Flashback! EW's Entertainers of the Year Since 1990

What we said ”He wrapped up the beloved Harry Potter franchise, which ultimately grossed $7.7 billion worldwide. He also showed off a new set of skills — singing! dancing! — on Broadway.”

What we said ”2010 will go down in history as the year we all saw Taylor Swift differently. The 20-year-old kicked things off with a No. 2 single debut (”Today Was a Fairytale”), a hit movie (Valentine’s Day, and four Grammy wins, including Album of the Year for her 2008 CD, Fearless. She spent months headlining arena concerts and big-ticket awards shows. But there was one achievement — the Oct. 25 release of her third record, Speak Now — that topped everything. Buoyed by strong reviews and the radio-friendly hit ”Mine,” Speak amassed a jaw-dropping 1,047,000 units in first week sales, the highest tally for any realease in five years.” —Dave Karger

What we said then ”Sandra Bullock had a helluva run in the 1990s, and by Hollywood’s cruel and arbitrary standards she should be down for the count at 45 years old. So what a thrill to see her smashing career-best records right and left instead. Playing a guarded, hard-nosed executive in The Proposal, the gifted comedic actress found zingy chemistry with her costar Ryan Reynolds and turned it into boffo business, raking in $164 million. And now in the unstoppable true story The Blind Side — at $150 million and counting — Bullock stretches capably and effortlessly into dramatic territory as a woman trying to raise a man rather than land one.” —Karen Valby

What we said then ”This year, thanks to a series of clever choices, Downey has pulled off one of the smartest second acts in recent showbiz history. After doing just about everything humanly possible to destroy a once-promising career — including spending the better part of a decade in courtrooms and even jail cells — he’s finally fulfilling his potential. He’s become a movie star.” —Benjamin Svetkey

What we said then ”J.K. Rowling is our Entertainer of the Year because she did something very, very hard, and she did it very, very well, thus pleasing hundreds of millions of children and adults very, very much. In an era of videogame consoles, online multiplayer ”environments,” and tinier-is-better mobisodes, minisodes, and webisodes, she got people to tote around her big, fat old-fashioned printed-on-paper [Harry Potter] books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet. Let’s also credit her for one more thing. What she spent the last 17 years creating turned out to be completely original.” —Mark Harris

What we said then Why did EW give the honor to the Seattle Grace crew? ”For maintaining [a] deft dramatic balance, for performing a powerful emotional alchemy that transforms the hospital-show genre into something exciting rather than exhausted, and for casting perhaps the most telegenic assemblage of actors in the last decade.” — Jennifer Armstrong

What we said then ”Viewership has risen in season 2 — 17.8 million, up from last season’s 15.9 average — and Emmy voters crowned Lost TV’s best drama, unprecedented kudos for a serialized show with a geeky pedigree. Even [Damon] Lindelof is perplexed by the show’s success: ‘For many reasons, this thing should not work.’ But it does — ingeniously and poignantly.” —Jeff Jensen

What we said then ”In a year characterized by bluster and polarization, Stewart’s appetite for clarity felt like a battle cry, and his double-barreled mission — to point out the misbehavior of politicians and the slack-jawed sloth of those who cover them — came to seem like a beacon of light. But funnier.” —Mark Harris

What we said then ”For three years, this scramble through Middle-earth has kept us dazzled with heroes who bear pointy ears, fuzzy feet, and tight, fated smiles. We worried. We rejoiced. Most important, we believed.” —Gillian Flynn

What we said then ”[Antwone Fisher] not only marks Washington’s feature debut behind the camera but also caps a remarkable year for the man…. His Best Actor Oscar win in March for his villainous turn in Training Day made Washington the only African American to claim that statuette since Lilies of the Field‘s Sidney Poitier in 1964. He scored his first $20 million paycheck for the upcoming thriller Out of Time. Even the potential throwaway John Q, in which he played a father who takes an ER hostage, became a $71 million-grossing crowd-pleaser. Add it all up, and there’s simply no one else who could be our Entertainer of the Year.” —Dave Karger

What we said then In Moulin Rouge and The Others, ”she gave a pair of performances so fearless and assured that even if she had not owned a half share in the year’s most headline-making celebrity split, the ‘Mrs. Tom Cruise’ label would have been banished permanently.” —Mark Harris

What we said then ”Gladiator was only one vehicle in the star’s multi-chariot pop-culture ride during the year 2000: Whether he was waddling his way to an Oscar nomination as a pudgy, morally conflicted whistle-blower in The Insider, barking out rock lyrics in Austin as the swaggering frontman for 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, or turning in a skillfully controlled performance as a gruff kidnapping expert in Proof of Life (not to mention dodging paparazzi around the globe once l’affaire Ryan broke), the strapping, gravel-voiced actor thrilled a Colosseum full of onlookers.” —Clarissa Cruz

