13. Captain William T Kurtz - Apocalypse Now (1979)
Captain Kurtz is a highly decorated American soldier who goes renegade in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. He freaks the US Army out more than the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Captain Willard and a group of soldiers are dispensed on a mission to stop Kurtz's maniacal ways. As they travel up the river, they see bodies covering the river banks. When they get to Kurtz's camp there are dead bodies and heads lying everywhere. An excited photographer says that Kurtz has captured the hearts and minds of the camp with his philosophising. Kurtz makes his mark on Willard, tying him up and dropping his fellow soldier's head onto his lap. He then sets Willard free and treats him to his rambling treatises on war, civilisation and humanity. Kurtz praises the Viet Cong for their ruthlessness and dedication. Willard manages to creep up on him and stabs him with a machete. As he utters the immortal lines: "The horror, the horror!" Kurtz dies an unceremonial death. Never has a movie character so embraced the horrors of war, giving up all of his humanity and actually becoming a major part of the horrors of war. Kurtz is a highly experienced soldier who fought for the American troops but he turns his back on morality and gives himself fully to the horrors of war. This is because he made a military error and got chastised. He created his own colony and cult where he is able to play a psycho God. He has no morality, for what place is there for morality in this war? No one holds him accountable for his actions. For his twisted, God like philosophising, murderous actions, Kurtz is one of the best, if not the best, psychos to grace the war movie genre.