10. DENNIS HOPPER
Blue Velvet (1986)

He got a supporting-actor nomination for appearing in Hoosiers the very same year, but the Hopper character most likely to have left a permanent scar on your cerebral cortex is Frank Booth, the profane, fabric-swatch-loving sadist of Blue Velvet. Before writer-director David Lynch unleashed Frank, we'd never seen a villain inflict quite such a queasy mix of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse on a victim. It's still hard to watch Frank's initial tryst with singer Dorothy Vallens, who, as played by Isabella Rossellini, seems both terrified and turned on. And as Frank swigs Pabst Blue Ribbon and huffs nitrous oxide, it's also hard not to think about Hopper's own battles with drugs and booze, adding to the tightrope tension.