Actors Who’ve Confessed To Not Being A Fan Of Their Most Celebrated Roles

Whether they like it or not, actors are synonymous with their most famous roles. When we think of Blake Lively, we think of Gossip Girl’s Serena van der Woodsen. And Macaulay Culkin will always be that little boy from Home Alone. But a lot of the time, actors really aren’t fond of the roles that made them famous. Even William Fichtner has one role he seems to regret. Read on to find out the surprising reasons they have for hating their most beloved work.

1. Shannen Doherty, Charmed

Shannen Doherty left the TV series Charmed after a three-year stint playing a witch named Prue Halliwell. The actress dismissed the show as a program for pre-teens, which upset her co-star Alyssa Milano. Milano told Entertainment Weekly in 2001, “I think it’s unfortunate that she left, and that she needed to bad-mouth everyone involved and the audience.”

2. Andrew Lincoln, Love Actually

Audiences may have adored Andrew Lincoln’s lovelorn portrayal of Mark in Love Actually, but the actor admitted to Entertainment Weekly in 2017 that he wasn’t a fan. He explained, “In one of the most romantic movies of all time, I got to play the only guy who doesn’t get the girl…” Instead, he said, “I got to be this weird stalker guy.” Well, when you put it that way…

3. Jamie Dornan, 50 Shades of Grey

Jamie Dornan played Christian Grey on screen, but he made it clear in a 2017 GQ Australia magazine interview that he didn’t like the character at all. He explained, “[He’s] not the sort of bloke I’d get along with. All my mates are easygoing and quick to laugh — I wouldn’t imagine myself sat in a pub with him. I don’t think he would be my type when it comes to choosing mates.”

4. Mark Wahlberg, Boogie Nights

Mark Wahlberg looks back on his part as a porn star in Boogie Nights with regret — so much so that he has sought penance from the man upstairs. He told the Chicago Tribune in 2017, “I just always hope that God is a movie fan and also forgiving because I’ve made some poor choices in my past. Boogie Nights is up there at the top of the list.”

5. Alec Guinness, Star Wars

Star Wars fans, prepare to have your heart broken: Alec Guinness, who played the iconic Obi-Wan Kenobi, hated the franchise. In his autobiography, A Positively Final Appearance, he revealed that he wished he hadn’t taken the part in the beloved films, as he found the writing and dialog to be subpar. Ouch.

6. Penn Badgely, You

His stalker-centric series You took the world by storm, but Penn Badgely wasn’t as enamored with his killer character, Joe Goldberg, as the rest of the world. On a 2019 episode of Today, he said, “He’s a pretty reprehensible guy. You start to discover his true motives pretty early on… And he’s a guy who’s capable of stalking. He’s a guy who’s capable of murder. He’s a guy who’s capable of a lot of manipulation and abuse.” Makes sense.

7. Allison Williams, Girls

For six seasons, Allison Williams played Marnie Michaels in HBO’s Girls, which ended in 2017. But the actress wasn’t too fond of her character on the award-winning series. She told BuzzFeed in 2014, “Marnie would drive me crazy if we were friends in real life.”

8. Channing Tatum, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra

On an episode of The Howard Stern Show, Channing Tatum didn’t mince words when it came to his role in G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra. The actor used an expletive to emphasize just how much he “hate[d] that movie,” admitting he was unimpressed with the script. Ironically, he’d had worries about taking on such an iconic role if it were to turn out “bad.”

9. Crispin Glover, Back to the Future

Crispin Glover starred as Marty McFly’s dad in the beloved Back to the Future trilogy. But he told The AV Club that he hadn’t loved the way the series had come to an end. He had disapproved of it so much that he brought his concerns to director Robert Zemeckis. He recalled, “I said, ‘I think if the characters have money, if our characters are rich, it’s a bad message. That reward should not be in there.’”

