"I just thought it was a cool name," Cormac McCarthy allegedly replied when asked about the origin of his villain's unusual moniker on the set of "No Country for Old Men." Which in a way sums up the fuzzy provenance of the character himself - a man seemingly out of time, with an oddly unsettling mop top haircut and captive bolt gun that kills with an almost alien silence and precision. The archetypal character would be a tough one for any actor to nail, but luckily the Coen Bros. chose immensely-talented Spanish thesp Javier Bardem for the role, and he somehow manages to convey the detached, otherworldly quality required for the character without saying much of anything at all. With his Oscar-winning performance, he succeeded in creating one of the most terrifying cinematic bogeymen of the modern era.

- Chris Eggertsen