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Best Movies Starring Only One Actor

Best Movies Starring Only One Actor

Playing a leading character in a movie is demanding enough. But portraying a character who’s on screen for most, if not all, of the movie – sometimes as the only person seen – is the ultimate exercise in acting.

To determine the best movies with one main character, 24/7 Tempo developed an index using average ratings on IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon, and a combination of audience scores and Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, as of March 2023, weighting all ratings equally. Only movies that focus on one solitary character for the bulk of their running time were considered. Documentaries and concert films were excluded.

Eight actors on our list are Oscar winners (though not all won their statues for acting). In every case listed here, though, critics cited the actor’s performance as distinguishing the movie – and seven of these films have a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness score of 90% or above.

The lion’s share of the films on our list deal with survival. Movies such as “The Last Man on Earth” (with Vincent Price), “The Omega Man” (with Charlton Heston), and “I Am Legend” (with Will Smith) – all based on the same novel – take place in a dystopian future where plague has all but depopulated the planet and it’s up to one person to try and save humanity’s future. (Here are the best movies about the end of the world.)

Films such “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks as a marooned FedEx executive, Blake Lively’s star turn as a wounded surfer in “The Shallows,” and Charles Martin Smith’s researcher scientist looking into the behavior of wolves in “Never Cry Wolf” address humankind’s instinct for survival against nature in its hardest conditions.

Some of the movies on our list are set beyond Earth, such as “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon, and “Moon,” headlined by Sam Rockwell.

Not all main characters are in physical extremis. Christopher Plummer portrays legendary actor John Barrymore in a one-man show titled “Barrymore,” while Philip Baker Hall reimagines former President Richard Nixon seeking to absolve his responsibility for the Watergate scandal. (These are the 35 best fictional presidents in movies and TV.)

Source: Courtesy of Focus Features

25. Inside (2023)
> IMDb user rating: 6.5/10 (488 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 43% (50 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 62% (53 reviews)
> Lead actor: Willem Dafoe

Willem Dafoe plays Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist of priceless art goes awry. Locked inside with nothing but art, he struggles to survive.

Source: Courtesy of Warner Bros.

24. Omega Man (1971)
> IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (32,520 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 53% (10,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 64% (33 reviews)
> Lead actor: Charlton Heston

In this second film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s post-apocalyptic novel “I Am Legend,” Charlton Heston stars as an Army biologist who survived a biological war and is one of the few remaining humans left on the planet. To stay alive he must keep away from a pack of mutants led by an ex-television newscaster who are sensitive to light.

Source: Courtesy of Magnet Releasing

23. Grand Piano (2013)
> IMDb user rating: 5.9/10 (18,182 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 47% (10,022 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 79% (73 reviews)
> Lead actor: Elijah Wood

“Grand Piano” is about a pianist ( Elijah Wood) gripped by stage fright who receives a threatening note before a performance. Rotten Tomatoes called the taut film a one-trick pony that evoked the style of noted thriller director Brian DePalma (“Blow Out”).

Source: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

22. The Shallows (2016)
> IMDb user rating: 6.3/10 (126,316 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 59% (32,576 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 78% (219 reviews)
> Lead actor: Blake Lively

“The Shallows” features a standout performance by Blake Lively as a medical student seeking solace in surfing in a secluded area known for shark attacks. A shark does indeed come at her and she has to swim to a rock for relative safety, nursing a wound as the shark circles the rock.

Source: Courtesy of Universal Pictures

21. Silent Running (1972)
> IMDb user rating: 6.7/10 (27,984 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 66% (9,083 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 71% (31 reviews)
> Lead actor: Bruce Dern

Strong ecological themes are prevalent in “Silent Running,” which stars Bruce Dern as an ecologist who oversees a greenhouse in space to preserve plants for future generations after all botanical life has ceased to exist on Earth. He rebels against orders to destroy the greenhouse in favor of carrying cargo and is forced to do anything to keep the greenery alive.

Source: Michael Stewart / Contributor / Getty Images

20. Nightingale (2014)
> IMDb user rating: 6.4/10 (1,803 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 61% (250 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 82% (22 reviews)
> Lead actor: David Oyelowo

Rotten Tomatoes critics hailed David Oyelowo’s performance in “Nightingale” as “breathtaking.” Oyelowo, who played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma,” here portrays an unstable man who’s killed his mother and talks to people on a video log about his obsession with a former Army friend. Critics also liked the use of the one-man, one-set format of the movie.

