100 największych hitmenów filmowych, uszeregowanych według tego, jak dobrzy są w swojej pracy

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One of the first large surprises of Richard Linklater’s amazing fresh movie Hit Man, now streaming on Netflix, is its early dispelling of the film’s titular, fictional profession. Linklater loops up a brief cinematic essay, showing us the past of almost a century of Hollywood hitmen and how the thought wove itself into the American mythos. Meanwhile, Glen Powell — as the film’s protagonist — explains that the thought is simply a silly fantasy. There aren’t any real people whose occupation is waiting around for you to find them on the net and offer them a fewer thousands dollars to make your problems vanish in any distant marsh.

And yet the thought of the hitman persists. It’s the romanticist fantasy of a lone gun, surviving parasitically off the drama of life, love, hate, sex, and death. The dramatic possibilities are endless. In the hitman, we have our most overt metaphor for capitalism: an independent contractor, frequently doing the unpleasant work of large corporate enterprises (illicit or legitimate), who makes their surviving reluctantly and at the direct expense of others. As the thought of the hitman has evolved and been fleshed out by generations of screenwriters and directors, the occupation has been utilized as a metaphor: for legacies of trauma, the staleness of the American Dream, our soulless, conveyor-belt economy, the aspiration to accomplish perfect discipline and the imperfect humanity that makes this aspiration folly, the questions of determinism, fate, chance, and our free will — and even as a metaphor for filmmaking itself.

But, possibly far more importantly, hitmen are fucking cool. They’re hot, smart, dangerous, rich, suave killers, frequently played by our hottest and coolest stars at the apexes of their hotness and coolness. Their movies are usually fun summertime blockbusters full of sex, murder, large outfits, and exotic locales, with dense plots you can invest as much or as small as you’d like in. Find me a individual who doesn’t love a good hitman flick and I will show you a joyless bore.

So for my own individual enjoyment, and hopefully yours, I’ve decided to embark on an epic ranking of the 100 top hitmen in the past of cinema. But first, any criteria.

The following is simply a ranking of characters who have been tasked with killing a circumstantial mark for monetary compensation. And that last part is crucial due to the fact that it rules out killing for yourself in the interest of politics, revenge, power, or same defense. There can be elements of these motivating factors in any kill, but on a base level there needs to be a professional context. This means no serial killers, no vigilantes killing for “justice,” no ideological suicide bombers, and no hypnotism (apologies to The Manchurian Candidate, Bucky Barnes, and Reggie Jackson in The bare Gun).

The catch is you don’t gotta complete the kill, due to the fact that we have, and I must repeat, we have to make area for shitty hitmen. Only by including people who are bad at the occupation can we truly appreciate the hitmen who are large at it.

Tier 6: The Shitty Hitmen

Image: Focus Features

100. Charley Partanna & Irene Walker (Jack Nicholson & Kathleen Turner), Prizzi’s Honor — Words can’t do justice to how awful Nicholson’s “yous guys” accent is in this, you gotta find it online.

99. Owen Lift & Larry Donner (Danny DeVito & Billy Crystal), Throw Momma From the Train

98. Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), The Godfather — Crazy, I know. But Brasi makes an incredible wedding toast, shows up to a meet as the least plausible double agent in the past of the mafia (refuses a drink and won’t shake hands to seal the arrangement), gets his hand stabbed, and is promptly garroted.

97. Jay (Neil Maskell), Kill List

95. Greg Portman (Tomas Arana), The Bodyguard — possibly the dumbest hitman on this list. Portman has his mark alone in a area at a organization in Miami, and does nothing, then tries to kill her on phase at the Academy Awards while she’s receiving the Oscar for Best Actress?

94. The hitmen, Exiled — The large Johnnie To provides evidence that having good friends, or truly any human attachment, kills hitman occupation performance.

93. Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell), Confessions of a Dangerous head — The protagonist of George Clooney’s least bad movie claims he has killed 33 people, but the movie doesn’t seem to believe it, and as a result, neither do we.

92. Seth (Paul Dano), Looper

91. The King’s Men, Killers of the Flower Moon — Disgusting, genocidal thieves stealing land and generational wealth from their neighbors — and spouses. There is no art in their killing, and it’s happening fundamentally in public, with a veil of organization racism protecting the intimate horror they’re committing.

