We all know of films that were total rip-offs from start to finish, but what about when filmmakers get a little more creative and try to hide their plagiarism a little more cleverly? These films, though widely regarded as cinematic classics, are less-known for their blatant pilfering from other works. Though some of the filmmakers
have admitted their "influence", what's clear in each instance is that the character (and often more than that) has been shamelessly ripped off, while the majority of the film-going audience are none the wiser. Granted, in most instances the stolen character was put to far better use in the latter project, but it's still a pretty cheeky way to operate. Here are 10 movie characters that were blatant rip-offs...
10. The Man With No Name (The Dollars Trilogy)
The Man with No Name is the unforgettably enigmatic protagonist of Sergio Leone's superb Dollars Trilogy, comprised of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). To be fair, this is one of the more widely-recognised rip-offs on this list, because it's well-known that A Fistful of Dollars was an unauthorised adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo. Toshiro Mifune's ronin protagonist in Yojimbo is mysterious, opting to let his actions speak volumes, and rarely showing his arms to the camera. Eastwood's Man with No Name is similar in every way, taking the strong, silent shtick to even greater lengths in the later Dollars films; Eastwood had seen Yojimbo and tried not to follow in Mifune's footsteps with his performance. Though the character is a ripoff (as is the entirety of Fistful), Leone at least forged something entirely its own out of the initial plagiarism - one of cinema's most iconic characters in one of the most entertaining trilogies of all time.