Best Movie Villains
The Octopus
Mike Luxemburg: FINALLY, an excuse to talk about The Spirit. It’s a movie that everyone but me, justifiably, hates. I love it though, because no matter how off the rails that film goes Samuel L. Jackson’s Octopus is right there with it. He’s the sort of villain that defines the movie the performance brings a kind of energy that is hard to find anywhere else. He’s definitely not the best antagonist in any film, but it appeals to me. Plus he’s The Octopus; he’s got eight of everything.
Chong Li
Caliber Winfield: Chong Li as featured in the unstoppable classic, Bloodsport.
Chong Li is without a doubt one of, if not the greatest villain of all time. He’s also the most underrated. First off, the dude is built like a brick shithouse, and along with a fantastic glare and frowning like he’s paid to do it, he’s insanely intimidating from the get go. He hardly ever speaks, preferring more to speak through his actions. These actions are breaking bones, stomping skulls, and killing people, all of which he does long after he’s won the fight. His reason for doing these sorts of things are because he’s incredibly vain, and loves nothing more than getting adulation from the Kumite crowd. He comes to life and jumps around, smiling, and demanding more. He loves it so much that he’ll stop mid-fight in order to gloat. He also attempted to kill Frank Dux’s friend, Ray Jackson, simply because Frank broke one of Chong Li’s records. The guy is a total bad-ass, and deserves so much more recognition than he gets.
CHONG LI! CHONG LI! CHONG LI!
Mr. Gone
Ruby Le Rouge: Mr.Gone from the maxx. Darkly humorous, and completely sinister. He seeps into the psyche of every character, pushing them towards self realization, making them face what they don’t want to see. A killer, controller of Iz’s and a talking head, who also has a kickass cow bathroom.
Anton Chugurh
Caleb Masters: Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men is one of the all time greats of film villainy. He’s highly intelligent and totally unpredictable and is in fact so crazy that he takes out own his own clients before going to take out the target. His monologues are mesmerizing, his silenced shotgun terrifying, and most of all; his haircut is absolutely hideous. And what’s worse? Anton is still out there spreading death and anarchy.
Cormac McCarthy created one of the deadliest icons in film history and Javier Bardem took the character to a whole new level as one of the greatest characters to appear on big screen in the 21st century.
Keyser Soze
Derek Johns: Keyser Soze- In case you have never seen The Usual Suspects, just imagine Voldemort as a crime boss and you might have some idea about how scary Keyser Soze is. Even the most hardened criminals cringe in fear at the very mention of his name. There’s not a single place you can go where Soze won’t find you and even scarier is that he’s been so successful at operating in the shadows that people question if he even exists. Put all that together he is one frightening dude.
Loki
Shawn S. Lealos: What I look for in a great villain is someone who is actually the hero of their own story. That is who Loki is, someone who feels like life has dealt him a rotten deck and is doing anything he can to get what he feels was taken from him. From the start, he just wanted to be accepted by his father, and that is what made the first Thor such a great movie – Loki wanted acceptance but was always shunned for Thor. By the time we reached Thor: The Dark World, I feel Loki’s story was the best thing about that entire universe. He is so tragic, so humiliated, and at the end both heroic and diabolical. Plus, Tom Hiddleston is just one of the best actors working today.
