The 51 greatest movie heroes of all time, ranked

In Denzel Washington’s only movie franchise, “The Equalizer” movies, he crafts a hero vigilante, retired Marine and CIA agent Robert McCall, who protects those who need saving from people who look to harm.

After years of taking on roles that showcased his dramatic talents, Liam Neeson in the “Taken” movies showed a different set of stills for this franchise and, in the process, paved the way for a new kind of action hero: the pushing 60-year-old kind.

Playing an ex-CIA agent trying to rescue his daughter from sex traffickers, the Bryan Mills character is a deadly force and does it all with chilling words to his foes: “I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.”

John Woo’s answer to “Dirty Harry” and “Die Hard” is this Hong Kong classic, “Hard Boiled,” in which star Chow Yun-fat plays a hard-drinking, clarinet-playing cop who will shoot anyone and blow up anything for justice.

There are many action heroes, but few like this one.

Playing a police chief for a sleepy New England beach town who is frightened of the water, Roy Scheider landed the role for which he would be remembered forever.

Thanks to the talents of a young Steven Spielberg and a ferocious shark who barely gets any screen time, “Jaws” became the first-ever summer blockbuster.

Another major reason for that is Scheider’s performance as Chief Brody, who, for most of the movie, is just trying to keep hysterics in the town to a minimum as a shark begins to terrorize his shores.

Then, when it’s time to face off against the shark in open waters for the movie’s fantastic finale, Brody shows why he’s a true hero.

John Carpenter is known best for crafting one of the greatest villains of all time with Michael Myers, but he also created a memorable hero in “Big Trouble in Little China.”

For this late 1980s action comedy, Carpenter casts Kurt Russell as a fast-talking truck driver who gets thrust into a fantasy world beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown when he must help rescue his friend’s fiancée.

The result is one of Russell’s best performances and a hero that, to this day, we wish had his own franchise.

From the mind of director Sam Raimi, Ashley Joanna “Ash” Williams in “The Evil Dead” franchise is one of the most unique heroes ever to appear in a horror movie, and it’s a major reason he’s become a beloved cult figure.

Played to perfection by Bruce Campbell, Ash starts out as a stud among a group of friends heading to a cabin in the woods for a weekend and evolves into a time-traveling foul-mouthed fighter of evil with a chainsaw for one of his hands.

From iconic one-liners to Campbell’s perfect comedic delivery mixed with tough guy bravado, Ash’s hero status is safely cemented in the horror genre.

At the height of his career, Eddie Murphy took on the role of a Detroit detective who finds himself in Beverly Hills to track down a killer in the “Beverly Hills Cop” franchise. It resulted in the creation of an iconic hero.

Mixing the fish-out-of-water plot with Murphy’s X-rated comedic style led to a box office sensation and a character in Axel Foley that was unlike anything we’d seen before in a cop hero role.

Heroes come in many different variations, and that’s certainly the case with Tom Hanks’ Oscar-winning role in “Forrest Gump” as a man who stumbles across some of the most significant moments of the 20th Century throughout his life.

But the biggest reason Gump is a hero is his kindhearted nature. He always looks out for people, no matter the circumstances.

Teaming up with Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio crafts the closest thing he’s ever done to a secret agent in “Inception.”

A professional thief who can infiltrate people’s dreams but is also haunted by his wife’s death, Cobb is the hero of his own story as he navigates through dreams and reality to return to his children.

Marking the first real-life hero on the list, Ness was immortalized in Brian De Palma’s acclaimed 1987 movie, “The Untouchables.”

Kevin Costner plays the man who took down Al Capone as a by-the-book US Treasury special agent who has to enlist a rag-tag group, known as The Untouchables, to fight through the Chicago mob to finally get Capone (played by Robert De Niro).

Having already cemented his hero status playing Neo in “The Matrix,” Keanu Reeves wasn’t through as he brought to life another one with John Wick.

A retired hitman thrust back into a crime world filled with gold coins and a hotel that caters to killers after the death of his dog; Wick elevates the action genre with his “gang-fu” fighting style.

