The top ten movie psychopaths

[DB7]

The top ten movie psychopaths

Is that a bunny on the stove? The Times critic picks her top ten screen psychopaths.

Wendy Ide



1. Eihi Shiina in Audition

This Japanese shocker made grown men whimper. A lonely widower decides to hold fake auditions as a way to meet biddable young girls. He gets more than he bargains for with Asami, a doll-faced beauty who gets creative with acupuncture needles and cheese wire.



2. Jack Nicholson in The Shining

Jack Torrance just wanted some peace and quiet so he could work on his novel. But, snowed in at the Overlook Hotel, he's getting a severe case of cabin fever.



3. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Brilliant, urbane and totally insane, Dr Hannibal Lecter is a murderous gourmand who combines the twin pleasures of his life - killing and eating - with admirable efficiency. Hopkins is hypnotically evil and fascinatingly calculating.



4. Christian Bale in American Psycho

The brilliance of Bale's Patrick Bateman is that, apart from all the maiming and torture, he's utterly shallow and banal. He smirks at his reflection as he works out in the gym; during an evening's entertainment with a prostitute he pauses, distracted by his own well-defined abs. He's a product of the cut-throat financial markets of the 1980s who takes the whole back-stabbing thing a little literally.



5. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction

Hell hath no fury like Glenn Close (below) scorned by family man Michael Douglas in this taut thriller. With her steely unwavering gaze and frazzled blonde tendrils of hair, Close makes the journey from seductive woman-about-town to very real threat seem all too convincing.



6. Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear

A street fighter's countenance and overtly sexual menace made sure that Robert Mitchum played more than a few psychopaths. But it's in Cape Fear, as a released convict seeking revenge, that Mitchum's insouciant sneer and malevolent sex appeal are best used.



7. Kathy Bates in Misery

Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes, the obsessive fan of James Caan's novelist. The genius of Bates's performance is the delicate balance that can tip without warning between sweetly cheerful to demonic rage.



8. Joe Pesci in Goodfellas

Pesci plays Tommy DeVito, a pint-sized mobster with a hair-trigger temper and a compulsion to be the biggest man in the room. His self-esteem is measured in bullets embedded in his enemies and perceived slights met with remorseless violence.



9. Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Davis plays the demented former child star who exacts daily humiliations on her wheelchair- bound sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), unable to forgive the fact that Blanche's career as a matinee queen eclipsed her own.



10. Robert Carlyle in Trainspotting

Fuelled by lager, Carlyle's psychotic Begbie would glass you as soon as look at you. A torrent of Glaswegian rage pours from his mouth; a broken snooker cue is held aloft like a sword.

[Third Man]

The one glaryingly missing is Norman Bates all the more so because they actually include Patick Bateman whose name is a tip-of-hat to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. Then another big miss is Michael Myers of 'Halloween' both of these characters were a massive influence on other films.



Simon

[orpheum]

Robert Montgomery(1937)and Albert Finney(1964)in Night Must Fall

[Harleybloke]

The 'Sid' character in 'Toy Story'.......Ooooo he's a bad dude!

[scholes]

My top ten



1)Andy Robinson as Scorpio in Dirty Harry.



Scorpio has scant regard for society and is almost a psychopathic child as he feeds on the weak and vulnerable.The scene at the end when he's singing "row your boat "with the school kids after having just threatened to decorate the bus with the brains of the unsuspecting female bus driver is as hilarious as it is alarming.

Clint Eastwood saw something in the otherwise unknown Robinson for the part and it happened to be a great choice.



2)Tom Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter.



Michael Mann's idea was to purposely introduce Noonan to the rest of the film cast only when they shot the scenes. It worked.

Great direction and carefully chosen deep haunting songs- especially "This Big Hush" by Shriekback.

Noonan's frighteningly alarming looks and powerful performance helped to reinforce this Thomas Harris novel quite rightly into a cult movie.



3)Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.



This novel by Brett Easton Ellis is NOT for the faint hearted.



4)Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in SOTL.



5)Karlheinze Bohm as Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom



6)Robert De Niro as Max Cadey in Cape Fear



7)Hywell Bennett as Martin Durnley in Twisted Nerve



8)Robert Caryle as Franco Begbie in Trainspotting.



9) Michael Reilly Burke as Ted 'bun' Bundy in (surprisingly) Ted Bundy.



10) Dickie Attenborough as Reg Christie in 10 Rillington Place

[Moor Larkin]

Patrick McGoohan Top Ten

in no particular order



Joss Merlyn - a wreck of a man

Red - so psycho he even killed himself!

Fred Wells - even the daughter must die!

Number One - one glimpse and you knew... or not

Jess - kidnap, murder, pimping, it was all one to him

Roger Devereau - possibly the most debonair psycho

Edward I - anyone who was not English was fair game

John Connor - paid assassin - they don't come more psycho

Doctor Kiviat - from frame one to final reel, completely psycho

Sgt Musgrave - only heard about, never seen (just in case anyone has a copy?)

[Shaun]

My top nomination must surely be Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death. It's all there, the giggles, blank looks and downright nastiness. I don't think us Brits could have made a film quite like this one.



Shaun

[Lord Brett]

Not a movie, but if you ever get the chance, check out Tom Bell's performance in The Protectors episode Shadbolt.



A real forgotten gem of a story, also featuring (IMHO) a career-best performance from series star Robert Vaughn.

