For most Hollywood films that center on battles between heroes and villains, the typical practice is to give top billing to the actor playing the former (meaning their name appears first in the credits and is placed in a more prominent spot in the film’s promotional material than the rest of the cast). This is because the hero typically has more screen-time than the villain, allowing the audience to root for them more easily. Even in films and franchiseswhere the villains are arguably just as iconic as their heroes(e.g. Darth Vader inStar Warsor the Wicked Witch of the West inThe Wizard of Oz), the antagonist’s actor still generally appears second or later in the credits.
Nevertheless, throughout Hollywood’s history, there have been a surprising number of instances where the villain’s actor received top billing over the hero. Whether it was due to the villain having more screentime, being played by a more famous actor, or to simply appease the actors themselves, these are 10 acclaimed films where the villain, not the hero, received top billing. (As a quick disclaimer, this list will not include films where the protagonist and villain are one and the same, such asA Clockwork Orange(Kubrick, 1971),The Godfather Part II(1974), orJoker(Phillips, 2019). In those kinds of films, the “villain” is still clearly the leading role, and, thus, doesn’t have any real competition for top billing.)
10’Training Day' (2001)
Training Day
This intense and gritty crime drama centers on rookie police officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) as he begins on-the-job training to join the LAPD’s narcotics unit under the tutelage of Detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington). However, Hoyt soon learns that Harris is corrupt, regularly abusing his authority and sometimes even colluding with local gangs and fellow corrupt cops for his own gain.
Both Washington and Hawke received immense critical praise for their performances, with the former even winning the Oscar for Best Actor and the latter being nominated for Best Supporting Actor. However, given that Hoyt is clearly the protagonist, and the audience shares his point of view for most of the movie, one might think that the categories in which each actor was nominated should have been reversed. Nevertheless, anyone who saw the film’s closing credits (in which Washington’s name appears first) and poster (in which Washington is far bigger and more prominently featured than Hawke) would have gotten the impression that director Antoine Fuqua clearly intendedTraining Dayas a vehicle for Washington more so than Hawke.
9’The Night of the Hunter' (1955)
The Night of the Hunter
Actor Charles Laughton’s sole directorial projectsaw Robert Mitchum give one of the scariest and most iconic villainous performances of the Classical Hollywood era. Mitchum plays monstrous “preacher” Harry Powell, a serial killer who targets widows in pursuit of their money. After marrying and murdering his latest victim (Shelley Winters), whose late husband left behind a stash of stolen cash, Powell begins interrogating her two young children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) for the location of the money, forcing them to go on the run.
Compared toTraining Day,it’s far easier to see why Mitchum got top billing forThe Night of the Hunter, despite playing the villain. Mitchum was one of the biggest names in Hollywood in the 1950s, and his intimidatingly domineering and charismatic performance easily stands out from the rest of the cast. More importantly, the film’s actual protagonists are both played by child actors, and there would have been less incentive from a marketing perspective to give child actors Chapin and Bruce top billing. There really was no contest on this one.
8’Wall Street' (1987)
Wall Street
Oliver Stone’s cynical portrayal of Wall Street amidst the backdrop of Reaganite America follows the same general narrative formula asTraining Day: an ambitious young man comes under the mentorship of someone later revealed to be corrupt and amoral, forcing him into a dangerous moral dilemma. This time, it follows stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), who achieves his dream of working with his hero, corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). However, Bud has a crisis of conscience when Gekko’s schemes place the job of Bud’s own father (Martin Sheen, Charlie’s father in real life) as a union leader in jeopardy.
Like Denzel Washington inTraining Day,Michael Douglas received top billing for this film andwon the Academy Award for Best Actor, despite having significantly less screen time than Charlie Sheen. Stone likely knew that Douglas' performance, not Sheen’s, would stick in most viewers' (and Academy voters') minds when they left the theater, particularly after hearing his chilling speech from the stock market floor — when he dryly declares that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good” — one of the most memorable lines in film history.
7’Red Dragon' (2002)
Red Dragon
This underrated prequel toThe Silence of the Lambs(1991) is the first entry on this list where the choice for top billing was unmistakably based solely on marketing. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) doesn’t even have close to the same amount of screen time as either FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton) or serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes).