Mixing wide-eyed curiosity, perfect comedic delivery, and the ability to pull off dramatics when the stakes are high, Michael J. Fox made Marty McFly into an unlikely 1980s hero thanks to this time-traveling classic in the “Back to the Future” franchise.

In “The Tramp,” Charlie Chaplin’s iconic character, who sports a weird walk, cane, mustache, and bowler hat, was featured in dozens of shorts and feature-length films during the silent film era.

Often living as a vagrant but with a posh swagger, The Tramp found himself having countless colorful adventures in which he often walked away with a smile. The character would come to be a means of escapism for both adults and children during hard times in the country, including in the Depression era.

Kirk Douglas brought the legendary true story of an escaped slave who led an uprising against the Roman Republic during the Third Servile War in the first century BC to the big screen.

With a then little-known Stanley Kubrick directing, Douglas delivers one of his all-time best performances as a hero willing to die for a cause.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” James Stewart delivers one of his greatest performances in this timeless Christmas classic from Frank Capra.

Bailey is a hero because he’s relatable. He must begrudgingly curb his big aspirations to be a responsible parent, husband, and community leader. His troubles mirror what many people have struggled with in their own lives.

Bailey realizing that what he actually has in his life is much more rewarding than the things he passed up on gives us all hope that the same can be true for us, too.

In “Shane,” Alan Ladd plays the titular role in this beloved 1953 Western. As Shane, a gunslinger with a rough past who’s looking to settle down after befriending a family (that is until he has to pick up his six-shooter again), Ladd turns a classic Western character trope into a timeless hero.

In “Barbie,” Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the legendary doll tapped into the zeitgeist beyond anyone’s expectations. A big reason for that is director/co-writer Greta Gerwig, who gave this hero layers that could resonate with young and old audiences and cemented why the doll, with her “you can do anything” attitude, has been an American obsession for decades.

In “Braveheart,” Mel Gibson took a page from Kirk Douglas’s book “Spartacus” by highlighting a historical hero’s underdog story.

Set in 13th-century Scotland, the story follows Wallace in a bloody battle for Scottish independence against King Edward I of England.

As much as this Marvel character does not want to be the hero — he takes pains to make sure he’s dropping F-bombs and making crude jokes — the not-so-secret secret is that Ryan Reynolds’ superhero is someone worth rooting for in “Deadpool.” The box office agrees.

In “The Lord of the Rings” franchise, Elijah Wood plays a sheepish version of this hero and leans into why this good-natured hobbit is the only living thing capable of dealing with the horrors before him in destroying the One Ring.

In “The Silence of the Lambs,” Jodie Foster plays Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee hunting a serial killer thanks to the guidance of an imprisoned serial killer. Foster is truly thrust into the deep end to gain her hero status.

To be a hero, you often need to make tough decisions, and that’s what’s in front of Marshal Kane in the classic Western, “High Noon.”

Played by Gary Cooper, Kane is a soon-to-retired lawman of a small town who can either have a showdown with a vicious outlaw who is arriving on the noon train or leave town with his new wife (played by Grace Kelly). We don’t have to tell you the decision he made.

It took years for this DC Comics icon to get to the big screen, but when it finally happened in 2017 with “Wonder Woman,” starring Gal Gadot in the lead role, it was worth the wait.

From taking on Ares, the Greek god of war, to her stand at No Man’s Land, Wonder Woman’s bravery proves why she’s one of the great heroes.

Whether he was played by Errol Flynn (1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood”), Kevin Costner (1991’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”), or Cary Elwes (“Robin Hood: Men in Tights”) the Robin Hood character and his heroic acts of stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor have been beloved for generations.

Harper Lee’s beloved book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which taught generations of schoolchildren about racism, was adapted for the big screen in 1962. Gregory Peck played the widowed father, Atticus Finch.

Atticus Finch was already an iconic hero, and Peck’s performance as the good-hearted lawyer instantly made the character memorable.

