Favorite Movie Vilains of All Time.

[Asmotherion]

I'm sure this has been done before, but I felt the need to make this list. If it must be moved, I can always delete it. The list if on a decending order.

1. Imhotem/The Mummy
2. Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker
3. Count Doku/Darth Tyranus
4. Saruman
5. Voldemort/Tom Marvolo Riddle
6. Count Dracula/Vlad Tepes (as portraited by Sir Christopher Lee)




PS: A special dedication to one of the best actors ever to walk this realm: Sir Christopher Lee. Thank you for incarnating those vilains into this world. May you rest in peace.

[BWR]

This sort of thread always pops up at (ir)regular intervals on boards like these.

I can only go with the Emperor from Star Wars. Cruelty, power and control in one creepy package.
Some of my love for him may have to do with having sen ROTJ at the age of 4, and it left something of an impression. Since it was the first SW movie I saw Vader didn't come off as quite so BBEG to me then.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Vader's one of those villains really hurt by the 'Tell, don't show' school. I thought he was awesome, until I caught the French dub of Star Wars. Hearing the lines given by a normal guy (speaking French) instead of James Earl Jones robs the character of pretty much everything, because he doesn't do much of anything in the movie besides stand around.

For my favorite, Khan Noonien Singh. The original, the one and only.

[comicshorse]

1) Count Dracula ( I pretty much always like Dracula but have a special fondness for the Hammer version played by the great Christopher Lee)

2) Hans Gruber/ Die Hard ( " I am an exceptional thief " remains one of my favourite lines, gotta love a man who takes pride in his work)

3) The Operative/Serenity

4) Keyser Soze/ The Usual Suspects (Also the first villain I've mentioned played by a non English actor)

5) Mr Blonde/ Reservoir Dogs ( I swear I've never been so joyful, and relieved, about seeing a villain get his just deserts.)

Honourable Mentions to : Hans Landa/ Inglorious Basterds and The Humungus/ Mad Max 2 (if only for the introduction by his herald as 'the Ayotol-ah of Rock and Roll-a' )

[Ruslan]

My top 5:
5. Darth Vader (yes, only at #5, sorry)
4. Dr. Christian Szell (aka "Is it safe?" guy from Marathon Man)
3. HAL-9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey)
2. Annie Wilkes (Misery)
1. Amon Goeth (Schindler's List)

[NecroDancer]

Thanks to Hans Gruber I now want to learn how to mimic his accent

[Aedilred]

What do we mean by "favourite" here? Are we talking about the most memorable villains, even if we were horrified by them, or the villains who we couldn't help rooting for despite their evulz?

Anyway, a few of mine who have stuck in the mind for one reason or another. I'm excluding films where the protagonist is a villain, like The Godfather, and focussing mostly on antagonists.

Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A great screen adaptation of perhaps the most odious villain in the HP-verse.
Hollis Mulwray, Chinatown. Understated and thoroughly evil.
Bill the Butcher, Gangs of New York. Not Scorsese's best work, but a towering, magnetic villain who completely owns the film.
Bill Lumberg, Office Space. Like Umbridge, a low-key antagonist, rooted firmly in the real world, and all the more face-punchingly hateful for it.
Harry Lime, The Third Man.
Colin Sullivan, The Departed. Rarely have I rooted for a villain to get his comeuppance as wholeheartedly as I wished for this one.
The T-1000, Terminator 2. Edges out Arnie's performance in the first for sheer relentless indestructible menace.
Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men. Much as with the T-1000.
Death, The Seventh Seal. Probably the ur-example of the unconquerable inescapable adversary evoked in T2 and No Country for Old Men.
Frank, Once Upon a Time in the West. To be fair, I just love this film, but Frank is one of the features that really makes it.
I think Blofeld probably has to be mentioned, not so much for the camp of some of his later appearances (including Spectre!) but for the shadow he cast over the first few Bond films and the way he became the iconic villain of his genre. If I had to pick one specific film/performance then it'd be Telly Savalas's affably thuggish Blofeld from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
I'm going to throw in J the Hitman from Get Carter just for the sheer weirdness surrounding that whole scenario.

And some Nazis to round out the list: Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds has already been mentioned, as has Amon Goeth from Schindler's List, but where would such a list be without Hitler himself, in Downfall?

