America's 100 Greatest
Virtuous Heroes and Wicked Villains

The American Film Institute in Los Angeles conducted their sixth polling, 100 Heroes and Villains. AFI again celebrated American cinema, and revealed America’s 100 greatest good and bad guys/gals (50 of each), either fact-based or fantastically-fictional, as chosen by voters - a jury of 1,500 directors, actors, screenwriters, critics, historians and others.

[Compare to the list of The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) that had previously polled their own membership of Internet-based cinema journalists for the top 100 greatest screen villains of all time.]

The list of 400 nominated films was made available before the final voting. The AFI left the judgment calls to jurors about the categorization of virtuous heroes and wicked villains, advising them only to not vote for a character as both.

The results were unveiled in a three-hour television special broadcast by CBS in June 2003.

Facts About the Top 50 Heroes and Top 50 Villains:

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

1. Both # 1 choices for 'Hero and Villain', Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), won the Best Actor Academy Award for their roles.
   
   
2. Except for # 10 hero T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), all the other heroes in the top 10 were fictional. All of the top 10 villains were fictional (some were even storybook characters). [Also, 'Satan' in Regan MacNeil (# 9) in The Exorcist (1973) was something of a 'no-show' character.]
   
   
3. Among the top 10 heroes, there were three that appeared in the first installment of a franchised series: # 2 Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), # 3 James Bond (Sean Connery) in Dr. No (1962), and # 7 Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in Rocky (1976). Another who appeared in the 2nd installment of a series was top 10 hero: # 8 Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Aliens (1986).
   
   
4. Among the top 10 villains, # 2 Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) appeared in three films in the Psycho series, and # 3 Darth Vader (David Prowse/James Earl Jones) appeared in the 2nd installment of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
   
   
5. Only 7/8 out of the top 50 heroes were women: # 6 Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), # 8 Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986), # 15 Norma Rae in Norma Rae (1979), # 24 Thelma & Louise in Thelma & Louise (1991), # 31 Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich (2000), # 33 Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996), and # 47 Karen Silkwood in Silkwood (1983). In contrast, 15 of the top 50 villains were females.
   
   
6. There were only three non-white, male heroes or villains in the top 50 lists: # 19 Hero Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) in In the Heat of the Night (1967), # 21 Hero Mahatma Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) in Gandhi (1982), and # 50 Villain Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) in Training Day (2001). There were no non-white females in either top 50 list.
   
   
7. Animals, special effects creations, and inanimate objects, or voices alone also made the top 50 lists:
   Heroes: # 39 Lassie in Lassie (1943)
   Villains: # 10 Voice of the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), # 13 Voice of HAL 9000 Computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), # 14 Alien in Alien (1979), # 18 the Shark in Jaws (1975), # 20 "Man" in Bambi (1942), # 22 T-1000 (Robert Patrick) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), # 27 Martians in The War of the Worlds (1953), # 39 Voice of Cruella de Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), # 40 Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and # 45 The Joker in Batman (1989).
   
   
8. Duos that made the top 50:
   Heroes: # 20 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), # 24 Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer in Thelma & Louise (1991), # 27 Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All the President's Men (1976)
   Villains: # 32 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
   
   
9. Gangsters or corrupt criminals that made the villains list included:
   # 1 Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), # 2 Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), # 11 Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part 2 (1974), # 12 Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange (1971), # 15 Amon Goeth in Schindler's List (1993), # 16 Noah Cross in Chinatown (1974), # 26 Arthur "Cody" Jarrett in White Heat (1949), # 28 Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962), # 29 Rev. Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter (1955), # 30 Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), # 32 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), # 34 Dr. Szell in Marathon Man (1976), # 36 Frank Booth in Blue Velvet (1986), Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949), # 38 Rico in Little Caesar (1930), # 42 Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931), # 45 The Joker in Batman (1989), # 46 Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988), # 47 Tony Camonte in Scarface (1932), # 48 Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (1995), # 49 Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger (1964), and # 50 Detective Alonzo Harris in Training Day (2001)