Tom Cruise is about to make eye-patches popular again with the release of his new film Valkyrie.

Actually, he's got about as much chance of making eye-patches fashionable as he does Scientology. Sorry to offend you Scientologists out there, but it's true.

Anyway, Cruise is playing the eye-patch-wearing Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who famously led a plot to kill off his leader Adolph Hitler.

But who has gone before him and sported a patch on the big-screen ... And not as a pirate.




7. BETTE DAVIS in The Anniversary (1967)

Eye-patches are quite often associated with some 'dastardly doer'. Here, Davis certainly played the part both on and off the screen. Her character was an overbearing 'one-eyed' monster called Mrs Taggart, who manipulates her three sons into returning home each year to help celebrate the wedding anniversary of her long-dead husband. Behind the camera Davis apparently had the black comedy's original director Alvin Rakoff replaced by Roy Ward Baker. She's got a Bette Davis eye ...




6. ROBERT DUVALL in The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Fresh from his role in the first two Godfather flicks, Duvall dons the eye-patch to play Nazi (what's with these Nazis and eye-patches?) Col. Max Radl, the man who formulated the plan for the Germans to parachute into England and adbuct, or kill, Winston Churchill. It co-starred Michael Caine as the lead paratrooper, Donald Pleasance as Heinrich Himmler and a very young trio of Donald Sutherland, Treat Williams and Larry 'Jr' Hagman as fellow Nazis. They weren't a patch on Duvall though.






5. DAVID WENHAM in 300 (2007)

Wenham's character, the strangly named Dilios, loses his eye in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC and gets sent home by King Leonidas. Lucky for him, 'cause the other 299 Spartans he was fighting alongside get killed by the invading Persians. Eye or no eye, Dilios however goes on to lead his own army, the significantly larger 10,000 Spartans, against the Persians, and wins. Dilios is also the narrator of this unique film by 'visionary' director Zack Snyder. 300 men and 599 eyes.



4. ANGELINA JOLIE in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Jolie plays Francesca 'Franky' Cook, the 'fearless' captain of a squadron of planes, The Flying Legion, who comes to the aid of the title character (Jude Law). This under-rated sci-fi movie, about a mission to stop a mad scientist from destroying the planet, pays homage to the great old adventure flicks of the '30s. Shot entirely against a blue screen, this imaginative movie was a predessessor to Sin City and 300, but failed to attract a big audience. Jolie shot all her scenes in three days. Lucky 'cause she's got all those kids to look after.


3. DARYL HANNAH in Kill Bill: Parts 1-2 (2004)

First she was a mermaid ... then a ruthless, cold-blooded, albeit fashionable, one-eyed assassin called Elle Driver in the Quentin Tarantino two-parter. Daryl Hannah's Elle mixes and matches her patches with whatever outfit she is wearing, even getting one made out for her deadly nurses' costume. Her codename is the California Mountain Snake. And, boy, can she bite. Though she's no match for a mad-as-hell Uma Thurman out for revenge, and (spoiler) ultimately loses the other eye. Eye for an eye, they say.




2. JOHN WAYNE in True Grit (1969)

What's a guy have to do to win an Oscar around here? Stick on an eye-patch ... Well, whaddya know ... Big John stars in well over 100 movies during his decorated career, but the only one he gets an Academy Award for Best Actor from is True Grit for his performance as the old whisky-guzzling former Marshall 'Rooster' Cogburn who is called back into action to track down a killer. It's a little bit like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven ... but with a patch. This film, incidently, co-starred another patch-wearer in Robert Duvall.




1. KURT RUSSELL in Escape from New York (1981)

How can you go past the man who everyone thought was dead, Snake Plissken? The former war hero turned condemned criminal is forced into flying into New York City, now a maximum security prison, to rescue the President (elected) from The Duke (self-appointed). The gruff and tough Snake actually made wearing an eye-patch cool. At least, I wanted one when I was eight and watching this for the first time. A cult classic from director John Carpenter that was followed up with Escape from LA 15 years later. Kurt Russel should've had both his eyes poked out after agreeing to star in that bomb. I wanted to poke my own eyes out after sitting through it.


HONORABLE MENTION
JOHN GOODMAN in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Big Dan Teague and his eye-patch was quite a hit in this fantastic take on Homer's epic poem The Odyssey from the Coen Brothers. (Spoiler) Probably 'cause he actually had two working eyes. The patch was just a ruse to help Dan in his swindling ways. Set in the Deep South of America in the 1940s, the movie starred George Clooney and Tim Blake Nelson - and a hapless little frog - who all feel the power of Big Dan.