90. Philip Raven (Alan Ladd), This weapon for Hire

89. Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson), Memory

88. Harlen Maguire (Jude Law), Road to Perdition — Killed by:

87. Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), Road to Perdition

86. Vincent (John Travolta), Pulp Fiction — The evidence is as follows: He’s backup to Jules taking out a crew of stoned, large Kahuna-eating debtors, whom he is nearly murdered by due to his mediocre attention to detail. He accidentally blows mediocre Phil LaMarr’s head off. He’s rude to The Wolf. And he leaves a device weapon in the kitchen of the flat he’s expected to be watching while he takes a shit, getting himself killed.

85. Ray & Ken (Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson), In Bruges — I love these 2 mismatched grouches stuck in a Belgisch purgatory, awaiting their fate, but 1 accidentally kills a kid, and 1 has a chance to complete an easy hit and blows it, resulting in his death.

84. Cappy Gordon (Jack Palance), Second Chance

83. Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling), The grey Man

Tier 5: The Mediocre Hitmen

82. Ricky (Karl Scheydt), The American Soldier

81. Claude (Vince Edwards), Murder By Contract

80. Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), Miller’s Crossing

79. Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun), A Bittersweet Life

78. Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley), You Kill Me

77. The Killer (Michael Fassbender), The Killer — The entirety of this movie is about imperfection and fucking up the best laid plans, but the only contract kill we actually get is simply a fail.

76. Robert Rath (Sylvester Stallone), Assassins

75. Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Looper — The guy just hangs out in a cornfield waiting for his mark to appear from the future, bagged and tied, then blasts them with a shotgun. Not rocket science.

74. Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz), The American Friend — I have written about Ganz as Zimmerman before. He’s the uncommon amateur killer, a mild-mannered image framer willingly taking a contract to supply for his household due to the fact that his terminal blood illness will shortly kill him. But he needs Dennis Hopper as Tom Ripley to come in and clean up the second occupation he foolishly takes.

73. Frank Bono (Allen Baron), Blast of Silence

72. Henry Brogan (Will Smith), Gemini Man — I’ll be real. Both Will and his clone deserve way better than this in terms of skill and ability, but I’m arbitrarily deducting points due to the fact that Ang Lee forgot to turn off motion smoothing.

71. John Deray (Michael Caine), The Marseille Contract

Tier 4: The Cartoon Characters

70. Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones — Boba Fett’s dad is the stem cell template for the Sith Lord’s clone army, but it’s not clear why. He subcontracts what seems like a beautiful crucial hit on Princess Padme to Zam Wesell, who besides sucks. Then he gets trampled by a reek and has his head cut off by Mace Windu.

69. John Wick (Keanu Reeves), John Wick: Chapter 2 — I know, I know. Hear me out. The only contract Baba Yaga actually takes is 1 he is forced into. Then the hit he’s going to be set up for taking fundamentally kills herself before he can kill her, setting in motion the game that will animate the next 2 films and ruin the lives of everyone John comes into contact with.

68. The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), The Watchmen — Many conspiracy theories environment the Kennedy assassination, but my favourite is Zack Snyder’s “The Comedian did it.”

67. Tommy “Buns” Bundy (DMX), Belly — On the 1 hand, he kills Ox’s rival’s son, and puts on a full costume to do it. On the other, he’s recruited by a shadowy syndicate to kill Reverend Saviour, and alternatively ends up doing the good, just, and moral thing, but failing to carry out the contract. According to the rules of the exercise, we gotta ding him here.

66. Chiquita (Paula Ouch), Belly

65. Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface — It’s a one-for-two performance from Tony. 2 hits that both make and unmake his life. Tony goes on to do many horrible things throughout the runtime of the film, but his 1 redemptive act is refusing to let the distant detonation of a bomb on a car containing the household of an activist/journalist threatening cartel interests. The consequence is Sosa sending a hit squad to his house.

64. The Skull (Geno Silva), Scarface

63. The Fraternity, Wanted

62. Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant), Hitman

61. Golgo 13 (Sonny Chiba), Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon

60. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

59. Oddjob (Harold Sakata), Goldfinger — This is simply a typical placeholder for all the Bond henchmen and assassins, due to the fact that you can’t do them justice without hijacking the entirety of this list. Oddjob perfectly captures the giddy cartoonishness of this saturation era of summertime Drive-In Bond Flicks. Would besides have heard arguments for Jaws, Francisco “Pistols” Scaramanga, Fatima Blush, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, Red Grant, The 3 Blind Mice, Xenia Onatopp, and possibly even Ernst Stavro Blofeld himself.

