20 Greatest Movie Villains Of The 2000s

7. Colin Sullivan - The Departed

Certain movies have an abundance of villainy, where just one bad guy wasn't enough. Take The Departed as a perfect example. Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello was an intense, powerful, ruthless, and despicable villain, but wasn't even the best the piece had to offer.

This particular honour goes to Matt Damon's Colin Sullivan. Brought into Costello's gangster regime as a young child, and raised under his wing in something of a father-son dynamic, there could have been no telling just how good at being bad he would turn out to be.

Essentially a criminal being moulded and sent into the Massachusetts State Police solely for Frank's gain, Sullivan was by default incredibly smart, tough, and he knew how to get himself out of sticky situations. More often than not, that came with breaking the law and, on multiple occasions, murder.

Damon's character was brilliant at playing both sides of the coin, but when the time came, he proved to be just as protective of his own self-interests as a good villain should be, killing where necessary, no matter who. He was utterly ruthless in getting what he wanted and protecting himself, and there isn't anyone watching who wouldn't have loved it when his justice was eventually served.