Why Timothée Chalamet Will Be One of the Greats

A phrase that I have really worn out in my short time talking about films it that Timothée Chalamet is the best actor of his generation. I stand by that phrase, no matter how many times I say it. But he has now eclipsed that. He is on a trajectory to be the best actor ever. Some of you may read that and laugh. But hear me out. Chalamet himself said in his SAG acceptance speech that his aspiration is to be one of the greats, and he’s really on the right track.

I first want to establish my bias here. Chalamet is my favorite actor, I just want to put that out there. But I am very passionate about the idea of someone’s favorite & the best not being the same thing. This is one situation where I think the two things will eventually align. Before we get into his acting itself, he has made himself a certified star. Becoming a star takes more than talent & good performances, but also a persona. He has established that through his social media awareness, interviews, & charm. He is reaching the millennial & Gen-Z audiences in a way that few other celebrities on the tier  that he is do. And I do think that helps his case, but that’s really more of a cultural discussion than an acting discussion. Let’s look at his career.

I have personally watched every film he has been in. As of my writing this, he has appeared in 24 feature length narrative films. I won’t be discussing any appearances on TV shows, documentaries, or short films, because I’m a movie man after all. I have a YouTube video where I rank all of his performances and I would strongly recommend you check out at the link here: https://youtu.be/9PvZlSWmWE4. But in this one I’ll break down the films in different sections, mentioning all of them, but not fully diving into each.

So let’s first just get through four of his earlier roles that are more insignificant. He plays younger versions of the protagonists in ‘Loving Leah’ & ‘Worst Friends’ appearing in three scenes between the two films. The first is a low quality Hallmark romance & the second is just a bad movie, though he manages to surpass every other actor in the film in about 60 seconds of screentime. In ‘Men, Women & Children’ & ‘Love the Coopers’ he is a more background member of a large ensemble, with his character not providing much in either (he gets bodyslammed in the first & has an awkward makeout scene in the second). Next I will jump to ‘One & Two’ in which he plays one of the lead roles, but the film overall is underwhelming so he’s not able to do much. He then starred in ‘The Adderall Diaries,’ again as a young version of the protagonist, but is featured much more heavily than other early films & has to begin to show his dramatic chops. In ‘Miss Stevens’ he plays the secondary character, a troubled student who connects with the titular teacher. He is really able to start flexing his acting muscles here. The final film that in his early filmography that I have notably excluded is ‘Interstellar.’ The reason for that is because it’s just a class above the rest of these films. No, I’m sorry. It is several classes above the rest of them. It’s out of this world (pun absolutely intended) compared to them. He plays a smaller part, playing Matthew McConaughey’s teenage son who eventually ages into Casey Affleck. This would be the first critically acclaimed film he was a part of. It earned 5 Academy Award nominations, and although it was excluded from the Best Picture race, it is considered one of the best films of the 21st century. Now that we’ve covered his early career, we’re going to get rolling and I’ll really begin my case.

2017 is when his career skyrocketed. He had four films come out, including the Western, ‘Hostiles’ which is fine, though he plays a lesser role, & coming of age crime film, ‘Hot Summer Nights’ in which he plays he plays the lead role & is the highlight of the movie. His other two films that year were both Best Picture nominees. And this won’t be the last time he stars in two of those in the same year. In ‘Lady Bird’ he plays a supporting role as a love interest of Saiorse Ronan’s character (which earned him a SAG nomination as part of the ensemble), and then we have ‘Call Me By Your Name.’ His first solo award nominated role, Chalamet played Elio, a young man who begins to develop a romantic bond with his father’s teaching assistant, played by Armie Hammer. The main reason for the success of the film was Chalamet’s performance, for which he earned Best Actor nominations at the Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, & SAGs. At 19 years old he became the third-youngest person nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor & the youngest since 1939.

He followed this up in 2018 with the role of Nic Sheff in ‘Beautiful Boy,’ a young drug addict going through the ups and downs of his addiction while also struggling in his relationship with his father (Steve Carell). The role garnered Chalamet more praise, earning him nominations for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, & SAG Awards. In 2019 he had three films come out, ‘A Rainy Day in New York’ which was overlooked for its behind the scenes controversy. He played the titular role in ‘The King’ which again was mostly praised for his performance and then played the role of Laurie in ‘Little Women,’ which is the third Best Picture nominee he’s starred in. I can hear you at this point saying ‘well Shane, you’ve done very little to prove this guy is a great actor, let alone an all-timer’ to which I say ‘True! But just stick me with, I’m setting the scene.’

In 2021 he appeared in the ensemble of Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’ & in the ensemble of ‘Don’t Look Up,’ which is his 4th Best Picture nominee thus far. His third role in 2021 was that of Paul Atreides in ‘Dune.’ The cultural phenomenon that it was, it pushed him from an indie/award nominated actor to a movie mega star. It also earned a Best Picture nomination (his 5th) at the 94th Academy Awards where it received a total of 10 nominations and entered the ‘Best Movie of the 21st Century’ talks. Then in 2022 he appeared in a voice role in his friend, Kid Cudi’s animated special, ‘Entergalactic.’ His other 2022 role was one of the two leads in Luca Guadignino’s ‘Bones and All’ which is a really rough watch. Not because of Chalamet, his performance is great, but because of well.. the cannibalism. 

