Sometimes, a bonkers movie will be released with the most unhinged protagonist whose unpredictable and often violent shenanigans will entertain and shock viewers. The performances in such movies require pᴀssionate commitment from actors, but also a willingness to go over the top with sincerity to convince viewers their unhinged behavior makes sense. One of the greatest actors, Nicolas Cage, lends himself to this kind of work naturally due to his grandiose movie star persona and his lack of apprehension regarding the kinds of projects he takes on. It’s no surprise that Cage has played fully unhinged characters in many movies.

Some of the best unhinged characters have indeed been portrayed by great character actors and method actors, who have played some of the scariest movie characters who are not villains. Often, these are the protagonists of hyper-violent horror movies whose unhinged activities form the crux of such films. However, it’s not necessary that the entertainingly unhinged characterization takes the form of violence and villainy. Some of the greatest comedy movie characters who are too unrealistic are also often rather unhinged. The actor most commonly ᴀssociated with roles of this nature is obviously comedy legend Jim Carrey.

10

Pearl (2022)

Mia Goth As Pearl

Mia Goth delivered one of the best A24 movie performances of all time in Ti West’s prequel to the slasher movie X, which features the actress’ breakout role. Pearl shows psychopathic tendencies right from the beginning of the film, where she is revealed to be killing animals to feed her pet alligator. She also displays a lack of empathy in the way she abuses her paralyzed father at times. However, it’s unfair to just call her a psychopath and explain away all her erratic behavior.

Pearl is an exploration of the social dynamics in America during the early 1900s, with biting commentary on the ruthlessness of showbiz. It also takes an unflinching look at the consequences of severe generational trauma and Sєxual repression. The тιтular character’s unhinged activities are an extreme form of expression for her frustration with her life. Moreover, while the movie is gory and horrifying at times, there’s a dark and campy sense of humor in Mia Goth’s performance and the vibrant color palette of the film.

9

Rope (1948)

John Dall As Brandon

Hitchcock’s most famous film, Psycho, one of the best classic black-and-white horror movies that still hold up today, features a decidedly unhinged villain. However, he isn’t exactly the protagonist, and the explanation provided at the end of Psycho complicates the narrative via psychoanalysis that doesn’t necessarily hold up by today’s standards. However, his first technicolor film, Rope, also features a great unhinged protagonist, whose story explores a theme that will forever be relevant. It also broke barriers in filmmaking with its unprecedentedly long takes.

Arrogant about his superiority, Brandon, led by his ego, murders his former prep school classmate with another student who went to the same school. He has only one motive – to prove his intellectual superiority by committing a perfect murder that he won’t be caught for. His calm and composed style of diction is an intentional creative choice to challenge the narrative that psychopathy only takes the form of obvious clues in someone’s appearance. Brandon’s use of philosophy to justify his actions serves as a warning against prioritizing personal superiority over empathy.

8

Saw X (2023)

Tobin Bell As Jigsaw

One of the most iconic modern horror movie villains of all time, Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw has been unhinged since his introduction in Saw. However, he barely had a little over 6 minutes of screen time in that film, and until Saw X, Jigsaw never got even 20 minutes of screen time in any of the 9 films preceding it. So, while his villainous antics have been explored before, Saw X, which is a good movie despite the low expectations we had for it when it came out, really helps flesh out Jigsaw’s character.

John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, believes in redemption. He values honesty in people, and has taken it upon himself to punish anyone who he deems to be morally wrong. However, he believes that the extremely violent punishments he doles out help his victims build character and improve themselves as people. A misguided maniac with an incredible knack for engineering, Jigsaw concocts the most twisted traps to teach people lessons through torture. His self-righteousness makes him an unhinged villain, but he’d be a good reformer if he ever realized he always takes things too far.

7

Fresh (2022)

Sebastian Stan As Steve/Brendan

Unhinged characters are best when the truth about their unhinged behavior hits viewers out of nowhere. Sebastian Stan’s Steve seems like a reasonably nice person during the first act of Fresh, where he dates the other of the dual protagonists, Noa, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones. Their romance doesn’t hint at any of the bonkers horror movie shenanigans that are to follow in the rest of Fresh.

Turns out, Steve is a meat vendor selling to rich aristocrats with a specific taste for human meat. Polished and suave cannibals have become a part of cinema ever since Sir Anthony Hopkins reshaped the horror genre’s expectations as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Steve’s business-minded approach to his cannibalism and his romantic demeanor make him truly unhinged. Things get further dark and bonkers when one realizes his current wife was possibly once a victim of his.

6

Split (2016)

James McAvoy As Kevin

James McAvoy is perhaps most famous for playing Professor Charles Xavier, a role he first played in X-Men: First Class, which features a legendary deleted scene we wish had been left in the movie. However, one of, if not the best McAvoy performances is in the second part of M. Night Shyamalan’s Eastrail 177 trilogy. McAvoy plays the protagonist Kevin, who has 23 different known personalities, and a secret 24th that is revealed in the course of the film.

