10 Even More Movie Villains You Didn't Realise Actually Won

Even accepting that Maleficent reconfigures the iconic villainess (Angelina Jolie) into a more sympathetic, fleshed-out character, her initial vengeful plan still plays out far more successfully than the film's sunnier ending really makes clear.

Maleficent has an understandably major bone to pick with her former lover Stefan (Sharlto Copley), who cuts off her wings and stages her death in an attempt to appease the current King, in turn setting himself up to become his successor.

When Stefan's daughter Aurora (Elle Fanning) is born, an embittered Maleficent curses the child, that on her 16th birthday she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and go to sleep forever, save for true love's kiss breaking the curse.

Stefan and his wife Leila (Hannah New) go to drastic measures to try and prevent Aurora's destiny befalling her - sequestering her in a remote cottage until the day after her 16th birthday and having every spinning wheel in the kingdom destroyed.

In the ensuing years, Stefan becomes obsessed with killing Maleficent and loses his mind, enough that he even refuses to see his wife on her deathbed.

And even after Aurora falls into a slumber and is awakened by Maleficent's kiss on the forehead, Stefan doesn't get any time to savour his daughter's revival, his mad desire for revenge causing him to fall to his death while battling Maleficent.

To summarise, Maleficent absolutely succeeded in her plan to emotionally brutalise Stefan, effectively separating him from his daughter for her entire childhood, and even once the curse lifts, he's not around to enjoy it, being dead and all.

While Maleficent was certainly in a better, less twisted place by film's end, her initial plot to devastate her former lover absolutely worked as intended, even if the film keenly downplays it somewhat.