The Top 100 Movie Characters - Results (Results are in)

[chasmmi]

66: Genie – Robin Williams, Aladdin

(25pts and 4 votes)

 

The voice acting role that changed how voice acting would be done forever more: Robin Williams was a tour de force as the wise cracking, insanity inducing, and unstoppable genie in Disney’s Aladdin. Regardless of the awesomeness that is Genie, Williams deserves his spot on this list purely for the fact that his performance changed the way animations cast their actors. If Genie had been a failure there may have been no Tom Hanks playing Woody, Eddie Murphy playing Donkey or in fact almost every animated character who received a vote in this poll, top 100 or otherwise. Of course I am not dismissing the skills voice actors have (I voted for Baloo myself (132^nd place), but Williams made animation available to all the talent Hollywood had to offer and the right films are better off for it.

 

 

 

65: Magneto – Ian McKellen, X-Men 1-3

(25pts and 4 votes)

 

The sign of a great performance is when you look back on a character and cannot imagine anyone else playing the role. Despite Magneto existing in comic form for decades, on screen it feels like the role was written for McKellen. I will give Fassbender all the credit in the world for how good he was in First Class (134^th place), but there is still only one true Magneto.

 

[Films]

I forgot about Gromit. Anyway had Gru and Donkey in my top 10 [also minions]

[chasmmi]

64: Jack Dawson – Leonardo Dicaprio, Titanic

(25pts and 5 votes)

 

Leonardo Dicaprio, a great actor cursed with a pretty faced which may well have doomed him to never received the recognition he so deserves at the Oscars. The forum outrage at his snub for Django (among many other roles) may be more recent, but for me the ultimate Leo snub was this one. It is not that I feel he was robbed of an Oscar, but more the concept that the Academy considered Titanic to be essentially perfect (nominated in basically every category) despite having a lead actor apparently not up to scratch. Jack was the glue that held Titanic together, a mix of charisma, love and will to survive that you rooted for along with Rose and mourned for when he passed. Glad to see him here.

 

 

63: Scrat – Karen Disher, Ice Age 1-4

(26pts and 2 votes)

 

It’s a rat type thing chasing an acorn for 4 films. I’ll admit it’s a very cute and funny comic relief rat type thing, but there isn’t really much of a character for me to delve into here. J

 

[chasmmi]

62: The Joker – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Oh who am I kidding, it’s Jack Nicholson, Batman 1989

http://forums.boxofficetheory.com/uploads/emoticons/default_tongue.png' alt=':P'>

(26pts and 4 votes)

 

Tim Burton’s Batman was a box office event. It smashed the box office record, was the fastest ever film to $100M and remained DC biggest grossing film until Batman and The Joker were once again reunited 20 years later. Jack Nicholson brought the Joker to life on screen with a performance that, like the films box office records, was not surpassed until The Joker himself returned to the big screen. Burton’s style may seem ridiculous now to some, but in 2006-7 it was also considered ridiculous to think that some pretty boy Australian actor would ever be able to lace the boots of Nicholson’s Joker and we all know how that turned out. Ledger may now be the ultimate Batman villain performance, but from 1989-2007, that honour belonged to Nicholson.

 

 

 

61: Willy Wonka – Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

(27pts and 3 votes)

 

What Burton got so right with Batman, he got oh so wrong with Charlie and the chocolate factory. Luckily we will always have Gene Wilder to show us how it should be done. A wonderfully fantastical musical that has heart, soul and as much of the imagination of the book as one could hope for when you have a genius like Dahl as your source material. You can’t help but fall in love with this character and movie.

 

[Films]

On my list I had

Jack- 25

and SCRAT IN THIRD

[rukaio101]

I don't think Scrat should've been on this list at all, let alone this high. He's cute and all, but he has little-to-no character.

