“Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph.”
Roger Ebert said that in his review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, often regarded as the greatest Star Trek film of all time. (It’s definitely the best Khan-based Star Trek film of all time.) It’s a perfect statement that not only applies to epic science-fiction features, but to a whole range of films that pits the Good Guys against the Bad Guys.
Superheroes currently rule the cinema universe, but with Suicide Squad crushing it at the box office, supervillains are on the rise. So we want to know: who is the best movie supervillain ever?
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We’ve created a shortlist of premium villains who we feel deserve to be highlighted. Four of these supervillains alone come from the Batman universe, with two of them being The Joker – Jack Nicolson’s take from Tim Burton’s Batman and Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning portrayal in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Those two actors exerted very different dimensions of crazy to the iconic character, earning them each their own spot.
We also made space for Danny Devito’s pitch-perfect performance as Penguin in Batman Returns and Tom Hardy’s dominant depiction of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Both characters, born from darkness and exile, were superb counterparts to Bruce Wayne. One just happened to be a snide little man running for mayor while the other was a masked wildebeest in a super-fly coat who just took the damn city for himself.
Also from the DC universe is Superman’s mega-intelligent nemesis Lex Luthor. No, we’re not talking about the Kevin Spacey one in Superman Returns or that twitchy Zuckerberg-ian mess from Batman V Superman. This spot belongs to the great Gene Hackman from Richard Donner’s unmistakeable Superman series. Smart, egotistic, smarmy, envious – Hackman oozed these qualities like grease from a greasy weasel.
Then there’s Dr. Octavius from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, perhaps the most sympathetic of all the Bad Guys on this list. He’s a complex character whose creation merged with his spine, sending him in a craze after the death of his beloved wife. Alfred Molina knew how to deliver this delirium without ever completely letting go of Doc Ock’s humanity, packing this supervillain with emotional depth. He also looked dope with those mechanical limbs.
However, the true master of mechanisms is undoubtedly Magneto – but which one? Sir Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender? Well, by exploiting a loophole in the time-space continuum, we decided that you don’t have to choose since they are technically the same character! They are both able to move metal with their mutant powers, they are both dicks, and they are both fighting for what they believe is a noble cause. You can never completely hate Magneto, and that’s why he’s such a compelling character.
Speaking of compelling dicks, Loki gets a nomination. You know why. You’ve seen The Avengers. Moving on.
The last supervillain we chose to highlight is a wildcard, given he’s from an animated film that isn’t based on a comic book. But we couldn’t NOT have Syndrome from Pixar’s The Incredibles on the list. He is envy in peak evil form, wanting to diminish those with powers simply because he didn’t have any. Syndrome is born from warped privilege and a gross sense of entitlement that is easily recognisable to anyone aware of the Gamer Gate shit-storm or the comments section of anything relating to the all-female Ghostbusters. To think this villain came out over a decade ago shows how on-the-button director Brad Bird was.
There are heaps more movie supervillains to choose from, so we’ve given you the option of typing your own in the poll.
