re: who is the best actor of the past generations?

Gene Hackman

i dont think people will truly appreciate Hanks until he is dead

Nic Cage

Daniel Day Lewis or Gary Oldman.

ETA: Tom Hanks is a great everyman and as such he is simply very relatable. For the most part he just plays variations of himself. It just so happens that people really enjoy watching that. He's definitely a very good actor. He also occasionally transforms himself to fit a role, although usually it's very minor. As far as becoming a completely different convincing character, he isn't even on the same plane as the two mentioned above imo.

For this immediate generation...

Al Pacino
Robert Deniro
Tommy Lee Jones
Tom Hanks
Daniel Day Lewis
Jeff Bridges
Gary Oldman
Ed Harris
Denzel
John Goodman
Robin Williams

Rising...
Mathew McConaughey
Sam Rockwell
Javier Bardem
Don Cheadle
Ed Norton
PSH

and despite all the flack they get, I think
Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Leo Dicaprio and Christian Bale are all very good actors.

Daniel Day Lewis
Robert De Niro
Christian Bale

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having a discussion with someone about who is the greatest actor of the last two generations.

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It's tough to even do this without doing the lead/support split - I find supporting actors tend to be better at their craft.

Having said that, "last two generations" - you mean 40 to 50 years? 50 years goes all the way back to when Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds were fairly young and that's a long time.

Dustin Hoffman, Deniro, Pacino, and even the back half of Brando's career fall in that time period. Newman has an argument, too, although he wasn't quite as prolific - however, he was larger than life in most of his film appearances.

I tend to go with more of the support guys - hard to put Jack (Lemmon) here, as Mr. Roberts, Some Like it Hot and The Apartment are all before your window of consideration. But he's kind of my gold standard for support actors.

PSH, DDL and Kevin Spacey are probably going to get the most passionate supporters for a resume that meets your criteria - rarely phone it in - and I've stated on this board that I'm not the biggest fan of DDL - but I recognize that when he's on (GONY), he's hard to top.

Just because of the range, variety and quality of the performances - he carried movies (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Capote, The Master), held his own against screen legends in co-lead or support roles (Charlie Wilson's War, Flawless, etc.), and just been really fun in small outings (Twister, Lebowski) - PSH's resume stands out from his contemporaries over the past quarter century.

Can I put him ahead of Spacey and DDL? Probably. Greater range and ability displayed than probably anybody - certainly over that span.

ETA: And I agree that Tom Hanks is probably underrated - and mainly because his big break came on a TV sitcom and all the silly comedies he did in the first few years of his career - perhaps the best balance of a leading man's charm and a support actor's skills over the past 30 years - so, maybe that's the strong argument for him...

Denzel Washington is up there IMO




Would everyone be saying PSH had he not just died?

No way he is in the same league as DeNiro, Pacino, DDLewis, Hanks, and DiCaprio


DiCaprio has been acting at an extremely high level since he was a kid

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No way he is in the same league as DeNiro, Pacino, Hanks, and DiCaprio

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One of these is not like the others. PSH was a better actor than DiCaprio. LDC could be better by the time he's done though.

As far as older, seems people are forgetting Hackman and Duvall to go along the others.