Sexiest Stars of 2017

In 2017, People magazine chose Blake Shelton as the "Sexiest Man Alive" and there was a backlash on the Internet. Yes, he's an extremely successful, popular and charming, country-music star, but, before People magazine's distinction, not too many commentators would argue that Shelton is known for his sex appeal. There was even an article the previous year about how Shelton doesn't like being seen or photographed shirtless. If you look at all the men chosen by People magazine over the past 30 years, each guy has shirtless pictures that are easily found online, but not Shelton. A person can of course be sexy fully dressed, but the double standard of men being able to be shirtless in public as opposed to women is one that most men, especially men in the entertainment industry, lean into and not shy away from. The men on this list certainly haven't shied away from it.

20. ARMIE HAMMER - He didn't make the cover of People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" but he is in the issue on page 111 as "Sexiest Risk-Taker." The reason is because at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the premiere of Call Me By Your Name launched the year-long, love affair with Armand Douglas Hammer, aka "Armie." The six-foot-five, tall, strapping 31-year-old with matinee idol-looks is made the object of desire in the film by a teenage boy. Some see this anxious gay romance as a bit of a risk, but Hammer has successfully turned that risk into his first Golden Globe, his first Critics Choice and his first Spirit Award nominations. He burst onto the scene in The Social Network (2010) and has been lusted after in films like J. Edgar (2011) and Mirror Mirror (2012). Armie has also had a very busy 2017, co-starring in four features, but it's Call Me By Your Name that put him on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter, Out magazine and GQ Style.

19. ANDREA RISEBOROUGH - The 36-year-old English actress didn't have any scenes with him, but she crossed paths with Armie Hammer in Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals (2016). The redhead who recently went blonde has been stunning audiences for over a decade. I first noticed her in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), but her beauty was really put on display in Madonna's W.E. (2011) when she played Wallis Simpson, the woman who wooed King Edward VIII off the throne. Since then, she's worked opposite Tom Cruise in Oblivion (2013) and Michael Keaton in Birdman (2014). However, it's her work this year opposite Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes that gets her on this list. Riseborough and Stone worked together in Birdman, but their work here is on fire, as the two play lesbian lovers.

18. JOHN BOYEGA - The 25-year-old is also from England. He doesn't have many credits under his belt but he really broke out thanks to his lead role in Attack the Block (2011). He did the TV series 24: Live Another Day in 2014, but he was immediately placed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), which catapulted him into A-list and major movie-star status. In only five years, he is now a recognizable name in Hollywood. He was in three big-time movies this year, including Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, which gave him the most shine, as well as Neflix's Imperial Dreams, which is arguably his best performance of the year. He made the cover of GQ magazine, which provided a nice photo spread of the well-built Brit who could be on his way to being the next Idris Elba.

17. NIA LONG - She first appeared in Boyz n the Hood (1991) as just a teen. Her role in Love Jones (1997) was what put her on the map as not only an actress but as a beautiful, amazing woman. This year, she had guest roles on two TV series and she was the sexiest thing in both. She played a horny lesbian, college professor having an affair with her male student in Netflix's Dear White People. She also played a devious gangster in the casino business in FOX's Empire named "Juicy" and the name could have been a descriptor for how delicious her body was and all the looks she threw.

16. DEV PATEL - He became famous as a teenager for his role in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and it was reported that the reason Patel was cast in that film was because the director, Danny Boyle, didn't want a handsome hero-type. The Bollywood star Ruslaan Mumtaz was up for the role but was considered too good-looking, so it went to Patel. With the exception of Ben Kingsley who is half-Indian, Patel is the first actor of full-Indian descent to be nominated for the Academy Award for his latest film Lion (2016), a role that many have remarked on how stunning Patel is. A Buzzfeed article points out his now status as "super-hot." It's his long, flowing hair and his muscular, surfer physique. Even Ellen DeGeneres argued that he should be 2017's Sexiest Man Alive. Alonso Duralde commented on how photogenic he was also.

