The Woman (Simone Mareuil)
The Woman is the one character who appears from beginning to end of the film, appearing in both its first scene (when she has her eye sliced by Buñuel) and the last shot (where she is shown buried up to her torso in sand). Throughout the film she is made subject to varieties of trauma, including not only having her eye sliced, but also being sexually assaulted by the First Man, as well as varieties of bodily decomposition (such as her armpit hair reappearing in place of the First Man's mouth).
The First Man (Pierre Batcheff)
The First Man initially appears riding a bicycle, wearing the white linens and striped box that will recur throughout the film. He appears to share a domestic space with the Woman. The Second Man (also played by Pierre Batcheff) is the doppelgänger of the First Man, and the original script specifies that the former is the younger version of the latter.
The Man with a Razor (Luis Buñuel)
Buñuel himself appears in the first scene as the Man with a Razor, who slices the Woman's eye. This moment can be understood as making explicit Buñuel's desire to shock the audience through the film, as anticipating the varieties of trauma to which he will subject the characters throughout the film, and as suggesting the filmmaker's task of conveying meaning through cutting (i.e. through editing).
The Second Man, the Doppelgänger of the First Man (also played by Pierre Batcheff)
The Second Man appears just after the intertitle reading "Around Three in the Morning." Initially we only see him from behind, as he orders around the first man. Only after the intertitle reading "Sixteen Years Earlier" do we see that he is in fact identical to the First Man. (The original script specifies that he is a younger version of the latter.) The First Man shoots the Second Man, who collapses to his death in a park.
The Androgynous Figure in the Street (Fans Mesan)
This figure is initially seen via an iris shot onto the street, poking a severed hand. The figure is dressed in the androgynous garçonne style of the 1920s, with a bob haircut. As the figure embraces the striped box (with the severed hand inside it), the figure is run over by a car (as the Woman and the First Man watch apprehensively from above).
The Lover on the Beach (Robert Hommet)
This character only appears after the Woman finally exits the apartment, sticking her tongue out in defiance of the First Man. She appears very happy to see this Lover on the Beach. While walking along the beach they together encounter, in tatters, the white linens and striped box from earlier in the film.
The Marist Brothers (Jaime Miravilles and Salvador Daí in the first shot; Jaime Miravilles and Marval in the second shot)
These members of the Marist Brothers (an international community of Catholic priests) appear attached to the chords that the First Man holds in his hands toward the end of his assault on the woman. These chords also have attached to them melons, slabs, and two grand pianos (with rotting donkeys on them). The two priests appear bewildered by their circumstance. In an instance of absurd discontinuity, in the second shot showing the priests Marval, the film's production manager, replaces Dalí. Other titles that Buñuel and Dalí considered for the film were Go Marist (Vaya marista) and The Marist in the Crossbow (El Marista en la Ballesta).
People Walking away from the Body in the Park (among other actors, Dalí and Jeanne Rucar)
When the Second Man collapses to his death in the park, several individuals carry out his corpse. Among the several actors in this scene are Dalí and Jeanne Rucar, Buñuel's fiancé at the time of filming. Both Dalí and Rucar are seen walking away from the camera.
