Villains, love them, hate them, want to be them, every movie needs one. Heroes get all the glory and attention, but deep down, we all love a good villain. They provide juxtaposition and create an affinity with the hero of the story. Plus, villains get to have all the fun and most of the best lines.
This week, we’ve pondered long and hard over a nice cold glass of beer, a cup of tea some fava beans and a nice Chianti to bring you our respective top five nefarious, monstrous and infamous characters from the silver screen.
Lottie’s Top Five Movie Villains
5. The Batman Villains (The obligatory cheat)
“I don’t know about you, Miss Kitty, but I feel so much yummier.”
“Still… could be worse. My nose could be gushing blood.”
“The pen, is truly mightier than the sword!”
“Selina Kyle, you’re fired! And Bruce Wayne, why are you dressed up like Batman?”
Number five was the hardest one to choose. It was a toss up between Arnie’s T800 (Terminator), Freddy Krueger(A Nightmare on Elm Street), Hans Gruber(Die Hard) and the more subtle villains such as Baby Jane Hudson (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane) and Eve Harrington (All About Eve).
Then I thought of my favourite Batman villains, Cat Woman, The Joker, The Penguin and Max Shreck. So I’ve chosen four for the price of one but once again, she who makes the rules has permission to break the rules.
Batman would be nothing without his villains, just another weird-ass philanthropist running around in a PVC animal costume. They are essential to each movie. If I could be any movie villain it would have to be Catwoman. As Mae West once said “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere”. Of course Catwoman is often more good than bad but godnamit she looks hot in leather.
Clearly I’m only talking about the movie villains here, the Crazy Quilt and Calender Man would not be making any list of mine.
4. Max Cady - Cape Fear (1962)
“I got somethin’ planned for your wife and kid that they ain’t nevah gonna forget.”
Robert De Niro’s Max was brutal and perverse but like Hannibal Lecter it’s the charm of Robert Mitchum‘s Max Cady that truly makes him the memorable villain. He draws you in with that deep seductive southern drawl and just before you fall in love, he slits your throat. Even knowing what I know, I think I’d still fall for it.
3. Dr. Hannibal Lecter - Silence of The Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon
“We begin by coveting what we see every day”
This one doesn’t need much justification or explanation. He’s number one on most countdowns of best villains. Scary, vicious, evil yet remarkably intelligent and inexplicably charming. You know you should be routing against him but then you think it takes nothing to be polite.
2. Bob - Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me
“But, Bob is not real”
More terrifying than any other baddie to grace the screen is Bob, the semi-human otherworldly killer from the TV series Twin Peaks (which was followed up by the movie, Fire Walk With Me). Bob constantly resides in that dark little corner or my subconscious with the rest of my irrational fears. He quite simply terrifies me. To this day I still avoid mirrors should the thought of him pop into my mind. Even as I type this I am nervously eying the corner of my couch in case he should appear crawling back out from the dark to take me away.
(I also had a friend whose dad was the spitting image of Bob. I never went to their house alone)
1. Mr. Potter - It’s a Wonderful Life
“Look at you… You’re worth more dead than alive!”
It’s so easy to hate bankers these days but every time I watch It’s A Wonderful Life I feel a truly deep hatred Mr.Potter. Potter is the ultimate villain because he’s just so real. This man exists. In the film he the absolute antithesis of everything George Bailey is and in the the is the only character who doesn’t see the error of his ways.
Honourable Mentions: Fernand Mondego (The Count of Monte Cristo), Norman Bates (Psycho), Dracula, Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest), Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmations), Verbal Kint (The Usual Suspects), Pennywise (It), Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca), The Shark (Jaws), Bill (Kill Bill), Black Knight (Monty Python & The Holy Grail…just checking if you’re still with me), Chucky (Child’s Play).
Right - over to me. This is one of the easier ones we’ve done, but my list definitely differs to Lottie’s. Firstly, Mr Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life - excellent choice for number one. He was so bitter and twisted. He wasn’t big or strong or bent on taking over the world - he just resented George Bailey and wanted to destroy him. So real and so tragic. He didn’t make my list though. I like my villains to be other worldly. They should keep you awake at night. I doubt even George Bailey dreamt of Mr Potter. He just pitied him.
