A lot of other iconic ‘psychopathic’ characters have missed out on the list

A team of experts have listed and analysed 126 ‘psychopathic’ characters in films and have picked the most clinically accurate portrayal of one.

Psychopathy is a developmental disorder which can be defined as an extreme lack of empathy, behave in harmful ways or take part in risky behaviour, as per Psychopathyis.

Though violence can be a trait of psychopaths, there are some individuals who aren’t really violent that can still show signs of psychopathy.

So, in 2013, Belgian psychiatry professor Samuel Leistedt decided to embark on a journey over three years to determine which movie characters showed off psychopathic traits the most accurately.

With the help of 10 friends, he watched 400 films, released from 1915 to 2010, and came out with 126 psychopathic characters.

The infamous character of Patrick Bateman was analysed by the research team. (Lionsgate)

The research determined that several early portrayals of psychopaths in movies were not very accurate, with the likes of Tommy Udo in The Kiss of Death or Cody Jarrett in White Heat in the 1940s being off the mark, with the team saying that it played to people’s misunderstanding of ‘genre villains’ being psychopaths.

Gangsters or mad scientists in films of the time, though creepy and possessing questionable motives, did not accurately depict the same kind of traits that a real psychopath would.

The team wrote in their findings: “They were often caricatured as sadistic, unpredictable, sexually depraved, and emotionally unstable with a compulsion to engage in random violence, murders, and destruction, usually presenting with a series of bizarre mannerisms, such as giggling, laughing, or facial tics, often creating famous and unreal characters.”

Slasher villains were also deemed inaccurate (New Line Productions)

Even the likes of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason Voorhees Friday the 13th were far off the mark, as they noted that in slasher films, these characters are unrealistic, using sadism and intelligence to ‘predict the plan’ that their next victims will come up with.

“These are more iconic popular evil representations of fictional killers than of interesting psychopaths,” they wrote.

You may not believe this, but the likes of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman and Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter were considered inaccurate too.

Leistedt and his team said that psychopathy in cinema, largely ‘remains fictional’, though they found one portrayal that hit the nail on the head.

The famous cannibal known as Hannibal might not be psychopathic after all. (Orion Pictures)

Javier Bardem’s character Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men was an accurate representation of a psychopath, with the character treating murder with a chilling sense of normalcy, happily unloading the bullets in his pistol with no problems.

They wrote: “He seems to be effectively invulnerable and resistant to any form of emotion or humanity.”

A couple of honourable mentions have gone out to Peter Lorre’s performance of a child-killer in the 1931 German film M, with the team noting that it is an accurate representation of a child predator today.

Javier Bardem’s portrayal of Anton Chigurh has been determined as the best depiction of a psychopath in film (Paramount Pictures)

Michael Rooker’s portrayal of a serial killer in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, was also praised, as his poor personal relationships and inability to plan ahead made him an idiopathic psychopath, according to Leistedt.

You may have noticed the lack in female psychopaths mentioned, as the team only found 21 among the list of 126, with these characters being portrayed as ‘scheming manipulators’ who use sexuality as their main weapon.

Good examples of female psychopaths in film include the likes of Hedra Carlson in Single White Female and Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct, who capitalise on men’s sexual desires to get what they want.

However, characters like Annie Wilkes in Misery and Rachel Phelps in Major League are exceptions to this rule.