It’s the weekend; enough with the seriousness. Time for some inconsequential, light-hearted blog fluff.
So I present a list of my top six most horrifyingly evil movie villains, the ones whose downfall I found the most satisfying:
- Jason Isaacs as Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot (deliberately burns a church full of villagers)
- Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in Gladiator (kills his father, Maximus’ family, even cheats in the final battle – and has the best understated villain line ever: “why is he alive? He shouldn’t be alive. It vexes me. I’m terribly vexed.”)
- Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth in Schindler’s List (slaughters Jews just for fun – in particular, the capricious psychotic shootings of the engineer and the boy who can’t get a stain off his bathtub)
- Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (destroys an entire populated planet just for “an effective demonstration”)
- Robert Patrick as the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (slaughters a hell of a lot of people – which might seem understandable, since he’s a dispassionate killing machine, but just before the end he makes it very clear that he’s thoroughly enjoying it)
- William Sadler as Colonel Stuart in Die Hard 2 (deliberately crashes a plane full of ordinary travellers, with a particularly menacing “We’ve got you, we’ve got you… *BOOM*… we’ve got you.”)
Any other suggestions? Who’ve I left out?
UPDATE: Of course!
- Paul Reiser as Carter Burke in Aliens (whose cunning plan is to have Sigourney and the child exploded from the inside out by an alien in order to worm his way up the corporate ladder).
UPDATE #2: I can’t believe I left out
- Christopher Walken as Max Zorin in A View To A Kill. (He callously shoots his own men – as the foreman pleads “these men are loyal to you!” – whilst cackling.)
UPDATE #3 (31/5): Oh, and
- Sean Bean as Sean Miller in Patriot Games. (He brutally executes the cops and bridge keeper during his escape, and then tries to shoot Ryan’s wife and child just for revenge.)
How about Paul Reiser as Carter Burke, the evil company rep in Aliens?
Ooh. Good one – I can’t believe I left him out!
Good list – but I think you’re over-reaching for the EEEE-vil stakes. I found the following film demises far more satisfying, regardless of the ahh, ‘scope of evil deeds’ performed-
1) Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves “-and CANCEL CHRISTMAS!”
2) that snooty fanta-pants snitch kid that gets punched out at the end of Dead Poets Society
3) the Principal from Ferris Bueller’s day off.
(all that said, Paul Raiser in Aliens is easily the best, most loathesome character ever in a film. Just classic dick-baggery)
El Guapo, Three Amigos.
“Would you say I have a plethora, Jefe?”
Chilling.
Ooh, I forgot Christopher Walken as Zorin in A View To A Kill. He shoots his own men and cackles while doing it.
Dennis Hopper from Paris Trout. He was loathsome.
Tom Cruise in any film. He makes me shudder.
John Howard, in Baz Luhrman’s Australia II (1996-2007).
Although hard not to go with “I would like to think if you tell me I have a plethora, you know what it is to *have* a plethora”…
I have to be very obvious and say Hannibal Lecter in his Silence of the Lambs incarnation, no downfall though.
John Dall as Brandon in Alfred Hitchock’s 1948 masterpiece ‘Rope’.
This wealthy university student convinces a friend to help hill a fellow classmate, ‘for the sake of killing’. They have invited his fiancee, family, friends and teacher around for dinner, which they serve from a wooden box containing the freshly killed body.
At the dinner party Brandon argues the world would be a better place if those of superior intelligence could eliminate the weak and stupid.
“He is a Harvard Undergraduate, that might make it justifiable homicide” Brandon says to his accomplice, before the guests have arrived.
His downfall couldn’t be more satisfyingly engineered and portrayed, as Rupert Cadell {Jim Stewart}, decides to forego convention and politeness to pursue his nagging suspicions about the behaviour of the two murderers throughout the dinner party.
What about Emperor Palpatine? Some villains burn the Reichstag to consolidate their dictatorship; he forges a galactic civil war.
And to top it off, he tells Skywalker to kill his loyal apprentice of 20+ years. That’s hard.
True.
And Vader does go around crushing subordinates’ tracheas with his mind even while they’re apologising to him.
Rope, along with many other Hitchcock films, is brilliant. Don’t know if Brandon is such an arch-villain, though, as I always felt that the guy was headed for a come-uppance throughout the film.
In the awesome 50′s british film ‘Hell Drivers’ starring Patrick McGoohan (with a young Sean Connery) the fantastic comeuppance of Red & the gravel truck company owner.
(avoiding spoiler – as many haven’t seen this film)
Only time I have ever cheered the death of a villain.
screw it — a spoiler for Jeremy & other sci-fi geeks …
“Hell Driver” –
Doctor Who & Number Six die a deserved death going over a cliff in a dump truck.
The printer in Office Space
“Buffalo Bill” in Silence of the Lambs
Ben Kingsley as Logan in “Sexy Beast”.