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The Most Famous

ACTORS from Croatia

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This page contains a list of the greatest Croatian Actors. The pantheon dataset contains 9,996 Actors, 16 of which were born in Croatia. This makes Croatia the birth place of the 42nd most number of Actors behind Czechia and Serbia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Croatian Actors of all time. This list of famous Croatian Actors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Croatian Actors.

Photo of Laura Antonelli

1. Laura Antonelli (1941 - 2015)

With an HPI of 69.41, Laura Antonelli is the most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 36 different languages on wikipedia.

Laura Antonelli (née Antonaz; 28 November 1941 – 22 June 2015) was an Italian film actress who appeared in 45 films between 1964 and 1991.

Photo of Rade Šerbedžija

2. Rade Šerbedžija (1946 - )

With an HPI of 62.24, Rade Šerbedžija is the 2nd most famous Croatian Actor.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Rade Šerbedžija (Serbian Cyrillic: Раде Шербеџија, pronounced [rǎːde ʃerbědʒija]; born 27 July 1946) is a Croatian actor, director and musician. He is known for his portrayals of imposing figures on both sides of the law. He was one of the best known Yugoslav actors in the 1970s and 1980s. He is internationally known mainly for his role as Boris the Blade in Snatch (2000), his supporting roles in such Hollywood films as The Saint (1997), Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), X-Men: First Class (2011), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Taken 2 (2012); and for his recurring role as former Soviet Army General Dmitri Gredenko in Season 6 of TV action series 24. Šerbedžija is a four-time recipient of the Golden Arena for Best Actor, Croatia’s highest filmmaking honors. He won the Critics Award for Best Actor at the 51st Venice International Film Festival for his performance in Before the Rain (1994). His performance in the Canadian film Fugitive Pieces (2007) was nominated for a Genie Award and Satellite Award. He was awarded the International Press Academy’s Mary Pickford Award, an honorary award “for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to the Entertainment Industry”, in 2019. The same year, he won his second Vladimir Nazor Award for “Lifetime Achievement - Film Art”.

Photo of Alida Valli

3. Alida Valli (1921 - 2006)

With an HPI of 61.75, Alida Valli is the 3rd most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Alida Maria Laura, Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage name Alida Valli (or simply Valli), was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, spanning from the 1930s to the early 2000s. She was one of the biggest stars of Italian film during the Fascist era, once being called "the most beautiful woman in the world" by Benito Mussolini, and was internationally successful post-World War II. According to Frédéric Mitterrand, Valli was the only actress in Europe to equal Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo. Valli worked with many significant directors both in Italy and abroad, including Alfred Hitchcock (The Paradine Case; 1947), Carol Reed (The Third Man; 1949), Luchino Visconti (Senso; 1954), Michelangelo Antonioni (Il Grido; 1957), Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face; 1960), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Oedipus Rex; 1967), Mario Bava (Lisa and the Devil; 1972), Bernardo Bertolucci (1900, 1976; La Luna; 1979), and Dario Argento (Suspiria; 1977). Within her lifetime, Valli was invested a Knight of the Italian Republic, and received the Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Film Festival for her contributions to cinema.

Photo of Sylva Koscina

4. Sylva Koscina (1933 - 1994)

With an HPI of 59.65, Sylva Koscina is the 4th most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Sylva Koscina (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsilva ˈkɔʃʃina]; born Silvija Košćina, pronounced [sǐlʋija kǒʃtɕina]; 22 August 1933 – 26 December 1994) was a Yugoslav-born Italian actress, maybe best remembered for her role as Iole, the bride of Hercules (Steve Reeves) in Hercules (1958) and Hercules Unchained (1960). She also played Paul Newman's romantic interest in The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968).

Photo of Mira Furlan

5. Mira Furlan (1955 - 2021)

With an HPI of 55.92, Mira Furlan is the 5th most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Mira Furlan (7 September 1955 – 20 January 2021) was a Croatian-American/Yugoslav-American actress and singer. Internationally, she was best known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998), and as Danielle Rousseau in Lost (2004–2010), and also appeared in multiple award-winning films such as When Father Was Away on Business (1985) and The Abandoned (2010).

