The 15 Most Useless Movie Characters

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15. Finn (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)

The story treats him like pure momentum: run here, shout that, jump into the next set piece, repeat. Finn keeps getting positioned as if he’s about to matter in a big way there are hints of deeper feelings, hints of a larger destiny then the script swerves away before anything can land. In that final Star Wars sequel, he’s present constantly but rarely allowed to make a decision that changes the direction of the movie. The constant urgency turns him into a helper rather than a driver, which is wild for someone who began the trilogy with such a personal break from the machine. He isn’t useless on screen; he’s made narratively optional by design. | © Lucasfilm Ltd.

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14. Dick Hallorann (The Shining)

Everything about his journey sets you up to believe the nightmare might finally get interrupted by competence and care. He senses what Danny is going through, races back to the Overlook, and arrives like a lifeline only to be removed so quickly it feels less like a twist and more like the film makes a cruel statement. The tragedy isn’t just the death; it’s that the character doesn’t meaningfully alter the situation after all that buildup. The Shining uses him as a hope-generator, then yanks the cord, and the audience is the one left sitting in the dark. For such a vivid presence, his practical impact is close to zero. | © Warner Bros.

13. The Joker (Suicide Squad)

The marketing promised an agent of chaos; what the finished cut delivers is mostly a noisy satellite orbiting someone else’s arc. He gets moments flash, attitude, a few sticky images but they don’t plug into the central mission in a way that matters, so the film can drop him for long stretches without consequence. Suicide Squad ends up using the Joker as a toxic punctuation mark for Harley Quinn’s backstory rather than a piece that moves the plot. Even the big beats feel like scenes from a different movie that wandered in and refused to leave. For an icon built on disruption, being this skippable is the strangest punchline. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

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12. Madolyn Madden (The Departed)

She’s positioned as a professional with insight and as a romantic hinge between two men living double lives, yet the story rarely lets her steer anything. Most of her scenes are about absorbing secrets, reacting to lies, and reflecting other characters’ paranoia back at them, like she’s a mirror the film keeps picking up when it needs one. Even when The Departed gives her something big pregnancy, betrayal, revelation it lands as fallout from other people’s choices rather than agency she gets to claim. The role matters emotionally, but functionally she’s trapped in reactive mode. It’s a well-acted character who still ends up feeling like narrative furniture. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

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11. Fabienne (Pulp Fiction)

She’s positioned as a professional with insight and as a romantic hinge between two men living double lives, yet the story rarely lets her steer anything. Most of her scenes are about absorbing secrets, reacting to lies, and reflecting other characters’ paranoia back at them, like she’s a mirror the film keeps picking up when it needs one. Even when The Departed gives her something big pregnancy, betrayal, revelation it lands as fallout from other people’s choices rather than agency she gets to claim. The role matters emotionally, but functionally she’s trapped in reactive mode. It’s a well-acted character who still ends up feeling like narrative furniture. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

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10. Rachel Dawes (Batman Begins / The Dark Knight)

In a franchise built on masks and mythology, she’s the one person who’s supposed to feel like real life and that’s exactly why she can come off strangely weightless. Rachel Dawes gets framed as Bruce Wayne’s moral anchor, yet the films rarely let her drive events so much as react to the men spiraling around her. In Batman Begins, she’s there to scold, inspire, and keep Bruce tethered; in The Dark Knight, her presence mostly functions as an emotional lever to pull when the story needs to hurt him. It’s not that she’s badly performed; it’s that the narrative treats her more like a symbol than a character with agency. When a role exists primarily to be “important” rather than to do something, it starts feeling disposable. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

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9. Jimmy Sanderson (Any Given Sunday)

There’s a whole movie raging about ego, money, pain, and power, and then there’s this guy… sort of hanging around the edges of it. Jimmy Sanderson is positioned as a perspective point in Any Given Sunday, but the story keeps finding stronger, louder engines coaches, quarterbacks, owners and leaving him with scraps. You can remove large chunks of his subplot and the film’s central pressure-cooker dynamic still holds, which is the definition of “non-essential” in an ensemble this intense. Even his moments of conflict tend to echo things the movie is already screaming through other characters, only softer. In a sports drama that thrives on big swings, his presence often feels like a draft note that never got fully rewritten. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

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8. Storm (X-Men trilogy)

The character has god-tier power, yet the scripts keep treating her like background weather: impressive to look at, rarely allowed to change the forecast of the story. Across the X-Men trilogy, Storm shows up to deliver a line, summon lightning, then fade behind louder arcs, which makes her feel shockingly underused for someone who should be a cornerstone. The emotional life is thin on the page, so even when she’s in the room with the core team, she’s not steering decisions or shaping relationships in a way that sticks. You’re left with the sense that the movies wanted the iconography more than the person. When an all-time great comic character is reduced to functional support, “useless” starts sounding harsh but not inaccurate. | © 20th Century Fox

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7. Willie Scott (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)

Screaming can be a comedic tool; here it becomes a personality substitute, and it wears thin fast. Willie Scott spends so much of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom reacting panicking, complaining, being carried along that the adventure could still unfold with minimal changes if she weren’t there. The film clearly wants her to be a romantic foil and a fish-out-of-water spark, but she rarely gets to contribute competence, insight, or a decision that alters the trajectory. Even her best moments feel like accidental survival rather than earned problem-solving. When a character’s main function is to amplify chaos without adding value, the story starts feeling like it’s babysitting its own cast. | © Lucasfilm Ltd.

