Surviving in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland really gives one an appetite, even for dog food.
In Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Max Rockatansky sits on a ridge overlooking a besieged settlement with his blue heeler, simply called Dog, beside him. He opens a can of Dinki-Di dog food and starts eating it himself. When Max has had enough, he hands the leftovers to Dog.
Dinki-Di was a fictional dog food, but the feelings were real. In this broken world, water, food and gasoline (or guzzle-ine) have become precious commodities. Dog gives Max something even rarer in the wasteland: loyal companionship.
Like felines on film, canine co-stars have been providing serious dog star power since the dawn of cinema. Dogs were among the first species to appear on film.
Possibly the earliest known surviving film containing a dog is Edison's Athlete with Wand, filmed in February 1894. The film delivers what it promises and features a guy working out with a pole. However, a black dog makes a cameo as she lies on the floor beside him, occasionally looking up before apparently deciding the human isn't ever going to throw that stick. The dogs then turns away to curl up and nap. The British Film Institute (BFI) notes that this canine appearance predates the dogs seen in the Lumière brothers' films of 1895. Within little more than a decade, dogs moved up from background extras to stars.
Rescued by Rover (1905) featured a Collie named Blair as Rover, who tracks down a kidnapped baby and leads the child's family to her, setting a standard for heroic Collies. The film was so successful that its negative reportedly wore out from making prints and had to be reshot twice. The BFI has called Blair the world's first canine movie star.
Hollywood has been finding roles for dogs ever since. This year, Brad Pitt stared with Uber, a German Shepherd, in Heart of the Beast. Uber delivered a great performance, but didn't do all of his own stunts. Animatronics and CGI stepped in to ensure that no animals were harmed in the making of the film.
This list includes only real dogs, even if they get digital help, so no cartoons or CGI. (Sorry, Dug from Up. You’ll always be the alpha to me.) The dozens of dogs in this list include heroes, athletes, detectives, monsters, emotional support systems and agents of household destruction.
Golden Era Hollywood dogs ready for their close-ups
- Rover — Rescued by Rover (1905): The aforementioned collie follows the trail of a kidnapped baby, locates her and brings the parents to the rescue. Rover established one of cinema's most durable canine tropes: dogs’ senses make them superheroes.
- Jean — Vitagraph films beginning in 1910: A Scottish Collie became one of the earliest recurring animal performers, appearing in numerous films built around her character.
- Strongheart — films beginning with The Silent Call (1921): The German Shepherd, whose real, totally not ostentatious, name was Etzel von Oeringen, became one of Hollywood's first major canine feature-film stars.
- Rin Tin Tin — films beginning in the 1920s: Rescued as a puppy from a World War I battlefield, Rin Tin Tin became an international star for Warner Bros. Films were eventually being written specifically around him, and he helped establish the heroic German Shepherd as a Hollywood archetype.
Who’s a good dog?
Once filmmakers discovered that audiences would root for a dog, there was no going back.
- Lassie — Lassie film series: The collie became perhaps the definitive heroic movie dog, repeatedly protecting people, surviving danger and finding the way home. The original movie Lassie was played by a male collie named Pal. Lassie's protection of boys named Tim always made it personal for me.
- Old Yeller — Old Yeller (1957): A stray dog earns his place with a Texas frontier family by protecting them from danger. His eventual rabies infection turned the film into a childhood trauma delivery system for generations.
- Savage Sam — Savage Sam (1963): Old Yeller's offspring takes over the canine-hero duties in the sequel.
- Benji — Benji film series: The scruffy stray first became a movie hero in 1974, helping rescue two kidnapped children. The original Benji was played by Higgins, with later members of his canine family continuing the role.
- Shadow and Chance — Homeward Bound films: Shadow, an older Golden Retriever, and Chance, a young American Bulldog, cross the wilderness with Sassy the Himalayan cat while trying to return to their family.
- Buddy — Air Bud films: A Golden Retriever demonstrates that apparently nobody had bothered to put a rule in the basketball regulations preventing dogs from playing. The original canine actor Buddy really could bounce a basketball into a hoop!
- Shiloh — Shiloh films: A Beagle escaping mistreatment forms a bond with a boy determined to protect him.
- Maya, Max, Old Jack, Shorty, Dewey, Truman, Shadow and Buck — Eight Below (2006): Eight sled dogs stranded at an Antarctic research station must survive while their handler struggles to return for them. More than 30 real dogs helped portray the eight characters.
- Max — Max (2015): A military working dog traumatized by the death of his Marine handler bonds with the man's younger brother.
- Togo — Togo (2019): The Siberian Husky leads Leonhard Seppala's sled team through some of the most dangerous portions of the 1925 serum run to Nome.
- Lulu — Dog (2022): A military Belgian Malinois and an Army Ranger travel together to attend the funeral of Lulu's former handler, with both carrying their own war-related baggage.
- Arthur — Arthur the King (2024): A stray dog attaches himself to an endurance-racing team and follows the competitors across hundreds of miles.