That's quite a few, now I look at it.

[Peelee]

Hitler. Dude always makes for a good villain, for some reason.

[Kid Jake]

For me personally, it begins and ends with Master Betty from Kung Pow. I can't think of a single property that wouldn't be improved by making him the antagonist.

[Wardog]

In no particular order:

• Darth Vader, as portrayed in the original trilogy (but not Prequal Anikin/Vader).
• Indio, from For a Few Dollars More. (Although "favourite" might not be appropriate here - he's such a horrifying, evil man that describing him as a favourite just feels wrong. But as a depiction of horrifying evil, he's excellent).
• Hans Gruber
• Auric Goldfinger (a better villain than Blofeld, IMO).
• The Sherrif of Nottingham (Alan Rickman version)
• The Terminator (can't quite make up my mind between the original T101, and the T1000)
• Thulsa Doom (Conan the Barbarian)
• Megatron (G1 version, even though he only mde it part way through the movie).
• Khan Noonien Singh
• The Predator (original version)
• The Alien (ditto)
  Just don't put those two in a movie together
• General Zod (Superman II)
• Agent Smith
• Ming the Merciless

Joke entry: M Bison from the live-action Streetfighter movie.

[Zaydos]

Also in no particular order...

• Original Trilogy Darth Vader.
• Hammor Horror's Dracula.
• G1 Megatron.
• Thulsa Doom
• Rankin & Bass Smaug
• The Prince of Darkness from Legend (also known as the big red horned dude).

Honorable mentions go to Sarumon for having so much sheer menace and presence, Lord Summerisle (Original Wickerman) for having such a screen presence and being able to be so affable while horrifying, the alien from the original Alien for being possibly the best horror monster of all time, and Ommadon from Flight of Dragons for again just having menace and presence largely coming from his voice.

[Mister Tom]

Various of those mentioned above, but also:

Spoiler

Show

-Captain Dudley Smith

in LA confidential, Ben Kingsley as the relentless yes man Don Logan (and Ian McShane as his boss, Teddy) in Sexy beast, Lamia in Stardust ( Michell Pfeiffer clearly enjoying herself far too much), and brutally honest / honestly brutal Captain Videl in Pan's Labyrinth .

[Artemis97]

I don't know if he quite counts as a villain, but he's certainly evil: Chernabog from Disney's Fantasia. Guy scared the heck out of me when I was a kid. I remember hiding behind my dad when he showed up in a parade once at Disneyworld.

[Rogar Demonblud]

So he did his job, and that right well.

[Leewei]

Thanks to Hans Gruber I now want to learn how to mimic his accent

I loved Die Hard because of its villain. Here was a chessmaster pulling off an incredible operation. The good guy turns the tables on him, and he still manages to lie, scheme, and nearly win. If only "Bill Clay" had checked for bullets!

[Rogar Demonblud]

Or been trained enough to recognize that the gun was very light.

[Dienekes]

What do we mean by "favourite" here? Are we talking about the most memorable villains, even if we were horrified by them, or the villains who we couldn't help rooting for despite their evulz?

Anyway, a few of mine who have stuck in the mind for one reason or another. I'm excluding films where the protagonist is a villain, like The Godfather, and focussing mostly on antagonists.

And some Nazis to round out the list: Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds has already been mentioned, as has Amon Goeth from Schindler's List, but where would such a list be without Hitler himself, in Downfall?

That's quite a few, now I look at it.

Great list, but, wouldn't Hitler be considered another villain protagonist in Downfall?

Anyway, some great ones already mentioned, but my favorites:

The Joker, from Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker
Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs
Amon Goeth from Shindler's List
Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds
Annie Wilkes from Misery
Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York
Nurse Ratchett from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey
Hans Gruber from Die Hard
Norman Bates from Psycho
Damien from Omen
Tyler Durden from Fight Club


And on the villain protagonist front
Vito Corleone from Godfather
Michael Corleone from Godfather
Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange
Tuco from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects
Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas

[Avilan the Grey]

Darth Vader
Almost all Disney villains
Red Skull
Barbossa
Davey Jones

[Chromascope3D]

Roy Batty from Blade Runner. He's a joy to watch, and is undeniably a more compelling character than Deckard himself. He's not my favorite per se, but most everyone else has taken all the other good ones already.

