Some guys just want to watch the world burn.

Villains and Bad Guys

Unforgettable Film Characters

John "Jigsaw" Kramer wants to know how far you'll push yourself just to stay alive. Like, will you cut yourself open? Take out someone else? Watch an entire Saw movie? Or 8 of them?

I Want to Play a Game

Best Movies

It seems <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-popular-movie-villain-year-you-were-born/mike-mcgranaghan" target="_blank">every year</a>, new iconic villains are coming out of the woodwork. While some of us tend to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movie-villains-who-wore-out-their-welcome/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">despise movie villains</a>, plenty of movie-goers&nbsp;favor some of these antagonists. Whether that&#39;s due to a cool accent, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/over-the-top-comic-book-movie-performances/tyler-mitchell" target="_blank">an over-the-top performance</a>, or an intimidating disposition, some villains just stand out - and <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/actors-who-got-big-after-playing-bad-guys/orrin-grey" target="_blank">redefine the actors playing them</a>.&nbsp;For instance, who doesn&#39;t have some type of fondness for Hannibal Lecter? How about the evil Darth Vader for that matter?&nbsp;Who are the greatest villains of all time? These movie bad guys are the scourge of the movie universe - and that&#39;s to say nothing of their <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/which-henchman-would-win-in-a-battle/matthew-ludwinski" target="_blank">loyal, powerful henchmen</a> - and you can now vote on the meanest villain ever to appear on film.

These are the greatest, most vile movie characters <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-hateable-villains-in-comedy-movies/elle-tharp" target="_blank">we love to hate</a>&nbsp;(or even <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/funny-villains-in-serious-movies/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">laugh at</a>) ranked by the wisdom of the crowd, which makes this ranking an accurate, real-time reflection of the crowd&#39;s collective opinion.

Loki

The Greatest Movie Villains Of All Time

Film character

Best Movie Villains of All Time | List of Top Film Bad Guys

Ranker Community

Lists about the wizarding world that captured the imaginations of children and adults alike and forever changed the way we view owls, brooms, and round eyeglasses.

The Universe of Harry Potter

Entertainment

The top Harry Potter characters come from a rich universe crafted on the page and adapted to the screen, giving us some of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-film-adaptations-of-young-adult-novels/randolph">best movie adaptations from books</a> of all time. Since the Harry Potter universe is one where there are 75 (75!) main characters in the Harry Potter movies and books, there&#39;s little surprise that they are some of the most beloved (and hated) characters of all time.

That said, the question in front of us is &quot;who are the best Harry Potter characters?&quot; and it is a tough one to answer. Do you go for the obvious and choose Harry the hero, or pay respect to Voldemort, one of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-best-movie-villains-of-all-time">best movie villains of all time</a>? Do you go for brains with Hermione or charm with George &amp; Fred? These are the questions we&#39;re confronted with when attempting to name the greatest Harry Potter characters ever.

Since both the Harry Potter books and movies can be taken into account, it&#39;s up to you to decide if you want to vote for the popular Harry Potter characters as you imagined them or as they were portrayed on screen. Since the books are among the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-selling-book-series-of-all-time/jeff419">best selling series of all time</a>, there&#39;s a good chance you&#39;ve read them and can compare notes with the movies. Your choice is yours, though; nobody&#39;s breaking out the Imperius curse so cast your vote for your favorite characters and make vote down the ones you don&#39;t like. And if there&#39;s a supporting Harry Potter character you feel belongs on the list, make sure to add them to this list of the top <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/luckiest-harry-potter-characters/renata-carmen" target="_blank">Harry Potter characters.</a> Of course, if you&#39;re forgetting some of the names or need pictures to jog your memory, you can use the list as a reference.