[chasmmi]

THE GUYS WHO JUST MISSED OUT…

 

With our list now firmly underway, why don’t we share a moment for those characters that missed our list by the smallest of margins. 16 points with 3 votes would have been enough to make it, for 5 unlucky souls, that was 1 point (or less) too far:

 

102: The Minions – Despicable Me. You gotta love them minions… well actually one single voter loved them minions enough to score 16 points which was enough to qualify for the top 100 all the way until the final vote.

 

103: Agent K – Men In Black. For so long absolutely neck and neck with Will Smith’s J, Agent K just missed out with 15 points and 3 votes.

 

104: Hermione – Harry Potter. JK Rowling’s characters were scattered throughout many a voting slip and it was looking good for Hermione at one stage as she accrued 15 points and 3 votes. However in the end she also fell just that 1 point short.

 

105: Professor Snape – Alan Rickman. A maybe more surprising casualty from the Harry Potter cast, Snape, like Hermione before, misses out on our list by the tiniest of margins. 15 points and 3 votes.

 

106: Scar – The Lion King. The one that I was most disappointed with. One of Disney’s best villains and just like he missed out on the throne, he also misses out on our top 100 with 15 points and 3 votes.

[chasmmi]

60: Axel Foley – Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop 1-3

(27pts and 4 votes)

 

Murphy’s second spot on this list and testament to what you can get when he is on form and at the peak of his powers. Film Producers today would tear off their mothers’ right arms if it would get them a version of Murphy with one tenth of the charisma, hilarity and style that he had during the 80s. Personally I’m a little sad that Prince Akeem (Coming to America) placed so low (342^nd), but it seems that the masses have spoken and Foley is the epitome of 80s Murphy and he had to make it on here in some incarnation.

 

 

 

59: Thor – Chris Hemsworth, Thor, The Avengers, The Dark World

(27pts and 6 votes)

 

Ok maybe it’s a little early to be adding the Dark World too (and I won’t be talking about it as that will just piss people off) but I feel the third instance of Thor on the big screen will only serve to more endear people to the lovable Viking. Hemsworth is fast beginning to fill the void left by Heath Ledger’s untimely passing 5 years ago and I for one see more similarities than nationality. Hemsworth is able to do dramatic, comedic and just plain cute as it suits him and oozes charisma is that way that only Aussie actors seem to be able to. Thor is a great superhero and character to begin with, but the added touches that Hemsworth brings to the screen (There’s more than one great one liner in each of his movie outings) show that even if nobody is over the moon obsessed with him (he never placed higher than 36^th in any single list), he is pretty damn popular to the cinema audiences en masse (6 out of 13 voters voted for him, the only character outside the top 50 to accrue so many votes).

 

[Empire]

Good list so far. Have to head out. Will read the rest later. Can't wait.

[rukaio101]

Snape and Hermione missed out?! That's a surprise.

 

Also, wished I'd voted Scar higher now. Had him at 52 on my list.

[chasmmi]

58: John Coffey – Michael Clarke Duncan, The Green Mile

(28pts and 2 votes)

 

Can anyone name another actor who deserved a much bigger career in the way that Michael Clarke Duncan did (Well I’m sure many of you would put somebody forward, Cuba Gooding Jr for one is another that springs to mind)? Regardless of that debate the fact remains that John Coffey was a (I was going to say tour de force, but I’ve used that term already and to be frank tour de force does a disservice to just how damn good this guy was in this film). An absolute giant of a man who you feel could crush a skull between his forefingers, nobody and I mean nobody cries and gets emotional like Duncan did. He creates a fragility within himself that shouldn’t be possible and emits an aura on screen that makes you look up the Oscar winners from 1999 and scream: What the fuck! He lost out to the Cider House Rules! Now I’m as big a fan of Michael Caine as the next guy, but let’s look that how many votes the unforgettable Dr. Wilbur Larch received… oh that’s right, fuck all.

 

 

 

 

57: Dorothy – Judy Garland, Wizard of Oz

(28pts and 3 votes)

 

Dorothy was one of the first female leads in a big Hollywood production and people still love her to this day. Just a small girl from Kansas and her little dog Toto, yet still be it best movie lines, best movie songs or best movie characters, Dorothy is always assured to pop up somewhere.