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

19. Phone Booth (2002)
> IMDb user rating: 7.0/10 (258,482 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 64% (410,801 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 72% (188 reviews)
> Lead actor: Colin Farrell

In this thriller set almost entirely in and around a New York City paid telephone booth (yes, they used to exist), Colin Farrell plays a media consultant trapped in a phone booth after a caller tells him that he’ll be killed by a sniper if he tries to leave tit. The film boasted a strong cast that included Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, and Radha Mitchell.

Source: Courtesy of Warner Bros.

18. I Am Legend (2007)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (712,870 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 68% (1,130,096 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 68% (215 reviews)
> Lead actor: Will Smith

Will Smith reprises the role made famous by Charlton Heston in “The Omega Man” in a third screen adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel about an Army biologist who survives a man-made plague that’s created flesh-eating zombies on the hunt for him. Rotten Tomatoes critics called Smith’s performance “mesmerizing.”

Source: Courtesy of Image Entertainment

17. Barrymore (2011)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (389 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 67% (1,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 73% (2 reviews)
> Lead actor: Christopher Plummer

Christopher Plummer plays American acting giant John Barrymore, who, months before his passing, is rehearsing for a revival of his triumphant performance in “Richard III,” which he played in 1920. Rotten Tomatoes critic James Plath called Plummer’s one-man performance a “tour de force.”

Source: Courtesy of American International Pictures

16. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
> IMDb user rating: 6.8/10 (18,637 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 69% (11,627 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 81% (26 reviews)
> Lead actor: Vincent Price

“The Last Man on Earth,” the first of three cinematic adaptations (so far) of Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend,” stars Vincent Price as the title character, a man immune to a plague that has turned most of humanity into vampires.

Source: Courtesy of Lionsgate

15. Buried (2010)
> IMDb user rating: 7.0/10 (154,967 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 65% (64,234 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 87% (157 reviews)
> Lead actor: Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds stars as a civilian truck driver in Iraq whose convoy is attacked by insurgents. He awakens inside a coffin, with only a lighter and his cellphone, battling panic and claustrophobia hoping to be rescued.

Source: Courtesy of Lionsgate

14. All Is Lost (2013)
> IMDb user rating: 6.9/10 (78,514 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 63% (40,659 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (240 reviews)
> Lead actor: Robert Redford

Critics hailed Robert Redford’s performance as a lone sailor traversing the Indian Ocean who discovers his boat is taking on water after a collision with a container that tumbled off a ship. After barely surviving a violent storm, his supplies are dwindling and his hopes rest on sailing into a shipping lane. All the while, he takes stock of his life and contemplates his mortality.

Source: Courtesy of The Criterion Collection

13. Secret Honor (1984)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (2,909 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 78% (2,014 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (13 reviews)
> Lead actor: Philip Baker Hall

Robert Altman’s often unsettling look at former President Richard Nixon in retirement in New Jersey depicts the disgraced ex-chief executive as he recalls his upbringing and tries to absolve himself of his role in the Watergate scandal. Philip Baker Hall’s performance as Nixon was lauded as “staggeringly good” by critic David Butterworth.

Source: Courtesy of Batrax Entertainment

12. Locke (2013)
> IMDb user rating: 7.1/10 (142,605 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 72% (28,109 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 91% (218 reviews)
> Lead actor: Tom Hardy

“Compelling” and “consuming” are descriptions from Rotten Tomatoes critics of Tom Hardy’s performance in “Locke.” Hardy plays a man whose life disintegrates in one day: He leaves hist a job supervising a large pour of concrete to be with a woman giving birth to his child, conceived in a one-night stand. While traveling to be with her, he confesses his infidelity to his wife who bans him from home – and he also loses his job.

Source: Courtesy of Paramount Classics

11. The Machinist (2004)
> IMDb user rating: 7.7/10 (371,005 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 83% (156,143 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (143 reviews)
> Lead actor: Christian Bale

In “The Machinist,” Christian Bale plays the title role as a man so afflicted with insomnia that it causes weight loss and a lack of concentration on the job that leads to a terrible accident involving a fellow worker. That further accelerates his descent into self-loathing and self-pity. Rotten Tomatoes critic Victoria Alexander described Bale’s performance as “brilliant, harrowing.”

Source: Courtesy of Live Film & Mediaworks Inc.

10. Pi (1998)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (174,141 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 85% (108,556 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 88% (58 reviews)
> Lead actor: Sean Gullette

Director Darren Aronofsky tells the story of the psychological disintegration of a math wiz in the film “Pi.” Sean Gullette played Max Cohen, a numbers genius who’s built a supercomputer in his Chinatown apartment. He stumbles upon a mysterious number and tells his mentor and a religious friend. His life is endangered when thugs acting on behalf of powerful Wall Street interests want the mysterious number for profit.

