Movie "tough guys", who's the leader of that particular pack?

I have to go with James Cagney. He came across simultaneously tough and classy and he could also sing and dance very well. He was a wonderful actor. See ya…....Gary/wtf

Errol Flynn

IMO nobody can exude more macho toughness standing in the same room with John Wayne. The all time alpha male!

But for cracking heads, I have always enjoyed Steven Sagal, crummy actor but he always brought the pain Big Time!!

Bogart.

Anyone for tennis? Supposedly his first line ever, from a play he was in in 1928.

Clint Eastwood, though I adore Bogart, Wayne, Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson.
Clint can just squint and growl, and you should know better than messing with him.

@whatthefluther Clint could sing too

Charlton Heston

He was a cool bad ass.

Bruce Campbell.

Clint, definitely. Arnold, too, although I have trouble seeing him as a movie tough guy now that he’s been the “Governator” for so long.

Surprisingly, I also vote for Tommy Lee Jones. Watch In the Valley of Elah. He’s amazing in it.

Hard to beat Cagney in “White Heat” pumping bullets into a car trunk where he had locked in a member of his gang while munching on fried chicken, or Bogie in “Petrified Forest” making his first entrance into a cafe.

@mrentropy GA! Nobody kicks demon ass better than Bruce!

So many to choose from, many of them already listed above. One that I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned yet is Chuck Norris.

Marlon Brando.

Vinnie Jones – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch

“Big Chris: [Big Chris has just explained that Eddie is in debt with Hatchet Harry] I understand if this has come as a bit of a shock. But let me tell you how this can be resolved by you, a good father.
JD: Go on.
Big Chris: He likes your bar.
JD: Yes?
Big Chris: He wants your bar.
JD: And?
Big Chris: Do you want me to draw you a picture?”

Sylvester Stallone
Burt Lancaster
Mel Gibson

Charlie Chaplin

Robert Stack in Airplane
Peter Boyle as the Monster in Young Frankenstein
Harvey Korman in Blazing Saddles

…and on a more serious note

Jack Nicholson in Chinatown

@filmfann…..Clint does pull it off surprisingly well. I trust you will not make a similar claim for Lee Marvin in the same film (I saw Paint Your Wagon at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood when I was a kid….wait, maybe that was How the West Was Won, or perhaps it was both).
See ya…...Gary/wtf

Bela Lugosi, of course.

Tom Hardy – Bronson
Lee Marvin – Seven Men from Now
Jack Lemmon – The Great Race