Top 50 heroes and villains

[Allan]

Total Film magazine has compiled a list of their top 50 movie heroes and villains of all time. An article and galleries can be found here. So who do you think are the top heroes and villains? Any snubbings that surprised you?

The lists are as follows - note that I'm copying and pasting, and too lazy to fix these up into descending order..

Heroes
1 Indiana Jones
2 Batman
3 Rocky Balboa (Rocky)
4 James Bond
5 Superman
6 Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)
7 Spiderman
8 Neo (The Matrix)
9 Han Solo (Star Wars)
10 The Incredible Hulk/Bruce Banner
11 Donnie Darko
12 Maximus Decimus Meridius (Gladiatior)
13 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
14 Jason Bourne (The Bourne Identity)
15 Spartacus
16 Wolverine (X-Men)
17 Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings)
18 George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life)
19 Philip Marlowe (Murder, My Sweet)
20 Mr Lee (Enter the Dragon)
21 Cherry Darling (Planet Terror)
22 John McClane (Die Hard)
23 Rick Deckard (Blade Runner)
24 Lassie
25 Dewey Finn (School of Rock)
26 Bree (Transamerica)
27 Mr Davis (12 Angry Men)
28 Thelma and Louise
29 Virgil Tibbs (In the Heat of the Night)
30 Optimus Prime (The Transformers: The Movie)
31 Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs)
32 The Terminator
33 Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)
34 Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)
35 Father Merrin (The Exorcist)
36 Rooster Cogburn (True Grit)
37 Kenji Watanabe (Ikiru)
38 The Tramp (City Lights)
39 The Man with No Name (A Fistful of Dollars)
40 Ellen Ripley (Alien)
41 Laurie Strode (Halloween)
42 Spongebob Squarepants
43 Rachel Stein/Ellis de Vries (Black Book)
44 Jefferson Smith (Mr Smith goes to Washington)
45 Sheriff John T Chance (Rio Bravo)
46 John Shaft
47 Sarah Connor (The Terminator)
48 David Dunn (Unbreakable)
49 Rick Blaine (Casablanca)
50 Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Villains
1 The Joker (Batman: The Movie)
2 Darth Vader (Star Wars)
3 Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
4 Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
5 Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
6 Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
7 Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
8 Michael Myers (The Halloween series)
9 Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
10 Norman Bates (Psycho)
11 Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy (The Last Seduction)
12 Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th series)
13 Saruman the White (The Lord of the Rings)
14 John Doe (Se7en)
15 Baby Jane Hudson (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?)
16 Peyton Flanders (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle)
17 Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)
18 Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction)
19 The White Witch (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch and the
wardrobe)
20 Captain Videl (Pan's Labyrinth)
21 Annie Wilkes (Misery)
22 Tony Montana (Scarface)
23 Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct)
24 Michael Corleone (The Godfather)
25 Dr Christian Sezell (Marathon Man)
26 Reverend Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)
27 Ray (Nil by Mouth)
28 The Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz)
29 John Ryder (The Hitcher)
30 Suzanna Stone Maretto (To Die For)
31 Combo (This is England)
32 General Zod (Superman)
33 Hans Gruber (Die Hard)
34 Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
35 Ivan Drago (Rocky IV)
36 Daniel Cleaver (Bridget Jones' Diary)
37 Verbal Klint/Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects)
38 Lex Luthor (Superman)
39 Don (Sexy Beast)
40 Begbie (Trainspotting)
41 Phyllis Dietrichsonn (Double Indemnity)
42 Mr Blonde (Reservoir Dogs)
43 Dr Elsa Schneider (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
44 Frank (Once Upon a Time in the West)
45 Max Cady (Cape Fear)
46 The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
47 The Truck (Duel)
48 Hans Beckert (M)
49 Mrs John Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate)
50 Mr Potter (It's a Wonderful Life)

[Lizzie]

26 Bree (Transamerica)

That made me really happy.

No Voldie?

[Loz]

Dewey at number 25?! Yeah, i don't think so

[Allan]

You thought he should have been higher, Loz?

I would have liked to have seen the Terminator on the villain list, since he made a better villain than hero IMO.

I was really pleased to see Donnie Darko reach #11 on the hero list, and was pleasantly surprised to see Cherry Darling from Planet Terror hit the list - and at #21, to boot. Any recognition for that movie is always fine with me, and I don't think anyone can help but like Rose McGowan in that role.

[Loz]

batmite79 said:

You thought he should have been higher, Loz?

Its basically sacrilegious when Atticus Finch is at 50!! I mean WTF?!?!

And whats with the piss poor rankings of chicks? Thelma & Louise 28?! Clarice Starling 31?! Ellen Ripley 40?! Sarah Conner 47?!?!?! Wrong

And Han should be higher than Luke!

[Allan]

I agree completely there. Much as I enjoy School of Rock, Dewey should not be higher than so many of them, Atticus included, obviously.

Re the women, I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of female leads in "heroic" roles. That said, I don't disagree with Thelma & Louise and Clarice being around the mid-range, but Ripley and Sarah Conner should both be in the top 10. Hell, I'd rank them well above Neo.

I couldn't agree more with Han needing to be higher than Luke, either. Really, while Luke should probably hit the top 50, I don't think he should be anywhere near the top 10. Han, definitely, because he has a personality rather than just whines.

For the most part, I think the list is interesting, but there seem to be some serious missteps in it. But it seems to be the way with all these lists...

[Bre]

It's a good list, but the order sucks.

[Beck]

Some of those shouldn't be on the list. Shocked Harry Potter and Voldemort aren't on there.

[DigitalLeonardo]

So glad Batman was number 2 and beat out Superman, though I think Batman should be number 1... But thats just me.

I am kinda not happy about Spongebob Squarepants being on that list... I think there are better characters, like Harry Potter, that could have filled that place. I am also shocked that Catwoman isn't on the list, cause she kinda rocks. But happy to see The Joker.

[Allan]

The thought of Harry and Voldemort didn't even occur to me. It's really strange that neither one of them were included.

[Loz]

Daniel Cleaver is a total asshat but i don't think he should be in the top 50 villians! Especially not ahead of the likes of Lex Luthor, Mr Blonde or Max Cady!!

[Allan]

I agree, there. The list seems to have an interesting opinion on what constitutes a hero or villain with some of the selections.

If someone were to do a "Top 50 Asshats", I would expect to see Daniel Cleaver, though.

[Glenn]

When Spongebob Squarepants makes the list and Aragorn doesnt you know something is wrong

[Beck]

Yes I agree I'd like to see the criteria, its a bad list imo

[Allan]

My guess is that it was compiled by a few people, and all they really cared about was protagonist vs antagonist. Either that, or they just slapped something together because they had pages to fill with a very tight deadline.

[Beck]

Maybe but one like Harry Potter and Voldemort has to be an obvious choice and both are missing. Also Aragorn, Gandolf, from LOTR. When people like those are missing and ones like Dewey Finn, Elle Woods and Spongebob are on the list I can't take it seriously. And its not like they didn't see LOTR - Saraman and Samwise made the list :dunno:

[Allan]

It's strange. I could see them missing if they only wanted to include movie only characters, but that's obviously not the case...