List from American Film Institute's "AFI 100 Years..." series, in June 2003.
These are cool lists, because I agree with them pretty well, and I like a majority of these movies or want to see them anyway. (Though there are some that I hadn't heard of, but am now intrigued.)
Movies with Great Heroes:
- Atticus Finch (_To Kill a Mockingbird_, Gregory Peck)
- Indiana Jones (_Raiders of the Lost Ark_, Harrison Ford)
- James Bond (_Dr. No_, Sean Connery)
- Will Kane (_High Noon_, Gary Cooper)
- Rick Blaine (_Casablanca_, Humphrey Bogart)
- Clarice Starling (_The Silence of the Lambs_, Jodie Foster)
- Rocky Balboa (_Rocky_, Sylvester Stallone)
- Ellen Ripley (_Aliens_, Sigourney Weaver)
- George Bailey (_It's a Wonderful Life_, James Stewart)
- T. E. Lawrence (_Lawrence of Arabia_, Peter O'Toole)
- Jefferson Smith (_Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_, James Stewart)
- Tom Joad (_The Grapes of Wrath_, Henry Fonda)
- Oskar Schindler (_Schindler's List_, Liam Neeson)
- Han Solo (_Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope_, Harrison Ford)
- Norma Rae Webster (_Norma Rae_, Sally Field)
- Shane (_Shane_, Alan Ladd)
- Harry Callahan (_Dirty Harry_, Clint Eastwood)
- Robin Hood (_The Adventures of Robin Hood_, Errol Flynn)
- Virgil Tibbs (_In the Heat of the Night_, Sidney Poitier)
- Butch & Sundance (_Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_, Paul Newman & Robert Redford)
- Mahatma Gandhi (_Gandhi_, Ben Kingsley)
- Spartacus (_Spartacus_, Kirk Douglas)
- Terry Malloy (_On the Waterfront_, Marlon Brando)
- Thelma Dickinson & Louise Sawyer (_Thelma & Louise_, Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon)
- Lou Gehrig (_The Pride of the Yankees_, Gary Cooper)
- Superman (_Superman_, Christopher Reeve)
- Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein (_All the President's Men_, Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman)
- Juror #8 (_12 Angry Men_, Henry Fonda)
- General George Patton (_Patton_, George C. Scott)
- Luke Jackson (_Cool Hand Luke_, Paul Newman)
- Erin Brockovich (_Erin Brockovich_, Julia Roberts)
- Philip Marlowe (_The Big Sleep_, Humphrey Bogart)
- Marge Gunderson (_Fargo_, Frances McDormand)
- Tarzan (_Tarzan the Ape Man_, Johnny Weissmuller)
- Alvin York (_Sergeant York_, Gary Cooper)
- Rooster Cogburn (_True Grit_, John Wayne)
- Obi-Wan Kenobi (_Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope_, Alec Guinness)
- The Tramp (_City Lights_, Charlie Chaplin)
- Lassie (_Lassie Come Home_, Pal)
- Frank Serpico (_Serpico_, Al Pacino)
- Arthur Chipping (_Goodbye, Mr. Chips_, Peter O'Toole)
- Father Edward J. Flanagan (_Boys Town_, Spencer Tracy)
- Moses (_The Ten Commandments_, Charlton Heston)
- Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (_The French Connection_, Gene Hackman)
- Zorro (_The Mark of Zorro_, Tyrone Power)
- Batman (_Batman_, Michael Keaton)
- Karen Silkwood (_Silkwood_, Meryl Streep)
- The Terminator (_Terminator 2: Judgment Day_, Arnold Schwarzenegger)
- Andrew Beckett (_Philadelphia_, Tom Hanks)
- Maximus Decimus Meridius (_Gladiator_, Russell Crowe)
Movies with Great Villains:
- Hannibal Lecter (_The Silence of the Lambs_, Anthony Hopkins)
- Norman Bates (_Psycho_, Anthony Perkins)
- Darth Vader (_Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back_, David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones)
- Wicked Witch of the West (_The Wizard of Oz_, Margaret Hamilton)
- Nurse Ratched (_One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_, Louise Fletcher)
- Mr. Potter (_It's a Wonderful Life_, Lionel Barrymore)
- Alex Forrest (_Fatal Attraction_, Glenn Close)
- Phyllis Dietrichson (_Double Indemnity_, Barbara Stanwyck)
- Regan MacNeil (_The Exorcist_, Linda Blair and voiced, when possessed by the demon, by Mercedes McCambridge)
- The Queen (_Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_, Lucille La Verne)
- Michael Corleone (_The Godfather Part II_, Al Pacino)
- Alex DeLarge (_A Clockwork Orange_, Malcolm McDowell)
- HAL 9000 (_2001: A Space Odyssey_, voiced by Douglas Rain)
- The Alien (_Alien_, Bolaji Badejo and Tom Woodruff, Jr.)
- Amon Göth (_Schindler's List_, Ralph Fiennes)
- Noah Cross (_Chinatown_, John Huston)
- Annie Wilkes (_Misery_, Kathy Bates)
- The Shark (_Jaws_)
- Captain Bligh (_Mutiny on the Bounty_, Charles Laughton)
- Man (_Bambi_)
- Mrs. John Iselin (_The Manchurian Candidate_, Angela Lansbury)
- The Terminator (_The Terminator_, Arnold Schwarzenegger)
- Eve Harrington (_All About Eve_, Anne Baxter)
- Gordon Gekko (_Wall Street_, Michael Douglas)
- Jack Torrance (_The Shining_, Jack Nicholson)
- Cody Jarrett (_White Heat_, James Cagney)
- Martians (_The War of the Worlds_)
- Max Cady (_Cape Fear_, Robert Mitchum)
- Reverend Harry Powell (_The Night of the Hunter_, Robert Mitchum)
- Travis Bickle (_Taxi Driver_, Robert De Niro)
- Mrs. Danvers (_Rebecca_, Judith Anderson)
- Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow (_Bonnie and Clyde_, Faye Dunaway & Warren Beatty)
- Count Dracula (_Dracula_, Béla Lugosi)
- Dr. Christian Szell (_Marathon Man_, Laurence Olivier)
- J.J. Hunsecker (_Sweet Smell of Success_, Burt Lancaster)
- Frank Booth (_Blue Velvet_, Dennis Hopper)
- Harry Lime (_The Third Man_, Orson Welles)
- Caesar Enrico Bandello (_Little Caesar_, Edward G. Robinson)
- Cruella De Vil (_One Hundred and One Dalmatians_, Betty Lou Gerson)
- Freddy Krueger (_A Nightmare on Elm Street_, Robert Englund)
- Joan Crawford (_Mommie Dearest_, Faye Dunaway)
- Tom Powers (_The Public Enemy_, James Cagney)
- Regina Giddens (_The Little Foxes_, Bette Davis)
- Baby Jane Hudson (_What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_, Bette Davis)
- The Joker (_Batman_, Jack Nicholson)
- Hans Gruber (_Die Hard_, Alan Rickman)
- Tony Camonte (_Scarface_, Paul Muni)
- Verbal Kint (_The Usual Suspects_, Kevin Spacey)
- Auric Goldfinger (_Goldfinger_, Gert Fröbe)
- Alonzo Harris (_Training Day_, Denzel Washington)
I haven't decided how to check these off--those that I have seen or it I should rewatch them all, because they are good movies. I'll figure it out.