11 coolest characters ever
Occasionally you get a character in a film who is the epitome of cool. What makes them cool? Why do we sympathise so much with these characters? What makes them so great? We’ve found our 11 coolest characters.
As ever, we have to set the rules
1. The character has to have a completely magnetic onscreen personality, with a perfect balance of arrogance and self belief. Things that they want to happen, need to happen, without them seeming flustered and without them trying too hard. More often than not, the character won’t be perfect, and they will almost certainly have a mean streak in them, but it is this that adds to their cool. They are never a traditional “hero”.
2. They need to make us WANT to be in their situation. Who can say they would honestly want to be John McClane in his Die Hard situations, even if they handled it like he did? Now, who can honestly say they WOULDN’T want to be Han Solo, or Frank Bullitt, even if faced with their problems?
3. They have to be cool, not good or fun to watch or a brilliant actor. Al Pacino is great in Scarface, Donnie Brasco and Heat, but he isn’t cool in these films. Oliver Reed is amazing as Athos is the Muskateers films, but not cool. Ferris Bueller might have seemed cool when you first watched the film, but watch it again and he is just annoying. John Cusack’s Martin Blank is Grosse Point Blank is a great character but would you want to be him? As Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything though…
4. In cinema, the following things are very, very, very cool:- smoke, fast cars, motorbikes, snappy one liners and not caring what other people think.
So, who are the coolest characters in all of cinema?
Jim Stark (Rebel Without A Cause)
Ok, so we start with an obvious one. Arguably the coolest character, by the coolest actor, ever. Not many people on this list can say they have redefined (or possibly even defined) what it is to be cool the way that James Dean did. His iconic role as Jim Stark has been parodied a thousand times since, but never with the same attitude. Stark defined the newly coined “teenager”, a 17 year old who had to take charge of his family and defy all those who stood against him. The film showed the growing generation gap that existed in the mid 50’s, and gave the new “teenage” audience one of their most important cultural markers. What Elvis was to music, James Dean was to film.
Han Solo (Star Wars Trilogy)
If this list were longer then we could easily include Yoda, Lando and Boba Fett. It really pains me to leave out Fett in particular, but Han is cooler, if only because he didn’t have to appear in the prequels. The fact that Harrison Ford managed to make Han Solo cool is something of a minor miracle. Some of Han Solo’s lines are bordering on the ridiculous, but stay just the right side of cool. Imagine saying the line “you’re all clear kid now let’s blow this thing and go home” with a straight face? Solo was at his best in The Empire Strikes Back. When Leia tells him that she loves him, he remarks “I know” as if it was a foregone conclusion.
James Bond (Goldfinger)
If ever there was a character to define the difference between cool and likable it is Bond. Connery’s Bond was smooth, and not a little sexist. Roger Moore made Bond distinguished, Pierce Brosnan made him dapper, and Daniel Craig has made him dangerous. But only Connery made him cool, and never more than in Goldfinger. When every Bond after Connery delivered a line like “positively shocking” after electrocuting a bad guy, or “We must have a few fast falls together some time” to a girl, it was a James Bond line. When Connery did it it was an extension of himself character. The best way of showing the difference is by thinking of it like this. Imagine the cheesiest chat up line ever. If Lazenby, Brosnan, Moore, Craig or Dalton used that line in real life it would seem cheesy, or at best ironic. Connery could make it sound like Shakespeare.
Frank Bullitt (Bullitt)
Steve McQueen was definitely one of the coolest stars in cinema history, and Bullitt was probably his finest role. The film sums up everything that is great in 1960’s American cinema. As well as a fantastic soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin, and that car, it paved the way for the Rebel Cop Genre in cinema. Without Bullitt there would be no Starsky and Hutch, Dirty Harry or even The French Connection. Frank Bullitt ticks all the boxes of cool. Lives by his own rules? Check. Drives an amazing, fast car? Check. Awesome.
Luke (Cool Hand Luke)
Not much needs said here. The man sums it up best himself- Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.
Miho (Sin City)
Although she isn’t the most recognisable character in Sin City, Miho was probably the coolest. Marv was the all action brute with a heart, Nancy was the sex appeal, Hartigan was the hard boiled cop and Dwight was… Clive Owen. All Miho does is kill things, quietly, with swords, crossbows or ninja stars. The fact that she never says anything, and is the protector in residence of Basin City’s Old Town, makes her so dangerous even Marv wouldn’t mess with her.
Roger O. Thornhill (North By Northwest)
What does the O stand for? Nothing of course. Cary Grant provided the level of cool that only he could when he took the part of Thornhill in one of Hitchcock’s many masterpieces. This has to be one of the dirtiest films ever made, where neither character ever gets naked. Thornhill is constantly making lewd remarks to Eve Kendall (”Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes?”), and Hitchcock’s less than subtle sexual allusions somehow managed to elude the censors. The exchanges between Grant and his co-star Eve Marie-Saint are fantastic as well-
Her: You’ve got taste in clothes, taste in food…
Him: And taste in women. I like your flavor.
Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters)
Arguably a little controvertial choice here, but Bill Murray’s Venkman made the whole film. Can you imagine how it would have been without him? The scene where Venkman is performing “psychic tests” at the start of the film is a prime example. Which other Ghostbuster could say a line like “Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown” and make it cool? It is a testament to Murray that he almost always seems cool - whether in Groundhog Day, Rushmore or Stripes - even though he never plays traditionally “cool” roles. Who else can make comic parts cool?
Jules Winfield (Pulp Fiction)
Few directors know how to make a cool character like Quentin Tarantino, and we could easily have had Jackie Brown, The Bride or Mr Blonde on this list as well. None of them are quite as cool as Jules Winfield, the man who’s wallet tells you all you need to know about him. Winfield is obviously an emalgamation of hundreds of blaxploitation characters, from hundreds of B-movies. While each one of them may be cool, it is Samuel L. Jackson that makes the role more than the sum of its parts. Sub question- which is the coolest Jules scene in the film? Ezekiel 25:17? The “say ‘What’ again” scene? The “Royale with cheese”? Personality goes a long way? The standoff between Yolanda, Jules, Vincent and Ringo? The foot massage discussion…
Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep)
Bogart was arguably the first “cool” actor in cinema. The master of putting people in their place, his Marlowe is the marker by which all hard boiled detectives are measured against. Marlowe liked his drink, he liked a smoke and he didn’t suffer fools gladly. You get the feeling that Bogart was probably the same.
Ash (The Evil Dead Trilogy)
Like an even more over the top Indiana Jones, Ash is an all action hero with charisma and charm. Unlike Indiana Jones, Ash has a chainsaw for a hand and fights zombies with his “boomstick” shotgun. Bruce Campbell (by his own admission) might only be a B-movie actor, but nobody else could play Ash with the mixture of comic book exhuberance and (eventual) action hero machismo. Ash gets so many brilliant one liners in the Evil Dead Trilogy that is is hard to pick a favourite- “groovy”, “get some” and “hail to the king, baby” are just three lines that only work if you are A. Bruce Campbell and B.holding a shotgun and C. aiming it at zombies. The best has to be, “Good? Bad? I’m the guy with the gun”.
