The 40 Greatest Movie Bastards

It's a love/hate thing. Deliciously nasty bad guys...

BY Dan Goodswen Jun 19th 2009 15:15PMFILED UNDER: Features

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There's nothing quite like a good Movie Bastard. Done well, proper bastards can be the difference between a good film and a great one. Done really well, they can help raise a movie to classic status.

Movie Bastards may come in all shapes and sizes, but they all share a propensity for being complete and utter shits - and not giving an ape's auntie about it.

Join us, then, as we count down the 40 biggest, baddest bastards... 

40. Fat Bastard (Mike Myers)

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Bastard by name, utter bastard by nature. A belching, botty-burping man-mountain constructed entirely from layers of fat. The role even exerted its power over Mike Myers himself, according to co-star Heather Graham...

“I think some other presence took over him when he was Fat Bastard,” she told Total Film “The next day he was always like, ‘I’m sorry, please don’t hate me!'”

Prime Act Of Bastardy: Admitting to his favourite food, Fatso comes clean. “I ate a baby! Oh aye, baby. The other, other white meat.” 

39. Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon) 

Sleepers (1996)

“I felt he just had to be despicable,” says Bacon of the sadistic borstal guard, a man who tortures and molests without remorse. No kidding, Kev.

Prime Act Of Bastardy: Perhaps the most harrowing of all Nokes’ cruelties is the first. “What do you want?” pleads the frightened boy as he shivers in the darkness. Nokes just stares at him impassively. “A blow job. Down on your knees…” 

38. Ace Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) 

Stand By Me (1986)

Small-town bully who likes to shoot pool, play mailbox baseball and race cars. Oh, and beat up on little kids. Rules his own late-teen gang with a rod of iron.

Prime Act Of Bastardy: Swiping Gordie’s (Wil Wheaton) Yankee cap off his 12-year-old head. “C’mon, man, my brother gave me that!” pleads Gordie, referring to his beloved older bro (John Cusack) who recently died in a jeep crash. “And now you’re giving it to me..." comes the ice-cold reply. 

37. Lt. Thaddeus Harris (GW Bailey)

Police Academy (1984)

If the movies teach us anything, it’s that short men in uniforms are seldom chirpy, happy fellas. So it is with Lieutenant Harris, the nasty, bastardly piece of work determined to drive Steve Guttenberg out of the titular cop school.

Prime Act Of Bastardy: Introducing himself and Sgt. Callahan (Leslie Easterbeck) to the motley recruits:

“We are the meanest instructors here. We’ve got you because you are the worst people here. From now on you are D Squad: ‘D’ for ‘dirtbags’. I’m gonna make you hate me for the rest of your lives!”

Next: Alonzo Harris, Withnail, Ed Rooney...

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