List of most popular artists (all time)

Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. In a career spanning over four decades he has directed eight feature films. Malick made his directorial debut with the dra...

Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is known as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Oingo Boingo from 1976 to 1995, and later for scori...

Philip Morris Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer.

Godfrey Reggio (born March 29, 1940) is an American director of experimental documentary films.

Ron Fricke is an American film director and cinematographer, specializing in time-lapse photography and large format cinematography. He was the director of photography for Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and directed the purely cinematic non...

Jean-Jacques Annaud (born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing Quest for Fire (1981), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Lover (1991), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Annaud...

Lars von Trier (born Lars Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective – an avant-garde filmmaking movement – although his own films have taken a variety o...

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. She starred in a various range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period fil...

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English actor who gained American citizenship in 1942. His best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), H...

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and received four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any perf...

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American screen actor whose filmography include 1940s films noir movies such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep. Over his career he received...

Lauren Bacall, (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress. Bacall began her career as a model, before making her debut as a leading lady with Humphrey Bogart in the film To Have and Have...

Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙 Watanabe Ken, born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Ka...

Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a Chinese born Naturalised Singaporean Chinese actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou. She has twice been awarded the...

Rob Marshall (born October 17, 1960) is an American theater director, film director and choreographer. His most noted work is the 2002 Academy Award for Best Picture winner Chicago, for which he won a Directors Guild of America Aw...

Zhang Yimou (born 14 November 1951) is a Chinese film director, producer, screenwriter and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1...

Andy Lau Tak-wah (born 27 September 1961) is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer-songwriter, actor, presenter, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in...

Gordon Liu (劉家輝; Lau Ka-Fai; pinyin: Liu Jiahui, formerly spelled Liu Chia-Hui, birth name Xian Jinxi; born August 22, 1955) is a Chinese martial arts film actor and martial artist. He became famous for playing the lead role of Sa...

Lau Kar-leung (28 July 1934 – 25 June 2013), also known as Liu Chia-liang, was a Hong Kong-based Chinese actor, filmmaker, choreographer and martial artist. Lau is best known for the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s for the Sh...

Kenneth Low Wai-kwong (born 17 March 1959) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, and stuntman. He was a member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team.

Tommy Tam Fu-Wing (born 19 August 1946 in Guangdong, Republic of China), better known by his stage name Ti Lung, is a Hong Kong actor, known for his numerous starring roles in a string of Shaw Brothers Studio's films, particularly...

Tan Dun (simplified Chinese: 谭盾; traditional Chinese: 譚盾; pinyin: Tán Dùn; born 1957, Changsha, Hunan) is a Chinese contemporary classical composer and conductor, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hi...

Huang Shengyi (born February 11, 1983), also known as Eva Huang, is a Chinese actress and singer.

Anita Mui Yim-fong (10 October 1963 – 30 December 2003) was a Hong Kong singer and actress. Mui once held a sold-out concert in Hammersmith, London, England, where she was dubbed the "Madonna of Asia (東方麥當娜)" and brought her to fu...

Yuen Qiu (Chinese: 元秋) (born Cheung Cheun-Nam, 1948) is a Chinese actress and martial artist. She is an expert of both Chinese martial arts and Beijing-opera skills, and was apprenticed under the same master, Yu Jim-yuen, as Jacki...

Yuen Wah (born 2 September 1950) is a Hong Kong action film actor, action choreographer, stuntman and martial artist who has appeared in over 160 films and over 20 television series.

Stephen Chow (Chinese: 周星馳, Chow Sing-Chi; born 22 June 1962) is a Hong Kong actor, screenwriter, film director, producer and political adviser of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference...

Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng (born 6 August 1962) is a Malaysian actress, best known for performing her own stunts in the Hong Kong action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s. Born in Ipoh, Malaysia, she was chosen by Pe...

Donald Chow Yun-fat, (born May 18, 1955), commonly known by his transcribed Chinese name, is a Hong Kong actor. He is best known in Asia for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the heroic bloodshed genre films A Better T...

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (Chinese: 張曼玉; born 20 September 1964) is a Hong Kong actress. Raised in England and Hong Kong, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983. Some of her most commercially successful...

Zhou Xun (born October 18, 1974) is a Chinese actress and singer who has won "Best Actress" at the Hong Kong Film Awards, Golden Bauhinia Awards, Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards, Golden Horse Awards, Golden Rooster Awards, H...

Takeshi Kaneshiro (Japanese, Okinawan and Chinese: 金城 武, romaji: Kaneshiro Takeshi, Pinyin: Jīnchéng Wǔ, born October 11, 1973) is a Taiwanese-Japanese actor and singer.

Xu Jinglei (born April 16, 1974) is a Chinese actress and film director. She graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1997. She has also spanned an acting career with directing since 2003. Although not well known outside of China, X...

Chen Daoming (born 26 April 1955) is a Chinese actor who has starred in various genres of film and television series.

Zhang Ziyi (born 9 February 1979), is a Chinese actress and model. She is regarded as one of the "Four Dan Actresses" of China. Her first major role was in The Road Home (1999). She achieved fame for her role in Crouching Tiger, H...

Li Lianjie (born 26 April 1963), better known by his English stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, martial artist, and wushu champion who was born in Beijing. He is a naturalized Singaporean citizen. After thr...

Tony Leung Chiu-wai (born 27 June 1962) is a Hong Kong actor and C-pop singer. He was the winner of Cannes Film Festival for Best Actor for his role in Wong Kar-wai's film In the Mood for Love. Leung is also a seven-time winner of...

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese-born American film director, screenwriter and producer. Lee has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice: for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and for Life o...

Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor, director, and producer of film and theater. Best known for his distinctive supporting and character roles – typically lowlifes, bullies, and misfits...

Hugh Michael Jackman (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian actor, singer, and producer. Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as superhero, period, and romance characters. He is perhaps...

Sharlto Copley (born November 27, 1973) is a South African actor, producer, and director who has produced and co-directed short films which have appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as commercials and music videos. He is...

Karl-Heinz Urban (born 7 June 1972) is a New Zealand born actor. He is best known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek, Sta...

Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and performance artist. She was best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa in the original Star Wars trilogy a...

Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is known for directing big-budget action films characterized by fast edits, stylistic visuals and extreme use of special effects. His films, which include...

Frank Arpad Darabont (born Darabont Ferenc; January 28, 1959) is a Hungarian-American film director, screenwriter and producer who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career he was pr...

Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968) is an American actor known for his leading roles in Lawn Dogs (1997), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Matchstick Men (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Choke (2008), M...

Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones (born 30 May 1971) is an English film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the award-winning science fiction films Moon (2009) and Source Code (2011). He is also the...

Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, 25 March 1947) is an English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated o...

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam (born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor, comedian and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 12 feature films, includi...

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFT...