Captain America: Civil War - Every Character Ranked From Worst To Best

7. Zemo

Who knows what the critics who lambasted Marvel for "another poor villain" were smoking when they heaped Daniel Bruhl's villain on the same pile as Ronan and Justin Hammer. Because they were completely off base.

Zemo is a triumph of writing and misdirection. He's initially set up as your typical nutcase seeking world domination with the reveal that Bucky wasn't the only Winter Soldier (an image that suits his comic book counterpart), but then his personal tragedy changes everything.

The idea of a man who has lost everything seeking to turn the instruments of his tragedy against each other because he can't hope to do anything himself is subtle and brilliant. And the way he drops the bomb on Tony Stark is just gloriously devastating (even if the twist was spoiled somewhat in The Winter Soldier for the audience).

Bruhl is great: reserved, detached and haunted in a way that completely transforms in our perception from the marks of psychopathy to the wounds of unspeakable tragedy. It's proof that villains don't need lasers or masks or powers of their own: just good, strong motivation and some smarts.

And then, brilliantly, his defiant suggestion that he may have still won anyway is a nice little tease that he may even have more layers again.