Skip to main content
Close

5 Awesome Movie Characters People Don’t Seem to Remember

By Jameson Brown · September 17, 2014

Unique characters are a must in any story worthwhile. Whether good or bad, they need to leave an impression on us. One we remember a year after seeing the film. One we bring up after a few drinks at a cocktail party. Be sure to share this list of awesome characters so that we can bring them, and good writing, back into the light. 

 

 

5. Drexl Spivey – True Romance

Drexl is definitely one of the strangest characters I’ve seen onscreen, with his guttered-out appearance and that strange “Gary Oldman is Awesome” accent. Although his screen time is sparse, the few minutes he does have leave us with a strange, yet intrigued impression. 

 

4. Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood

A much more “well known” character penned by P.T. Anderson (loosely based on the Oil! character James Ross), but one people don’t seem to go “oh yeah, he was pretty great” too often. What makes Plainview’s development so terrifying is that the root of his evil stems from a tangible object we all feel the grasp of: money. He capitalizes on this (see what I did there?) throughout the movie, slowly going further down the rabbit hole of greed.  

 

 

3. Arthur Burns – The Proposition

One of my favorite film villains, Arthur Burns cloaks his motives with the hallucination of family. He attempts to manipulate his brothers into each of his tasks. Towards the third act of the film, we get to see this manipulation fall to pieces and fail as a tactic that works, thus propelling him to take matters into his own hands. And those are some scary hands.  

 

2. The Wolf – Pulp Fiction

Another more developed Tarantino quick wit of a character, The Wolf is fast, clean, but most of all, polite. The “situations” he “cleans up” are of the utmost red-level bad. But he disguises that aspect with normality and grace. Now that is something to be scared of. 

 

 

1. Sam Bell – Moon

An all-time great protagonist, Sam Bell’s mind slowly deteriorates the longer he must stay and complete his mission on the moon. Rockwell (and direction from Jones) masterfully pulls off the submergence of the mind into the quicksand of mental insanity. I’ve always thought Rockwell was robbed of an award for this role, but hey, he’s Sam Rockwell – toss a middle finger to em’, right?