Every Villager Type In A Minecraft Movie Explained (And Who Is Missing)

In 2009, "Minecraft" was a bare-bones survival game with plenty of promise. Since then it's become the best-selling video game in history, with publisher Mojang Studios transforming the game into an incredible fantasy adventure that lets players tap into their creativity. As "Minecraft" has grown, its world has gotten quite a bit more realistic. Players can create their own buildings and towns, but villages also dot the game's landscape, populated by NPCs (non-playable characters) that all have special roles and interact with players in different ways.

"A Minecraft Movie" tries to stuff as many of those off-the-wall villagers into its 101-minute runtime as possible, and that seems to have worked in its favor. Before its release, we were pretty worried about the "Minecraft" movie thanks to its messy production cycle and oddball art direction. But while critics have their issues with the final product, fans are in love with the film. It made $163 million in its opening weekend alone and has an 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Fans even think the movie might be one of the best live-action video game adaptations ever, because it's filled with small details even super "Minecraft" fans might miss. There's zombies and skeletons galore, but there are also so many nods to village NPCs that you'd have to be a "Minecraft" wiki editor to recognize them all. See if you spotted every villager in "A Minecraft Movie," and whether the missing faces give you any clues about what direction a potential sequel might take.

The world of "A Minecraft Movie" is a place full of danger and teeming with treasure, but it's not a place where there's much work to do. There's not a single person in a "Minecraft" village who's clocking into a nine-to-five job and earning a paycheck. Sure, there are some craftspeople who will work at specific tasks that Steve (Jack Black) and his friends might need done, but most of the villagers we see aren't gainfully employed.

The unemployed villagers in the "Minecraft" game are basically default NPCs that populate towns and keep the streets feeling lively. They wander about the world doing absolutely nothing, but all that aimless walking really adds to the game's ambiance. In the movie, the villagers basically play that exact same role: You can spot them, wearing brown robes and keeping their hands permanently folded, in the background of just about every shot in the village. They might not be working a job, but they're an important part of society in a "Minecraft" village.

Much like the unemployed villagers that fill up the towns in "Minecraft," Nitwit villagers also don't have a job to do in the game. But while an unemployed villager might wind up working as a Toolsmith or a Librarian at some point in their life, a Nitwit is destined to do nothing but wander the world for all of their days. Nitwits wear robes similar to the ones sported by unemployed villagers, but the top half of their outfit is green and stands out in a crowd.

In one of the jokes in "A Minecraft Movie" that's aimed at adults, a Nitwit villager (voiced by Matt Berry) gets to go on a pretty spectacular journey. When Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen) and Garrett (Jason Momoa) open the portal to the world of "Minecraft," a Nitwit eventually stumbles through it and ends up in the real world. His voyage to Earth starts out a little rough — he gets hit by a car — but things take a turn when Vice Principal Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge) takes a liking to him. As in the games, the movie's Nitwit can't speak and just makes the occasional grunt, but somehow that helps him solidify a relationship with Marlene and find a place for himself among the kooky kids at the school in Chuglass.

When Steve first brings his new friends to the village in "A Minecraft Movie," there are quite a few farmers making their way through the streets. The farmers are easy to spot because they all wear identical straw hats even when they aren't at home or tending to their animals. In "A Minecraft Movie," the farmers are really just background figures that help make the village feel a little more alive, but in the game, farmers are some of the most useful NPCs around.

In the "Minecraft" game, farmers serve two purposes: they sell useful items to players and manage some of the menial farm work that players would otherwise have to do themselves. "Minecraft" is all about letting players live out their own fantasies, so if you wanted to spend dozens of hours raising blocky chickens by hand, you absolutely could. If you let farmers step in and do some of that work for you, however, you'll quickly find yourself the kingpin of a megafarm producing more crops than you know what to do with. Most experienced players have a legion of farmers maximizing their crop yields.

You probably don't need to be a "Minecraft" veteran to have an idea of what cartographer villagers do in the game. After being assigned to a cartography table, an unemployed villager will dive headfirst into the new role, and players can then trade with them to get some special items that encourage more exploration. Cartographers give out special multicolored banners that players can use to decorate their world or leave helpful markers along some of their adventure trails, but even more importantly, cartographers sell maps.

