American Film Institute’s
100 Years . . . 100 Heroes & Villains
The American Film Institute (AFI) celebrated the centennial of cinema by airing a number of television specials, each honoring a different aspect of excellence in American film. On June 3, 2003 AFI broadcast a program entitled “100 Years . . . 100 Heroes & Villains—America’s Greatest Movie Heroes & Villains.”
To determine the winners, AFI invited more than 1,500 leaders from across the American film community—screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, editors, executives, film historians and critics, among them—to choose from a list of nominated films compiled by AFI. The selected films (and their ranking) are listed below.
The
symbol appears next to those films which also received an Academy Award nomination (although this was not a requirement for inclusion on the list). Click on the name of one of those films to display more information about it. You can also click on the IMDb link to to open a new browser window or tabshowing information about the film from the Internet Movie Database. Or, click on a title in the column on the right to display the winners from another AFI program.
For more information, you can follow this link to the American Film Institute’s website.
Heroes:
| 1. | Atticus Finch |
| To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) IMDb | |
| 2. | Indiana Jones |
| Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) IMDb | |
| 3. | James Bond |
 Dr. No (1962) IMDb | |
| 4. | Rick Blaine |
| Casablanca (1943) IMDb | |
| 5. | Will Kane |
| High Noon (1952) IMDb | |
| 6. | Clarice Starling |
| The Silence of the Lambs (1991) IMDb | |
| 7. | Rocky Balboa |
| Rocky (1976) IMDb | |
| 8. | Ellen Ripley |
| Alien (1979) IMDb | |
| 9. | George Bailey |
| It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) IMDb | |
| 10. | T. E. Lawrence |
| Lawrence of Arabia (1962) IMDb | |
| 11. | Jefferson Smith |
| Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) IMDb | |
| 12. | Tom Joad |
| The Grapes of Wrath (1940) IMDb | |
| 13. | Oskar Schindler |
| Schindler’s List (1993) IMDb | |
| 14. | Han Solo |
| Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977) IMDb | |
| 15. | Norma Rae Webster |
| Norma Rae (1979) IMDb | |
| 16. | Shane |
| Shane (1953) IMDb | |
| 17. | Harry Callahan |
| Dirty Harry (1971) IMDb | |
| 18. | Robin Hood |
| The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) IMDb | |
| 19. | Virgil Tibbs |
| In the Heat of the Night (1967) IMDb | |
| 20. | Butch Cassidy / The Sundance Kid |
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) IMDb | |
| 21. | Mahatma Gandhi |
| Gandhi (1982) IMDb | |
| 22. | Spartacus |
| Spartacus (1960) IMDb | |
| 23. | Terry Malloy |
| On the Waterfront (1954) IMDb | |
| 24. | Thelma Dickerson / Louise Sawyer |
| Thelma & Louise (1991) IMDb | |
| 25. | Lou Gehrig |
| The Pride of the Yankees (1942) IMDb | |
| 26. | Superman |
| Superman: The Movie (1978) IMDb | |
| 27. | Bob Woodward / Carl Bernstein |
| All the President’s Men (1976) IMDb | |
| 28. | Juror #8 |
| 12 Angry Men (1957) IMDb | |
| 29. | General George Patton |
| Patton (1970) IMDb | |
| 30. | Luke Jackson |
| Cool Hand Luke (1967) IMDb | |
| 31. | Erin Brockovich |
| Erin Brockovich (2000) IMDb | |
| 32. | Philip Marlowe |
| The Big Sleep (1946) IMDb | |
| 33. | Marge Gunderson |
| Fargo (1996) IMDb | |
| 34. | Tarzan |
| Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) IMDb | |
| 35. | Alvin York |
| Sergeant York (1941) IMDb | |
| 36. | Rooster Cogburn |
| True Grit (1969) IMDb | |
| 37. | Obi-Wan Kenobi |
| Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977) IMDb | |
| 38. | The Tramp |
| City Lights (1931) IMDb | |
| 39. | Lassie |
| Lassie Come Home (1943) IMDb | |
| 40. | Frank Serpico |
| Serpico (1973) IMDb | |
