Michael Caine's role in movie classic Get Carter has earned the title of nastiest screen character of all time. As the eponymous Jack Carter he became a legendary anti-hero, throwing an adversary from the top of a car park among his remorseless acts of violence. He was chosen by movie experts at Total Film magazine who have compiled a countdown of the all-time greatest screen "bastards". Callous Carter is a psychotic gangland killer in the 1971 film, which broke new ground at the time for its cold, graphic scenes of bloodshed.

Interestingly, I see Burt Lancaster's JJ Hunsecker from Sweet Smell Of Success immediately below Mr Micklewhite. Personally I'd have thought Hunsecker had a greater claim to bastardry... Carter does bad things to bad people and is a bad person himself, but in the film he's motivated by revenge; Hunsecker acts like a shit to people purely because he can. Good to see Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets there, though; I always felt that film was trying to excuse his character's behaviour by making him an OCD sufferer, as opposed to the plain obnoxious turd he really was...