What is your favorite star-studded film cast? - The A.V. Club

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With movies like The Harder They Fall, Eternals, and Don’t Look Up hitting theaters, we’re looking back at our favorite stacked casts with this week’s AVQ&A:

What is your favorite star-studded film cast?

Knives Out

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) gave us the whodunnit feature we never knew we needed, showcasing the talents of Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson, Lakeith Stanfield, Christopher Plummer, and even more, as each actor perfectly executes their little piece in the mysterious puzzle. From the interrogation scene where we first meet each of the characters, to the living room argument scene where the family dynamics reach full display, everyone delivers excellent standalone performances as well as sensational group chemistry. With a mix of legendary and new talent, Johnson offers a humorous and refreshing take on the classic mystery genre. [Gabrielle Sanchez]

Knives Out is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Ocean’s 8

I’ll come out and say it: I liked Ocean’s 8. How could you not with a cast that included Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, and freakin’ Rihanna, for crying out loud? That’s a murderer’s row of top-shelf acting talent. While 8 wasn’t quite as solid as 11, Ocean’s-wise, they’re both infinitely watchable, with their heist-centric capers and their bang-up showstopping actors. Still, I love a cast that can turn a look and make a quip, so I’ve got nothing but respect for the ladies of Ocean’s 8. [Marah Eakin]

Ocean’s 8 is available to stream on HBO Max.

The Royal Tenenbaums

Picking the best Wes Anderson cast is an exercise in happy futility; among modern filmmakers, only the Coens rival Anderson’s ability to assemble a durable, unbeatable roster of regular performers. In making my pick, I’m half-tempted to go with this fall’s The French Dispatch, which hosts a huge assemblage of the director’s uber-famous regulars, anchored by an achingly sad turn from Anderson newcomer Jeffrey Wright. But I’m a sucker for sentimentality, so it’s got to be The Royal Tenenbaums. It’s not just that the cast is packed—from Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, and Anjelica Huston, down through its various Wilsons, Stillers, and Paltrows—but that each performer has been so perfectly fitted to the damaged, brilliant person Anderson has created for them to inhabit. [William Hughes]

The Royal Tenenbaums is available to rent or purchase on VOD.

Mars Attacks!

When I think of a star-studded movie cast, I think of the kind of thing where each character introduction is met with a “That person is also in this?!” reaction, and the eminently silly Mars Attacks! is one of the best movies for that. Just to name a few, it features Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Lukas Haas, Jack Black, Tom Jones, and Jack Nicholson as separate two characters. [Sam Barsanti]

Mars Attacks! is available to rent or purchase on VOD.

The Player

Sam’s not wrong: Movies where you continually go, “Wait, what—them, too?” are often the most entertaining examples of this concept. And for pure fun (combined with purely great filmmaking), look no further than Robert Altman’s The Player. I don’t care that a lot of the biggest names are just walk-on cameos in this film; hell, that’s kind of the whole point, which is what makes this cast-to-narrative structure so ideal. Set aside the “Hollywood exec stumbles into a murder mystery” plot, ignore the main players like Tim Robbins, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Sydney Pollack, and more, and focus on that endless list of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them names: Julia Roberts, Harry Belafonte, Cher, Peter Falk, Teri Garr, Elliot Gould, Anjelica Huston, Jack Lemmon, Andie MacDowell, Bruce Willis, Rod Steiger… the list is seemingly endless, as is the film’s rewatchability factor. [Alex McLevy]

The Player is available to stream on HBO Max.

Rat Race

This is definitely my tween self talking, but there was a point in time when Rat Race felt to me like the apex of A-list. I could barely comprehend how one movie could contain the combined star-wattage of Whoopi Goldberg, Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson), one of the Sanderson Sisters (Kathy Najimy), and the bad man from Jurassic Park (Wayne Knight). A gaudy, loose riff on 1963’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World—which boasts a massive cast of true comic legends—Rat Race isn’t a movie I’m going to defend as any sort of cinematic achievement, but I’ll always have a nostalgic soft spot for its sprawling ensemble, which features everyone from Cuba Gooding Jr. to John Cleese to Kathy Bates in an uncredited role as a roadside squirrel saleswoman. And, if that’s not enough star power for you, Smash Mouth shows up at the end to perform “All Star,” which is basically putting a hat on a hat. [Cameron Scheetz]

Rat Race is available to stream on HBO Max.

No Sudden Move

Few casts excited me quite like the one leading Steven Soderbergh’s recent bit of crackerjack pulp fiction No Sudden Move. A who’s who of Hollywood’s most eclectic supporting performers including Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Craig Grant, Julia Fox, Ray Liotta, Matt Damon, and Bill Duke, the movie’s plot echoes The Friends Of Eddie Coyle as Don Cheadle (the champion of any cast he’s a part of) leads a blackmail scheme that spirals out of control. Everyone’s on their A-game, particularly Brendan Fraser and Cheadle and Culkin and Seimetz and, um, Harbour. Actually, they’re all great. No Sudden Move is an embarrassment of riches. [Matt Schimkowitz]

No Sudden Move is available to stream on HBO Max.

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