 

[chasmmi]

Snape and Hermione missed out?! That's a surprise.

 

Also, wished I'd voted Scar higher now. Had him at 52 on my list.

 

I'll admit I was surprised at the poor performances by Harry Potter, I don't think they should have been higher, but I expected them to be.

[chasmmi]

56: The Bride – Uma Thurman, Kill Bill Vol. 1+2

(28pts and 3 votes)

 

Well you wait 17 places for a gal to show up and like buses, two appear at once (and there was almost nothing separating them). Now however we are looking to the much more modern style female protagonist as Thurman teams up with Pulp Fiction pal Quentin to but on a tale of bloody revenge and a fight scene in a sushi restaurant that I have had the pleasure of actually eating in.

 

 

 

55: Rose Dewitt – Kate Winslet, Titanic

(28pts and 3 votes)

 

Yep, that’s not a badly editing copy/paste job, yet another female character has near identical statistics. Famous for bearing her breasts in glorious PG, Winslet makes you care and worry about Rose. Even though you know she’s going to make it for the opening scene, you fear for her, you hope she’ll get to be happy and most of all you hope she’ll follow up on her blossoming modeling career when she docks in the USA. Titanic was a event like which we will never again see at the box office and so it’s fitting that Rose Dewitt was so much more than some pretty empty vessel for the lead male to fall in love with and die for.

 

[chasmmi]

54: Mary Poppins – Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins

(28pts and 3 votes)

 

Ok this is getting silly now: four places, four women, four 28 point totals, four 3 votes collected, when will it end? (Spoiler alert it ends here, the next character is not female). Mary Poppins is one of those films that will never age. Magical fantasy at its best with characters and songs you’ll never forget. The only thought I do ponder is even though Mary is obviously the star of the show here, I do feel poor old Dick gets shafted a little bit in people critiquing of the film just because his accent’s a little dodgy (which for me just made it all the better.
 

(For the record the placings came down to each character’s highest vote received and was as thus:

 

Mary Poppins: 7^th, Rose: 8^th, Bride: 23^rd, Dorothy: 25^th,

 

 

 

53: Truman Burbank – Jim Carrey, The Truman Show

(29pts and 5 votes)

 

Now I’m going to admit something that will get me lynched at the next Box Office Forum Wine Tasting night: I was one of those people that was never a fan of Jim Carrey as a young lad growing up. I thought The Mask was somewhat passable, but I hated Ace Ventura with a burning passion and felt Dumb and Dumber was drivel compared to Kingpin and Something about Mary. Then Liar Liar came along and I realized there may actually be something to this Carrey fellow all along, after that we got The Truman Show and I was a believer. A guy that over the top has no business being this good in the dramatic roles, (I consider him another that got screwed at the Oscars [he should have been nominated, not the victor necessarily]). Not only the only actor so far to get three characters on the list, but part of a club of just two to appear more than once (With Eddie Murphy). Who saw that coming?

 

Edited November 10, 2013 by chasmmi

[chasmmi]

52: Dirty Harry Callahan – Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry and 22 other films it seems

(30pts and 5 votes)

 

I have a confession to make: When I was tallying up the votes for this thing, I accidentally deleted the number of votes it received. I honestly spent about an hour trying to god work out how many it received. I was just thinking, did it get 6 votes or only 5? And to tell you the sad truth now, in the excitement of making the list I actually forgot myself. But seeing that this is the Box Office Forum, the most powerful Box Office community on the internet, that will bite your clean off for just suggesting that Chris Nolan once directed a bad scene one time, I just asked myself: Will they feel happy, if I keep it at 5 votes? Well, are you punks happy with the final tally?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlUywv1HBOk

 

 

51: Ian Malcolm – Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, The Lost World

(31pts and 4 votes)

 

Must get through this list faster, must get through this list faster. Who would of thought that Jeff Goldblum would have been one of the biggest box office draws on the planet at one point. Between this and Independence Day, he took over the world. Jurassic Park is one of those films that both looks and plays as good today as it did on release, A truly epic film with a cast to match and Ian Malcolm had the good fortune to be given the scene stealing lines and the actor to make him memorable. I do have to say that with bits of clay, mechanical sharks and a sock puppet with laryngitis all receiving votes on this list, how come no love for the T-Rex?

 

[rukaio101]

I'll admit I was surprised at the poor performances by Harry Potter, I don't think they should have been higher, but I expected them to be.

I'm guessing Dumbledore probably has the highest position of the HP cast (since I assume he's here). I really can't see Ron or Voldemort beating him (or even making it onto the list).

[chasmmi]

50: Aragorn – Viggo Mortensen, Lord of the Rings Trilogy

(32pts and 5 votes)

 

And we now move on to the first appearance of Lord of the Rings in the top 100 and it goes to neither hobbit, nor wizard but some guy named Strider apparently. Rightful king of Gondor and a dab hand with a sword, I must say I’m a little surprised to see Viggo finish so high up, but that’s why this vote is a democracy and not a dictatorship.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEeC8TaJsc

 

 

49: Princess Leia – Carrie Fisher, Star Wars Episode 4-6

(34pts and 3 votes)

 

Our first humanoid entrant from the Star Wars universe on the list and the only one you’d want to see in a bikini. Princess Leia brought both adventure and incest to the forefront of G-Rated cinema for a generation. Maybe she didn’t get the fight scenes and one liners of the big 4, but the character is still loved by geeks all over the world and gold bikinis sales have never been higher than they were in that hot hot summer of ’83.

 

[chasmmi]

48: Maximus – Russell Crowe, Gladiator

(35pts and 4 votes)

 

You remember back when Ridley Scott was the man behind a camera? Yeah I know, it seems so long ago. Well Gladiator was Ridley in full glory and his lead man was a Russell Crowe also at the peak of his career. The best Roman antics since Spartacus, Crowe combined some awesome fight scenes (there were tigers and everything!) with some damn good dramatic acting, including one of those film speeches that you know will never get old.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx0Lpjm5xcE

 

 

47: Emperor Palpatine – Ian McDiarmid, Star Wars Episode 1, 2, 3, 5(ish) and 6.

(35pts and 5 votes)

 

Star Wars has really joined the party now with a character that arguably had a bigger role in the prequels than the sequels (you’d have to ask individual voters exactly what films were the main inspiration for including him though.) Palpatine was the Dark side of the Force, the most evil man in the Star Wars Universe to date boasted unlimited power, yet sadly that did not convert into unlimited votes.

 

[chasmmi]

46: Peter Venkman – Bill Murray, Ghostbusters 1+2

(35pts and 6 votes)

 

Nobody is more happy than me to see Ghostbusters make the list. I’m even more happy to see Bill Murray get his moment in the sun as an actor (maybe similar to Eddie Murphy) who had a hot streak to end all hot streaks at one point, before it slowly crawled to a halt and he became Garfield. Venkman is Murray’s most iconic character (which is a lot to say when your back catalogue includes Phil from Groundhog Day (118^th), John Winger from Stripes (166^th) and Frank Cross from Scrooged (473^rd).

 

 

 

45: Martin Riggs – Mel Gibson, Lethal Weapon 1-4

(36pts and 4 votes)

 

I’m getting to old for this sh… wait that was the other guy. Riggs was the character that makes me sad these days because it reminds me that Gibson used to be so damn cool. Lethal weapon could well be the best cop double act film of them all and Gibson’s on screen charisma was a big part of that.

 

[rukaio101]

I'm pretty surprised Viggo made it this high as well. Thought his Aragorn was one of the weaker parts of the LOTR trilogy.

 

Also, did I miss the third 1-vote character? Who was it?