Hermione Granger

The Greatest Harry Potter Characters, Ranked

Best Harry Potter Characters | List of Favorite Characters in the HP Universe

Horror Movies and TV

&quot;Demons to some, angels to others.&quot; That&#39;s one of the ways we&#39;re introduced to the Cenobites in Hellraiser, horror author and director Clive Barker&#39;s most enduring contribution to the visual lexicon of horror cinema. These &quot;explorers in the further regions of experience&quot; come when you solve a puzzle box called the Lament Configuration, and usually they drag you off to join them in a labyrinth that just might be hell. Not all of the Cenobites in&nbsp;Hellraiser&nbsp;originally had names - not even the &quot;Lead Cenobite,&quot; who came to be known and loved as Pinhead - but they all have&nbsp;nicknames that stuck, and over the course of several movies, a number of other Cenobites were introduced. And&nbsp;between movies, books, and comics, the Cenobites have done some <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/worst-cenobites-moments-clive-barker/sabrina-ithal" target="_blank">pretty gruesome things</a>.

What are the Cenobites? In&nbsp;Hellraiser&nbsp;and its sequels,&nbsp;the Cenobites are explained as a&nbsp;sort of monastic order that serves Leviathan and views flesh as something to be modified and sculpted and that seems to draw no distinction between pleasure and pain. Here&#39;s a list of&nbsp;all the nastiest Cenobites from the&nbsp;Hellraiser, ranked by how vile and unpleasant they are. See if you agree!

All The Cenobites From The 'Hellraiser' Films, Ranked By Nastiness

All The Cenobites In The 'Hellraiser' Movies, Ranked By Nastiness

Orrin Grey

From popping the question to saying "I do!" and all the fun, funny stuff that happens in between.

Everything Wedding

A look at real and fictional wedding dresses worn by characters, cartoons, celebrities, and even royalty all around the world.

White Weddings

Living

We&#39;re all suckers for a big Hollywood movie ending: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back, boy gets girl. And then, most importantly: girl gets dress! A match made in true movie heaven! It&#39;s perfection!

Some of the best film wedding dresses are truly the stuff of dreams: the dreams of directors and costume designers, and sometimes the nightmares of the actresses who have to figure out how to go to the bathroom during filming breaks.&nbsp;

It didn&#39;t take us long to come up with this list of the best bridal gowns in movies. Most of our favorite wedding movies feature a stunningly gorgeous wedding gown. From romantic comedies to dark dramas with <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-goth-wedding-dresses/samantha-dillinger" target="_blank">goth wedding gowns</a>,&nbsp;the we&#39;d wear every single one of the wedding dresses in these movies. Classic gowns, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-nerdy-wedding-dresses/dani-porter" target="_blank">nerdy gowns</a>, or modern dresses, we don&#39;t care! They&#39;re all gorgeous. Movies prove that you don&#39;t have to be traditional on your wedding day. You can even marry an Ogre instead of Prince Charming. (Not that there&#39;s anything wrong with Prince Charming!)&nbsp;

We&#39;ve been falling in love with wedding dresses in movies since we were little girls watching Cinderella (don&#39;t worry, it&#39;s on the list). Hollywood has shown us that we really can have the wedding gown of our dreams. Now it&#39;s time for you to decide: which&nbsp;of these best <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-wedding-movies/all-genre-movies-lists" target="_blank">movie wedding</a> dresses takes the cake?

Michelle's Dress In 'American Wedding'

The Most Gorgeous Movie Wedding Dresses, Ranked

Film

Best Movie Wedding Dresses | Wedding Gowns in Films

Jessica Lawshe

Looking at standout roles, unforgettable performances, and behind-the-scenes drama of famous and forgotten actors.

Casting Calls

Comedy

Worlds, stories, and characters are conceived on the page. Whether it be in a novel, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/comic-book-characters-we-want-to-see-on-film/ranker-comics" target="_blank">comic book</a>, or script, an infinite number of idiosyncratic features have been&nbsp;overcome by&nbsp;actors that redefined their characters.&nbsp;Sometimes roles are written for specific actors, but most of the time, filmmakers search the globe for that special someone. Most characters in entertainment transform to some degree once actors bring&nbsp;them to life (or impose&nbsp;their large personalities upon them). Great performers are respected for redefining characters.

