10 Most Badass Movie Hitmen

The contract killer has long been a great movie staple, ranging from anti-heroes with a strict moral code, to heartless robots with no morals whatsoever. Whatever their outlook, they nearly always live a solitary and remote existence, with entanglements such as friends and family seen as mere obstacles getting in the way of their work.

While it is perhaps strange to describe these murderous characters as cool, it's an unavoidable fact that often their deadly choice of employment doesn't half make for some entertaining cinema.

They are a human ideal - perverse, but true all the same - of independence and isolation and marked by the kind of direct action most of us can only dream of. Sure, they're killers, but they know what they're about.

As we watch them meticulously stalk their unsuspecting prey and carry out their gruesome task with deadly precision, it's hard to deny they make it all look incredibly badass.

The question is, out of all the movie hitmen we've seen down the years, who is the most badass of all?

Tom Cruise eschewed his typical action hero role in Michael Mann’s 2004 neo-noir thriller, and instead gave us a cold, resolute and utterly unrepentant killer.

Cruise’s Vincent spends his evening being chauffeured around by taxi driver Max (Jamie Foxx), forcing the cabbie to drive him from one target to the next. While most hitmen are either silent but deadly mechanical types or charismatic anti-heroes, Vincent falls somewhere between the two. He is lethal, he is deadly, but he is also strangely charming and almost likeable.

Michael Mann imbues the film with brooding and tense atmosphere and Cruise's character is a huge part of this. His lethal abilities and brutal ways are made very clear, yet he also keeps so much of it hidden beneath the surface, a prime example being his cheerful yet threatening interaction with Max's own mother.

He may be affable but there's that glint in the eye that shows he's not a man to be taken lightly.