Michael Cera‘s new movie is about him battling the evil ex-boyfriends of his girlfriend, or something silly like that. In honor of this, Vulture have come up with a list of the most evil boyfriends in movie history. Take a look at theirl ist…
11. Hardy Jenns, Some Kind of Wonderful
A perfect candidate to someday wind up in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, Hardy Jenns (Craig Sheffer) is the spoiled, rich, preening slimeball who can’t quite understand that his popular girlfriend, Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), is really through with him — this despite the fact that she’s already agreed to go out on a date with the totally average Keith (Eric Stolz) in John Hughes’s infamous teen classic. Like most spurned boyfriends in coming-of-age flicks, Hardy has a plan for revenge — and like most spurned boyfriends in coming-of-age flicks, he fails.
10. Buzz Gunderson, Rebel Without a Cause
The leather-jacketed, pomaded high-school gang leader Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen), who torments sensitive new loner Jim Stark (James Dean), is the Ur-evil boyfriend of American cinema, the smug thug who inspired generations of bullies in later coming-of-age films. But the others were cardboard cutouts compared to him. Buzz was more than just an unthinking brute; he even copped to liking Jim and admitted that he was really just bugging him out of boredom. And he never really lost the girl, either; rather, Buzz died a horrific death when his car went off a cliff during a game of chicken and exploded on the rocks below, sending the lovely Judy (Natalie Wood) into the arms of his primary victim.
09. Johnny Lawrence>, Karate Kid
“Strike first! Strike hard!” The eighties fascination with bullies, martial arts, and blond jock assholes realized its apotheosis in Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), the always-ready-to-explode disciple of the all-evil, all-the-time Cobra Kai dojo in The Karate Kid. As the ex-boyfriend of Elisabeth Shue’s Ali Mills, jealous, hair-trigger-tempered Johnny had plenty of reasons to administer beatings on Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), the weak-looking new kid who dared to show an interest in her. So when Daniel finally launched that crane kick and brought Johnny down, it was more than the feel-good climax of a box-office hit; it was a pop-culture comeuppance of mythic dimension. So much so that Zabka could basically only ever play bullies from then on.
08. Zachary ‘Sack’ Lodge, Wedding Crashers
The ultimate philandering, manipulative preppy, Zach Lodge (Bradley Cooper) — self-declared fiancée and ultimately failed groom to Rachel McAdams’s Claire Cleary — is kind of a classic eighties-style bully armed with aughts-style money and firepower. When he’s not shooting his competitors in the ass, he’s siccing private investigators on them. And Cooper is so perfect in this part that we’re kind of amazed he ever managed to break out of the dickhead-boyfriend ghetto and actually become a real leading man.
07. Chuck Cranston, Footloose
Since Footloose is essentially a remake of Rebel Without a Cause with preachers and dancing, it falls upon Bonnie Tyler–loving white trash Chuck Cranston (Jim Youngs) to take the Buzz Gunderson role, tormenting Ren McCormick (Kevin Bacon) while beautiful girlfriend Ariel (Lori Singer) cheers him on. However, Chuck gets neither the momentous, fatal flameout of Buzz (instead, he is humiliated in a game of tractor chicken with Ren) or the uplifting redemption of Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid: After Ariel dumps him, he returns to torment Ren during the film’s climactic dance scene and is disposed of handily.
06. Doctor Manhattan, Watchmen
This will probably upset some people, but sorry, Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) totally counts. Yes, he’s ostensibly one of the heroes of Watchmen, and yes, his self-sacrifice at the end of the film is kind of touching. But we can’t really forgive him for working as the superhuman arm of imperialist U.S. foreign policy, abandoning humanity, and totally neglecting Silk Spectre (thus letting her fall into the arms of Nite Owl, who is kind of the Eric Stoltz of the Watchmen universe). Also, he may have given his girlfriends cancer.
05. Jim, Edward Scissorhands
Presumably tired of playing the nerdy kid in eighties John Hughes movies, Anthony Michael Hall put his growth spurt to good use and kicked off the nineties by playing Kim’s (Winona Ryder) rich, homicidal boyfriend in Tim Burton’s masterpiece. Paranoid and intense, Jim is the perfect foil for Edward (Johnny Depp) and his symbolically gifted but dangerous hands — when Edward accidentally cuts Kim, Jim is there to hurl accusations and go ballistic. Indeed, Jim is so unpleasant, so despicable a character that when he’s finally stabbed in the abdomen and falls to his death from a window, nobody even flinches — even though this is ostensibly a sweet-natured, family-friendly movie.
04. Jason Dean, Heathers
Here’s a good one — J.D. (Christian Slater) is both evil movie boyfriend AND James Dean–esque new rebel in town. In truth, he initially seems to be a gift from heaven for poor Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), who has had it with the cliquishness of her posh high-school friends. J.D.’s playful cruelty (feeding his and Veronica’s victims drain cleaner, say) seems like a breath of fresh air at first, until Veronica (and the audience) realize that this guy might actually be not so much a misunderstood bad boy and more a — how do you say — demon from hell.
03. Early Grayce, Kalifornia
The boyishly deranged, bearded companion to Adele Corners (Juliette Lewis, who often found herself in movies like this), Early Grayce (Brad Pitt) is that uniquely American phenomenon: the charismatic serial-killer boyfriend. Such types aren’t just murderers, they’re forces of nature who reveal important symbolic truths to the other, ostensibly more normal characters. In this road movie, Early’s counterpart is psych student and journalist Brian Kessler (David Duchovny), who learns that he needs to get his hands dirty if he is to understand the psyche of a sociopath. It wasn’t much of a hit when first released, but this cult item provided an early (heh) sign of Pitt’s appeal; a year later, he’d become a bona fide superstar with roles in Interview With a Vampire and Legends of the Fall.
02. Chris Wilton, Match Point
Unlike most of the other boyfriends on this list, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is actually the protagonist of Woody Allen’s caustic late-period classic. But that doesn’t stop the ambitious, coldhearted tennis pro from being a homicidal jerk — first cheating on his fiancée (Emily Mortimer) with voluptuous American actress Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), then murdering Nola (and her neighbor) when she refuses to get an abortion. And here’s another thing that distinguishes Chris from most of the other evil boyfriends on this list: The bastard totally gets away with it.
01. Frank Booth, Blue Velvet
“Why are there people like Frank?” asks Kyle MacLachlan’s Jeffrey Beaumont in David Lynch’s masterpiece, and the question is as much a cri de coeur for humanity as it is an expression of fear. The oldies-loving, Amyl-nitrite-breathing Frank (Dennis Hopper), the childlike, sadomasochistic criminal at the heart of this noir fairy tale, is an existential fact — pure, distilled evil. True, he’s more a kidnapper than a lover — he’s holding the family of Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) hostage — but in the sinister, constantly shifting world that Lynch creates, Frank is the ultimate bad boyfriend, the guy who corrodes your soul even after he’s gone. And he’s also wickedly charismatic — how else could he have compelled generations of hipsters to abandon Heineken in favor of Pabst Blue Ribbon?
I think it’s a good list overall, I think they got it right. Who would you have added or replaced from this list?
source: The Eleven Most Evil Boyfriends in Movie History [Vulture]
Popularity: unranked [?]
