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1. Daniel Day-Lewis

The dictionary definition of the term ‘serious actor’, classically trained Londoner Daniel Day-Lewis rose to prominence in the late 1980s in films like My Beautiful Laundrette and My Left Foot, for which he won his first of three Best Actor Oscars. Since then, he’s worked with just about every major director on the planet, from Martin Scorsese (The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York) to Michael Mann (Last of the Mohicans), from Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread) to Steven Spielberg (Lincoln). He was knighted in 2014 and retired from acting in 2017 – only to announce his un-retirement seven years later.

Years active: 1980 to now

Key films: My Left Foot, Lincoln, Phantom Thread

2. Alec Guinness

Arguably the greatest of all British screen actors, Alec Guinness exploded onto the screen playing eight different members of the aristocratic Dashwood family in the satirical Kind Hearts and Coronets. But he always resented the fact that his best-known role was as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Years active: 1930s to 1990s

Key films: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars

3. Anthony Hopkins

The son of a Port Talbot baker, Anthony Hopkins’s career has moved from the Shakespearean stage to serious cinematic drama to the hammiest Hollywood blockbusters. But he’ll forever be remembered at the teeth-sucking psychopath Hannibal Lecter in the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs.

Years active: 1960s to now

Key films: The Silence of the Lambs, The Lion in Winter, The Elephant Man, The Father

4. Christian Bale

A child star at 13 in Steven Spielberg’s soaring war story Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale’s career seemed to be petering out before he was perfectly cast as the preening, murderous anti-hero of American Psycho. The lead role in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has made him a huge international star.

Years active: 1980s to now

Key films:Empire of the Sun, American Psycho, Batman Begins

5. Maggie Smith

The Great Dame of British film, Maggie Smith essayed a steady rise through the 1960s before hitting the big time with her Oscar-nominated title performance in 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Her notable roles since are too many to mention, but modern audiences probably know her best as the austere Mother Superior in Sister Act, the acid-tongued Lady Trentham in Gosford Park (and the strikingly similar Lady Crawley in TV’s Downton Abbey) and the kindly Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series.

Years active: 1956 to 2023

Key films: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Room With a View, Sister Act, Gosford Park

6. Julie Christie

Is there a sadder sight in cinema than the finale of Billy Liar, as the train carries Julie Christie away from the sad-sack title character to a life of adventure? Among the most glamorous figures on London’s Sixties scene - which is really saying something - Christie’s flawless face would dominate our nation’s cinema screens in the likes of Doctor Zhivago and The Go-Between, while roles in McCabe and Mrs Miller and Don’t Look Now proved that she’s a phenomenal talent, too.

Years active: 1957 to 2017

Key films: Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Don’t Look Now

7. Gary Oldman

One of a gang of young British actors who rose to prominence in the post-punk years, Gary Oldman got his break playing Sex Pistols legend Sid Vicious. Three decades later he’s still a force to be reckoned with, even in nice-guy roles in the Batman and Harry Potter franchises. The excoriating Nil By Mouth proved he was a fine director, too, while Darkest Hour pocketed him an Oscar.

Years active: 1980s to now

Key films: Dracula, Sid & Nancy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

9. Deborah Kerr

A six-time Academy Award nominee (and the first Scot ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar!), Glasgow-born Deborah Kerr first impressed British audiences with three distinct roles in Powell & Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. But Hollywood soon came calling, and by the 1950s she was a global star, rolling in the surf with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, crooning to Yul Brynner in The King and I and swooning with Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember.

Years active: 1937 – 1986

Key films: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, From Here to Eternity, The Innocents

10. Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren stands apart as the only performer to have completed both the American and British ‘triple crowns’ of acting: an Oscar, Tony and Emmy stateside, plus BAFTA film and TV awards in addition to an Olivier in the UK. Everyone remembers Mirren for brilliantly portraying the late Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears’ 2006 biopic The Queen, but her stellar CV includes everything from the classic 1980 gangster flick The Long Good Friday to the Fast & Furious movies. She really does have the range.