The famed book series hero Katniss was brought to life by Jennifer Lawrence for the blockbuster movie franchise, “The Hunger Games.” franchise

Katniss has all the classic hero qualities: She’s unselfish, she never gives in, and she fights for what’s right.

The face of the blaxploitation genre of the 1970s, Richard Roundtree’s performance in “Shaft,” as a private detective who won’t take any crap whether it be from Italian mobsters or the cops, and looks super cool doing it, brought to the movies a hero that has since been often imitated but never duplicated.

Like Jennifer Lawrence, who brought Katniss Everdeen from page to screen, Daniel Radcliffe had some big shoes to fill playing this beloved character that originated in book form.

In the “Harry Potter” franchise, he also successfully captured the hero qualities of this aspiring wizard that continues to amaze audiences.

The vampire hunter from the Marvel comics found instant acclaim when Wesley Snipes put on the black coat and shades to play the character for the “Blade” movies, which first hit the box office in 1998.

His action hero credentials, matched with the loads of material to work with from Marvel, made a perfect combination.

Though Max has always been the main protagonist in George Miller’s high-octane post-apocalyptic franchise, with “Mad Max: Fury Road”, it was Charlize Theron’s performance that we couldn’t stop talking about.

Furiosa’s betrayal of Immortan Joe by freeing his five wives shows the audience that she’s a hero with guts. We follow her high-speed escape, with Max along for the ride.

The big standout with this hero is the quiet confidence Russell Crowe gave Maximus, a warrior on the battlefield and later as a gladiator. in In “Gladiator,” he does it with brooding strength.

Unlike all the other heroes on this list, you didn’t go to the movies to see John Wayne play a character; you went to see John Wayne.

It’s impossible to highlight just one character John Wayne played because they all are amazing heroes.

From that memorable closeup of him in his breakout movie, “Stagecoach,” to all the performances that followed in movies like “The Searchers,” “Rio Bravo,” “Sands of Iwo Jima,” and “True Grit,” the Duke was bigger than life.

In “The Terminator” franchise, Sarah Conner starts out as a quiet waitress at a diner. Once she’s terrorized by The Terminator, her life changes forever, and she’s transformed into an amazing movie hero.

That would come in the movie’s sequel, 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” Actor Linda Hamilton transformed her body into what you would expect the badass mom of the future leader of the resistance to be.

From the jacked arms to the intimidating stare, Sarah Connor becomes unforgettable.

In 2018, Marvel gave Black Panther his long-awaited solo movie of the same name, and to say it worked would be an understatement.

It became a sensation and is the first superhero movie to receive a best picture Oscar nomination.

A major reason for that is how actor Chadwick Boseman embodied the character and gave tenderness and complexity to a hero that, though he is super, is also evolving before our eyes.

Speaking of someone evolving, Neo’s growth into “The One” in “The Matrix” franchise is a major reason he’s such a great hero.

Finally believing in his abilities and realizing his full potential is an experience many people watching the movies can relate to.

The evolution of Impossible Missions Force’s most complicated (and death-defying) agent in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has been impressive. It also mirrors the evolution of Tom Cruise as an action star.

It raises the question: Do we now go to see the “M:I” movies because we love Ethan Hunt, the hero, or see Cruise’s latest insane stunt?

Whether we’re taking about Alec Guinness or Ewan McGregor, both interpretations of the Jedi master in the “Star Wars” franchise are captivating because of this hero’s unwavering ability to do the right thing.

In an era where the action heroes were larger-than-life figures named Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Bruce Willis came on the scene as a cop just trying to enjoy Christmas — and changed everything in the “Die Hard” franchise.

With his foul mouth and relentless drive, John McClane showed that you didn’t need to look like Adonis to be a hero.

During the evolution of the MCU, it became clear that this Marvel superhero was the most interesting. Played with a perfect “aw shucks” quality by Chris Evans in various movies in the Marvel franchise, his Cap delivers on being an egoless hero who is only focused on making the world free of terror.