15. RILEY KEOUGH - Some might remember her from The Runaways (2010), a film about an all-girl rock band, which makes sense given she's the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley. She was also among the girls in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). She really didn't step into her own until American Honey (2016) as the antagonist in that Andrea Arnold film. 2017 is turning out to be a banner year for her. Earlier in the winter, she had the lesbian drama Lovesong as well as the indie flick The Discovery. Then, in late spring, she had a small role in the horror It Comes At Night. Her appeal is certainly recognized in that movie, and for the summer, she had Steven Soderbergh's return to theatrical films, Logan Lucky.

14. NICHOLAS JAMES MUSCARELLA - Not much is known about this actor, except he's engaged to Tika Sumpter who had the high honor to play the future Michelle Obama in Southside With You (2016). He co-stars with Sumpter in Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots, a prime-time soap in which he plays a closeted cop in love with a guy he arrested. Muscarella's first credited role on IMDB was in Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (2006) in which he plays a surfer guy who hooks up with a closeted, college student. His character in The Haves and the Have Nots might be the sexiest character on the show in that he's probably the most sexual. For example, in Season 4, Episode 18, titled "A Broken Mirror," his character, Officer Justin Lewis shows up in his so-called boyfriend's hotel room, waiting for him totally naked, which does garner shock and grins.

13. MARGARET QUALLEY - She's the daughter of Andie MacDowell, a model-turned-actress from Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). She's a debutante who became a model just like her mom. At age 16, in 2011, she premiered at New York Fashion Week. She went to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where she studied acting for the summer. She had a role on HBO's The Leftovers. She was in Netflix's Death Note, but what got her on this list is her lead performance in Novitiate, where she plays a conflicted, young nun, probably the hottest nun I've probably ever seen who also has same-sex attraction.

12. BILLY MAGNUSSEN -The 32-year-old actor from Queens, New York, had a busy 2017, but also a career-defining year arguably. He's a former soap opera stud from As the World Turns. He first started on the Broadway stage in the second, brief revival of Terrence McNally's The Ritz. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 67th Tony Awards. He's appeared in small roles in over a dozen TV shows. A lot of his TV roles have had Magnussen exposing a lot of skin. His body, particularly his amazing upper torso, including one of the best six-pack abs ever, is constantly utilized. He played Kato Kaelin in The People v. O. J. Simpson in 2016, which proved that point. That point was further proved with his roles this year in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Friends from College. Showing off his upper body was the joke in those shows. He has great comedic chops. He also had roles in the Get Shorty series and Netflix's Black Mirror. He's had memorable roles in various Oscar-nominated films like Into the Woods (2014), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Big Short (2015). He had his first leading role in a feature called Birth of the Dragon (2017). He also made news when he got cast in the highly anticipated Aladdin remake due in 2019.

11. KRISTEN STEWART - The star of the Twilight saga has proven herself an actress of great merit with her smaller, more independent films like her role in The Runaways and especially in Clouds of Sils Maria for which she won the César Award, the first American actress to do so. She worked with the same French director of that film again this year for Personal Shopper, which effortlessly shows off her natural ability, as well as her beautiful topless form. Saturday Night Live had a poke at her sex appeal when she hosted and proudly proclaimed she was gay. Magazines like FHM have also repeatedly listed her as hot.

10. LEWIS TAN - He only had one credit on IMDB in 2017 and that was for a guest role on Marvel's Iron Fist on Netflix. Tan appears in Episode 8 of that series as a drunken martial artist. His father is a famous stuntman who has been in the business for over 30 years and his mother is a fashion model. Both things he beautifully inherited. Tan has been flying low on the radar for the past decade, but he made a lot of news in March when he revealed to Vulture magazine that he almost was cast as the lead in Iron Fist, which blew up the Internet and became a crucial point in the Asian-American representation debate that's been raging over the past year. He joined in on the debate giving several interviews to that effect and it got his name out there, so much that female-targeted blogs like PopSugar can oogle shirtless pics of him on Instagram.

9. ANYA TAYLOR-JOY - She's only 21. She's from Miami but lived in Argentina only speaking Spanish until she was six. A Marie Claire article revealed she is part Hispanic. She then grew up in London. She really burst on the scene in the horror film The Witch (2016). She did a one-two punch when she starred in the hit M. Night Shyamalan film Split right after that.

