Any show, movie, etc., where the majority of the lead roles are played by name actors. They don't have to be A list. B, C, and even D will do, although in that case, relying on their talents is preferable to relying on their names. If the character list is really big, this can spill over into supporting roles as well.
In the days of the studio system, this was easy to do, but once actors' salaries started rising, this practice gradually declined. Compare the casts at the beginning of the Disaster Movie Era with those at the end of it.
These days, you'd either need a lot of money to pull this off, convince the actors that this is just a fun breather film or be willing to settle for loads of cameos. The exception is animated films, where stars are willing to get paid a lot less just to do voice work.
A good way of being able to tell if it is an all star cast is by an examination of the theatrical poster, if it has more than five names listed on it it is usually big names.
Compare Massive Multiplayer Crossover, Celebrity Voice Actor, Dream Team.
The Longest Day (1962) - Paul Anka, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Sean Connery (pre-Bond, and a very small role), Mel Ferrer, Henry Fonda, Leo Genn, Jeffrey Hunter, Alexander Knox, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, George Segal, Rod Steiger, Richard Todd*
who's actually playing the Captain he served under on D-Day
, Robert Wagner (again, pre-fame) and John Wayne, in addition to a number of French and German/Austrian actors who were already household names in their own countries, including future Bond villains Gerd "Goldfinger" Frobe and Curd "Stromberg" Jürgens.
How The West Was Won: Jimmy Stewart, Karl Malden, Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Lee J Cobb, Carroll Baker, George Peppard, John Wayne, Richard Widmark, just to name a few.
Ocean's 11, its remake, and the Steven Soderbergh-directed sequels.
The 1964 film The Yellow Rolls-Royce featured Ingrid Bergman, Rex Harrison, Shirley MacLaine, Omar Sharif, Alain Delon, Art Carney, George C. Scott and Jeanne Moreau.
Many Muppet films from The Muppet Movie onwards have a variation: the Muppets themselves are the stars, but most of the human supporting characters and cameos are name performers. And the first three films even work in cameos from Sesame Street characters!
The Batman movies got gradually more into this as they went on, until the Continuity Reboot.
Dark Knight Trilogy became probably the best modern use of this. Like Pixar, he was concerned with casting talent over name. It just happened that a lot of the talent cast were seasoned name actors. Scarecrow and Two-Face probably had the least famous actors cast in the major roles, but again, it was their talent.
Astérix at the Olympic Games had many name actors (in addition to cameos by various sports stars, and quite a big role for Michael Schumacher), and some critics say, nothing else.
Most adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, in part because there are so many characters to work with and most don't appear onscreen for extended periods of time.
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is an interesting case: most of the A and B-list actors are in supporting and cameo roles, many because they asked to be in the film in some capacity. Most infamously, John Wayneappears as a Roman centurion at the crucifixion.
In a slight inversion of this, the main characters of The Magnificent Seven included Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Eli Wallach and Robert Vaughan — but at the time the film was made, only Yul Brynner was really an established star.
The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn. Oh and of course Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, James Garner and many more...
Just about every adult in the Harry Potter films is played by a renowned British character actor. Try to find a decently-budgeted, British movie made within the last twenty years which doesn't include at least one actor who appeared in the Potter series. In fact, actor Bill Nighy once quipped that the reason he cameo'd as Rufus Scrimgeour in the sixth film was that he didn't want to be the only actor in England to not appear in a Harry Potter film.
Several pop/rock musicals of the 1970s went out of their way to bring in as many music and/or movie stars as possible, even if many of them only got one song/scene as a result: see Tommy, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Wiz.
To most of the world, Baz Luhrman's Australia stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, supported by a bunch of nobodies. Inside Australia itself, it is considered an amazing star-studded extravaganza, where even tiny roles are filled by locally-renowned stars such as Bruce Spence and John Jarrat.
Many British costume dramas fulfil this trope to the letter, though occasionally the names are unknown in Hollywood but considered major stars in Britain.
The 2005 version of Bleak House starred, among others, Gillian Anderson, Denis "Wedge Antilles" Lawson, Charles Dance, Alun Armstrong, Pauline Collins, Ian Richardson and Anne Reid.
The 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice has Colin Firth, Alison Steadman, Julia Sawalha and Emilia Fox.
The 2007 Cranford has Dame Judi Dench, Simon Woods, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, Julia Sawalha, Philip Glenister and Eileen Atkins.
Love Actually has been described as heaven for Anglophiles.
