Top Ten Jack Nicholson Anti Heroes

Jack Nicholson is one of the most well known actors in the world, having been in the business since the 1950's. The remarkable thing about Nicholson is the number of brilliant roles he's had in that time. He can tell the audience more with a facial expression than many actors can in a whole career. By now his smirk and raised eyebrows are something of a trademark. He rarely plays a straightforward role, seemingly preferring acerbic yet suave characters who are challenged, yet larger than life. Even now, he can be relied on to take over the screen any time he's on it. Of course there are many other roles that could as easily belong on the list. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments here or on the Facebook page.


10. Freddie Gale  (The Crossing Guard)

Freddie's daughter was killed by a drunk driver in a hit and run accident. The driver, John Booth (David Morse) was sentenced to serve six years in prison. During those years, Freddy's marriage has dissolved and he's spent most of his time drinking, sleeping with prostitutes, feeling guilty, and planning revenge. He imagines that killing Booth will somehow help things with his wife Mary (Anjelica Huston) and fix something in his own life. When Booth is released, Freddie finds that none of this will happen as easily as he'd imagined, not even when Booth offers no resistance at all.
"Tell the truth Mary! You want me to kill John Booth!"




9. Jerry Black (The Pledge)

On the day he retires, Police Chief Jerry Black, investigate the rape and murder of a child. When asked by the victim's parents, he makes a promise to catch the killer. Despite the arrest and then suicide of a suspect, Black is certain the killer is still out there. Once retired, he pleads with the department to keep the case open, although he is largely ignored. He buys a gas station in the area of the attacks, and starts a relationship with a woman who has a young daughter in the age range of likely victims. Finding clues about the killer, he investigates deeper until the case becomes an obsession, and leads him to some dangerous activities, which place those around him, and his own credibility in danger.
"I made a promise, Eric. You're old enough to remember when that meant something."




8. Jimmy Hoffa (Hoffa)

Presumably, everyone's aware of Jimmy Hoffa the famous union organizer. Here we get a look of the man at work and Nicholson portrays him like an unstoppable machine (for a while.) Hoffa is willing to do anything and ally himself with anyone if it will increase the power of his union, giving truck drivers more weight to use against the owners. More than a suit, he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, which earned him the support of many working men. He also made a lot of powerful enemies. And, he is certainly no saint, even to his own allies, if it served the interests of the union. Perhaps he made himself too formidable of an opponent, as in the end there was only one way to handle a guy who wouldn't back down.
"Never let a stranger in your cab, in your house or in your heart... unless he is a friend of labor."




7. The Joker (Batman)

Long before the current series of Batman movies, and before comic book films were expected to be successful, Tim Burton's vision with Michael Keaton as Batman and Nicholson as his nemesis, the Joker seemed to promise that comic book characters could make for an interesting movie. It's Nicholson's movie as much as it is Keaton's, and his portrayal gives us a character who is capable of any atrocity, yet never loses his twisted sense of humor. As dedicated to entertaining as he was to malevolence, he showed that any hero is largely defined by his adversary. While none of the sequels lived up to the first one, it was a strong film on it's own and Nicholson was a large part of it.
"Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? "




6. Francis Phelan (Ironweed)

Francis Phelan is an older alchoholic vagrant who used to be a baseball player, but one day left his life behind. During the great depression, Phelan wanders around, taking odd jobs for a place to sleep while dealing with his alcoholism, guilt over the dead, including a lost son, and his mental problems. Revisiting his hometown, Albany, he spends some time with his girlfriend, former singer and fellow alcoholic Helen Archer (Meryl Streep.) He briefly connects with his wife, Annie, from the past, although he's past the point of returning to what he once had.
"Goddamn dead men, traveling around together."