- Odin — Heart of the Beast (2026): Now in theaters! A retired military combat dog stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with Special Forces veteran James Belmont after a plane crash. Odin helps rescue Belmont and becomes his essential survival partner as the two confront the elements together.
Canine companion co-stars
Not every movie dog has to save a child from a well. Sometimes simply sticking around is enough.
- Toto — The Wizard of Oz (1939): Dorothy's Cairn Terrier accompanies her to Oz, antagonizes Miss Gulch and eventually helps expose the supposedly all-powerful Wizard as a man operating machinery behind a curtain.
- Asta — The Thin Man film series: Nick and Nora Charles' Wire Fox Terrier fits naturally into a household built around murder investigations, cocktails and witty marital banter.
- Flike — Umberto D. (1952): The small mixed-breed dog becomes the closest companion of an impoverished elderly man and the emotional center of Vittorio De Sica's film.
- Sounder — Sounder (1972): The family dog provides companionship amid poverty, imprisonment and separation in the Depression-era South.
- Blood — A Boy and His Dog (1975): Blood accompanies Vic through a post-apocalyptic wasteland and, unlike most movie dogs, communicates telepathically with his human.
- Dog — The Road Warrior (1981): Max's blue heeler is one of his few trusted companions in the wasteland and, as the Dinki-Di scene demonstrates, shares his grocery scavenging.
- Skip — My Dog Skip (2000): A Jack Russell Terrier helps a shy boy make friends and navigate childhood.
- Winn-Dixie — Because of Winn-Dixie (2005): A stray dog helps a lonely girl make connections after moving to a new town.
- Marley — Marley & Me (2008): An unruly Labrador grows older alongside a couple as careers, marriage and children transform their household.
- Hachi — Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009): An Akita continues waiting for his owner at a train station even after the man's death.
- Arthur — Beginners (2010): A Jack Russell Terrier becomes Oliver's companion after his father's death and is even given subtitled thoughts.
- Jack — The Artist (2011): The dog remains loyal to silent-film actor George Valentin as his career collapses. Uggie, the Jack Russell who played him, became nearly as famous as the human cast.
- Snoop — Anatomy of a Fall (2023): The family's Border Collie becomes unexpectedly important in reconstructing events surrounding a suspicious death.
Canine comic relief
Dogs can also perform a valuable cinematic function: destroying whatever plans the humans had or otherwise causing mutt mayhem.
- Hooch — Turner & Hooch (1989): A massive Dogue de Bordeaux is both a murder witness and the nightmare roommate of a compulsively tidy detective.
- Jerry Lee — K-9 films: A German Shepherd police dog helps solve crimes while displaying only selective respect for his human partner's authority.
- Beethoven — Beethoven film series: A St. Bernard turns a suburban family's house, yard and personal lives into his domain.
- Hercules, aka “The Beast” — The Sandlot (1993): Neighborhood children imagine the English Mastiff living beyond the outfield fence as a gigantic monster, only to discover he has a connection to the Great Bambino.
- Puffy — There's Something About Mary (1998): Mary's Border Terrier launches an extraordinarily aggressive campaign against Ted, resulting in increasingly absurd attempts to subdue him.
- Bruiser — Legally Blonde films: Elle Woods' Chihuahua serves as companion, fashion accessory and occasional participant in the plot.
Puppy plot points
Sometimes remove the dog and there simply isn't much movie left.
- Pongo and Perdita — live-action 101 Dalmatians films: Their puppies become the targets of Cruella de Vil's fur-coat ambitions, setting the rescue operation in motion.
- Cofi — Amores perros (2000): A Rottweiler's involvement in illegal dog fighting becomes an important connection among the film's intersecting stories of violence, money and relationships.
- Bailey — A Dog's Purpose and A Dog's Journey: The same canine consciousness repeatedly returns in different dogs, linking several human lives across decades.
- Daisy — John Wick series: The Beagle puppy is a final gift from John Wick's late wife. Her killing provides the relatively small spark that produces an astonishingly large body count.
- John Wick's pit bull — John Wick series: Wick later rescues another dog, whose continuing presence contrasts with the loss that initiated the series.
BAD DOG!! NO MURDER!!
Cats may have a reputation for sinister intentions, but movies have given dogs some formidable villain roles of their own.
- The Dog-Thing — The Thing (1982): An apparently ordinary sled dog is actually a shape-shifting extraterrestrial infiltrating an Antarctic research station. It was a real dog playing an alien, so it counts.
- White Dog — White Dog (1982): A seemingly friendly dog has been deliberately conditioned to attack Black people. The film follows an animal trainer's attempt to undo the racist conditioning.
- Cujo — Cujo (1983): A friendly St. Bernard contracts rabies and becomes the terrifying force trapping a mother and child inside a stalled car.
- Baxter — Baxter (1989): The Bull Terrier is simultaneously protagonist, narrator and menace, judging a succession of human owners while revealing an increasingly disturbing personality.
