Sheer acting talent and international appeal. That's what matter the most in our top 50 young actors list.

The same applies in this updated rankings, but let me just add a few equally important points- The most talented young actors are those who relish doing difficult and risky roles and look forward working with the best filmmakers. tMF dislikes young actors who talk too much and will do just about anything to stay in the limelight. Let the performance speak for itself.

Age Limit- How young is young? The last time I checked, we've decided not to include Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, James Franco and Cillian Murphy because of their age. Now as I look at the previous top 10, I see some favorites that I have to let go... I mean, Gael Garcia Bernal is not that young anymore, right? The roles he used to play in Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien are just not right for him anymore. The same applies to James McAvoy and Daniel Bruhl. It's like 'been there, done that' sort of thing...

tMF's concept behind the rankings: Our ranking system is fairly simple- a big part goes to the actors' best performances to date and the awards or nominations received from these roles. Another major part goes to future movie projects, which also considers the 'prestige' of the role, and the filmmakers attached to it. A third part of the rankings- the smallest part is all about the kind of buzz the actors get, including the presence and proliferation of fansites, activity on fan boards, online interviews and other media events that they took part in. One last part- that's my own intuition and which I call the 'X-factor' which relies heavily on gut feeling. Once you've watch someone on the big screen, and something 'registers', you just know there is something special about that actor!

[ Get to know more about the mechanics in choosing the top 50 here. ]

Here's the Top 10-

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Top 50 status: Ranked #11 on the previous list.

Best acting performance: His definitive portrayal as the young Dito Montiel in A Guide to Recognizing your Saints.

Why he made the top 50: I'm not that impressed with LaBeouf's acting talents, but I am with his ability to play the Hollywood game. While he admits, he's not your usual 'Hollywood idol type of guy', he certainly has proven time and again that given a good enough role where he can sink his teeth and involve himself in some serious character study, he can show some amazing results.

The biggest factor that puts him into the Top 10 is his ability to draw crowds into the movie houses. A lot of young audience certainly look at Shia as one of their favorite young stars, but not necessarily their favorite young actor.

Making good career moves - almost there! I always think of young actors as capable of making lots of headway - even in the short period between our April rankings and this one. I remember that a Zac Efron fan sent me an email demanding an answer as to why Zac was not part of the list:

Please do tell me, is Zac not hot enough for you?

He's not. But that was six months ago. How could Zac impress me when all I'd seen was High School Musical? I could enjoy a more 'acclaimed' musical courtesy of Jean Baptiste Maunier in Les Choristes! But Zac really made waves and so have a lot of the young actors on the list - and one in particular has impressed me a lot: Aaron Johnson.

Grabbing the 10 spots on the Top 20 are all mainstays of the previous list, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Cera, Channing Tatum, Anton Yelchin, Jeremie Renier, Paul Dano, Andrew Garfield and Louis Garrel.

[ Get to know more about the mechanics in choosing the top 50 here. ]

Here's the Top 20 -

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Top 50 status: First time on the top 50 list.

Biggest roles so far: as Richard Samuels in Me and Orson Welles and as Troy Bolton in the High School Musical series.

Why he made the top 50: Zac is certainly a revelation! With his drive and ambition to become a better actor, he has chosen to prove his critics that there is more to him than just singing. But hey, any actor who can sing and act well is always a good thing - and everyone knows Zac Efron as one of the leads in Disney's High School Musical. It certainly gave the young actor good leverage in Hollywood. There was an interesting interview from Chicago Sun-Times and I quote:

I just had this ear for music and I went around singing all the time," he says. "We were a regular family and I was always involved in sports," he says. "Like I said, I was short for my age, so sports weren't going to become a career. But my parents knew I could really sing. And they saw I was serious about it." [ read more ]

Zac Efron's latest flick, Me and Orson Welles, received major acclaim during its early screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Richard Linklater, Zac plays a teenager in the Orson Welles directed play "Julius Ceasar" in 1937 who starts a torrid affair with the character played by Claire Danes. Says ScreenDaily:

Teen heart-throb Zac Efron gets to prove his acting chops alongside Claire Danes, Ben Chaplin and newcomer Christian McKay.

The Middleground. The top 30 is the middleground, where you get to find out who are making headways and who are not. We maintain a rather skeptical view of some of the actors' performances (i.e. we're not yet impressed totally!). That's probably the reason why you might notice the low ranking for some of the more popular names, which you thought should have been way up there.

Moving down the rankings were Ben Foster, Kevin Zegers, Michael Angarano, Chris Evans and Eddie Redmayne. New on the list are Keiran Culkin and Nicolas Cazale and completing the top 30 are Ben Barnes, Lou Taylor Pucci and Sam Riley.

International Appeal. I should have mentioned that during the first time we launched our top 50 list last April, many took note of its 'international flavor' and that we feature French, German and even Italian actors. The trend continues as we get to discover more young talents. Both Screen Daily's UK Stars of Tomorrow and the European Film Commission's Shooting Stars were relied upon in finalizing the list.

[ Get to know more about the mechanics in choosing the top 50 here. ]

Here's the Top 30-

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Top 50 status: Ranked #12 on the previous list.

Biggest roles so far: as Cole McKay in Black Irish, as Cameron Kincaid in Man in the Chair and as Jason Tripitikas in The Forbidden Kingdom.

