Who are the most menacing, frightening, coolest, ugliest, craziest, best acted, and evil Villains in cinema? These can include killers, monsters, haunted houses, mothers, dead babies, whatever. Anything that has played the part of the evil antagonist (actually could be a protagonist as well).

Of course the discriptions are in no way limited to the ones that I've already provided.

Give some honorable mentions but please also try to come up with a single "greatest" villain.

My top villains are:

Jaws (Jaws)
Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
Kaiser Sose (Usual Suspects)
Agent Norman Stansfield (Leon)

Personally I think Hannibal Lecter is my favorite villain. He's so frightening/disgusting yet so "cool" that you have nothing but respect for him. He wore someone else's face!! It's totally sick and totally cool at the same time.

Now...someone change my mind.

K-Dog

I quite like your choice of Jaws, and I think I'll go with that as Greatest Villain. Honorable mentions go to...
Darth Vader
The Emperor
Thulsa Doom
Evil Ash
Verbal Kint(Kaiser Sose)
Hans Gruber
Blofeld
Goldfinger
Hannibal Lector
Alien Queen
Jack Torrance
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

Sauron in LOTR and Satan in The Exorcist, even though they don't really do much themselves.

Wow, I didn't have to do anything and "Jaws" is already kickin' ass. I have no reason to go against Bruce the Shark (Jaws' "stage name") as numero uno. I will list a few honorable mentions, but I have to cut it short, so somebody else may respond.

Mother in "Psycho"
Mother (Mrs. Iselin) in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
John Doe in "se7en"
George Armstrong Custer in "Little Big Man"
Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate"
Amon Goethe in "Schindler's List"
Marquise de Merteul in "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988)
Mola Ram in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"
Belloq in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
The Joker in "Batman" (1989)
Pazuzu in "The Exorcist"
Rochefort in "Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers" (1974/75)
Grand High Witch in "The Witches"
The Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz"
Salieri in "Amadeus"
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood in "Matilda"
Christian Szell in "Marathon Man"
Noah Cross in "Chinatown"
Nurse Ratched in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Longshanks in "Braveheart"
The entire military/government (except for one) in "Z"
The Queen in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
Maleficent in "Sleeping Beauty"
Ratigan in "The Great Mouse Detective"
Ursula in "The Little Mermaid"
McLeach in "The Rescuers Down Under"
Jafar in "Aladdin"
Scar in "The Lion King"
Judge Claude Frollo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996)
The orchestra conductor in "Allegro non Troppo"

Shut up, mark.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

I think HAL 9000 is the scariest villain ever.


I also like:

The bad Sensei in The Karate Kid
Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty
Nurse Rached
Angela Lansbury's character in "The Manchurian Candidate"
The Marquise de Merteuil
Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant
Norman Bates
Alex from The Clockwork Orange
Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca
Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Harry Lime (Orson Welles) from The Third Man
Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest)
Baby Jane Hudson

I would say Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining, but the freaky twins always scared me way more than he did.

Bob/The Arm in "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me"
The Cook in "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover"
Rutger Hauer in "The Hitcher"
Michael Myers in "Halloween"
Luther Mahoney in "Homicide: Life on the Street"
The House in "The Amityville Horror"
The Stay-Puffed Marshmellow Man in "Ghostbusters"

Oooooo...Hal 9000, excellent choice. I totally forgot about that movie. After some reconsidering, I think I may have to go with Hal.

I also think Nurse Ratched and Salieri are great choices.

I'd like to add Annie Wilkes (Misery) and Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest).

Haha, that movie was awesome! "NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!"

K-Dog

Well, there has been so many villains...

Jack Torrance in The Shining was great
Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher too
And that little girl in Dark Water freaked me out!

I like the Stay-Puffed comment. How can Ghostbusters go from such a great villain in the first one to such a cheezy moron in the secon one? Here are my favorites.

The Joker (Batman)
Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Johnny Ringo (Tombstone)
Mother Alien (Aliens)
Al Capone (The Untouchables)
Darth Vader (Star Wars)
Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
Jack Torrence (Shining)
Bill Lumberg (Office Space)
Principal Rooney (Ferris Beuler's Day Off)
"The Man With No Eyes" (Cool Hand Luke)
Hatchet Harry (Lock Stock)
Col. Kurtz (Apocalypse Now)
The Bear (The Edge)
Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
Russia (Red Dawn, Rocky 4, The Right Stuff)
Lone Biker of the Apocalypse (Raising Arizona)
Jaws (Jaws)
Lex Luthor (Superman)
General Zod (Superman 2)
Bill (Kill Bill Vol 2)
Sherrif of Nottingham (Robin Hood)
Hans Gruber (Die Hard)
Agent Smith (The Matrix)
Mr. T (Rocky 3)

Here are some of the worst of all time

The Architect (Matrix Reloaded)
Super Shredder (Ninja Turtles)
Viggo (Ghostbusters 2)
Tommy Gun (Rocky 5)
Cyrus Grissom (Con-Air)
Christine (Christine)
Whoever the hell that guy was in Superman 4

Sorry, I for got to add my all-time favorite villain. Don Logan From Sexy Beast. He was the coolest, scariest villain of them all. Thank God for good ol' Ben!

Nice, Don Logan is a great choice, but Clubber Lang (Mr. T)? I think all of the Rocky sequels are absolute sh*t. Clubber Lang wasn't even funny. The Russian guy was funny! "I must break you." Haha. That's like his only line in the movie!

K-Dog

Oompa loompa’s (Willy Wonka) You guys know those little carnie basts were villains

Oliver Reed as Krokov (Condorman)

Paul Shener as the voice of Jener (Secret of Nymh)

Sheriff Stuckey (Mississippi Burning)

Mountain Man (Billy McKinney) and
Toothless Man (“Cowboy” Coward) from Deliverance

The South (Gone with the Wind, Glory, Gettysburg etc.)

Percy Wetmore (the Green Mile)

The Children of the Corn (Children of the Corn)

Cunningham (Rob Roy)

Gage (Salem’s Lot) That little bast was scary as piss!

Lawnmower (Dead Alive) Those zombies didn’t stand a chance

I could go on and on.

Gotta give a shout out to Michael Myers from Halloween. Always scary.

A couple misunderstood villains who actually aren’t villains…
Freddy Kruger
Jason Voorhees

Do we have any votes for a favorite Bond villain? (Anyone besides the obvious Goldfinger?)

I am going to have to go with Scaramanga in The Man With The Third Nipple.............. I mean The Man With The Golden Gun. If you watch the movie anytime soon, look for Emperor Palpatine getting capped by Scaramanga.

Hey Jackie, Gage was in Pet Cemetary.

dude...why in the crap did I put Salem's lot? WHAT A FRIGGIN' IDIOT?!!!

Hannibal is the greatest villain to me but the Blair Witch and Sauron are pretty great too.

Greatest villains:

Dustin Hoffman as Captain James Hook
Tim Roth as General Thade
Jaquim Phoenix as Emperor Commodus
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter

some of the most dynamic and interesting villians of all time i think are;chicks like chiaki kuriyama who is gogo yubari from kill bill and kristanna loken who plays the hottest killing machine ever(tx).then the dudes like john travolta in swordfish and mr, white from reservoir dogs

The clown in Stephen King's "IT." That thing still freaks me out to this day...

yes you all must agree that one of the best villains of all time is "the butcher" played by daniel day lewis in gangs of new york if you haven't seen this yet, check it out it should worth a couple hours of your day.

If I remember correctly, Dennis Hopper was pretty evil in Blue Velvet, great vilain.