Everyone loves a hero with a little edge, and that’s a big reason Han Solo from the “Star Wars” franchise continues to be a favorite to so many.

He really wants to be a jerk. It’s the easier move for him, but deep inside, he knows the right thing to do, which makes him a great hero.

He always does the right thing (of course, we are pretending 2018’s “Solo” never happened).

You cannot ignore what this hero did for comic book movie audiences in the last decade.

That’s definitely because of the actor behind the tin suit, Robert Downey Jr., who played the character in various movies within the MCU.

Still, his talents, mixed with the qualities of this character, led to the Marvel craze on the big screen.

The greatest female hero in movie history, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is responsible for making the “Alien” franchise a sci-fi staple.

It also showed, especially in the genre, that women can be the main characters thanks to their gripping ability to not just survive at all costs but, in the latter movies, save everyone else.

For Weaver, the role brought her worldwide recognition and a best actress Oscar nomination for “Aliens.”

It’s the role that made Sylvester Stallone a superstar thanks in large part to the underdog hero quality of Rocky in the eponymous franchise.

How can you not root for a fighter who just wants a shot at the best? That drive has made him an inspiration for generations of movie and sports lovers.

Bruce Lee was already a hero in Hong Kong when he made “Enter the Dragon,” his martial arts thrill ride. But once it hit theaters, his hero status became immortalized worldwide.

Playing a martial arts instructor who goes spy mode to help the British government take down a drug ring set up on an island where its evil boss puts on a fighting tournament, Lee shows off his amazing fight moves to present the world with a different kind of hero.

Regardless of which actor plays your favorite Spidey, they all showcase hero qualities that have made them so memorable on screen in the “Spider-Man” movies.

From Tobey Maguire to Tom Holland, each Spider-Man uses their superpowers for good.

Some movie heroes aren’t looking to be one; they just are. In “First Blood,” Rambo is a man searching for some kind of normalcy after coming home from the war.

As the franchise continues, we learn that he continues to fight for those who can’t. As sensational and ultraviolent as the movies can get, at its core, Rambo is driven to give others peace because he’ll never find any.

Perhaps one of the greatest anti-heroes onscreen, Batman lurks in the shadows, a mystery to all. Still, his methods of bringing justice to the biggest crime figures — while never killing them in the process — is why he’s so beloved in his franchise.

What makes the Indiana Jones character so great is the joy that he brings onscreen in the eponymous franchise.

Harrison Ford knows Dr. Jones isn’t out trying to save the world. He’s just a guy obsessed with artifacts from the past and wants others to see them in museums. It just so happens he gets himself into incredible adventures in the process in which he has to be heroic.

That mixture results in a character we love.

From the first moment we saw him on screen in “Star Wars,” it was evident Luke Skywalker was a hero. Then we followed him through his progression from Death Star destroyer to Jedi knight and finally a Jedi master who defeats his foe without even really being there.

Mark Hamill’s talents in evolving the character from a wide-eyed boy ready to take on an empire to a grizzled old man with one more fight left in him are why Skywalker will always be one of the most beloved heroes ever to grace the screen.

Since the early 1960s, there has been one constant for movie fans: the heroic acts of James Bond in the film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s novel.

Whether it was Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Daniel Craig, or all the others who were handed a license to kill, 007 has always taken down the villain and done it with a slick style that makes us keep coming back, again and again, to see him pull it off once more.

Already on the Mt. Rushmore of heroes in pop culture before ever having a movie, once it finally happened in 1978 with Christopher Reeve in the role, Superman became arguably the most beloved comic book superhero.

Maybe it was his incredible acting talents or his perfect embodiment of what Superman stands for — truth, justice, and the American way — Reeve’s Superman inspired a nation.

Since Reeve, there have been other Superman portrayals on the big screen, and more to come, but Reeve continues to be the gold standard.

Some of that might be because of the heroic acts Reeve did after hanging up the cape. In 1995, the actor was paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition.

Afterwards, Reeve dedicated his life to improving spinal injury research. He died in 2004.