Source: Courtesy of American Broadcasting Company

9. Duel (1971)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (72,182 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 84% (25,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 89% (45 reviews)
> Lead actor: Dennis Weaver

“Duel,” a TV movie, is one of Steven Spielberg’s earliest efforts. The gripping film stars television veteran Dennis Weaver (“McCloud,” “Gunsmoke”) as an electronics salesman who gets involved in an escalating cat-and-mouse game with the unidentified driver of an oil tanker on a highway.

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

8. Life of Pi (2012)
> IMDb user rating: 7.9/10 (600,070 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 84% (169,345 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 86% (253 reviews)
> Lead actor: Suraj Sharma

“Life of Pi” won four Oscars, including one for director Ang Lee. After deciding to sell their zoo in India, Santosh and Gita Patel and their three sons leave on a freighter bound for Canada with their few remaining animals. A violent storm sinks the boat and only the teenage son, Pi (Suraj Sharma), survives. He finds refuge in a boat, but so does a Bengal tiger. What follows is a story about trust and survival.

Source: Courtesy of Janus Films

7. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (11,476 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 80% (1,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 95% (56 reviews)
> Lead actor: Delphine Seyrig

Delphine Seyring stars as a widowed mother of a teenage boy living in Brussels whose daily ritual involves cleaning, cooking, shopping and working as a prostitute before her son comes home from school. When her routine is disrupted, it leads to deadly consequences. The film has a cult following and was named by a critics poll in the British monthly magazine Sight & Sound in 2022 as the greatest film of all time.

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

6. Cast Away (2000)
> IMDb user rating: 7.8/10 (551,582 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 84% (744,162 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 89% (158 reviews)
> Lead actor: Tom Hanks

America’s Everyman, Tom Hanks, is on the screen by himself for most of this film. He plays a driven FedEx executive, the only survivor of a flight over the Pacific Ocean, who washes ashore on a deserted island. Though he survives for years, his repeated failed attempts to leave the island push him to the brink of suicide.

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

5. 127 Hours (2010)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (380,308 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 85% (95,966 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 93% (238 reviews)
> Lead actor: James Franco

Buoyed by a career-making performance by James Franco, “127 Hours,” is one of eight films on our list with a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critics score of 90% or above. Franco played a mountain climber who while exploring a remote canyon in Utah has an arm pinned by a boulder. He faces the excruciating choice of either cutting off his arm and trying to find his way out of the canyon or remain there and die.

Source: Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

4. Moon (2009)
> IMDb user rating: 7.8/10 (345,533 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 89% (100,903 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 90% (194 reviews)
> Lead actor: Sam Rockwell

“Moon,” a sci-fi psychological thriller, is the creation of director Duncan Jones, the son of rock legend David Bowie, who captured the alienation of space in his song “Space Oddity.” In “Moon,” Sam Rockwell plays a lunar miner who’s coming to the end of his mission and looking forward to reuniting with his wife – but he experiences headaches and hallucinations and meets what appears to be a younger version of himself.

Source: Courtesy of Buena Vista Distribution Company

3. Never Cry Wolf (1983)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (8,357 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 83% (5,160 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 100% (19 reviews)
> Lead actor: Charles Martin Smith

Charles Martin Smith, who played the accountant in “The Untouchables,” here takes the role of a research scientist sent to the Canadian tundra to find out if wolves are depleting the caribou herd. He gains knowledge of wolf behavior while discovering that it is humans who pose the greater threat to the cycle of life in the wilderness. “Never Cry Wolf,” the first Disney film to be released under the Walt Disney Pictures label, is the only movie on our list with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes Freshness score.

Source: Courtesy of Nordisk Film Distribution

2. The Guilty (2018)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (60,880 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 87% (1,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 98% (122 reviews)
> Lead actor: Jakob Cedergren

“The Guilty” is an acclaimed pulse-pounder from Denmark, directed by Swedish filmmaker Gustav Möller. It is about an alarm dispatcher and former police officer played by Jakob Cedergren who answers a call from a woman who’s been kidnapped. When the call is abruptly disconnected, a frantic search for her and her kidnapper begins. Rotten Tomatoes critics called the movie “a high-concept thriller that wrings maximum impact out of a handful of basic — and effective — ingredients.”

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

1. The Martian (2015)
> IMDb user rating: 8.0/10 (795,046 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 91% (131,961 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 91% (383 reviews)
> Lead actor: Matt Damon

Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars after his fellow space travelers presume that he is dead. While he tries to survive on the red planet, NASA, scientists from other countries, and his fellow crew members race against time to return him to Earth. Based on a novel by Andy Weir, the film was directed by Ridley Scott (“Blade Runner,” “Gladiator”) and boasted a strong supporting cast that included Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, and Jeff Daniels.

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