 Greatest
Movie Characters: Criteria for Selection
 What
are the greatest or most memorable film roles or characters in the history
of cinema? What criteria have been used to choose from the thousands
of candidates? These selections are:
- unique, fully-realized character roles
that made a strong cultural impact in feature films (either live-action
or animated)
- award-winning, enduring, multi-dimensional
and memorable characterizations
- iconic individuals highlighted
with notable characteristics (often instantly recognizable), or
with identifiable phrases or lines of dialogue and behaviors
- classic roles from both Hollywood's
Golden Era and more recent roles, and some roles from non-English
language films
- sometimes a pair or group of characters
who often appeared in a long-running film series or franchise
- equally representative of heroes, anti-heroes, villains,
heroines, super-heroes, killers, saints, as well as historical
figures (non-fiction) and fictional individuals, and even a few
monsters or creatures
- inclusive of a wide range of genres (biopics,
horror, westerns, action, war, comedy, etc.) and some animated characters
too
Some of these great character roles were:
- Career-making
- Inspired casting choices that brought Oscar-winning
performances
- Responsible for typecasting
an actor forever
- Derived from the lives of real-life characters
- Roles that summed up entire acting careers
- Responsible for jump-starting a sagging
or failing career
- Pairings or teamings of two performers who went
on to repeat their roles
- Nick and Nora Charles (William
Powell and Myrna Loy) in The Thin Man films
- or Astaire/Rogers in their many films together
- Often not the performers' best role or even
very well-acted
- The Sheik (Rudolph Valentino) in The
Sheik (1925)
- Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) in the Tarzan films
- the Bandit (Burt Reynolds) in Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
- Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts)
in Pretty Woman (1990)
Filmsite doesn't believe in ranking one character against
another, so they are organized here alphabetically by character name.
Also, the list has more than a select number, such as 100, since
this list should be inclusive, not exclusionary.
Additionally
Recommended:
Note: The films that are marked with a yellow
star  are
the films
that "The Greatest Films" site
has selected as the 100
Greatest Films
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