AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains
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AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters (50 of both the hero and villain category) chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The presentation program was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Special.
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The list
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The characters
- Batman, It's a Wonderful Life, Schindler's List and The Silence of the Lambs are the only films to have characters appear on both lists. The Alien is from Alien and Ripley is listed for the sequel, Aliens; Darth Vader is listed for The Empire Strikes Back and not Star Wars; the Terminator is listed under The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day; and James Bond is listed for Dr. No and not Goldfinger. In addition, The Silence of the Lambs and It's a Wonderful Life are the only films to have the two characters in the top ten.
- Four characters from four separate Stanley Kubrick films appear; three on the villains list (Alex DeLarge, HAL 9000, and Jack Torrance) and one on the heroes list (Spartacus).
- The Terminator is the only character to be listed as both a villain (The Terminator) and a hero (Terminator 2: Judgment Day). (Note that, in the series, these are two different robots using the same name, built after an identical model.)
- Only nine heroines appear (counting Lassie from Lassie Come Home) and fifteen female villains.
- Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist is the youngest character on the list, being only 12 years of age (not counting Lassie). However, the evil demon that possessed her throughout the film, Pazuzu, is implied to be centuries, if not millennia old.
- In Bambi, the man listed is the man who killed Bambi's mother. In the televised special it is said to represent all of humanity. It is also the only character on either list not to appear on screen in any way.
- Lassie is the only character not portrayed by a human on the heroes list, and the Shark is the only character not portrayed by a human on the villains list.
- Only three animated character appear (The Queen, ranked #10; Man, ranked #20 and Cruella De Vil, ranked #39. In addition, they all belong to Walt Disney and The Queen is the only animated character appear in the top ten.
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The actors
- Gary Cooper is the only actor to appear three times on the list; in all three instances he appears on the heroes list.
- Nine actors have appeared exactly twice on the same list: James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, and Jack Nicholson on the villains list, and Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and James Stewart on the heroes list. Three actresses also appear twice on the same list, all three as villains: Bette Davis, Glenn Close and Faye Dunaway.
- Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the only actors to each appear on both lists; both appear once (Schwarzenegger appears on both lists portraying different Terminators, while Pacino appears portraying two characters from unrelated films). No actress appears on both lists.
- Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas are the only family members to appear in the list. Michael Douglas appears at #24 on the villains list portraying Gordon Gekko, and Kirk Douglas at #22 on the heroes list portraying Spartacus.
- Of all the actors appearing on the list, Meryl Streep has the most nominations, having been nominated for an Oscar 16 times, and 25 times for a Golden Globe. Jack Nicholson has won more Oscars than any other actor on the list.
- Out of all the actors who appear on the list, twenty-one of them—Kathy Bates, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Russell Crowe, Robert Donat, Michael Douglas, Sally Field, Louise Fletcher, Jodie Foster, Gene Hackman, Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Frances McDormand, Gregory Peck, Julia Roberts, George C. Scott, Kevin Spacey, Spencer Tracy, Denzel Washington and John Wayne—received Oscars for their performances; Gary Cooper won twice, once for Will Kane and once for Alvin York (he also received a third nomination, which he did not win, for the role of Lou Gehrig). Of the remaining actors, Judith Anderson, Anne Baxter, Warren Beatty, Linda Blair, Humphrey Bogart, Glenn Close, Bette Davis, Geena Davis, Faye Dunaway, Ralph Fiennes, Henry Fonda, Alec Guinness, Angela Lansbury, Charles Laughton, Paul Muni, Liam Neeson, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Laurence Olivier, Peter O'Toole, Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, Sylvester Stallone, Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver were also nominated, but did not win.
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Real people
In some cases on the list, real people (portrayed by actors) or characters based on real people appear.
- Heroes: Alvin York, Erin Brockovich, George S. Patton, Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein, Lou Gehrig, Spartacus, Mahatma Gandhi, Butch Cassidy & Sundance, Oskar Schindler, T. E. Lawrence, Father Edward J. Flanagan, Frank Serpico and Karen Silkwood.
- Villains: William Bligh, Amon Göth, Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow, and Joan Crawford.
Two heroes, Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Norma Rae Webster, were based on real-life people. Doyle was based on a New York City detective named Eddie Egan and Webster on southern mill worker Crystal Lee Jordan. The villain Norman Bates from Psycho was loosely based on real life killer Ed Gein. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird is loosely based on Harper Lee's (the author of the book on which the film is based) real-life father.
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