Best old unknown ensemble cast turned into stars?
 

I'm thinking along the of The Outsiders with a cast of people who got rather large. Well at least became known.

Matt Dillon .... Dallas 'Dally' Winston
Ralph Macchio .... Johnny Cade
C. Thomas Howell .... Ponyboy Curtis
Patrick Swayze .... Darrel 'Darry' Curtis
Rob Lowe .... Sodapop Curtis
Emilio Estevez .... Keith 'Two-Bit' Mathews
Tom Cruise .... Steve Randle
Diane Lane .... Sherri 'Cherry' Valance
Leif Garrett .... Bob Sheldon
Tom Waits .... Buck Merrill
Sofia Coppola .... Little Girl (as Domino)


S.E. Hinton .... Nurse (Author of the book)

With a few exceptions, mostly the entire Lord of the Rings cast.

^that doesn't really count though...Christopher Lee and Ian McKellan were already pretty big stars, and Elijah Wood and Sean Astin were huge child stars...I assume these are your few exceptions.

I do think it is one of the best ensemble of charachter actors in recent years with Christopher Lee, John Rhys-Davies, Hugo Weaving, and Ian Holm.

The Outsiders and the thread that Jake77444 linked to were the first two things to pop into my head when I saw the title of this thread...so this post is entirely worthless, and I'm just going to stop typing now.

Yeah, I was stretching...

Diner was another film that had quite a few unknowns who went on to greater fame:

Kevin Bacon
Mickey Rourke
Steve Guttenberg
Daniel Stern
Ellen Barkin
Paul Reiser
Timothy Daly

Boiler Room
Giovanni Ribisi
Vin Diesel
Nia Long
Scott Caan
Jamie Kennedy

School Ties (Written by Dick Wolf of Law & Order)
Brendan Fraser
Matt Damon
Chris O'Donnell

Sleepers (Written by Barry Levinson of Homicide)
Ron Eldard
Jason Patric
Brad Pitt

Sports Night (Written by Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing)
Josh Charles
Peter Krause
Felicity Huffman
Joshua Malina (on The West Wing)
Sabrina Lloyd :drool:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, of course!

Sean Penn
Judge Reinhold
Forrest Whitaker
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Phoebe Cates
Nicolas Cage (credited as Nicolas Coppola)
Eric Stoltz
Anthony Edwards

I would also like to add THE BIG CHILL.
I don't know if they were already starts, but the very least the cast of this film went on to bigger fame.

Kevin Kline
William Hurt
Glenn Close
Tom Berenger
Jeff Goldblum
JoBeth Williams
Meg Tilly

I was going to post what AJAX posted....The Big Chill.

I think the hands down winner is Police Academy 2:

Steve Guttenberg .... Officer Carey Mahoney
Bubba Smith .... Officer Moses Hightower
David Graf .... Officer Eugene Tackleberry
Michael Winslow .... Officer Larvell Jones
Colleen Camp .... Sgt. Kathleen Kirkland
Howard Hesseman .... Capt. Peter 'Pete' Lassard
Bob Goldthwait .... Zed
Julie Brown .... Chloe
Tim Kazurinsky .... Sweetchuck

I would say X-men is definitely up there as well.

Risky Business
Tom Cruise
Rebecca De Mornay
Joe Pantoliano

Top Gun
Tom Cruise
Kelly McGillis
Val Kilmer
Anthony Edwards
John Stockwell (would go on to direct Blue Crush and Into the Blue)
Tim Robbins
Meg Ryan

Remember the Titans
Ryan Hurst
Donald Faison
Ethan Suplee
Kip Pardue
Kate Bosworth
Ryan Gosling

Dead Poets Society
Robert Sean Leonard
Ethan Hawke
Josh Charles

Dazed and Confused
Jason London
Rory Cochrane
Adam Goldberg
Matthew McConaughey
Cole Hauser
Milla Jovovich
Joey Lauren Adams
Ben Affleck

Mallrats
Jason Lee
Ben Affleck
Joey Lauren Adams
Ethan Suplee

Animal House (Director John Landis would go on to direct The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Coming to America, etc...)

John Belushi
Tim Matheson
Tom Hulce
Peter Riegert
Bruce McGill
Karen Allen
Kevin Bacon

Airborne
Seth Green
Jack Black

Swingers
Jon Favreau
Vince Vaughn

Hackers
Jonny Lee Miller
Angelina Jolie
Jesse Bradford
Matthew Lillard

Angels in the Outfield
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Adrien Brody
Matthew McConaughey

This Boy's Life
Leonardo DiCaprio
Eliza Dushku
Chris Cooper
Carla Gugino
Tobey Maguire

Bottle Rocket (Directorial debut of Wes Anderson)
Luke Wilson
Owen Wilson

Can't Buy Me Love
Patrick Dempsey
Seth Green
Dennis Dugan (would go on to direct Happy Gilmore and The Benchwarmers)


And back in the early 80's numerous Corey Haim/Corey Feldman features:

Lucas
Corey Haim
Charlie Sheen
Courtney Thorne-Smith
Winona Ryder
Jeremy Piven

The Lost Boys
Corey Haim
Corey Feldman
Jason Patric
Jami Gertz
Alex Winter (would later play Bill S. Preston, Esq.)
Kiefer Sutherland

Stand by Me
Wil Wheaton
River Phoenix
Corey Feldman
Jerry O'Connell
Kiefer Sutherland

The Goonies
Sean Astin
Josh Brolin
Corey Feldman
Martha Plimpton

I can't believe no one's mentioned American Graffiti yet. Also Empire Records.

Star Wars?

Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil.... plus wasn;t it really Geroge Lucas' coming out party

Well one out of three isn't bad. Mark and Carrie really didn't go on to become stars although she wrote Postcards from the Edge.

The Godfather (except for Brando)

Top Gun cast was the first one I thought of before clicking on the thread.

A Few Good Men could be added to the list as well.

Saturday Night Live ;)

LA Confidential and the usual suspects. though there were a few buzz actors and some more known.

This is obviously some strange usage of the word 'old' that I wasn't previously aware of. :)

I'm surprise no one has mentioned:

Patrick Stewart
Liam Neeson
Gabriel Bryne
Helen Mirren

all starring in Excalibur.

George Lucas enjoys the cock?

Who knew?

DUNE

Kyle MacLachlan, Sean Young, Richard Jordan, Virginia Madson, Jurgen Prochnow, Patrick Stewart, Alicia Witt, Linda Hunt.

I guess the big names in that movie would've been Jose Ferrer, Dean Stockwell, Max von Sydow and Sting.