Some roles are rewritten when the actor is cast or changed throughout filming, with the actor taking it in a different direction than anticipated. The role doesn&#39;t become fully realized until experimentation and improvisation take&nbsp;hold. This isn&#39;t just a matter of changing a few lines here and there; it&#39;s a holistic change to the entire vision or persona. Think of the infamous behind-the-scenes confusion when Johnny Depp unveiled his take on Jack Sparrow, or Robin Williams making Aladdin&rsquo;s genie inseparable from his talent. These are some of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-movie-characters-of-all-time" target="_blank">the best&nbsp;movie characters</a>&nbsp;that completely changed when a specific actor was cast to play them. Remember to vote up your favorites.

12 Movie Roles That Completely Changed When A Specific Actor Was Cast

General

Josh Plainse

Lists about action stars and characters who are eternally sweaty and smeared with dirty blood, having just leapt out of reach of another fiery explosion.

Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mister Falcon

poll

There are certain things that make the best movie heroes completely badass - that swagger, that style and most of all, the ability to deliver in a pinch. For <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-macho-action-hero/jessica-bedewi" target="_blank">action heroes</a>, a sense of humor is a nice touch, as are wardrobe sensibilities (it takes serious panache to look good in a sweaty, blood &amp; grease stained tank top.) But really, if your hero can <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/times-action-heroes-shouldnt-have-survived/jessica-bedewi" target="_blank">beat the odds</a> and save the day when under the gun, all while retaining a clear enough head to have a snappy bon mot for the occasion . . . that&#39;s all that matters. Truly badass movie characters are the ones that can do all of the above. This is a list of the best, most ass-kicking movie heroes ever created. Vote for your favorite movie heroes, add any names you see missing, and if you really want to impact the ranks, add your own list!&nbsp;

Ellen Ripley

The Most Hardcore Big Screen Action Heroes

Action Heroes | List of Badass Movie Characters

Looking through our fingers and ranking the best, scariest, dumbest, etc. characters in classic, creative, and totally forgettable horror movies.

Night Terrors

If you&#39;re a fan of scary movies, this is your opportunity to vote for the best final <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/15-sexiest-monsters-in-horror-movie-history/pt_tesla?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">girls in horror movies</a>. A &quot;final girl&quot; is a female character who manages to survive the wrath of the killer -- human or otherwise -- when most, if not&nbsp;all, of the other characters have been&nbsp;wiped out. Although the term originated in the 1990s, final girls were around for decades before that, as Laurie Strode in 1978&#39;s Halloween,&nbsp;Sally Hardesty in 1974&#39;s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Lila Crane in 1960&#39;s Psycho prove.&nbsp;

Horror movie survivors of this type are most commonly found in slasher flicks. The <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/kane-hodder-facts/orrin-grey?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Friday the 13th</a>,&nbsp;Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween franchises commonly make use of the final girls trope.&nbsp;Traditionally, these characters tend&nbsp;to be the purest and most&nbsp;virtuous of the group or cast of characters. That&#39;s because, for reasons known only to the filmmakers themselves, the abundance of&nbsp;&#39;<a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-80s-slasher-movies/ranker-film?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">80s slasher movies</a>&nbsp;usually had&nbsp;the villain&nbsp;target teens who were amorous with each other. Friday the 13th,&nbsp;in particular, was notorious for that and&nbsp;became part of the trope.&nbsp;

The threats final girls face are not always psychos wielding knives, machetes, or hooks. They can survive interstellar creatures, as Ellen Ripley does in Alien.&nbsp;What counts is that the final girl gets through the ordeal, leaving her to tell the tale of what happened.

Vote up your favorite final girl horror characters from the list below.

The Best Final Girls From Horror Movie History

The 50+ Best Horror Movie Final Girls Of All-Time, Ranked By Fans

Ranker Film

What's your favorite Marvel movie? Character? Villain? Moment? Let's rank 'em.

