Explore our list of 50 Great British actors, from screen villains to action heroes and leading ladies
Acting is not a British invention, but it might as well be. If you close your eyes and imagine an archetypal actor, you’re probably going to hear a Shakespeare soliloquy recited in the King’s English with a haughty accent. Beyond the stereotype, Blighty has legitimately produced some of the greatest actors the world has ever seen. Here are our picks for the greatest British acting talent of all-time, from Judi Dench to Jack O’Connell, with everyone from Dudley Moore to Keira Knightley in between.
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A child star at 13 in Steven Spielberg’s soaring war story ‘Empire of the Sun’, Christian Bale’s career seemed to be petering out before he was perfectly cast as the preening, murderous anti-hero of ‘American Psycho’. The lead role in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy has made him a huge international star.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: ‘Empire of the Sun’, ‘American Psycho’, ‘Batman Begins’
The London-born thesp (and sometime DJ) made his international breakthrough with a decidedly un-British role: as Baltimore drug lord Stringer Bell on HBO’s epochal crime drama ‘The Wire’. Since then, he’s personified calm authority on screen, whether fighting kaiju in ‘Pacific Rim’, portraying Nelson Mandela (and earning a Golden Globe nomination) in ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ or representing the other side of the law as DCI John Luther in another acclaimed series, ‘Luther’. He’s also the only person on this list to also have their name appear on a Coachella line-up poster. He really can do it all – and he would have made a great James Bond if they’d gotten around to casting him earlier.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, ‘Pacific Rim’
The dictionary definition of the term ‘serious actor’, classically trained Londoner Daniel Day-Lewis rose to prominence in the late 1980s in films like My Beautiful Laundrette and My Left Foot, for which he won his first of three Best Actor Oscars. Since then, he’s worked with just about every major director on the planet, from Martin Scorsese (The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York) to Michael Mann (Last of the Mohicans), from Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread) to Steven Spielberg (Lincoln). He was knighted in 2014 and retired from acting in 2017 – only to announce his un-retirement seven years later.
Years active: 1980 to now
Key films: My Left Foot, Lincoln, Phantom Thread
A lifelong grafter who found unexpected fame as the private-dick anti-hero of cartoon smash ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, Hoskins never forgot his roots and continued to appear in tiny indie movies like Shane Meadows’s magical ‘A Room For Romeo Brass’ until his untimely death in 2014.
Years active: 1970s to 2010s
Key films: ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, ‘A Room for Romeo Brass’, ‘The Long Good Friday’
The son of a Port Talbot baker, Anthony Hopkins’s career has moved from the Shakespearean stage to serious cinematic drama to the hammiest Hollywood blockbusters. But he’ll forever be remembered at the teeth-sucking psychopath Hannibal Lecter in the Oscar-winning ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.
Years active: 1960s to now
Key films: ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, ‘The Lion in Winter’, ‘The Elephant Man’
With a wildly diverse CV ranging from TV roles (ER, Rogue) to Hollywood mega-blockbusters (Mission: Impossible 2, 2012) to hefty, serious dramas (Crash, Half of a Yellow Sun), London-born Thandiwe Newton has talent to burn.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: Mission: Impossible 2, Flirting, Half of a Yellow Sun
One of Britain’s most iconic Shakespearean actors, John Gielgud never quite seemed at home on the big screen. Nonetheless, his rambling, ever-fascinating screen career ranged from the disastrous ‘erotic epic’ Caligula to prestigious supporting roles in hits like Arthur (for which he won an Oscar) and Gandhi.
Years active: 1920s to 1990s
Key films: Arthur, Gandhi, Caligula
He may have possessed the tangled mid-Atlantic vowels of an American impersonating a Brit, but Cary Grant was actually born working class in Bristol, and began performing around the age of 10. Louche, debonair, brilliantly funny and just occasionally rather unsettling, Grant’s roles as a Hollywood leading man are too numerous to list, but the films he made with Alfred Hitchcock – Suspicion, Notorious and North By Northwest – are among the most notable.
