He's my favourite actor, so I know: he's in a very eclectic range of films in loads of genres with all kinds of actors.

I think that your range as an actor helps you here. For example, Seth Rogan, while he's in loads of films, he is extremely typecast into stoner comedies. So he is more separated from actors in other genres.

Willem Dafoe and Gary Oldman are two of my favorites -- for being underappreciated, and quite eclectic!

I was surprised too, then I started thinking about his filmography

Marvel Movies, John Wick, Robert Eggers films, To Live and Die In LA, Streets of Fire, American Psycho, The Last Temptation of Christ, he was unforgettable in The Life Aquatic, and Wild at Heart!

The directors he's worked with: Robert Eggers, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, John Waters, William Friedkin, David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi... who am i forgetting?

edit: Yorgos Lanthimos!

What an incredible career; I think he spends a lot of time in Italy when he's not filming now

Why not? He's been hugely active over a wide range of genres. He's the exact kind of actor I'd expect to be high up.

Same! It was more of a guess, since I’m not a movie buff, but was cool to see him in the top 10.

It was always tongue-in-cheek. People liked the idea that he was the center of Hollywood in the 90s even though he wasn't the most famous. It was an amusing observation that he was always in supporting roles in every movie. It feels plausible even if it wasn't true. His name adds to the memetic quality.

The data TFA uses excludes many B and DTV movies since it limits to the top 10k films. A more catholic approach indeed puts Roberts at the top: https://oracleofbacon.org/center_list.php

He acted in 46 movies in 2024 according to his Wikipedia (not a single that I recognize, incidentally).

I wonder if IMDb notices a spike from names present in TFA in today's stats

No, it's not that you're old. It's that the movie industry took a big shit in the late 2000s.

Even the takeaways from the last few slides strongly support this. The Gen Z actors are nowhere near as prolific nor have starred in as memorable roles. Previous generations had their actors passing the baton to the next one by co-starring. None of this happened for Gen Z which is why you don't know their names. To me, that's the biggest sign of all that Hollywood didn't even try to make a future for these actors. This is a calculated decline.

The final conclusion even had to jam in a progressive factoid for good measure about it being a woman. It's planting the seed for another round of 2010s-style manufactured outrage in the 2030s when nobody cares except the most righteous "true fans". It's not even misogyny. That's just the cover story. It's the greedy race to the bottom.