Marvel on the Big Screen

Are you a Marvel fanatic? Vote on these lists of the best, funniest, dumbest, most underrated, etc. characters in the MCU to have your voice heard.

MCU Character Power Rankings

Villains

The Marvel Cinematic Universe may have its share of awesome heroes, but for every great hero, there&rsquo;s an equally awesome villain. Iron Man has the Iron Monger, the Hulk has Abomination, and Ant-Man has Ghost... and Yellow Jacket... and Sonny Burch.

This <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/mcu-villain-motivations/tyler-mitchell?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">list of MCU villains</a> includes all the greats, as well as a few lesser-known foes. Villains like Whiplash and Erik Killmonger may have been memorable in part due to their charisma, but what about other evil characters like Proxima&nbsp;Midnight and Ebony Maw? We also can&#39;t forget Ego and Thanos, who are two of the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-powerful-comic-book-characters-ranked/ranker-comics?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">most powerful characters</a> in Marvel history.&nbsp;Which MCU villain is your favorite?&nbsp;

Vote up the best and most <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-ruthless-marvel-characters/eric-vega" target="_blank">ruthless villains in the MCU</a> so we can all see which evildoers top the list.&nbsp;

The Best Villains In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Ranking All 45+ MCU Villains, Best To Worst

Ranker Entertainment

Horror movie villains are something of an anomaly in the film world; more often than not, the less you know about them, the more frightening they are. Unlike characters in any other genre of film, they operate on pure dream logic, and &ndash; because of that &ndash; the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-film-villain-protagonists/louis-patterson" target="_blank">best film villain protagonists</a> don&rsquo;t require a raison d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre beyond terrorizing the other characters. Unfortunately, thanks to the sequelization of literally every modern horror film, every terrifying horror villain has received some kind of terrible&nbsp;backstory.

In most instances, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/dumbest-horror-villain-origin-stories/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">characters ruined by backstory</a> are given three or more films before a writer doles out an <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/the-10-lamest-super-hero-origins/ihateeverything">unnecessary backstory</a> for a creature that&rsquo;s meant to exist as a pure metaphor, but some horror writers don&rsquo;t even wait for a sequel to wreck a perfectly fine film and provide a sad-sack story for the creature handing out ironic punishments to teens in the original property.

Continue reading to explore the worst origins of some of <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/horror-movies-likable-villains/jacob-shelton">your favorite characters</a>.

Horror Villains Who Are Ruined By Having Backstories

18 Horror Villains Who Are Ruined By Having Backstories

Jacob Shelton

Spies

A list of the best&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/funniest-bond-girl-names/greg?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Bond girls</a>,&nbsp;voted on by fans of&nbsp;James Bond films and&nbsp;admirers of fine women everywhere.&nbsp;Over 90 women have held the title of Bond girl over the years, and this list ranks the best. Yes, here you&#39;ll find all the hot James Bond girls who&#39;ve sizzled on the silver screen to date. Who is your favorite 007 beauty? There are so many glamorous&nbsp;Bond girl roles and it all started with Ursula Andress in Dr. No.&nbsp;Whether you prefer the exotic girlfriends, salacious&nbsp;secret agents, or villainous vixens from the films, they are dangerous, sophisticated, responsible for some of the more steamy scenes in 007 movies.&nbsp;

Do you consider these women lucky to have portrayed <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-love-interest-in-an-adam-sandler-movie/carlybobarly?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the love interest</a>&nbsp;of James Bond? Or is it the other way round? These may not be pics of nude&nbsp;Bond girls, but even though these aren&#39;t naked Bond femme fatales these are still some of the best&nbsp;pics you can find on the net. So without further delay, here are the&nbsp;best&nbsp;Bond Girls of all-time, voted by you. If you like this list, check out our&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/funniest-bond-girl-names/greg" target="_blank">Funniest Bond Girl Names</a>&nbsp;too!

Plenty O'Toole

The Most Attractive Bond Girls, Ranked

James Bond Girls List | Stunning Ladies from Bond Movies

Julian Jefferson

Are you the "horror person" on your virtual trivia team? Meet your new secret weapon: lists about everything even you don't know about scary movies.

