We talk a lot about movies here at CraveOnline. We mull over the box office numbers, discuss the social and artistic impact they have, and we also try to suss out whether each of them is any good. But the dirty little secret of entertainment journalism and film critics everywhere is this: the only thing that matters is time. Are the movie and movie characters memorable enough to live on? If not, it doesn’t matter how successful it was at the box office or what it meant. It doesn’t even really matter if it’s “good.” All that matters if whether we take these movies and movie characters into our lives with us after the credits roll.
Every movie wants to be remembered, of course. Why else would anyone bother making it? There’s only so much room in the pop culture firmament for so many stars, but there’s always room for one more. So as we wait for filmmakers to introduce us to the next great and inspiring movie characters that thrill, amuse, and haunt our nightmares, we wanted to take the time to focus on the movie characters who have become downright legendary. The characters audiences are familiar with even if they’ve never seen the movie; they’re just that ubiquitous. And the audiences who have seen the movies will never forget them while continuing to spread the word, making these heroes, villains and everyone in between live on forever.
Brought to you by John Wick, in theaters October 24.
Slideshow: Movie Characters Whose Legends Live On
Movie Characters Whose Legends Live On
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Thomas 'Neo' Anderson
Best Movie: The Matrix (1999)
Besides the fact that he's "The One," what do we really know about Thomas Anderson? Nothing at all. He's the quintessential blank slate hero: a cypher blanched to perfection with a perfectly milquetoast performance by Keanu Reeves. Neo isn't meant to be specific, he's meant to be all of us. Neo lives on because we are all Neo, waiting to be woken up from our somnambulist states by new ideas and the sudden, ego-driven idea that we are are inherently more special than everyone else, and could really easily learn kung fu.
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Robert 'Rocky' Balboa Sr.
Best Movie: Rocky (1976)
Sylvester Stallone wrote and directed this story of a palooka who gets his one shot at glory back when he was, essentially, just a palooka with one shot at glory. In the years that followed, Rocky Balboa became one of the most iconic underdogs in American pop culture; even when he's on top of the world, something always manages to knock him back down and force him to once again prove his worth.
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Royal Navy Commander James Bond
Best Movie: Casino Royale (2006)
Ian Fleming's super spy James Bond has been played by multiple actors (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, just to name a few), but he has always been associated with sleek, efficient, classy and sexual machismo. Even his name is a catch phrase. "Bond. James Bond."
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Jason Bourne
Best Movie: The Bourne Identity (2002)
Robert Ludlum's own Cold War spy hero Jason Bourne was transformed into a hero for the 21st century, a thoughtful hero with a conscience whose action-packed adventures required mental and physical effort. Jason Bourne does amazing things, but he doesn't make it look easy. He's been an influential on almost every action hero that followed him.
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Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan
Best Movie: Dirty Harry (1971)
Emerging from an era when Miranda Rights had citizens worried that cops would be too busy with red tape to actually protect them, Dirty Harry became synonymous with righteous justice, within the system with possible, and outside it when necessary.
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Inspector Jacques Clouseau
Best Movie: A Shot in the Dark (1964)
The bumbling hero of the beloved Pink Panther series was foolish, clumsy and usually wrong about everything. The comic genius of the character was that he believed himself exactly the opposite, and that bravado convinced almost everyone else. He's the quintessential Peter Sellers character, and one of cinema's most iconic goofballs.
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Sarah Connor
Best Movie: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
James Cameron's sequel to the unexpected hit The Terminator turned the first film's damsel in distress into a borderline lunatic, a mother who would go to any length to defend her son from a future that threatens to destroy him. Her strength comes from her vulnerability, and Linda Hamilton's hard-edged yet maternal performance instantly made her one of the most iconic action heroes of any gender.
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Don Vito Corleone
Best Movie: The Godfather (1972)
As soon as Don Vito Corleone appeared, cloaked in shadow and stroked a harmless pussy cat, we knew he was special. The leader of a mafia family trying to retain their dignity in an increasingly volatile criminal environment, loving his family and killing anyone else if necessary, is one of the signature cinematic creations of the 1970s.
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Django
Best Movie: Django Unchained (2012)
Before Jamie Foxx was Django, the name had been given to dozens of western heroes and outlaws in 40 movies. Originated by Franco Nero in one of the most violent westerns of all time (titled, appropriately enough, Django), the character became one of the great pulp antiheroes. A violent scourge who sometimes fought for what's right, sometimes just for himself, and always left a bloody trail in his wake.
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Count Dracula
Best Movie: Dracula (1931)
Bram Stoker's creation, the ultimate vampire character, has appeared in so many movies over the years that counting them is almost pointless. Frank Langella may very well be the "best" Count Dracula, but it seems that no one will ever overshadow Bela Lugosi's interpretation as a cool, suave, Eastern European sex machine with teeth.
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Boba Fett
Best Movie: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Sometimes a little screen time goes a long way. While the rest of the cast of Star Wars gallivanted around the universe getting in adventures, learning from puppets and almost making out, Boba Fett appeared on the sidelines of The Empire Strikes Back, earning tons of street cred just from minding his own business and getting his job done. That his job was kidnapping the badass Han Solo made him an instant fan favorite. Even his lame origin in the prequels couldn't entirely tarnish his reputation.