10. Adam Brody, The O.C.

As much as The O.C.’s fans loved Seth Cohen, he doesn’t have a fan in the actor who played him. In a 2014 interview with HuffPost Live, Adam Brody said the shadow of Seth hung over him, and he didn’t like it. He said, “That was a character from 2004, and it’s very much of that time, and no, my interests don’t lie there at all anymore. Like it or not, I’ve been accused of playing him ever since, anyways.”

11. Christian Bale, Newsies

Christian Bale starred in 1992’s Newsies, one of Disney’s lowest-grossing movies ever. But the flick, which follows a group of newsboys at the turn of the 20th century, has since become a cult-favorite film. One person who didn’t appreciate it was Bale himself, who told Entertainment Weekly in 2007, “Time healed those wounds. But it took a while.”

12. Halle Berry, Catwoman

Catwoman is an iconic character, but Halle Berry did not love starring as her in the 2004 movie. When she won the 2005 Razzie Award for her turn as the feline villain, she didn’t hold back in thanking “Warner Bros. for casting me in this… god-awful movie.” Meow.

13. Will Smith, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

It’s a particular time on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that Will Smith has a problem with — not the whole show, you’ll be pleased to hear. In 2017 the actor admitted on The Graham Norton Show that he hated his performance in the first four or five episodes. He said, “It’s terrible, and I can’t bear to watch it.”

14. Christopher Plummer, The Sound of Music

During a 2011 roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, actor Christopher Plummer made a shocking admission: he didn’t like The Sound of Music. Gasp. He explained it was “because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey. You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”

15. Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Shailene Woodley signed on to star in The Secret Life of the American Teenager after reading only three episodes of the series. Little did she know that the drama would take on a pro-abstinence message with which she vehemently disagreed. In 2020 she told Bustle that compromising her beliefs to star in the show was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

16. Matt Damon, The Bourne Ultimatum

The Bourne Ultimatum was the third installment in a highly successful action series starring Matt Damon. But the trilogy was in danger of ending on a good note, according to its star. The problem? Damon said the original writer, Tony Gilroy, turned in an insanely bad script. He told The Atlantic in 2011, “It was unreadable. This is a career-ender… it’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He took his money and left.”

17. Blake Lively, Gossip Girl

Teens loved her turn as socialite Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, but that was precisely the problem Blake Lively had with her sometimes risqué character. She told Allure in 2015, “People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising. You want to be putting a better message out there.”

18. Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up

Although audiences laughed their way through Knocked Up, one person didn’t find the flick funny: star Katherine Heigl. She told Vanity Fair in 2008 that she found the movie “a little sexist” because “it paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys.”

19. William Fichtner, Albino Alligator

Character actor William Fichtner has nothing but nice things to say about almost every role he’s ever had... except one. In 1996’s Albino Alligator, Fichtner plays a sociopath named Law. “I really wanted to be a part of it to work with Faye Dunaway, Matt Dillon, and Gary Sinise. And Kevin was talking to me about the character Law — the guy I ended up playing. There was someone who did some really questionable things, and I couldn’t figure out why,” the actor told Page Six in 2010.

20. George Reeves, Superman

George Reeves played Superman on TV from 1952 to 1958, and rumor has it that he hated the responsibility that came with playing such a do-gooder. He told the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “The burden is not a light one. In fact, it’s a frightening responsibility. I can never go in a bar or smoke a cigarette because Superman doesn’t do those things.”

21. Mariah Carey, Glitter

Singer Mariah Carey played herself in the 2001 film Glitter — and, fortunately, she had no problem with the part she played. It was the film itself she didn’t like, as it was slated by fans and critics alike. She told Andy Cohen on a 2013 episode of Watch What Happens Live, “It was called the ‘G-word,’ we couldn’t bring it up… But, it was a horrible couple of years, and then I had to get my momentum back for people to let it go.”

22. George Clooney, Batman & Robin

George Clooney caught on to the fact that fans didn’t love his turn as Batman in 1997. To be fair, though, the actor said he agreed — and didn’t have much to work with to make the superhero flick a success. According to Business Insider, he said, “It was a difficult film to be good in. With hindsight, it’s easy to look back at this and go ‘Whoa, that was really [bad], and I was really bad in it.’”

