The Best Actors Who Have Played Abraham Lincoln, Ranked

Abraham Lincoln has appeared on screens, stages, and even theme park attractions for more than a century. Filmmakers and showrunners have drawn on court records, letters, eyewitness accounts, and speeches to bring different moments of his life into focus, from prairie law practice to wartime strategy inside the White House.

These performances span silent film, early sound cinema, prestige television, and contemporary features. They include courtroom dramas, biographies, and imagined adventures that place a familiar historical figure in unexpected settings, all built on a foundation of well documented events and language from the period.

10. Benjamin Walker

Benjamin Walker starred as Lincoln in ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’, an action film adapted from the novel by Seth Grahame Smith. The story imagines a secret life in which the future president confronts supernatural enemies while moving through real milestones such as New Salem, Springfield, and Washington.

The production combined period sets with extensive visual effects and wire assisted fight scenes. Walker trained in stage combat and used makeup to age from a young store clerk to the president in the White House.

9. Royal Dano

Royal Dano provided the voice of Lincoln for Disneyland’s ‘Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln’ and later for ‘The Hall of Presidents’ at Walt Disney World. He also portrayed Lincoln on television in multiple anthology programs.

Walt Disney selected Dano after hearing his recitations of Lincoln’s speeches, and the recordings have been used in park presentations for decades. The audio animatronic shows presented millions of visitors with excerpts from the First Inaugural and other addresses.

8. Frank McGlynn Sr.

Frank McGlynn Sr. appeared as Lincoln in numerous studio films in the 1930s. Credits include ‘The Littlest Rebel’ with Shirley Temple and ‘The Plainsman’ directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

Studios relied on his profile and stature to match popular engravings and photographs. His screen appearances helped set early visual templates that later productions often echoed in costume and makeup design.

7. Lance Henriksen

Lance Henriksen took the role in ‘The Day Lincoln Was Shot’, a television film based on the book by Jim Bishop. The narrative follows the events of April 14 and April 15 in Washington with parallel tracks for Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. Rob Morrow played Booth and Donna Murphy played Mary Todd Lincoln.

Production design recreated Ford’s Theatre, the Petersen House, and locations used by the conspirators. The film integrates historical dialogue from eyewitness reports with new scenes that explain the timeline from the second inaugural through the funeral procession.

6. Hal Holbrook

Hal Holbrook portrayed Lincoln in ‘Sandburg’s Lincoln’, a television adaptation drawn from Carl Sandburg’s multi volume biography. He later appeared as Lincoln in the miniseries ‘North and South’ which depicted the run up to war and key wartime events.

The productions used extensive period costumes and on location shooting to represent Washington, Richmond, and battlefront settings. Holbrook’s involvement connected two large scale television treatments that reached national broadcast audiences over multiple nights.

5. Walter Huston

Walter Huston played Lincoln in ‘Abraham Lincoln’, one of D. W. Griffith’s first sound features. The film covers the leader’s early life, the Civil War, and his assassination at Ford’s Theatre. It uses staged battle scenes and recreated cabinet rooms.

Huston’s performance was shaped by early sound recording techniques and studio sets typical of the period. The project brought Lincoln to audiences during the first years of talking pictures, introducing a wide public to dramatized episodes from his biography.

4. Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston starred as Lincoln in the television miniseries ‘Gore Vidal’s Lincoln’. The series presented the presidency as seen through Cabinet debates, wartime decisions, and family life in the White House. Mary Todd Lincoln was played by Mary Tyler Moore.

Waterston also voiced Lincoln in Ken Burns’ ‘The Civil War’, reading from speeches and personal correspondence. He returned to the role in stage productions and television specials, linking documentary narration with dramatized scenes.

3. Raymond Massey

Raymond Massey portrayed Lincoln in ‘Abe Lincoln in Illinois’, adapted from Robert E. Sherwood’s play. He first played the role on Broadway before the film version. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the film.

The production chronicles Lincoln’s life from New Salem to his departure for Washington. It uses speeches and letters drawn from historical sources including the House Divided address. Massey reprised Lincoln on stage and screen in later years, creating a long running association with the character.

2. Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda played Lincoln in ‘Young Mr. Lincoln’ directed by John Ford. The story covers Lincoln’s early years as a lawyer in Springfield and depicts a murder trial that tests his legal skills. The production used locations in California standing in for Illinois. Fonda worked with makeup artists to adjust facial features similar to period portraits.

The film draws on well known anecdotes from the frontier period including his time as a store clerk and his reading habits. The script compresses several real cases into a single trial for narrative clarity.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed Abraham Lincoln in ‘Lincoln’ directed by Steven Spielberg. The film centers on the fight to pass the Thirteenth Amendment in the final months of the Civil War. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this role. The script was written by Tony Kushner and drew from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ‘Team of Rivals’.

He adopted a midwestern inflection based on contemporary accounts and period writings. He stayed in character on set and conducted research using archival materials and period biographies. He worked with makeup and costume teams to replicate Lincoln’s height, clothing, and distinctive beard, and used letters and historical transcripts to shape the delivery of cabinet meetings and private conversations.

Share your favorite Lincoln performance in the comments and tell us what historical moment it captured best.