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Atticus Finch
From: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
If there any one character could be said to embody dignity and fairness, it's Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. The celebrated adaptation of Harper Lee's celebrated novel cast Gregory Peck as the father and lawyer responsible for keeping a town's racism in check during a heated murder trial, and in just a single film he turned Atticus Finch into one of the most legendary movie characters in history.
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Dorothy Gale
Best Movie: The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Judy Garland sang about going over the rainbow, and then actually went there in the magical musical The Wizard of Oz, a film that for some epitomizes the height of Golden Age Hollywood imagination. Judy Garland became so indelibly linked to her innocent heroine that it nearly destroyed her career as a mature actress, she had so much trouble being cast as an adult woman.
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The Joker
Best Movie: The Dark Knight (2008)
Batman has been redefined so many times in comics, movies, TV and video games that his legend seems to have little do with any one medium. But between Jack Nicholson's impish portrayal in Tim Burton's Batman and Heath Ledger's anarchic mania in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, The Joker seems intrinsically linked to his cinematic incarnations. (Mark Hamill was really good in Mask of the Phantasm, too.) The Joker is the personification of playful, violent chaos, and in multiple films has proven himself to be one of cinema's greatest villains.
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Dr. Henry 'Indiana' Jones, Jr.
Best Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Indiana Jones burst into legendary status with Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, which plays like a master class in how to introduce the world to an action hero. Harrison Ford's boyish charm helped transform an academic character into a Nazi-punching pulp star, and one of the all time great cinema icons.
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Charles Foster Kane
From: Citizen Kane (1941)
A thinly veiled movie version of real-life newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the subject of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was always intended to be a representation of capitalistic hubris, and the emotional dissatisfaction that comes from simply buying everything you want... including love and principles. The irony is, it took just as much hubris for Welles (who also played the title character) to even try to make Citizen Kane work, and it's a miracle that it not only turned out fine, but is still considered by many to be the greatest motion picture ever produced.
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Freddy Krueger
Best Film: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
The child-murdering maniac Freddy Krueger stepped into our dreams, and into our hearts. A novel idea for a villain, played with menacing charisma by Robert Englund, works as a genuine nightmare or a colorful trickster, and has survived good sequels and bad sequels alike as one of the most beloved scary movie creations.
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Dr. Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter
Best Movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
A homicidal maniac - but a very, very polite one - stole The Silence of the Lambs away from all of his co-stars. (He has less than 20 minutes of screen time.) Sir Anthony Hopkins made the good doctor, a psychologist enlisted to help catch another serial killer, a welcoming yet frighteningly malevolent presence. You want to think he'd really like you, if only because otherwise you'd be his next meal.
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The Man with No Name
Best Movie: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" actually had three of them: Joe, Manco and Blondie. That he had different names in three different movies meant nothing. Clint Eastwood is obviously playing the same silent bounty hunter, criminal and cad. He's as magnetic as any screen presence you've ever seen, and one of the most memorable antiheroes in any medium.
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Detective John McClane
Best Movie: Die Hard (1988)
In an era when action heroes were all unstoppable godlike killing machines, John McClane turned heads by just being another guy. A hapless cop trapped in a hostage situation with no other recourse than to fight his way out. He's not a hero, he just has to act like one, and that made him refreshingly universal.
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Michael Myers
Best Movie: Halloween (1978)
The thing Rob Zombie didn't get about Michael Myers when he remade the Halloween movies is that this spectre-like killer of babysitters has no character. He has no soul. He exists only to kill, feeling nothing but a matter of fact urge to commit acts of evil. In the hands of John Carpenter, he's scarier that way, and became one of the most terrifying cinematic characters in history.
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Scarlett O'Hara
Best Movie: Gone with the Wind (1939)
Scarlett O'Hara begins her life as a spoiled brat and evolves into something more. But the one constant is that her will is indomitable, to her credit and to her detriment. She makes herself who she is, using people whenever necessary and breaking every heart in the process. Her strength is her weakness. As played by Vivian Leigh, she is one of the great protagonists. Period.
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Sir Augustine Danger 'Austin' Powers
Best Movie: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Mike Myers' silly parody of 1960s British spy movies should, by all rights, have been a one-off larf of a movie. Instead, the character caught on with audiences, spawning imitations and two inferior sequels that reveled in the stupidity but forgot that the real genius of Austin Powers was his surprising vulnerability. He was a confident 1960s hero dropped into a modern era that had no place of him. He lingers because he's a real character who does unreal things, not because he drinks poo and says "Oh, behave."
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John Rambo
Best Movie: First Blood (1982)
John Rambo began as a tragic figure, a tortured soul reliving the nightmares of the Vietnam War after being abused by civilians. But the sequels abandoned that tragedy and transformed him into Reaganite hero, blowing up helicopters and sticking up for everything that originally destroyed him. Ironically, it's the second version that became legendary, making his name synonymous with gung ho, rah-rah violence.