23. Rooney Mara, Pan

Reflecting on her role as Tiger Lily in Pan, Rooney Mara was left with a major regret. In 2016 she explained to The Daily Telegraph, “I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation. I really do. I don’t ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated.”

24. Emilia Clarke, Terminator Genisys

Emilia Clarke has revealed that her turn as Sarah Connor in 2015’s Terminator Genisys was just as bad as the critically panned film. She admitted to Vanity Fair in the summer of 2018 that “no one had a good time” filming the movie. So we can surmise that the actress regretted being a part of the iconic Terminator series.

25. Evangeline Lilly, Lost

Evangeline Lilly said on a 2018 installment of the Lost Boys podcast that she felt serious disappointment about her character Kate Austen’s storyline. She explained, “There’s nothing wrong with women’s lives being characterized by relationships, and I think that happens to men and women. But there was this eventual lack of dimension to what was going on with her.”

26. Jamie Lee Curtis, Virus

Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t hold back when discussing her cult classic film Virus with WENN in 2010. She called the flick “an unbelievably bad movie; just bad from the bottom.” The actress knew that while filming the movie, though. She explained, “It was maybe the only time I’ve known something was just bad, and there was nothing I could do about it.”

27. Robert Pattinson, Twilight

Robert Pattinson just didn’t understand the mass appeal his Twilight character, Edward Cullen, had with tweens. In fact, he felt the complete opposite about him. The actor explained to Empire in 2008, “The more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108-year-old virgin, so he’s obviously got some issues there.”

28. Michelle Pfeiffer, Grease 2

Michelle Pfeiffer kicked off her Hollywood career with a part in Grease 2. But it’s a breakout role that she wishes she could take back. She admitted to the website Hollywood in 2007, “I hated that film with a vengeance and could not believe how bad it was. At the time, I was young and didn’t know any better.”

29. Jackie Gleason, You’re In The Picture

Jackie Gleason was ashamed of his game show, You’re In The Picture, in real-time. On the series’ second episode, he got on the air and apologized for the program he called “the biggest bomb.” He then said, “I’m telling you friends that I’ve seen bombs in my day. This would make the H-bomb look like a two-inch salute.” Yikes.

30. Megan Fox, Transformers

Megan Fox starred in a pair of Transformers movies, and she had nothing nice to say about her experience. She told Entertainment Weekly in 2010 that she owed her career to the franchise but that her performance in the first one was very “terrible.” She also said, “People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting.”

31. Angus T. Jones, Two and a Half Men

Angus T. Jones became a child star because of Two and a Half Men, but as an adult, he looks back on the series with regret. And the actor hasn’t held back in sharing his disgust over the show’s content. While giving a testimonial at Forerunner Christian Church, he said in 2015, “Please stop watching it and filling your head with filth.”

32. Macaulay Culkin, Home Alone

Macaulay Culkin has no trouble with his work as Home Alone’s main character, Kevin McCallister. In fact, he looks back on the experience warmly. What he dislikes is watching the movie, he said on a 2018 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The actor explained that every scene has a memory attached, so he can’t enjoy the actual storyline. He gets distracted by his thoughts instead.

33. Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire

Although Marlon Brando’s performance in A Streetcar Named Desire earned him accolades, he hated the character he brought to life. Of Stanley Kowalski, Brando said he was “everything [he was] against: totally insensitive, crude, cruel.” His surprising words were revealed in the book Great Directors at Work by David Richard Jones.

34. Sylvester Stallone, Escape Plan 2

It’s hard to imagine that tough guy Sylvester Stallone would have any regrets, but he has one: Escape Plan 2: Hades. He took to Instagram to reveal his dismay with the flick, writing, “Escape Plan 2 WAS TRULY THE MOST HORRIBLY PRODUCED FILM I have ever had the misfortune to be in.” Wildly enough, he slated the second movie while promoting the third installment, Escape Plan 3: The Extractors.

