Career: At the age of 10, Christian made his West End debut in The Nerd, opposite Rowan Atkinson. He was hand-picked from 4,000 auditionees to take the lead role in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun in 1987. Unlike many child stars, he has successfully made the transition to serious grown-up actor. Films since include Little Women, The Portrait of a Lady, Velvet Goldmine, American Psycho, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Shaft, Reign of Fire, Equilibrium and The Machinist. His status soared after playing Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and its sequels. His other recent films have included The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, Terminator Salvation, Public Enemies, The Fighter (for which he won an Oscar) and American Hustle.

Career: Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in-your-face Aussie crime thriller, the film was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, Heath feared being typecast as a teen hunk so he accepted a role in Mel Gibson historical war drama The Patriot (2000). He followed that with roles in the hugely popular A Knight's Tale (2001), the dark drama Monster's Ball (2001) and fantasy thriller The Brothers Grimm (2005). He won critical acclaim for his role as a conflicted gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), for which he won a posthumous Oscar. He died on January 22, 2008, at the age of 28.

Career: Eckhart made his film debut in 1997 in an adaptation of Neil LaBute's stage play In the Company of Men. The following year, he starred in LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors. He reached a wider audience in 2000 playing a ponytailed biker in Erin Brockovich. Eckhart went on to star in Nurse Betty (2000), The Pledge (2001), Possession (2002), Thank You for Smoking (2005) and The Wicker Man (2006) before landing the role of Harvey Dent in the hugely popular The Dark Knight (2008). Since then, Eckhart has starred in such films as Rabbit Hole (2010), Battle Los Angeles (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), I, Frankenstein (2014) and London Has Fallen (2016).

Career: Following a successful spell on stage he turned to movies, making a massive impact as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy in 1986, and Prick Up Your Ears a year later. Alcoholism threatened his career, but he has now quit booze. His roles include playing Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, the title role in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Mason Verger in Hannibal. Other projects include Lost in Space, Leon, and The Fifth Element. His directorial debut, the acclaimed Nil By Mouth, was a heart-breaking, semi-autobiographical movie about his childhood. Oldman suffered a career slump around the Millennium, when he concentrated more on raising his young family than he did on acting. But he came back stronger than ever with roles in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (for which he was Oscar nominated) and the Batman franchise.

Career: Caine worked on stage and appeared in small roles on TV, often struggling to make ends meet. He was good friends with Terence Stamp during the early 1960s, before either became famous, and they often shared digs. Caine decided if he wasn't successful by the age of 30 he'd quit acting. Days before this milestone he landed the role in Zulu which made his name. The Harry Palmer spy movies, The Italian Job and Alfie secured his star status. Since then, he's made many films, many forgettable and, by his own admission, done for the money. Highlights include Get Carter, Sleuth (plus a remake), The Man Who Would Be King, Educating Rita, Little Voice, Mona Lisa, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Harry Brown and Interstellar. He won Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. He claims he will retire from showbusiness when he's 90.

Career: Gyllenhaal's first film was 1992's Waterland, which was directed by her father. Various stage and screen jobs followed, including an appearance alongside her brother in Donnie Darko in 2000. Her breakthrough role came in Secretary two years later. Since then she's rarely been off the screen, turning up in the likes of Adaptation, Mona Lisa Smile, World Trade Center, Stranger Than Fiction, The Dark Knight, Away We Go and Crazy Heart (for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination). Her first major TV role came in the BBC's acclaimed drama The Honourable Woman.

Career: Freeman's first credited big-screen appearance was in 1971's Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow?, before he landed a regular role on children's show The Electric Company. In the mid-1980s, Freeman started getting more prominent roles in movies. Among his biggest hits have been Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Glory, Amistad, Deep Impact and Bruce Almighty. He is also an in-demand voice-over artist, lending his dulcet tones to sci-fi blockbuster War of the Worlds and the Oscar-winning documentary March of the Penguins. Freeman received an Academy Award of his own for his supporting role in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. A prolific actor, he has more recently appeared in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and always has several films in pre-production.

Career: The success of Following, made for £3,000, led to Nolan directing Memento (2000), which he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan. The film was a box-office success and was nominated for two Academy Awards. He followed this up with box-office success Insomnia (2002). In 2005, he rebooted the Batman franchise with Batman Begins. It was a critical and commercial success. The sequel, The Dark Knight (2008), cemented Nolan's position as a leading director when it took more than $1billion at the worldwide box office. His trilogy of Batman movies ended with The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which also generated more than $1billion at the box office. Nolan has also had success with The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014).