The Screengrab recently posted a list of the 10 Worst Movie Hairdos, prompted by Javier Bardem’s No Country for Old Men ‘do. And while it’s true that the bargain bob in question obscures the actor’s stone-cold hotness, I’d hesitate to file it under ‘Worst.’ After all, Bardem created one of the most frightening characters in recent screen memory with his Oscar-nominated turn, and his hair contributes to the overall mood, whether or not anyone ever goes into a salon and asks for "The Anton Chigurh."
I think The Screengrab’s list should have focused more on the kind of hideous that looks so wrong and incongruous that you end up skipping the movie (or failing to enjoy the movie) because of it. For me, the best recent example has to be Colin Farrell’s blond catastrophe in Alexander (pictured). What was that mess all about? And while we’re on this hairy topic, who else should’ve made the cut (badum-bum)?
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When you mentioned Colin Farrell, I immediately thought of Brad Pitt in Troy.
Julia Roberts in Charlie Wilsons War.
Tom Hanks in the DaVinci Code
Just watched Faye Dunaway in the original Thomas Crown Affair. Fantastic hair, but very unrealistic and very distracting.
Josh Hartnett’s bed head in everything.
Angelina Jolie in “Life or Something Like It”– and yes, I had to IMBD Ms. Jolie to recall the name of that stinker, yet the hair I remember, so go figure–think really bad Marilyn Monroe wannabe.
antonio banderas – interview with the vampire
Do you even have to ask? Nicholas Cage’s slow and horrifying arc of hair recession throughout his movie career is the hands-down winner.
Or, wait…loser.
For sure Hanks in Da Vinci Code. If we’re lucky, the hair won’t be making an appearance in the sequel.
I totally second Angelina Jolie in that hideous movie. Ugh!
Holy crap, thank you for posting that link. Something like 8 years ago, when I was around 14 me and my friends happened on a movie with Mexican gangsters running around shooting everybody and kidnapping people and human sacrifices and nudity and it was the most bizarre thing we’d ever seen, and we never knew what it was called. It made quite an impression on me back in the day, and it has haunted me not knowing what that moive was. But now, thanks to that link I know it was “Perdita Duranga.” Awesome.
And if I had known that before I saw “No Country” Bardem would have freaked me out even more.
Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing–1980s hair in a film set in the early ’60s.
Bill Murray’s hair in Kingpin was pretty terrible, although that was on purpose.
I can’t believe they didn’t add Tom Hanks in Da Vinci Code. That was 50 times worse than Nick Cage’s hair in National Treasure (which I really don’t think is so bad).
I think Cara is absolutely right…the prize has to go to Nicolas Cage for his most recent work (especially “Next”). Any inclination I may have to actually see that movie goes away anytime I see his hairdon’t.
As for the female division, I’ll just go off the top of my head with Julia Roberts in “Mary Reilly”.
As much as I loved Dances With Wolves, Stands With a Fist’s hair was completely distracting throughout the movie – it’s always a big rat’s nest. There is even a scene with her brushing her hair before her wedding, but it’s still a rat’s nest during the ceremony… Could she not figure out how to brush it because it was different from everyone else’s in her tribe???
Life or something like it is playing on tv right now, and Angie’s hair is so fake, that im left wondering if its done that way on purpose.
How about Melanie Griffith’s (first half of movie) and Joan Cusack’s hideous hairdos in Working Girl? John Travolta’s in Pulp Fiction? The Mac guy/Drew’s boyfriend in Live Free & Die Hard? LOTR’s Gollum?
Michael, you are so right. Thi list confuses hair that is bad for the sake of the story (the boys of”KingPin” and Bill Murray’s combover). They also missed one of the worst ‘dos ever: Harrison Ford in “Presumed Innocent”!
My big problem with Stands with Fist’s hair was the layered cut including bangs. She had been with the tribe since she was a little girl. Where did she get her hair cut?
Speaking of Colin Farrell, his hair in A Home at the End of World should be on this list. And while a mustache might not qualify for the list, Rufus Sewell’s in The Illusionist nearly ruined the movie for everyone I knew who saw it. We all kept saying that we expected it to get up off his face and crawl away.
I see someone else mentioned it, but Angelina Jolie in Life or Something Like It. What the heck was up with that horrible hair??
I see your Angelina Jolie/Life or Something Like It and raise you with Angelina in Gone in 60 Seconds. My dried out back yard lawn looks better than that.
And how about Kevin Costner in Waterworld? Or The Bodyguard? Maybe not as bad, but still, yuck.
Patrick Swayze in “Roadhouse”. The sides are all feathered and poofy.
They got i wrong trying to include hair that was purposefully bad. We need to single hair that is trying to be attractive (or real) and failing.
8-10) Nic Cage, Ghostrider, Next, National Treasure
7) Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Tom Cruise, Interview with a Vampire – um, the point was the vampires were hot? Not with dollar store women’s stripper wigs.
6) Ben Affleck, Gigli – Cage-like levels of toupee unreality
5) Halle Berry, X-Men – the character Storm was all about cool hair, and this was not it.
4) Viggo Mortensen, A Perfect Murder – like Gwyneth Paltrow would cheat with a guy with this dipsh*t hair.
3) Angelina Jolie, Life or Something Like it – made me turn off the movie.
2) Meg Ryan, Courage Under Fire – because her hair actually undermined the point of the movie, that she was “tough as a man” – with that Meg Ryan pixie cut? Forget it – movie credibility ruined by bad hairdo
1) Jared Leto – in most roles and in real life. Why something so pretty want to be so ugly?
Empire did a bit on this a couple of years back, which included the bloody awful wig Orlando Bloom wore to play Legolas. Great series of films, but he looked like Paris Hilton. You could argue the same for Jason Isaacs in the Harry Potter films, but he’s got the panache to carry the platinum tresses off.
Joan Cusacks hair AND makeup from Working Girl. Seriously, women from New Jeresy might have over done it with the Aqua Net during the mid 80’s but I doubt that they ever robbed a Sherman Williams paint store!
Other bad do’s:
Brittney Murphy with bright blonde hair. I am not sure if she is a brunette in real life but her hair was a lot more realistic in Clueless.
i always find john travolta’s hair in pulp fiction incredibly distracting. but i was so surprised that tom hanks in davinci code wasnt on there…didnt popwatch even give it a nickname or something?
Not bad hair, but distracting to me is hairstyles from the 40s with all the pin curls and up-dos. When I see them I just stare in amazement. There was a war on! How did they have the time to do all that to their hair?
Anna, you refer to the “Mcvinci”, which SHOULD have made that top ten list.
At some point I beefed with the author and claimed that someone else had a go with that hair before tom Hanks, but I can’t remember who it was and Mcvinci stuck anyway, so my point’s academic.
Other candidates (honorable mentions) are Hayden Christensen (for that rat tail in Attack of the Clones), Dennis Rodman (didn’t he have pink hair in the piece of crap he made with Jean Claude Vandamme), Jonathan Malen (he was the white kid with cornrows in “take the lead”) and Samuel L Jackson (For the jerry curls in Pulp Fiction and the rat tail in Jackie Brown).
I think Nicolas Cage should get the lifetime “achievement” award in this category…