Each year Entertainment Weekly names the year’s top entertainers. This year’s list includes entertainers such as Tina Fey, the Jonas Brothers, and Facebook (yes, Facebook).

Taking the title of this year’s Entertainer of the Year is an actor who engineered one of the coolest comebacks ever – Robert Downey Jr..

How did Robert Downey Jr. make the top of this year’s list?

According to EW, 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 – Downey is finally fulfilling his potential.  He has become a movie star at 43.

He’s at the center of a huge new action franchise, Iron Man, he starred in Tropic Thunder, next spring he’ll be costarring with Jamie Foxx in The Soloist and there is already Oscar buzz about his performance in that, and he’s currently shooting Sherlock Holmes.  “Why am I having this year?” he ponders.  “To tell you the truth, I haven’t fully digested what’s happened to me before, during, and after Iron Man.

Tropic Thunder seems like it happened 25 minutes ago.  Time is not entirely linear.  It’s all so associative.  If Ben Stiller called me today and said we needed to shoot more scenes, I’d get my jacket and go.  But I do know that I don’t want to waste any more time.  That’s why I’m putting my nose to the grindstone.  That’s why I’m cranking them out.”

Since court-ordered drug treatment in 2001 – and his marriage to producer Susan Levin in 2005 – Downey has kept “the bad dog,” as he refers to his darker side, on a short leash.  “It’s not about placating the bad dog – it’s about feeding the good dog,” he says of the struggle.  “You still have to feed the bad dog, but only enough so that the ASPCA doesn’t bring you up on charges.”  These days, Downey’s drug use is limited to nicotine, but you can still see Downey unleash all his canine energy on the screen.  “

Why did people go see Iron Man?” asks Jamie Foxx.  “They went to see Iron Man because Robert Downey Jr. was in it.  That’s why I went.  I saw it at a screening in Beverly Hills.  I was sitting next to Warren Beatty and Warren leaned over and said, ‘I’ve known Downey since he was a kid.’  People in this town are really rooting for this guy.  Not just because they like him, but because he’s great as an actor.”

After nabbing the Iron Man part, Stiller offered him the role in Tropic Thunder.  “Ben Stiller saved me from the ghastly fate of a crash after shooting Iron Man,” he says.  “The waiting around, the expectations, the not knowing how it was going to come out.”

As it turned out, though, he didn’t have to worry about the film at all.  Its $98.6 million May 2 opening weekend made it the biggest superhero franchise launch since Spider-Man.  Downey grins when he remembers the night his numbers came in.  “It’s Friday evening, and we’re all in a side room at a restaurant in Santa Monica,” he says.  “And every few minutes the estimates go up.  ‘The estimate is now 77!  The estimate is now 87!  The estimate is now 100!’ And I’m going crazy because I’ve had 25 Cokes and three cappuccinos.  I’m like, ‘Come on, give me another lucky seven!  Give me money!’”  The euphoria didn’t end there.  “About 10 days later, Jon Favreau and I were invited to this dinner with [Paramount CEO] Brad Grey and all these assorted heavyweights,” Downey continues.  “Jon and I give each other a look, like we were made men or something.  Iron Man had put us in the game.”

Downey was thinking of writing a memoir but ultimately he decided not to go there.  “Beware of the passion project,” he says, talking about the peculiar movies stars often make when they get a little clout.  “It’s so predictable: ‘Now that I have a hit, I can tell that story about the transsexual horse whisperer!’”  (Cover Story, Page 26)

THE TOP 25 ENTERTAINERS OF THE YEAR

2.  Tina Fey: Tina Fey is a movie star, a political lightning rod, an Emmy winning actress, and yet she continues to find new ways to invade our collective consciousness like marching in the picket lines to become the face of the writers’ strike, signing a book deal, and single-handedly defining out-of-nowhere VP candidate Sarah Palin’s public persona with a dead-on SNL impression that became a phenomenon.  And who was the first person who said she had to play Palin?  “I guess maybe my husband was the first to say, ‘You really have to admit, you do look like her,’” remembers Fey.  “And in the back of my head, I was like, ‘Lorne Michaels is gonna make me come every week, I know it.’  But it did eventually start to feel like enough already.  Not even with her – enough already with me.”

3.  The Cast & Crew of The Dark Knight: Entertainment Weekly offers a comic-book toast to the filmmakers behind this triumphant film.

4.  The Gossip Girls:  Every generation gets its own pair of pop culture best frenemies, and 2008 got Gossip Girl’s Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair (Leighton Meester).  EW presents a smattering of trends and styles these girls begat.

5.  Stephenie Meyer:  She’s the best-selling author of the beloved Twilight saga, she published her first adult novel, and she’s now hoping that the film adaptation of Twilight is a box office hit.  “There’s so many people ready to say, ‘Aha!  See, we told you the movie was going to suck,’” she says.  “There’s that petty part of me that wants it to do really great so no one can say, ‘All that buzz for nothing!’”

6.  Lil Wayne:  His sixth solo studio CD, Tha Carter III, debuted at the top of the carts in June, proving that while hip-hop, like all music, may be hurting, it’s not lifeless.  It just needed the healing touch of a superstar.

7.  Rock Band: Rock Band has prompted untold millions to pick up a (plastic) instrument - sales of the game have surpassed 4.5 million units.  “It’s just a game,” says Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan, whose music appears on both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, “but I haven’t felt this much energy and excitement around music in a long time.”