8. CHARLIE HUNNAM - The British hunk was just put on the cover of GQ Thailand in a very gorgeous spread. He first caught people's attention in 1999 with Channel 4's Queer As Folk as a gay teenager in Manchester. A lot of people pushed to have him be Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey but he had a conflict with his FX series Sons of Anarchy, which caused him to leave the project. His exercise regimen for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword garnered a lot of press including the cover of Men's Health magazine. The thing everyone should see from him this past year is the stellar The Lost City of Z.

7. SAMARA WEAVING - She's the 25-year-old niece of Hugo Weaving (The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings). She's the Australian, blonde bombshell in the red dress in Charlie Puth's Attention, a music video from earlier in 2017. She plays the hot blonde stereotype in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri but she turns heads and is fire in Netflix's The Babysitter.

6. MARWAN KENZARI - The 34-year-old Tunisian-Dutch actor appeared in five features this year, including Collide, opposite Ben Kingsley, The Promise, opposite Oscar Isaac, The Mummy, opposite Tom Cruise, What Happened to Monday and Murder on the Orient Express, opposite a train-load of stars. He set the Internet on fire when it was announced that he would be playing Jafar in the live-action remake of Aladdin, as mentioned coming in 2019. Vulture magazine then proceeded to show why he's so hot with a workout video to boot. http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/meet-marwan-kenzari-aladdins-hot-jafar.html.

5. GAL GADOT - No list this year about sexy women can overlook Gal Gadot whose star-making role in Wonder Woman is one of the stories of 2017. Thankfully, she's sexy without being sexualized. She's not an object but a true expression of female empowerment and beauty. She kicks ass and looks great doing it. She appeared in the super-hero, team up Justice League, which didn't get the best reception though it didn't stop Gadot from being one of the female icons of the year. She hosted Saturday Night Live and has made people eager for the sequel to Patty Jenkins' blockbuster.

4. DAVE BAUTISTA - At 48-years-old, he's the oldest man on the list, but the WWE star has proven that he's only better now than when he was younger. Of course, he has the massive frame. He's the biggest guy on this list. He's six-foot-six and nearly 300 pounds, all of it pure muscle, chiseled muscle. He proved though that he can act and has pretty good, comedic chops in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). Since then, his movie career has generally been on an upward trajectory. He did a James Bond film Spectre (2015) and this year did Blade Runner 2049. His return to the great character of Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is what brings him to this list.

3. NICOLE KIDMAN - People magazine named her one of the World's Most Beautiful People about 15 years ago. She is a bonafide movie star who has been nominated four times for an Academy Award. She won her second time for The Hours (2002). Her fourth nomination came in 2017 for Lion, but that's not enough for her. She was on an HBO series, Big Little Lies, which won her the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Limited Series. She also had four other projects in 2017, most of which premiered at Cannes.

2. JASON MOMOA - The 38-year-old, Hawaiian beefcake is the titular character in the upcoming Aquaman (2018), which swims into theaters for Christmas. Zack Snyder revealed that he hired Momoa because of his role in Game of Thrones, which is odd because Momoa started his career on Baywatch: Hawaii and made a name for himself in Stargate: Atlantis, two properties that put his character near if not in the water.  The preview photo in Entertainment Weekly reveals though why he too was listed in the "Sexiest Man Alive" issue of People magazine, which notes Momoa's arms and how bulging his biceps are. Those biceps and massive pectorals were on full display in two films this past year, Justice League and The Bad Batch. Both films have Momoa shirtless for pretty much every scene he has.

1. IDRIS ELBA - Arguably, Elba was robbed of what Blake Shelton got this year. Elba should have been "Sexist Man Alive." People magazine recognized him in 2007 as one of the most beautiful. That year was one of Elba's busiest having appeared in five features. That year would only be outmatched in 2016 in which he had six features in 12 months. He had already established himself as a strong presence thanks to HBO's The Wire. The 45-year-old actor from London has supplanted Denzel Washington as the top, sex symbol in the black community. In 2017, he's graced the covers of Esquire, Essence and Entertainment Weekly magazines. He won "Rear of the Year," which he showed off recently in 100 Streets. This past year, he also had The Dark Tower, Thor: Ragnarok, Molly's Game and The Mountain Between Us, a movie that despite its setting still managed to get Elba shirtless. He's earned the distinction of "heartthrob" and one of my favorite pictures of him is from Details magazine in 2014.