‘Babylon’, and 9 Other Best Movies Where Actors Portray Fictional Actors

Particularly with the emergence of method acting in the 20th century, actors have proven time and again that they are willing to go to great lengths for their roles. Whether learning an instrument to play a musician or practicing pugilism to portray a boxer, many actors go to studious extents to develop the skill set of their character.

RELATED: 10 Actors Who Were Scarred By Intense Movie Roles

Compared to other roles, it should be seen as a reprieve when performers are tasked with playing a character who is an actor themselves. Because of the meta-textual elements or the freedom the role provides, when actors are assigned the role of an actor in movies, it often yields triumphant outcomes.

10/10 ‘Babylon’ (2022)

Damien Chazelle is no stranger to giving the aspiring actress a starring role. As he did with Emma Stone in La La Land, one of the main characters in Chazelle’s new film Babylon is an up-and-coming actress named Nellie LaRoy. With Margot Robbie as the would-be starlet, Babylon is a sprawling epic about success and ambition set against the backdrop of 1920s Hollywood.

Robbie is a natural in the role, which somewhat mimics her own rise to stardom from being a soap opera actress to one of the biggest stars in pictures today. With Brad Pitt also predominantly featured as silent film star Jack Conrad, Babylon’s dazzling musical sequences and set design, along with its radiant performances, make it a whirlwind of a good time at the theater.

9/10 ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)

Directed by Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard is possibly the number-one showcase of the fading former star. With Gloria Swanson in full command as Norma Desmond, a role for which she would get nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, Sunset Boulevard is about an aging leading lady who engages in a dangerous and demented relationship with a struggling screenwriter.

RELATED: 10 Essential Billy Wilder Movies Every Serious Film Fan Should Watch

The film, which gathered universal acclaim upon release, has only been reviewed more favorably in recent years, earning a place in the zeitgeist, being referenced on The Carol Burnett Show to Twin Peaks. Nominated for AFI’s Top 100 Villains in 2003, Swanson’s portrayal of Norma Desmond is one of the great in film history, cementing Sunset Boulevard as an all-time classic.

8/10 ‘Opening Night’ (1977)

Audiences love little more than seeing a great actress breakdown on screen, and Opening Night provides that in spades. Directed by John Cassavetes and starring his wife Gena Rowlands, Opening Night concerns an actress, Myrtle Gordon, who is flung into a nervous wreckage following the accidental death of one of her fans.

Categorized in recent years as an art-horror piece, Opening Night is one of Cassavetes’s most worshiped films. Rowlands’s natural force and vigor as a performer shine through as she must attempt to muster both dignity and craze at different stages in the movie. Winning the Silver Bear Award for her performance, Opening Night is an elite showcase for Rowlands’s talents, as well as one of the most potent psychological dramas of the 1970s.

7/10 ‘Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)’ (2014)

This one really blurs the line between fact and fiction. Starring Michael Keaton as the title character, Birdman is about a fading actor who once had mainstream popularity playing a bird-based superhero, who attempts to revive his career on stage in a production of a Raymond Carver short story. With obvious parallels to Keaton’s own journey as an actor, Birdman became one of the defining movies of 2014, going on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The film also features Edward Norton as Mike Shiner, a talented but often terse actor who attempts to mirror Norton’s own media persona. Although both Keaton and Norton were not the first choices for their respective roles, it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing either role thanks to the quality of their performances and how well their characters seem to reflect them.

6/10 ‘All About Eve’ (1950)

Adapted from the Mary Orr short story ‘The Wisdom of Eve’, All About Eve is the only film ever to garner four female acting nominations at the Academy Awards. Released the same year as Sunset Boulevard and following similar themes, All About Eve stars Bette Davis as a highly regarded but declining Broadway star who must fend off her new young assistant who threatens her career.

Written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, All About Eve is one of the essential films on Hollywood, fame, and ambition. Although originally conceived as genteel, Mankiewicz altered the role of Margot Channing to be more scathing and abrasive once Davis was brought on board. Considering both her and co-star Anne Baxter’s careers followed a similar trajectory to their characters to that point, it’s likely their performances were enhanced by the comfort they felt in each role.

5/10 ‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001)

Recently declared the eighth-greatest film of all time in a Sight and Sound poll, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is still a genre-defying masterpiece to this day. Starring Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, the largely ambiguous plot of the film centers around a hopeful actress who recently arrives in Los Angeles and meets & befriends a woman with amnesia.

RELATED: David Lynch’s Movies Ranked from Worst to Best

Watts, who plays the bright-eyed actress, was yet to breakthrough into the industry before Mulholland Drive, giving her nuanced performance an extra layer of context. Analyzed by some critics as a commentary on the ever-present hopelessness of Los Angeles, the film is a showcase of both the dreamy fantasy and perilous nightmare that the city of angels can be.

4/10 ‘Tootsie’ (1982)

Deemed “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” by the National Film Registry in 1998, Tootsie is one of the most beloved comedies of all time. Led by Dustin Hoffman, the plot concerns a talented but volatile actor who, in an attempt to gain a role, disguises himself as a woman. Under the direction of director Sydney Pollack, Tootsie became a big hit critically and commercially, grossing over $200 million at the box office.

Both Hoffman and co-star Jessica Lange were lauded for their performances, with each being nominated for an Oscar and Lange winning. Hoffman’s character, who mirrors elements of Hoffman’s own refractory persona, is a more comedic look at the desperate actor trope that many of these films employ, but Tootsie does it to delightful and hilarious effect.

3/10 ‘Bullets Over Broadway’ (1994)

While other Woody Allen films have characters who are actors, none are as raucously amusing as Bullets Over Broadway. Co-written with Douglas McGrath, the movie is headlined by John Cusack as a young, neurotic playwright in the 1920s who must cast a gangster’s untalented girlfriend in order to get funding for his project.

While Jennifer Tilly plays the irksome, screechy-voiced mobster’s girlfriend, Dianne Weist portrays the faded, alcoholic star. Both women would get nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, with Weist winning. Although both are often nauseating characters, they each make for high comedy in one of Allen’s finest films.

2/10 ‘Waiting For Guffman’ (1996)

One of the defining works by legendary comedic mockumentarian Christopher Guest, Waiting For Guffman may be the highlight of his widely accomplished career. With an ensemble troupe of notable Guest favorites including Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, and Parker Posey, the plot circles around a big city director who takes his talents to a small Midwest town to put on a stage production with the town’s amateur cast.

RELATED: 10 Best Mockumentaries of All Time, Ranked According to IMDb

A mental game of twister, Guests’s cast is so impressive as good actors portraying bad actors who themselves are trying to become good actors. While the journey of the town’s everyday characters attempting to become proper thespians is certainly tasty comedic fodder, Waiting for Guffman is an uncommonly chucklesome affair with a true heart.

1/10 ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’ (2019)

The most recent film from Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is a love letter to Los Angeles, the late 60s, and movies. Led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, the movie follows Rick Dalton, a washed-up actor, and his stuntman, Cliff Booth, as they navigate Hollywood and the industry, encountering twists and turns along the way.

DiCaprio is magnetic as the often-challenged Dalton, culminating in a scene where Dalton attempts to work back up to the actor he used to be while filming a scene for the TV show Lancer. There is a certain magic in Tarantino’s films, particularly the ones where he rewrites history and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is no different. Through DiCaprio, Tarantino doesn’t just foster an indelible performance from an actor, but with Rick Dalton, he also creates an indelible character.

NEXT: 10 Movies Where Actors Got to Pay Homage to Past Roles