8.  The Women of Sex and the City:  The SATC stars proved that women will spend their cash at the Cineplex after banking $153 million at the box office.

9.  The Jonas Brothers:  Just 10 months ago, the Jonas Brothers were no more than a footnote to Disney star Miley Cyrus, but with starring roles in Camp Rock, and the release of their summer anthem “Burnin’ Up,” and a platinum album, they dominated 2008.  Even a midnight trip to New York City’s Virgin Megastore to buy their album turned into a hormonal mob scene.  “Our fans basically shut down Times Square,” remembers Joe.  “It was insane.  For a good five minutes, it felt like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but in August.”  Adds Nick: “We’re living a lot of people’s dreams.”

10.  The Talking Heads:  For cable-news junkies, Jon Stewart, Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity, The Women of The View, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Campbell Brown, and Stephen Colbert became like family.

11.  Meryl Streep:  Last summer, Mamma Mia! Raked in $559 million globally, and in December, her role in Doubt is already generating Oscar buzz.

12.  The Stars of Bravo:  Vicki Gunvalson, Jeff Lewis, Zoila Chavez, Rachel Zoe, Tim Gunn, NeNe Leakes, Jill Zarin, Tom Colicchio, and Padma Lakshmi pose together for a spread dedicated to must-see reality TV that goes behind-the-scenes of the fashion, cooking, real estate, and high life worlds.

13.  James Franco:  The past year has brought Franco a summer hit (Pineapple Express), a supporting role in a much-buzzed-about Oscar contender (Milk), and a degree from a prestigious university (UCLA).  Which milestone is he most proud of?  “They’re all really different,” he says.  “I shot these movies, like, a year and a half ago, and that was when I was in the middle of my last year at UCLA.  Graduating and having the movies come out… It feels like the culmination of a lot of work.”

14.  Wall E:  The star of Pixar’s ninth consecutive computer-animated hit caught everyone’s hearts.

15.  Coldplay:  The English quartet obliterated the earnest rock formula that made them global superstars, and the risk paid off: their album Viva La Vida sold 1.8 million copies, and its title track scored 2.56 million (paid) downloads.  “The reason we’re the biggest band in the world at the moment is because the others are on holiday.  That’s how you get your breaks.  That’s how the understudy gets his opportunity.  While U2 and Green Day are away, we’ve gotten to make the most of it.  But I don’t think it’s got anything to do with talent.  There’s people much more talented than us that aren’t famous, and people that are much less talented who are much more famous,” says frontman Chris Martin.

16.  Elizabeth Banks:  Over a few weeks this fall, Banks babysat Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in Role Models; played Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s W., and tackled her first title role as an amateur porn star in Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

17.  Yunjin Kim & Daniel Dae Kim:  In the land of Lost, a boy named Jin (Dae Kim) and a girl named Sun (Kim) got married, they had a tenuous relationship that felt a tad removed from the other stories on the cursed island until season 4.  “We had a fan base, but it tended to be fans of romance,” says Daniel.  “The big question was ‘There’s a reason Jin and Sun are here.  How important are they to the overall story?’ [Now] we’ve started seeing how we tie in.”

18.  Kid Rock:  The man has found phenomenal success with his ninth album, Rock N Roll Jesus, and has an unusual trajectory of a career that seems to have made him the sole member of a genre of his own.  “I have no problem with fame.  Whoever says it’s not better to get a nice seat at a restaurant or go to a basketball game and sit in with the players is lying,” he says.

19.  Jon Hamm:  He brings a simmering intensity to Don Draper, Mad Men’s 1960s Madison Avenue adman extraordinaire.  And he’ll soon be making it to the big screen in the sci-fi/action remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.

20.  Facebook:  With over 70 million new users this year, the social networking group that started as a private site for Ivy Leaguers became the preferred time-waster for Netizens from all walks of life.

21.  Katy Perry:  The Santa Barbara native hit No. 1 this year everywhere from Australia to Italy with her anthem “I Kissed a Girl.”

22.  Richard Jenkins:  Jenkins’ role in the critically acclaimed gem The Visitor marks the first time in his 34-year screen career that a movie was his, and the studio behind it has kicked off a Best Actor campaign for his performance.

23.  Michael Phelps:  The must-see event of the summer was the Beijing Olympics and its marquee star was Phelps, who broke Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record by winning eight gold medals.

24.  Leona Lewis:  Lewis, the winner of the U.K.’s The X Factor , has become perhaps the most internationally viable star to emerge from any televised talent show.  Lewis follows up her single “Bleeding” with two strong singles, but she knows her debut track is her signature.  “When I’ve gone to countries that are not talking English, they’re still singing along,” she says.  “They don’t even know what it means but they’re still singing it!”

25.  Neil Patrick Harris:  He made an old-school star turn as the titular mad scientist in Joss Whedon’s wildly successful online musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, he continued to mine the self-parody gold of “Neil Patrick Harris” in the Harold & Kumar franchise, and he brought compelling new depth to this role as Barney on CBS’ How I Met Your Mother.  Whatever his next trick is – he hints at variety shows, circus training, Henson-style children’s TV – EW will gleefully observe.  “I just hope  I’m not going to open up the magazine next week and see the little arrow sticking through me three pages after the Bullseye, saying, ‘NPH, enough already,’” he says.