20 Recent Movie Villains Who Were Instantly Iconic
13. Michelle Fuller - Bugonia
The beauty of Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia is that we don't actually know who the real villain is for almost the entire runtime - at least unless you've seen the South Korean film on which it's based, Save the Green Planet!
Our conspiracy theorist protagonist Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) nevertheless believes that pharma CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is actually a secret member of an alien species known as the Andromedans, and is plotting to force humanity into subservience.
Teddy resolves to kidnapping her, and while he's depicted as dangerously erratic throughout the film, the big climactic twist is that he's actually right.
After Teddy's suicide vest accidentally detonates and kills him, Michelle teleports to the Andromedan mothership, revealing herself to indeed be a high-ranking member of the species just as Teddy theorised.
However, the Andromedans have actually spent thousands of years trying to guide humanity towards a more peaceful future, and now realising that prospect is unlikely, they decide to end the human "experiment."
Michelle then pops a diorama-like bubble onboard her ship, instantly ending the lives of every single person on Earth.
While the lines of villainy are definitely blurred throughout Bugonia, what with Teddy's conspiracy theory driving him to kill numerous people, Michelle definitely wins Bad Guy Top Trumps, what with her instant genocide of 8 billion humans.
And on top of Michelle being an utterly transfixing character, we got another banger of an Emma Stone performance out of it.