10 Most Polarising Actors Of All-Time

The Marmite of Hollywood.

There are some actors who most people tend to agree are unquestionably great: Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Tom Hanks, Spencer Tracy, Laurence Olivier, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck. When famous names like these crop up in conversations about the craft of acting, there are very few who would likely disagree over their talents. That isn't always the case, though. One man's ceiling is another man's floor, after all, and actors have long split public opinion. Movie-goers tend to thrive on the conflict derived from slating a popular actor, posing questions like: "Why does everybody think they're so great?" But there's a fundamental difference between somebody saying that they love Gary Oldman and another person saying that they think Gary Oldman is a bit overrated - there are some actors who polarise audiences to the point at which the lines have been blurred to such a degree that nobody is really sure what to think about them anymore. That's to say, there are a special group of actors who are - quite frankly - defined by their polarising natures. Most of the conversation that you hear about them nowadays centre around their perceived ability to a) act and b) come across well as human beings. For some reason, audiences are unable to collectively agree on the talents of the following 10...
Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.