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6. Titus Telesco (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer)

A slasher sequel set at a resort is already begging for “extra bodies,” and Titus is introduced like a human punchline meant to float in and out of scenes. The character mostly hangs around to be gross, suspicious, or vaguely comic relief, which means he doesn’t deepen the mystery or meaningfully complicate the survivors’ choices. Jack Black plays him, and you can feel a more entertaining version of Titus Telesco trying to break through the thin writing little flashes of personality that never get the room to become anything. In practical story terms, he’s there to fill space between scares and to remind you the setting has staff, not to push the plot forward. When the movie finally cashes him in, it barely ripples the narrative, which is the clearest sign he was never essential to begin with. | © Mandalay Entertainment

5. Olaf (Frozen)

Comic relief can be a lifesaver, but when the tone is already light, it can start feeling like the movie is elbowing you mid-scene to demand laughter. Olaf is undeniably memorable in Frozen, yet he also functions like a pacing interrupter: the emotional stakes rise, then the story detours for a bit, then it tries to snap back. The character has sweetness and a couple of genuinely funny moments, but his “usefulness” is mostly meta keeping little kids entertained rather than narrative, because Anna and Elsa’s arc doesn’t really need him to move forward. Even his heartfelt lines often feel like motivational wallpaper, nice to hear but not essential to the plot’s mechanics. If you enjoy him, great; if you don’t, he can feel like the movie’s loudest passenger. | © Walt Disney Animation Studios

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4. The Sheriff (Halloween)

These films already have a simple engine panic spreads, bodies drop, trauma resurfaces so every side character needs a clear job or they become noise. The Sheriff is present across David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy mostly to deliver updates, show the town’s institutional helplessness, and react to the latest escalation. That’s a function, sure, but it’s also one that could be handled by almost any authority figure without changing the story’s shape. He rarely influences decisions in a way that alters outcomes, and the films often pivot away from him the moment the main characters re-enter the frame. In a franchise built on inevitability, the Sheriff ends up feeling like a human bulletin board: there to confirm things are bad, not to make them different. | © Universal Pictures

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3. Alfrid Lickspittle (The Hobbit)

Middle-earth has its share of comic side characters, but this one feels imported from a broader, louder movie. Alfrid is used as a comic irritant and political weasel, popping up to mug, panic, and scheme while the trilogy is trying to sell epic stakes and tragic destiny. The problem isn’t that he’s unpleasant that’s the point it’s that the story keeps giving him oxygen when it’s already struggling with bloat. If you removed most of his bits, The Hobbit trilogy would still have the same wars, the same betrayals, the same emotional spine, just with fewer detours into slapstick. His presence is the clearest example of “extra,” and it’s hard not to feel the runtime groan every time he slides back on screen. | © New Line Cinema

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2. Fabrizio De Rossi (Titanic)

The ship is sinking, the class divide is brutal, the romance is locked in… and then there’s Fabrizio, who mostly exists to be Jack’s friendly shadow. He’s likable, yes, and he gives Titanic a bit of immigrant texture and warmth early on, but he never becomes a driver of events or a meaningful counterpoint to the central story. After the initial bonding and a few crowd scenes, his role is essentially to stand nearby, react, and later serve as another emotional casualty of the disaster. You could swap him for any unnamed companion and the plot mechanics wouldn’t change; what you’d lose is a little humanity on the margins. That’s the definition of “nice to have,” not “needed.” | © 20th Century Fox

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1. Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace)

The backlash didn’t come out of nowhere: the character is loud, physically clumsy, and written to crash into scenes with a brand of humor that many viewers found grating rather than charming. Jar Jar Binks does have a narrative job guiding the heroes, connecting them to the Gungans, and later triggering a major political turn but the way he’s used makes him feel like tonal sabotage, not story glue. The Phantom Menace is already juggling trade disputes, prophecy talk, and political maneuvering, so a character who repeatedly pulls focus into slapstick can make the whole movie feel more uneven than it already is. In practice, the plot could reach the same endpoints with a calmer guide, which is why he’s often cited as the franchise’s most infamous “why is this here?” presence. Even defenders usually admit the execution is the issue. | © Lucasfilm Ltd.