12 Most Terrifying Action Movie Villains

Quite possibly the definition of the action movie villain, terrorist Hans Gruber is as cool and calculated as he is pure evil.

The antagonist of the classic movie that is Die Hard, Gruber (played by the wonderful, late Alan Rickman in his breakthrough role) is the radical leader of a group which takes over the Nakatomi Corporation tower in Los Angeles, taking its inhabitants as hostage. Of course, this is merely a ruse as Gruber actually intends to steal over $600 million in bearer bonds from the tower vault, and is happy to kill anyone who stands in his way.

Gruber is a real puppet master in a sense - he's happy to use his goons who are expendable to him, and he stays out of the limelight until he's forced to confront Bruce Willis's cop John McClane. He's also a real mastermind, the wizard behind the curtain with yet another trick up his sleeve - and it's his manipualtion of events which leads the FBI in the film to cut power to the tower, allowing him to bypass an electronic lock in the vault. He's a genuine threat, and it's no surprise Rickman's performance goes down as one of the greatest in action movie history.