In fact, he only appears in a few brief scenes where he converses with Graham. But the purpose of placing Hopkins' name first in the credits is clear as day: to capitalize on the success of its predecessor, which swept all the major Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hopkins. (In his first portrayal of the cannibalistic psychiatrist, Hopkins already had ratherlimited screen-time for a Best Actor winner, only about 24 minutes' worth in total.)
Just like inSilence,Lecter is neither the protagonist nor the antagonist, but is instead a reluctant source of psychiatric and forensic consultation for an FBI agent’s pursuit of a different serial killer. However, in the case ofSilence of the Lambs, Hopkins was nevertheless relegated to second billing behind fellow Oscar winner Jodie Foster, a privilege that Edward Norton was not afforded forRed Dragon. While the film overall pales in comparison to its predecessor, it is nevertheless a solid thriller in its own right, particularly due to the performances of Hopkins and Fiennes, as well as Emily Watson as Dolarhyde’s blind love interest.
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6’The Terminator' (1984)
The Terminator
This one is a no-brainer. Even before audiences saw the opening credits, it was clear from the movie’s title and its famous poster, featuring only a menacing Arnold Schwarzenegger sporting sunglasses and a trench coat while brandishing a double-barreled pistol, that the former bodybuilder would be getting top billing over stars Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn.
Schwarzenegger simultaneously terrified and awed viewers as the eponymous cold and nearly unstoppable cyborg who is sent back in time to kill Sarah Conners (Hamilton) before she can give birth to her son, who will in turn grow up to lead humanity in its revolution against the cyborgs. Both Sarah and Kyle Reese (Biehn), a man sent back in time by humans to protect her, seem completely weak and desperate in comparison to Schwarzenegger’s naturally imposing presence. Of course, audiences wouldn’t need to be afraid of Schwarzenegger for long, as he would be back as Sarah and her son’s second protector in director James Camerson’s arguably superior 1991 sequel,Terminator 2: Judgment Day— in which he again received top billing.
5’The Shining' (1980)
The Shining
It’s not that surprising that Jack Nicholson received top billing for playing Jack Torrance, one of the most famous horror movie villains of all time. After all, Nicholson was one of the biggest names in Hollywood in 1980 due to his roles in films likeEasy Rider(1969),Chinatown(1974), andOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest(1975), winning an Oscar for the latter. Plus, likeTheNight of the Hunter, The Shiningalso starred a child actor, Danny Lloyd, effectively ruling him out of contention for top billing.
But, unlikeNight of the Hunter,whose adult female lead doesn’t make it past the first act, Jack’s wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), has close to the same amount of screen-time as her husband. The fact that Duvall, an accomplished actress in her own right, was relegated to second billing in favor of the actor playing her abusive (and later homicidal) husband, despite arguably playing the film’s true hero, is disturbingly appropriate, givendirector Stanley Kubrick’s controversial treatment of her behind the scenes.
4’Dracula' (1931)
While Gary Oldman received top billing for playing the same character in Francis Ford Coppola’sBram Stoker’sDracula(1992), Bela Lugosi gets the spot on this list because his portrayal laid the groundwork not just for Oldman, but for just about every portrayal of Dracula on the big screen in the years since. His distinctive outfit, Transylvanian accent, and a presence that is simultaneously menacing and alluring make Lugosi easily the best and most memorable aspect of an otherwise awkwardly paced and technically unimpressive film.
Interestingly, despite receiving top billing in the poster and credits for this film, Lugosi was only paid $500 per week for the role, while co-star David Manners, who played protagonist John Harker, received $2,000. As infuriating as this sounds,according to IMDb, there was actually a fairly simple reason for this discrepancy: “Manners was under contract to Warner Bros./First National. Studios ‘loaned out’ their contract players to each other at rates considerably higher than the performers' weekly salaries, and kept the profit.” Nevertheless, given his immeasurable legacy in horror cinema, it’s safe to say that Lugosi got the last laugh.
