20 Greatest 90s Movie Villains

7. Seven - John Doe

John Doe (Kevin Spacey) is one of cinema's greatest psychopaths. A serial killer who models his murders on the Seven Deadly Sins, Doe enacts a meticulously crafted campaign of terror and carries out several of the grisliest killings in horror history, murders so violent that they would've earned Seven an NC-17 rating if they'd been shown on-screen.

As well as being deranged beyond measure, Doe is intellectually superhuman, and he never, ever loses control for a second. Sure, he is ultimately killed but that was all part of his plan. In the end, his twisted masterpiece is complete; many lives have been destroyed, and evil has undoubtedly won, though protagonist Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) vows to continue fighting for good, which provides a small iota of hope. 

Further buoyed by one of Kevin Spacey's finest turns, John Doe is easily one of the best fictional serial killers, although, of course, we never really knew him. Viewers don't learn his backstory or even his real name. He's like an unknowable, archetypal figure of pure evil, and there's something almost supernatural about him. He swoops in out of nowhere, leaves a trail of unimaginable destruction, and is then gone as quickly as he arrived. 

Doe makes one think of a particular line spoken by Spacey in another one of his iconic 90s roles: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that... he's gone."