When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.<\/i><\/p>\n Credit: Lucasfilm<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know when it happened, but my Facebook feed has been showing me random posts (not from friends) for months now. While I simply skip over most of these for one reason or another, one recently caught my attention with a dialogue about some of the best actors of all time and who had the best seven-year run. Is it Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, or someone else known for great movie characters<\/a>?<\/p>\n Truth be told, plenty of great options were brought up in a Facebook<\/a> post, and now I\u2019m having a hard time deciding who is right or if there\u2019s even an answer to this question. That said, I\u2019ve come up with a list of a few Hollywood leading men who gave audiences some of the best \u201880s movies<\/a>, even more of the greatest \u201890s films<\/a>, and countless big-screen moments we\u2019re still talking about<\/a> years later.<\/p>\n Credit: Paramount Pictures<\/p>\n Born on the Fourth of July<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Tom Cruise was already a star-in-the-making by the time Top Gun came around in 1986, but this all-time great action flick took his career to new heights. In the seven years following his first portrayal of Maverick, Cruise would appear in classics like The Color of Money, Born on the Fourth of July, and A Few Good Men, to name just a few.<\/p>\n Credit: Lucasfilm<\/p>\n Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Harrison Ford had some acting roles before portraying Han Solo in Star Wars, but his run of hits after taking audiences to the galaxy far, far away in 1977 made him one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest badasses and sexiest men alive. He had a small part in Apocalypse Now, but his return as the \u201cstuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking, nerf herder\u201d in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was huge. The same goes for the debut of another one of his iconic characters<\/a>: Indiana Jones.<\/p>\n Credit: Paramount<\/p>\n A couple of years after Eddie Murphy breathed new life into Saturday Night Live, he took Hollywood by storm with his starring role in the iconic buddy cop movie, 48 Hrs.. In the years that followed the success of the 1982 comedy, Murphy had a string of hits that included classics like Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, and Coming to America, all of which are considered some of the funniest comedies of all time.<\/p>\n Credit: Columbia Pictures<\/p>\n There\u2019s a strong case to be made for Tom Hanks\u2019 run in the \u201890s being the greatest of all time. Over the course of the decade, Hanks went from one of the biggest up-and-coming actors in the comedy world to a two-time Oscar winner, a Hollywood leading man, and the star of the most transformative animated film franchise of the decade.<\/p>\n Credit: Miramax<\/p>\n Die Hard with a Vengeance<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n I\u2019m not going to lie, I had to leave off at least a half-dozen Samuel L. Jackson movies from this list to make it fit. Seriously, Jackson\u2019s box office run from the late \u201880s through the early \u201890s is straight up bonkers. One of the best sci-fi movies of all time? Check, thanks to Jurassic Park. One of the most quotable characters of all time? Check, thanks to Pulp Fiction. And that\u2019s just barely scratching the surface.<\/p>\n Credit: New Line Cinema<\/p>\n Ace Ventura: Pet Detective<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n How The Grinch Stole Christmas<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Already one of the funniest names in comedy by the time he took over Hollywood, Jim Carrey became a force of chaos with his trifecta of comedies in 1994. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber all in the same year is straight up wild! But he followed it with hit after hit throughout the \u201890s and early 2000s. Though Carrey\u2019s best movie<\/a> would come a decade later with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, let\u2019s just look back on that run\u2026<\/p>\n Credit: Disney+<\/p>\n Interview with the Vampire<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Can we talk about how great Brad Pitt was throughout the \u201890s and early 2000s? I mean, he\u2019s still great today, and some of his best work has been in recent years, but he had a stranglehold on American culture back then. Seven, Fight Club, Ocean\u2019s Eleven, and more, all coming out over the course of seven years<\/a>, is absurd. During the \u201890s, Pitt went from a supporting player to THE GUY in show business.<\/p>\n Credit: Walt Disney Pictures<\/p>\n The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man\u2019s Chest<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Pirates of the Caribbean: At World\u2019s End<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Okay, Orlando Bloom probably isn\u2019t the first person to come to mind whenever the conversation turns to great runs, but his seven-year stretch in the 2000s is out of this world. From the Lord of the Rings trilogy<\/a> to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise<\/a> and examples of all the major genres in between, Bloom had hit after hit at the start of the 21st century.<\/p>\n After going through all these actors and their respective filmographies, I\u2019m having a really hard time deciding who had the best seven-year run. I mean, Tom Hanks\u2019 stretch in the \u201890s is in a league of its own, but Tom Cruise also had a firm grasp on things in the era. Harrison Ford kept striking back, and Samuel L. Jackson was just one bad motherfucker.<\/p>\n What do you think? Let me know in the comments below\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Lucasfilm I don\u2019t know when it happened, but my Facebook feed has been showing me random posts (not from friends) for months now. While I simply skip over most of these for one reason or another, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2172825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[340128,25825,31854,305348,347085,22860,352432,319843,364577,309079,33293,306358],"class_list":["post-2172824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-beverly-hills-cop","tag-brad-pitt","tag-credit","tag-eddie-murphy","tag-harrison-ford","tag-hollywood","tag-indiana-jones","tag-paramount-pictures","tag-return-of-the-jedi","tag-samuel-l-jackson","tag-tom-cruise","tag-tom-hanks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Tom-Cruise-Harrison-Ford-People-Are-Arguing-About-Which-Actor.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172826,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172824\/revisions\/2172826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
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Tom Cruise (1986 – 1993)<\/h2>\n
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Harrison Ford (1977 – 1984)<\/h2>\n
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Eddie Murphy (1982 – 1989)<\/h2>\n
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Tom Hanks (1992 – 1999)<\/h2>\n
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Samuel L. Jackson (1989 – 1995)<\/h2>\n
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Jim Carrey (1994 – 2001)<\/h2>\n
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Brad Pitt (1994 – 2001)<\/h2>\n
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Orlando Bloom (2001 – 2008)<\/h2>\n
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