Top 10 Movie Anti-Heroes

Kicking off our list is the vile Oscar Award winning character brought to life by Daniel Day Lewis. A charismatic and ruthless oil prospector, Plainview is fuelled in life by his hatred of others, and intense desire to destroy his competition. Greedy and selfish, he isn’t above stealing from the unsuspecting or even murdering the occasional friend…

This depressed and stressed out antihero doesn’t have a plan or objective. He simply abandons his car to the steamy LA traffic and goes for a walk. From there, Michael Douglass shows us how fragile the mind of your average working class Joe can be. He’s just a guy who’s had enough of his crummy life and decides to react to all of his perceived injustices without giving a thought to the consequences.

This cultural icon, colorfully brought to the big screen by Al Pacino, isn’t remotely close to your standard movie hero. A cocaine snorting Cuban drug lord, he sets his sights on attaining absolute power, all while harboring some protective and rather incestuous desires towards his sister. Lacking basic morals and restraint, Montana was willing to step on countless so-called “cockroaches” for self-satisfaction.

A unique entry on this list, Brad Pitt’s antihero isn’t just a supporting character, but the other side of Edward Norton’s split personality. As the unrestricted Id, he’s a brutally free spirit that does monstrous things in the name of upsetting the status quo. This includes stealing fat to make soap, running an underground fight scene with three simple rules, and levelling buildings to reset the economy.

Based on the real life criminals, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty kick started an era in which moviegoers would root for the bad guys. These landmark anti-heroes represented the anti-authoritarian spirit of their time, and their journey involved all the things protagonists didn’t do back in the day, including sex, crime and murder. They were so charming that many viewers forgot that they were on the wrong side of the law, making their fate that much more gut wrenching.

Leave it to Clint Eastwood to take our pure cowboy hero image and spin it into a legendary badass. A cigar chewing outlaw, this bandit and gun for hire is quick on the draw and never hesitates to break rules and play dirty, bound only by an interest in his own survival and benefit. Well for the most part, as he still finds it in his heart to do the right thing by those in need.

Malcolm McDowell portrays this exceedingly controversial role as a sociopathic and violent teenage rapist. Again, not the average protagonist that audiences were used to. Despite his pastimes, which include putting a dark spin on classic songs, audiences can’t help but sympathize with Alex’s fall from grace, especially when he was being cured through a brutal brainwashing technique. Of course, the term “cured” is relative.

Imagine that, the audience following a serial killer, getting the inside track on his stereotypical yuppie lifestyle. In a film that suggests that a mass murderer would fit right in as a big business expert in mergers and acquisitions, audiences follow Christian Bale’s character as he rapes and murders his way through the hour and forty-minute runtime. Heaven help you if you have a nicer business card then him…

Next up is Al Pacino’s Oscar nominated performance as the favorite son of mafia head Don Vito Corleone. Originally wanting a crime free life as a politician, he ends up embracing his darker calling when competing crime attempts to assassinate his father. Lusting for revenge, he discovers that dealing in death and crime is in his blood. Inheriting the family business and brutally wiping out his competition, Michael proves himself to be more ruthless than his dad, despite his original intensions to go legit.

Taking the top spot is the disturbed Vietnam veteran turned cabbie and part time stalker. An unusual hero to say the least, De Niro’s Oscar nominated Bickle is a depressed porn loving loner, who harbors fantasies about “cleansing” the streets of filth. Ultimately, his disgust and paranoia leads him to buy a handful of guns, sport a Mohawk, and eventually take vigilante action to save a young prostitute.

Do you agree with our list? Which anti-hero is your favorite? For more entertaining top 10s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.