Darren’s Top Five Movie Villains
5. The Terminator (the T800 and the T1000 - I can cheat too)
“Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
As always, there’s some I had to leave out. So many ‘real people’ were beaten to the top spot my machines. Paul Reiser’s whiny middle management type in Aliens, the era defining Gordon Gecko, the mad Jack Torrance and the equally demented women, Baby Jane Hudson and Annie Wilkes (“You dirty bird”) were all fantastic, but Arnie’s Terminator and Robert Patrick’s T1000 both deserve to be here. The Terminator is terrifying. It can’t be reasoned with and it has no feeling or motive. It just does what it does.
4. Pennywise the Clown
“Want a balloon?“
Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Chucky and The Predator are all iconic horror bad guys, but in 1990 in a much smaller movie with no franchise to follow it, lay a creature that still keeps grown adults awake at night, that makes people think twice about using the showers in the gym, that makes Lottie avoid walking near the sewer drains - Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s It and his red balloon. Tim Curry managed to shake off his typecast as a transvestite from Rocky Horror, only to be known for the next two decades as this terrifying clown.
3. Agent Smith
“You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.“
So many action movies have the typical bad guy. Some of them manage to hit the nail on the head and create a memorable character. John Malkovich was brilliant as Cyrus Grissom in Con Air and both Hans and Simon Gruber from the Die Hard movies were spot on, but Agent Smith was something special. He was as cold and calculating as the Terminators, but had a selfish, self motivated streak in him that made him break beyond his programming to become Neo’s only true nemesis. Sure the machines were the bad guys, but Agent Smith was the one who wanted to tear everything apart. He was a great character and one of the few bad guys to have proper character development.
2. Norman Bates
“My hobby is stuffing things. You know - taxidermy.”
A lot of mad men have appeared on the screen over the years. Some have been better that others. Kevin Spacey’s John Doe in Se7en, Michael Madsen’s Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs, Patrick Batemen, Max Cady, etc.were all brutal, vicious killers, with a bloodlust. Bates was very different. He was a nice, calm, gentle man. He didn’t kill anyone. He wouldn’t harm a fly. It was mother that knifed poor Janet Leigh. 
1. Hannibal Lecter
“You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?”
Do I really need to explain this one, except perhaps to limit his placing here to his appearance in Silence of the Lambs alone?
Hannibal Lecter is charming and chilling in equal measure. The scene where he brutally attacks the guard while listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations (which I’m currently listening to) is both beautiful and hideous. He is a creature and a man, he is an object of disgust and also a possible love interest for Clarice Starling, the innocent young agent who tries to gain information from Hannibal. It is this plot framing that allows us to explore Lecter without ever really getting to understand him.
Red Dragon and Hannibal were great films - it was wonderful to see more of the character, but by trying to explain him, some of the mystique, interest and fear was removed from his character. And the less said about Hannibal Rising, the better.
Honourable mentions: It’s a shame we weren’t doing a top ten. There are no women in the top five, but I’m sure I’d have Annie Wilkes, Alex Forest (Fatal Attraction), Peyton Flanders (Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle), Baby Jane and Nurse Rached fairly high up there. Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick), Dracula (a number of incarnations), HAL 9000, Khan and The Joker (both Nicholson’s and Ledger’s) deserve mentions too.
So, over to you, dear readers. Peter B, who or what do you have on your list? Let’s see if we all agree on Hannibal Lecter, or if we’ve missed anyone who definitely deserves to be here.
TTFN
Chuckie from Child’s Play.
Kevin Bacon in Sleepers.
I’m no Star Wars fan, but I’ll reckon you’ve upset a few geeks by not having Darth Vader on there too.
Jigsaw, in Saw.
Kevin Spacey in Seven.
Ooh so many.
Good choices, but where’s Scar and some animated villainy?
More recently, Anton Chigurh from No Country is a fabulous villain. And how about Jack Torrance in the Shining? Priceless.
