10 Most Memorable Hammer-Wielding Movie Characters

If asked to describe something they remember from Misery – Rob Reiner's adaptation of the Stephen King tale about a novelist and an obsessed superfan – almost everyone would bring up the 'hobbling' scene. It's a moment of extraordinary violence that solidifies Annie Wilkes, as played by Kathy Bates, as a stone cold psychopath capable of anything in ensuring that James Caan's writer Paul Sheldon stays within her abusive care.

The scene comes after Sheldon has tried to escape and, in the process, found evidence of Annie's chequered past as a nurse accused of killing infants. Annie finds out and, determined to prevent another escape attempt, she takes a sledgehammer in order to crush both of his ankles against a block of wood. The hammer in Reiner's film is a replacement for the axe and blowtorch used in the novel.

There's a stark brutality to this scene that explains its status as the most iconic moment in any of the dozens of adaptations of King books. The unflinching direction from Reiner and Bates's Oscar-winning performance combine to create an explosion of violence that, once seen, is impossible to forget.