At number eight in our countdown of the best heroes and villains is revolting slave Spartacus and the murderous motel owner Norman Bates.
Hero: Spartacus
Released in 1960 Spartacus followed the rebellious slave, who has never been free, forced to be a gladiator.Starring Kirk Douglas the film was based on Howard Fast's novel and directed by Stanley Kubrick it is widely regarded as one of the best sword and sandal movies of all time.After Varinia, the woman he has fallen in love with, is bought by Crassus (Laurence Olivier) Spartacus leads a slave uprising across Italy that soon has thousands marching on Rome, recruiting people as they go.Rome sends army after army to squash the rebellion but Spartacus and his army, who are heading to the coast to escape on the ships if Cilician pirates, defeat them all.But the pirates have been bought by Rome and offer to take only Spartacus, the pregnant Varinia and Spartacus's senior officers, to Asia to live like kings.
But Spartacus refuses to leave behind the rest of his men and they find themselves surrounded by three Roman armies.
They fight for their freedom but the rebel army is defeated.
In the movie's most memorable scene the surviving members of the rebel army are told that they will not be harmed if they identify Spartacus.
One by one they all stand up claiming they are Spartacus and they are condemned to crucifixion.
Spartacus dies a martyr, a symbol for the free man, knowing that his son will grow up free.
Villain: Norman Bates
Norman Bates was created by writer Robert Bloch as the villain of his novel Psycho.
Based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein, Bates suffered severe emotional abuse as a child as the hands of his mother.
The two lived alone, after the death of his father, where she preached that women and sex were evil.
After his mother took a lover Bates killed them both through jealousy and preserved his mother's corpse.
Bates developed a dissociative identity disorder taking on his mother's personality as a way of repressing the fact that he had killed her.
Anthony Perkins took on the role of Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror movie Psycho.
Bates' split personality takes hold when Mary Crane, Marion Crane in the movie, spends a night at the Bates Motel.
In one of cinema's most famous scenes she is stabbed to death in the shower with Bates dressed in his mother's clothes.
He also kills the private investigator that came looking for Crane.
Bates is arrested and is declared insane. Placed in an institution the personality of his mother completely takes hold.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw