An actor doesn’t necessarily have to radiate an aura of coolness to be well-respected and iconic within their profession, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Throughout cinema history, many of the biggest and best-known stars of all time have been celebrated for their cool factor. This can come from how they present outside their movies as a public figure, it can come about because of continually playing cool characters, or it can become apparent because they show themselves capable of doing impressive physical feats on screen.
Ideally, if an actor does some or all of these things, they’ll be immortalized and remembered as icons of cool. By no means is the following ranking definitive, because there are countless actors throughout the medium of film who’ve been cool on-screen. But these represent some of the best of the best; the coolest of cool, ranked roughly by how much of that energy they radiate (or radiated) throughout their acting careers.
10 Bruce Lee
Movies include: 'Enter the Dragon' (1973), 'Fist of Fury' (1972), 'The Big Boss' (1971)
Bruce Lee didn’t need to star in many movies to become one of the most well-respected and awe-inspiring actors of the 1970s. Though he only starred in four completed martial arts movies (plus one that he was working on at the time of his death), those films were all iconic, particularly Enter the Dragon, which was released posthumously and became Lee’s signature film.
For his physical prowess alone, Bruce Lee was iconic, because few martial arts actors had the sort of grace and physicality that he depicted on screen. But beyond that, there was also a charm Bruce Lee had during his non-action scenes; he was inherently likable, and his characters tended to be fiercely determined and no-nonsense in a heroic way. Outside the world of film, Bruce Lee’s cool factor was also boosted by his dedication to martial arts, philosophy, and even poetry.
9 Clint Eastwood
Movies include: 'Unforgiven' (1992), 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' (1966), 'Dirty Harry' (1971)
For his longevity as an actor (and director) alone, Clint Eastwood is more than worthy of legendary status. He first made a name for himself back in the 1950s, in the world of TV, and then became a superstar by the 1960s, with most of these early roles belonging to the Western genre. By the 1970s, Eastwood started directing as well as starring in films, and broadened the sorts of movies he appeared in while never abandoning the humble Western entirely.
For evidence that Clint Eastwood was always cool, you don’t really need to look at more than A Fistful of Dollars, which was his breakout film role. In the 60 years since then, he’s snarled, quipped, and fought his way through various action, crime, thriller, and Western movies, with his near-unending capacity to be involved in the movie business (finally retiring in 2024, the year he's set to turn 94, with the release of Juror No. 2) undeniably impressive.
8 Sigourney Weaver
Movies include: 'Alien' (1979), 'Avatar' (2009), 'Ghostbusters' (1984)
Though she was briefly featured in the Best Picture winner Annie Hall, Sigourney Weaver didn’t achieve breakout success as a true movie star until Alien, which is one of the most iconic sci-fi/horror movies of all time. Weaver’s character, Ripley, doesn’t initially seem like the protagonist, but emerges as one by the film’s final act, which sees her as the sole survivor on a spacecraft, battling a vicious alien that’s been set loose.
Weaver makes you believe Ripley’s got what it takes to survive such impossible odds, and then becomes even cooler as a character once the more action-packed sequel, Aliens, came out. Outside that series, she consistently brings gravitas or class (sometimes both) to whatever she appears in. And, it really has to be said that as far as horror movie “final girls” go, Ripley is undoubtedly the coolest.
7 Paul Newman
Movies include: 'Cool Hand Luke' (1967), 'The Sting' (1973), 'The Hustler' (1961)
Some of the things that were considered cool in the 1950s feel more than a bit dated nowadays, and perhaps even kind of corny at worst. This has happened to various other decades (arguably even the 1980s, which were obviously more recent), but there was a certain kind of cool that was… well, cool in the 1960s that remains timeless to this day, and you see a fair bit of it in the radical/counter-cultural movies released that decade.
And few leading actors from the 1960s exemplify this quite as effectively as Paul Newman, who was unbelievably good at playing rebels and outcasts that audiences couldn’t help but root for. He was an amazing underdog in The Hustler, for example, and an all-time great rebel in Cool Hand Luke, which is all about sticking it to the man in a very 1960s way. Newman maintained being suave and nonchalant in certain roles beyond the 1960s, but was at his absolute coolest during that decade.