58. The Joker (Heath Ledger), The Dark Knight — I wouldn’t blame a critic for quibbling here. There are any arguments to be made that the Joker doesn’t actually want to kill Batman, due to the fact that he says so himself. He evidently doesn’t complete the hit, but he takes half of all criminal dollar in Gotham, and nearly kills Batman.

57. Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), Kill Bill — Gogo is 1 of the fewer killers coming for The Bride due to the fact that it’s her gig, alternatively than personal, and besides arguably gets as close as anyone to finishing the job.

56. Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle), The Raid 2

55. El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), Once Upon a Time in Mexico — It’s El Mariachi, man. This guy has a guitar case full of guns. What else do you need?

54. Django Freeman & Dr. King Schultz (Jamie Foxx & Christoph Waltz), Django Unchained

Tier 3: The Henchmen

53. The Boat Crew, The Usual Suspects

52. The Crazy 88, Kill Bill — How good can you be at your occupation if your full crew of 88 trained assassins is taken out by a single six-foot-tall blonde in a tracksuit with a sword? I realize it’s The Bride and many, many another people failed where they did, but objectively, 88 trained assassins? 88 trained assassins!

51. Older Guy & John Boy (Keith David & Matt Bomer), The good Guys

50. The Soviets, Atomic Blonde

49. The 1 Armed Man/Sykes (Andreas Katsulas), The Fugitive

48. Jeanette, the Dutch Assassin (Marie-Josée Croze), Munich — The honey pot is simply a core phenotype in the hitman genre. Jeanette radiates sex and mystery — and, unfortunately, her perfume, which the squad of assassins from Munich use to identify and yet kill her in what is close to the movie’s best kill, no tiny discrimination in this Spielberg classic.

47. Charlie (Jai Courtney), Jack Reacher — He takes out 5 people scattered around PNC Park in seconds in a masterfully suspenseful, patient scene. It’s a frame job, large filmmaking, and for our purposes, large shooting.

46. The squad that kills Arthur Edens, Michael Clayton — By far the most efficient kill on this full list. The sudden, brutal, clinical execution of Arthur is possibly the top of the film’s many gut punches. The squad besides fucks up planting a bomb in Michael’s car, then loses Michael in a pursuit that fundamentally sets the endgame of the movie into motion, but you’re not perfect either.

45. The hitters who pulled off the Baptism of Fire, The Godfather — After the execution of Sonny Corleone, Vito vows not to get revenge against the 5 families, but Michael doesn’t. We see him exact his terrible vengeance in a masterpiece of pacing and visual storytelling, 1 of the top montages in the past of cinema, as Michael stands as Godfather (an alibi) to his newborn nephew at his christening, and all the hitmen prep for their kills.

Tier 2: The Hitmen

44. Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), Hit Man — Gary Johnson destroys many lives, portraying a hitman to eager clients and selling them fantasies, but his actual “marks” are these hurt, angry, desperate people he’s conning (and taking money from to fulfill a hit, so, we’re in on a technicality). Gary Johnson doesn’t fulfill any contract kills in this film, but he might be the most convincing and most ruthless contract killer on this list.

43. Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), Strangers On a Train

42. The Jackal (Bruce Willis), The Jackal

41. Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), Goodfellas — Tommy arguably should be higher, but the only actual hits we can confirm for certain are mediocre Stacks Edwards and Morrie, neither of which is peculiarly poetic or moving due to the fact that everyone in this movie is awful. It’s logical to conclude Tommy is liable for some, if not most, of the Lufthansa Heist fallout montage, but we can’t number that in good conscience, due to the fact that this is nothing if not a technological exercise.

40. Salvo (Saleh Bakri), Salvo — Early in this Italian film, there’s an incredible scene shot from the victim’s position that plays like horror. It’s mostly silent and without score, depicting what it’s like being stalked by a hitman. Never seen anything like it. Bakri is simply a menacing and terrifying presence throughout, but erstwhile again, a code costs, with a hitman undone by the hit he refuses.

