Gothic delights: The 20 greatest Tim Burton characters, ranked

By far not the weirdest of Burton's characters, it was, however, unusual to feature Welsh crooner Tom Jones, as himself, in "Mars Attacks." Jones appears in the third act as his show is stopped midway when Martians storm the theater. Not only does Jones survive, but he manages to become a Martian-killing hero in the process. 

As Burton is adept at creating lovable outcasts, he's just as good at giving us bullies, and his first may be his most memorable. Neighbor and nemesis to Pee-Wee Herman, Francis Buxton (Mark Rolston) was used to getting everything he wanted, which included Pee-Wee's cherished bike. Outside of his spoiled rich kid shtick, Francis was the first of a pair of Burton characters on our list eerily reminiscent of a certain current president.

A classic Burton outcast, Karl (Matthew McGrory) is a perfect example of the gentle character run out of town by the locals because he's different. The first character in "Big Fish" encountered by protagonist Ed Bloom (Ewan McGregor), the pair join forces as they take jobs together in a traveling circus. Karl is also a subject of Bloom's tall tales, giving a tragic take on a gentle giant turned evil by his surroundings.

There wasn't much to like or love about Burton's ill-conceived remake/reboot of the "Planet of the Apes" series, but if there was one positive, it was the delightfully sinister performance of Tim Roth as main antagonist General Thade. More than the normal moustache-twirling villain, Thade was a mirror of intolerance, something that, in a better movie, would have been tragically ironic. Instead, audiences were treated to a more than formidable villain cast in the mold of Burton's persecutor of outcasts and oddities.

For as long as adaptations of Lewis Carroll's classic have depicted the looney haberdasher, there hasn't been much to the character outside of the usual madness as a result of exposure to mercury. A character this blank served as a perfect canvas for Burton and Johnny Depp to paint tragic character and outcast, the very thing that kept afloat what was largely a blander effort from Burton.

Fans and critics were largely divided over Burton's adaptation of the '70s soap opera depicting a vampire (Johnny Depp) who rises from the grave to aid what's left of his family and gain the affections of a reincarnated lost love. While Lydia Deetz is the classic archetype of Burton's heroine outcasts, Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a similar outcast who also happens to be a werewolf, making her a shoo-in for our list.

Awful director Ed Wood needed a similar cast of outcasts to aid him in the creation of his schlocky flicks, so it was no surprise that Wood would collect characters like disgraced blue blood Bunny Breckinridge into his troupe of weird. When Burton made a film about the life and times of Wood, he picked Bill Murray to fill the minor role, and every second he's on screen is absolute camp gold. 

As the moral center of Burton's animated fable, Sally was the least monstrous of all the monsters of Halloween Town. As Jack Skellington's love interest, she also had the distinction of serving as a metaphor as she is seen constantly stitching her back together, giving her as sense of holding everyone together as she struggled, almost as a mechanism, to hold herself together.

"Beetlejuice," comedic treatise on life and death, features the adventures of a recently deceased couple trying to navigate their way through the afterlife. Leave it to Burton to inject a satirical sense of the mundane, as he created the character of Juno (Sylvia Sidney), a caseworker for the dead, who seems to have been stuck with the same job in death as she had in life: delivering her advice with a sardonic wit, making her one of the more memorable of Burton's supporting characters.

This is the first of two appearances on our list from Helena Bonham Carter, who with Johnny Depp, served as a constant member of Burton's casts. Her turn as an amalgamation of two of Lewis Carroll's antagonists, the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts from Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' books, is a deliciously sinister performance as she bellows commands and uses pets as furniture with a sly tyrannical charm.

Helena Bonham-Carter's next spot on our list is as the titular Corpse Bride, Emily. Like Sally from "The Nightmare Before Christmas," she represents a visage of horror who really possesses a heart of gold. But unlike Sally, Emily is the true hero of this film, a dead bride who routinely shows more humanity than those who still live. Emily, even in death, sacrifices herself to save the day, emulating the best of Burton's eccentric outcasts.

Although only a side character with limited scenes, Glenn Shadix's performance as an interior designer/spiritual medium is rife with the sort of camp that only Burton can create. Otho is pure kitsch and loving it as he prances around on an air of city-meets-country condescension, only to be given his comeuppance by Betelgeuse himself in a blast of polyester pastels. 

What do you get when you mix Donald Trump with the vaunted creepiness of Christopher Walken and Burton's penchant for blown-out hairdos? You get Max Schreck, the secondary villain of "Batman Returns." Created especially for the film, Schreck is the embodiment of greed and sociopathy wrapped in a working class blue blood sensibility. In 1992, this obvious parody of Trump has a certain sinister charm to it. But looking at it through the lens of today, it may just have been a dark look into our own current reality.

There have been many interpretations of the classic DC Comics villain, but few so closely embrace the comic lunacy of the character as done by Jack Nicholson in Burton's "Batman." In a time where superhero films were a rarity, Burton takes great relish in his version of the Clown Prince of Crime, turning Jack Napier from a one-note gangster to a colorful and hilarious villain who ends up stealing the entire show. Some Batman fans bristled at how the villain was more important than the hero. But at the time, it was the very thing needed to help make superhero films into something the public would go crazy for.

If not his greatest character, Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) may be Burton's most tragic. Depicted in "Ed Wood" at the nadir of his career, slowed by old age and a heroin addiction, Lugosi is most certainly a has-been who in the eyes of Wood (Johnny Depp) is still every bit the star of the silver screen as he was when he saw him as a child. Willing to ignore the realities, both men formed a friendship that certainly eased the old man's pain and gave Wood a sense of legitimacy he craved. Landau's performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Burton turns the comic book anti-hero into a reflection of his favorite sort of outcast with the help of Michelle Pfeiffer in "Batman Returns." Deviating from the source material, Burton's Catwoman begins life as a harried personal assistant/secretary who gets pushed out a window and resuscitated by a herd of cats, giving her a fresh set of lives and a determination only vengeance can bring. The result is a classic Burton creation, an empowered outcast who gets what she wants even as the world calls her a freak.

Although Burton didn't come up with the idea to bring the ignominious story of the reputed worst director ever, it's hard to imagine anyone making it happen this way. Johnny Depp, in only his second collaboration with Burton, pulls off a perfect mix of sad, determined and ultimately deluded as he makes the audience sympathize with a maybe less than sympathetic character who refuses to give up on his dreams.

As the Ghost with the Most, Michael Keaton shined in "Beetlejuice," perfectly toeing the line between hero and villain as a character who is by far Keaton's most unique. Keaton is perfect as the mischievous specter, determined to commit chaos and destroy the lives of an unwitting, yet absolutely vapid family, not out of a need to be evil, but because it's simply the fun thing to do. 

Possibly the best of Burton's heroes, the Pumpkin King (Chris Sarandon), has a good if not misguided heart under his horrific exterior, explaining his need to co-opt Christmas as he feels a bit empty after yet another Halloween. However with the love of his town and the special ghoul in his life, Jack is more hero than horror and the perfect protagonist for Burton's eccentric vision.

The greatest of all Burton's characters, Edward (Johnny Depp) is also the closest to Burton himself. As a mechanical creation of a lonely inventor (Vincent Price), Edward is both an outcast and a virtual child, impressed upon by a society that both loves and fears him. As the best character in Burton's best film, Edward will always be remembered for his heartbreaking need to show the world through his eyes to a public that could never truly accept him. And if that's not a commentary on Burton himself, it's hard to say what is.