@TheColonel I’m not much of a Star Wars fan and Darth Vader always seemed a bit daft to me. He’s been parodied to death and never really seemed that menacing. Then when the three prequels came out and revealed that Vader was just a spoiled brat, it was even worse. Vader may have belonged on a list like this 20 years ago, but not today.
@Ronan I have no idea how I left Scar off this list. When we were talking about it last week, he was up there for both of us. My brain is stupid. Can we add in a sixth placing for him?
Scar! I knew there was one I had forgotten. And it was the first one that came to mind originally too.
@Colonel - Start Wars sucks!
Oh yea, I said it.
Also, Blofeld or Jaws from Bond, now those are some classic villains. Henchmen are essential to any movie bad guy. Batman always does that right.
Ahhhh evil clown!
Star Wars does suck, I’ve never seen a fillum and I have no desire to do so.
But what I really want to say is blah blah blah, you just dodged every other baddie on my list meaning that you realise mine is better than yours and you bow to my greatness.
Bow, I say!
I do so love a challenge! I need to put a bit of time and effort into this to do it justice. A great topic so watch this space……
(bwa ha ha ha)
Ahhh Villains. The heroes get the hype but the measure of any hero is only a reflection of their nemesis.
Without Darth Vader Luke is just another farmer with asome curious phallic related issues.
Without the Batman villains Batman is just a rich boy who like dressing in black rubber and hangs around with a young boy in tights.
We love the bad guys. Those bad boys & girls show the power to do what they want and when they want, and don’t give a damn about anything. They make a strong impact - even if that impact is negative. Now Darren and Lottie have done a fine fine job of putting together such a list of the Top 5 Movie Villains. Actually so fine in fact I won’t even try to compete with them……..this week.
So I give you the other end of the spectrum. What about the dregs? The Villains so bad they are eh ….bad. You know what I mean. The WORST Villains. Um I mean……listen these guys suck ok!
The Architect in the Matrix Reloaded
WTF! So the original movie admitedly set the bar high in terms of the bad guys. They were the agents - sentient programs that could dodge frickin bullets. That sneering bastard Smith was a worth advesary for Keanu’s ‘The One’.
So after sitting through the Matrix Reloaded - not as strong as the first one but so far so good (I slept through the erave scene) - Neo comes face to face with……….. eh some old guy with a beard who likes to read dictionaries. I mean how much better would this film have ended if Neo stopped listening to his rambling mumbo jumbo and just kicked the crap out of his greay bearded ass in bullet-time?
This is what happens when film makers have almost unlimited budget with no supervision and no one to second guess the Wachowskis vision.
And seriously - all those TV’s and not one of them showing a porn chanel??
Bennet in Commando
So we have Arnie at his peak. All rippling muscles and cool ass quips (“I let him go.” says he after dropping some lad off a cliff - classic) He has taken on horned Gods with just a sword (Conan), he has taken on metal morphing machines from the future (Terminator 2), he has even taken on Satan himself (End of Days) SATAN I say! and in Commando we have……Bennet. A Village People reject. Arnie’s is as in good shape as he ever has been, as manly as scientifically possible. Bennett has a moustache. And wears a chainmail shirt over his pudgy stomach. You do the math. (Now, I know. Villains are supposed to have mustaches ie, Hitler - but this guy is a disgrace to facial hair everywhere) He is kinda like a fat, sick-ridden Freddie Mercury (the Queen reference is very apt as well)
“I’m going to shoot you in the balls, John” shouts Bennett, he’s then impaled by a giant pipe. Which is probably just how he would have wanted to go.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
No I am not making this shit up! This 1998 Classic is one that remains firmly entrenched in my heart - no matter how hard I try to get rid of it. OK so some say (please see above) that Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s It is the most scary Clown of all time. Obviously these people have never seen this movie. THEIR GUNS TURN YOU TO CANDY FLOSS!