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Lt. Ellen Ripley
Best Movie: Alien (1979)
In Ridley Scott's influential sci-fi thriller Alien, Ellen Ripley was not the main character. She wasn't the most famous person in the cast. She was the heartless one who wouldn't open a door to save someone's life if it was against regulations. By the end of her harrowing journey, she risked life and limb to save a cat. As the sequels progressed, her journey became even more transformative and empowering. She's defined by her reaction to trauma, and became a hero by overcoming cruel obstacles - and xenomorphs - over and over again.
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Mrs. Robinson
From: The Graduate (1967)
College graduate Dustin Hoffman comes home from college, sleeps with his neighbor's wife, and finds himself trapped in a miasma of listless lust and icy affection. As the catalyst for Mike Nichols' bleak coming of age dramedy, Anne Bancroft exudes physical sensuality and emotional callousness. She's cinema's most fascinating seductress.
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'Mad' Max Rockatansky
Best Movie: The Road Warrior (1981)
Mad Max began his journey as a seeker of vengeance, but achieved legendary status by being the voice of reason in an increasingly psychotic post-apocalyptic world. Mel Gibson is a great antihero, but Mad Max has come to represent more than himself: he's the masculine spirit of survival after the downfall of society. He's who we would all like to think we could be when the chips fell, and were left to fend for ourselves without a safety net.
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John Shaft
Best Film: Shaft (1971)
Here's a secret about John Shaft not everyone's willing to admit: his movies aren't actually all that good. But what he means is infinitely more important than what he does. He was a positive, strong, sexy black role model in an era when movies didn't really have one. He was conceived as a black James Bond, and as played by Richard Roundtree, he basically pulled it off. And any character with a theme song that funky was bond to be a legend from frame one.
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Anakin Skywalker, a.k.a. Darth Vader
Best Movie: The Return of the Jedi (1983)
The villain of George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy was initially just a presence: a mighty, fearsome black knight who wanted to conquer the universe for his master. It was only when we found out who he was under the mask that he became a real character, a figure of great tragedy, capable of powerful redemption. Then the prequels came along and screwed everything up, but it's best to just ignore them.
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Captain Jack Sparrow
Best Movie: The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
After four movies, Captain Jack Sparrow might not seem as revolutionary a character as he originally was. But when he debuted in 2003, blockbuster cinema had never seen anything like him. Androgynously sexy, capable but extremely silly, the voice of reason yet utterly mad. Johnny Depp earned an Oscar nomination for playing a pirate in a CGI blockbuster, and became of the most popular heroes in movie history as well.
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Tony Stark
Best Movie: Iron Man 3 (2013)
Iron Man may be one of the most successful movie franchises in the world today, but when the first movie came out in 2008, he wasn't a particularly popular superhero. Robert Downey Jr's performance and Jon Favreau's smart, character driven, acerbic film transformed a b-list superhero (by mainstream standards) into a rock star, brought Robert Downey Jr. back into the Hollywood A-list and helped make superhero movies one of the dominant genres in the film industry.
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Sanjuro Tsubaki, a.k.a. Yojimbo
Best Movie: Yojimbo (1961)
Before Clint Eastwood was The Man with No Name, Toshiro Mifune was Yojimbo, a nameless samurai who traveled from town to town, clearing out the criminals but acting like a right bastard in the process. Yojimbo led to one official sequel (in which he got an actual name), an unofficial sequel (The Incident at Blood Pass is amazing), and a spin-off where he crossed paths with another iconic character from our list. And also a remake, directed by Sergio Leone, which gave us Clint Eastwood's western hero.
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Jason Voorhees
Best Movie: Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
The instantly recognizable slasher Jason Voorhees became legendary quite by accident. He wasn't even the killer in the original Friday the 13th, didn't get his signature mask until the third movie, and didn't become the undead monster we all know and love until the sixth. And the thing that makes him so popular, the fact that he kills annoying, sinful teenagers, was arguably a haphazard accidental byproduct of shoddy screenwriting. Audiences love to see Jason kill characters we don't want to watch anymore. He's the exterminator of the cinema, and for that, we love him.
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Ashley
Best Movie: Evil Dead II (1987)
There aren't many movie heroes like Ash, the star of Sam Raimi's beloved Evil Dead trilogy. He's a dorky goofball, but he's also a dashing ladies man. He's a living punching bag, but he punches back just as hard. Whether he's acting like a lost member of Three Stooges or Errol Flynn, he looks equally comfortable. He's played by the great Bruce Campbell, and is one of the all-time great horror icons.
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Zatoichi
Best Movie: Zatoichi the Fugitive (1963)
He's an expert swordsman, a skilled masseuse, a righter of wrongs... and he's blind. Shintaro Katsu played Zatoichi in 26 movies (!) between 1961 and 1989, and in a TV series that ran from 1974 through 1979. (Beat Takeshi took over for one stellar reboot in 2003.) And believe it or not, all of them are wonderful. He's a soulful hero and master of death. He's funny and sorrowful. He's thrilling to watch and philosophical to listen to. He's one of the great legends of action cinema.
