10 Best Booze-Guzzling Movie Characters

If you don’t like the bauble, reindeer-infused family-friendly fare of the usual Christmas movies, then Bad Santa is probably for you. Thornton’s hilarious turn as a hard-boozing, fornicating, safecracking, thoroughly corrupt Santa is at turns tragic and hilarious, centred around a burgeoning relationship with a kid who, miraculously, sees the good in him.

Each year, Bad Santa cases out malls to steal from, plotting with his elfish sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox). However, each heist is proving ever more difficult as Stokes is unreliable to say the least. The booze is catching up with him and we meet Stokes at a kind of crossroads; he’ll either continue to descend into depravity or he might actually get out of the whole Santa thing.

Sometimes stealing booze under the eyes of distracted barmen, Stokes is consistently drunk on spirits throughout the film. He kinda stands out, too, being dressed as Santa, drinking alone and chain-smoking in crowded bars.

Reportedly Thornton went method for the role, drinking heavily to get into character. That would explain the blood-red eyes and the expletives, then.