Fred Astaire
(1899-1987)

Studio executives were underwhelmed by the skinny Astaire, but he seduced audiences in Flying Down to Rio and Shall We Dance.

Best Films: Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance? (1937), Carefree (1938), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), You'll Never Get Rich (1941), Holiday Inn (1942), You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Easter Parade (1948), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Royal Wedding (1951), The Band Wagon (1953), Funny Face (1957), Silk Stockings (1957), On the Beach (1959), Finian's Rainbow (1968), The Towering Inferno (1974)

Humphrey Bogart
(1899-1957)

World-weary Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon star Bogart was a man's man who was also loved by the ladies.

Best Films: The Petrified Forest (1936), Dead End (1937), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive By Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), In a Lonely Place (1950), The African Queen (1952), Beat the Devil (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Caine Mutiny (1954), Sabrina (1954)

Marlon Brando
(1924-2004)

Decades after A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando was electrifying in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

Best Films: The Men (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), The Wild One (1953), On the Waterfront (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), Sayonara (1957), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), The Chase (1966), The Godfather (1972), Last Tango in Paris (1972), Superman: The Movie (1978), Apocalpyse Now (1979), A Dry White Season (1989), The Freshman (1990), Don Juan DeMarco (1995), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

Richard Burton
(1925-1984)

Burton's movies were rarely as good as he was, but when they were -- as Look Back in Anger was -- they were breathtaking.

Best Films: The Desert Rats (1953), The Robe (1953), Alexander the Great (1956), Look Back in Anger (1958), The Longest Day (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Becket (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Where Eagles Dare (1969), Equus (1977), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

James Cagney
(1899-1986)

No one did seething fury like the small, wiry Cagney did in movies such as White Heat and The Public Enemy.

Best Films: Blonde Crazy (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Footlight Parade (1933), Lady Killer (1933), G-Men (1935), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Each Dawn I Die (1939), The Oklahoma Kid (1939), The Roaring Twenties (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), White Heat (1949), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), Mister Roberts (1955), Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), One, Two, Three (1961), Ragtime (1981)

Michael Caine
(1933- )

In the sixties, Caine brought working-class sex appeal to cads (Alfie), thieves (The Italian Job), and unglamorous spies (The Ipcress File).

Best Films: The Ipcress File (1965), Alfie (1966), Get Carter (1971), Sleuth (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), California Suite (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), Educating Rita (1983), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Mona Lisa (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), The Cider House Rules (1999), Quills (2000), Get Carter (2000), Miss Congeniality (2000), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), The Quiet American (2002), Batman Begins (2005), Children of Men (2006), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Charlie Chaplin
(1889-1977)

Chaplin was funny, but he wasn't a clown -- it's the razor-sharp edges that make The Gold Rush still feel new.

Best Films: Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), The Tramp (1915), Easy Street (1917), The Immigrant (1917), A Dog's Life (1918), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957)

Sean Connery
(1930- )

With his rough-hewn good looks and casual manliness, Connery was born to play James Bond.

Best Films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Robin and Marian (1976), The First Great Train Robbery (1979), In the Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), First Knight (1995), The Rock (1996), Entrapment (1999), Finding Forrester (2000), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Gary Cooper
(1901-1961)

Bad boys are sexy, but the slow-talking Cooper made basic decency a turn-on in movies like Meet John Doe and High Noon.

Best Films: Wings (1927), Morocco (1930), A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Plainsman (1936), Beau Geste (1939), The Westerner (1940), Ball of Fire (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), The Fountainhead (1949), High Noon (1952), Vera Cruz (1954), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Man of the West (1958)

Russell Crowe
(1964- )

Crowe has built a career on playing bruisers, from Romper Stomper's conflicted skinhead to the disillusioned journalist in State of Play.

Best Films: The Crossing (1990), Proof (1991), Romper Stomper (1992), The Sum of Us (1994), The Quick and the Dead (1995), Virtuosity (1995), No Way Back (1996), Breaking Up (1997), Heaven's Burning (1997), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Insider (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999), Gladiator (2000), Proof of Life (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Cinderella Man (2005), A Good Year (2006), 3:10 To Yuma (2007), American Gangster (2007), Body of Lies (2008), State of Play (2009), Robin Hood (2010), Les Miserables (2012)