So, Premiere magazine released their 100 Greatest Movie characters of all time. Having put a bit of thought into it, here’s my own list of the Greatest movie characters:
- Roy Batty, Blade Runner
- Darth Vader, Star Wars
- The Terminator, The Terminator
- Gollum, Lord of the Rings
- Gunnery Seargent Hartman, Full Metal Jacket
- Doctor Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs
- Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Arc
- Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint, The Usual Suspects
- Yoda, Star Wars
- Alexander de Large, A Clockwork Orange
- Rocky Balboa, Rocky
- Ordell Robbie, Jackie Brown
- John Doe, Seven
- Captain-Lieutenant Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, Das Boot
- Maximus, Gladiator
- Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
I’ve left off some rather obvious choices like James Bond, but I was never really into the Bond movies. I’ve noticed that some of the characters are ambiguous, or bipolar, in their intentions about good and evil. Roy Batty saved Deckard at the end of Blade Runner, Anakin Skywalker became the evil Darth Vader who then redeemed himself at the end of Return of the Jedi, Gollum faced inner turmoil with Smeagol. At a stretch, you could even argue John Doe was an OK guy by trying to stop evils the same as the police though by different, shocking means. As to what I consider greatness, I really can’t explain. For some characters, it the development of that character throughout the movie, eg Vader or Alex. For some characters, it’s related to the technical aspects of animation, eg Yoda and Gollum. For others, such as Lara Croft, it’s just the characters ass-kicking ability.