Your top ten movie villains

After watching Cobra Kai, and then rewatching Karate kid, I think Johnny (William Zabka) belongs in the discussion. He's really frightening as a bully

 

OK - I'll go old school. (in no particular order)
Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser) Casablanca
James Cagney (Cody Jarrett) White Heat
Jack Palance (Wilson) Shane
Robert Ryan (Reno Smith) Bad Day At Black Rock
Lionel Barrymore (Mr. Potter) It's A Wonderful Life
Orson Welles (Harry Lime) The Third Man
Judith Anderson (Mrs. Danvers) Rebecca
James Mason (Phillip Vandamm) North By Northwest
Charles Boyer (Gregory Anton) Gaslight
Claude Rains (Senator Joe Paine) Mr Smith Goes To Washington

 

I'll start with Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett in Network.

More later...

 

I'm not very familiar with some on your list but brilliant choices these. Absolute gold. Gaslight is a fantastic movie.
There's no school like the old school!

 

Doh! One of my favorites. I pity the fool that leaves him out.

Meant to include him. He counted to 3, but there was no 4.

Great pick. Thomas Wilson did a fantastic job in these movies. And is impressive as various ‘villians’ in Spongebob Squarepants as well.

Another great pick. Hamill was excellent throughout BTAS.

As I already had the Joker, I (erroneously) left this one out.

This is the Kylo Ren of the Dirty Harry movies. (Meant in a very derogatory way.)

I should have included Hal Holbrook and his goon squad in Magnum Force.

 

After watching Cobra Kai, I have a completely different view of Johnny Lawrence versus my view from my younger days.

The first episode makes him a character that is relatable and garners sympathy (as it was supposed to.)

For the Karate Kid (and potentially Cobra Kai) the real villain was, is, and always will be Martin Kove as “Kresse.”

Looking forward to season 2.

 

Lots of good picks. I'll add some new ones:

- Tong Po (Kickboxer)
- Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects)
- T-1000 (Terminator 2)
- Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction)
- Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm St)
- Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York)
- Khan Singh (Star Trek II)
- Max Cady (Cape Fear)
- Fender Tremolo (Cyborg)
- Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction)

 

I'm surprised that Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet hasn't popped up yet. He really makes my skin crawl.

 

I would actually put him at number two on my list, I just forgot him somehow but it was too late to edit.

 

Ratchet I find especially unsettling. One of my high school teachers had her qualities. Yikes. A kind of effortless uninvolved way to diminish.

 

He's a villain?

I mean, he's obviously a guy in a nasty line of work, but villain implies he's the antagonist in the story.

"PF" is a movie packed with bad characters and few - if any - good ones. If Jules is a villain, so's everyone else!

 

1. Martin Landau as Leonard in North by Northwest
2. Anthony Perkins as Norman in Psycho
3. Arnie as The Terminator in The Terminator
4. David Prowse/James Earl Jones as Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back
5. Anthony Hopkins as Lecter in Silence of The Lambs
7. Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight
8. Robin Williams in Insomnia
9. Carrie-Anne Moss in Memento
10. Wes Studi in The Last of the Mochians

Honorable mention:
Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Thing in The Thing (meaning various characters).
Linda Blair in The Exorcist
Chris Lee as Dracula in Horror of Dracula

 

Fair point. There's no hero in the movie, so there's no antagonist. I love the performance, though!

I'll swap out that pick for another Sam Jackson performance: Elijah Price in
(Unbreakable)

 

I get that. But it's a chilling scene when he's at the lakeside with the little girl throwing flowers onto the water. You don't even actually see him throw her in but you know he does.

 

Gotta remember Manfred Schultz (Kid) in McCabe and Mrs. Miller

 

Great pick! The original Dirty Harry would not have been nearly as good with anyone else as the villain.

 

Perhaps you made the connection Darth Vader = David Prowse/Sebastian Shaw/Hayden Christensen, rather than Darth Vader = James Earl Jones? I tend to favor the latter, and kind of feel he reprised that "I am your father" bit in Conan the Barbarian as another great movie villain, Thulsa Doom:



Fun thread, btw!

 

She deserved it!

 

tom berenger in platoon

 

Taking this in a different direction...One of my absolute favorite tropes is that of the incompetent villain, often seen in comedies (especially parodic comedies). It never fails to make me laugh. Some examples:

- Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers franchise
- Dark Helmet/Colonel Sanders/President Skroob from Spaceballs
- Ken Pyle from A Fish Called Wanda

You also see this in television shows (i.e. The Monarch from The Venture Bros., Killface and his crew on Frisky Dingo). Does anyone have any other examples of hilariously inept villains?

 

Today only:
Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Frank (Once Upon a Time in the West)
Stansfield (Leon the Professional)
Raymond Lemorne (The Vanishing - Original version)
Harry Powell (Night of the Hunter)
Dr. No (Dr. No)
Thanos (Avengers Infinity Wars)
Darth Vader
Brewmeister Smith (Strange Brew) "I could crush your head like a nut!"

 

Wile E. Coyote

 

10. Joubert- Three Days Of The Condor
9. Robert Rusk- Frenzy
8. Harry Lime- The Third Man
7. Anton Chighur- No Country For Old Men
6. Grimsrud- Fargo
5. Terry Valentine- The Limey
4. Roy Batty- Bladerunner
3. Noah Cross- Chinatown
2. Nurse Ratched- One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
1. President Nixon- All The President's Men

 

The typically saintly Martin Sheen in "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane."

 

Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher in Gangs Of New York