Ocean's Eleven Characters: Names, Actors and Roles

The main Ocean's Eleven characters are Danny Ocean (George Clooney), Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), the casino owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) and Danny's former wife Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts). Everything below follows the credited names in Ocean's Eleven (2001), then shows how the roles change in the 1960 original and the later films. The final section discusses plot points from later in the films.

The 2001 crew has eleven members: Danny Ocean, Rusty Ryan, Linus Caldwell, Virgil Malloy, Turk Malloy, Basher Tarr, Reuben Tishkoff, Livingston Dell, Frank Catton, Yen and Saul Bloom. Danny and Rusty recruit them as specialists, and the setup describes a team that includes a pickpocket, a demolitions expert, a card dealer and an acrobat. Here is each member with the actor and a one line note (billing is the order in the TMDB credits).

• Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney: paroled from a New Jersey prison, he starts planning the Las Vegas robbery straight away.
• Rusty Ryan, played by Brad Pitt: Danny's old partner, who helps him build the team.
• Linus Caldwell, played by Matt Damon: the pickpocket, who gets close to Terry Benedict while the others prepare.
• Virgil Malloy, played by Casey Affleck, and Turk Malloy, played by Scott Caan: the two crew members who share a surname, billed sixth and seventh.
• Basher Tarr, played by Don Cheadle: billed eighth in 2001, and back in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen.
• Reuben Tishkoff, played by Elliott Gould: the retired casino owner who backs the job.
• Livingston Dell, played by Eddie Jemison: billed tenth, and part of the crew that rehearses in a replica of the vault.
• Frank Catton, played by Bernie Mac: billed eleventh in 2001, and a returning face in both sequels.
• Yen, played by Shaobo Qin: credited as Yen in 2001 and Ocean's Thirteen, and as The Amazing Yen in Ocean's Twelve.
• Saul Bloom, played by Carl Reiner: billed thirteenth in 2001, and back in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen.

If you are new to the series, the quick way to keep them straight is by pairing: Danny with Rusty, Linus with his target Benedict, and Reuben with the money.

The main character in Ocean's Eleven is Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney in 2001 and by Frank Sinatra in 1960. Rusty Ryan is the clear second lead in 2001, with Brad Pitt billed second. Danny drives the plan, and Rusty turns it into a working crew.

The main antagonist is Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), and the main love interest is Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts) in Ocean's Eleven (2001). Terry Benedict owns the three casinos that share the vault and is dating Danny's former wife. Tess Ocean is that former wife and the personal stake in the job. Benedict comes back as the pursuer in Ocean's Twelve and appears again in Ocean's Thirteen, where he is billed eleventh.

The 1960 film, directed by Lewis Milestone, uses the same title and the same lead name but a different story. Frank Sinatra plays Danny Ocean and Peter Lawford plays Jimmy Foster, the two Second World War veterans who bring nine former comrades to Las Vegas. Dean Martin plays Sam Harmon, Sammy Davis Jr. plays Josh Howard, Angie Dickinson plays Beatrice Ocean, Cesar Romero plays the retired gangster Duke Santos and Richard Conte plays Anthony Bergdorf. In that film the plan is to rob five casinos at once on New Year's Eve.

Ocean's Twelve (2004) adds Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and François Toulour (Vincent Cassel), and Ocean's Thirteen (2007) adds Willy Bank (Al Pacino) and Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin). Lahiri is the Europol detective on the crew's trail, while Toulour is the rival thief known as the Night Fox. Bank is the casino developer who cheats Reuben, and Sponder is his assistant. Both sequels keep the 2001 crew and Benedict.

Ocean's Eight (2018), directed by Gary Ross, is a spin-off led by Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock. She is Danny's sister and plans a theft at the Met Gala with her old partner Lou, played by Cate Blanchett. Their crew is Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway), Amita (Mindy Kaling), Tammy (Sarah Paulson), Constance (Awkwafina), Nine Ball (Rihanna) and Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter). Elliott Gould returns as Reuben, billed fifteenth.

The biggest change is that the 1960 crew is a military unit while the 2001 crew is a set of specialists. In 1960, Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster recruit nine former comrades from the same airborne unit and prepare like a military operation: some take casino jobs, one drives a garbage truck and another performs in a hotel lounge. In 2001, Danny and Rusty Ryan instead assemble a pickpocket, a demolitions expert, a card dealer and an acrobat, and the crew rehearses in a replica of the vault. Casting also differs in scale: Sinatra, Martin, Davis Jr., Lawford and Joey Bishop lead a 1960 ensemble, while Clooney and Pitt anchor the 2001 one. TCM's account of the 1960 production notes Milestone's difficulty with Sinatra, and Wikipedia records that Lawford bought the rights in 1958, so Danny's centrality there reflects who held the project.

The pursuer role also shifts. In 1960 the threat is Duke Santos, the retired gangster who works out who is behind the crime from the men's army records, and the electrician Anthony Bergdorf dies of a heart attack on the Strip. In 2001 the pressure is personal: Benedict is dating Tess, so Linus's closeness to him matters as much as the vault. In Ocean's Twelve, Tess even poses as the actress Julia Roberts, and Roberts' pregnancy was reported just before filming, according to CBS News. In Ocean's Thirteen, Benedict is brought in as a source of funding after the crew's drilling equipment fails. Ocean's Eight then reframes the family name: Debbie is the sister of the late Danny, and the film ends with her toasting him at his grave. My opinion: the series is strongest when the ensemble is built around trades, as in 2001, and the pairing of Danny and Rusty carries more weight than any single villain.

Margot Robbie leads the untitled Ocean's Eleven prequel, dated for June 25, 2027, with Bradley Cooper writing and directing. Variety reported the date after Warner Bros. announced it at CinemaCon, and Cooper has been filming 1962 Grand Prix scenes in Monaco. The full story is on the oceans eleven prequel page, and the film list sits on the Ocean's Eleven movies hub.