Wars V & VI) as well.
