50. Blondie
Played by Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, dir. Sergio Leone)

The most prevalent myth about the first two pictures Eastwood made with Leone was that his character in both was the Man With No Name. Not only does the character have a name, they’re two different characters—Joe and Monco. Go figure. In the great finale of the Dollars trilogy, we remember the name Blondie because Tuco says it so often, and because Eastwood’s not much of a blond. When you come right down to it, the tag is apt because Blondie—a fairly treacherous character cast as the titular “good”—is as California as Eastwood: the most laid-back badass of the spaghetti western, or any other kind.

Defining Moment: His writing-the-name-on-the-rock gambit before the climactic, operatic shootout. (MGM DVD)

49. Chance the Gardener
Played by Peter Sellers in Being There (1979, dir. Hal Ashby)

It says something rather unnerving about Sellers that he identified so strongly with this nowhere man that he printed up calling cards bearing his name. Loosed into the world after a lifetime of isolation, Chance, an illiterate, TV-addicted gardener, becomes an unwitting sage in the haute monde of Washington, D.C. With his impeccable bearing and affectless intonations, he is a cipher both funny and frightening, making utter vacancy look like Zen inscrutability.

Defining Moment: His bland but insistent mantra “I like to watch” is misinterpreted by a loving but carnally deprived society wife (Shirley MacLaine), who takes it as a cue to pleasure herself before him. (Warner DVD)

48. John “Bluto” Blutarsky
Played by John Belushi in Animal House (1978, dir. John Landis)

From the moment the camera finds him peeing in the bushes and then on Delta House’s lost-looking recruits, Bluto (whom Belushi and Landis thought of as a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster) is the vision of a pure, primal id disguised as a college degenerate. But what separates this untamed soul from lesser cinematic knuckle-draggers (played by the likes of Andrew Dice Clay and Pauly Shore) is the knowing mischief Belushi wordlessly conveys with the deft emotional precision of Buster Keaton.

Defining Moment: The food fight scene lets Bluto achieve maximum shock value. “See if you can guess what I am now,” he says, filling his cheeks with mashed potatoes and spraying the slimy contents on a sorority Barbie. “I’m a zit! Get it?” (Universal DVD)

47. Mrs. Robinson
Played by Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967, dir. Mike Nichols)

“You’re trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson . . . aren’t you?” Oh, Benjamin, of course she is. For a dissatisfied housewife (the character doesn’t even have a first name), there’s no greater distraction than bedding the young Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). And thanks to the perfectly cast (though only six years senior) Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson not only became the archetype for the older woman as seductress, but also the source of distraction for many an adolescent male.

Defining Moment: Benjamin gives her his car keys and tells her she can drive herself home. After she says she doesn’t know how to “work a foreign shift” (yeah, sure), she tosses the keys into the fish tank, showing us all who’s really driving. (MGM DVD)

46. John McClane
Played by Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988, dir. John McTiernan) and two later films

If Humphrey Bogart had been around in the ’80s, he would have loved Willis’s wise-cracking John McClane. A seductive mix of machismo and humility, Willis reinvented the reluctant hero for the action age: a cigarette-smoking tough guy who was freaked out by flying; a balding, by-the-book New York cop who hated authority. McClane doesn’t want to be in California for Christmas. Nor is he eager to knuckle up against 12 heavily armed Eurotrash terrorists. But he does, and we love every explosive moment.

Defining Moment: Alan Rickman’s deliciously evil Hans Gruber asks him, “Do you really think you stand a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?” The reply still inspires instantaneous high-fiving: “Yippee-kay-yay, motherfucker!” (Fox DVD)

45. Mary Poppins
Played by Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins (1964, dir. Robert Stevenson)

With her unflinching optimism, her rosy cheeks, and her chipper commands of “Spit spot!” Mary has the power to cheer up a gloomy London family. Born in the books by P.L.
Travers, the Poppins character was played to comely perfection by squeaky-clean Andrews, who won an Oscar. “I’ll only stay until the wind changes,” Mary Poppins tells
little Jane and Michael Banks, but for fans everywhere, she’s stayed much longer than that.

