If you’re a character in a movie with a lot of explosions and debris, a helmet is probably a good idea. Traumatic brain injury is no joke, and if you’re participating in an activity with a high percentage of head bonks, you should really wear one. This goes for you too, carefree cyclists on the road. The characters in the following movies understood this principle (except for Dennis Hopper inEasy Rider, though that’s the least of his sins). Whether they’re going to war, going to space, or going nuts over a shrubbery, some characters are defined by their relationship to a really cool cranial exoskeleton. These are the most iconic helmets in Hollywood history.
When Geroge C. Scott steps up from behind the stage, a silhouette of forest green against a massive American flag, a bugle announcing his arrival, the very model of a modern major General, you know that this guyPattonmeans business.
He’s a posterboy. A cardboard cutout. An image as indelible and Uncle Sam. He’s got a class ring from West Point, a patent leather belt, a chest full of metal, and a monogrammed pistol grip. He’s holding a riding crop and wearing a polished, glossy helmet. Emblazoned with an “A” for Army, and four very serious-looking stars, it doesn’t just announce the character, but introduces the entire film. Rarely has a costume carried so much weight in establishing a narrative in the first sixty seconds. It was a gamble, but it ended up winning Best Picture.
14Blazing Saddles
And then there’s Mel Brooks, whose bizarre sensibility that anything German is funny, which we as a society decided to accept.
InBlazing Saddles, the funniest woman to ever walk the Earth, Madeline Kahn, plays Lili Von Shtüpp (a play on a Yiddish word meaning sexual intercourse), a sexy cabaret performer in the Old West with a German accent thicker than a slice of Black Forest cake. She channels a lazy, out of tune version of Marlene Dietrich for an original tune, “I’m Tired,” which is all the more hilarious given Kahn’s background in professional opera.
“I’ve been with thousands of men, again and again, they promise the Moon. They’re always coming and going, and going and coming — and always too soon.”
The song itself is perfectly sold by a performance belying a bitter professional who’s seen it all, in the funniest way possible. But Brooks being Brooks means you can’t just smoke the cigar to the nub, it has to explode at the end. For the number’s final act, four background performers strut in wearing full German World War I regalia, complete withPickelhauben, the spiked leather helmet made famous by Prussian armies of the 19th century. They do ballet kicks, backup singing, then carry her offstage, back on for a curtain call, then back off. It’s absurd, confusing, but watchBlazing Saddlesjust one time, and you’ll never, ever forget those helmets.
13Lost In Space
In the trailer forLost In Space, we all saw Matt LeBlanc (yes,that Matt LeBlanc) turn around to face some outer space arachnoids and have his futuristic garage door-style helmet magically unravel itself over his face. It was the sort of move that elicited cheers from opening night audiences, predating Tony Stark’s awe-inducingIronmansuit-ups by a full decade.
12Jurassic Park
The cantaloupe-colored hard hats worn by all the blue collar workers ofJurassic Parkare, in a word, silly. A famous Seinfeld stand-up premise once asked why parachutists wear helmets, because, “If your ‘chute doesn’t open, that helmet is now wearing you for protection.” Same principle: if you need a helmet to protect against dinosaur attacks, then it’s probably not enough. However, what makes these helmets iconic isn’t their design, or even their ubiquity; it’s the graphic printed across the front of all of them. From a certain point of view, the entireJurassic Parkfranchise is the survival story of a graphic design throughout three decades of multimedia.
Related:16 Best Hats in Movie History
In 1990, Knopf whizkid Chip Kidd was called in to design a cover for Michael Crichton’s soon-to-be-released novel about dinosaurs come back to life. With film rights already being argued over by multiple production companies, the stakes were high for Kidd, who turned to a paleontological diagram of a T-Rex from 1917 for inspiration. That book cover became the logo for the movie. But not just the movie, but the fictional theme park within the movie. And all the fictional merchandise within that film. And all the real merchandise of the film. Times six, for each of the subsequent sequels.
Remember, the catalyst for getting Sattler, Grant, and Malcolm to the island of Isla Nublar in the first film was because of a lawsuit against the park from a worker who was accidentallykilled by a Velociraptor(“Shoot her!") in the first scene, wearing that very helmet. A simple 1% of the royalties from that design would probably have set them up for life.