Horror Buff Stuff

People have an unquenchable fascination with psychopaths in our movies.&nbsp;At least from a fictional perspective, they're thought of as&nbsp;borderline supernatural, as though they exchanged some portion of sanity for heightened mental abilities.&nbsp;Even more so for horror movie serial killers.You no doubt have your favorites,&nbsp;and might even have <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-fictional-serial-killers/mark" target="_blank">a perfectly folded list</a> in your pocket right now.&nbsp;If you do, today’s your day to augment it with this list containing movie serial killers, diagnosed for your pleasure.&nbsp;Because the truth is, most movie psychopaths are exaggerated, overblown, or just plain fictional.But not all.Two enterprising doctors, Samuel Leistedt and Paul Linkowski, decided to study 400 films made between 1915 and 2010 and pulled 126 realistic characters that exhibited some form of psychopathy.&nbsp;Which, by the way, is a fantastic job - who wouldn't want to figure out who the most realistic killers in movies are?&nbsp;Anyway, the two released a paper with their findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, entitled <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12359/abstract" target="_blank">Psychopathy and the Cinema: Fact or Fiction?</a>&nbsp;They, along with senior forensic psychologists and film critics, placed those characters into categories to determine just how accurate and realistic they are in terms of clinical psychopathy.&nbsp;The first category the characters are&nbsp;put into is based on the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OuNdrmHcJlgC&amp;pg=PA173&amp;lpg=PA173&amp;dq=karpman+primary+secondary&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=my_43KlJra&amp;sig=tau0ptcym7sy0qarreonoUONS3o&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiq7_y7pI3YAhXGKiYKHQ66AdkQ6AEIPjAC#v=onepage&amp;q=karpman%20primary%20secondary&amp;f=false" target="_blank">primary-secondary psychopathy</a> method developed by Benjamin Karpman.&nbsp;Both types have&nbsp;clear boundaries between the behaviors that the characters exhibit, for example: if a character is highly manipulative, then they'd be categorized into primary, however if a character has&nbsp;poor impulse control, then they'd be categorized secondary.They then categorized them further based on the <a href="https://www.mhs.com/MHS-Publicsafety?prodname=pcl-r2" target="_blank">PCL-R</a>, a comprehensive psychopathy test. The categories are:&nbsp;Classic/Idiopathic, macho, manipulative, and pseudopsychopath. They&nbsp;more or less measure&nbsp;just how much empathy the characters&nbsp;lack, with Classic/Idiopathic having the least empathy, while pseudopsychopaths don’t qualify being labeled as psychopaths at all, being more along the lines of a sociopath.Without further ado, here’s a list of the most realistic horror movie psychopaths, as diagnosed by real psychologists.

Psychologists Studied Horror Movie Psychopaths And Determined Which Ones Are The Real Deal

Inigo Gonzalez

Kids Movies

This list of the most tragic and <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/saddest-deaths-ever/mwahahahaha?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">saddest deaths</a> in kids movies will have you tearing up in no time. These traumatizing movie deaths made a whole generation of children sob and spend their adulthoods trying to sort through their feelings.The fact that these movies were aimed at children or teens did not spare the lives of these poor characters: Mufasa, Artax, Littlefoot's Mother, R.I.P.As a kid, you rarely saw it coming. Even watching some of these movies as adults can still cause grown men to cry. They truly are some of <a href="/crowdranked-list/top-tearjerker-movies-that-make-men-cry">the top tearjerker movies</a>. Who could ever forget poor Simba's face when he realized that Mufasa died? Or the sad scene in My Girl when a young Anna Chlumsky (Vada) cried over the coffin of her <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrity-bffs/celeb-stalker?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best friend</a>, Thomas? The characters on this list can bring you back to these sad scenes in <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-childrens-and-kids-movies-on-netflix-instant/polkadotking">kid's movies</a>. There are many sad Disney movies, both cartoon and live action. The saddest scenes in children's movies were either caused by the death of characters that you, as the audience, had grown to love (like Dumbledore) or that other people in the movie loved. For example, the death of Ellie Fredricksen in Up is one of the saddest movie deaths--not necessarily because people cared about Ellie (she was only briefly in the beginning of the movie) but because people could see how much Carl loved her. The deaths of these characters made for sad family movies that were loved by kids and adults alike.

Little Foot's Mom

The Saddest Deaths in Kids Movies

Saddest Deaths in Kids Movies | Sad Family Films: Spoilers

Samantha Dillinger

Screenwriters often take a lot of creative liberties when adapting a book for the big screen. These characters created for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/dark-movie-adaptation-omissions/hannah-collins" target="_blank">movie adaptations</a> who weren&#39;t in the original book played a vital role in telling the film&#39;s story.

Every great movie hero needs worthy complements and adversaries. Some of these original screen characters were developed to give the hero a romantic interest or perhaps even a best friend. However, many of these characters were written because the movie needed a villain. In fact, some of cinema&#39;s most vile villains, such as&nbsp;the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Max Shreck from Batman Returns,&nbsp;were not from the&nbsp;original source material. They were written just for the movie - and now it&#39;s difficult to imagine those stories without their memorable antagonists.&nbsp;

Vote up the best big-screen characters that were invented just for the movie.

15 Characters In Movie Adaptations Who Weren't In The Original Book

Fictional Character

Characters In Movie Adaptations Who Weren't In The Original Book

Ann Casano

Looking closer at the Lord of the Rings trilogy books and movies, The Hobbit, and everything else in J. R. R. Tolkien's beloved universe.

Welcome to Middle-Earth

The best characters from The Lord of the Rings universe including all book and movie versions. These are all the best Lord of the Rings&nbsp;main characters (and minor ones as well), here for you to vote on and add to. Some of the best characters in literature and cinema have come from the adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien&#39;s books, and now you can vote on them.

The best LOTR characters are a mix of heroic warriors, tragic heroes, and classic villains all brought together in the struggle that ensues as good seeks to triumph over evil. Whether you&#39;re a fan of the J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings&nbsp;books, or a new fan of Peter Jackson&#39;s Lord of the Rings trilogy or the newer The Hobbit films, this is the place to voice your opinion on who you think the greatest Lord of the Rings characters are -- be they human, dwarf, elf, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-hobbits/eric-vega" target="_blank">or hobbit. Especially hobbit.</a>

Make sure to vote up your favorite Lord of the Rings characters, and add any of the greatest LOTR characters that we might have missed. From your favorite famous character from Lord of the Rings, to the more minor, but still great characters (some of which have awesome names), vote up&nbsp;all the best on this LOTR character list.

And if you&#39;re a fan of Tolkien&#39;s style of writing, make sure to check out the rest of the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-fantasy-authors?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best fantasy writers</a>.

Gollum

The Best Lord of the Rings Characters

Best Lord of the Rings Characters | LOTR Character List

The trend of Hollywood pumping out needless origin stories for movie characters that don&rsquo;t really need any further exposition has been going strong for decades now, and it shows no sign of stopping. Sure, some prologue and flashbackery is required in cinematic tale-telling, but there&rsquo;s a wide gap between that and the mountains of unnecessary backstory for characters - often, characters specifically beloved for their mysterious air - which gets invented after the fact and jammed into the existing character we already liked.

This is a trope so prevalent, it&rsquo;s spawned multiple sub-tropes. The <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/childhood-cartoons-dark-origin-stories/jonathan-kantor" target="_blank">child-friendly property given a dark expositional twist</a>. The painstakingly drawn-out origin of some superfluous aspect of a character&rsquo;s lore. The revelation from the past that, upon being revealed, causes things to &ldquo;never be the same!&rdquo; We&rsquo;ve seen them all, yet moviegoers keep heading back to the theaters - pandemic notwithstanding - for more.

