A good antagonist is absolutely key to many great movies across several genres. While a great villain can make a film memorable, a poorly-written or pointless villain can nearly ruin an otherwise amazing film.
While all fans have their favs and least favs, here are 5+ of the most iconic movie villains ever along with 5+ of the worst(and not because they were really evil).
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Best: Missy Armitage from *Get Out.*
While many of the villains on this list come from older, classic movies, there have been some recent antagonists that are just as worthy of inclusion.
Missy seems like a normal, intelligent upper-middle-class mother, but she’s a truly vile and twisted person.
Worst: Terl from *Battlefield Earth.*
It’s not as if this movie was really good overall anyway, but a big reason why is because of its villain.
John Travolta played this truly campy and over-the-top bad guy. The performance is generally viewed as pretty awful, and it’s just hard to watch.
Best: Hannibal Lecter from *Silence of the Lambs.*
Hannibal will always be seen as one of the most memorable villains from a horror movie, or any movie for that matter.
Antony Hopkins brought the character to the screen perfectly, and he made the character both compelling and repulsive at the same time.
Worst: Venom from *Spider-Man 3.*
Venom is an interesting comic book character, but this version of the sometimes villain was just not right.
Most fans agree that Topher Grace wasn’t right for the role, and overall, just like with most of this movie, it was too far into the “funny when it shouldn’t have been” category.
Best: Norman Bates from *Psycho.*
Norman Bates is another classic horror movie villain that has made a huge impact on pop culture.
This Alfred Hitchcock villain showed that sometimes evil can hide behind a very normal-looking face and a soft-spoken voice. This kind of terror is almost too real.
Worst: Anakin from *Star Wars.*
While some fans feel Anakin gets too much hate, most can agree the writing of the character in the prequel trilogy left a lot to be desired.
He just seemed really whiny and annoying more than terrifying, and seeing Darth Vader’s origins in this way didn’t help the franchise.
Best: Darth Vader from the original *Star Wars* trilogy.
On the other hand, Darth Vader from the original movies is one of the most iconic villains of all time.
The reveal of being Luke’s father will go down in movie history forever. So, as long as you can just ignore the prequel backstory, he’s an amazing villain.
Worst: Deadpool from *X-Men Origins: Wolverine.*
Deadpool is such a popular character that it’s hard to imagine why or how the character could have been so completely ruined for this film.
It made zero sense to sew the character’s mouth shut, as a start. Luckily, Ryan Reynolds would get to reprise the role in a much better way for Deadpool.
Best: Alex Forrest from *Fatal Attraction.*
Not all interesting protagonists come from superhero or action films.
While some people feel some of her actions were justified, it’s hard to forgive what she did to that poor bunny.
But, her complexity and intensity made her interesting for sure, and Glenn Close was iconic in this role.
Worst: Whiplash from *Iron Man 2.*
There have been many comic book movie villains now, and some just really missed the mark.
Overall, the MCU sometimes struggles to make villains that are as interesting as their protagonists, but Whiplash was one of the least compelling.
He wasn’t really scary or well-written.
Best: Mr. Potter from *It’s A Wonderful Life.*
While you might not expect a Christmas movie to be classified by many as one of the best movie villains, he really is.
This character represents the evils of greed and selfishness, and he really was just so easy to hate.
Worst: Lex Luthor in *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.*
Fans were upset when this iconic supervillain was so miscast for this movie.
Most people felt that Jesse Eisenberg’s interpretation was just strange and not scary at all. It was a weird direction to take the character, and it didn’t really work.
Best: The Joker from *The Dark Knight.*
There have been many iterations of The Joker both on and off-screen, but Heath Ledger’s interpretation is seen as the best live-action Joker so far.
He was just the right level of unhinged, dynamic, and terrifying. More recent Joker characters can’t really compare.
Worst: The plants from *The Happening.*
This might be one of M. Night Shyamalan’s worst movies ever. The plants are getting revenge against mankind by releasing a chemical that causes them to want to die.
There were so many ridiculous moments in this movie, and trying to make benign houseplants seem scary was just laughable.
Best: Gollum from *The Lord of the Rings.*
Some of the best villains are those that viewers also felt sorry for or even wanted to be redeemed.
Gollum worked so well because he was so pitiful, but he could also be extremely creepy, cunning, and cruel. Overall, he’s just super memorable.