Defining Moment: The children resist tidying their nursery until their magical nanny shows them how to make the task fun. She sings, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!” (Touchstone DVD)

44. Jules Winnfield
Played by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (1994, dir. Quentin Tarantino)

“I looked at him as not just a badass, but as a guy who was totally professional and in control of his world,” Jackson says about our man from Inglewood. Sure, Jules was a stone-cold killer, but he was also a philosopher, engaging in his own version of the Socratic method (“What does Marsellus Wallace look like?. . . Does he look like a bitch?!?!”). He not only talked tough; he looked scary as hell—especially his hair. “That was an accident,” Jackson says. “Quentin wanted Jules to have a big afro. He sent this PA out to buy a wig. She went to South Central and bought this jeri-curl wig. And Quentin was going off, saying, ‘It’s got to be an afro because he has this whole blaxploitation thing.’ I told him, ‘That’s the South Central look.’ You look at Ice Cube and NWA. Guys had all this shit dripping down their necks. I had already grown the sideburns and the mustache. It was perfect. Total gangster.”

Defining Moment: “Folks always talk about the foot massage sequence,” Jackson says. “People like the Ezekiel speech. I have to say that speech about three times a week to people, just to prove that I still know it. And the Quarter Pounder with Cheese thing. But I always liked the ‘what’ sequence: ‘What? Say “what” again. Do they speak English in “what”?’ That’s my favorite.” (Touchstone DVD)

43. Forrest Gump
Played by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump (1994, dir. Robert Zemeckis)

As the ads said, “Gump happens,” and did it ever. Tom Hanks’s portrayal of the kindhearted, mentally challenged southerner is at once tender, goofy, and breathtaking, earning him his second Oscar. The character’s life is a prism through which we view our nation’s modern history, and accordingly, Forrest does it all. From Elvis to JFK, Mao to Nixon and Lennon, from Vietnam to antiwar protests, Forrest doesn’t miss much, and along the way he finds friendship, seeks love, and witnesses horror.

Defining Moment: You know it, you love it: Forrest has struck up a conversation with the woman seated next to him on a bus-stop bench. “My momma always said life
was like a box of chocolates,” he tells her. “You never know what you’re gonna get.” (Paramount DVD)

42. “Dirty” Harry Callahan
Played by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (1971, dir. Don Siegel) and four later films

Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan tapped into the silent majority’s longing for frontier justice following the upheavals of the ’60s. And who better to brandish his .44 Magnum than Eastwood, who had become a star dispatching evildoers in Sergio Leone westerns. Crankier and less laconic than the Man With No Name, Harry patented the cool one-liner, a staple of every action hero to come.

Defining Moment: In the 1971 original, Harry is informed that the killer he has just apprehended and tortured will walk because Harry violated his rights. “Well, the law’s crazy!” is his incredulous reply. For an instant, we wonder if the cop is more dangerous than the criminal. (Warner DVD)

41. Jane Craig
Played by Holly Hunter in Broadcast News (1987, dir. James L. Brooks)

One of cinema’s most delightfully complex and obsessive heroines, news producer Jane Craig can’t enter a cab without telling the driver the quickest route, nor can she begin her day without a brief crying jag. Brisk, capable, overscheduled, and brutally honest, she seems to know everything except how she feels emotionally. Caught between her neurotic soul mate (Albert Brooks) and the airhead anchor she lusts after (William Hurt), she has no idea how to reconcile her head and her heart. (Even director James L. Brooks was conflicted about her choice until the very end.) It’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Hunter as this winning, though never winsome, working girl.

Defining Moment: When her boss snaps at her, “It must be nice to always believe you know better—to always think you’re the smartest person in the room,” Jane admits, “No, it’s awful.” (Fox DVD)