16 Badass Movie Soldiers
It’s hard not to like a good war movie. Action, intrigue, high body counts, lots of gunplay, a moral of some sort. They got it all. One of the most vital ingredients to making successful combat cinema is reserving at least one character to be a soldier that crushes. The guy who displays little to no fear, is mean as a snake and single-handedly wipes out a significant number of the enemy. These military mavens can take a beating and just as easily dish one out. Using the year 1979 as a starting point, here are sixteen badass movie soldiers from the last thirty years.
16
This Aliens-type horror flick pits a crack unit of British soldiers versus a family of bloodthirsty werewolves. Most of the dudes kick serious butt at one time or another, but Spoon is the toughest of the tough. Anyone who willingly chooses to box an eight-foot wolfman deserves a spot on this list.
15
Snipers in war films have a tendency to be cool as shit. Anyone who can drop a human target from 500 yards away should be both feared and respected. Jackson, played by Barry Pepper, is deadly with a WWII era rifle. If you find yourself in his sights, it’s goodnight Irene.
14
Denzel Washington nabbed his first Oscar playing the rebellious Private Trip. Not one to abide by rules, Trip eventually becomes a reliable and loyal member of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Watching him endure a brutal lashing from a bullwhip is painful.
13
Rasczak is your typical no guts, no glory combat leader. He walks the walk and talks the talk. Lop off one of his arms. Big deal. Stick a giant bug leg through his chest. He’ll keep on fighting. Johnny Rico may have been the star of the show, but Rasczak was the badass.
Whether battling in a post apocalyptic future, or the pop-culture obsessed modern day, Kyle Reese is a soldier to the death. If you need a guy to selflessly sacrifice himself for the betterment of mankind, he’s the pick. How many guys can hold off a Terminator by themselves for an entire movie?
11
Leo DiCaprio kills it in this underrated actioner. Archer is deadened by the horrors he has seen and committed throughout his violent life. On the surface he’s a selfish prick, but deep down he knows the difference between right and wrong. The perfect anti-hero, Archer is relentless and cold-blooded when necessary.
10
Bruce Willis put aside his normal smartass tough guy persona to play the quiet cool Special-Ops commander, Lt. A.K. Waters. Loyal to the uniform, Waters rejects his orders to save innocent refugees from a ruthless dictator. He realizes the consequences of his actions, but does them anyway, like a true badass.
9
Jessep may never brandish his weapon or see the field of battle in A Few Good Men, but he is still one bad muthafu**er. A hardened by the books Marine Colonel, he bleeds for the Corps and lives by the code. This is one of Jack Nicholson’s scariest and best performances.
8
Animal Mother is one badass name for a soldier. Giving him an M-60 machine gun to shred VC with is really badass. Daniel Baldwin plays him as a dude who really gets off on war. If anyone was “born to kill” it would be the Animal Mother.
Hoot gets it. War is an effing nightmare, but you do whatever it takes to survive. It takes a special breed to sign up for a trip to hell. Hoot doesn’t care what outsiders think about what he does. He’s too busy sneaking up on “skinnies” and putting a bullet in their skull.
6
“Stay frosty.” Hicks does that very thing and manages to be the only Colonial Marine to make it off LV-426 alive. Scarred, but alive. Once he pulled out that pump shotgun and stuck it down the throat of an acid-dripping alien, he entered the Badass Soldier Hall of Fame.
5
Gotta have an Ah-nold flick on the list. Dutch goes toe-to-toe with a creature built to hunt and kill every living species in the cosmos. Forgetting the lame one-liners like “stick around,” Dutch delivers the goods while taking a serious amount of punishment.
4
The US Army doesn’t peg just anyone to assassinate one of their own. Willard has the skills and ruthlessness to carry out the mission. He stares down a tiger, shoots a young woman dead and covers himself in mud on his way to eliminating the out of control Colonel Kurtz.
3
Best. Gunnery Sergeant. Ever. Hartman was so damn good at his job he turned a doughy simpleton into a homicidal madman. He’s a badass who manufactures other badasses. Now that’s badass! Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t bulletproof.
Barnes is without argument one of the most evil incarnations ever to wear a uniform. He lives and breathes war, but multiple tours in the jungle has warped his sense of reality. In his eyes, everyone is the enemy. Crossing him is not advisable. Sick and twisted, Barnes is still one tough hombre.
1
He eats shit that would make a billy goat puke. He whacks guys with guns, knives, bows and his bare hands. He gets the assignments nobody else has the guts to attempt. He’s a borderline psychopath. Meet John Rambo — the King of Badass Movie Soldiers.
[...] War, huh, what is it good for? Good for being a bad ass, apparently. [...]
