Nightmare Alley allowed director Guillermo del Toro to work in the genre of a noir thriller. The movie, a dark remake of a 1947 film, which itself was based on a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, told the story of a grifter and conman named Stan who learned his trade while living with and working for a carnival during World War II era America.
In a noir thriller, there are few characters that are even closely considered likable. Even the heroes come across as antiheroes at best and display traits that could make them a villain in any other story. However, in Nightmare Alley, there are still some characters that display likable characteristics, and others who are genuinely sympathetic.
Ezra Grindle
The most unlikeable character in a movie full of men and women who live in shades of grey is Ezra Grindle. This is a man who hired Stan Carlisle to help bring him peace by somehow using his perceived psychic powers to manifest her for him to seek forgiveness.
He was unlikable from the start, a bullying man who believed that his money allowed him to do anything he wanted. However, when he admitted his sins to Stan toward the end of the movie, Grindle became the most despicable man in the movie by a long shot.
Anderson
Anderson was Grindle's bodyguard, and a man who ensured that his boss remained safe at all costs. The first time he appeared in the movie, he was a jerk to Stan and it was clear he was not a kind man in any sense of the word.
As time went on, he softened up a little, especially when he explained that he was there to make sure that no one hurt Grindle. This all twisted in the other direction when Grindle's sins came to light and made Anderson an accomplice for some very horrific events.
Major Mosquito
There wasn't many reasons to like Major Mosquito, a member of the carnival that Stan joined early in the movie. He was a resourceful man, but one who trusted no one and had a surly and sour attitude toward all but a few select people.
The only people that Major Mosquito even spoke nicely to was his friend Bruno and Molly. However, he wasn't a bad person, just someone who knew that outsiders, especially men like Stan, were nothing but trouble for the few people he did care about.
Lilith Ritter
Lilith Ritter was the femme fatale of Nightmare Alley, and that made her character very unlikable because she always used her charm in an underhanded and devious manner. Lilith was clearly a bad person, although she turned out to have a good reason for not trusting people.
Lilith, along the course of the movie, betrayed the trust of people she worked for as a therapist and then, in the true nature of all noir thrillers, betrayed even her partner in crime in the end. Lilith was a character who destroyed everyone around her.
Bruno
Bruno was difficult to like at first in Nightmare Alley. When he first met Stan, he threatened him and pushed him around. He didn't want the man anywhere near the carnival, and it seemed he was just a mean, cruel man.
That was far from the truth. Played by Guillermo Del Toro regular Ron Perlman, Bruno was the strongman for the carnival and was a close friend of Molly's father. He made a promise to protect Molly and he knew Stan was trouble from the start. His entire purpose was to protect the only good person in the movie, and that helped make him infinitely more likable.
Clem Hoately
Clem Hoately was not really a good person. He was a carnival worker that used his position to ruin certain people's lives. However, in Nightmare Alley, he was also one of the first people in the movie who offered to help Stan when the audience still liked the man.
While Bruno wanted to get rid of Stan, Clem offered him a job with the carnival. He offered him a hot meal and took him in. Clem was the first man in the movie to offer to help someone, even though he later proved that his idea of help was not always what a person really needed.
Stan Carlisle
Stan Carlisle is the main character in Nightmare Alley, and he is who the audience follows throughout the movie. When everything started, he was clearly someone on the run from something, but he also seemed like someone who was a good person inside.
Even when he was twisting his teachings into a "spook show," it seemed he was doing it with a good heart, wanting to help people. Sadly, as the movie wore on, his true personality began to shine through and he turned out to be a broken man, and his ending was deserved.
Pete Krumbein
Pete was the man who taught Stan all he needed to know to work as a psychic for the carnival, and later for club shows where Stan made a lot of money. However, Pete was also a man who was broken inside, knowing how his talent could be misused.
Pete was a broken down alcoholic by the time that Stan met him, and he was someone that was extremely likable even as he fell further and further into despair. Pete was a good man who let the world of the carnival break him down, one of the few genuinely tragic stories in the movie.
Zeena Krumbein
Zeena was Pete's wife and the first person to show a genuine interest in Stan. It started out as a sexual encounter, but then morphed into more of a cautious friend. She worked with Pete in the carnival, working their psychic sideshow to great effect.
She was also the one person in the carnival in Nightmare Alley who seemed to have a moral compass. She tried to keep Pete on the up and up and she did her best to warn Stan not to take the road he was headed toward. Zeena was the only person who tried to help anyone without wanting anything in return in the movie.
Molly Cahill
The most likeable character in Nightmare Alley was Molly Cahill. When Stan met her at the carnival, she was a wide-eyed, happy person, living her best life with her friends. She even had her own sideshow attraction that she was good at.
However, when she fell in love with Stan, it sent her on a road that led to darkness and despair. What made her so tragic was that she followed her heart, but chose to trust a broken man who was headed to his own tragic end. Molly escaped, which is important since she was the one truly innocent person in this dark morality tale.