10 Movie Villains Whose Conscience Got The Better Of Them

3. The Grinch - How The Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

Dr. Seuss's classic Christmas tale has been around since 1957, when it was published as a children's book, which remains one of the best-loved of the genre. It was the 1966 animated special however that was arguably responsible for the continued popularity of the tale more than half a century after publication. Languishing in his curly mountain abode and lamenting the Whos down in Whoville below, the Grinch decides to rob everyone in the little hamlet of the thing they love most: Christmas. He takes the presents, the lights, the mistletoe, the garland and candles, the ornaments off the tree and the tree itself. But he finds, of course, that he can't steal the Christmas spirit, and the singing Whos reinvigorate his shrivelled heart and instil a newfound charity within him. The spirit of Christmas turns him into a reformed, life-loving community man with a heart of gold - all of which sounds awfully familiar...