(by 9 people)
as a tattoo writer, I get LOTS of questions about tattoos in movies
This lens is about tattoos from movies, including Wanted, the Blade Trilogy, Memento, The Number 23, From Dusk 'Til Dawn, Reign of Fire, Eastern Promises, and more.
Shown here, Angelina Jolie from the new movie WANTED.
the tattoo movie listing
- Tribal-Style in the Movies
- Russian prison tattoos from EASTERN PROMISES
- Tattoo Plotlines
- Jim Carrey and The Number 23 Tattoo
- THE NUMBER 23 dvd
- Tattoo Movie Clips and Trailers
- The Shark Tattoo of Ocean's 11, 12 and 13
- OCEAN'S TRILOGY
- Movies with Tattoos In Them
- Angelina Jolie as "Fox" in WANTED
- Great Character Ink
- Vin Diesel as Xander Cage from xXx
- Tattoo Movies
- Body Art Bits and Bobs
- INK CITY
Tribal-Style in the Movies
The Blade Trilogy (Blade/ Blade II/ Blade: Trinity)
As Blade, Wesley Snipes gets progressively more tattooed as the trilogy goes on. There are also tattoos worn by humans to show their allegiance to vampires.
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Reign of Fire
Matthew "No-Shirt" McCoughney plays Denton Van Zant, a US Marine on a dragon-killing mission. A few scenes show his character's full chest and arm tribal dragon tattoos.
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From Dusk Till Dawn (Dimension Collector's Series)
In the last five minutes, you'll get to see George Clooney's full-arm tribal tattoo.
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Red Dragon (Widescreen Collector's Edition)
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Once Were Warriors
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Russian prison tattoos from EASTERN PROMISES
Tattoo Plotlines
when the ink is part of the story
- City of Lost Children - As Miette and One search for One's little brother, they must find a tattooed map of a watery mine field to reach the evil scientist's lair.
- Eastern Promises - A mid-wife gets caught up with Russian gangsters in London, all of whom have elaborate prison tattoos that tell their life stories.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - the Death Eaters all wear a tattoo of a skull and a snake. It's a paled tattoo until Voldemort "activates it," calling his followers to come to him. Then it's very dark and the snake writhes subtly.
- Memento - a man who has lost the ability to make any new memories uses tattoos on himself to remember clues as he tracks his wife's killer.
- Tattoo - 1981 - a tattoo artist develops an obsession about his favorite fashion model to the point of kidnapping her and forcibly tattooing her. Awesome early use of Temptu body paint and designs by Ed Hardy.
- Tattoo - 2002 - An older jaded cop and his rookie partner track a killer collecting tattooed skins. Tense drama and hot skin art. The film is German and is most often found with a German language track and subtitles.
- Waterworld - the kanji and coordinates tattooed on the back of a young girl gives the location of the last dry land on Earth.
- Yellowbeard - In this Pythonesque rendition of a pirate movie, the map to Yellowbeard's treasure is tattooed on the head of his long-lost son.
Jim Carrey and The Number 23 Tattoo
THE NUMBER 23 dvd
In the story within the story, Carrey gets to play a jazz musician with a rough life. He also has his shoulders and one arm fully tattooed, with a tribal-style tattoo design. The patterns look like a stylized thorn or barbwire design which pierces a large red heart on his forearm.
The Number 23 (Unrated Infinifilm Edition)
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Tattoo Movie Clips and Trailers
catch a flash of ink in these short videos
The Shark Tattoo of Ocean's 11, 12 and 13
Brad Pitt's character in the OCEAN'S movies, Rusty Ryan, sports a bold tribal tattoo that runs down his left forearm and onto his hand. There were brief glimpses in OCEAN'S ELEVEN, and a bit more in OCEAN'S TWELVE. Presumably, it will make a third appearance in the upcoming OCEAN'S THIRTEEN.The design was done by special effects makeup designer Christian Tinsley and is available for purchase as a temporary tattoo.
OCEAN'S TRILOGY
Ocean's Trilogy (Ocean's Eleven / Ocean's Twelve / Ocean's Thirteen)
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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.
Angelina Jolie as "Fox" in WANTED
Great Character Ink
![XXX [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K8f7%2BPU%2BL._SL75_.jpg)
Vin Diesel as Xander Cage from xXx
Tattoo Movies
The Rose Tattoo
A widow meets a mysterious truck driver who not only resembles her late husband, but also has the same tattoo.
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![Tattoo [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RNR73ZGZL._SL75_.jpg)
Tattoo [Region 2]
Tattooed people are being murdered for their skins. Two Berlin cops track the collector.
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Memento (Widescreen Two-Disc Limited Edition)
A man who can't make any new memories uses tattoos to keep notes as he tracks his wife's killer.
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The Salton Sea
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Eastern Promises (Widescreen Edition)
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Body Art Bits and Bobs
new movie tattoos, comments and whatever else you have to say
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beachbum_gabby
Angelina Jolie's tattoos are really cool, if she don't want it, she'll just do laser removal. Posted May 02, 2008 |
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Aika
Like the tattoo of Wentworth Miller of Prison Break. :) Great lens Rachel, 5* Posted August 09, 2007 |
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Barkely
I love all your tattoo and body art lenses. Posted June 01, 2007 |
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Danthology
Hey, thanks for the vote- and for turning me on to your Tatoos in the Movies page! Very interesting... I love it, and this page is getting a mention on mine! Posted April 02, 2007 |
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relache
Check the trailer for the upcoming release, "The Number 23." Jim Carrey with tattoos! http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/thenumber23/ Posted January 13, 2007 |
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