# What is the best acting role of Woody Allen?

> For decades Allen played neurotic, philosophical, romantically hapless New Yorkers — yet each film found a fresh angle on the eternal intellectual in crisis. Which version of Woody is the definitive one?

*By YPB Team · Published April 10, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-acting-role-of-woody-allen*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Alvy Singer (Annie Hall)**
   A neurotic New York stand-up comedian reflecting on love and loss in the Oscar-winning Annie Hall (1977).
2. **Isaac Davis (Manhattan)**
   A twice-divorced TV writer navigating romance and moral compromise in 1970s New York in Manhattan (1979).
3. **Leonard Zelig (Zelig)**
   A human chameleon who transforms to match whoever surrounds him in the mock-documentary Zelig (1983).
4. **Miles Monroe (Sleeper)**
   A health food store owner awakened 200 years in the future in the sci-fi comedy Sleeper (1973).
5. **Allan Felix (Play It Again, Sam)**
   A neurotic film critic guided by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart in Play It Again, Sam (1972).
6. **Boris Grushenko (Love and Death)**
   A reluctant 19th-century Russian coward swept up in Napoleonic war in Love and Death (1975).
7. **Sandy Bates (Stardust Memories)**
   A celebrated filmmaker plagued by adoring fans and existential dread in Stardust Memories (1980).
8. **Fielding Mellish (Bananas)**
   A hapless New Yorker who accidentally becomes a South American revolutionary leader in Bananas (1971).
9. **Virgil Starkwell (Take the Money and Run)**
   An inept, lifelong criminal whose hapless career is documented in Take the Money and Run (1969).
10. **Danny Rose (Broadway Danny Rose)**
   A small-time theatrical manager fiercely loyal to his struggling clients in Broadway Danny Rose (1984).
11. **Cliff Stern (Crimes and Misdemeanors)**
   A documentary filmmaker in a loveless marriage confronting moral ambiguity in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).
12. **Howard Prince (The Front)**
   A cashier who becomes a front for blacklisted screenwriters during McCarthyism in The Front (1976).
13. **Sid Waterman (Scoop)**
   A bumbling magician helping a journalism student investigate a serial killer in Scoop (2006).
14. **Ray Winkler (Small Time Crooks)**
   An ex-con who plots a cookie shop front to tunnel into a bank vault in Small Time Crooks (2000).

Tags: movies, actors, comedy, classics, performances, woody allen