10. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) – Die Hard (1988)
Smart, charismatic, German and fashion-conscious; Rickman’s Gruber is everything a good villain should be. Gruber is Rickman’s second entry in our top 50, in what was his Hollywood debut. He remains one of the forefathers of over the top action movie villainy to this day.
9. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) – Wall Street (1987)
A villain of a different nature, but one who’s no less worthy of his place on our list. Michael Douglas is superb as the Wall Street investor every bit as reptilian as his name suggests. Despite dealing in dividends and dollars rather than doomsday devices and dominion, he’s every inch the arch-villain with a disdain for his peers and a jarring sense of ethics, or indeed the absence of them, which sets him quite apart from decent hardworking cinemagoers like ourselves.
8. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
The cold sadistic tyranny that Ratched demonstrates is frightening enough, that she exerts it over those supposed to be in her care is what really leaves me shaking. Louise Fletcher’s pitch-perfect performance led to a wholly deserved Oscar.
7. The Joker (Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger) – Batman films
The clown prince of crime has attracted top drawer acting talent throughout his on-screen career and George Romero, Jack Nicholson and the late Heath Ledger have all added their own vision to this most unique of villains. Both of the former bought colour and insanity to a dandy-like adversary, but it’s the late Ledger’s salivating performance that bought The Joker’s seething psychopathic self to life.
6. Count Orlock (Max Schreck) – Nosferatu (1922)
The villain of this early silent take on Bram Stoker’s blood-sucking bad guy laid the foundations upon which the conventional cinematic vampire has been based to this day. Many have imitated Max Schrek’s villain, but few have been able to recreate his alarming on-screen presence, and sound or no sound his appearance is still enough to challenge your intestinal authority.
5. Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) – Fatal Attraction (1987)
Glenn Close’s bunny-boiler is terrifying not only when flying into jealous rages at her married lover and his family, but also in her calm demeanour as she considers and carries out these acts. Alex Forrest is a compelling character because everyone can relate to her spurned advances and the basic human need to feel loved.
4. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) – Psycho (1960)
What makes Bates so terrifying is that he appears normal, and it’s only towards the film’s stunning climax - when that pesky oedipal complex kicks in - that we learn the extent to which he has lost his mind. Perkins was the prototype for the attractive, articulate yet psychotic villain that has become the mainstay of spine tingling psychological thrillers ever since.
3. Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) – It’s a Wonderful life (1946)
The purest representation of greed and miserly misery caught on celluloid, Henry F. Potter spits venom at every turn in Capra’s masterpiece. He’s the antithesis of Jimmy Stewart’s ‘heart of gold’ hero George Bailey, and exists without a shred of redemptive quality to counter his greed, malice and downright evil towards the good people of Bedford Falls.
2. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) – Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Despite coming a very close second, Anthony Hopkins’s courteous cannibal is still a terrifying prospect. Lecter’s calm demeanour, articulate manner and moral vacuum tick all of the boxes for cinematic psychological torture, while his penchant for human flesh crosses one of society’s final taboos. He’s visually striking too and the facemask and restraints have become a cultural icon outside the movie’s terrorising context. Despite his intelligent, controlled exterior there still lurks a vicious killer as seen during a frenzied attack when he bites the nose off a security guard and wears his face to escape.
1. Darth Vader (David Prowse) – Star Wars (1977)
The embodiment of evil, Vader drew boos from cinemagoers even before he’d choked his first officer. This instant recognition of his villainy, alongside his for-all-ages evil appeal propels the Sith Lord to the top of our list. Few on-screen characters generate such an instant emotional reaction from audiences, yet alongside such pantomime villainy Vader also manages to instil a sense of genuine evil. That expressionless helmet leaves no moral compass from which audience’s can draw empathy or understanding, and the hypnotic rhythm of his respirator points to something mechanical, perpetual and unstoppably evil that jars with every fibre of the cinemagoer’s being as if death itself had walked on screen. Evil of epic proportions.
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