Do We Still Have Genuine Movie Stars?

The glow is fading for silver screen icons.

When awards season comes around do you find yourself muttering, “Who the hell is that?” when a nominee for a film is announced for an award? Or maybe you’ve never heard of the movie. Is it just me?

Movie stars aren’t quite what they used to be, for reasons I’ll explore in a moment. A recent study by The Direct listed the five most popular movie stars of 2023 as Tom Cruise, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, and Denzel Washington. The only woman in the top ten was Julia Roberts at number 6, followed by Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and Kevin Hart. What is remarkable is that only Hart and DiCaprio are under 50 years of age (and DiCaprio, just barely, at 49). This was certainly not the case in the golden age of cinema, when the stars (especially the women) were considered unmarketable after the age of 50.

In my own unscientific poll, I recently asked my Facebook friends who they would consider to be our movie stars under the age of 40. I got some great answers. Some that have big box office numbers are Tom Holland, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael B. Jordan, and Scarlett Johannson. While these are all…