What we said then ”Let it never be said that Martin pioneered a Latin-music invasion. While he did ignite the current boom (see also Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Marc Anthony, etc.), his particular fusion of mambo, salsa, and pop-rock has been done before…. What sets Martin apart is his heartfelt mission: to shatter stereotypes of Latinos, specifically Puerto Ricans, who have been used as a punchline among white Americans for decades.” —Jess Cagle

What we said then ”This year, for better or worse, and certainly in spite of himself, he came to personify the unique era and culture that declared him a star…. The 24-year-old actor (a really fine actor, lest we forget) grew so large on the global cultural landscape that by last summer, he was instantly recognized by one name: LEO — two vowels and one consonant typed incessantly by headline writers whose papers and magazines goosed circulation chronicling his every business dealing…his every foray into Manhattan nightclubs…his every alleged canoodle with a model.” —Jess Cagle

What we said then ”At a time when acknowledgement of homosexuality has entered all aspects of popular culture, when diversity and acceptance are words of the day but by no means entirely the deeds, and when more and more of the sizable population of homosexual men and women working in the entertainment industry today are weighing the risks of coming out themselves, DeGeneres allowed herself to become a poster girl — not for lesbianism, but for honesty.” —Lisa Schwarzbaum

What we said then ”Oprah made it okay. Regis and Kathie Lee made it kitschy. But only Rosie made it cool to watch daytime TV again. With her smart, upbeat chatter, Rosie O’Donnell brought a sweet scent to a junk-heap genre. And during a year when nice was in and cranky was out (just ask Bob Dole), Rosie was the nicest of them all.” —Bruce Fretts

What we said then ”In 1995 the pop-culture landscape was overrun not by dinosaurs or by Quentin Tarantino’s ultracool urban savages or even by Batman, but by Ross the cute paleontologist pining for Rachel the aimless waitress, Joey the physically blessed but IQ-challenged actor, Chandler the adorable data processor, Monica the job-seeking bombshell chef, and Phoebe the lovely rocket scientist, er, folksinger. People just like you, or the way you were or will be or might like to be for at least half an hour every week.” —Jess Cagle

What we said then ”Hanks, 38, is too modest to admit it, but the main reason an unorthodox epic like Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump has managed to earn nearly $300 million at the box office is Tom Hanks…. The reason: In a Hollywood sea of muscleheads, vamps, caffeinated comics, brat-pack pretty boys, and aging rakes, Tom Hanks just might be the last man on the silver screen who conveys a sense of decency.” —Jeff Gordinier

What we said then ”First he astounded the world with the brilliant thrill machine Jurassic Park…. Now, only seven months later, he has released another movie about reptilian brutality, but Schindler’s List, an examination of the Nazi Holocaust, also carries within it an almost unbearably delicate observation of human pain…. Either film would have been a career-defining accomplishment for any director. That one person has brought forth both in one year is as unprecedented as it is unbelievable. And it is an achievement unlikely ever to be duplicated.” —Tim Appelo

What we said then ”Step one: Something happens. You know this because it’s on the front page of every newspaper. Step two: That something is permanently woven into the fabric of pop culture. You know this because it turns up on Saturday Night Live. Clinton, Bush, and Perot. Gore, Quayle, and Stockdale. Woody, Soon-Yi, and Mia. Regis and Kathie Lee. They coexist, immortalized in mockery, alongside some slightly less real but no less famous names: Wayne and Garth; Hans and Franz, and Dieter; Jan Brady; Nat X; Mr. Subliminal; Cajun Man; Opera Man; Middle-Aged Man; Queen Shaniqua; Stuart Smiley.” —Mark Harris

What we said then ”In 1991, her two decades of work culminated in a pair of films — [The Silence of the] Lambs and Little Man Tate — that began to redraw the roles of women in Hollywood, on-screen and off.” —Mark Harris

What we said then ”Bart has joked his way into the kind of celebrity of which mere humans can only dream. He has his own series. His own album. His own rock video. A lucrative gig in commercials…. And, naturally, scandals — from a TV nude scene in which Bart bolted from a bathtub to a cause celebre that flamed up with Orange County, Calif., school officials who had collective cows when kids wore Bart T-shirts with the slogan ‘Underachiever — And Proud of It.’ They may have had a point, albeit an ironic one. In 1990, underachieving seemed to be the only thing Bart didn’t do.” —Mark Harris