50 Greatest Ensemble Casts

Out Of Sight (1998)

The Cast: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, Dennis farina, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Luis Guzman, Viola Davis.

Pause The Screen When: Michael Keaton rolls in as Ray Nicolette (reprising the role he played in Jackie Brown ), joining Dennis Farina and Jennifer Lopez for a lovely little scene midway through. The FBI t-shirt is a nice touch.

Stand-Out Star:
Jennifer Lopez burns up the screen here as feisty US Marshall, Karen Sisco. It's a performance she's never even come close to bettering.

Out Of Sight (1998)

The Cast: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, Dennis farina, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Luis Guzman, Viola Davis.

Pause The Screen When: Michael Keaton rolls in as Ray Nicolette (reprising the role he played in Jackie Brown ), joining Dennis Farina and Jennifer Lopez for a lovely little scene midway through. The FBI t-shirt is a nice touch.

Stand-Out Star:
Jennifer Lopez burns up the screen here as feisty US Marshall, Karen Sisco. It's a performance she's never even come close to bettering.

Bobby (2006)

The Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Joshua Jackson, Heather Graham, Freddy Rodriguez, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Emilio Estevez, Lindsay Lohan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elijah Wood.

Pause The Screen When: During the ending montage, which shows the entire cast reacting to the fallout of Bobby Kennedy's shooting.

Stand-Out Star:
Laurence Fishburne steals his fair share of scenes as the sous chef with some strong views on the state of race relations in America.

Bobby (2006)

The Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Joshua Jackson, Heather Graham, Freddy Rodriguez, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Emilio Estevez, Lindsay Lohan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elijah Wood.

Pause The Screen When: During the ending montage, which shows the entire cast reacting to the fallout of Bobby Kennedy's shooting.

Stand-Out Star:
Laurence Fishburne steals his fair share of scenes as the sous chef with some strong views on the state of race relations in America.

Crash (2004)

The Cast: Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton, Brendan Fraser, Sandra Bullock, Ryan Phillippe, Terrence Howard, Michael Peña, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Jennifer Esposito.

Pause The Screen When: Dillon and Phillippe's encounter with Newton and Howard is an uncomfortable watch, but all four are on superb form in this pivotal scene.

Stand-Out Star: Ludacris proves himself a surprisingly capable actor, spitting out one-liners with genuine charisma.

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

The Cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Jacqueline Bisset, Martin Balsam, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Windmark, Michael York.

Pause The Screen When: Poirot's final summing up has the entire cast gathered round, watching the great man plough through a 17 minute explanation of just whodunit!

Stand-Out Star: Finney is the glue that holds the whole thing together, prowling from carriage to carriage like a bloodhound on the scent. he delivers his final speech with aplomb, too.

Traffic (2000)

The Cast: Benecio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Michael Douglas, Topher Grace, Albert Finney, James Brolin, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman, Benjamin Bratt.

Pause The Screen When:
They're only shown in twos, but the scene in which Cheadle and Guzman listen in on Quaid and Zeta-Jones is pretty starry.

Stand-Out Star:
Del Toro is achingly cool as the mumbling Tijuana cop, an essentially decent man caught in a thoroughly crooked situation.

Inception (2010)

The Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Pete Postlethwaite.

Pause The Screen When: When the inception team and their target are all settling down for a nice kip aboard Fischer's private jet.

Stand-Out Star: Tom Hardy is a treat as debonair con-man, Eames. We particularly like his ad-libbed line to JGL when he pulls out a much heftier gun than his team-mate: "you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

The Thin Red Line (1998)

The Cast: Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin. John Cusack, Adrien Brody, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Miranda Otto, Jared Leto, John Travolta, George Clooney, Nick Stahl, Tim Blake Nelson.

Pause The Screen When: George Clooney makes his way out to address the troops, adding yet more stardust to an ensemble already coated in it.

Stand-Out Star: Sean Penn, who turns in a ferocious performance as the increasingly embittered Sergeant Walsh.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

The Cast: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benecio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, Dan Hedaya, Peter Greene

Pause The Screen When: The titular quintet have their meeting with Pete Postlethwaite's Kobayashi. That's a lot of star-power right there…

Stand-Out Star: Kevin Spacey owns this one as the quivering, limping Verbal Kint. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, and all that…

George Wales

George was once GamesRadar's resident movie news person, based out of London. He understands that all men must die, but he'd rather not think about it. But now he's working at Stylist Magazine.