35. Sarah Jessica Parker, Sex and the City II

As popular as the Sex and the City TV series was, its life on the silver screen hit a major snag in its second installment. Fans disliked Sex and the City II, and so did the movie’s star, Sarah Jessica Parker. At the 2017 Vulture Festival, she said, “I can see where we fell short. I understand. I actually get it.”

36. Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Daniel Radcliffe played the titular character in all of the Harry Potter films, but he only has a problem with the 2009 installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He told Playboy that he despised that particular flick because he was “just not very good in it." He said, “I hate it… my acting is very one-note, and I can see I got complacent, and what I was trying to do just didn’t come across.”

37. Kate Winslet, Titanic

Rewatching Titanic doesn’t bother Kate Winslet — unless she catches a glimpse of her portrayal of Rose, which is quite frequently. She told The Daily Telegraph in 2012, “Every single scene, I’m like ‘Really, really? You did it like that?’ Oh my God… It sounds terribly self-indulgent, but actors do tend to be very self-critical.” We have very much learned that from this list, Kate.

38. Harrison Ford, Star Wars

On a 2008 hike with Entertainment Weekly reporter and huge Star Wars fan Anthony Breznican, Harrison Ford made clear how he felt about his character. “He’s dumb as a stump,” the actor said of Han Solo. And when Breznican pressed him and said that Solo was a “cultural institution,” Ford retorted, “At no credit to the culture for embracing him as a hero.” Ouch.

39. Sean Connery, James Bond

Sean Connery brought James Bond to life in seven films, including favorites such as Goldfinger. But the actor quickly grew tired of “the whole Bond bit,” he told Playboy in 1965. He explained, “This Bond image is a problem in a way and a bit of a bore, but one has just got to live with it.” According to The Guardian, Connery also supposedly said he’d “like to kill” the iconic character.

40. Robert Reed, The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch gave Americans a glimpse into the perfect family, but one person wasn’t enamored with the show’s legacy. Robert Reed, who starred as the family patriarch, told People in 1992 that he didn’t want the program to be his legacy. That’s because he found the series “just as inconsequential as can be.”

41. Carrie Fisher, Star Wars

We all know that Carrie Fisher came to love her part in the Star Wars universe. But there was a time when the star regretted being Princess Leia. While promoting her book Wishful Drinking in 2008, Fisher told Today that if she had been told that the movie was going to be a massive hit, she “would never have done it.” She said, “All I did when I was really famous was wait for it to end.”

42. Natalie Portman — Dirty Dancing

But what about the films actors probably wished they did star in? Yep, we’re talking about their favorite movies of all time. Take Natalie Portman, for example. She won an Oscar for playing a ballet dancer in the movie Black Swan, but it’s another kind of dancing she prefers — Dirty Dancing. She introduced the famous film for the AFI Movie Club in 2020 and said, “It is certainly the movie I’ve watched most in my life.”

43. Mark Ruffalo — On the Waterfront

Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo ranks On the Waterfront as his favorite movie. “It’s Elia Kazan, who is one of the all-time great directors,” he told MTV News in 2011. “And it’s just the perfect mix of great storytelling, social commentary, and great acting… Coming from the theater, to tell those kind of stories in film, is what’s really exciting to me.”

44. Michael B. Jordan — Goodfellas

Black Panther and Fruitvale Station star Michael B. Jordan revealed his favorite films to Rotten Tomatoes in 2014. He said, “Goodfellas is one. You know, Scorsese’s an amazing director. It set the tone for a lot of gangster films and mob films.” Poker movie Rounders was his second choice.

45. Jennifer Lopez — West Side Story

J-Lo loves the movie West Side Story because, as she explained in the 2007 book You Gotta See This: More Than 100 of Hollywood’s Best Reveal and Discuss Their Favorite Films, it was “proof that my people could sing, dance, and act.” She added, “I saw the movie about a million times on the big screen — and especially when I felt sad about my life.”

