2025 was a pretty rich year for quality films, although this time around my draft document for potentially memorable movie characters looked a tad smaller than normal. These ten plus the honourable mentions represent almost the entire shortlist, which means I jotted down a potential candidate at a rate just under once every two 2025 films I saw. I suppose this year featured a bunch of direct sequels with largely unchanged ensembles (MI: The Final Reckoning, Wicked: For Good, The Accountant 2), films where a memorable cast wasn’t really the point (The Naked Gun, Wolf Man, F1), and films where no one character stood out because everyone was so well-realised (Sinners, Fantastic 4: First Steps, the How to Train Your Dragon remake).
Also, unusually for a character list, roughly half the entries are either hiding some major secret, are absent from their films’ trailers, or both, which necessitates some mild spoiler talk to even discuss why they’re so memorable. The plot gloves aren’t completely off, but veteran moviegoers may pick up on a twist or two by implication, so be warned.
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VR BEST OF 2025 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome. MILD SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW.
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10. Akasa – Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle
As shounen anime arc villains go, Demon Slayer’s Akasa is one of the more memorable ones I’ve seen: even before getting into the significant amount of screen time his chequered backstory receives inside the confines of Demon Slayer‘s long-in-development Infinity Castle movie, his design is just really cool. Within a sea of seemingly insurmountable foes rocking gimmicky weapons and hidden power sets, this dude just beats people with his bare hands; that’s usually the realm of heroic characters. Then there’s the fact that virtually every viewer wanted to see Akasa’s demise after his final-act rudeness at the end of the Mugen Train movie – which, let’s not forget, was at one point the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Did the visually stunning sympathy play work? That’s up to the viewer, but either way the kid makes an impression.
9. Mickey 18 – Mickey 17
This guy does feature in a Mickey 17 trailer, although not the one I saw initially; regardless, the appearance of the 18th edition of corporate clone-fodder Mickey is one of that chaotic plot’s many inciting incidents, and turns the amber light in front of Robert Pattinson’s most outlandish performance tendencies fully green. As the movie gets more complex and unravels a bit as a result, Pattinson remains an unhinged joy to watch, playing a nervous wreck and a daredevil against and alongside himself to riotous results. An unpredictable plot isn’t always the best move when your world-building is thin on the ground, but an unpredictable character in the hands of either Pattinson or writer-director Bong Joon Ho has yet to be anything other than a magnificent spectacle.
8. Matt the Waiter – Drop
Within the always-competitive pocket of comedic side characters elevated above their non-comedic surroundings, Matt the Waiter from underrated thriller Drop takes a clear lead for me in 2025. Absent from basically every trailer – almost like he was some twist villain – comedian Jeffery Self steals the show with his increasingly confused portrayal of a hospitality worker who is absolutely, positively determined to appear professional and avoid a bad performance review, even as the restaurant that pays him turns into the scene of multiple violent crimes. Flamboyant and charming in the face of it all, he adds much-needed levity to the knife-edge anxiety of the movie’s prime machinations.
7. Haydée – The Count of Monte Cristo
Australia was among the very last countries to see the modern French adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo in cinemas, so for us it was a 2025 film – and what a film it is. But while I would like nothing more than to go on and on about the thrilling production design and sheer earthiness of the film – brought to life once again by the team who nailed that Three Musketeers duology last year – fans of the original work also get plenty of altered material to ponder. One of these is the Count’s partner in vengeance, Haydée, whose age and agency are now much more relevant to the plot. Unlike her appearance in Mickey 17, Anamaria Vartolomei does not see her character summarily forgotten by the narrative here, and she feels like anything but an afterthought.
6. Rumi – K-Pop Demon Hunters
Any movie featuring a crew crossover with Spider-Verse talent is going to be spoilt for choice when it comes to scene-stealing characters, and K-Pop Demon Hunters makes that extra true by casting just about every once-famous Korean and Korean-American actor alive. But it is still a rapidly-paced script, and it needs a strong protagonist to hold things together; Rumi is exactly that. Enlivened by both Arden Cho in the spoken scenes and accomplished K-Pop producer EJAE in the singing booth, Rumi is also just plain cool to watch during every action beat – and that’s even before her similarities to a certain Devil May Cry protagonist begin to emerge. She seemingly starts the film as a group leader in title only, but soon proves her worth as her mettle is tested on multiple fronts; she’s the main reason the story works.
