Mount Rushmore of Actors

You can make a Mount Rushmore of just about anything. Favorite foods, favorite movies, best sports figures of all time name the sport.

For my first one, I am going to give you my Mount Rushmore of actors. These aren't necessarily the best actors of all-time. I am giving you the four actors I like most for their characters and movies.

Here is my list ... And go easy on the movies I mention. I realize there are others.

Tom Hanks

Hanks is arguably one of the greatest actors of all-time. To me, if you are making a list of GOAT actors, Hanks has to be in the discussion.

From falling in love with a mermaid in one of his breakout roles in Splash in 1984 to playing Mr. Rogers in one of his most recent films, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, in 2019, Hanks has basically done it all.

He has acted for star directors such as Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Clint Eastwood, Sam Mendes, Robert Zemeckis, Penny Marshall and Richard Donner.

Hanks played a war hero in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and a newspaper editor in Spielberg's The Post. His other Spielberg movie was The Terminal, an underrated movie that I enjoyed very much.

Ron Howard was his director in Splash, which one could argue was his breakthrough role along with Bachelor Party, which also came out in 1984. He was an astronaut in Howard's Apollo 13.

Two of his biggest roles of all-time came under the direction of Zemeckis in Forrest Gump and Cast Away. He won an Academy Award for his role as a slow-witted and kind-hearted man from Alabama.

Two of my favorite roles came in Penny Marshall's Big and A League of Their Own. I watched Big about a million times as a child. It is still one of my favorite Hanks' movies.

He also played the narrator and a minor acting role in Donner's Radio Flyer. He has played an airplane pilot in Eastwood's Sully, which I enjoyed very much.

You want animation? He did that, too, when he starred as Woody in all four Toy Story movies.

I actually just watched Road to Perdition tonight. That one was directed by Mendes and featured Hanks as a mob enforcer whose wife and youngest son were murdered. It's Hanks in a different role but as always he knocks it out of the park.

His other big movies with not-so-famous directors include Turner & Hooch, Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail.

He won an Academy Award for his role as a gay lawyer with AIDS in Philadelphia.

Don't worry, Hanks also directed multiple films, including That Thing You Do in 1996 and Larry Crowne in 2011.

Sylvester Stallone

Stallone isn't known for his awesome acting. He's never won an Academy Award but has been nominated for his work in both Rocky and Creed.

But he's got talent. He was nominated for an Oscar for his Rocky screenplay, too. He's also written and/or directed more than 10 films.

The Rocky/Creed series and Rambo series are two of my favorite franchises. He also directed The Expendables and was involved in the screenplay writing of all three Expendables movies.

Let's start with Rocky. He wrote the screenplay for all six movies in the franchise and directed Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4 and Rocky Balboa. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in Creed and was involved in the writing of Creed 2.

The Rocky and Creed movies span 42 years.

He made five movies in the Rambo franchise spanning 37 years. His most recent Rambo film was titled Last Blood and it came out in 2019. It was fantastic.

Besides his three franchise series, Stallone also starred in some very popular action movies starting in 1986 in Cobra and ending in 2002 in Eye See You, one that many may not have seen but I would recommend.

He also starred in several other popular films such as Over The Top (1987), Lock Up (1989), Tango & Cash (1989), Cliffhanger (1993), Demolition Man (1993), The Specialist (1994) and Daylight (1996).

Stallone also starred as a race car driver in Driven (2011) and was voice of one of the animals in Zookeeper (2001) starring Kevin James. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Another actor who isn't the greatest of actors in the history of the game but one who has quite a few movies I absolutely love.

Arnold went from barely speaking any English in Conan the Barbarian in 1982 to shifting his action roles to comedies such as Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Jingle All The Way.

Like Stallone, Schwarzenegger is known for some of his franchises. He was in all 5 Terminator movies, which started with the original back in 1984. That series spanned 35 years.

He owned the 1980s and 1990s with lead roles in The Terminator, Commando, Predator, Running Man, Twins, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop and True Lies. He also played a pregnant man in Junior.

Arnold was so good in life that he went from winning bodybuilding contests before his acting career to becoming Governor of California after.

Eddie Murphy

This one might surprise some. I know Murphy's catalog isn't as deep as others but when he was at his best, he made me laugh for hours.

He might have made my list for only Coming to America, Trading Places and the Beverly Hills Cop triology. Those are all fantastic flicks.

But Murphy also was in 48 Hours, Golden Child, Boomerang, a pair of Nutty Professor movies and Daddy Day Care. He also played in Dr. Doolittle and was a main voice character in the Shrek franchise.

His latest work came in Dolemite Is My Name. I have not seen it yet, but I heard he did great work.

My favorite Murphy films are Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop. And they are working on a Coming 2 America sequel that will be out in the next year or so.

Honorable Mention

Morgan Freeman

Denzel Washington

Harrison Ford

Tom Cruise

Bruce Willis

Adam Sandler

Nicolas Cage