The Five Greatest Movie Villains Of All Time

Heroes are revered and honored for their acts of bravery and selflessness. Villains are the opposite, often reviled not just for making the hero’s life a living hell, but most importantly for doing unimaginable and evil things, all for their own personal gain. But in the battle between good and evil in movies, half of the time it’s the villain that is best remembered. While there are so many antagonists that have left their permanent mark in movies, there are just a few exceptional ones that are so vile and despicably portrayed that their villainy deserves to be singled out. Here we present you Flipgeeks’ top five picks for “Greatest Movie Villains Of All Time.”

1. Amon Goeth (Schindler’s List)

Portrayed by: Ralph Fiennes

Ticket to Villainy: Ralph Fiennes is best remembered for his heinous roles such as Hades from Clash of The Titans and Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter films. But his most memorable portrayal of a movie baddie (and perhaps the most disturbing one) is perhaps in the award-winning war drama Schindler’s List, where he played the real-life infamous war criminal and commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp, Amon Goeth.

Considered the face of evil in this epic movie, Amon Goeth was a sadistic SOB who ran a Nazi concentration camp in Krakow-Plaszow during WWII. Goeth is primarily responsible for the atrocity of liquidating the Jewish prisoners in the camp he is assigned to. His notable favorite hobby was shooting unsuspecting prisoners from the window of his room, using them as target practice. Why? Because he was simply bored. His complete lack of conscience and zero empathy for the defenseless earns him a spot in this list.

Dastardly Quote: (To Oskar Schindler) “This is very cruel, Oskar. You’re giving them [Jews] hope. You shouldn’t do that. That’s cruel!”

2. Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men)

Portrayed by: Javier Bardem

Claim to Villainy: In the longest time we’ve been watching movies, we thought we’ve seen all the various types of villains. Psychopaths, Sadists, Mass Murderers and Schemers. No matter how evil they can be, they always fall in the end because the good guys always manage to find a way to win, right?

Right?

Wrong.

If you think you’ve seen everything there is to see in a movie villain, then you probably haven’t seen No Country For Old Men Yet.

Never in a long time has a villain in a movie been depicted as unstoppable and ice cold as Anton Chigurh. A man of a few words contrasted by his unsympathetic ruthlessness (killing almost everyone he encounters) and twisted view of honor (determining the fate of his victim with the flip of a coin, Two-Face style), Chigurh is more than a movie monster or villain; he is what some would describe as a singular force of nature. The guy does not even blink when he kills, as if he was a walking wind-up killing machine. His motives are unknown, and his murders seamless. He is also one of a few movie villains who survive AND win in the end. And that creepy bowl cut that makes him look like Willy Wonka’s evil twin brother is just… unsettling to say the least.

Dastardly Quote: (While speaking to Llewelyn Moss on the phone, telling him to surrender) “This is the best deal you’re going to get. I won’t tell you that you can save yourself, because you can’t.”

3. The Shark (JAWS)

Portrayed by: Mechanical shark

Claim to Villainy: The only non-human antagonist in this list, the Great White Shark from JAWS is as iconic as any other movie villain there is. Who wouldn’t forget this classic monster? When JAWS started playing in theaters in 1975, every time that damn heart-attack inducing music (with its sinisterly steady rhythm) started playing, people would literally scream in terror, because that was the indicator that the shark was fast approaching, ready for another meal.

The attack scenes were so graphic that it scared moviegoers to the point that beaches became the least popular hangout spots and were deserted for a time, in fear of a real shark attack happening on shallow waters. Director Steven Spielberg was effective in instilling primal fear into his audiences’ psyche and keeping them out of the water, pissing off surfing stores, water sports venues and beach resorts everywhere due to their business being ruined by this instant classic.

Here’s a video of one of the memorable scenes from that movie:

4. The Joker (The Dark Knight)

Portrayed by: Heath Ledger

Claim to Villainy: The moment Heath Ledger was announced as the actor who would portray The Joker in The Dark Knight, haters and purists stormed movie forums on the internet, protesting the choice. They said Heath couldn’t act his way out of a box. That he would give The Joker, an already iconic DC villain, injustice in the movies. Yes, everyone was hating on Heath Ledger, and he proved every single one of them wrong.

Ledger transformed the giggling Joker into his own immensely dark and frighteningly twisted masterpiece, that it’s sure to give kids nightmares and has left a burning mark into our subconscious forever. He described Joker to be a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.” Ledger prepared himself for the role by locking himself in a hotel room for one month (alone, mind you), recreating the legendary villain’s laugh, posture, mannerisms and recorded Joker’s possible inner thoughts in a diary. The result was an instant classic. Ledger’s version of The Joker was so great that it earned him posthumous awards including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. And just as sudden as they appeared, the haters were literally silenced.

Dastardly Quote: (To Batman) “Don’t talk like you’re one of them! You’re not… even if you’d like to be. To them you’re just a freak, like me. They need you right now, but when they don’t they’ll cast you out, like a leper. See, their morals, their “code”… it’s a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you – when the chips are down, these, ah, “civilized people”? They’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”

5. Darth Vader (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi)

Portrayed by: Hayden Christensen, David Prowse, Sebastian Shaw and voiced by James Earl Jones

Claim to Villainy: Is there really a need for an explanation for this? Darth Vader is the ultimate bad guy that trumps ALL ultimate bad guys. That memorable, mechanical, wheezy breathing, his annihilation of an entire planet, killing his subordinates who displease him, cutting off his son Luke’s hand in a vicious lightsaber duel and seducing him to join the Dark side… the list just goes on. His tyranny is felt across the galaxy, and you don’t need the Infinity Gauntlet to achieve that.

Dastardly Quote: (To Luke Skywalker) “You cannot escape the Dark Side of the Force!”