46. Zoe Saldana — The Terminator

Action star Zoe Saldana’s a big fan of one of the classics of the genre: The Terminator. She saw it when she was five years old and instantly fell in love. “Terminator was very impacting for me,” she told Rotten Tomatoes in 2011. “It really helped me a lot, to understand the kind of actor I wanted to be, and also the kind of movies and genres that I gravitate towards and absolutely love.”

47. George Clooney — Network

George Clooney revealed his favorite movie to The A.V. Club in a 2017 interview. It’s Network, and he explained why: “I think Paddy Chayefsky was a genius. I think what he wrote about in 1976, at the time, was just a comedy. And everything he wrote about came true.”

48. Megan Fox — The Lord of the Rings

Megan Fox may look like the cheerleader type, but maybe she’s a nerd at heart. Asked to rank her favorite films by Rotten Tomatoes in 2012, she said, “Well number one — and we have to count it as one or else it’ll take up my whole list — is The Lord of the Rings.” Also on her list? The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

49. Jack Black — One Flaw Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Jack Black has a more sophisticated taste in films than his wacky comedies may have you believe. In You Gotta See This, he named his favorite movie as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Black said, “I’ll take psychological problems any day in a movie over a car chase or a love story.”

50. Vin Diesel — Gone With the Wind

Did you ever peg tough guy Vin Diesel for a Gone With the Wind fan? He is, though — just not for the reasons you might expect. “I love Clark Gable epics, but there is something more about this one,” he explained in You’ve Gotta See This. “If you think about it, Gone With the Wind really is the first action movie.”

51. Emily Blunt — Jaws

Yep, the new Mary Poppins loves a killer shark movie. Emily Blunt told Rotten Tomatoes in 2012, “Jaws is my favorite film of all time. I’ve seen it about 30 times.” It also made her “terrified” of sharks until she took up deep-sea diving and “became friends” with them again.

52. Jimmy Fallon — Pee-wee’s Big Adventure

The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon believes Paul Reubens should’ve received an Academy Award for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. He raved about it during a 2019 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, saying, “The creativity that’s put into this movie, it was like, ‘What else can you add to make this movie [better]?’”

53. Hugh Jackman — The Deer Hunter

Nope, Hugh Jackman’s favorite film isn’t a musical — it’s actually The Deer Hunter. “I saw that when I was 15,” he told Rotten Tomatoes in 2018. “And that blew my mind about what was possible with acting. Yeah, that was a game changer.” Singin’ in the Rain was also on his list of faves, though.

54. Zooey Deschanel — The Philadelphia Story

Zooey Deschanel apparently has a lot of love for Hollywood’s Golden Age. Her favorite film’s the 1940 classic The Philadelphia Story, which stars Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Deschanel said in You’ve Gotta See This that she thinks the movie has “the perfect combination of light moments and more poignant ones.”

55. Lucy Liu — Red Sorghum

Lucy Liu chose a Chinese movie when asked what her favorite was: Red Sorghum, directed by Zhang Yimou. She told Rotten Tomatoes in 2012, “It was very impactful. I saw it when I was in college, and I was destroyed.” The film actually has a perfect 100 percent score on the aforementioned site.

56. Dwayne Johnson — IT

Turns out Dwayne Johnson’s a secret horror movie fan. He wrote on Instagram in 2017, “I saw an early screening of IT a few months ago and it instantly became one of my all time favorites… Not only does it redefine the horror genre, but it’s so layered, smart, and brilliantly scary.” To be fair, though, he’d easily win a fight with that evil clown.

57. Martin Scorsese — Scarface

Legendary director Martin Scorsese said in You’ve Gotta See This that his favorite film of all time is the original 1932 version of Scarface. Okay, maybe this one isn’t a surprise. He remarked, “It caused quite a stir with its extraordinary violence, which, let’s face it, is something I know about from my own films.”

58. Clint Eastwood — Tropic Thunder

What’s Clint Eastwood’s favorite movie? Gotta be a dark and gritty Western, right? Nope. He told Entertainment Weekly magazine in 2008, “The last picture I saw was Tropic Thunder. It’s a great send-up of Hollywood. It looked like they had a good time making it, and Robert Downey Jr. was great. When they blow that guy’s head off... you couldn’t help laughing.”