39. Mrs. Smith (Angelina Jolie), Mr. & Mrs. Smith — We get to see 2 single, separate contract kills from Angelina and Brad in this referendum on the monotony of marriage, and Angelina’s is simply a classical honey pot. Not saying being hot and mining hotness and seduction isn’t a skill, it absolutely is, and Jolie pulls off a show-stopping leap off the side of a building to extract herself from this kill, but:

38. Mr. Smith (Brad Pitt), Mr. & Mrs. Smith — Brad Pitt gets the motion in this assassin two-hander solely due to the fact that he racks up a somewhat higher body count. We get a small poker, Pitt pretends to be a drunk jerk, he’s inactive rocking the somewhat grown-in buzzcut from Fight Club, he does loving bro forehead bumps. It’s a good time, and then he kills everyone.

37. Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan), The Matador

36. Joubert (Max von Sydow), Three Days of the Condor — In the gentleman assassin Le Carré mold. An amoral mercenary who kills to eat and sleeps just fine, equal parts charming and chilling.

35. The crew from Munich (Munich)

34. Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), Shooter — Wahlberg spends most of this movie on an evasion and revenge mission, but in the beginning we get a shocking display of marksmanship. And we’re not expected to take non-contract kills into account, but the full movie is an AND1 Mixtape for murder. He’s hitting dog food cans from a mile away, he’s clipping chopper blades; it’s a trick-shot Olympics performance, and he’s doing it all with a ponytail. He’s Bob Lee Swagger!

33. Leonard (Guy Pearce), Memento — In a sense, Leonard is the top killer on this list. He’s a perfect killing device who can be manipulated into killing whoever his handler needs killed, motivated by his tragic communicative and impaired by his deficiency of short-term memory. That last part is evidently the rub — you could even argue Leonard doesn’t belong on this list due to the fact that he’s not aware he’s killing for money. But he does, and has many times, as we’re led to believe.

32. Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), Killing Them Softly — Cogan is everything to this film: the contractor, the architect, HR, collective bargainer, task management, the skilled laborer. And I believe that’s mostly the point. In a post-housing-crash American economy, you should be entirely self-sufficient to accomplish anything, due to the fact that you’re being fucked and let down by everyone on all side of the capitalist equation. In this effort, cleaning up an amateurish heist gone wrong, Pitt is the vertical integration.

31. Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas), Assassins — I looked this up, and it turns out no 1 has always had more fun making a movie than Banderas as the bad guy in this. There are many conflicted killers on this list. No conflict here. This guy really, truly loves killing people!

30. Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), The Accountant — A fascinating experiment: autism as a hitman superpower for a highly disciplined, double-exceptional killer. It refines an image that has become a trope unto itself: the meticulous assassin with a starched collar who mines a kind of functional OCD for their work.

29. Léon (Jean Reno), Léon The Professional — While Léon does most of his killing in defence of Natalie Portman, he besides opens his titular movie infiltrating the coke layer of a mob boss and his army of henchmen with a series of creative and electrifying kills. There is simply a bit of convenient cheating in this fantasy; the hitman gets to be a guardian angel/force for good throughout the movie without his profession’s inherent moral gray. But erstwhile you kick this much ass, we’ll let it slide.

28. Mitchell Braddock (John Hurt), The Hit — Braddock is simply a bastard who kills nearly everyone he sees in the film, whether they’re his target, they mean him no harm, or they’re straight helping him, but he’s effective.

27. Kong/Joe (Pawalit Mongkolpisit/Nicolas Cage), Bangkok Dangerous — This 2008 remake feels like a semi-classic that’s been lost to time among the morass of forgettable action flicks Cage churned out in this weird period, all with nearly identical DVD covers. The 1999 Thai first is kinetic and inventive, a better film, but all in all, both are beautiful great.

26. Wong Chi-Ming (Leon Lai), Fallen Angels — Wong Kar-wai’s fish-eyed and handheld gonzo existential “love story” between an unhinged hitman and his loopy individual assistant. The movie is pervaded by dream logic, but you simply can’t deny Wong whips ass.

25. Martin Blank (John Cusack), Grosse Pointe Blank — The most creative hitman on this list, and a skilled one. This movie truly doesn’t get adequate credit as a lean, nasty, predictive document. It’s a precursor to the late-’90s criminals-in-therapy trope that The Sopranos and Analyze This would capitalize on 2 years later, to greater acclaim.

