Top 5 Ensemble Movie Casts

5 - Saving Private Ryan. Who's in it? Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Ed Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti, Dennis Farina, and some other not-so-big name actors including Bryan Cranston. Some are only cameos (including Ted Danson and Paul Giamatti). And Matt Damon, who is the title character, doesn't appear until a little past the half-way mark, which may not sound too bad. But to be exact, he appears at the one hour and forty-six minute mark in a movie that is two hours and fifty minutes long. My reasons for why this movie isn't ranked higher is that nearly half of the big name appearances are cameos, and some of the ones that aren't cameos are killed at some point.

4 - Ocean's Eleven (2001 remake). George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck, Elliott Gould, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison, and Shaobo Qin make up the crew. Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia play the supporting roles. And cameos include Lennox Lewis, Wayne Newton, Siegfried and Roy appear as themselves as fight spectators, Topher Grace, Joshua Jackson make appearances at the beginning in Rusty's poker class.

3 - Pulp Fiction. John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Willis are the top billed actors. Cameo appearances include director Quentin Tarantino, Kathy Griffin, Steve Buscemi, Julia Sweeney, and Alexis Arquette. Travolta, Jackson, and Thurman received Oscar nominations for their performances, though none of them won.

2 - Sin City. Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Jessica Alba, Brittany Murphy, Josh Hartnett, Powers Boothe, Rosario Dawson, Rutger Hauer, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Jaime King, Marley Shelton, and Nick Stahl star in the movie comprised of four individual stories with some intertwining. Frank Miller, the author of the graphic novels which are the bases for the movie, makes a cameo as a priest. With this many big name actors appearing, you would think that at least some are cameos. Not so. While some appearances are brief, they are pivotal characters.

1 - The Royal Tenenbaums. Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Bill Murray, Danny Glover, and Gwyneth Paltrow all play pivotal roles that are seen throughout the entire movie, unlike the four previously mentioned movies. Alec Baldwin even narrates. Though there aren't as many big name actors as the other four movies, they are all bigger than some actors in the other four (Nick Stahl in Sin City and some of the "Ocean's Eleven" crew members like Shaobo Qin and Eddie Jemison), and they all appear in the movie for the majority of it, unlike Christopher Walken in "Pulp Fiction" or Matt Damon in "Saving Private Ryan."