Years active: 1922 – 1986
Key films: His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Notorious North By Northwest
Born in Miami but raised in London, Anya Taylor-Joy made a striking big screen debut as a puritan girl seduced by the dark side in Robert Eggers’s clammy historical horror ‘The Witch’. Fulfilling that early promise with roles in ‘Last Night in Soho’, ‘Emma’; and ‘Furiosa’, she’s still perhaps best known for her phenomenal performance as the chess prodigy in Netflix miniseries ‘The Queen’s Gambit’.
Years active: 2015–now
Key films: ‘The Witch’, ‘Last Night in Soho’, ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’
A hardworking actor for many years, Hugh Grant found unprecedented fame as the floppy-haired hero of mega-hit Four Weddings and a Funeral – then almost threw it all away in a parked car on Sunset Boulevard. Still, sharp performances in Paddington 2 and Florence Foster Jenkins – and during the press hacking enquiry – show he’s still got fire in his belly.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Cloud Atlas, Paddington 2
So much more than just the new Miss Moneypenny, Naomie Harris’s three-decade career has seen her battling zombies in ‘28 Days Later’, steering speedboats in ‘Miami Vice’ and putting in a thunderous turn as crusading wife Winnie in 2013’s revolutionary biopic ‘Mandela’.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, ‘28 Days Later’,
He looks like your archetypal thespian toff, but there’s a subtle warmth and charm to Colin Firth that many of his contemporaries lack. Who else could have made the remote pre-war monarch George VI not just approachable, but downright cuddly – without losing his royal cool.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, ‘A Single Man’, ‘The King’s
Impossible to pin down, Dirk Bogarde played everything from dashing romantic leads in the hugely popular, comically risqué Doctor series to the scheming working-class valet in ‘The Servant’. As the conflicted barrister in ‘Victim’, he became the first major British actor to play a gay character on screen.
Years active: 1940s to 1980s
Key films: ‘A Bridge Too Far’, ‘Doctor in the House’, ‘Victim’, ‘The Servant’
Arguably London’s most famous son, Bermondsey-born Caine’s career exploded in the ’60s when he became the face of working-class Britain in the likes of ‘Zulu’ and ‘Alfie’. In his middle years, he seemed to swerve towards cheeky-chappie self-parody, before his work with director Christopher Nolan secured a remarkable late-in-life comeback.
Years active: 1950s to now
Key films: ‘Zulu’, ‘Get Carter’, ‘The Dark Knight’
He’s played the nice-guy hero in everything from ‘The Full Monty’ to TV’s ‘Hamish MacBeth’ – but we suspect that Carlyle will forever be remembered as the terrifying, untethered Glaswegian psycho Begbie in ‘Trainspotting’.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: ‘The Full Monty’, ‘Trainspotting’
Daniel Kaluuya
Born in Camden Town and raised in the star-factory that was Channel 4’s Skins, Daniel Kaluuya rocketed to the A-list following his Oscar-nominated leading role in the subversive horror-comedy Get Out. A hair-raising turn as the villain in Steve McQueen’s Widows and a re-team with Peele for sci-fi oddity Nope confirmed his star status, while The Kitchen proved he could direct, too.
Years active: 2007 to now
It’s hard to remember a speedier rise to fame than Tom Hiddleston’s: from his microbudget British debut Unrelated to the lead villain in Marvel blockbuster Thor in just four years. It’s been a fast track onto the Hollywood A-list that happily hasn’t taken him too far from the West End stage or passion projects like Ben Wheatley’s stiletto-sharp High-Rise. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a damn fine actor, and a thoroughly nice chap to boot.
Years active: 2000s to now
Key films: Only Lovers Left Alive, Avengers Assemble, Archipelago, High Rise, Loki
It’s depressingly rare for an actress to find a bounty of great roles in their forties. Happily, Olivia Colman has had just that. From her fabulously capricious, gouty queen in ‘The Favourite’, to an altogether more reserved monarch in ‘The Crown’, to her gut-punch dementia drama ‘The Father’ and motherhood memoir ‘The Lost Daughter’, the roles keep getting better – and so does she. The awards will keep coming too, which is fine by us. Her acceptance speeches are magnificent.
Years active: 2000 to now
Key films: ‘Tyrannosaur’, ‘The Favourite’, ‘The Lost Daughter’
The Great Dame of British film, Maggie Smith essayed a steady rise through the 1960s before hitting the big time with her Oscar-nominated title performance in 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Her notable roles since are too many to mention, but modern audiences probably know her best as the austere Mother Superior in Sister Act, the acid-tongued Lady Trentham in Gosford Park (and the strikingly similar Lady Crawley in TV’s Downton Abbey) and the kindly Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series.