In 2023 he only released one film, ‘Wonka’ which earned him a third Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy & showed that he can excel in comedic roles as well. Now wrapping us up is 2024 in which he reprised his role as Paul Atreides in ‘Dune: Part Two’ which is already considered one of the greatest films ever, and you guessed it, was another Best Picture nominee. He ended the year starring in ‘A Complete Unknown’ as Bob Dylan. The film was yet another Best Picture nominee at the Oscars & earned him his second Oscar nomination for Best Actor (he should’ve won & many actually believe he should’ve taken it home for ‘Call Me By Your Name’ as well). He was also nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA, & won the SAG Award. His Oscar nomination for his role as Dylan makes him the youngest two time nominee for Best Actor since James Dean & his SAG win makes him the youngest ever winner in the category, at age 29.

So for those keeping score, at age 29 he has 2 Oscar nominations, 4 Golden Globe nominations, 4 BAFTA nominations, 6 Critics Choice nominations, & 7 SAG nominations with 1 SAG win, as well as a ton of nominations & wins from smaller awards organizations. He has starred in 7 Best Picture nominated films with upcoming roles including reprisals in ‘Dune: Messiah’ & ‘Wonka 2,’ a titular role in ‘Marty Supreme,’ & a lead role in an Oasis biopic. I would say three of those films have the potential to become Best Picture nominees.

Sources vary, but from what I can figure, about 30 actors have starred in more Best Picture nominees than Chalamet. Another impressive stat is that he has thrice starred in two Best Picture nominees in a single year. Once he stars in one more, that number goes down to 10 actors who have starred in more. My early prediction is that ‘Marty Supreme’ will get a Best Picture nomination at the next Academy Awards (moving him up so only 10 actors have starred in more) & Chalamet will earn another Best Actor nomination. I also predict ‘Dune: Messiah’ to actually win the award at the Oscars the following year. As far as I can tell, the actor who has starred in the most Best Picture nominees is Robert De Niro, with 12. The first was ‘The Godfather Part II’ in 1974 and the most recent was ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in 2023. That’s almost a 50 year gap. Timothée Chalamet has only been ALIVE for 29 years & his first feature film came out just over a decade ago. If he maintained his current trajectory (I doubt he will, I’m just saying IF), by the time he has acted as long as De Niro, he would’ve starred in 30 (!) Best Picture nominees.

Lets take a look at where some of the actors considered the best of the best where at Chalamet’s current age (I Googled ‘best actors ever’ and am going off the names I get from that). First, sticking with De Niro, Mario Trantino in ‘The Gang Couldn’t Shoot Straight’ was his most well known role thus far and he’d star in ‘The Godfather: Part II’ & ‘Taxi Driver’ in the following few years as his great stretch of films began. Al Pacino had appeared in only one film by that age, as Tony in ‘Me, Natalie.’ Denzel Washington had rose to fame on the TV series, ‘St. Elsewhere,’ but had only one film credit as Roger Porter in ‘Carbon Copy.’ Daniel Day-Lewis, who Chalamet shouted out as an inspiration in his SAG speech, had appeared in six films, but didn’t get his first Oscar nomination (& win) until 3 years later with 1989’s ‘My Left Foot.’ Jack Nicholson had appeared in 14 films, and got his first Oscar nomination 3 years later with 1969’s ‘Easy Rider.’ Tom Hanks had 3 film credits & hadn’t even starred in ‘Big’ yet. An actor with a more comparable resume is Marlon Brando, who Chalamet also mentioned in his SAG speech. By the time he was Chalamet’s age, Brando had three Oscar nominations in only four credits which is stupid impressive, but didn’t win his first until the following year. And if we jump over to actresses, the undisputed GOAT, Meryl Streep had only two film credits at age 29, though her second, ‘The Deer Hunter’ earned her the first of her 21 Oscar nominations. And the final performer Chalamet mentioned in his SAG speech, Viola Davis, didn’t make her film debut until she was 31 and didn’t earn her first Oscar nomination till she was in her 40s. I could hear someone trying to argue with me saying ‘well, Chalamet started acting a lot younger than these people’ to which I’d agree, but I don’t understand how that is a fault to the argument. To me it just shows how much career he has left ahead of him.

The actor with whom I would say Chalamet is most comparable is actually the actor I would personally say currently holds the title of best actor ever (I do realize how truly subjective that is) & is the youngest actor mentioned so far, Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio & Chalamet have already been relentlessly compared, but I’ll do it for the sake of the article. By the time DiCaprio (currently 50) was the age Chalamet is now, he had one Oscar nomination for ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’. However he had starred in numerous successful films, both critically & financially, such as ‘Romeo + Juliet,’ ‘Titanic,’ ‘Gangs of New York,’ & ‘Catch Me If You Can.’ He didn’t win his Oscar until he was 42, 13 years older than Chalamet.

I really say all of this to say that the title of ‘Best Actor of His Generation’ is no doubt true, but it’s played out. There are many great actors in this generation. Austin Butler, Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Tom Holland, Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Dev Patel, & many others (some of those listed are actually older than Timothée), but he’s not in conversations with them anymore. Look at those last two paragraphs I listed. Chalamet is already more in line with actors like De Niro, Pacino, Washington, Day-Lewis, Nicholson, Hanks, Brando, Streep, Davis, & DiCaprio than he is with the guys who are currently his peers. And that’s my whole point. No offense to any of the great young actors working, but he has already cleared all of them & he would have to retire now for any of them to catch up. He has entered the conversation with the ALL-TIME greats, not just the ones that are great right now. He’s entered GOAT talks. So no, I’m not going to say he is currently the best actor ever. That is a bold statement that wouldn’t be fair to support right now. I just want to make it clear that that is so obviously where he’s headed so go ahead and prepare yourselves and remind yourselves of this article when it’s all said and done.