1. Laurence Olivier
2. Paul Newman
3. Toshiro Mifune
4. Jack Nicholson
5. Al Pacino
6. Marcello Mastroianni
7. Buster Keaton
8. Jack Lemmon
9. Gregory Peck
10. Peter O'Toole
11. Burt Lancaster
12. Robert Mitchum
13. Harold Lloyd
14. Klaus Kinski
15. Gene Kelly
16. Peter Lorre
17. Charles Laughton
18. Michel Piccoli
19. Max Linder
20. Groucho Marx / The Marx Brothers
21. Ben Kingsley
22. Fredric March
23. Sean Penn
24. Tatsuya Nakadai
25. Laurel and Hardy
26. Jean-Pierre Léaud
27. James Mason
28. Philippe Noiret
29. Bill Murray
30. Gary Oldman
31. Walter Matthau
32. Yves Montand
33. Tony Leung
34. Steve McQueen
35. Boris Karloff
36. Dilip Kumar
37. Jerry Lewis
38. Lee Marvin
39. Ian McKellen
40. Jean Marais
41. Paul Muni
42. Liam Neeson
43. David Niven
44. Edward Norton
45. Nino Manfredi
46. Thomas Mitchell
47. Bruce Lee
48. Aamir Khan
49. Christopher Lee
50. Nanni Moretti
51. Joel McCrea
52. Viggo Mortensen
53. Karl Malden
54. Heath Ledger
55. Bela Lugosi
56. Harvey Keitel
57. John Malkovich
58. Joe Pesci
59. Rudolf Klein-Rogge
60. Joaquin Phoenix
61. Takeshi Kitano
62. Steve Martin
63. Victor McLaglen
64. Armin Mueller-Stahl
65. Martin Landau
66. Matthew McConaughey
67. Franco Nero
68. Fred MacMurray
69. Robert Montgomery
70. Kevin Kline
71. Nick Nolte
72. Jet Li
73. Ulrich Mühe
74. Masahiro Motoki

[I wrote the following before I saw Bruno's list]

Some serious differences here. You listed Penn rather high, but for me, it doesn't feel right to have him ahead of someone like Fredric March. They are about equal in acclaim, but March takes body of work. March is more influential, especially his performance is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was also a huge star in Hollywood's Golden Age, while Penn is pretty popular now (despite some flops in the last couple of years). Overall, I have the feeling that March should be ahead. The same goes for James Mason, I feel he should be ahead of actors like Bill Murray and Gary Oldman. Let's see how the others think about this.

We agree on parts of the list, though. I especially was afraid of placing Buster Keaton at 7th place. I see you have him as low as that too; I guess we both felt that especially Mastroianni needed to be ahead of him.

Bruno, I am not opposed to Nicholson ahead of Mifune but I'd prefer to keep him above Pacino for sake of balance.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. I still prefer something like this.

2. Jack Nicholson
3. Al Pacino
4. Paul Newman/Toshiro Mifune
5. Toshiro Mifune/Paul Newman

But I expressed my thoughts on having Newman ahead of Nicholson earlier...

Oldman's acclaim and versatility are huge and he also delivered memorable performances in many modern classics, making him very strong in body of work. Murray combines critical acclaim with love of general public very well, some cultural recognition for his off-screen antics and Bill Murray stories, strong body of work with few stinkers. It's possible that it's just me, but both March and Mason feel kinda forgotten to me, not much lasting cultural relevance for either.

Same here.
Something like this:
2. Al Pacino/Jack Nicholson
3. Jack Nicholson/Al Pacino
4. Paul Newman
5. Toshiro Mifune

I agree with this.

I disagree with your Newman proposal. It's hard to find someone as well-rounded in criteria as him: acting legend, cultural icon, influential, very strong body of work. Newman is basically top tier in every criterion while I would be reluctant to say that about either Nicholson or Pacino. For most of his career Pacino has been closer to cult actor rather than full-fledged star.