Years active: 1956 to 2023
Key films: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Room With a View, Sister Act, Gosford Park
Arguably the greatest of all British screen actors, Alec Guinness exploded onto the screen playing eight different members of the aristocratic Dashwood family in the satirical Kind Hearts and Coronets. But he always resented the fact that his best-known role was as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Years active: 1930s to 1990s
Key films: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars
A six-time Academy Award nominee (and the first Scot ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar!), Glasgow-born Deborah Kerr first impressed British audiences with three distinct roles in Powell & Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. But Hollywood soon came calling, and by the 1950s she was a global star, rolling in the surf with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, crooning to Yul Brynner in The King and I and swooning with Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember.
Years active: 1937 – 1986
Key films: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, From Here to Eternity, The Innocents
From Glasgow milkman to one of the biggest British actors in the known universe, Sean Connery succeeded through sheer determination and bolshiness. Still the fans’ favourite James Bond, he exuded predatory sexiness in the role – but balanced such flashy blockbusters with ‘serious’ performances in the likes of ‘The Hill’ and Hitchcock’s ‘Marnie’.
Years active: 1950s to 2010s
Key films: ‘The Untouchables’, ‘Dr No’, ‘Marnie’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’
Another product of the Channel 4 star-school known as Skins, Harrow boy Dev Patel rocketed to international fame with the lead in Danny Boyle’s Best Picture-winning Slumdog Millionaire. Eight years and a lead role on TV’s The Newsroom later, he climbed to even greater heights with impressive turns in Lion, The Personal History of David Copperfield and The Green Knight, before proving himself as both an unexpected action star and a talented first-time director with the thunderous political fight-flick Monkey Man.
Years active: 2006 to now
Key films: Slumdog Millionaire, Lion, Monkey Man
Is there a sadder sight in cinema than the finale of Billy Liar, as the train carries Julie Christie away from the sad-sack title character to a life of adventure? Among the most glamorous figures on London’s Sixties scene - which is really saying something - Christie’s flawless face would dominate our nation’s cinema screens in the likes of Doctor Zhivago and The Go-Between, while roles in McCabe and Mrs Miller and Don’t Look Now proved that she’s a phenomenal talent, too.
Years active: 1957 to 2017
Key films: Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Don’t Look Now
A TV icon following his star turn in Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective, the late, great Michael Gambon secured global fame when he stepped into Richard Harris’s shoes as the wise Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.
Years active: 1960s to 2023
Key films: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The King’s Speech
Born Krishna Bhanji in 1940s Yorkshire, Ben Kingsley became a figurehead of serious, highbrow British cinema in the wake of Gandhi and Schindler’s List – which made his swearing, sneering turn as the terrifying gangster Don Logan in Sexy Beast all the more startling.
Years active: 1960s to now
Key films: Gandhi, Schindler’s List, Sexy Beast
Perhaps the most unpredictable and challenging British actors of them all, Tilda Swinton shattered expectations when she played the male lead in Sally Potter’s time-hopping Orlando. That fierce, determined sense of experimentation can be felt in every film she makes, from tiny avant-garde indies to major Hollywood blockbusters.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: Only Lovers Left Alive, Orlando, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I Am Love
Anyone who thinks of Angela Lansbury as just the fusty old biddy of TV’s Murder She Wrote should check out her scheming, petrifying turn as the treacherous matriarch in cold-war thriller The Manchurian Candidate – proof of her remarkable range.
Years active: 1940s to now
Key films: Bedknobs and Broomsticks, National Velvet, The Manchurian Candidate, Nanny McPhee
The UK’s roughest, toughest, gruffest new acting export has proven his worth both as an action man (The Dark Knight Rises Mad Max: Fury Road) and as a serious dramatic actor (Inception, Warrior). The less said about his ‘comedy’ effort This Means War, though, the better...