3’Psycho' (1960)
Givingtop billing to Anthony Perkins, a relatively unknown actor at the time, over established box-office star Janet Leigh, even though he doesn’t even appear on-screen until nearly half an hour into the film, is the kind of decision that only a subversive genius like Alfred Hitchcock could make. Going into the theater, most audiences were expecting Marion Crane (Leigh) to be the protagonist for the film’s entire runtime. But seeing the name “Anthony Perkins” appear first in the credits was their first hint that this film was not going to meet their expectations.
Nevertheless, it was vague enough to not give away the biggest surprise of the whole film - the infamous shower scene. From that scene on, it becomes clear why Perkins was given top billing, as his character, Norman Bates, ends up becoming the central focus of the film as the rest of the cast investigate Marion’s disappearance.
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Out of all the villains on this list, Bates is arguably the only one for whom the audience is made to feel some degree of sympathy, due to his strange and disturbing relationship with his mother that is gradually revealed over the course ofPsycho.It was that slight trace of humanity that made Perkins' performance so legendary, and why the American Film Institute saw fit to name Norman Batesthe second-most iconic villain in cinematic history. Giving him top billing was certainly unexpected, but ultimately the right choice.
2’Apocalypse Now' (1979)
Apocalypse Now
Like son, like father. Eight years before Charlie Sheen was relegated to second billing in favor of Michael Douglas inWall Street, his father, Martin, was given the very same treatment in Francis Ford Coppola’s grim epic about the Vietnam War. Instead, Marlon Brando got top billing for portraying the mad and rogue American Colonel Kurtz, whom Sheen’s character, Willard, is assigned with finding and killing.
This decision seems particularly egregious given that Brando doesn’t even appear untilthe final fifteen minutes of the nearly 150-minute film, when Willard finally meets Kurtz in the flesh. As was often the case, name recognition was the most likely reason for Brando getting top billing, given that he was already a household name due to films likeA Streetcar Named Desire(1951),On the Waterfront(1954), and, of course,The Godfather(1972), his first collaboration with Coppola. In fact, Sheen wasn’t given second billing, either — that went to Robert Duvall, who also has minimal screen-time, leaving Sheen with third billing.
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However, there is an interesting caveat to this story. According tothe American Film Institute, the original release of the movie on 70-millimeter film did not include any opening or closing credits. Instead, Coppola asked that printed programs be handed out to viewers as they entered the theater, which included the cast list. However, when Coppola re-released the film in 35mm, the new version included closing credits over a closing shot of Kurtz’s compound exploding into flames. While both the printed programs and the closing credit sequence for the 35mm version listed Brando at the top of the cast credits, any audience members who either didn’t see the 35mm. version or didn’t have a program wouldn’t have had any way of knowing which actor received top billing.
1’Batman' (1989)
Tim Burton’s blockbuster about the Caped Crusader earns the top spot because it is easily the most counter-intuitive instance of the villain getting top billing on this list. Given the film’s title, one would reasonably have expected the actor who plays, well, Batman to receive top billing. Instead, that luxury was given, once again, to Jack Nicholson, who portrays The Dark Knight’s equally iconic foe, the Joker. This outcome was neither an artistic choice nor a marketing tactic, but simply a concession to Nicholson himself in exchange for him accepting the part.
According toFar Out, top billing wasn’t Nicholson’s only request - he also demanded $6 million and a cut of the film’s box office and merchandise revenue. The fact that Nicholson’s demands were met leadsFar Outto suggest that Nicholson’sBatmancontract might have been “the best contract ever signed by an actor.”
In fact, it was probably just as well that Nicholson be given top billing for a film that is ostensibly about Batman (played by Michael Keaton). AsRotten Tomatoes' critical consensusfor the film complains, “Jack Nicholson’s Joker too often overshadows the title character.” Indeed, while this statement undersells Keaton’s unexpectedly convincing and compelling portrayal of both Batman and Bruce Wayne, Burton certainly focuses quite heavily on the Joker’s origin story and his bizarre plans for Gotham. But, then again, it’s hard to blame him, considering Nicholson’s demands. In any event, Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker isevery bit as scary and darkly funnyas fans of both the character and the actor were hoping.