My review from the 90′s:
“While out having a bit of a snog on the local make-out hill a young couple interrupt their passion just in time to see a huge shooting star fall to earth not far from them. Instead of getting back to a bit of tonsil tasting they decide to go have a look. What they find there will change their lives forever………….(or as long as they live which hopefully isn’t that long at all)
Oh what a joy this movie is. It has everything you would need to make it a classic horror movie, young people being killed, no one believing them and giant clowns with bright orange fringe hair turning everyone into candy floss (cotton candy for the americanised among us) and drinking their blood through big striped curly straws. They even have these groovy space guns which shoot out popcorn for some reason.
The plot is very simple, giant alien Klowns come to town and try to kill everybody and only a group of young plucky students can save the world. Personally I was on the side of the Klowns here but I knew once I saw their big red noses where their vulnerable spot would be. WEAR NOSE PROTECTORS NEXT TIME GUYS!
The Chido brothers, who produced this movie, obviously didn’t have too much money to spend on it but what they did do was spend it well on the Killer Klown make up and special effects. Forget the plot, forget the characters just grab a couple of beers call some mates to come around and sit back and bask in the glory of the Killer Klowns From Outer Space”
Scary stuff huh?
The person who killed Bambi’s Ma
One of the most moving movie moments that was never even caught on film. So the film so far - Bambi, the woodland prince is born. Its all Orchestra music and beautiful animation. Bambi meets some cute woodland animals bla bla bla and then “Danger Bambi, quick, the thicket!” BANG. Babmbi is hiding waiting for his mother and suddenly, an old deer appears through the snowstorm.
“Your mother can’t be with you any more…”
Oh deer (I just had to say that!) It a true “lump in the throat moment”
But what a waste - we never even get to see the person!
So just who is the person who killed Bambi’s mother?
1) Top contender has to be Judge Dread (not THAT one) from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (in fairness he admits to the whole thing!)
2) Friendly fire - Its WWII - someone mistook her as a German
3) Sarah Palin
But here I present my own theory - Bambi’s mother, sick of her son’s excessive cuteness, rejected by his overbearing and distant father sets the whole thing up. She goes and kicks a tree or something to mimic the sound of a gun and buggers off to shag some other stag who appreciates her a bit more. So it is HER that is the real villain
Sauron from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy
This is a painful one for me. I love the films, I love Peter Jackson, I love Hottbits right down to their furry little toes.
Now dont get me wrong - he starts out great! He comes onto a battle field at the very beginning of the film and kicks some major ass. But eh that is 30 seconds of the 6 hours or so of the 3 films (or 30 seconds out of the 9485639486 hours in the extended super-duper, extra long, directors special cut).
He’s a big eyeball at the top of a tower and he is the major villain of the piece? Seriously - you got to think what this guy could do if he actually had like a hand or a leg. Its not as if he can even fire frickin laser beams out of his eye!
So for one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time we have a bad guy whos claim to fame is he can win a staring contest.
Have a good one!
1) The Terminator (T800 from 1st movie/T1000 from second movie)
Terrifying because he/they can’t be reasoned with and are inhumanly relentless.
2) Leatherface from the (original) Texas Chainsaw Massacre - terrifying because he’s basically just a big primeval child with a big f**koff chainsaw.
3) Hannibal Lecter - Suave, sophisticated, has a reptilian intellegence, and will bite your face off if he thinks you’re being rude.
4) The Kurgan (the first Highlander) - Just plain old nasty, but not too bad with the old sword.
5) Count Orlok (Count Dracula) from the original Nosferatu - Just plain scary and evil! Nuff said
@Peter - the person who killed BAmbi’s ma was “Man”. The greatest villain of all…(bla bla). I had actually considered it.
Off the top of my head and in no particular order.
Jason Isaacs as any villain he’s ever played.
Angelica Houston as Grand High Witch, The Witches.
Jack Nicholson as The Joker, Batman. Or as The Devil Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick.
Alan Rickman as The Sherriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Or as Gruber in Die Hard.
Richard Roxburgh as The Duke, Moulin Rouge!
John Lithgow as Lord Farquaad, Shrek.
Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice.
I’m sure I’ll think of more.
@Ray - I can’t believe that I forgot about Beetlejuice!!! Grr.
On consideration, I don’t think it would have changed me list. Would have been top of the honourable mentions thought.
@Lottie - so she claims. But can we believe her? CAN WE??