Also, not a movie, but Bob from Twin Peaks. Do ya wanna play with fire, little boy?

[gooddragon1]

From a movie
Ozymandias - Watchmen ["Do that Rorschach? I'm not some comic book villain. I set the explosions for 30 minutes ago"]

From other things
Orochimaru - Naruto [The guy is just downright despicable]
Jafar - Once Upon a Time in Wonderland [He's got character]

[Tvtyrant]

Nosferatu, for still being the closest interpretation of the book and remaining terrifying.

Magneto from X-Men, the perfect villain who is totally relatable in their suffering and yet abhorrent.

The Xenomorph from Alien, taps into the human fear of being hunted. Is it essentially just a bulletproof leopard? Maybe, but no one has made a better one yet.

Mr. Smith from the Matrix. A great example of a villain whose motivations are not human or animal but something extremely other. "It's the smell."

Umbridge from Harry Potter. The ultimate example of how mundane, even pedestrian evil can really be.

[Calimehter]

Tom Hiddleston's Loki.

[Swenner]

Christopher Walken's The Man With The Plan - Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead

[Swenner]

Christopher Walken's The Man With The Plan - Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead

Oh! And Ben Kingsley's Don Logan - Sex Beast

[TeChameleon]

Raul Julia's inimitable M. Bison in Street Fighter: The Movie. The movie was a borderline unwatchable mess, but every moment that Raul was on screen was glorious.

[Gastronomie]

Joker from Dark Knight and Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs.

[Brother Oni]

Or been trained enough to recognize that the gun was very light.

To be fair, you'd have to be very familiar with a particular weapon to detect a 11% weight differential just by handling it.

Spoiler: Number crunching

Show

Googling indicates that the pistol used in the scene was a Beretta 92F with a weight of 970g and a (probably) 10 round magazine.

More googling indicates the weight of a 9x19mm round is ~11.9g, so a fully loaded weapon would be 1089g with 119g of rounds. 970 / 1089 = 89%

[The Fury]

King Haggard from The Last Unicorn is one of my all time favorites. Voiced by Christopher Lee, he was a weirdly complex villain for a kid's cartoon. Without getting too much into spoilers, viewers can sympathize with him even though they're aware that what he's doing/done is wrong, yet fall short of agreeing with him if that makes sense.

[2D8HP]

How could I forget?
One of the greatest film performances of the 20th century:
John Lithgow as
Dr. Emilio Lord John Whorfin Lizardo

Spoiler: Quotes!

Show

Laugh(a) while you can, monkeyboy!

Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife:

Doomed is your soul and damned is your life.

History is'a made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

Home. Home is where you wear your hat.
I feel so broke up...I want to go Home!"

May I pass along my congratulations for your great interdimensional breakthrough.
I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.

Banzai! I'll see you in HELL!!!


We must act! Escape - or die!

We must work faster to finish the great vehicle itself so we can enter the eighth dimension and free our trapped comarades! We can return home and seize power once again!

What is the greatest joy? "The joy of duty!"

Louder-ah! "The joy of duty!"

History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark. We must work while the clock, she is ticking! "We hide... they seek!

Where are we going? "Planet Ten!"

When? "Real soon!"

Spoiler: Images!

Show

[Leewei]

How could I forget?
One of the greatest film performances of the 20th century:
John Lithgow as
Dr. Emilio Lord John Whorfin Lizardo

Spoiler: Quotes!

Show

Laugh(a) while you can, monkeyboy!

Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife:

Doomed is your soul and damned is your life.

History is'a made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

Home. Home is where you wear your hat.
I feel so broke up...I want to go Home!"

May I pass along my congratulations for your great interdimensional breakthrough.
I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.

Banzai! I'll see you in HELL!!!


We must act! Escape - or die!

We must work faster to finish the great vehicle itself so we can enter the eighth dimension and free our trapped comarades! We can return home and seize power once again!

What is the greatest joy? "The joy of duty!"

Louder-ah! "The joy of duty!"

History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark. We must work while the clock, she is ticking! "We hide... they seek!

Where are we going? "Planet Ten!"

When? "Real soon!"

Spoiler: Images!

Show

Dear lord, the interplay between him and Christopher Lloyd (as John Bigbooté).