Movies That Added Unnecessary Origin Stories To Famous Characters

Unnecessary Origin Stories For Famous Movie Characters

Stephan Roget

You know the villain as the Big Bad, the truly horrible no-good person who has <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-irredeemably-evil-villains/williamsbrianjake" target="_blank">no redeeming qualities whatsoever</a>. But as many great writers have said, &quot;every villain is a hero,&quot; given a different context. It&#39;s high time we take a look at some villains we&#39;ve written off as simply evil, and show you how, with just a slightly different perspective (okay, in some cases, a vastly different perspective), these people aren&#39;t quite as villainous as expected. No, sometimes these are villains just doing their jobs, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/good-parental-advice-from-villains/williamsbrianjake" target="_blank">giving solid advice</a>, or dealing with impossible situations where no reasonable person would think they had any good choices to make. Some of these people are just hard up for answers, and even the hero&#39;s solution makes things demonstrably worse.

But this list doesn&#39;t just limit itself to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/spider-man-villain-doc-ock/stephanroget" target="_blank">villains who were good</a>. We also look at villains who had a point, even if what they did was absolutely unforgivable. But really, if you think about it, plenty of our heroes have <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/mcu-villains-created-by-heroes/williamsbrianjake" target="_blank">done awful things</a> (Indiana Jones was just stealing artifacts and trashing monuments he had no business being around in the first place, y&#39;know), and it&#39;s all just a matter of perspective. Obi-Wan Kenobi was always rambling on about how things are different from a &quot;certain point of view.&quot; (Easy for him to say, Darth Vader&#39;s pretty cut and dry as a villain.) But put on your thinking specs and see how we argue for some of the bad guys (and gals!).

President Snow from Hunger Games

29 Movie Villains Who Were Probably Right All Along

Logan Rapp

Movie character lists: Best & worst film characters, etc.

Film character lists on Ranker

The Best Film Lists - Find or Make a Film Characters List  | Ranker  | Ranker - A World of Lists

Film Characters

Harry Potter

Kevin McCallister

Forrest Gump

Woody

Captain Miller

Finnick Odair

Johanna Mason

Peeta Mellark

Indiana Jones

John McClane

Han Solo

Lists about unforgettable child actors who nabbed the spotlight and how they have navigated life after fame at such vulnerable stages in their development.

Bright Young Stars

Lifestyle

List of the greatest kid characters in film. These <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/childrens-movies-main-characters-who-should-be-grounded/tracey-graham" target="_blank">onscreen children</a> were the best movie personalities in the history of cinema. Here we have ranked those film characters that we would rather hide from our own children (for the most part) but watch onscreen any day of the week. Of course, if Harry Potter came over for a playdate, a child might want to hang out. 

Movie children are the ones that say what we are really thinking, or sometimes things that no adult would ever be weird enough to think let alone say out loud. Someone like Huck Finn comes to mind, as he ranks up here against (or perhaps with) Simba from &quot;The Lion King.&quot; both of the &quot;Spy Kids&quot; themselves had to be included, of course, as did tough girls like Hit-Girl and Veruca Salt. Speaking of Miss Salt, Roald Dahl brought us more of the great kid characters in movies thanks to Matilda Wormood and Charlie Buckett.

Dorothy Gale

The Greatest Kid Characters in Film

Best Kid Characters in Film | List of Fictional Children in Movies

In the age of the superhero movies, it's easy to forget sometimes that there are tough guys who don't need to hide behind superpowers or a super suit. For every superhero Superman, Batman or even Robocop, we have a James Bond, Han Solo, Jason Bourne and John McClane willing to chase bad guys. These tough guys need to rely only their brains, brawn and the occasional weapon or two to foil the plots of bad guys. Some of the most legendary action heroes are just regular guys, military personnel or cops that get caught up in a tough situation and fight their way out of it.Sometimes that can mean rescuing a group of hostages or even family members or femme fatale. Other times that could be defending someone's honor or even protecting his country from the threat of total annihilation. While having a super powers or super suit would make things infinitely easier for these tough dudes, what makes them so endearing to audiences is that some of the men on this list could be any of us, depending on how we react in a particular situation.Vote for your favorite movie tough guy on this Ultimate List. These are some of the biggest, baddest guys in the history of <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/roger_s-top-100-and-tough-guy-movies/roger-royce?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">tough guy films</a> and are played by some of the most prominent action stars. So pick who you think toughest of these movie tough guys. Famous tough guys with touch names for guys! They're all listed here!

