Top 10 Movie Badasses

Here is a Top 10 list of my favorite movie badass­es. These folks are hard­core invin­ci­ble types. No ani­mat­ed char­ac­ters and no super­heros. I have elim­i­nat­ed movies where folks are more than just badass. So if there is some­one miss­ing from the list that you think should be there, it is either because I haven’t seen the movie, had for­got­ten about it, or the char­ac­ter is a lot more com­pli­cat­ed than being just a badass [i.e. Kat­sumo­to [Ken Watan­abe] from The Last Samu­rai]

10. Tom Pow­ers [James Cagney]:The Pub­lic Ene­my

James Cagney was one of the first tough guys in film. This par­tic­u­lar film, deal­ing with the crim­i­nal mind in the basest of thugs, is still effec­tive in por­tray­ing the so-hard-he’ll-break-before-he-bends crim­i­nal arche­type. Cagney’s Tom Pow­ers is like an old, dry, mud-cov­ered boot.

9. Chin­gach­gook [Rus­sell Means]: Last of the Mohi­cans

Rus­sell Means has a minor role in this film, for all that he plays Chin­gach­gook, The Last of the Mohi­cans. Weary but endur­ing, Chin­gach­gook is like one of those real­ly old moun­tain pine trees. That is, until his son gets killed. Then he becomes smooth flow­ing death with­out bat­ting an eye­lash, shock­ing, bru­tal and strange­ly calm. Chin­gach­gook can with­stand the pain of being last of an entire nation.

8. Gré­goire de Fron­sac [Samuel Le Bihan]: Le Pacte des loups

Fron­sac, a Frog nat­u­ral­ist recent­ly returned from the Amer­i­c­as, has a bud­dy named Mani who is a badass him­self. But Mani gets wast­ed. So Fron­sac busts out his bowie knives, flam­ing arrows and mar­tial arts and beats the tar out of a bat­tal­ion of guys. Then he gets thrown in jail but is freed when he gets poi­soned, buried alive and then revived. Then he takes two short swords and fights the big bad evil guy. The wire-fu is awe­some and his rage rivals Chin­gach­gook’s but is expressed much more force­ful­ly.

7. Rocky Bal­boa [Sylvester Stal­lone]: Rocky IV

Rocky IV is a badass movie. It does­n’t have much plot or char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. It is a clash of the titans movie. Rocky takes on Dra­go [Dolph Lund­gren] in one of the most pun­ish­ing fight scene of all time. Rocky, who has been train­ing in Siberia, haul­ing giant logs up moun­tains, doing upside-down sit-ups with a bag of rocks tied to his balls, you name it. Then he almost gets wailed on by the Ruskie any­way. He gets brain-dam­aged but Wins For Amer­i­ca™. Bad. Ass.

6. Lee [Bruce Lee]: Enter the Drag­on

Now we are in to ter­ri­to­ry where the names are cer­tain­ly to be expect­ed. Bruce Lee is still the gold stan­dard for mar­tial arts films. Enter the Drag­on is a clas­sic and we all know just how badass he is. Tast­ing his own blood, wig­ging out and wail­ing on his gui­tar. Yeah bud­dy.

5. San­juro Kuwa­batake [Toshi­ro Mifu­ne]: Yojim­bo

Toshi­ro Mifu­ne is prob­a­bly the most well-known for­eign badass. Yojim­bo was adapt­ed into Ser­gio Leone’s A Fist­ful of Dol­lars which spawned The Good The Bad and the Ugly tril­o­gy. Kuwa­batake’s badass­ness comes pure­ly from self­ish­ness cou­pled with skill. He does­n’t give a shit about any­thing and is strong enough to deal with it. You can take noth­ing from a man who refus­es to acknowl­edge weak­ness.

4. The Stranger [Clint East­wood]: High Plains Drifter

Clint East­wood made his name in spaghet­ti West­erns. The char­ac­ters he plays aren’t exact­ly ground­break­ing, and in fact, he is best known for being a Yojim­bo clone. But no one ever said that being a badass is a dif­fer­ent thing. We all love to see ’em. In High Plains Drifter, East­wood is such a badass that he does­n’t even have a name, like Kuwa­batake, he takes what he wants when he wants and no emo­tion is betrayed by his squin­ty eyes. He can shoot the whiskers off a coy­ote too.

3. The Ter­mi­na­tor [Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger]: The Ter­mi­na­tor

Hey look! Anoth­er stone-cold emo­tion­less killing machine! Well, if you are a badass, you can afford to be cliché. Espe­cial­ly if you are a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic cyborg with an explic­it knowl­edge of how to destroy any­thing that keeps you from your objec­tive.

2. John McClane [Bruce Willis]: Die Hard

I think every­one has seen this movie. Bruce Willis gets the tar beat­en out of him from begin­ning to end. Mem­o­rable moments include, bro­ken glass slashed feet, climb­ing down an ele­va­tor shaft and into a ven­ti­la­tion duct, duct-tap­ing a pis­tol to your back and mem­o­rable lines like “Ho Ho Ho, Now I’ve got a machine gun.” and “Yip­pie-kye-ay Moth­er­fuck­er.”

1. Robert Roy Mac­Gre­gor [Liam Nee­son]: Rob Roy

Why the hell does Liam Neeson’s Rob Roy sit in the top posi­tion? Well. If you effec­tive­ly faced down an entire ban­dit group while unarmed, bare­ly escaped hang­ing and then recap­ture by crawl­ing into a rot­ting cow, stopped your own death by seiz­ing and refus­ing to let go of the sharp blade [while some­one tries to tug it from your grasp] that Tim Roth is try­ing to stab you with, then you cleave Tim Roth in twain with one mighty blow, refuse med­ical treat­ment for your own wounds and then walk home. Well, you are one badass swash­buck­ling moth­er­fuck­er.