[...] 16 badass movie soldiers (Gunaxin) [...]
It's lt. Rasczak not sgt!
Animal Mother is Adam Baldwin (no relation to the baldwin brothers), aka Jayne from Firefly.
[...] 16 Badass Movie Soldiers [...]
You left out my favorite…Vasquez in ALIENS. I'd like her to have my back anytime.
What he said.
You list the top 16 Bad Ass soldiers and leave out Todd 3465?
wtf rambo as #1? what about sergeant major Basil Plumley from “we were soldiers”?!?! Not only is he a real person who survived all 4 combat drops in WWII but also fought in Korea AND Vietnam. In the movie he was the oldest geezer on the battlefield killing the enemy with 1 handed shots from a 1911 pistol instead of an M-16, explaining “if the time comes i need {an m-16}, there'll be plenty of em lyin on the ground.” The ultimate badass, and even more so for being a real person who actually was as badass as his on-screen portrayal.
wtf rambo as #1? what about sergeant major Basil Plumley from “we were soldiers”?!?! Not only is he a real person who survived all 4 combat drops in WWII but also fought in Korea AND Vietnam. In the movie he was the oldest geezer on the battlefield killing the enemy with 1 handed shots from a 1911 pistol instead of an M-16, explaining “if the time comes i need {an m-16}, there'll be plenty of em lyin on the ground.” The ultimate badass, and even more so for being a real person who actually was as badass as his on-screen portrayal.
You are so right.
Where is Chuck Norris from Missing in Action 2?
He should at least be on par with Rambo…. even though he would kick is ballzzz
[...] 16 Badass Movie Soldiers – Gunaxin [...]
[...] The most badass movie soldiers <Gunaxin> [...]
Staff Sargent Willam James from Hurt Locker… Deactivating over 870 IEDs in Afganistan and Iraq without a robot and shooting the shit out of terrorists is pretty bad ass.
[...] 9:00AM – By Adam Tod BrownRob Zombie CSI: Miami Trailer (FoundryMusic)16 Badass Movie Soldiers (Gunaxin)Campus Throne’s Dirty Dozen Are Worth Taking a Look At (CampusThrone)How to Tell When Your [...]
Staff Sargent Willam James from Hurt Locker… Deactivating over 870 IEDs in Afganistan and Iraq without a robot and shooting the shit out of terrorists is pretty bad ass.
wtf this list sucks because you didnt put Col ? from apocalypse now. Robert Duvalls character – “If I say it's safe to surf this beach captain, it's safe to surf this beach. Hell I'm not afraid to surf this beach. Charlie don't surf!” “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!! Smells like – victory” “get that savage dink bitch” – much cooler than Sheens character. Brando's fat ass , by the way ruined that movie.
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lol every1's pissed lol…i think the list was kinda ok they're all some good actors
MigelAndre
…………..
http://tinyurl.com/y9ce8r6
Kurt Russell from the aptly named movie…Soldier. Any and all of the Universal Soldiers. Sgt. Rock (John fucking Wayne!) in “The Sands of Iwo Jima” should have been on there, every movie badass since then has tried to play his part. Even when he reprised the role as a Colonel in “The Green Berets” it was the same character.
This is one of those purely subjective lists that will never be accepted by the masses as complete. ;>
[...] 16 kick ass movie soldiers [Gunaxin] [...]
No list is every going to please everyone. A list like this could certainly use George C. Scott's Patton as well as Audie Murphy's Audie Murphy.
No list is every going to please everyone. A list like this could certainly use George C. Scott's Patton as well as Audie Murphy's Audie Murphy.
ditto
So true, although none of these people should be on the same list as Audie Murphy. When he's standing on the burning tank, calling in artillery strikes on top of himself – when the artillery guy asks “how close to you are they?” he replies “here I'll let you talk to one of them” that's a real 'Animal mother' and the only one who kicked ass for real.
Jesse Ventura should be on the list instead of Arnold from Predator.
Jesse's first scene in the movie is spitting on Apollo's foot, then him offering chew to the others, and when they turn him down he says “Nothing but a bunch of slack jawed ***** around here, this stuff will make you a god damn sexual tyrannosaur, just like me.” Oh yeah, he walks around with a minigun.
[...] Badass Movie Soldiers – Gunaxin Who has the biggest thug issues? – Loser with Socks 11 Places Women Want To Be Touched [...]
What happened to William Wallace from Braveheart…, Come on give him some props….
[...] 16 Badass Movie Soldiers [Gunaxin] [...]
Yes. Please change this. It is a good list other than this mistake. Adam Baldwin is no relation to the pussy Baldwins!
Yes. Please change this. It is a good list other than this mistake. Adam Baldwin is no relation to the pussy Baldwins!