6 Denzel Washington
Movies include: 'Glory' (1989), 'Training Day' (2001), 'Flight' (2012)
Denzel Washington could be exceedingly uncool and still be incredibly well-regarded, owing to his sheer acting talent and the fact he’s proven, time and time again, that he can absolutely carry a movie. However, Washington also happens to radiate a certain cool energy alongside his capacity to disappear into various roles, stealing the movie when he’s a supporting character and dominating just about every scene when he’s in the lead.
He's a force to be reckoned with in something like Training Day, for example, remains charming and likable even when his character’s flawed, like in Flight, and is able to do justice to monumentally important historical figures in biopics, as seen in Malcolm X. Denzel Washington can not only do it all acting-wise, but he can do it with immense and unique style, too.
5 Toshirō Mifune
Movies include: 'Seven Samurai' (1954), 'Yojimbo' (1961), 'High and Low' (1963)
Even if he’d never collaborated with Akira Kurosawa, Toshirō Mifune would be a highly respected, notably prolific, and exceedingly versatile Japanese actor, and probably one of the best-known from the country. Yet it was through his 16 collaborations that Mifune became more than well-respected; he’s a household name thanks to movies like High and Low, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo.
He also plays a supporting role in the groundbreaking Seven Samurai that ends up feeling like a lead role, due to the fact that Mifune steals every second he’s on-screen and executes such an amazing balancing act, acting-wise. His character is the comic relief, is initially disliked by the other characters, yet convincingly shows his softer side, revealing his heroic (and tragic) characteristics as the movie goes on. That Mifune can be kind of goofy while also being badass is a staggering achievement… and this is all in just one of his movies; the guy appeared in more than 100.
4 Samuel L. Jackson
Movies include: 'Pulp Fiction' (1994), 'The Avengers' (2012), 'Unbreakable' (2000)
It takes a certain kind of actor to convincingly deliver the sort of wild dialogue often found in a Quentin Tarantino movie, and few have proven capable of doing just that quite like Samuel L. Jackson. He’s had lead, supporting, or cameo roles in just about every single Tarantino movie, and has stolen many a scene throughout his various collaborations with the director (especially in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown).
Beyond that, Jackson is also noteworthy for just how prolific he’s been, being a staple of the MCU, memorably playing a supporting role in the Star Wars prequels, collaborating numerous times with Spike Lee, and pretty much elevating everything he appears in, regardless of how long he’s actually on screen for. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t like Samuel L. Jackson, and few actors out there have seemed as prolific (and committed) as he has, for as long as he has, too.
3 Katharine Hepburn
Movies include: 'The Lion in Winter' (1968), 'The African Queen' (1951), 'Bringing Up Baby' (1938)
Radiating old-school cool at a time in Hollywood history when women seemed mostly relegated to roles that put them beneath male actors, Katharine Hepburn was continually able to defy odds and stand out. That’s not to disparage other actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age; there were systemic things that made the industry an infamously male-centric one. But one got the sense that Hepburn stood up to all that, and nonetheless found immense success, even while not fitting the status quo.
She’s not just a love interest in Bringing Up Baby, for example; she’s the equal of Cary Grant’s character, with both sharing the immense number of laughs found in the film. She does similar things in more serious movies, too, like The African Queen and The Lion in Winter. For being distinctive as an actress, for winning more Oscars than any other actor/actress in history (a total of four, all for leading roles), and for having a career that spanned close to 70 years, few Golden Age stars were as cool as Hepburn.
2 Steve McQueen
Movies include: 'The Great Escape' (1963), 'Bullitt' (1968), 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960)
Excelling as an icon of cool during the 1960s especially (and a little into the 1970s), Steve McQueen might’ve been the only actor of his era who could rival Paul Newman, when it came to being iconic in that distinctly 1960s-way. McQueen may have had some limitations as an actor, speaking in a purely technical sense, but he made up for it with charisma and what can best be described as an aura that simply radiated off the screen.
Helping this was the fact that he starred in some movies where his characters did super cool things, including escaping from a high-security prisoner-of-war camp in The Great Escape and getting wrapped up in a legendary car chase through San Francisco in Bullitt. Steve McQueen doing his Steve McQueen thing has a timeless quality to it, and it may well be the case that no matter how many years pass, he’ll never stop being cool.