24. Jules (Samuel L. Jackson), Pulp Fiction — Jules is fundamentally Vincent’s exact and perfect opposite. He is hyper-articulate and nimble on his feet where Vincent is plainspoken and slow-witted. He’s thoughtful and spiritual where Vincent is an animal drawn to sensual pleasure, motivated by instinct. Jules gets the message to make essential changes and saves his own life; Vincent gets mowed down. But to talk straight to the exercise, it’s Jules that runs the show and calls the shots, Jules who decides erstwhile and who to shoot. He’s arguably the lasting image of the ’90s hitman in America. No tiny feat.

23. Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), True Grit — An underrated Coen Brothers classical that actually utilizes the humor of Charles Portis’ western novel, which was repackaged as a perfectly fine John Wayne vehicle upon release in 1969. Bridges is phenomenal, an ornery old fuck who reluctantly takes the occupation and reluctantly sees it through — a peculiarly terse and neurotic Western hitman bickering with his charge.

22. Heizo Sahara (Arata Furuta), 13 Assassins — Takashi Miike’s grotesque and superb remake is simply a movie that wrestles with the meaning of duty: to your orders or to a higher morality, the good of the people, and the land. Within that conversation, this guy whips ass. As far as we can tell, he’s the only assassin working for money. Through the full first act, it’s about gathering the crew that’s going to take out a psychopathic sadistic despot, and everyone is selfless and noble. And then we meet Sahara, this spear fighter, who lays out why he wants to get paid $200 for his life and what he’ll do with the money. A brief accounting: $120 to pay off his debt and break off a part for his family. $30 for a tomb for his wife. $20 for his own burial, and the last $30 is for all the cool crap he never got to enjoy in life. (I’m guessing advanced end omakases, strip clubs, and blow.) Legend. This would definitely be my logic and my ask if I someway ended up joining a crew of samurais hellbent on insurrection.

21. Lucien & Lenny (Jean-Louis Trintignant & Roy Scheider), The Outside Man — A large game of cat-and-mouse between 2 hitmen. I’m giving the edge to the legend Trintignant here, due to the fact that he lives somewhat longer and is simply a mean-as-hell French asshole.

Tier 1: Killer Elite

20. Charlie Storm (Lee Marvin), The Killers — Charlie is cool as hell as a hardened, seasoned silver fox close the end of his rope, trying to solve the mystery of a lucrative hit that was besides easy. His search for an answer makes for 1 of the large hard-boiled crime neo-noirs.

19. Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), The Godfather Part II — The top of this list is reserved for intimate kills, hitmen who had to look their marks in the eye and fire, due to the fact that that’s what’s essential to be truly large at the job. This is arguably a barter situation, with any financial incentives baked in between Vito, Clemenza, and Tessio, as Vito makes his bones stalking and killing Don Fanucci. What is inarguable is that, erstwhile again, Coppola delivers a classic. Unscrewing the light bulb, and its soft, warm light flickering as Fanucci screws it back in and taps it. De Niro waiting patiently with the towel wrapped around his arm for Fanucci to announcement him as he enters his flat then turns back toward Vito, who steps into his shot. The first bullet in the heart, the second in the cheek. The towel catching fire. The fast cut to the fireworks in the street. And finally, the old Sicilian message, a bullet in the corpse’s mouth. Kids, this is how you movie an assassination.

18. Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), The Irishman — Scorsese’s bookend to his organized crime trilogy features Frank Sheeran, a real individual who claims to have killed 25-30 people for the Bufalino crime family. The veracity of these claims is up for any debate, but the execution of Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, Sheeran’s dear friend, may be the saddest onscreen kill the master always committed to film.

17. Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), The Iceman — Michael Shannon is simply a hypnotic, unsettling presence in any function he’s cast in, 1 of contemporary American cinema’s large “exploders.” He finds his top outlet for that here as a truly chilling, violent psychopath who has to kill to keep his balance and sanity at home.

16. Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai — The most intellectually attuned, moral, and spiritual killer on this list. Whitaker kills his way through the Columbus Day episode of The Sopranos, redistributing karma and justice. The beginning Killa Priest needle drop is simply a fucking jam that establishes the film’s subject of dedication to code and a way of life as codes of honor and ethics fall away. Ghost besides shoots a mobster through a bathroom sink drain in his crib, through his forehead. Sick.