That map feature is exactly why the characters in "A Minecraft Movie" decide to seek out a cartographer. When the main group gets split up, Steve leads Garrett and Henry to the Woodland Mansion, but Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) are on their own. Luckily, the village in the movie has a local cartographer, and the women are able to track him down through the chaos of a piglin attack to get the map they need.

The librarians in "A Minecraft Movie" are pretty easy to spot, thanks to their distinctive headgear. Librarians walk around balancing books on top of their heads, although since everything in "Minecraft" is just a series of square-shaped objects melded together, we can't rule out the possibility that the book is actually part of a librarian's head. There are a couple of librarians in the village that Steve and his friends visit in the movie, and one of them even hangs out with the cartographer that Natalie and Dawn see after the piglin attack.

If you're not fully clued into the actual gameplay of "Minecraft," you might question why a survival game would have librarian NPCs in the first place. In every good survival game, the jobs that NPCs work feed directly back into the player's power level, and librarians offer "Minecraft" players enchanted books that can add magical properties to their gear and weapons. Steve in "A Minecraft Movie" doesn't come off as much of a reader, but as a professional miner, he's probably got dozens of books stored away in case his pickaxe ever needs a magical boost.

It seems like most of the jobs in a "Minecraft" village come with their own signature headwear. Butchers in "Minecraft" wear aprons and thin red bandanas that help them stand out from far away. In the game players can use butchers to, unsurprisingly, buy cooked meat that helps them stay alive in the game's Survival mode. Of course, players can also cook meat themselves, but that involves hunting animals or finding some other means of getting raw meat first.

The first butcher in "A Minecraft Movie" appears in a particularly memorable scene. Jack Black has a history of adding music into his movies, and "A Minecraft Movie" is no exception. Shortly after bringing his new friends into the village, Steve takes them to the butcher shop and serenades them with an original tune about his lava-fried chicken recipe. Eagle-eyed viewers might notice that when it comes to cooking the chicken, Steve actually does all the work, but to be fair, in the game the butchers mostly just stand around too.

The armorer is one of the easiest villager types to spot in "A Minecraft Movie," though if you aren't familiar with the game, you might struggle to figure out what these villagers actually do. Armorers wear a thick leather apron that looks, from the front, quite a bit like the brown robes all the unemployed villagers wear. They also sport a pair of metallic protective goggles that they seemingly wear on top of their heads 24/7.

In the movie, the armorers don't get much time in the spotlight, but they arguably play a big role in all the battles that take place. Steve wouldn't have any of the diamond armor he's so proud of if it wasn't for an armorer working at a blast furnace to produce the diamonds in the first place. It's true that Steve, and real-life "Minecraft" players, can forge sets of armor alone, but armorers help speed the process along so players can focus on building and adventuring.

Steve might not have relied on the services of a mason when he was getting his initial building fix, but he might have stopped by the shepherd's shop. They would have been particularly helpful when Steve was building a house made out of pink sheep's wool, and we see some of them standing around Midport village when Steve and his new friends first arrive. When he was building his bright pink house, Steve might have spent a few in-game days shearing sheep by hand, but if he's supposed to represent a truly efficient "Minecraft" player, then he probably paid a shepherd to do some of that work for him.

In the "Minecraft" game, shepherds are a fairly common villager type. Sheep are ubiquitous in the world of "Minecraft," so there's always a need for someone to manage the flocks that would otherwise roam the wilderness and get picked off by zombies. Shepherds sell blocks of dyed sheep wool that players can use to create their own fuzzy houses, along with a variety of beds and banners that players can use to spruce up their homes.

Clerics are another villager type that might seem out of place in the survivalist world of "Minecraft," but their services are actually indispensable. Clerics work at brewing stands, and like most other villagers, they function as a shop for players. Some rare and extremely useful items can be picked up from a cleric's shop, like redstone dust that can be used to create all kinds of elaborate machines.

Steve uses redstone to operate his lava chicken cooker, but he probably didn't get that redstone from a cleric. If he had, he would have also stocked up on ender pearls, which clerics will happily sell. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be a cleric nearby during the events of "A Minecraft Movie," otherwise Steve and his friends would be able to constantly teleport around any obstacle in their path.

"Minecraft" villages, like villages in real life, need a steady supply of food, and fisherman villagers help provide that. A fisherman's workstation of choice is a barrel, which they use to store the fish that they sell to players. Fishermen can also sell fishing rods and different types of bait for enterprising players who prefer to get their daily catch themselves.

