Brinking on Legendary status?

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I was asked the other day who my favourite actor was, 10-15 years ago De Niro would have been my reply but he's been in so much chaff lately its damaged his rep for me. I went for Kurt Russell while his filmography isn't stellar, he always makes an average movie better and as he's aged he's only got better. My fave performance of his has to be Breakdown though

I went for Kurt Russell while his filmography isn't stellar

Look again man. I just counted, he has 20 successful/critically approved films. That means they were either hits or simply good films to great films. That's a really good run. He hasn't tried to stay in the spotlight as much as say De Niro or Stallone, but he also hasn't racked up a bazillion bad films like those guys have in their later careers.

With his work with Tarantino, joining the Fast franchise, and putting out quality indie films like Bone Tomahawk, as well as all of his other successes/classic films from the 80's, yeah, I'd put him in legendary status now.

Wouldn't be surprised if he ends up getting his first Oscar nomination similar to Jeff Bridges sooner or later. He's still one of the most charismatic actors ever, a super nature in front of the camera and has pulled off every genre of film including action, comedy, drama, sci-fi, westerns, and so on. I love this guy.

I agree Kurt has loads of great movies in his filmography, I only meant that his filmography wouldn't be comparable to that of say Deniro or Pacino prior to 1995. I'm not saying his movies aren't great just that he's not had any truly iconic roles with the exception maybe of Snake in Escape from New York.

I'm not saying his movies aren't great just that he's not had any truly iconic roles with the exception maybe of Snake in Escape from New York.

Kurt Russell has four iconic and legendary roles with John Carpenter alone: Elvis, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, and The Thing. Throw in George P. Casmatos's Tombstone, and Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse and you have a total of six iconic roles. This isn't even including Russell's time with Disney. It's really a great success story; Russell was signed by Walt Disney himself, then went on to work with John Carpenter, and has now transitioned to the contemporary period of filmmaking with Quentin Tarantino. I mean really, how many people can you really say have successfully reinvented themselves in the way that Russell has? I'm not saying that there haven't been any others. I'm just pointing out how tremendous of a feat it is in order to pull something like this off.

All great Kurt Russell roles for sure, I think using phrases like legendary and iconic is pushing it a bit though, I think if you stopped your average man in the street he would instantly be able to name Robert De Niro's characters in Raging Bull and Taxi Driver or Al Pacino's in Scarface and The Godfather. I think he would probably struggle though with the name of Kurt Russell's character in The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China. I'm not dissing Kurt, he's my favourite actor I'm just saying his filmography doesn't ooze the quality Deniro's and Pacino's did up to the mid 90's. I appreciate he is working with Tarantino now and thats great but even QT admits Death Proof was ill conceived and a bit of a misfire (though Kurt was the best thing about it!). I'm hoping 'The hateful eight' will be great but like the OP's title suggests I think Kurt is on the brink of a huge resurgence in his popularity and we could still be yet to see his career defining performance.

Which is why I said brinking on.

Like Al Pacino, Robert Dinero, Marlon Brando, Sam Jackson obviously come to mind as legendary... But I think after Hateful Eight and a few more good roles and you have to consider it.

He's been pumping out good roles since a child.

And with RANGE. From the Thing, to his Snake bad ass roles, to stuff like Miracle, to his classy Western roles to his upcoming brute Western role..

I agree I was only explaining what I originally meant by his filmography not being as 'stellar' as some of the other heavyweights of which I consider Kurt now to be...