Years active: 1964 to now

Key films:The Long Good Friday, Gosford Park, The Queen, Eye in the Sky

11. Olivia Colman

It’s depressingly rare for an actress to find a bounty of great roles in their forties. Happily, Olivia Colman has had just that. From her fabulously capricious, gouty queen in The Favourite, to an altogether more reserved monarch in The Crown, to her gut-punch dementia drama The Father and motherhood memoir The Lost Daughter, the roles keep getting better – and so does she. The awards will keep coming too, which is fine by us. Her acceptance speeches are magnificent.   

Years active: 2000 to now

Key films: Tyrannosaur, The Favourite, The Lost Daughter

12. Sir John Gielgud

One of Britain’s most iconic Shakespearean actors, John Gielgud never quite seemed at home on the big screen. Nonetheless, his rambling, ever-fascinating screen career ranged from the disastrous ‘erotic epic’ Caligula to prestigious supporting roles in hits like Arthur (for which he won an Oscar) and Gandhi.

Years active: 1920s to 1990s

Key films: Arthur, Gandhi, Caligula

13. Dirk Bogarde

Impossible to pin down, Dirk Bogarde played everything from dashing romantic leads in the hugely popular, comically risqué Doctor series to the scheming working-class valet in The Servant. As the conflicted barrister in Victim, he became the first major British actor to play a gay character on screen.

Years active: 1940s to 1980s

Key films: A Bridge Too Far, Doctor in the House, Victim, TheServant

14. Cary Grant

He may have possessed the tangled mid-Atlantic vowels of an American impersonating a Brit, but Cary Grant was actually born working class in Bristol, and began performing around the age of 10. Louche, debonair, brilliantly funny and just occasionally rather unsettling, Grant’s roles as a Hollywood leading man are too numerous to list, but the films he made with Alfred Hitchcock – Suspicion, Notorious and North By Northwest – are among the most notable.

Years active: 1922 – 1986

Key films:His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, NotoriousNorth By Northwest

15. Judi Dench

A committed stage and screen performer for over three decades before she finally scored her first Oscar nomination as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown, Judi Dench is now a world-famous national treasure, thanks in large part to her role as MI6 chief M in the recent James Bond films.

Years active: 1950s to now

Key films:Philomena, Mrs Brown, Skyfall, Notes on a Scandal

16. Ben Kingsley

Born Krishna Bhanji in 1940s Yorkshire, Ben Kingsley became a figurehead of serious, highbrow British cinema in the wake of Gandhi and Schindler’s List – which made his swearing, sneering turn as the terrifying gangster Don Logan in Sexy Beast all the more startling.

Years active: 1960s to now

Key films: Gandhi, Schindler’s List, Sexy Beast

18. Bob Hoskins

A lifelong grafter who found unexpected fame as the private-dick anti-hero of cartoon smash Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hoskins never forgot his roots and continued to appear in tiny indie movies like Shane Meadows’s magical A Room For Romeo Brass until his untimely death in 2014.

Years active: 1970s to 2010s

Key films: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, A Room for Romeo Brass, The Long Good Friday

19. Sean Connery

From Glasgow milkman to one of the biggest British actors in the known universe, Sean Connery succeeded through sheer determination and bolshiness. Still the fans’ favourite James Bond, he exuded predatory sexiness in the role – but balanced such flashy blockbusters with ‘serious’ performances in the likes of The Hill and Hitchcock’s Marnie.

Years active: 1950s to 2010s

Key films: The Untouchables, Dr No, Marnie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

20. Tilda Swinton

Perhaps the most unpredictable and challenging British actors of them all, Tilda Swinton shattered expectations when she played the male lead in Sally Potter’s time-hopping Orlando. That fierce, determined sense of experimentation can be felt in every film she makes, from tiny avant-garde indies to major Hollywood blockbusters.

Years active: 1980s to now

Key films: Only Lovers Left Alive, Orlando, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I Am Love