The village that Steve and his friends visit in "A Minecraft Movie" is located right along the water, and some of the villagers even try to escape town on boats when the piglins attack. Because there's a river right beside the town, there are almost certainly fishermen living and working in the village, but this particular profession doesn't get any time to shine in the movie. There aren't any scenes that actually focus on the fishermen, and none of them help out the main characters at any point in the story. Perhaps the sequel will see Steve and his friends take to the high seas and make fishing an important part of the next adventure.

"Minecraft" is technically a fantasy game, and no fantasy world is complete without a healthy collection of bows and arrows. When players are just getting their world off the ground, they have to craft their own weapons, but eventually villagers can help keep them stocked with arms. Fletchers are responsible for crafting weapons like bows and crossbows and for supplying them with a variety of arrows. Fletchers can also add all sorts of properties to arrows, from poison damage to healing abilities.

Thanks to the work of fletchers, the bow is one of the most useful weapons in "Minecraft." Sadly, in the movie we don't get to see fletchers or what they have to offer. There are definitely some arrows slung throughout the movie, but since Henry is able to craft his own guns — something real-life "Minecraft" players would probably like to do — the classic bow and arrow combo ends up taking a backseat.

We'll give you three guesses what a leatherworker does in "Minecraft." Much like armorers, leatherworkers specialize in making protective gear for players who want to explore dark caves or delve into deep dungeons. Unlike armorers, leatherworkers are only willing to use a single material in their craft. Especially in the early game, the armor that leatherworkers craft can be invaluable, and later on their shop can be a useful place to go for saddles and horse armor.

There's no doubt that shortly after Steve arrives in the "Minecraft" world, he becomes acquainted with the village leatherworkers. He wouldn't survive long against zombies and skeletons without some beginner armor. By the time "A Minecraft Movie" gets rolling, though, Steve is fully kitted out with diamond armor, and it's safe to say he hasn't thought about visiting a leatherworker's shop in a long while. Henry, Dawn, and Garrett all have Steve guiding them through the world, so they never stop by the shop either.

"Minecraft" all but created the tree-punching survival game genre, but most players only bash their fists into tree trunks until they have enough materials to start making some decent tools. Shovels, hoes, and of course pickaxes are essential items for anyone looking to create their dream "Minecraft" world. You'll spend plenty of time in the game crafting your own tools, but eventually it becomes much more efficient to stop by a village when you need a resupply.

Toolsmith villagers work at a smithing table, and they'll sell you just about anything you need — aside from a sword. When you're just getting started in the game, toolsmiths can be a convenient source of simple stone tools, but once you've got some serious wealth built up, you can buy all-powerful diamond tools directly from toolsmiths as well. In "A Minecraft Movie," we mostly see our heroes creating their own tools, but if they weren't in the middle of a high-stakes adventure, they'd probably just walk to the store for their tools like everyone else.

The weaponsmith steps in to fill the gap left by toolsmiths. Weaponsmiths sell swords and axes of varying quality, and they can also sell weapons imbued with unique enchantments that make them significantly more useful. As always, players are completely capable of crafting and enchanting their very own weapons, but for most of them it's easier to simply stop by the weaponsmith's grindstone rather than gather all the raw materials necessary to craft a full arsenal. 

We don't see a weaponsmith in action during the events of "A Minecraft Movie," but based on the utterly staggering collection of weapons that Steve has adorning his wall in the village, we have to assume that he's been by the grindstone once or twice.

The main draw of "Minecraft" is how easy it is to build anything you can imagine. The entire world is rendered as blocks that you can break down and reassemble however you want. Of course, there are even more complicated building systems in "Minecraft," but blocks are the main components players use in the game. Any raw material can be used to build a blocky farmhouse, but masons can help you get much fancier materials for your dream home. Masons work at stonecutter tables, selling players bricks and a variety of decorative blocks to spruce up their construction projects.

Masons don't really play a role in "A Minecraft Movie," and the first few minutes of the film explain why. Steve spends his whole life yearning for the mines, which is just one of the many dumb things we ignored about the "Minecraft" movie. When he finally gets to enter a new magical world, he wants to get his own hands dirty by going on a construction spree. Steve doesn't have time to trade in raw materials for fancy stones when he's busy turning his basic blocks into elaborate homes. He doesn't think he needs the help of a mason, and based on the building he shows us in the movie, we're inclined to agree with him.