AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains

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AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 50 greatest American movie heroes and villains chosen by American Film Institute in June of 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years... series. There was an accompanying CBS special that discussed the list presented by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In several cases, the characters on the lists are seen in two or more films. The primary or original (if possible) film that character(s) was in is listed, or that film that was given particular attention during the program. In one instance, a character (the Terminator) appears on both lists.

Heroes
# Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird, as played by Gregory Peck) # Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark, as played by Harrison Ford) # James Bond (Dr. No, as played by Sean Connery) # Rick Blaine (Casablanca, as played by Humphrey Bogart) # Will Kane (High Noon, as played by Gary Cooper) # Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs, as played by Jodie Foster) # Rocky Balboa (Rocky, as played by Sylvester Stallone) # Ellen Ripley (Aliens, as played by Sigourney Weaver) # George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life, as played by James Stewart) # T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, as played by Peter O'Toole) # Jefferson Smith (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, as played by James Stewart) # Tom Joad (The Grapes of Wrath, as played by Henry Fonda) # Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List, as played by Liam Neeson) # Han Solo (, as played by Harrison Ford) # Norma Rae Webster (Norma Rae, as played by Sally Field) # Shane (Shane, as played by Alan Ladd) # Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry, as played by Clint Eastwood) # Robin Hood (The Adventures of Robin Hood, as played by Errol Flynn) # Virgil Tibbs (In the Heat of the Night, as played by Sidney Poitier) # Butch & Sundance (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as played by Paul Newman & Robert Redford) # Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi, as played by Ben Kingsley) # Spartacus (Spartacus, as played by Kirk Douglas) # Terry Malloy (On the Waterfront, as played by Marlon Brando) # Thelma Dickerson & Louise Sawyer (Thelma and Louise, as played by Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon) # Lou Gehrig (The Pride of the Yankees, as played by Gary Cooper) # Superman (, as played by Christopher Reeve) # Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein (All the President's Men, as played by Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman) # Juror #8 (12 Angry Men, as played by Henry Fonda) # General George Patton (Patton, as played by George C. Scott) # Luke Jackson (Cool Hand Luke, as played by Paul Newman) # Erin Brockovich (Erin Brockovich, as played by Julia Roberts) # Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep, as played by Humphrey Bogart) # Marge Gunderson (Fargo, as played by Frances McDormand) # Tarzan (Tarzan the Ape Man, as played by Johnny Weissmuller) # Alvin York (Sergeant York, as played by Gary Cooper) # Rooster Cogburn (True Grit, as played by John Wayne) # Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars, as played by Alec Guiness) # The Tramp (City Lights, as played by Charlie Chaplin) # Lassie (Lassie Come Home, as played by Pal) # Frank Serpico (Serpico, as played by Al Pacino) # Arthur Chipping (Goodbye, Mr. Chips, as played by Robert Donat) # Father Edward J. Flanagan (Boys Town, as played by Spencer Tracy) # Moses (The Ten Commandments, as played by Charlton Heston) # Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (The French Connection, as played by Gene Hackman) # Zorro (The Mark of Zorro, as played by Tyrone Power) # Batman (Batman, as played by Michael Keaton) # Karen Silkwood (Silkwood, as played by Meryl Streep) # The Terminator (, as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) # Andrew Beckett (Philadelphia, as played by Tom Hanks) # Maximus Decimus Meridius (Gladiator, as played by Russel Crowe)

