You’ve got a lot of good ones there, so I’ll go recent and say Daniel Plainview.
Though I won’t argue with “Night of the Hunter”, I think Robert Mitchum was WAY more menacing in “Cape Fear” (1961). Max Cady is still, in my humble opinion, one of the most memorable villians in screen history. I mean, gee, he was just plain MEAN. One that semingly never gets mentioned though everybody agrees he was a no good SOB is Alan Arkin as Harry Roat in “Wait Until Dark”……..
One of the most interesting villans, to me, it John Wayne in “The Searchers”…is he a villan or not? It makes him human, and possibly a villan as well!
Nice suggestions, all. You might also wish to see what others wrote in a similar thread here: http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/34/comments
Daniel Plainview is “There Will Be Blood”? I haven’t seen it yet. but I plan to soon. Please list the movie and actor if possible-would be helpful-thanks. Chuck, I agree with you on “Cape Fear”. Good call. I think the possibilities here could be endless. I hope so anyway!
Damn! So many threads now, it’s hard to keep track, and I thought I read them all. Thanks Tom. Sorry for the redundacy all.
Not a problem, Soybean. (My aim was to be helpful and not reprimanding, the latter of which I have neither the authority nor the desire to be!) It is getting quite difficult to sort through everything . . . not just between threads, but within them. Duplication is to be expected, although I suppose we don’t need quite as many conversations about which films should or shouldn’t get the Criterion treatment.
So much evil out there. Hannibal Lecter was kind of sweetheart, the James Beard of evil.
I thought everyone would have run headlong to our most recent evil, the specter of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). But he was a bit over the top.
My own favorite evil bastard — John Huston’s grinning Noah Cross, with his fat hand on that little girl’s shoulder, whose mother and sister had just been shot.
Benoit Poelvoorde in Man Bites Dog is one of the more disturbing characters.
Also, I feel like Pat Bateman from American Psycho should be somewhere on the list.
Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet, Mystery Man (Robert Blake) in Lost Highway, BOB in Twin Peaks & FWWM — Lynch creates some creepy villians.
All you’ve mentioned are great. I do like Oldman’s performance in Leon. Quite good.
Roman Polanski, as the blade wielding goon in “China Town”.
Nakadai Tatsuya in “Sword of Doom”
Henry Fonda in "Once Upon A Time in the West’’. Yes, Henry Fonda!
Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood
Amon Goeth – Schindler’s List
Bruno Anthony – Strangers on a Train
Joan Crawford – Mommie Dearest
Tommy DeVito – Goodfellas
Elijah Price – Unbreakable
Telly – Kids (1995)
The Joker in Batman (1989) and Batman Begins (2008)
Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men
Bill Munny comes to mind at least as a great example of the villian within someone. you never see his past but you hear about it, and when he does make an appearance he turns from a broken sick old man to a lethal heartless killer. Although Little Bill was also a very good secondary villain (if he was one…;)
Props to Chuck for remembering ‘Harry Roat from Scarsdale,’ one of the best, and to Noel for Henry Fonda’s inclusion.
How about HAL-9000 ?
And, since I just entered a non-human candidate, for my money Disney’s SLEEPING BEAUTY’s ’Maleficent" has no equal!
I remember the audience’s intake of breath when it was revealed that Angela Lansbury was the lynchpin in “The Manchurian Candidate.”
His own mother!
Themselves — The Rules of the Game
Himself — Memento
Iago.
Michael Corleone — The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II
Noah Cross — Chinatown
Yeah, Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. Sorry about that.
i think Gaear Grimsrud, the character played by Peter Stormare on Fargo is one of the scariest on film, it represent a souless villian that dosent have any kind of motivation, he is like an animal, full of nothingness, instinct is what drives him, and that makes him even scarier.
Steve Buscemi character Carl Showalter is a great villian too, he is weak, idiot and funny looking, but that dosen`t mean he is not a dangerous person, in fact he is the mastermind of the operation!
I would´t like to be in a situation stuck up with does two.This kind of counterpoints make this characters very different from the stereotypical villian, and that´s why they are so marvelous.
A different kind of memorable… but how about Verbal Kint from the Usual Suspects?
Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men (2007)
Henry Fonda as Frank in Leone’s Once upon a Time in the West. The shock value alone of seeing Fonda shoot the kid on the McBain
ranch deserves a mention on this list.
Rutger Hauer as “Roy Batty” from ‘Blade Runner’. And from there I’ll go to another PKD story and say Robert Downey’s “James Barris” from ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Some other favorites include:
Alphonso Bedoya as Gold Hat in ‘Treasure of Sierra Madre’
Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle in ‘Wicker Man’. He was also pretty badass as Saruman in LOTR
Paul Muni as Tony Camonte in ‘Scarface’
James Cagney as Cody Jarrett in ‘White Heat’
Jeff Goldblum as Alistair Hennessey in ‘The Life Aquatic…’
Lee MArvin as Liberty Vallance
Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb as Leonard Smalls in ‘Raising Arizona’
Jack Nicholson as the unintentional villain in The Shining swinging that axe or the whole mean rotten gang waiting for Gary Cooper in High Noon. I guess the townspeople in High Noon are all villains by simply doing nothing, too. Daniel Day Lewis was not very nice in Gangs of New York either, but DeCaprio needed to be put down a peg for just over-playing his part.
Hans Grubber in Die Hard, he just had such class for being a German terrorist, and he was just so cunning. He had was cold in his executions as well, “I’m going to count to three.” His brother Simon from Die Hard 3 also wasn’t bad.
When I was young my father made me watch this movie every time it showed on television, ( which wasn’t a bad thing, I still love it ) so the little, bald thuggee cult leader, Guru, in “Gunga Din”. I think played by Eduardo Ciannelli.
conrad veidt as jaffar in “the thief of baghdad”.
John Houston in Chinatown. The thing is, he is like the old guy who can slip through a window of your house without make any noise, and rape your daughter. Or your sister. Or your mom and all your pets.
Eagle Eye Computer – HA, just kidding.
Darth Vader – He was the best villain when I was a kid.
Hans Gruber – “Thank you, Mr. Cowboy, I’ll take it under advisement. Hit it again!” Brilliant.
Anton Chigur – Made that whole movie worthwhile.
Orson Welles – Twice! As Harry Lime in The Third Man and Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil. (Honorable mention: Unicron in Transformers)
Jaws – No, not the shark, but the dude that eats the shark in The Spy Who Loved Me. Had to put a Bond Villain in here!
SOYBEAN
I love Harvey Keitel’s performance in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”. I think the most effective villains are often people that at first come across as being quite norman, like Normal Bates in “Psycho”. But for the focus of this thread, I would like to hear about your most memorable villains. I think most would agree that Hannibal Lecter was a great villain, so I’m going to list him first to save space for some of the lesser known, but equally villainous characters. Others that come to mind for me are Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Colonel Nathan R, Jessup in “A Few Good Men”, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest”, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne in “The Adventures Of Robin Hood”, Margaret Hamiton as The Wicked Witch in “The Wizard of Oz”, and of course Robert Mitchum as The Reverend Harry Powell in “The Night Of The Hunter”. I haven’t seen as many films as most of you ( especially foreign films ) so I am eager to hear your feedback and meet some new evil characters to enjoy on film. (LOVE/HATE).