The movie landscape and TV landscape have been switching roles for more than a decade now. Movies have arguably been shifting towards episodic villain-of-the-week type releases, whereas TV shows are increasingly showcasing expertly crafted narratives, full of depth.
As more money is being diverted to television production and with more creative freedom amongst writers and directors, actors are flocking to HBO, AMC, Netflix, and others to get their hands on some of the meatiest roles they’ve had in years. The results are often spectacular, as these shows with incredible production value now include some of the best actors in the world, and they often feel more like 10+ hour movies than TV shows.
10 Matthew McConaughey
One of the trademarks of the anthology series True Detective is how it casts a new gang of A-list actors with each season, but the show came right out of the gate on top form with not just Matthew McConaughey, but Woody Harrelson too. True Detective sees them as partners with a long, storied, and sordid history, and the season has one of the highest-ranked pilot episodes in history.
What’s even more interesting is that McConaughey, who is a devout Christian, plays an atheist, and Harrelson, who is an atheist, plays a devout Christian, and their performances on the show are arguably better than most of their movie roles.
9 Kathy Bates
Being no stranger to horror movies, as she even won an Academy Award for her performance in the 1990 movie Misery, Kathy Bates joined the cast of the anthology horror series American Horror Story for season three. She returned for the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth season of the show, and is pegged to return for the 10th season too.
Though there are a lot of ways the seasons are connected, although each is completely independent and Bates has played everything from a woman with hirsutism to a psycho butcher.
8 Anthony Hopkins
Sir Anthony Hopkins is another Academy Award winner to throw his hat into the ring of TV and it’s easy to trace back to when he first got the interest to do so. After the finale of Breaking Bad, Hopkins admittedly binge-watched the show and was just as infatuated with it as the rest of us, even penning a letter to Bryan Cranston about it.
It only made sense that it was Westworld that the actor starred in, as it’s one of the most picturesque shows on TV. Unfortunately, his character of Dr. Robert Ford died on the show and he’s one of the characters that every fan misses.
7 Cillian Murphy
Though he seems to always be in the running to take up the mantle of James Bond, Cillian Murphy hasn’t had meaty lead roles in too many movies, as he’s generally part of the supporting cast. But Peaky Blinders is a vehicle that is completely driven by the actor.
There’s a lot to love about the Birmingham based crime drama, such as the incredible production value and the suspenseful plot, but Murphy has completely carried that show on his shoulders and Thomas Shelby (Murphy) is one of the evilest characters on the show.
6 Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts is somewhat of a champion of indie movies, as she has starred in Funny Games, St. Vincent, and We Don’t Live Here Anymore, among others, so she inevitably crossed paths with David Lynch.
After having starred in the director’s movies Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive, she was one of the many stars cast in the first season of Twin Peaks in 25 years. And though there are a lot of characters inexplicably missing from season three, Janey Jones (Watts) is one of the most interesting of the new bunch.
5 Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton has always portrayed a similar kind of character: a down-on-his-luck, nihilistic type of character, but that was taken to a whole other level in Fargo. Set in the same world as the movie of the same name, the TV show follows Loren Malvo (Thornton,) a hitman who torments an insurance salesman.
Some fans believe that Malvo is literally the devil in human form. It’s a great later-career performance from Thornton, who already has a ton of classic movies under his belt.
4 Winona Ryder
There are a lot of great things about Stranger Things, specifically the 80s nostalgia trip, and what better casting is there for a show indebted to the 80s than Winona Ryder? The actress rose to fame in the late 80s and has some iconic roles in some identifiably 80s movies, including Beetlejuice and Heathers.
In Stranger Things, Joyce (Ryder) is looking for her missing child and it’s hard to even tell, at first, that it’s Winona Ryder in the role, as her messy hair, frumpy get-up and manic mannerisms are all things we haven’t seen from Ryder in the past.
3 John Travolta
Just as Pulp Fiction did for him 27 years ago, The People v. O.J. Simpson reignited John Travolta’s career. And though his movie Gotti may have killed it just as quickly, Travolta was the best thing about the series, which depicts the murder trial of the disgraced football player.
The actor plays Robert Shapiro and he portrays the real-life lawyer as hilariously smarmy and scarily vindictive, making it one of the best performances he’s given in decades.
2 Meryl Streep
Possibly the most surprising of all of the actors to have ever switched to TV, Meryl Streep, who has been nominated for an unbelievable 21 Academy Awards for her roles in movies, starred in the HBO series Big Little Lies.
And it’s not just Streep either, as the show has an all-star female cast including, Reece Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Zoe Kravitz, which has helped it become one of the best TV shows based on books.
1 Martin Sheen
First getting his big break in the Terrence Malick classic Badlands, Martin Sheen isn’t just famous for his headline-making son, but for his vast filmography, which includes films like Apocalypse Now, The Departed, and The Amazing Spider-Man.
When Sheen did cross over to the small screen, he found success in not just one show, but two. The actor first landed the role of Josiah Bartlet, the President of the United States in The West Wing. Following that, he made another switch to streaming services with Netflix’s Grace And Frankie.
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