5.Robert Dupea (Five Easy Pieces)

Robert Dupea lives a simple, blue collar life, working an oil field and drinking beer with his friend Elton, (Billy Bush) and spending time with his girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black.) Elton is soon arrested for a robbery and Rayette tells Robert she's pregnant, prompting him to leave his job and visit his sister. She urges Robert to go see his father whose health is failing. He heads to his father's place, leaving simple Rayette at a hotel as she would clash with his family's atmosphere of privilege. Robert has a fling with his brother's wife to be, and is surprised when Rayette gets bored at the hotel and finds him, causing Robert to confront his family and their way of life before leaving, although he still has as many difficulties with Rayette and his attempts at blue collar life and may just not fit in anywhere.
"I move around a lot, not because I'm looking for anything really, but 'cause I'm getting away from things that get bad if I stay. "




4. "Badass" Buddusky (The Last Detail)

Sailors Buddusky and Mulhall (Otis Young) are assigned to escort young fellow sailor Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid) to Portsmouth Naval Prison, where he's to serve eight years for a minor offense. Knowing that the oddly likeable but inexperienced Meadows is about to lose the best years of his his youth to the grim prospect of incarceration, Buddusky and Mulhall decide to give him a good time on the way to Portsmouth. They get him drunk and help him lose his virginity among many other new experiences. Meadows has the "best time of his life." but as much fun as Buddusky and company are having, the Navy is his life and he still has a job to do.
"Why does all of this make me feel so fucking bad?"




3. Jack Torrance (The Shining)

Jack Torrance gets a job, being caretaker for the Overlook Hotel. Part of that position is the likelihood of being snowed in for great lengths of time, which is blamed for causing a former caretaker to murder his family. Jack sees it as a chance to devote time to his writing and to put his messy life back together. Jack's son, Danny starts to have disturbing visions, and we learn that he has "The Shining" and extrasensory gift. Jack falls under the influence of supernatural presences in the hotel and soon goes insane, attempting to repeat the behavior of the previous homicidal caretaker, while his family tries to survive. Kubrick's film has been criticized for departing from the novel it was based on, but Nicholson's acting helped make it a classic nonetheless.
"I dreamed that I, that I killed you and Danny. But I didn't just kill ya. I cut you up in little pieces. Oh my God. I must be losing my mind."




2. Jake "J.J." Gittes (Chinatown)

Private Investigator J.J. Gittes takes a pretty normal adultery case, but after taking pictures of the suspected cheating husband, Hollis Mulwray, he learns that his client, Evelyn Mulwray, was not Mrs. Mulwray at all. Hollis Mulwray is found dead soon afterwards, prompting Jake to do some more digging. He investigates reservoirs which were Hollis' main focus, and gets his nose slashed for his trouble. He gets closer to the real Evelyn Mulwray, and crosses paths with her father, the powerful and influential Noah Cross (John Huston.) Soon he realizes that the situation is more twisted than he could've imagined, and a lot bigger than he can handle.
"Sometimes you're better off not knowing."




1. R.P. McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Nicholson's McMurphy is a force of nature. Getting himself sent to a mental hospital in order to avoid jail time, he runs into more trouble than he anticipated, clashing with the ruthless Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher.) He's celebrated by his fellow inmates, who eagerly take his lead in opposing the stifling administration. Ratched takes his disdain for the rules personally and their conflict escalates until the state of his mental health becomes unimportant, and punishing him becomes the main objective. Her coldness towards the fate of his fellow inmates sets McMurphy over the edge and when he reacts, we see that the system has many ways of controlling people, breaking those that won't bend to its will.
"But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that."

Top Ten Movie Villains

A lead character in a movie facing ethical and moral dilemmas is pretty common. A character who doesn't struggle doesn't typically serve for much drama or emotional investment in the story. It's also common for lead characters to make mistakes. Criminal protagonists require this, as they're already working outside most peoples moral code. This might us the chance to ask ourselves, is there a motive strong enough to justify, killing, stealing, or many other moral transgressions. Typically however, even a character who kills people for a living has some code to live by, and some line he won't cross. Most of all, for us to care about a character, whatever his stance, we need to see his/her humanity. A man who kills people for a living, is not necessarily the same as a man who enjoys killing people for a living, or for his own amusement. Questions of evil are often relative, and we may even cheer a character who has no choice but to kill to save his own life or those of others.  A man who commits a crime as it's the only way he can raise the money to save a relatives's life. Sometimes we can admire a character's drive or ambition, as long as innocents aren't really hurt.  A real villain however, elicits no sympathy, which is why they're rarely cast as the leads in film. They typically care about nothing and no one, and will commit whatever deed necessary to further their own ends. The best villains, make us care more about our protagonist, who always looks better by comparison. Villains make the leads more important. As the Buddhist saying says "What is a bad man, but a good man's job?" Many times it's the bad man that reminds the main character of whatever good he himself possesses.

