Far Out Magazine has published a ranked list exploring the most detestable characters to appear in 1970s cinema, arguing that this was the decade Hollywood grew comfortable with unlikeable anti-heroes and villains designed to provoke genuine discomfort rather than simple fear. The piece distinguishes such figures from conventional monsters or menacing villains, noting that the trend was shaped by writers like Paul Schrader and reflected a broader shift towards morally corrupt, all-too-human characters in mainstream film.

Among the examples detailed are Ryan O'Neal's cowardly and deceitful title character in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, Louise Fletcher's authoritarian and abusive Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and John Huston's Noah Cross in Chinatown, a corrupt tycoon whose crimes include incest and evading justice entirely. The article frames these performances as effective precisely because they provoke strong emotional reactions, arguing that being "hateable" on screen has helped secure lasting legacies for the actors involved.

– Far Out Magazine ranks the decade's most hated film characters, not just villains
– 1970s Hollywood embraced morally repellent anti-heroes, influenced by writer Paul Schrader
– Cited examples include Barry Lyndon, Nurse Ratched and Chinatown's Noah Cross