20 Greatest Movie Villains Of The 2000s

18. Owen Davian - Mission: Impossible III

The first two Mission: Impossible films suffered greatly in the villain department, with Jim Phelps and Sean Ambrose (Jon Voight and Dougray Scott) both playing the good-guy-gone-bad role and leaving little impact on the franchise as a whole. After two such lacklustre big bads, however, the third in the franchise wasted no time in bucking that particular trend.

MI3 still ticked its rogue agent box with Billy Crudup's Musgrave, but Owen Davian was different, as would be expected thanks to another in the long line of outstanding performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Easily the best villain in the entire franchise, Davian was introduced in the most explosive and unexpected way possible, threatening an innocent woman with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) tied to a chair at his mercy. As a supplier to the terrorists of the world, he was a great villain, but once it became personal between him and Hunt, things went up another notch.

There had been personal stakes for Ethan before, but this felt more dangerous than anything he had ever faced. When Davian told him he would find who he loved and torture them before killing them, it was impossible not to believe him, and when he learned Ethan's name, it sent shivers down the spine. He was a dangerous man, he knew how to hurt people most, and his unsettling indifference towards it all was the icing on the cake.