10 Movies That Had TWO Incredible Villains
These movies didn't just settle for one iconic and memorable bad guy.
Generally speaking, it's tough for most movies to come up with even a single truly great, memorable villain. So much has been done with cinematic antagonists that it's tough for new bad guys to stand out and not feel like facsimiles of what's come before.
And so the prospect of a movie delivering not one but two killer villains seems nigh-on impossible for all but the most accomplished filmmakers, yet when it happens the results are pure gangbusters.
Whether two focal villains equally sharing the spotlight or a major supervillain and sidekick beside them, a well-crafted antagonist duo can massively elevate the story while giving each bad guy somebody to bounce dialogue off.
Again, it's rare that movies can deliver two inarguably great villains, but it does happen as with these 10 movies, all of which served up two all-timer antagonists for their respective genres.
From legendary portrayals of beloved comic book supervillains to Bond baddies everybody loves, iconic horror movie antagonists, and everything in-between, these films all offer up a brilliant lesson in how to give audiences two awesome bad guys for the price of one...
10. The Joker & Two-Face - The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is of course best remembered for the late Heath Ledger's phenomenal, Oscar-winning performance as The Joker, delivering a definitive take on the Clown Prince of Crime that felt so perfectly suited to the gritty world of Nolan's superhero trilogy.
Yet Ledger's performance casts such a large shadow over the film that it's easy to forget about its second major antagonist - the corrupted DA Harvey Dent aka Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart).
Even with Dent's downfall being tightly packed into the movie's third act, Nolan executes a highly compelling, tragic arc for Two-Face, abetted by a criminally underappreciated performance from Aaron Eckhart and some outstandingly gnarly makeup and VFX to create his traumatic facial injury.
Nolan could've simply focused the film on The Joker and delivered a classic movie, but he dared to give us a second all-timer interpretation of an iconic comic book villain and absolutely knocked it out of the park.
Considering most superhero movies struggle to do justice to a single antagonist, Nolan made this one-two punch look absolutely effortless.