59. Jennifer Aniston — Terms of Endearment

“I’ve seen Terms of Endearment hundreds of times,” Jennifer Aniston proudly declared in You’ve Gotta See This. “It’s one of those movies where you can turn it on or catch it at any point, and it just makes me burst into tears… What more do you want in a movie but humor, laughter, heart-wrenching moments, acting that’s superb, and writing that’s sublime?”

60. Keanu Reeves — A Clockwork Orange

Keanu Reeves is a sweet and wholesome man, so his favorite movie must also be sweet and wholesome, right? Wrong. One of Keanu’s favorite films of all time, revealed in a reddit Q&A, is Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. You know, the 1971 film so horrifying and disturbing that Kubrick himself pulled it from cinemas. That one.

61. Alfred Hitchcock — Saturday Night

The master of horror didn’t actually rank a horror film as his favorite movie. He was a big admirer of director Cecil B. DeMille, and the DeMille film he most admired was 1922’s Saturday Night. That film is about a socialite who falls in love with a chauffeur, and there’s not a shower stabbing in sight.

62. Paris Hilton — There’s Something About Mary

Paris Hilton’s been in some pretty terrible movies, including House of Wax and The Hottie & the Nottie, among other disasters. But her favorite film’s actually a pretty beloved one. She told Rotten Tomatoes in 2008 that her all-time fave is There’s Something About Mary.

63. Snoop Dogg — The Mack

The man they call Snoop loves The Mack above all other movies. When showing fans his Airbnb for his YouTube channel in 2014, he revealed, “This is my favorite movie of all-time, right here: The Mack. This is the movie that made me who I am today. I would be nothing without this movie right here.”

64. Helena Bonham Carter — Mary Poppins

Movie star Helena Bonham Carter loves a film that actually fits in quite well with her Victorian-style aesthetic. It’s Mary Poppins! She said in You’ve Gotta See This, “I even modeled a bit of my house on that movie… I adore the rooftop chimney and the fantastic old England stuff.”

65. Leonardo DiCaprio — When Harry Met Sally

Leonardo DiCaprio loves When Harry Met Sally because he took his eighth-grade girlfriend to see it. Aww! “Then we saw When Harry Met Sally,” he recalled to Movieline magazine in 1995. “And I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look at her in the seat or anything. But the movie took me away.”

66. Stan Lee — My Fair Lady

Nope, Stan Lee’s favorite film isn’t a superhero movie, even though he’s had cameos in so many of them — oh yeah, and created so many of the characters, too. When Rotten Tomatoes asked in 2009 what his favorite film was he answered, “This is gonna knock you out of your shoes. My Fair Lady. That’s probably my favorite movie of all time. I think it is a perfect story, perfectly produced, perfectly acted, perfectly filmed.”

67. Kristin Chenoweth — Steel Magnolias

Kristin Chenoweth loves Steel Magnolias as it reminds her of her own family. “I have six aunts, and they’re all like my mom, and they’re all insane, but in a good way,” she told Rotten Tomatoes in 2013. “That movie makes me think of them. And I’m also Southern, so it’s like, ‘Mmm, I get it.’”

68. Peter Jackson — King Kong

Without the movie King Kong, there might never have been a cinematic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When Peter Jackson first saw it as a child, it blew him away — and he wanted to be a moviemaker from that moment on. This led him to the multiple Oscar-winning Rings movies — plus a remake of King Kong itself.

69. Idris Elba — The Champ

In 2009 Idris Elba revealed his favorite film to the official Oprah website. “For a long time it was Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas,” he explained. “And then I saw a film called The Champ. It’s a tearjerker of a movie, man. It’s real old. There’s this little boy, and he’s yelling, ‘Come on, champ! You can get up in the ring again, champ!’ It’s a good one.”

70. Elton John — The Godfather Part II

Elton John’s contributed music to lots of beloved films, but his favorite movie of all time is one he had nothing to do with. He told Rotten Tomatoes in 2011 that it was “The Godfather II. Just riveting… And, of course, it was better, I think, than The Godfather. I think it’s an amazing, amazing piece of filmmaking.”

