This is the time of year when magazines, newspapers and television shows start releasing lists of who is hot and who is not. Most of these lists are based on the opinions of the staff.

The Web site imdb.com, a storehouse of information on actors, has a legitimate way to measure how bright a star is shining. IMDb looks at the interest in actors through the 57 million visits the Web site gets each month.

Here's how the celebrities stack up in 2008, according to the Web site's "STARmeter Top 25":

1. Johnny Depp
2. Christian Bale
3. Heath Ledger
4. Brad Pitt
5. Angelina Jolie
6. Shia LaBeouf
7. Megan Fox
8. Kristen Stewart
9. Will Smith
10. Gerard Butler
11. Tom Cruise
12. Miley Cyrus
13. Jessica Alba
14. Zac Efron
15. Leonardo DiCaprio
16. Scarlett Johansson
17. Ellen Page
18. James McAvoy
19. Keira Knightley
20. Mark Wahlberg
21. Natalie Portman
22. Edward Norton
23. Hayden Panettiere
24. Jason Statham
25. Ryan Reynolds

This is Depp's fifth year to top the chart.

The biggest surprise is Kristen Stewart. She made the move to number eight based only on her work in "Twilight." And her hunky co-star Robert Pattinson did not make the top 25 list. Of course her numbers could have been higher because a lot of people had never heard of her. And then there were all of the angry "Twilight" fans who wanted to see which actress was not going to be good enough, as far as they were concerned, to star in the feature film.

That's the good news. Now the bad. The star is fading fast for "Heroes" cheerleader Hayden Panettiere. She dropped to No. 23 after being No. 3 last year. It is the same kind of huge drop the NBC series "Heroes" has suffered in the ratings.

Both Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson saw their star's fade some. He went from No. 17 last year to No. 41 this year. She went from No. 22 to No. 42. Look for both to bounce back next year when "Half-Blood Prince" opens.