[Merton Park]

Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, is for me one of the scariest psycopaths of all time, he won an Oscar for the part and deserved it. The two killers in Truman Capote's, In Cold Blood, are also serious nutters.

[Buffalo_Chuck]

I don't think Mitchum's CAPE FEAR performance is close to his most terrifying psycho, and that's as the demented 'preacher' in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. His CAPE FEAR character is just one mean person with a prison-term as a motivation. NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a quantum leap beyond being a 'wronged' bad guy. These writers can't even find the Worst of Mitchum's bad-guys! How can this list be serious?



And where's William Talman as the sleeps-with-one-eye-open psycho in THE HITCH-HIKER (1953 d-Ida Lupino)?



Widmark's KISS OF DEATH should be up there, too.



Or Arthur Franz's crazed woman-hater in THE SNIPER (1952 d-Edward Dmytryk), the first incarnation of the DIRTY HARRY psycho (which Andrew Robinson does SO well, all on his own).



The failure to list 'Norman Bates' is another immediate disqualification for this list's value. Obviously, their range of film-education is based on the glitziness of home-video packaging. They should stick to judging their vast collection of Girls Gone Wild box sets.

[batman]

In no particular order ....



#1 Francis Dollarhyde - Manhunter

#2 Red Grant - From Russia With Love

#3 Tom Ripley - Plein Soleil and Talented Mr Ripley

#4 Max Cady - Cape Fear (original version)

#5 Stephen Lake - Bunny Lake Is Missing

#6 Robert Rusk - Frenzy

#7 Norman Bates - Psycho and Psycho 2

#8 Harry Powell - Night of the Hunter

#9 Michael Myers - Halloween

#10 Narcy - They Made Me A Fugitive



Dishonourable mentions to ...



John Christie - 10 Rillington Place

Danny - Night Must Fall (remake)

Reinhard Heydrich - Conspiracy

Amon Goeth - Schindler's List

Pinkie Brown - Brighton Rock

[stevie boy]

William Smith in Rich Man Poor Man(ok it is a tv movie) but he was one scary dude.

[dremble wedge]

Klaus Kinski in... well anything really, but the hunchback in For a Few Dollars More will do.



Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer for his mundanity.



Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (although Dean Stockwell was even scarier, but I'm not sure he was a psycho).



Frank Silva in Twin Peaks. Still the scariest character I've ever seen.

[batman]

name='dremble wedge']Klaus Kinski in... well anything really, but the hunchback in For a Few Dollars More will do.

And as 'Loco' in The Great Silence.

[scholes]

name='dremble wedge']Klaus Kinski in... well anything really, but the hunchback in For a Few Dollars More will do.



Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer for his mundanity.



Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (although Dean Stockwell was even scarier, but I'm not sure he was a psycho).



Frank Silva in Twin Peaks. Still the scariest character I've ever seen.

The best line in For a Few Dollars more was Lee Van Cleefs response to Kinski's invitation to light a match on his hump.

" I usually smoke after I've Eaten. If you care to come back in ten minutes."

[Windthrop]

Richard Widmark - Kiss of Death

James Cagney - White Heat

Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter

Joseph Cotten - Shadow of a Doubt

Dicky - 10 Rillington Place

Robert Walker - Strangers on a Train

Donald Sinden (remarkably cast against type) - Eyewitness

Karl Bohm - Peeping Tom

Laird Cregar - I Wake Up Screaming

Dicky - Brighton Rock

[Third Man]

3. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Brilliant, urbane and totally insane, Dr Hannibal Lecter is a murderous gourmand who combines the twin pleasures of his life - killing and eating - with admirable efficiency. Hopkins is hypnotically evil and fascinatingly calculating.



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Actually Hannibal Lector is not a psychopath, he did study psychiatry. Harris in his novel Red Dragon states that Lector has no known psychological condition it is Frederick Chiltern the irascible keeper of Lector in the asylum that refers to him as a psychopath but even in the films he shows no signs of being anti-social one of the main traits of a psychopath, in fact he goes out of his way to be sociable.



Also no way is Mitchum's, Max Cady in 'Cape Fear' 1961 a psychopath, just a very nasty violent person with a bad attitude, De Niro's portaryal was a bit more psychopathic.



Simon

[batman]

name='Third Man']3. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Brilliant, urbane and totally insane, Dr Hannibal Lecter is a murderous gourmand who combines the twin pleasures of his life - killing and eating - with admirable efficiency. Hopkins is hypnotically evil and fascinatingly calculating.



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Actually Hannibal Lector is not a psychopath, he did study psychiatry. Harris in his novel Red Dragon states that Lector has no known psychological condition it is Frederick Chiltern the irascible keeper of Lector in the asylum that refers to him as a psychopath but even in the films he shows no signs of being anti-social one of the main traits of a psychopath, in fact he goes out of his way to be sociable.



Simon

I think that killing and eating people is anti-social! Lecter presents in the film as a narcissistic psychopath and has no sense of human compassion or empathy for anyone else .... that's the whole point of his relationship with Starling, she is the only one he connects with. Many psychopaths give the appearance of being sociable and loving towards others, but underneath they feel nothing.

[lordtednfs]

So many excellent choices, but how about Malcolm MacDowell's character of Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Now that's one hell of a psycho.



Or how about Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, now he's for real or one of my British favourites, Ray Winstone as Carlin in the excellent movie of borstal life, Scum?



__________________

Hooked off the line

[CaptainWaggett]

Javier Bardem in No country for old men. Terrifying.