| 41. | Arthur Chipping |
| Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) IMDb | |
| 42. | Father Edward Flanigan |
| Boys Town (1938) IMDb | |
| 43. | Moses |
| The Ten Commandments (1956) IMDb | |
| 44. | Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle |
| The French Connection (1971) IMDb | |
| 45. | Zorro |
| The Mark of Zorro (1940) IMDb | |
| 46. | Batman |
| Batman (1989) IMDb | |
| 47. | Karen Silkwood |
| Silkwood (1983) IMDb | |
| 48. | Terminator |
| Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) IMDb | |
| 49. | Andrew Beckett |
| Philadelphia (1993) IMDb | |
| 50. | General Maximus Decimus Meridus |
| Gladiator (2000) IMDb |
Villains:
| 1. | Dr. Hannibal Lecter |
| The Silence of the Lambs (1991) IMDb | |
| 2. | Norman Bates |
| Psycho (1960) IMDb | |
| 3. | Darth Vader |
| Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) IMDb | |
| 4. | The Wicked Witch of the West |
| The Wizard of Oz (1939) IMDb | |
| 5. | Nurse Ratched |
| One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) IMDb | |
| 6. | Mr. Potter |
| It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) IMDb | |
| 7. | Alex Forrest |
| Fatal Attraction (1987) IMDb | |
| 8. | Phyllis Dietrichson |
| Double Indemnity (1944) IMDb | |
| 9. | Regan McNeil |
| The Exorcist (1973) IMDb | |
| 10. | The Queen |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) IMDb | |
| 11. | Michael Corleone |
| The Godfather Part II (1974) IMDb | |
| 12. | Alex De Large |
| A Clockwork Orange (1971) IMDb | |
| 13. | HAL 9000 |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) IMDb | |
| 14. | The Alien |
| Alien (1979) IMDb | |
| 15. | Amon Goeth |
| Schindler’s List (1993) IMDb | |
| 16. | Noah Cross |
| Chinatown (1974) IMDb | |
| 17. | Annie Wilkes |
| Misery (1990) IMDb | |
| 18. | The Shark |
| Jaws (1975) IMDb | |
| 19. | Captain Bligh |
| Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) IMDb | |
| 20. | Man |
| Bambi (1942) IMDb | |
| 21. | Mrs. John Iselin |
| The Manchurian Candidate (1962) IMDb | |
| 22. | Terminator |
| The Terminator (1984) IMDb | |
| 23. | Eve Harrington |
| All About Eve (1950) IMDb | |
| 24. | Gordon Gekko |
| Wall Street (1987) IMDb | |
| 25. | Jack Torrance |
| The Shining (1980) IMDb | |
| 26. | Cody Jarrett |
| White Heat (1949) IMDb | |
| 27. | Martians |
| The War of the Worlds (1953) IMDb | |
| 28. | Max Cady |
| Cape Fear (1962) IMDb | |
| 29. | Reverend Harry Powell |
| The Night of the Hunter (1955) IMDb | |
| 30. | Travis Bickle |
| Taxi Driver (1976) IMDb | |
| 31. | Mrs. Danvers |
| Rebecca (1940) IMDb | |
| 32. | Clyde Barrow / Bonnie Parker |
| Bonnie and Clyde (1967) IMDb | |
| 33. | Count Dracula |
| Dracula (1931) IMDb | |
| 34. | Dr. Szell |
| Marathon Man (1976) IMDb | |
| 35. | J. J. Hunsecker |
| Sweet Smell of Success (1957) IMDb | |
| 36. | Frank Booth |
| Blue Velvet (1986) IMDb | |
| 37. | Harry Lime |
| The Third Man (1950) IMDb | |
| 38. | Caesar Enrico Bandello |
| Little Caesar (1930) IMDb | |
| 39. | Cruella De Vil |
| One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) IMDb | |
| 40. | Freddy Krueger |
| A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) IMDb | |
| 41. | Joan Crawford |
| Mommie Dearest (1981) IMDb | |
| 42. | Tom Powers |
| The Public Enemy (1931) IMDb | |
| 43. | Regina Giddens |
| The Little Foxes (1941) IMDb | |
| 44. | Baby Jane Hudson |
| What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) IMDb | |
| 45. | The Joker |
| Batman (1989) IMDb | |
| 46. | Hans Gruber |
| Die Hard (1988) IMDb | |
| 47. | Tony Camonte |
| Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932) IMDb | |
| 48. | Verbal Kint |
| The Usual Suspects (1995) IMDb | |
| 49. | Auric Goldfinger |
| Goldfinger (1964) IMDb | |
| 50. | Alonzo Harris |
| Training Day (2001) IMDb |