Photo of Goran Višnjić

6. Goran Višnjić (1972 - )

With an HPI of 51.14, Goran Višnjić is the 6th most famous Croatian Actor.  His biography has been translated into 53 different languages.

Goran Višnjić (Croatian: [ɡǒran ʋîʃɲitɕ]; born 9 September 1972) is a Croatian-American actor who has appeared in American and British films and television productions. He is best known in the United States for his roles as Dr. Luka Kovač in ER and Garcia Flynn in Timeless, both NBC television series. For ER, he and the cast were nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the son-in-law of Croatian film director and former head of Croatian Radiotelevision (1991–95), Antun Vrdoljak. He moved to the United States in the late 1990s.

Photo of María Baxa

7. María Baxa (1946 - 2019)

With an HPI of 48.32, María Baxa is the 7th most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

María Baxa (born Marija Baksa, Serbian Cyrillic: Марија Бакса; 15 April 1946 – 14 November 2019) was an Italian-Serbian film actress, mainly active in Italian cinema.Born in Osijek, Baxa made her film debut in Branko Čelović's Bokseri idu u raj, then moved to Italy where she became a popular starlet in Italian genre cinema, especially in commedia sexy all'italiana (sex comedies). In the late 1980s, Baxa left showbusiness to be an architect.

Photo of Slavko Štimac

8. Slavko Štimac (1960 - )

With an HPI of 47.10, Slavko Štimac is the 8th most famous Croatian Actor.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Slavko Štimac (Serbian Cyrillic: Славко Штимац; born 15 October 1960) is a Serbian actor. Born in a village near Perušić in Croatia, he later graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Štimac made his screen debut in the 1972 children's film Vuk samotnjak, recruited at the age of ten years old after the wife of director Obrad Gluščević visited his school.What followed was a career during which Štimac appeared in many popular and important 1970s and 1980s Yugoslav films where he played child and adolescent characters (including the role of young Russian soldier in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron). His youthful looks later plagued his career, typecasting him into adolescent roles well into his 30s. However, in 2004 he had the leading role in Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle, some years after playing the role of a stutterer in the internationally acclaimed film Underground of same director Kusturica.

Photo of Oja Kodar

9. Oja Kodar (1941 - )

With an HPI of 43.72, Oja Kodar is the 9th most famous Croatian Actor.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Oja Kodar ( OY-ə KOH-dar; born Olga Palinkaš; 1941) is a Croatian actress, screenwriter and director known as Orson Welles's romantic partner during the later years of his life.

Photo of Filip Šovagović

10. Filip Šovagović (1966 - )

With an HPI of 37.41, Filip Šovagović is the 10th most famous Croatian Actor.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Filip Šovagović (born 13 September 1966) is a Croatian actor, film director, comedian, playwright and journalist. At first known simply as the son of renowned actor Fabijan Šovagović, he has established himself as one of the most prolific Croatian actors of the 21st century.He has appeared in over sixty films, starring in My Uncle's Legacy, Sokol Did Not Love Him, Hamburg Altona, Četverored, Transatlantic, The Infection and the Academy Award-winning No Man's Land. Šovagović also starred in the extremely successful Croatian comedy series Naša mala klinika as Ivo Zadro. He made his directorial début in 2005, with the film Pušća Bistra.Šovagović has also been widely praised for his acting work in the Gavella Drama Theatre and as a playwright in his repertoire of five authored plays. His most acclaimed work, The Brick, has won the 2002 Prix Italia. He writes a column in the Croatian daily newspaper 24 sata.

Pantheon has 16 people classified as actors born between 1921 and 1981. Of these 16, 10 (62.50%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living actors include Rade Šerbedžija, Goran Višnjić, and Slavko Štimac. The most famous deceased actors include Laura Antonelli, Alida Valli, and Sylva Koscina. As of April 2022, 2 new actors have been added to Pantheon including Slavko Štimac and Stipe Erceg.

Living Actors

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Deceased Actors

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Newly Added Actors (2022)

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Which Actors were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 6 most globally memorable Actors since 1700.