15 Most Monstrous Movie Villains

Check under the bed, and sleep with one eye open...

By Jack Morrell /

Over time, film has proven itself to be the definitive storytelling medium of our age. Disagree? Think about how many novels or comics you€™ve seen described as €˜cinematic€™. Now think about the kind of music you€™ve heard described as €˜widescreen€™. The language of film appreciation has infiltrated all of pop culture, and ever since cinema started telling proper stories, the villain has been a big part of those tales€ after all, the best stories give us a great good guy and an even better bad guy. Many would argue that a hero isn€™t a hero without a nemesis. And what bad guys the silver screen has given us: glacially cold heels, miscreants with ugly tempers; old scoundrels and their young pretenders; the relatably sane and the bugged out whackjobs; the rascal, the reprobate and the rapscallion; the brute, the creep and the devil himself. Some have been more anti-hero than proper evildoer, two-thirds sinner but one-third saint; some delight in making mischief, while others make orphans of children and widows of wives. And then there€™s the utter, thoroughgoing blackguards€ those fiends whose only purpose seems to be to make the cinema going audience hate them and all who sail in them. This article is dedicated to those bad guys so horrible, so cruel, so monstrous, so€ evil, that you found yourself on the edge of your seat willing them to slip up, willing them to get their just deserts, willing the hero to get back up and just punt them into the sun. Whether it€™s their violent acts, their sexual politics, the way they talk or even move, or just because (however many decades later) they still freak the total bejeezus out of you: these are the fifteen most monstrous villains in movie history. Oh, and here be spoilers, of course.