2. Col. Hans Landa - Inglourious Basterds (2009)
"I love rumours! Facts can be so misleading, where rumours, true or false, are often revealing." No one really had any idea who the German TV actor Christoph Waltz was before Quentin Tarantino generously cast him as his charming villain in Inglourious Basterds, but there's a fairly good reason we all know who he is now. He's one of the hottest properties in Hollywood at the minute, and the reason falls squarely at the jack-booted feet of his infamous Jew Hunter. Col. Hans Landa is one of the most horrible characters in Quentin Tarantino's films, which is a bold statement to end all bold statements. He lacks empathy for anyone despite impeccably recognising their behaviour, he is cruel, evil and he genuinely sees nothing wrong with what he does, which gives him the breezy demeanour that makes his charm so irresistible while we hate him. In the very first scene, Landa's discovery of the hidden Jewish family is irresistibly tense: he shows his detection skills, while also disarming the farmer with an easy charm that makes his casual command for his soldiers to kill the family so devastatingly affecting. He completely overshadows everyone else in the film despite most other actors giving great performances, and he is the answer to Tarantino's need to create a villain we can all hate as much as the Fuhrer himself.