71. Morgan Freeman — Moulin Rouge

Morgan Freeman’s apparently a big ol’ romantic at heart. He loves the movie Moulin Rouge! The veteran actor told IGN in 2005, “I just think that movie is fabulous. What Baz Luhrmann did is really amazing. I mean, all of it is just amazing: the dancing, the wardrobe, the music.”

72. Daniel Day-Lewis — Kes

Daniel Day-Lewis named Kes as his favorite film ever in the You’ve Gotta See This book. And he had a very personal reason for doing so. “I can tell you that it’s a heartbreaking film, because it’s about a young boy who is so alone in the world,” he explained. “I felt those same feelings from time to time when I was a young man, and the movie touched those emotions in me.”

73. Nicolas Cage — East of Eden

Nicolas Cage’s pick for favorite film is much less weird than you might think. In 2011 he told Rotten Tomatoes that it’s East of Eden. Cage said, “When I saw Dean in that, it really put the hook in me because I felt like him. And I knew then the power of film acting, and I knew then what I wanted to be.” Just think — no Dean, no Leaving Las Vegas.

74. Adam Sandler — The Wizard of Oz

Adam Sandler’s inexplicably embarrassed by his favorite movie. He said in You’ve Gotta See This, “I love The Wizard of Oz. This is not exactly the sort of thing a man wants to admit, but my mother makes me watch it again and again.” Just whatever you do, Adam, please don’t do a remake of it.

75. Salma Hayek — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

It was Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory that made Salma Hayek want to be an actor. She explained on Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2017, “I realized that through filmmaking, you can create so many different realities, and everything was possible. And so, I wanted to be part of that business.”

76. Betty White — Naughty Marietta

Betty White’s favorite film was from the era she grew up in — 1935’s Naughty Marietta. “I don’t think I’d be in this business if it wasn’t for Naughty Marietta, with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald,” she told Rotten Tomatoes in 2009. “I was 14 and I was SO in love with Nelson Eddy I thought it was the end of the world. And I didn’t just like Jeanette MacDonald, I was Jeanette MacDonald!”

77. Charlize Theron — Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Charlize Theron’s been in some pretty hard-hitting movies, but her favorite film’s lighter fare. She told Rotten Tomatoes in 2018 that it’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which she’d seen “probably 150 times.” On the other hand, she also listed Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is definitely a little more demanding.

78. Ewan McGregor — Harvey

Ewan McGregor’s said that he finds it very hard to list his favorite films. But when Rotten Tomatoes asked him to in 2012, the first one he mentioned was Harvey. He said, “Jimmy Stewart’s one of my all-time favorite actors, and I think it’s just an incredible performance from him. It’s a very, very moving performance.”

79. Cloris Leachman — The Last Picture Show

The late Cloris Leachman considered her favorite of her many films to be The Last Picture Show. She recalled to Rotten Tomatoes in 2016, “Ellen Burstyn and I would hang out together [on set]. We’d talk about our horrible situations, relationships, our marriages. We were both going through divorce.” But in the end, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the movie.

80. Tommy Wiseau — Citizen Kane

When infamous director Tommy Wiseau spoke to Rotten Tomatoes in 2017, he didn’t disappoint. What did the creator of the Worst Movie Ever — The Room — count among his favorite films? Wiseau declared, “The first one will be Citizen Kane. Orson Welles.” It was left politely unsaid that Citizen Kane has a 99 percent Rotten Tomatoes score to The Room’s lowly 23.

81. Tom Hanks — 2001: A Space Odyssey

In 2006 German newspaper Blid got Tom Hanks to name his top five favorite movies, though he was only allowed to choose ones he wasn’t in. Hanks named Boogie Nights, Fargo, The Godfather, and Elephant, but the number one spot was reserved for what’s widely considered Stanley Kubrick’s greatest masterpiece. Hanks said, “I just can’t see enough of 2001: A Space Odyssey.”