Suprisingly, both of the Steve MartinPink Panther films are dripping with name talent: Martin himself, Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Andy Garc? Lily Tomlin, Jean Reno, Beyonce Knowles... in fact love interest Nicole Nuveau is probably the only major character played by a non-name.
Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier movies. Boogie Nights and Magnolia both feature large casts with lots of big names. Some of the supporting players (John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, and most notably Phillip Seymour Hoffman) have even become bankable (or at the very least, highly respected) leading men since.
Basquiat: Jeffrey Wright, Benicio Del Toro, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Willem Dafoe, David Bowie (as Andy Warhol!), Claire Forlani, Christopher Walken, Courtney Love, Parker Posey, and Tatum O'Neal. For the character-actor inclined among us, there's also Michael Wincott, Rockets Redglare, Michael Badalucco and a cameo from pre-name Sam Rockwell.
Subverted by time, but in 1983, The Outsiders was a pretty big deal, what with C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Leif Garrett, Tom Waits, a twelve year-old Sofia Coppola, S.E. Hinton herself as a nurse and Diane Lane as Cherry Valance!
The movie adaptation of the musical Nine: The lead male role was originally offered to Javier Bardem, who turned it down and was subsequently replaced by Daniel Day-Lewis, thus providing perhaps the only instances were NOT putting Javier Bardem in your movie was the better choice. It also stars Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren, and... Stacy Ferguson of the Black Eyed Peas (aka Fergie).
The Scream movies certainly count, particularly the second one, which features performances by Jada Pinkett-Smith, Omar Epps, Liev Schreiber, Courtney Cox, Buffy Summers herself, David Arquette, Timothy Olyphant, Portia de Rossi, and of course Jamie Kennedy.
Scream 3 has well known actors in even the relatively small roles (Carrie Fisher, Patrick Dempsey, Lance Hendrikson, Kevin Smith, Parker Posey, Jenny McCarthy, Patrick Warburton) along side the already star-studded main cast.
And then there's The Shootist. When word got out that John Wayne was doing what everyone assumed would be his final movie, people were nearly begging for parts. Wayne personally selected Lauren Bacall for the female lead, with Ron Howard and Jimmy Stewart in the two main supporting roles. Presumably the director was too scared of John Carradine to ask him to leave. Harry Morgan shows up for two scenes, Scatman Crothers for one. Richard Boone and Hugh O'Brian were also smuggled onto the set. Ricky Nelson is also shown briefly in flashback (actually a clip from a previous film).
The Thin Red Line, because Terrence Malick spent 20 years away, and almost any male in Hollywood wanted to be a part of his new movie. Many (Gary Oldman, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen...) even had to be cut!
Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme is practically filled with name talent, most of them in cameos: Shelley Duvall (the female lead), Cyndi Lauper, Bobby Brown, Woody Harrelson, Little Richard, Howie Mandel, Cheech Marin... In fact, protagonist Gordon seems to be the only major character to be played by a nobody (albeit in a role that was turned down by Jim Varney).
Anaconda, with Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Kari Wuhrer, and a cameo by Danny Trejo, with only one or two other actors in the whole thing.
If music videos are eligible, then Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl" which was literally just all his famous friends walking around a set talking and waiting for Michael to show up to the video shoot while the song plays in the background. That's the whole point.
Possibly because it's a Biopic incorporating several Real Life all-stars, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers had Geoffrey Rush in the title role, with Emily Watson(as Sellers' first wife), Charlize Theron(as Britt Ekland), Stanley Tucci(as Stanley Kubrick), John Lithgow(as Blake Edwards), Stephen Fry(as a medium Sellers frequently consulted), and Miriam Margolyes(as Sellers' mother) in the key supporting parts. Steve Pemberton and Edward Tudor-Pole had minor roles as his fellow Goons, and Heidi Klum appeared in a cameo (as Ursula Andress).
A New York production of The Seagull featured Meryl Streep as Irina, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Konstantin, Natalie Portman as Nina, Kevin Kline as Trigorin, Christopher Walken as Sorin, Marcia Gay Harden as Masha, Stephen Spinella as Medviedenko, Debra Monk as Polina, John Goodman as Shamraev and Morena Baccarin was Nina's understudy.
Glengarry Glen Ross features Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, and Jonathan Pryce. Every single actor is a name.
The 1942 anthology film Tales of Manhattan features Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson, Elsa Lanchaster and Cesar Romero.