15. Yuki (Meiko Kaji), Lady Snowblood — The large Meiko Kaji should be even higher than #15 on this list, as her impact goes far beyond this gorgeous film, with an indelible body of work as a ’60s and ’70s action star in nipponese cinema, as well as a major origin of inspiration for Quentin Tarantino. The issue is that a majority of the kills in this — which is most likely her best and most influential movie — are revenge kills. But before her quest for vengeance begins, she works as an assassin, and the movie opens with a contract kill, with Yuki taking out a crew of gangsters.

14. Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson/Jason Statham), The Mechanic — Bronson and Statham had to be here, but I wasn’t expecting them to finish this high. And yet, this might be either legend’s best film? Bronson’s first is cheap, and kind of looks and sounds like a capsule Boogie Nights parody porn shot by Paul Thomas Anderson as Jack Horner, but is brutal and effective exploitation. Its spirit is retained and even improved on in the remake. erstwhile Statham kills his handler (the late Donald Sutherland), his only friend and the tether to his humanity, it’s both tender and shocking in its abrupt cold-bloodedness.

13. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather — There is simply no kill on this list that means more to the past of cinema than Michael fishing that pistol out from behind the old-school toilet in that Italian restaurant in the Bronx and popping McCluskey and Sollozzo, removing an immediate threat for Vito and starting a war between the 5 families. erstwhile you consider it’s Michael’s first act as a associate of the family, and his first kills outside the theatre of war, this is Magic winning the chip as a rookie.

12. Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro), Sicario — Del Toro represents the efforts of a deep state, fighting the cartels by matching their lawless barbarity. He is an avenging angel of death who lost his household and yet returns the tragedy. Fucked up, harrowing stuff.

11. The Jackal (Edward Fox), The Day of the Jackal — An different movie and yet another template-setter. The Jackal is simply a man of disguise, fucking and killing his way towards his eventual target, which is simply a spiritual and intellectual pursuit as much as it is simply a job.

10. Khamel (Stanley Tucci), The Pelican Brief — This may appear to be a advanced placement for a peripheral character in an early ’90s legal thriller featuring the 2 biggest stars on Earth at the time. But master of disguise Khamel kills 2 ultimate Court justices in fast succession in 1 crazy night in DC, within the first 15 minutes of the film, in little than 5 minutes of screentime. 1 of the kills is in public, in a porn theater! Then he possibly kills drunk Sam Shepard with a car bomb. Efficiency is off the charts.

9. Caine (Donnie Yen), John Wick: Chapter 4 — There are many large assassins in this franchise, so let’s give a fast shout to an unusually fun Common performance, Ms. Perkins, and all the assorted characters we meet around The Continental, but Caine is clearly the best of them. There are many large set-pieces in this film, but the best action series of the 21st century is Donnie Yen’s actual introduction as a blind assassin killing many men in a hotel kitchen. You could argue this performance belongs to the cartoon character tier, but there’s an athletic, human quality to his action choreography and his acting that elevates Caine to this God-level of cinematic hitmen. He’s drunk Gene Kelly, Jean Claude Van Damme, and a Harlem Globetrotter with a gun. It’s beautiful balletic savagery. The spatial intelligence of the scene is absolutely incredible. AND, his eventual occupation is killing the unkillable John Wick to save his daughter, and he actually fucking does it* (for now)!

8. Nikita/“Josephine” (Anne Parillaud), La Femme Nikita — The first of Luc Besson’s beautiful, deadly women. It’s a movie with a sneakily large tail that works as a John Wick predecessor, dropping us into the full fleshed-out planet of a covert network of global assassins. And Nikita is simply a badass, a punk turned natural killer, large up close or from a distance. But the movie is besides more evolved than the dense fantasies it would inspire, actually playing out the reality of its fantasy with people and emotional stakes, alternatively than fantastic comic book heroes — which is possibly why it inspired a erstwhile popular, five-year cable series.

7. Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — I mean, how much do I request to explain here? The large bad who always completes a occupation he’s paid for in the perfect, maximalist, blown-out Spaghetti Western masterpiece. Van Cleef had respective another roles that were up for consideration, but there was only 1 actual option.

6. Vincent (Tom Cruise), Collateral — A nihilist sociopath who is enlisted to go on a killing spree and yet hits 4 of his 5 targets 1 crazy night in the sprawled out, disconnected hellscape of Los Angeles. Vincent is the complete package. He’s lethal with any weapon or hand-to-hand, intelligent, charming, completely immoral, all in a chiseled, alluring, silver fox package. Not even the unbridled power of Mark Ruffalo’s goatee can halt him.

