15 Most Star-Studded Ensemble Casts In Hollywood History

Summary

• Great movies usually have stellar ensemble casts; successful directors often gather big-name stars to attract viewers.
• Key films like “The Deer Hunter” and “The Longest Day” thrived due to exceptional casts, not necessarily with an abundance of actors.
• Event cinema delights audiences with star-studded ensemble casts; efforts like “Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame” and “Barbie” exemplify this trend. (138)

Some of the greatest, most popular movies of all time also included a few of the most impressive ensemble casts of all time. Casting is a hugely important part of the filmmaking process, especially in an age where it’s so much of what audiences care about. As such, it’s not unsurprising that the best directors will often try to assemble a cast of as many big-name stars as possible to draw attention to the movie.

While sometimes these stars are up-and-coming and taking part in a movie alongside already established A-listers, or it’s a massive ensemble crew of Hollywood’s biggest actors, the quality of a cast can make or break a movie. In recent years, “event” cinema has become a trend, theaters centering films whose casts are bursting at the seams with fame.

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15 The Deer Hunter (1978)

Winning five Academy Awards, Michael Cimino’s second-ever feature The Deer Hunter has a strong reputation, and although its cast isn’t huge, it stars three actors in particular whose fame boosts The Deer Hunter’s reputation further. With Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep playing the leads alongside John Savage and The Godfather’s John Cazale, this is not a cast to be underestimated.

Each actor gave a seriously strong performance in this movie, De Niro earning $1 million for the role in an attempt to bolster the film’s popularity, given an unfamiliar director. This tactic worked, and the result is one of the greatest films of the 20th century – with an even greater cast.

14 The Longest Day (1962)

War movies were all the rage in the mid-20th century, and The Longest Day is one of the more famous epics of the genre. Telling the story of the D-Day landings across Britain, France, and Germany, and running for nearly three hours, it’s a highly impressive piece of filmmaking that deserves its stellar cast.

Among the main roles are John Wayne, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Richard Todd, and the list goes on. Tension elevates rapidly throughout the film’s runtime, this cast pulls through and everyone gives an amazing performance – unsurprising when they’re all masters of their craft.

13 Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola knows how to make movie stars, and Apocalypse Now is filled to the brim with some of the greatest actors ever to have lived. Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen are the central characters, with appearances from Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, and many others.

Ford’s character, Col. G. Lucas, is a reference to the fact that George Lucas was originally intended to direct Apocalypse Now – it’s fitting that a lifelong collaborator of his took on that mantle. Exploring the horrors of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now is rightly lauded as one of the greatest films ever made, and the cast of top-tier stars only takes it to another level.

12 The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

A small-scale family film, The Meyerowitz Stories is one of Noah Baumbach’s oft-overlooked gems. Focusing on the Meyerowitz family, the movie stars Adam Sandler as Danny, Ben Stiller as Matthew, Dustin Hoffman as their father Harold, and Emma Thompson as Harold’s wife. The interplay between these four is a joy to behold, and they excel in their roles.

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While the main characters are such big names that they make the film feel loaded with hundreds of stars, the cameo appearances from Adam Driver and Sigourney Weaver help to make this impression last throughout the film. With funny moments and scenes of real drama, it’s a gift to be able to watch such talented stars show off their full range.

11 Knives Out (2019)

Rian Johnson’s re-imaging of the detective genre in 2019 proved to be a huge success – and the list of stars he managed to cast is proof of this. Boasting a leading performance from Daniel Craig, plus ensemble roles for Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Frank Oz, Christopher Plummer, and many more, familiar faces pop up everywhere.

What’s almost more incredible is the fact that the 2022 sequel, Glass Onion, had an equally impressive supporting cast, featuring Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, and even more icons on the screen. Johnson’s final stroke of genius was collecting cameos for this second installment, from Hugh Grant to Ethan Hawke – and even Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim show up. The Knives Out franchise is arguably an instant classic already.

10 The Thin Red Line (1998)

Epic war movies are the places to be for star-studded casts, and Terrence Malick’s classic is no exception. Starring Sean Penn as Edward Welsh, with Adrien Brody, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, Tim Blake Nelson, John C. Reilly, John Savage, and John Travolta as other US soldiers, this 171-minute powerhouse of a feature earned itself a healthy award season.

The best part about this movie is that the cast doesn’t distract or detract from the quality of the storytelling at its central premise. The stars are all so perfect in their roles, and the film is so good at drawing the viewer into its world, that it wouldn’t be difficult not to notice who’s in it, even if they are some of the most recognizable actors of its era.

9 The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street boasts a high-profile cast, as would be expected from a Martin Scorsese feature. With frequent Scorsese collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio at its center as Jordan Belfort, the movie also stars Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, while Robbie plays Naomi Lapaglia. It also confirmed Margot Robbie as a rising star, the first of many successful roles she would have.