The underknown British gangster flick The Hit stars John Hurt and Terrance Stamp, features Jim Broadbent in small role, and marks the first film role of Tim Roth, who received a BAFTA nomination for Most Outstanding Newcomer to Film.
The 1982 film adaptation of Annie cast its net wide for stage and screen stars to fill the adult roles: Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, Albert Finney as Oliver Warbucks, Ann Reinking as Grace, Tim Curry as Rooster, Bernadette Peters as Lily, and Edward Herrmann as FDR (who had already played that president in two acclaimed TV movies in the late 1970s).
The Prestige is headed by Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johannson, Andy Serkis and David Bowie.
Jamie Foxx's video for "Blame It On the Goose" both parodies this with its opening it and plays it straight when you realize just how many famous people are in the video.
SD Gundam Generation Wars has almost every Gundam Voice Actor reprising a role for an original character. From the somewhat obscure to a well known Gundam character.
Uwe Boll's versions of BloodRayne and Dungeon Siege. Sadly, neither achieved the same goal as the rest of the movies listed here.
The Continuity Reboot of the Spyro the Dragon series actually billed itself on its name talent, which included people like Elijah Wood, Gary Oldman, David Spade and Wayne Brady in its primary roles. Even the minor roles tended to be filled with well-known (among voice acting afficionados) cartoon voice actors.
Iron Man: Robert Downey, Jr.., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges star in the first. Don Cheadle (replacing Howard), Scarlett Johannson, Sam Rockwell, Garry Shandling and Mickey Rourke star in the second — oh, and there's Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. This film series has the highest Academy Award count for any superhero cast.
The 1978 Superman. Apart from the stars, there's Gene Hackman, Jackie Cooper, Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter, as the Kents. Susannah York, a pretty well-known British name in the '70's as his Mom. And of course, in perhaps the biggest cameo ever, Marlon Brando as his Dad, along with another cameo by Terrence Stamp as General Zod. Quite a few of these actors have received Oscar nominations.
Queen's Blade, where every female character is voiced by someone famous eg.Rie Kugimiya, Mamiko Noto, Aya Hirano. Someone at the Anime News Network forum even described it as "its like having all the A-list Hollywood Actress starring in a porn film".
The translation of Princess Mononoke, with Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Keith David, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett Smith and Billy Bob Thornton
Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre featured many well-known actors and actresses. There's Robin Williams, Eric Idle, Paul Reubens, Mick Jagger, Howie Mandel, Peter Weller, Billy Crystal, and Vincent Price, to name a few. Directors of individual episodes included Francis Ford Coppola and Tim Burton.
The documentary America: The Story of the U.S. interviewed various celebrities from Meryl Streep to Bill Gates to Brian Williams to the co-founder of Wikipedia.
The Kingdom Hearts series sports an impressive cast, featuring Haley Joel Osment, David Gallagher, Hayden Panettiere, Jesse McCartney, Brittany Snow, Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill. And that's not even getting into the crossover characters.
Hot Fuzz has roughly as many famous British and Irish actors as the average Harry Potter movie (indeed, with much crossover between them). Throw in Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett for good measure.
Waiting To Exhale, starring Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, Angela Bassett, and Loretta Devine. Also features Dennis Haysbert, Gregory Hines, and Wesley Snipes (in an uncredited role). Also directed by Forest Whitaker.
Shanghai, which features a mix of big-name actors from both Hollywood and Asian cinema, including John Cusack, Chow Yun Fatt, Gong Li, Jeffery Dean Morgan, Franka Potente and David Morse.
Yellowbeard (1983), a pirate comedy, had Graham Chapman in the title role, and a colorful lineup of comic and character actors supporting him: in alphabetical order, Peter Boyle, Cheech & Chong, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Michael Hordern, Eric Idle, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, James Mason, Spike Milligan, and Beryl Reid. And an unbilled cameo by David Bowie!
Most, if not all of Tyler Perry's movies, have quite a bit of stars in them, even if they are just cameo roles.
The 1988 comedy Working Girl has an All-Star Cast retroactively. The only big stars in the film at the time were Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver, but the movie also has Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, David Duchovny, Ricki Lake, Olympia Dukakis, and Saturday Night Live alumna Joan Cusack and Nora Dunn, in roles of varying size.
Eve's Bayou has Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield and Meagan Good in starring roles, as well as minor roles for Diahann Carroll and Victoria Rowell.