Years active: 2000s to now
Key films: RocknRolla, The Dark Knight Rises, Bronson, Mad Max: Fury Road
Kneel before Stamp! Having scored an Oscar nomination with his very first movie role - in 1962’s Billy Budd – Terence Stamp would become a familiar face on the Swinging London scene thanks to films like The Collector and Poor Cow. But it was his roles as the psychotic General Zod in Superman II and the flamboyant Bernadette in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert that ensured his place in the pantheon.
Years active: 1960 to now
Key films: Poor Cow, Superman II, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Limey
One of a gang of young British actors who rose to prominence in the post-punk years, Gary Oldman got his break playing Sex Pistols legend Sid Vicious. Three decades later he’s still a force to be reckoned with, even in nice-guy roles in the Batman and Harry Potter franchises. The excoriating Nil By Mouth proved he was a fine director, too, while Darkest Hour pocketed him an Oscar.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: Dracula, Sid & Nancy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Starting out as a Cambridge comic alongside the likes of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson became part of the acting elite following buttoned-down roles in The Remains of the Day and Sense and Sensibility – for which she also won a screenwriting Oscar.
Years active: 1980s to now
Key films: The Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, Nanny McPhee
There are few actors who can communicate genius-level abstraction with as much believability as Benedict Cumberbatch. The Londoner has IQ-ed up everything from the BBC’s ‘Sherlock’ and ‘The Current War’ to ‘The Imitiation Game’ and ‘Doctor Strange’. But his range extends far beyond playing brainboxes, as his visceral turn in Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’ amply demonstrates. He’s magnetic as the dissolute ‘Patrick Melrose’ in Showtime’s limited series, too. Like Sherlock himself, there’s not much he can’t wrap his head around.
Years active: 2002 to now
Key films: ‘The Imitation Game’, ‘Doctor Strange’, ‘The Power of the Dog’,
Too often typecast as the frosty, austere villain in the likes of ‘Last Action Hero’, ‘The Imitation Game’ and TV’s ‘Game of Thrones’, former RSC star Charles Dance proved he could also play the wounded nice-guy in the underrated ‘Alien 3’.
Years active: 1970s to now
Key films: ‘Ali G Indahouse’, ‘Alien 3’, ‘The Last Action Hero’, ‘Gosford Park’
A committed stage and screen performer for over three decades before she finally scored her first Oscar nomination as Queen Victoria in ‘Mrs Brown’, Judi Dench is now a world-famous national treasure, thanks in large part to her role as MI6 chief M in the recent James Bond films.
Years active: 1950s to now
Key films: ‘Philomena’, ‘Mrs Brown’, ‘Skyfall’
A classically trained British actor who rose to fame in ITV’s stately ‘Brideshead Revisited’, Jeremy Irons is one of an elite band of actors to win the ‘triple crown’: an Oscar (for ‘Reversal of Fortune’), an Emmy (for the TV miniseries ‘Elizabeth I’) and a Tony (for Broadway smash ‘The Good Thing’).
Years active: 1970s to now
Key films: ‘Eragon’, ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’, ‘Dead Ringers’, ‘Die Hard With a Vengeance’
Dismissed as a pretty boy early in his career, Jude Law has time and again proven his acting chops, whether it’s as the frosty American aristocrat in ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, the gruff Glaswegian submarine captain in ‘Black Sea’ or just having a ball as Dr Watson in Guy Ritchie’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ flicks.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, ‘Cold Mountain’
The sneering face of youthful rebellion in anti-establishment classics like ‘If...’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Malcolm McDowell settled too easily into villain-for-hire roles – though appearances in TV’s ‘Our Friends in the North’ and superior British crime flick ‘Gangster No 1’ proved he was still a dominating screen presence.
Years active: 1960s to now
Key films: ‘A Clockwork Orange’, ‘If...’, ‘Gangster No 1’
A breathtaking Shakespearean actor, a lifelong gay-rights campaigner and a true rags-to-riches success story, Burnley-born Ian McKellen seemed to gain a new lease of life when he was cast as the kindly wizard Gandalf in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies.
Years active: 1960s to now
Key films: ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’, ‘Richard III’, ‘X-Men’
‘Cuddly’ Dudley Moore kicked off his career as a Cambridge satirist alongside performing partner Peter Cook. But he found fame in the ’70s and ’80s with a string of good-natured Hollywood comedies hinging on his unexpected short-guy sex appeal.