Supporting them are Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Joanna Lumley, and a range of others. For someone who could trade off his own name (and probably save a lot of money on the cast if he did so), Scorsese’s choices for his actors always seem to hit the mark perfectly, and the slurry of award nominations and wins for the movie aren’t surprising when the cast is this strong.

8 Ocean’s 13 (2007)

Steven Soderberg’s 2001 remake of the 1960 classic Ocean’s 11 set a new bar for ensemble movies featuring high-profile stars, and its sequels only took that to new heights. The third installment in the franchise had the benefit of twelve stars confirmed as returning from the previous entry. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Casey Affleck, and Don Cheadle all return from the previous two films.

In addition, Eddie Izzard and Al Pacino show up. While Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones don’t make reappearances in this movie, the cast is still collectively one of the strongest ever to have appeared on screen – although, it’s possible to say this about the two preceding films as well.

7 The Suicide Squad (2021)

James Gunn’s talents as a director of the superhero genre have been shown off time and time again – and his ability to encourage A-listers to appear in his films is also a staple of his (see Chris Pratt et al. in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise). However, his greatest cast list to date is that for The Suicide Squad. Having inherited Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn from previous DC projects, he sought after other actors who would match her fame.

These included Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Sylvester Stallone as King Shark, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller (who is soon getting her very own series for Gunn’s relaunched DC Universe), as well as roles for Peter Capaldi, Joel Kinnaman, Michael Rooker, Taika Waititi, and Pete Davidson. Fingers crossed Gunn brings this star power to future DC projects as well.

6 Barbie (2023)

Margot Robbie has achieved total synonymity with the Barbie brand – no surprise, given that the Greta Gerwig-directed production was the film, and general cultural mood, of the summer of 2023. Starring Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the main Barbie and Ken, there was a huge range of other strong names featuring prominently in this movie.

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Will Ferrell’s performance as the CEO of Mattel was brilliant, as was Rhea Perlman’s take on Ruth Handler, and with America Ferrara’s Gloria, that’s already a hefty list of stars. Add in Helen Mirren as the narrator, plus Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Emma Mackie, Kate McKinnon, and Nicola Coughlan as a few of the range of other Barbies and Kens (and no one could forget Michael Cera’s turn as Allan), this was a cast list of pure talent.

5 The Expendables 3 (2014)

With Sylvester Stallone helming the writing duties on the first three entries into the Expendables franchise and having directed the first installment, it’s no surprise that the series evolved to include one of the most action-hero-heavy ensembles in history by the third film.

Joining Stallone were Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, Kelsey Grammer, Terry Crews, Glen Powell, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the time this film rolled around, the basic Expendables premise was starting to feel tiresome, but the immense cast boosts the film to a level the script doesn’t quite reach.

4 Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

The joy of a movie written and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (who also directed it) is that they can ask pretty much any actor to make an appearance in their film and it’s almost a guaranteed yes. Their strategy for star power for the sequel to their 2004 comedy was to fit in a huge number of cameos.

While Ferrell, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Christian Applegate, and Paul Rudd all reprise the same Channel Four news team members from the first installment, this movie also features appearances from James Marsden, Harrison Ford, Sacha Baron Cohen, Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Vince Vaughn, Kanye West, and Drake. Yes, really.

3 Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton’s projects instantly call to mind actors he works with over and over – Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, and Michael Keaton, to name a few. For British cinema fans, however, it’s his live-action-but-mostly-CGI adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic which has the most familiar faces (although, often in this film, they’re familiar voices).

With Depp starring as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as Alice, other stars include Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Matt Lucas (the Tweedles), Michael Sheen (the White Rabbit), Alan Rickman (Absolem), Stephen Fry (the Chesire Cat), Timothy Spall, Michael Gough, Christopher Lee, Imelda Staunton – and even the Carry On franchise’s Barbara Windsor!

2 Movie 43 (2013)

Movie 43 is an oddity in the cinema landscape. Rather than a traditional film, it’s a notoriously middling collection of short films, each made by a different production team. As a result, as well as boasting some big names behind the camera, the film has an extensive list of stars. The easiest way to make up for the quality of the film is by reading a list of its cast.

The immensely voluminous cast includes Seth MacFarlane, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Jeremy Allen White, Naomi Watts, Chris Pratt, Keiran Culkin, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell, Chloë Grace Moretz, Halle Berry, Elizabeth Banks, and Bob Odenkirk (who also wrote and directed one of the segments). Wow.

1 Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The Marvel franchise has always been a factory for stars – if a relatively new actor appears in a Marvel movie, they’re almost guaranteed to go stratospheric – so it’s unsurprising that their biggest cross-over event in history should gain so many A-list actors. Each star felt perfect for their character, and the film could have been marketed on the quantity of names alone.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’s Captain America are staples of the franchise, and their final (or so fans thought) appearances in this film were heartfelt. However, mix in Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Brolin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Dave Bautista, Tilda Swinton, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Pratt, Michael Douglas, and so many others, and it starts to become overwhelming.

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