Outbreak is Dustin Hoffman - assisted by Cuba Gooding Jr, and formerly married to Rene Russo who's now with Kevin Spacey - vs Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman (who eventually switches sides and has Sutherland arrested by Dale Dye) in trying to manage a virus brought into the country by Patrick Dempsey.
Grand Hotel, which had Greta Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, and Jean Hersholt.
Dinner at Eight (1933) had Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Billie Burke and Jean Hersholt.
Noises Off starring Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Marilu Henner, Julie Hagerty, Denholm Elliot, Mark-Lynn Baker and Nicolette Sheridan.
Pani Poni Dash! has both dubs as this. The Japanese version has the whole class of 1-C as this already, even Sayaka Suzuki's vocie actress, who's next sucessful role wouldn't be until the infamous Yosuga no Sora anime.
The French comedy Papy fait de la Résistance, down to the extras. The tagline said that it had cost more than the Normandy landings.
Damages has Glenn Close, Ted Danson, William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Campbell Scott, Martin Short, Lily Tomlin and John Goodman as part of the regular cast at one point or another along with up and comer Rose Byrne. That roster is enough to make the one off Stunt Casting guest list of some series blush.
The 1964 concert film The T.A.M.I. Show had a lineup of the biggest musical artists at the time perform one right after another on the same stage including: Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, James Brown and the Famous Flames and The Rolling Stones. A young Teri Garr is even one of the go go dancers in the back.
Deadwood has a pretty blinding cast for a TV show - Timothy Olyphant, Ian Mc Shane, Powers Boothe, John Hawkes, Brad Dourif, Keith Carradine, Jeffrey Jones and Titus Welliver, with Brian Cox, Stephen Tobolowsky and Garret Dillahunt appearing as guest stars.
The song and video for "Bed Rock" by Young Money features everybody in the Young Money group(and a few others) including Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Birdman and Lloyd.
The Thief And The Cobbler:Richard Williams, director of the film, went to great lengths to secure not only the greatest voice cast of all time for a cartoon (Vincent Price, Donald Pleasance, Anthony Quayle to name a few) but also the greatest team of animators:
Art Babbitt, responsible for Zeus and the Chinese mushrooms in Fantasia, and infamous for organizing the 1941 strike against Walt Disney. For Thief he drew King Nod and the vulture Phido.
Emery Hawkins, who worked for every single cartoon studio that existed in Hollywood between the 30s and the 50s. It is not exactly known what he animated on Thief (many animation buffs guess he drew the ogre-prince who isn't in the Recobbled Cut).
The Stolen Jools, a 1931 crime spoof that featured cameos from the likes of Edward G. Robinson, Joan Crawford, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, the Little Rascals, Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and about 30-40 other big name actors.
13, the American remake of 13 Tzameti, features a surprising number of recognizable faces: Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Ben Gazarra, Alexander Skarsgard, 50 Cent, Dexters David Zayas, Entourages Emmanuelle Chriqui and MMA fighters Don Frye and Forrest Griffin.
Music
This is the entire point of a posse cut in hip-hop. Some well-known examples:
"Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest & Leaders of the New School
"Flava in Ya Ear (Remix)" the original was by Craig Mack, but the remix featured the breakthrough verse of The Notorious B.I.G., as well as one of the first by Busta Rhymes.
DJ Khaled is known for these; some examples are "All I Do is Win", "We Takin' Over", and "Out Here Grindin'"
The intersection of films and songs is of course concert movies, and Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz, which documented and celebrated the last performance of The Band, assembled a murderer's row of talent. Aside from the group themselves, there were performances from Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, and Bobby Charles (Neil Diamond too, but we don't like to talk about him)—and of course, a set by Bob Dylan, who brought The Band to prominence as his backing group before they went solo. Oh, and just for completeness sake, the last song adds in Ringo Starr and Ron Wood as backing musicians.
This trope is the Raison d'être of the Supergroup, which assembles a group of famous musicians (or members of famous bands) and draws in fans with the promise of awesomeness by amalgamation. A special mention needs to go to The Traveling Wilburys, who assembled an utterly unbelievable amount of talent (to quote its own trope page," Bob Dylan. Roy Orbison. Tom Petty. George Harrison. Jeff Lynne. Holy Shit.")— and then released the entire thing under a Stage Name, with no reference to who they really were, because they were doing it to have fun and work with each other.
This is a staple of the Charity Motivation Song genre, as seen in "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "We Are The World", and the charity benefit concert, as in the case of Live Aid.
