Movie villains have all the fun. Without the villain, there would be no hero. Here are a number of villains who steal the show.
Unencumbered by rules or morals, the antagonist delightfully revels in other people’s misery, especially at the expense of the hero. The villain is usually the one with the best one-liners (we’re looking at you Freddy Krueger) and they satisfy the audience's need to feel bad.
Some of these movies where you're more interested in the villain didn’t intend for it to be that way. Villains are only supposed to slow down the hero. But sometimes, the audience winds up rooting for the bad guy.
“I'll be back.”
The villains always get the best lines. The time-traveling cyborg known as The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a machine of few words, he only has 27 lines of dialogue in the entire movie.
However, the T-800 soaks up every second he is onscreen as an indestructible baddie sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) at any cost.
The role made Schwarzenegger an unlikely action star and is one of the main reasons why the movie became one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood history.
Schwarzenegger was originally offered the opportunity to play the movie's hero, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). However, the seven-time Mr. Olympia took a gamble and went with the role of the bad guy despite the lack of dialogue.
It could not have worked out better for the Austrian.
Better than the hero?Anthony Hopkins is so good as flesh-eating serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs that he won the Academy Award for Best Actor despite only appearing on screen for a mere 16 minutes.
Jodi Foster is also formidable as heroic FBI trainee Clarice Starling (she also won an Oscar), but Lecter just eats up any scene he's in.
Lecter manages to be both terrifying and absolutely delightful in the same breath. Despite his inclination to eat his victims, the forensic psychiatrist is all first class.
The character took center stage in the 2001 movie Hannibal. Lecter is considered to be one of the greatest movie villains of all time.
Better than the hero?- 1Anthony Hopkins18 Votes
- 2Scott Glenn14 Votes
- 3Jodie Foster19 Votes
Heath Ledger is so good as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's first film of The Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins, that he became the first actor to ever win an Oscar for playing a comic book character.
Ledger's Joker overshadows any of Batman's cool toy gadgets and raspy voice. The Joker demands the spectator's attention in every scene he's in because he is so unpredictable and terrifying.
Ledger described how he came up with his psychotic character in a 2007 interview with Empire:
I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath — someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts. He’s just an absolute sociopath, a cold-blooded… and Chris has given me free rein.
Better than the hero?All Dr. Evil (Mike Myers) wants to do in Austin Powers is to use a “laser” and take over the world. The heroic title spy character, also played by Myers, is delightfully corny. But it's Dr. Evil that shines the brightest in the spy spoof.
The evil mastermind is a parody of the Bond villain, especially Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Audiences are first introduced to the bald baddie and his evil plans in 1997's International Man of Mystery, the first film of the Austin Powers trilogy. He's been frozen for decades and doesn't quite get 1990s inflation.
The interactions with his test tube son Scott Evil (Seth Green) show the softer side of the antagonist, but it's his quotes that make him an audience favorite.
"Doctor Evil! I Didn’t Spend Six Years In Evil Medical School To Be Called 'Mister,' Thank You Very Much."
"Throw Me A Frickin' Bone Here!"
"Why Make Trillions, When We Can Make... Billions?
Better than the hero?- 1Dr. Evil2,018 Votes
- 2Austin Powers1,688 Votes
- 3Fat Bastard1,868 Votes
Most horror baddies are the strong silent types like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) brings his own brand of killer humor to the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series.
“I'm Your Boyfriend Now, Nancy.”
“What Do Ya Know, I Beat My High Score.”
With nearly every bloody kill, the victim at least gets a sarcastic one-liner to think about on their way out.
Freddy is so popular that they have made nine A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, a TV spin-off, several novels, and multiple comic books. All told, the franchise has brought in a staggering $500 million. Everyone knows the name Freddy Krueger, few people can actually name the heroes from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Better than the hero?Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is unapologetically demanding of nothing less than perfection in the 2006 dramedy The Devil Wears Prada. The character is a fictionalized version of Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.
Priestly's savage ice-cold putdowns include gems like:
“No, no, get away from her. She's useless and unattractive.”
“Take a chance. Hire the smart, fat girl.”
“Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”
It's Priestly's character that spectators remember long after the movie fades up from black. Despite her fierce insults, one has to admire Priestly's work ethic and attention to every detail.
The film's writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, got her inspiration for the fashion editor from perhaps the greatest insult comic ever. She explained:
I love insults. I grew up watching Don Rickles with my dad, and that was a huge influence. It allowed me to channel parts of my own personality that maybe I normally need to keep hidden.
Better than the hero?