Years active: 1960s to 1990s
Key films: ‘Arthur’, ‘Bedazzled’, ‘10’
What a long, strange trip it’s been for the Oscar-winning Belfast native. Initially establishing himself as a serious-minded stage actor with an Arthurian presence – one of his first major screen roles was as Gawain in John Boorman’s Excalibur – over the last decade he’s effectively become the British Bruce Willis, appearing in a seemingly unending stream of shoot-’em-up action flicks where he plays a stoical dad with a certain set of skills who takes justice into his own hands. And y’know what? He’s damn good at that too.
Years active: 1970s to now
Key films: ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Schindler’s List’, ‘Michael Collins’, ‘Taken’
One of the most dashing British actors of the post-war period, David Niven’s pencil moustache and debonair dress sense have become legendary. But he always had a nod and a wink for the audience too, especially in self-parodying roles like the jewel thief in ‘The Pink Panther’.
Years active: 1930s to 1980s
Key films: ‘The Guns of Navarone’, ‘Bonjour Tristesse’, ‘The Pink Panther’
It’s sad that Oliver Reed is now best remembered as a hopeless alcoholic gruesomely appearing on TV chat shows. In his day, Reed was nothing less than a powerhouse, his performances in the likes of ‘Women in Love’ and ‘The Devils’ bringing a new, raw intensity to British acting.
Years active: 1950s to 1990s
Key films: ‘Oliver!’, ‘Gladiator’, ‘Women in Love’, ‘The Devils’
An actor and comedian famed for his unique ability to disappear into his roles, Peter Sellers may have been sidetracked by increasingly unrewarding turns as Inspector Clouseau in the ‘Pink Panther’ series. But his triple-header performance in atomic satire ‘Dr Strangelove’ remains one of the all-time pinnacles of screen acting.
Years active: 1950s to 1970s
Key films: ‘The Pink Panther’, ‘The Ladykillers’, ‘Dr Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb’
Ah, The Stath. Equally adored and mocked for his one-facial-expression action-man antics in the likes of ‘The Transporter’ and ‘Crank’, the Mockney bruiser has turned it around with memorable roles in ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Fast & Furious 7’, and he even tries his hand at comedy in 2015's ‘Spy’.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: ‘The Transporter’, ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, ‘Fast & Furious 7’
A veteran of countless stage and screen productions, the original sexy baldie Patrick Stewart had a late breakthrough at age 47 when he captained the USS Enterprise in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. He now juggles ‘X-Men’ appearances with a global campaign for women’s rights.
Years active: 1960s to now
Key films: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Dune’, ‘Star Trek: First Contact’
How many performers score an Oscar nomination – and a Bafta win – for their very first big-screen role? ‘Educating Rita’ made Julie Walters a star, but she’s just as much at home in goofy TV comedy roles alongside her old pal Victoria Wood.
Years active: 1970s to now
Key films: ‘One Chance’, ‘Educating Rita’, ‘Billy Elliot’, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’
Another fine British actor who made a late-in-life breakthrough, Tom Wilkinson was best known as a TV bit-player until he scored an unexpected Oscar nomination for moody American indie ‘In the Bedroom’ at the age of 53. Roles in everything from ‘Batman Begins’ to ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ have kept him squarely in the public eye.
Years active: 1970s to now
Key films: ‘The Full Monty’, ‘In the Bedroom’, ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’
When your international breakthrough is co-starring in literally the biggest movie ever, it’s usually only downhill from there. But Winslet wisely countered the career-overwhelming enormity of ‘Titanic’ by deliberately going small: re-establishing herself as a period piece staple (she’d previously won a BAFTA for 1995’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’); challenging herself with roles in the likes of ‘Revolutionary Road’, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and ‘The Reader’, for which she earned an Oscar; and only occasionally appearing in other blockbusters, like the ‘Avatar’ sequels. Her greatest achievement, though, may be her turn as a tough, troubled small-town American police detective in the HBO miniseries ‘Mare of Easttown’ – an astonishing performance she completely disappears into, not with make-up but a very specific regional Pennsylvania accent.
Years active: 1990s to now
Key films: ‘Titanic’, ‘Heavenly Creatures’, ‘Revolutionary Road’
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