Every Main Character From The Halloween Franchise Ranked

Over the course of its four-decade existence, the "Halloween" franchise has produced some of the horror genre's most iconic characters. It's had a lot of ups and downs over the years (with a couple of reboots thrown in for good measure), but the strength of the John Carpenter-directed and Debra Hill-produced 1978 "Halloween" has seen to it that the series and many of its greatest characters never die for long.

From the final girl who started it all (Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis) to the stalking embodiment of pure evil, Michael "The Shape" Myers himself, and all the greats in between, we're taking a look at the main characters who've guided us through the haunted streets of Haddonfield, Illinois, for over a generation. Whether it's because of the mark they left on the franchise or just because they were easy to love (or hate), these characters will be ranked from worst to best.

This isn't a list of every single character who's ever appeared in a "Halloween" movie. It isn't even a ranking of the best characters. With the exception of one entry (to be explained later), each character is the protagonist of the entry in which they appeared or an overarching figure in the franchise. In the case of films with an ensemble cast, we're looking at the characters who best fit the traditional role of the protagonist. Without further ado, this is our ranking of the best main characters in "Halloween" movies.

Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) is the little boy Laurie Strode babysits in the original "Halloween." At first, he's just a kid in a movie about teenagers and adults. Therefore, it's a little hard to judge him as a character. He has a small part in "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" (played by Danny Ray), but it isn't until "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" that he steps up as a lead character. Unfortunately, it might've been best to keep him out of the sequels entirely.

Played in the sixth installment by Paul Rudd, the character is a weird creep who peeps on Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan) from across the street. He comes off like a sad, lonely, borderline dangerous obsessive who just makes everyone uncomfortable. Rudd brings none of his usual charms to the role (he was still learning), and every scene featuring the character is just unpleasant.

When the timeline was rebooted in 2018, "Halloween Kills" introduced a new Tommy played by '80s icon Anthony Michael Hall. This rendition isn't much better. He comes off as a regular guy (which is nice), but he's also responsible for the death of an unwell and innocent man. When Doyle learns that Michael Myers is back to his old tricks, he riles up the citizens of Haddonfield by getting them to chant "evil dies tonight!" They chase down a terrified man looking for help, causing him to leap to his death. Yeah, Tommy Doyle only does more harm than good.

"Halloween III: Season of the Witch" is definitely the black sheep of the "Halloween" franchise. It's primarily known for being the one entry without Michael Myers (except for television airings of the original "Halloween" glimpsed in a few scenes), but once you get passed this fact, the movie proves far more interesting and stranger than its reputation would have you believe.

Since the intention with "Season of the Witch" was to transform the franchise into an anthology, the decision was made to move away from the slasher genre and instead tell an entirely unrelated story about the macabre origins of Halloween, complete with some straight-up nightmare fuel. It stars actor Tom Atkins as Daniel Challis, an alcoholic divorced doctor who finds himself involved in a bizarre mystery featuring androids, Stonehenge, and weaponized Halloween masks. It's wild.

Interestingly, Dan is the most normal element of this movie. He's an over-worked, heavy-drinking guy in his 40s trying to stop a bonkers plot to kill kids all over the country because he'd rather take a road trip with a young woman than be there for his kids. He's not exactly a sympathetic character, but he's almost painfully plain. Had we been given more characterization, he might've ranked higher.

Slasher movies (a genre spawned as a direct result of the success of the original "Halloween") have a reputation for making their characters bland, one-dimensional knife fodder for the masked killer to murder. This is especially true of supporting characters. With rare exceptions, side characters are given no backstory, no depth, and nothing much to do. David Gordon Green's "Halloween" and "Halloween Kills" overcompensates for this by devoting a little too much to establishing these characters (some of whom are more compelling than the stars), but "Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later" gets it right.

Remember when we said there was one character on this list who didn't count as a protagonist? That's Ronald "Ronny" Jones, the security guard played by LL Cool J. He was included because the protagonist of "H20" is Laurie Strode (we'll get to her later) and her less interesting son (Josh Hartnett). Ronny is more interesting and entertaining than the rest of the cast (other than Laurie).

This is a man who isn't defined by his job. He's working as a security guard to pay the bills, but what he really wants is to write trashy romance novels, which he reads to his wife over the phone. That little quirk plus LL Cool J's sweet performance makes Ronny a sympathetic and likable character that we can root for. When it's revealed that the bullet fired at him only grazed his head, you want to stand up and cheer because Ronny deserves better than to be just another victim.

The majority of "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" sets up Laurie's orphaned daughter, Jamie, as the new protagonist of the series. She's definitely the main character of this movie. We see that she's literally haunted by visions of her homicidal uncle, taunted at school because of her family heritage, and is relentlessly pursued by the masked madman hellbent on slaughtering his entire family. The ending of the film suggests a different story, however.

When it's revealed that Jamie has assumed her uncle's murderous ways by killing her foster mother in the final moments of the film, it looks like the franchise is about to head in a new direction with Jamie as the killer (or Michael's assistant) and her foster sister Rachel as the new Laurie Strode. This would've been an excellent decision since Rachel proves herself to be a worthy protagonist.

Sure, she can be a bit vain, but her protective instincts over her little foster sister make her a fantastic heroin. Even while her romantic life is falling apart (and her neighbors are being butchered), Rachel never gives up on Jamie. She's there with her, taking on Michael Myers to the very end. Too bad the next movie had to kill her off in the first act and completely abandon the killer Jamie angle.

Donald Pleasence's Dr. Samuel Loomis serves as the Van Helsing to Michael's Dracula through seven movies (nine, if you count Rob Zombie's "Halloween" and "Halloween II"). His part is limited to an audio recording in the "Halloween" film from 2018 and flashbacks in "Halloween Kills," but they still count. He's as closely identified with this franchise as Myers himself or Laurie Strode. Even when Laurie was written out and replaced by her orphaned daughter, Loomis was there to try and keep Haddonfield safe.

In the original "Halloween," Loomis serves as a harbinger of doom rather than a real character. He lets everyone within earshot know just how evil Michael Myers is, adding a mythical element to the masked slasher. In the sequel, he's more of an active participant, taking the role of protagonist in Laurie's absence since she's in the hospital. His undying devotion to ridding the world of Myers means that he becomes more and more unstable with each installment, but he never ceases to be a welcome presence in every entry. The "Halloween" movies really lost something special when Pleasence died in 1995. No offense to Malcolm McDowell, but there's only one Sam Loomis.

Played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laurie Strode isn't just the best main character because she's the first. That would diminish the impact the character has had. Plenty of great leading ladies have joined the franchise in her wake, but none of them carry the same weight as Laurie. Like Michael, there's a quiet simplicity about her. She doesn't quite fit in with the boisterous friend group, but we can tell she wants to. It's her private desperation to break free of her shy sensibilities that make her compelling.

Also, by all rights, she should've died at the end of the original film. Her friends, Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P. J. Soles), seemed more like fighters than Laurie. Forget all the symbolism about promiscuity leading to death in slasher movies. In any other movie, Laurie would've had a victim written all over her. But because she is smart, selfless, and already fighting her own personal battle within herself, she's underestimated by her would-be murderer.

She was always a fighter. The signs were there. It's just the rest of the characters in the movie failed to notice. "Halloween: H2O" tells us she became an alcoholic living under an assumed identity in California. Rob Zombie imagines her as just another annoying teenager. David Gordon Green depicts her as an obsessive. None of them come quite as close to mastering the subtle strength of the original. For that reason, the very first Laurie is still the best.