Jason Bourne

Movie Tough Guys Without Super Powers or a Super Suit

Movie Tough Guys Without Super Powers | List of Movie Badasses

The Hunger Games

Who are the best Hunger Games&nbsp;characters? This list includes some of the most popular characters from The Hunger Games&nbsp;book trilogy. Some are obviously main characters, like Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence), Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), and others are tributes from the various games and/or Panem districts. This list includes both characters from the Hunger Games books and the Hunger Games cast from the movies because, for the most part, the characters are the same.

Which HG&#39;character do you think is the best of all time? Vote for your favorites, vote down any Hunger Games/Catching Fire/Mockingjay&nbsp;characters you didn&#39;t like (or hated, let&#39;s be honest, some are really hate-worthy), and certainly, if your personal favorite isn&#39;t listed, add them so we have a complete Hunger Games character list! You also have the option of re-ranking this list in any order you want. Time to vote, and may the odds be ever in your favor... and when you&#39;re done voting, don&#39;t forget to also check out more <a href="/list/what-to-watch-if-you-love-the-hunger-games/watchworthy" target="_blank">shows and movies like The Hunger Games.</a>

Fans of <a href="/list/hunger-games-movie-quotes/movie-and-tv-quotes" target="_blank">&#39;The Hunger Games&#39; movies</a> know: The characters are incredibly memorable. Why wouldn&#39;t they be? &#39;The Hunger Games&#39; trilogy is certainly among the <a href="/list/the-13-best-dystopian-novels/ivana-wynn" target="_blank">best dystopian novels ever written</a> (especially in the modern era), and the <a href="/list/full-cast-of-the-hunger-games-actors-and-actresses/reference" target="_blank">&#39;Hunger Games&#39; cast</a> made the first &#39;HG&#39; film come to live in an incredible way.&nbsp;JLaw as Katniss in the movie is one of the&nbsp;<a href="/crowdranked-list/best-movie-characters-of-all-time" target="_blank">best movie characters of all time</a>, don&#39;t you think? 

It would be virtually impossible to make a list of Hunger Games characters without including some of the awesome tributes from the series. Rue, with her sweet nature and that incredible, melodic, haunting voice, is definitely a favorite, as is the clever Foxface (may they both rest in peace) and the hunky, mischievous Finnick Odair from &#39;Catching Fire&#39; and &#39;Mockingjay.&#39;

And, lest we forget, some of the most colorful &#39;Hunger Games&#39; characters are from the Capitol, notably District 12 escort Effie Trinket (always so stylish!), Katniss&#39; stylist, Cinna, and certainly the dastardly, scheming, manipulative, just plain evil President of Panem, Coriolanus Snow.

Effie Trinket

The Best Hunger Games Characters

Hunger Games Characters: Best to Worst

Tatyana Lewis

List of the best movie characters of all time, ranked by film buffs and people like you. This list includes performances by some of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-film-actors-and-actresses-of-all-time">greatest actors of all time</a> in classic films, epic dramas, comedies, action and superhero movies, and many other <a href="http://www.ranker.com/tags/best-movie-genres">movie genres</a>. The best characters in film are those unforgettable, magnetic people (or aliens, or self-aware machines) who command the screen. They have spoken some of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-movie-quotes-of-all-time">most memorable quotes in movie history</a> in ways fans have been trying to emulate ever since. They are famous movie characters that have inspired fan fiction and fan art; iconic movie characters who have inspired fashion and pop culture; popular movie characters that kids and adults alike aspire to be like. Simply put, they are the best characters ever. Vote for your favorites.