5. Bob – Thunderbolts*
Florence Pugh’s Yelena may carry the story’s emotional through-line, but Lewis Pullman’s Bob is the memorable mechanism by which Thunderbolts* is able to take its surprisingly morose initial tone to even darker depths – and then bring it right out again with renewed, realism-tinged hope. A near-complete no-show in every pre-release trailer, Bob is really three characters (and effective plot devices) for the price of one: a dopey loser with a heart of gold who fits in alarmingly easily with our reluctant ensemble team; a beyond-super-powered potential ally and political pawn backed by dubious emotional stability; and a horrifying, all-consuming entity that cannot be influenced or stopped. If that sentence sounds insane to you, well, you slept on a surprisingly good movie.
4. Lockjaw – One Battle After Another
You rarely see characters wield the kind of terrifying potential power and influence that Colonel Steven Lockjaw commands in One Battle After Another while also drawing so many incredulous laughs. Paul Thomas Anderson’s filter-light script, Michael Bauman’s unblinking, cringe-resistant cinematography, and Sean Penn’s ridiculously committed performance all combine to leave a bizarre creation in their wake: an entitled scumbag who walks like he’s in a Monty Python sketch and scowls like he’s never understood a joke in his life – which of course helps make him the butt of several. Lockjaw somehow owns shot after shot despite virtually every single character around him displaying more competence; Penn is just that good. And all this in a movie where Benicio Del Toro gets to play up his trademark casual magnetism – wild.
3. Michelle Fuller – Bugonia
Bugonia is a weird, weird movie. This list is never complete without a quality villain or three, and the ones that make it tend to be accompanied by some kind of “fun to watch” tag. Michelle Fuller is indeed an absolute joy to watch, but what makes her so much more compelling is the central question that holds up most of the film’s runtime: Is she even a villain? Her battle of wits – and occasionally fists – with Jesse Plemons’ visibly insane yet oddly charismatic co-protagonist Teddy Gatz (who could have easily made this list himself) constantly makes the viewer reconsider that question. But it’s that brilliant corporate circle-talking mini-monologue about overtime from a dead-eyed, curled-lipped Emma Stone that will probably stick with me the longest.
2. Mr Terrific – Superman
Outshining a cast of colourful characters in a James Gunn movie might be a challenge, but outshining a pretty remarkable new take on Superman himself – not to mention a memorably villainous Lex Luthor and Nathan Fillion at his showiest since the Firefly days – is something else entirely. Edi Gathegi, however manages to do just that as a character with one of the most dated Superhero names in ages. It’s not like we haven’t seen the “genius without powers but plenty of cool tech” hero archetype on screen before – in fact sometimes it feels like we’ve seen it a thousand times – but Gathegi’s brand of ever-so-slightly-self-conscious outward cool puts a relentlessly entertaining new spin on things, and when he starts incredulously dressing down the unhinged maniacs around him in the final act, fireworks ensue. Also, that jacket really is sick.
1. Fr Jud – Wake Up Dead Man
Wake Up Dead Man thankfully returns the Knives Out series to the winning cast structure of the breakout first film, placing Daniel Craig’s ever-magnetic Benoit Blanc (of this site’s 2019 Movie Character of the Year fame) firmly back into the archetype where he can do his best work – as a reactive, observant, witty supporting character. That does, however, leave a gaping hole in the protagonist department, and the narrative fills it with an extreme Hollywood rarity: an ordained Catholic priest who isn’t corrupt, old, systematically persecuted, or part of a period piece. Father Jud may have a defining flaw or two, but ultimately he is a committed idealist in over his head, and successful Rian Johnson films tend to hinge on those. So it’s a good thing Josh O’Connor’s alternately oblivious, defiant, and endearingly earnest performance hits so hard in all the right moments and then some. A typical Knives Out ensemble piece this may be, but O’Connor absolutely, positively carries the movie.
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Honourable Mentions
–Sophie – Materialists
An interesting situation results when a character you thought was there for a single-scene piece of satire becomes sympathetic through pure performance, then actually gets much meatier material out of left-field later in the piece and ends up outshining the (admittedly one-dimensional by design) protagonist. But that’s exactly what Zoë Winters does with the embattled Sophie.
–Clarissa – Black Bag
In a movie that was always going to live or die by its tiny cast, colourful characters go a long way. Clarissa, as the overcompensating new blood in the spy game, comes out as the memorable agent of chaos that shakes up multiple knife-edge sequences, even if she occasionally talks like how David Koepp thinks Gen Z sounds.
–Daniel Pine – Ballerina
Norman Reedus does a lot with awfully little in a sympathetic final-act supporting role that somehow leans into his strengths but plays ever-so-slightly against type. He’s no John Wick, but you wouldn’t mess with him.
–Justine – Weapons
Weapons is sold and structured like a kind of ensemble piece, but the comparative run-time of each major character’s respective chapter tells another story: Elementary school teacher Justine is the first and longest perspective we see, because hers ultimately matters the most to the story’s themes.
Vagrant Rant 