Let's wait for AyaMelie's list. We can work towards a compromise then, I'm curious how he thinks about the March-Mason-Oldman-Murray order.

Mifune is, quite naturally, going to lag far behind those three in acclaim (no Academy or BAFTA recognition at any point in his career), and surpass them in body of work. Cultural recognition is, as I argued earlier, pretty close; it wouldn't seem controversial to me to suggest that all three Americans are bigger in this category than Mifune.
Mifune does well in versatility, but his prominence in Kurosawa's filmography also means he gets landed as a tough guy or samurai much of time. Nevertheless, Pacino easily trounces everyone else in this regard, and Nicholson's no slouch either.

It seems to me the most natural placement is:
Nicholson
Pacino
Newman
Mifune

Well, only two non-english language actors got Academy awards (Benigni and Dujardin, not exactly all-time greats) and not that many even got nominated. Seems off to put too much stock into it when comparing American to "foreign" actor. Maybe this order will work:

Nicholson
Newman
Mifune
Pacino

I like this order too.

No, but that is what we're using to compare, no? Even in Japan, there aren't any awards from the era. You have two Venice Film Festival awards, but I don't see those being brought up for any other actor. Clearly even without tangible awards he is a very acclaimed actor, but he's being compared to three of the most acclaimed actors of all time.

Well, festival awards are tricky because of limited sample each year. As rule of thumb, if someone has numerous festival awards, they are going to do good in acclaim but reverse is not necessary true. Same goes for all awards basically, acclaim criterion shouldn't be exact science.

As you said, maybe we shouldn't follow the strict criteria in this stadium of list-making, but I think it can help us here. It also has to do with some instinct though.

Nicholson is the most acclaimed of the four in exact numbers. Newman and Pacino are almost equals, but Pacino scores pretty huge at the Golden Globes, for example. Mifune is indeed the least of the four in terms of statistics, but as Sherick pointed out, he isn't far less acclaimed than the other three; the critics have hailed him as one of the greatest of all time, the most important Asian actor of all time.

I dare to say that Newman has the 'worst' body of work of the four. Pacino is #1 there, closely followed by both Nicholson and Mifune. Mifune's most important phase was probably from 1948 to 1967, but he made several acclaimed films after then as well. Newman starred in quite some classics, and he has a very impressive filmography as well. I just think that the other three have more absolute masterpieces than Newman.

Mifune is undoubtedly the most influential of the four. Together with Kurosawa, he brought Asian cinema to a worldwide audience, which opened doors for many other Asian actors and directors. Ozu and Ryu became popular all over the world after this as well, despite Ozu started his career in the late 1920s. Mizoguchi also followed, as did many others. I really wouldn't know why Newman is more influential than Nicholson or Pacino. They aren't the most influential actors of all time, but also not the least influential. I especially credit Pacino with some method influence, the same goes for Nicholson and Newman but slightly less.

In terms of popularity and cultural recognition, Nicholson and Pacino have the most famous moments. Nicholson has well-known quotes and moments from Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets and The Departed. You, as fellow cinephiles, probably immediately associate some scenes with him, like the restaurant scene from Five Easy Pieces, "Here's Johnny!", his rant in the bar in The Last Detail, his first drink of the day in Easy Rider... And how about Pacino? "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"; "Attica! Attica!"; "Say hello to my little friend!"; "Woo-hah!". Iconic. And of course Newman has his philantrophy and autoracing obsession, but Nicholson's and Pacino's cultural impact in terms of film scenes is far greater, I guess. Newman also has some essential scenes, but just not as many as them.

I even dare to say that I like this order:
2. Nicholson
3. Pacino
4. Mifune
5. Newman

This doesn't degrade Newman, he could still end up in the final top 10, because this is a very strong bunch.

I have my external sources on Newman's influence though:





I personally don't know why would Pacino be more influential on method acting than Newman. And while Newman don't have that many famous quotes when compared to Pacino or Nicholson he's big style icon and often considered the most handsome actor in history which is some form of cultural impact.