Captain Jack Sparrow

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Before Pirates, everybody (well, pretty much everybody in my age group) thought Johnny Depp was some wacko who did emo, low budget movies and was probably gay with Tim Burton. And then...he gave us Captain Jack Sparrow.
A rum-soaked, wobbly-legged, sun-stroked, eccentric, morally ambiguous individual, with dreadlocks, gold teeth and (I imagine) a body odour to rival that of Pepe Le Pew. Yet, despite the character's many shortcomings and idiocies, we find that Sparrow is probably one of the best movie characters of the last decade, and has somehow managed to sneak his way into the public consciousness. His words are often quoted on the streets, his drunken swagger imitated, and girls everywhere love him.
We see in him a careless freedom: he goes where he pleases, takes what he likes, and does whatever he wants, something that is impossible for most of us.
Another thing that endears him to us is Sparrow's altruistic tendencies: he is a pirate, and he is willing to cheat, lie, betray and swindle his way to what he wants, but, in the end, however hard it is, he does what is best for his friends, and what he knows is the right thing to do. In short, he embodies a noble contradiction: Jack Sparrow is an ethical pirate. For example, in THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, he offers Barbossa a non-violent method of getting the medallion off the Interceptor, but Barbossa just tells him that his pacifism is what lost the Black Pearl in the first place. In DEAD MAN'S CHEST, after a moment of weakness in which he leaves the Black Pearl to the Kraken, he comes back to help his crew, and gives the order to abandon ship, the ship which he spent ten years and the entire first movie trying to get back. In the end, when he is chained to the mast, and betrayed by Elizabeth, he doesn't yell for help from Gibbs, who would rescue him in an instant, but goes down with his ship. Also, in AT WORLD'S END, if you pause the DVD and look at one of his hallucinations carefully, you can read the Desiderata tattooed on his back - a peom stating the code by which Sparrow 'tries' to live by. Sparrow also gives Will immortality to save him from dying, instead of taking it himself, even though Will has betrayed him repeatedly during the course of the film.
Also, I must say, Sparrow has an awesome outfit: besides the belts and the collectible knick-knacks he likes to adorn his person with, Jack Sparrow brought the bandanna back into fashion. And the kohl. Sparrow (or is it Depp?) really pulls off the kohl look.