Obviously there are many others, and I hope you feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. I chose to stick with the fairly grounded characters, as I'm sure you could likely get another ten out of sci-fi and fantasy movies. I've also elected to only use one role per actor as many below have had other roles that would make my list. Daniel Day Lewis, for example, played "Bill the Butcher" in "Gangs of New York" but (in my opinion) Bill the Butcher never reached his villain potential as I didn't find DiCaprio a believable adversary. Daniel Plainview on the other hand feels like a more affecting monster.

10. Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman, The Professional)

Full Review

Norman Stansfield is a powerful DEA Agent with a personal drug problem and a lucrative business based on the drugs he should be getting off the street. He has an uncontrollable temper and no tolerance for betrayal or any risk to his established position. When Stansfield kills a man for not having his money, (after discussing why Beethoven with him) he also decides to kill the whole family. He misses one the kids though, the young girl Mathilde (Natalie Portman) who is taken in by top class hit man Leon (Jean Reno) Mathilde doesn't care about her abusive father, but wants Stansfied to pay for killing her baby brother. She enlists Leon's help, but can't resist trying for Stansfield herself, only to discover, he's more formidable and twisted than she could've imagined. He effortlessly confronts her in a restroom and asks her if she likes life. When she says Yes he tells her, "That's good, because I take no pleasure in taking life if it's from a person who doesn't care about it." Mathilde doesn't have a chance, and despite Leon rescuing her from the DEA office, Stansfield is obsessed with killing Mathilde to tie up his loose ends. He sets his sights on Leon, showing how truly formidable he really is. After Leon dismantles everyone sent after him, Stansfield shoots him in the back. However, he doesn't plan for Leon being willing to give his life to save Mathilde, blowing himself up as Stansfield gloats, and fulfilling his contract with Mathilde. Stansfield is as evil as they come, thinking nothing of shooting children or innocents in cold blood if it furthers his goals.



9. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Full Review

Nurse Ratched is very comfortable as the emotionless head nurse of a mental institution. She calmly revokes necessities from patients in order to keep things orderly. She easily terrifies all of the patients, who know better than to cross her. That changes when McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) has himself admitted in a scheme to get out of serving jail time. He seems to take pleasure in challenging any rules, especially hers. More troubling to her is the fact that McMurphy inspires the other patients to stand up to her authority. Her low key manipulation quickly turns more brutal. She abuses the patients and McMurphy flagrantly in any way necessary to crush their spirits. McMurphy is as chaotic as she is orderly, and their clash has severe consequences. In a meeting with the institution head staff, she agrees that while McMurphy is sane, she will keep him there anyway to ensure that he's punished for challenging her. She doesn't blink at the thought of subjecting him to shock therapy. In a pivotal moment she brutally humiliates weak minded Billy Bibbitt to the point where he kills himself. Even this doesn't cause her to show an ounce of emotion, and McMurphy finally loses his temper, choking and almost killing Nurse Ratched (which does change her expression briefly) McMurphy is rewarded with a lobotomy, becoming a vegetable until his friend Chief mercifully suffocates him and escapes, leaving Nurse Ratched (in a neck brace) and the Institution behind.


8. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, American Psycho)

Patrick Bateman works on Wall Street as an investment banker and obsessing with his rich like minded associates about nearly invisible differences in business cards and other status markers. Facial cleansing masks and workout routines do nothing to quell his sense that he's empty inside. His  emptiness and drive to be noticed lead him to take up murder as a new hobby. In Bateman's world, he is indistinguishable from his associates which bothers his need to be noticed. He kills the homeless, prostitutes (after fulfilling a sexual fantasy which is mostly watching himself have sex in a mirror) and rival, Paul Allen, who had a nicer business card than him. His murders frequently involve him lecturing on the differences in Huey Lewis and Phil Collins albums, as if to educate his victims before they die. Ultimately his murders are about getting attention, but in his world this is a useless goal. Visiting an apartment where he kept bodies, he finds everything completely cleaned to avoid stigma which might complicate sale or rental. His murders are mixed with hallucinations, and everything colored by his insanity. His complete confession left on his lawyer's answering machine doesn't solve anything, as he insists that he just saw Paul Allen, revealing that Allen was as indistinguishable as Bateman, leaving him just as shallow and unfulfilled as ever.


7. Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man)

Dr. Christian Szell was a dentist at Auschwitz, ruthless and skilled in torture. He would bargain with his victims for the gold in their teeth and their fortunes, preferring diamonds. Fleeing Germany with his brother to avoid being charged with war crimes, he hides out for years until learning his brother, en route to claim their diamonds from a safety deposit box, has been killed in an accident. Szell's brother was being watched by secret government agencies, most notably by Henry "Doc" Levy, who hopes that the accident will bring Christian Szell out of hiding, which it does. Szell arrives remarkably well informed and quickly kills Doc, before turning his attention to Doc's younger brother, Babe (Dustin Hoffman.) We learn that Szell has everything under control. He's in collusion with Doc's boss Janeway, who has used Szell to inform on other Nazi criminals. Janeway delivers Babe to Szell, and Babe discovers that his recent girlfriend Elsa, was working for Szell. Although Babe knows very little, Dr. Szell uses his dentistry to make sure, drilling into the nerves of Babe's healthy teeth and demanding "Is it safe?" repeatedly, referring to retrieving the diamonds, which Babe knows little about. Szell is as comforting with cutting a man's throat with a knife in his coat sleeve as he is with dental torture, but ultimately, his greed is his downfall. Babe turns the tables and tells Szell he can keep as many diamonds as he can swallow, which Szell attempts, before Babe dumps them down some scaffolding. Szell goes after them, losing his footing and finding his own blade.




6. Max Cady (Robert Mitchum, Cape Fear)

Max spends eight years in prison, for a rape which he committed. He blames attorney Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) for his sentence, and spends his prison time learning all about the law in order to use it to torture Bowden once he's free. Cady quickly makes his presence known to Bowden obviously watching him and his family, while being careful not to break any laws. Out of legal options Bowden arranges for some thugs to beat up Max and scare him off. Max however, easily gives them a beating and knowing Bowden is behind it, threatens to use the knowledge to have Bowden disbarred. Cady makes a special point of paying attention to Bowden's daughter. Cady delights in the tension he creates, making Bowden struggle with his own principles, as the law can't help him at all. Mitchum puts a charming public face on his evil, until he's finally ready to finish his plan. He delivers excruciating tension and torment, not hiding his intentions from Bowden, as watching him squirm for as long as possible is Max's idea of fun.




5. Frank (Henry Fonda, Once Upon a Time in the West)

The epitome of the "black hat" as villain in the Western movie. Frank is established very early in a scene where his gang kills an entire family, the McBains, except for a little boy, who comes out of the house just afterwards. Rather than leave it to his men, Frank himself puts a bullet in the child himself. The now dead McBain's wife soon arrives however, ruining Frank's attempt to put the land up for grabs. We find that Frank is working for the wealthy Morton, who needs the land to continue his railroad. Morton is not pleased at the murder, only asking Frank to scare the McBains. A stranger nicknamed "Harmonica" (Charles Bronson)begins interfering with Frank's plans.  Harmonica kills some of Frank's men, but later saves Frank's life. He obviously has business with Frank which he won't reveal except "at the point of dying." a proposition Frank agrees to accept. In one of the most riveting showdowns on film, mostly comprised of Bronson and Fonda's eyes in close up, we see that many years ago, Frank hung Harmonica's older brother from an arch in the middle of the desert, propping Harmonica underneath him with a harmonica in his mouth, so that when his strength gave out, he would assist in hanging his own brother.  After the showdown Frank gets the Harmonica back.




4. Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Natural Born Killers)

Full Review

Mickey and Mallory play by their own rules, killing for amusement as much as any practical purpose. Devoted only to each other, they're perfectly happy taking on the whole world. The fact that they can't get along doesn't alter their plans at all. Both of of them start out as badly damaged goods, and their first activity as a couple is killing Mallory's family, including her grotesquely abusive father.Their reckless and showy behavior gets them imprisoned and also makes them celebrities celebrated by the media and the public. They're not easily stopped however using a sleazy tabloid true crime show reporter, Wayne Gale, they reunite in a bloody prison escape, which shows that there is a life form that's lower than they are. We're left with the chilling thought that the two sociopaths Mickey and Mallory are retiring in order to raise a family.