Why he made the top 50: My favorite scene in Lords of Dogtown is when the Z-Boys (Hirsch, Stacey Peralta, et al) visited Sid (played with such sensitivity by Michael Angarano). It was such a heartfelt performance you can't help but feel for the young man who has cancer and is about to die. Says Angarano about his character:

A somewhat awkward and eager-to-please rich kid. Sid will do anything to hang out with the Z-Boys. Whatever he lacks in skating ability Sid easily makes up for in heart, good humor and occasionally, cash

Four outstanding features will further consolidate Angarano as one of today's most talented young actors- 2 of which are outstanding films in their own rights: Black Irish, in which he plays 15-year-old Cole McKay and Man in the Chair which centers around a 17-year-old kid who flirts with the law, underachieves at school, and is at odds with his loving mother and his constantly indifferent and derisive stepfather.

After a banner year in 2007, it seems Angarano is taking it a bit easy, with only one notable role to date, as Benjamin Purvis in Gentlemen Broncos. I'm sure many Angarano fans expect more from the young actor, and hopefully we'll catch some cool casting news before the end of the year.

Newcomers and Major Mainstays. The top 40 list include newcomers like Rupert Grint, Luke and Harry Treadaway, Josh Peck, Tom Payne and Rory Culkin. One of them has yet to do his first full-length movie- Colin Morgan.

Major mainstays are Ryan Donowho, Jesse Eisenberg and Tom Sturridge. Definitely, these three can act and play the lead roles. It just so happens that the kind of challenging and interesting roles are not yet within their grasps...

[ Get to know more about the mechanics in choosing the top 50 here. ]

Here's the Top 40-

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The musical career of two British punk siblings joined above the hip spirals out of control in the fake rockumentary Brothers of the Head. This first foray into fiction for Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (the American duo behind the “failed Terry Gilliam film”- documentary Lost in La Mancha), is appropriately moody and gets the music right, but becomes as incoherent and messy as the lives of the protagonists in the film’s second half, as the Siamese twins Tom and Barry Howe are unable to keep things together in a drug-induced frenzy of music, sex and death.

What makes an amazing actor? What causes an ordinary moviegoer to become an ardent, hardcore fan? Are good looks enough in today's almost cutthroat competition to create the next big Hollywood star? Are talents really being recognized, and are fans mature enough to embrace the really talented actors?

And the biggest question of all: who are the hottest, most talented young actors today? The Movie Fanatic asked industry insiders, ordinary movie fans, film critics and reviewers to give us some of their top choices. We also based our list on the latest announcements coming from British, German and French cinema industry reports. Most important of all, the list features some of today's most exciting emerging talents in cinema. [ Get to know more about the mechanics in choosing the top 50 here. ]

Here's the Top 50-

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Top 50 status: First time on the top 50 list.

Biggest role so far: As James, in Twilight. The major antagonist of the novel Twilight, James is depicted as a merciless "tracker" vampire who hunts human beings or, in some cases, animals, for sport. James is described as unusually gifted at what he does and always gets what he wants, though it is later revealed that a then-human Alice Cullen escaped his clutches some time ago by being turned into a vampire before James could attack. Unlike the Cullen family, he drinks human blood as his food source

Why he made the list: He maybe the villain in the upcoming Twilight, but Cam Gigandet has the looks and the talent to play the lead. The 26-year old actor just grabbed six new feature films come 2009. One of them is the much-anticipated Kid Cannabis, a drama based on the true story of Nate Norman, a 19-year-old Idahoan who grew a multi-million dollar marijuana operation by smuggling the herb into the U.S. from British Columbia. Gigandet will also join Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum and Woody Harrelson in Oliver Stone's Pinkville. These two features would certainly give Gigandet the extra mileage on his quest to become one of Hollywood's most bankable young stars.

Not only are they capable of lighting up the silver screen, they are also some of today's most talented young actresses, commanding huge fees - in some cases, in the millions. Many have won multiple awards, while others have starred in some of today's biggest box office hits. In short, we're listing down the cream of the crop!

Just like our recent Top 50 hottest young actors, we've narrowed down our list from 75 to 30, and set an age limit. If you miss seeing some of your favorites, so do we - including Maggie Gyllenhaal (31 years old) and Amy Adams (34 years old).

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Special tMF Report by Jed Medina

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Definitely what you'll see on the list are emerging talents - the ones you will see getting the big roles in the near future - and some of them already have, with awards and nominations to boot.

Here's the TOP 10: [ If you missed the Top 30, click these links: Top 30 | Top 20 ]

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Evan Rachel Wood is not only a talented movie actress but has also excelled in television and theater roles. She also proudly includes in her resume her talent as a singer. She began her career in the late 1990s, appearing on television in productions such as American Gothic and Once and Again. Wood made her debut as a leading film actress in 2002's Little Secrets, becoming more widely known after her transition to a more adult-oriented Golden Globe-nominated role in the critically acclaimed Thirteen.

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Wood continued acting in mostly independent films, including Pretty Persuasion, Down in the Valley (which also featured an outstanding performance from Edward Norton), Running With Scissors, and most recently in the big studio production Across the Universe (2007). Wood's acting has drawn critical praise and she has been described by The Guardian as being "wise beyond her years" and "one of the best actresses of her generation". For 2008, the young actress has the following films lined up: The Life Before Her Eyes, Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll and The Wrestler.

Why she's in the top 10: Her talent is undeniable - just watch her in Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen (together with Nikki Reed, who co-wrote the script with Hardwicke) and you'll see why she's a young actress to be reckoned with. Even in such lesser-known films as The King of California and Down in the Valley, her acting prowess is awesome. Not to mention her perfomance in the recent Across the Universe.

And - she's even prettier than some of the most popular models out there!

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