Movie icons
The single films that turned into franchises — and the characters that carried them.
Count Dracula
Universal Monsters
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel did not invent the vampire but it fixed almost everything modern audiences assume about them.
from $15.95
Doc Brown
Back to the Future
Doc Brown is the mad scientist archetype rehabilitated into something warm.
from $19.99
Ellen Ripley
Alien
Ripley exists as a woman by accident, and the accident is instructive.
from $19.99
Frankenstein's Monster
Universal Monsters
Mary Shelley was eighteen when she began Frankenstein.
from $13.38
Godzilla
Godzilla
The 1954 Gojira is a considerably more serious film than its reputation in the West suggests.
from $17.99
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones is a deliberate revival of the 1930s cliffhanger serial.
from $19.99
Marty McFly
Back to the Future
Marty McFly is one of the most efficiently constructed protagonists in mainstream cinema.
from $10.99
Neo
The Matrix
Neo is a chosen-one narrative wrapped around a genuinely unusual idea for 1999.
from $17.99
Slimer
Ghostbusters
Slimer appears for well under a minute in the 1984 film.
from $14.98
The Terminator
The Terminator
James Cameron has said the character came from a fever dream in Rome of a chrome skeleton dragging itself out of fire.
from $14.99
The Wolf Man
Universal Monsters
Almost everything popularly believed about werewolves was invented for this film in 1941.
from $17.99
The Xenomorph
Alien
The Xenomorph is the most influential creature design in science-fiction cinema.
from $17.99