Heroes and Villians!

A few weeks ago Entertainment Weekly published their list of the top 20 heroes and villains of all time. While their list covered the gamut of everything from literature to T.V. I couldn’t help but disagree with some of their cinematic selections and as I’m wont to do I decided to create a list of my own. What follows is my list of the top 20 heroes and villains in the history of cinema. Agree / disagree? Let me hear about it. That’s why doing lists like this are so much fun. Oh and just to make things easy I did these alphabetically, how they rank against each other is open to interpretation.

HEROES:

ANDY DUFRESNE
He stares hopelessness in the face and never lets it get the better of him. Along his journey he improves the lives of his fellow inmates, screws over every bad guy in the end and gets them beer and a tax break.

ASH
Good? Bad? He’s the guy with the gun and a chainsaw for a hand. Hail to the King baby.

BATMAN
The epitome of what man can make of himself. Unstoppable, unrelenting, scary beyond words. Thank God he’s a good guy.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK
Brash, bold, ballsy… THE MOTHER F’IN MAN!

DIRTY HARRY
Go ahead make his day. And by that be a bad guy dumb enough to go up against him and his .357 Magnum.

ELLEN RIPLEY
THE greatest heroine of all time. A beautiful, caring, motherly woman who can kick your ass 10 ways from Sunday and still face an alien queen.

HAN SOLO
The dude bags Princess Leia, has a Wookie and the Millennium Falcon. Nuff said!

HARRY POTTER
Faced with insurmountable odds and a world that hates, fears and deifies him all at once he’s the only one brave enough to take on someone so scary they don’t even like saying his name.

THE INCREDIBLES
The family that fights crime together stays together. When this beautifully created family works together there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. If that’s not heroism I don’t know what is.

INDIANA JONES
He’s got a whip, a hat, a killer right hook and even though he’s “Making this up as he goes” he saves the day every time.

JAMES BOND
The greatest spy of all time and the action hero that paved the way for EVERYONE else.

JAY AND SILENT BOB
Pot heads and perverts? Yes. Savers of the world and pretty much everyone’s bacon in one way or another in all the Kevin Smith films? Yes again.

JOHN MCCLANE
Always the wrong guy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time but with enough bullets and “artistically interpreted” Roy Rogers quotes to get him through anything.

KERMIT THE FROG
It’s not easy being green but Kermit never lets that or ANYTHING else get him or his wacky friends down. There are few more noble characters in all of fiction than this amphibian.

POLICE CHIEF MARGE GUNDERSON
She’s WAY pregnant, lives in Fargo, her husband’s a painter and she still doesn’t let any of that get in the way of her dogged quest for justice. You betcha!

PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA
The heroine that started it all for so many boys and girls around the world. Plus she looks darn good in a gold bikini.

THE ROCKETEER
One of my personal faves from one of the most underrated films of all time. The dude can do anything with the rocket pack he finds and he chooses to save his girl and fight Nazis. Well done.

ROCKY
He started off as the working man’s hero and evolved into an irreplaceable symbol of Americana.

SARAH CONNER
She not only gives birth to mankind’s last hope but then becomes crazy, psycho, butch badass lady to defend him and turn him into the greatest military leader in history.

SUPERMAN
Perhaps the most noble creature in the history of fiction. Not as cool or badass as Batman but iconic and legendary none-the-less.

VILLIANS:

AGENT SMITH
He thinks humans are a disease and he wants to be the cure. That’s some evil, sunglass wearing Penicillin if you ask me.

ANTON CHIGURH
Another one of those forces of nature. Like a flesh and blood Terminator with an air-driven cattle gun.

BRUCE THE SHARK FROM JAWS
The sole reason millions of people worldwide (My sister included) are terrified of going in the ocean.

CURELLA DE VIL
She wants to make puppies into coats! PUPPIES!

DANIEL PLAINVIEW
The personification of greed and all it’s capable of.

DARTH VADER
OK, sure there was a lot that made him what he was and he was kind of a wuss growing up but until you knew all that he was simply the scariest, most menacing thing ever put on
film.

HANNIBAL LECTER
A charming conversationalist and dinner guest... unless you’re on the menu. Just don’t serve Farva beans and you might be fine.

HANS GRUBER
Villainy has never looked so calm, cool, collected or well dressed.

THE JOKER
He’s insanely brilliant and just plain insane. He is almost quite literally an unstoppable force of nature. Death, mayhem and murder are like a trip to Disneyland for him.

JUDGE DOOM
The dude wants to kill toons AND build freeways. Can you think of anything more despicable?

KEYSER SOZE
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The second was creating one of the most diabolical, ingenious villains in the history of cinema.

KHAN
“It is very cold in space” and so is the dish of revenge Khan, in all his plastic chested glory relishes serving.

MICHAEL MYERS
The original movie monster slasher. Silent, deadly, unstoppable and ripped-off more than almost any character in film history.

MR. JOSHUA
He feels no pain, shows no remorse and is played by Gary Busey! Creepy, VERY creepy.

NORMAN BATES
Sure the dude has some serious mommy issues but that doesn’t make him any less terrifying or the things he does any less gruesome.

NURSE RATCHED
Hands down the single most evil female in the history of film. Don’t believe me look at what she does to Billy.

PRINCE HUMPERDINCK / THE SIX FINGERED MAN
They’re both cowardly evil smucks that enjoy torture and killing brides. How could I pick just one?

SAURON
He wants to wipe out EVERYTHING that’s good, including the little dudes that just like to eat, drink and grow hair on their feet.

THE TERMINATOR
“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

VOLDEMORT
THEY REFUSE TO SAY HIS NAME! Seriously how badass scary is that?