McAvoy gives reason to Kevin’s unhinged existence as he seamlessly transitions from one personality to the other. Kevin shockingly abducts three women, but then treats them kindly, until another personality presents itself, which is the equivalent of a inine-year-old boy, who the women try to trick. When Kevin realizes what is going on, his twenty-fourth personality, that of The Beast, manifests, and this being seems to be supernaturally powered despite having Kevin’s body. Kevin is an unhinged protagonist with no grip on reality who’s become vengeful against anyone who hasn’t suffered.

5

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Day-Lewis As Daniel

While Paul Thomas Anderson’s directorial debut feature Hard Eight is a move that doesn’t get enough love, one of his best movies, There Will Be Blood, is rather well-known. A gritty exploration of the American Dream, the film, which won two of its eight Academy Award nominations, features a truly unhinged protagonist. Played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who won his second Best Actor Oscar for the performance, Daniel Plainview is a ruthless capitalist who will stop at nothing to establish an empire.

Plainview cheats people off of their property, berates his adopted son, beats up a local preacher, fails to make any meaningful human connections, and even commits murder for personal gain. He drinks all the time to deal with the remorse he doesn’t want to feel because he believes he’s rightful in chasing his dreams at any cost. The final scene of There Will Be Blood, where he sits calmly after bludgeoning a man to death with a bowling ball, is one of the most haunting images in cinematic history. Plainview’s story is a cautionary tale against succumbing to capitalist greed.

4

Nightcrawler (2014)

Jake Gyllenhaal As Lou Bloom

Nightcrawler is a drama film that verges on becoming a horror movie because of the haunting performance he delivers as a man devoid of empathy. Lou Bloom comes undone the moment he realizes he has a knack for his job, and discovers an easy way to keep climbing the promotion ladder. He’s driven by his greed to commit unspeakable acts as he loses his grip on reality.

Lou is the definition of unhinged in every sense of the word – he causes fatal accidents so he can report on them and provide exclusive footage that will earn him the approval of his workplace superiors. The scene where Gyllenhaal screams at the cupboard, slams its door and cracks the mirror, which reflects Lou’s fragmented mental state, is the perfect demonstration of how demented someone can become if they succumb to capitalistic instincts.

3

Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling As The Driver

Ryan Gosling’s role as the protagonist in The Fall Guy, a 2024 flop movie that could become a cult hit in future, wasn’t his first time playing a Hollywood stuntman. In Nicolas Winding Refn’s adaptation of James Sallis’ 2005 novel Drive, he plays an unnamed stunt driver who works as a getaway driver for criminals to make more money on the side. He has another job of working as a mechanic, in the garage owned by his manager.

Driver, as he’s called in the credits of the film, seems charismatic and calm, but under his quiet demeanor lies a psychopath who doesn’t know when to draw the line. While he doesn’t strike without instigation, his excessively violent revenge plot shows how dangerous he can become when he unravels. Violent instincts and cool-headedness coexist in this entirely unhinged character, to whom Gosling brings a contemplative sense of mystery.

2

American Psycho (2000)

Christian Bale As Patrick Bateman

One of the most unintentionally hilarious movie characters of all time, Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman is a parody of Wall Street brokers. He has a toxic obsession with materialistic pursuits and a self-satisfied manner of speaking. Bateman has convinced himself that he knows what’s good for the world and will talk at length about various political affairs. However, he’s deeply selfish and spends most of his time trying to exude an air of confidence and Sєxual prowess that doesn’t come naturally to him.

He has no genuine respect for women or for human lives, and underneath the polished persona he attempts to project lies a deeply untrusting and paranoid individual. His shallowness and egotistical belief in his superiority as a human being leads him to commit murder just because he can. He chases down and slaughters Sєx workers as a form of entertainment, and psychopathically shifts between lightheartedness and murderous rage. American Psycho tells the story of how his composed and suave facade slowly fades away, and Bateman gets more unhinged with every pᴀssing minute.

1

Fight Club (1999)

Brad Pitt & Edward Norton As Tyler Durden & The Narrator

David Fincher has made many great crime movies where the villains win in the end, and most of them feature unhinged protagonists. It’s difficult to say to what extent the protagonist of his most famous movie won, but he’s surely the most unhinged character in any Fincher movie. The narrator and his alter-ego, Tyler Durden from Fight Club, are both harbingers of chaos, and beloved in the film bro community for the wrong reasons.

Tyler is an anti-capitalist messiah, but his rebellious efforts are misguided as he uses mᴀssacre and murder as his means of fighting the system. He shows no restraint while trying to prove his point and has no regard for human life. Meanwhile, the narrator is completely unaware of his works, and revels in discovering what he believes is true liberty and emancipation through beating up other men and getting beaten up by them. The volatile duo fit the definition of unhinged protagonists as they cause mayhem, pun intended, in the lives of anyone who comes into contact with them.