Villains
# Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs, as played by Anthony Hopkins) # Norman Bates (Psycho, as played by Anthony Perkins) # Darth Vader (, as played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones) # Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz, as played by Margaret Hamilton) # Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as played by Louise Fletcher) # Mr. Potter (It's a Wonderful Life, as played by Lionel Barrymore) # Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction, as played by Glenn Close) # Phyllis Dietrichson (Double Indemnity, as played by Barbara Stanwyck) # Regan MacNeil (The Exorcist, as played by Linda Blair and voiced by Mercedes McCambridge) # The Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as voiced by Lucille La Vern) # Michael Corleone (The Godfather Part II, as played by Al Pacino) # Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange, as played by Malcolm McDowell) # HAL 9000 (, as voiced by Douglas Rain) # The Alien (Alien, as played by Bolaji Badejo) # Amon Göth (Schindler's List, as played by Ralph Fiennes) # Noah Cross (Chinatown, as played by John Huston) # Annie Wilkes (Misery, as played by Kathy Bates) # The Shark (Jaws) # Captain Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty, as played by Charles Laughton) # Man (Bambi) # Mrs. John Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate, as played by Angela Lansbury) # The Terminator (The Terminator, as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) # Eve Harrington (All About Eve, as played by Anne Baxter) # Gordon Gekko (Wall Street, as played by Michael Douglas) # Jack Torrance (The Shining, as played by Jack Nicholson) # Cody Jarrett (White Heat, as played by James Cagney) # Martians (The War of the Worlds) # Max Cady (Cape Fear, as played by Robert De Niro, and earlier by Robert Mitchum) # Reverend Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter, as played by Robert Mitchum) # Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver, as played by Robert De Niro) # Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca, as played by Judith Anderson) # Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde, as played by Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway) # Count Dracula (Dracula, as played by Bela Lugosi) # Dr. Szell (Marathon Man, as played by Laurence Olivier) # J.J. Hunsecker (Sweet Smell of Success, as played by Burt Lancaster) # Frank Booth (Blue Velvet, as played by Dennis Hopper) # Harry Lime (The Third Man, as played by Orson Welles) # Caesar Enrico Bandello (Little Caesar, as played by Edward G. Robinson) # Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians, as voiced by Betty Lou Gerson) # Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street, as played by Robert Englund) # Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest, as played by Faye Dunaway) # Tom Powers (The Public Enemy, as played by James Cagney) # Regina Giddens (The Little Foxes, as played by Bette Davis) # Baby Jane Hudson (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, as played by Bette Davis) # The Joker (Batman, as played by Jack Nicholson) # Hans Gruber (Die Hard, as played by Alan Rickman) # Tony Carmonte (Scarface, as played by Paul Muni) # Verbal Kint (The Usual Suspects, as played by Kevin Spacey) # Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger, as played by Gert Frobe) # Alonzo Harris (Training Day, as played by Denzel Washington)

Trivia

The actors who portrayed the #1 choices in both the "Hero" and "Villain" lists, Gregory Peck and Sir Anthony Hopkins respectively, won the Best Actor Academy Award for their roles.
Humphrey Bogart, Harrison Ford, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and James Stewart are the only other actors to have portrayed multiple heroes. Cooper is the only actor to portray more than two characters in either of the lists.
James Cagney, Bette Davis, Robert De Niro, Faye Dunaway, Robert Mitchum, and Jack Nicholson are the only actors to have portrayed more than one villain.
Schwarzenegger and Al Pacino are the only actors to have portrayed both a 'Hero' and 'Villain'
Though the Terminator appears as both 'Hero' and a 'Villain', the appearances were actually by separate but physically identical characters, both portrayed by Schwarzenegger.
Batman, It's A Wonderful Life, Star Wars, Schindler's List, and The Silence Of The Lambs are the only films to provide characters to both lists.
'Man' from Bambi (#20) is the only character on either list to never actually appear on-screen (unless one considers Satan from The Exorcist (#9) when referring to the possessed Regan MacNeil).
T. E. Lawrence is the highest ranking non-fictional 'Hero,' while Amon Göth is the highest ranking non-fictional 'Villain.'
Perhaps ironically, though not a single top ten villain is seen using a firearm on-screen (discounting Darth Vader's use of laser-like weapons), 8 of the top 10 heroes are (Rocky Balboa and George Bailey, numbers 7 and 9 respectively, did not).
3 of the heroes (Superman, Lassie, and the Terminator) and 8 of the villains (HAL 9000, The Alien, The Shark, Martians, The Terminator, Freddy Krueger, Count Dracula, and Satan) are not human.

External links

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