Tattoos In The Movies

Movies with Tattoos In Them 

sometimes they are part of the plot, sometimes they are just major visuals

Neo-Nazi Tattoos in "American History X"

With his muscular frame, shaved head and goatee, actor Edward Norton's character Derek Vinyard from the movie AMERICAN HISTORY X projects a steady aura of menace. But what really adds to that image is the variety of tattoos on his upper body.

Tattoos from the BLADE movies

Details of the tattooing from all three Blade movies, plus the vampire ownership tattoos worn by the humans.

The Tattoos in the movie CONSTANTINE

We get glimpses of Constantine's forearm tattoos a few times during the movie. These are unique to the film adaptation, so don't go looking for them in the graphic novels.

The Tattoos of EASTERN PROMISES

Russian prison tattoos and Soviet gangsters in London will both feature in David Cronenberg´s movie EASTERN PROMISES.

George Clooney's tattoo in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

One of the most asked about tribal tattoos in the movies is the fragment you see coming out of George Clooney's shirt neckline in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. For the entire movie, at least until the last five minutes or so, that's all you get. This brief bit peeking out has a nagging effect. Does that tattoo go down his arm? How far does that thing do down his arm? What the heck does the rest of it look like?

Sirius Black in HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN

Black's introduction is as a murderer, and the only person to have managed to escape from the famed Azkaban prison. He is costumed like someone incarcerated for a long time: unkempt hair, unshaven, and a general unwashed appearance. He is also covered in tattoos.

Tattoos of Memento

Due to a head injury, Leonard Shelby has a serious memory problem. He can't make new memories, and only has the ones from right up until the accident. This is making it difficult for him to track down the man who killed his wife, and hit him in the head. To help him with his search, he has evolved a system. He takes Polaroid pictures, putting names to faces, marking which car is his, which hotel room is his. And to keep certain notes from being lost or changed, he has an elaborate series of tattoos slowly growing all over his body.

Darth Maul's Tattoos in THE PHANTOM MENACE

As part of his Sith identity, Darth Maul has had his entire body surface tattooed.

The Tattoos of Reign of Fire

A very popular movie tattoo is the highly stylized dragon-themed blackwork appearing in REIGN OF FIRE, worn by Denton Van Zan who is played by actor Matthew McConaughey.

Tattoos of the Salton Sea

In THE SALTON SEA, Val Kilmer portrays Thom Van Allen, a jazz trumpeter who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. His life falling apart from grief and the desire for revenge, Van Allen become Danny Parker, a secret police informant. The crowd that Danny hangs with are all drug dealers and meth addicts, known as "tweakers." Staying up for days at a time, they embrace their place outside society, and their tattooing seems to reinforce this. In order to blend in, Danny has become rather heavily tattooed.

Snatch Tattoos

In director Guy Ritchie's SNATCH, Pitt plays the eccentric character Mickey O'Neil, a Gypsy with a talent for fighting. Sporting almost as intense a physique as in FIGHT CLUB, Brad Pitt is also covered with theatrical tattoos, with work on his arms, chest, abdomen and back. The style is rendered very realistically, being a mix of personal imagery and symbols rendered in a plain outline or fineline style.

The Tattoos of SUGARHOUSE

This new gangster-crime drama from the UK features dueling drug dealers and a good amount of skin art too!

TATTOO - 1981

The 1981 movie "Tattoo" was a mild thriller, featuring an obsessive loner who falls in love with a fashion model and decides to save her from her life of decadence.

TATTOO - 2002

In 2002, the movie world got a new tattoo thriller from Germany with TATTOO. Visually the movie has similarities to Fincher's SEVEN DEADLY SINS, but it also honors the time-old Japanese tattoo mythologies with their complex themes of love and revenge. Fans of the tv show CSI will most likely find themselves able to tolerate the explicit medical scenes as they take place in the context of the police investigation.

Villains with Body Art

Woody Harrelson and Juliet Lewis in "Natural Born Killers." Mario Van Peebles as Kane in the third Highlander movie. Robert DeNiro in "Cape Fear."

The Tattoos of WANTED

Actress Angelina Jolie ups the ink with her new action feature. Get a sneak preview of her tattooed character

The Tattoos of xXx (triple x)

In the action movie "xXx" tattoos are a colorful and frequent presence. In the overlap between the worlds of the international spy and underground extreme sports, it seems nearly everyone sports some form of tattoo.

The Body Art of THE X-MEN

In the universe of the X-Men, humans and mutants have been struggling to coexist side by side. Some of the mutations are very obvious and some of the mutants pass for otherwise normal humans. Whereas most of what makes the mutants different is involuntary mutation, some of it is chosen. Here's a closer look at the body art of the X-Men.