5. Shuji Kamimura (Joe Shishido), A Colt Is My Passport — Whatever the impact of this movie has been, it’s not large enough. Feels like a Velvet Underground situation, where it may not have gotten the audience it deserved, but everyone who saw it went on to make or star in a movie with a hitman. A communicative that haunts me is that the star, Joe Shishido, was a young, blandly handsome actor who decided to augment his features in an effort to get better parts. He got cheekbone implants, which gave him an unforgettable, distinct look (like a hot guy with the mumps). It worked: he went on to become a star. This is his masterpiece, an impossibly stylish hit gone incorrect that builds to a classical crescendo in just 84 minutes. As shortly as I wrap this blurb up I’m going to start working on my hitman screenplay.

4. Ogami Ittō (Tomisaburo Wakayama), Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance — fewer films can claim to have sparked not just a large six-film series but an full genre. That’s what Kenji Misumi accomplished with the first installment following the adventures of this groundbreaking character. The conceit of a cold-hearted killer in charge of a precious, adorable, susceptible kid is simply a expression so enticing it has stretched all the way to the Star Wars universe. But, gimmick aside, Ogami Ittō is simply a slippery, compelling hero and anti-hero with his own ideas of what constitutes honor and dignity. He keeps you guessing, and at times you want to root against him, but you can’t erstwhile faced with his boy beaming up at him. A perfect formula.

3. William Munny (Clint Eastwood), Unforgiven — “Who’s the fella who owns this shithole?” If you’re inactive reading, you just got chills. erstwhile again, I feel at a failure for the appropriate superlatives. It’s Eastwood. How many people has this guy killed on screen? But Munny is his lasting masterpiece, in the first paragraph of his obituary. Unforgiven is simply a movie that doesn’t invent the neo-western, but perfects it, a Liberty Valance that fucks. A kind of coda that evidently doesn’t close the book on a genre that erstwhile defined American popcorn cinema, but is most likely its final, lasting statement. Munny’s climatic massacre of small Bill’s crew, erstwhile he embraces his nature, the killer he’s resisted the full film, is so fucking large that no substance how many times the themes and beats of this movie and this circumstantial kind of climactic bloodletting are replicated, they will never be improved upon.

2. Jef Costello (Alain Delon), Le Samouraï — Jean-Pierre Melville’s quiet, brooding classical is part procedural, part existential meditation. The hit that is the inciting incidental of the movie shows how much of a well-executed hit is about preparation. We see Jef nailing down his alibi and the timeline with his mistress, and it’s what initially saves him from the commissaire who knows better, but can’t prove it. Jef is simply a proto-Schrader protagonist, stoic and ascetic. He lives in a near-empty apartment, alone save for his caged bird. He dresses plainly and immaculately in a trench coat and teardrop fedora. He lives by a code, and at the end of the movie, after killing his master for setting him up and violating that code, he commits seppuku by cop, establishing a look, a vibe, a tragic arc, and an ethos for the hitman on movie that has lasted almost 60 years.

1. Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat), The Killer — John Woo’s masterpiece is inactive as electrifying present as it was 35 years ago. The Killer is a synthesis of and a gateway to hitmen films, and arguably all genre action films. It links the moody, low stakes, existential hitmen films coming out of France and fresh Hollywood in the ’70s with the cartoonish action and bloated body counts of nipponese gangster films and Spaghetti Westerns in the ’70s and American blockbusters in the ’80s. But it besides portrays that action as intimate and graphic; you feel each kill. Woo brings gloomy atmosphere and outlandish sets, and yes, a 1000 doves, and creates something new: a full articulated aesthetic that can be found present as far afield as in the DNA of all major multi-billion dollar action franchise and stylized prestige genre films inactive trying to match his energy and vision.

But no of this works without Chow Yun-fat, Woo’s perfect, brooding, hot-and-cool protagonist who fills the frame and embodies his blend of hard-boiled, kitchen-sink action and emotional restraint. He delivers downbeat character work that doesn’t skimp on the smoldering pathos. Ah Jong, occasionally referred to as Jef, is simply a character in the tradition of the doomed loners who populate the moral universes of the old French and American hired-guns-in-suits flicks, with a hint of the superhuman badassery that made Joe Shishido and Tomisaburo Wakayama idols. It’s a potent, powerful recipe that has been replicated thousands of times, but can’t be killed.

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