Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime. The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since. Given those guidelines, it is time once again to look at the now 107 actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of July 1.
We continue today with the five actors that have starred in exactly 16 movies that I have seen, an increase of three from 3 years ago.
Drew Barrymore
One of the most prolific actors on my radar in the 1990s and 2000s, she has disappeared since, with the most recent of her films that I’ve seen, Music And Lyrics, coming in 2008.
Cameron Diaz
I first encountered Cameron Diaz back in 1996, when I saw her in a little indie film called The Last Supper. She managed to get two films on my list in four different years, most recently in 2010. She has mostly retired from acting, which explains why 2010’s Knight and Day, which I saw in 2019, remains the last film of hers I’ve seen.
Brad Pitt
In 1994, I saw a little film called Kalifornia, which introduced me to Brad Pitt. While he would become a mega-star over the next few years, I was a bit of a late comer to his films. Other than watching A River Runs Through It in 1997 during the Sports in Literature class I took during my last semester of college, it was 2000 before I saw another Pitt film. Making up for lost time, I plowed through three films in 2000. He had a four-year streak between in 2010 and 2013, then entered a dry spell that ended in 2020, when he reappeared with two films. His most recent appearance was in 2022, thanks to that year’s Bullet Train.
Natalie Portman
The first starring roles of Natalie Portman’s that I saw were in 2001, when I watched a double feature of Where The Heart Is and Anywhere But Here. Her appearances in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the Thor franchise have accounted for over 31% of her overall total. 2011 was a big Portman year for me, as I saw a whopping four of her films. My last experience with her work came in 2022, when she returned to the MCU with Thor: Love and Thunder.
Will Smith
Will Smith’s transition from rapper to TV star to movie star began with 1995’s Bad Boys. The following two year, he cemented himself as a huge star with the double feature of Independence Day and Men In Black. The Bad Boys and Men In Black franchises have made up over 37% of his total movies that I’ve seen. My most recent exposure to his work came in 2020, when I saw both 2019’s Gemini Man and 2020’s Bad Boys For Life.