3. John Doe (Kevin Spacey, Seven)


John Doe is a killer with convictions. He doesn't particularly care about attention or even his own life, as much as he cares about sending a message. He begins a gruesome killing spree, staging murders to illustrate the seven deadly sins; gluttony, pride, greed, lust, sloth, envy and wrath. The gluttony killing, for example, is a man forced to eat until his stomach burst, and Sloth was chained to his bed for a year.  John Doe appears completely unremarkable,but sees his actions as carrying out a holy mission. Two police detectives, Somerset (Morgan Freeman) the jaded veteran and Mills (Brad Pitt) the idealistic young achiever out to make a name for himself, are charged to find the killer. Unable to catch Doe, they're surprised when he turns himself in with two murders still undetected. They agree to take Doe out into the desert at the promise of information. Doe reveals that he himself is going to be an object lesson as he was guilty of "Envy," towards Mill's relationship with his pretty young wife, who. he claims, he has already paid a visit. Strangely, a delivery truck pulls up at their location with a package for Mills. When he realizes that the package is his wife's head, he can't help but assist Doe in his plan, executing him and providing the illustration of "Wrath."



2. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis, There Will be Blood)

Full Review



Plainview is above all things an opportunist. Even while breaking his leg mining for silver, he doesn't pass up the opportunity to collect and sell what he's mined before draggining himself off to find help. Plainview's main motivation is to become wealthy and soon turns to oil, rather than silver. When one of Plainview's worker's dies in an accident, Plainview takes the man's infant son, referred to as H.W., and passes him off as his own, eventually making his "son" his partner, in order to present himself as a "family" oriented businessman. Plainview is given a tip about an oil rich property by a travelling man named Paul Sunday. He visits the property pretending to be quail hunting, in a ploy to make an offer for a low price. His plan is slightly disrupted by Paul's twin brother Eli, a religious scam artist in waiting, who wants money to build a church. Eli and Plainview have an immediate animosity towards each other, Plainview refusing to pray with Eli despite insistence. Plainview agrees to $5,000 down and $5,000 when the property produces. A drilling explosion costs H.W. his hearing, rather than accompany his child to get help. H.W. is sent away with an employee as his condition makes him less useful than he was before.  Plainview has several oil wells working, but when Eli demands the final payment Plainview beats him and smears him with mud, pointing out his supposed faith healing abilities have done nothing for H.W. A man shows up claiming to be a brother. He's initially embraced by Plainview, but when he discovers the man is a fraud, Plainview kills him without hesitation. Plainview succeeds in becoming quite wealthy, although he trusts no one and becomes completely isolated from the world. WHen H.W. shows up as an adult, asking to be released from their partnership, Plainview shows the depths of his spitefulness, revealing that H.W. was never his real son, taunting him as "a bastard in a basket." Eli Sunday also comes to visit, in order to offer Plainview the chance to obtain a property, that had been unobtainable for years. Plainview reveals that the property doesn't matter anymore, and demands Eli admit he's "a false prophet" Eli complies hoping for money, but Plainview can't resist beating him to death with a bowling pin.  Plainview is a man who starts out as driven, but sacrifices everything good about himself to achieve more. As he tells his fake brother. "I want no one else to succeed " Daniel Day Lewis makes Plainview's madness terrifying.


1. The Joker (Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight)

Quite a few actors have played the Joker, the character himself having a much longer history from Batman comic books. Completely insane, yet incredibly intelligent, he stands out from other Batman villains in that his motivation is not profit, but simply destruction and chaos, making him impossible to appease or truly stop, short of killing him. Jack Nicholson played him very well and entertainingly in the Batman film starring Michael Keaton, but Heath Ledger played the role much darker, showing a glimpse of true and unimaginably dangerous insanity, which is not the conventional and popular version of evil as the opposite of good. Ledger's Joker is an avatar of pain and destruction, fully realized by his role in the destruction of Harvey Dent, an idealistic figure, who is the goodness that inspires people to battle their own cynicism. The twisting of Harvey Dent into the villain Two Face paints the Joker as a figure truly beyond motive based understanding. Credit means nothing to him, he simply enjoys destroying anything he can. The more meaningful it is to others, the more thrill he takes in it's demise. Win or lose don't even matter to him, so much as the act itself. In the Dark Knight, he successfully makes Batman a supporting character in his own story.

So there you have it, my top ten villains at the moment. Feel free to tell me if I missed your favorite. I'd love to hear about it.