Marvin the Martian is among the more absurdist characters in the Looney Tunes stable, though admittedly, a Cagney-esque hoodwinking rabbit and ne’er do well grumpy duck are hardly typical.
Although he appeared as early as the 1940s, Marvin wasn’t given a name until 1979, with the cartoon package filmThe Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, which included his classic sketch,Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century(of whichGeorge Lucas was apparently a fan).Yet that helmet and matching skirt, based on Mars, the Roman God of War, have been iconic from the beginning.
“Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!”
Perhaps because he’s generally portrayed as a villain set on destroying the Earth, or because nobody’s really sure what’s under that helmet, he’s a character that we so rarely get to see. But that helmet, with its push broom top and faceguards (for what? he’s got no face!) make him immediately identifiable, and a popular figure in Warner Brothers merchandising. Odd, that the motley crew assembly of a Roman outfit, tennis shoes, a space alien, and whatever that red bodysuit is would make for such a cute little guy.
10The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Sauron’s helmet always felt a bit much. We get our best look at him during the opening ofThe Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring.It screams Dark Lord of the Second Age, no doubt. Though after a certain point, it just feels like there’s a hole where once there was a happy Maia, and he’s trying to fill it with pointy steel in a Burning Man sculpture gallery kind of way. Maybe a little less helmet, a little bit more armor on that right gauntlet, eh big guy?
9Top Gun: Maverick
WIth the long awaited release last year ofTop Gun: Maverick, we got to see a whole new version of life from inside the cockpit. The sweaty skin and panicked eyes of the young cast from the firstTop Gun, all the way back in 1986, is now picked up in hi-def, 1080p richness, with an added level of daredevil aviation. Every time we see the afterburners kicking up sand over the desert or an F-18 cast a shadow on a ravine, it’s always accompanied by a head-on shot of the pilot. And every pilot is wearing a personalized flight helmet.
They’re not that special. The lettering may have gotten a little more sophisticated in the last thirty-five years (it’s funny to imagine alpha-dudes like Iceman and Merlin decorating their helmets with stickers from Michael’s Arts & Crafts), but it’s a simple, fun way to keep your cast, and their call signs, straight. They’re a major part of the movie, and as this last outing proves, that legacy is strong.
8Toy Story
It may seem like Buzz Lightyear has got a regular-looking glass dome over his head. Like a Space Ranger should. Except that he’s not a Space Ranger, he’s a toy. Woody says it best:
“Look at you! You’re a Buzz Lightyear! Any other toy would give up his moving parts just to BE you. You’ve got wings! You glow in the dark! You talk! Your helmet does that… that-that — WHOOSH thing! You are a cool toy!”
Admit it, toys that have helmets that do that whoosh thing are pretty cool. That’s the beauty ofToy Story; it takes you back to when a helmet with a whoosh thing was the best thing in the world.
7The Rocketeer
The Rocketeeris a fun, if somewhat formulaic, family action film from the 90s, based on a character created in 1982 by comic book artist Dave Stevens. When it came to developing a film around pre-WWII stunt pilot Cliff Secord, who finds a government jetpack, the costume and prop department absolutely nailed it.
“How do I look?”
“Like a hood ornament.”
The helmet itself has a bit of a German expressionist cinema lilt to its look, which is ironic, given that the enemy in the film are the Nazis. The fin acts as his rudder, and you can see the homemade welds made by Peevy, Secord’s grumpy old mechanic, played bythe late Alan Arkin. It’s very stylized, old-timey, but the image sticks in your head and is instantly recognizable. Great helmet.
6X-Men: Days of Future Past
They established early in the comics that Magneto’s helmet had a psionic disrupter, protecting him from having his old buddy, Professor X, manipulate him through telepathy. Ian McKellan had a knack for not wearing it out, although who could blame him, with that hair. Besides, they didn’t really nail the helmet untilX-Men: Days of Future Past. It was 2014, no longer was everybody working so hard to make everything look likeThe Matrix,so they could make the costume more faithful to the comics version.
“You’re like me. You’re a survivor.”
— Wolverine
In that film, it’s Michael Fassbender classing it up at Magneto’s most despotic. The helmet isrevealed in the climax, and any reader of the comics will agree that Magneto floating inside the rubble of a mega-stadium he just dropped on The White House, surrounded by TV cameras while declaring war on humans, is pretty true to character. So he’d better be rocking a legit helmet on that dome.
