I’ll agree with Reality Chuck’s “tough guy trifecta”:
Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G Robinson
And I’ll second the nomination for Charles Bronson.
I see 2 classic tough guys have yet to be mentioned:
Robert Mitchum and Jack Pallance
Wow. That’s my favorite Clint Eastwood movie (well, maybe tied with Million Dollar Baby). Wow.
Tom Beringer!
(Probably not a good idea to let struggling first-year teachers watch The Substitute.)
Robert Mitchum, by an entire magnitude or three.
Some of my faves:
Lawrence Tierney, long before he played Joe Cagot in Reservoir Dogs, played tough guys in B-noirs, always tough, but also always stupid - a realistic combination, all things considered.
On the other end of the spectrum, when Burt Lancaster died, he was eulogized as “the thinking man’s tough guy.” Personally, and making no claim to being a thinking man, I didn’t agree. Lancaster was an poser who bullied his writers and directors into loading his characters with more intellectual freight than his talent could carry. However, it’s amazing to see how anyone that big could move so gracefully.
Hans Christian Blech, with his with the carved-up yet still smirking face, personified for me how German actors could forgo the Shakespearean training vital to their British counterparts and simply act naturally, as Brechtian rascals. American tough-guy actors could play against American archetype and become anti-heroes. Germans could play against their’s and be anti-supermen.
And for my top favorite, Jean Gabin. American tough guys still had the advantage of existing in a culture that valued rugged individualism. European tough guys had to buck centuries of social convention that made sure people born as nobodies would die as nobodies. As a Frenchman, Gabin could casually carry Existentialism under his arm as he portrayed the tough guy’s quest for virtue in an essentially meaningless and hostile world better than any American ever did. Plus, when Gabin held a lit cigarette in his mouth, unlike Robert Mitchum, he didn’t have to squint.
Have you seen the Crimson Pirate? There was a perfect Lancaster role: not at all intellectual, but based almost completely upon his physicality and charisma (and don’t get me wrong - I apreciate physicality and charisma at least as much as I respect “acting”). In fact, Pirate was a movie 50 years ahead of its time - the template for the modern Big Dumb Summer Action Movie, with cartoonish violence, great stunts, a massive special effects budget and really *huge * explosions.
Hollywood needs a yound Burt Lancaster today. If it had one, maybe they could stop casting Nicholas Cage in action movies.
Burt Lancaster ,even dead he d still easily beat up all of the present days whippersnappers.
Christopher Walken. When he’s tough, he’s tough like concrete.
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas
Can’t believe that Al Pacino and Robert de Niro aint got a mention
Sweet Jesus on a bicycle! If the world has forgotten about Steve McQueen, then I’ll have nothing to do with it.
EJsGirl 's list makes up for the rest of humanity, but, come ON.
I feel faint.
Toshiro Mifune - come on, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Shogun, etc
I came in here to mention Steve McQueen.
Christ, haven’t you guys seen The Killers, Point Blank, or Hell In The Pacific? Lee Marvin is the Tough Guy’s Tough Guy; the type of guy that Clint Eastwood, Michael Masden, and Adam Baldwin grew up emulating. Mitchum, Bogart, and Cagney had style and charm, but they were unalloyed aluminum to Marvin’s high tensile steel. McQueen was crafty, cat-like, but not tough like Marvin.
Runners up are Jack Palance and the previously mentioned Lawrence Tierney.
Modern tough guys: Danny Trejo is pretty tough, as is Michael Biehn, Harvey Keitel, and Jean Reno. DeNiro can do tough (Heat, Ronin) but he’s not inately tough–even in those films he has a weakness.
Bruce Willis, Jason Stratham, Vin Diesel? Seriously? These guys may look tough next to a cappuccino-drinking swisher, but Marvin would knock them aside effortlessly on his way to wrestle a hippopotamus.
Joe Pesci isn’t tough, he’s psychotic. Double for Christopher Walken. You wouldn’t want these guys at your back; they’re likely to cut loose and shoot everything that moves.
Stranger
Me too. But seeing it’s been done I’m going to second Lee Marvin.
I’m not sure if he makes the cut, but I’m going to choose Clive Owen.
He’s not as tough as world weary perhaps, but you don’t become grizzled without splitting at least a few heads in your past.
See:
Sin City - Dwight
Inside Man - Dalton Russell
Children of Men - Theo Faron
And I’ll cast another vote for Eastwood. The first twenty minutes of A Fistful of Dollars is about one of the hardest scenes you’ll find in any movie.
Honorable mention: Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his role as Brendan in Brick. If he had a few more roles like this one, he’d make the list. Any “tough guy” character can throw a punch, but Levitt’s Brendan will take them until he’s coughing up blood and won’t even make a make a complaint of it. Nothing gets to him, except for the death of his girl. That’s tough.
You know, I thought about that role specifically. He’s not a Tough Guy in the Lee Marvin mold, but you wouldn’t want to cross him; like the Energizer Bunny, he’d just outlast you.
Stranger
Brion James - IMDb This guy.