If you are looking for a costume for Halloween or a party themed on a film (or series of films), there are plenty of movies in popular culture around with characters you can get costume ideas from.
The costume you pick wants to be distinctive and recognisable as such; many film characters are just people dressed in normal clothing. For the best costume ideas you want something that stands out. Liam Neeson‘s character of Bryan Mills in the Taken series of films for example may be a good character, but he is just a man in normal clothes, and so not a good character choice for a costume.
Some of the best movie genres for getting character ideas from are fantasy, science fiction, horror and superhero films as these genres, more than any other films, tend to have characters with distinctive clothing and appearances, whether this is because of the outfits worn or because of the appearance of the characters themselves, especially the non-human ones. This isn’t to say that you can’t find costumes from other types of film, but it does tend to be harder to get something really noticeable.
For horror film characters, it can best to pick those from long running series as these are usually the most recognisable. Some horror character costume ideas are:
Freddy Krueger, from the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Although Freddy’s appearance has changed slightly over the years, his outfit typically consists of a striped red and green sweater, a dark brown fedora, loose black trousers and hiking boots. His face is disfigured by burns, and on one hand he wears his signature bladed glove.
Jason Vorhees, from the Friday the Thirteenth films. Jason’s appearance has also altered, but he usually wears an ice hockey goalie mask and wields a machete.
Ghostface, from the Scream series, wears a hooded black robe with a tattered effect and his distinctive white mask with black eye, nose and mouth holes. His preferred weapon is a hunting knife.
Michael Myers, from the Halloween films, wears a boiler suit and a mask that covers his entire head. He prefers large kitchen style knives.
Jigsaw, from the Saw series, may be long running but he doesn’t really have a costume as such, and so isn’t as suitable.
Note that for those characters that prefer knives, use a fake one! Real ones are not suitable costume choices!
There have been four major fantasy film series in recent years, all of which are based on books, Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Twilight. Twilight is probably the weakest to look for costume ideas from, as most of the characters spend the majority of the time looking human. Both Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings have non-humans, such as elves, dwarves and hobbits, or characters with easily identifiable outfits, such as the Hogwarts and Quidditch uniforms, or Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White,
A couple of science fiction franchises that can be considered are Star Wars and Star Trek. Star Wars is a perennial favourite with, so far, eight films to choose from and a broad range of characters, some with iconic outfits such as Darth Vader, lots of aliens and with even the humans wearing clothes that are different, including uniforms.
Similarly, Star Trek also has a broad range of alien characters as well as uniformed humans. Both of these films are easy sources of inspiration.
An uptick in the number of superhero films, such as Deadpool, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, The Avengers, Iron Man, X-Men, Captain America and Thor films has increased the visibility of superheroes in the public eye. One definite fact about superheroes is that they usually have very distinctive costumes.
Take a look at more ideas:
A Man in Black from Men in Black
Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever