Who are your favorite movie villains?

Bruce Dern has played a whole raft of memorable bad guys.
I loved Walter Brennan as Roy Bean in a Gary Cooper film - forgot its name. Cooper has to gun him down.
The guy who played Mesallah in Ben Hur, name of Boyd, I think

Yeah, Boyd. Stephen, is irt? He has played similar villainous roles in other movies. His strong suit is that he starts out seeming to be quite charming until you slowly begin to realize the guy deserves instant extinction.

Yul Brynner in Westworld. That guy scared the crap outta me the first time i saw the film (mind you i was 6... i think).

Brynner was just reprising his role of Chris in The Magnificent Seven. I think that, realizing that, I didn't find him too scary.

i hadent seen the magnificient seven when i saw westworld (though i have seen it six times since then :wink: ), but i still thought his crazy robotic self was pretty freaky.

he is one of those villans where no matter how fast you run, he can always walk calmly at the same pace, and eventually catch you.

I also though Hannibal Lector was a great movie villian.

Alan Rickman has been mentioned for "Die Hard". I also liked him as a villain in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" although the movie is pretty weak, and even more in "Quigley Down Under".

He's over the top in all three films, but entertaining. Perhaps that quality makes him a favorite movie villain rather than a great one, if there is any value to such a distinction. Disney animated villains are usually lovable and evil at the same time; I think Rickman's villains are cut from the same cloth.

Have to agree that Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector is chilling and unforgettable; and though I would never have thought of Gene Hackman in "Unforgiven", that's a very worthy choice too.

How about David Warner as Jack the Ripper in "Time After Time", if the film is not too obscure?

Or Edward Norton in "Primal Fear"?

And, going back a bit, there's Lon Chaney's portrayal of the Phantom of the Opera. Chaney's Phantom is perhaps as much a victim as a villain, but that extra layer makes for a more compelling portrait, and I'll match the final scene, when he bluffs the mob out of attacking him for a brief moment, with any scene I've ever viewed for pathos.

I remember Stephen Boyd in "The Oscar", too. Creepy in an Enron sort of way.

Do special effects-generated villains count? If so, the thing in The Alien is scary beyond belief.

Alan Arkin as he toyed with Audrey Hepburn's blind character in "Wait Unitl Dark"

Curly Bill, Johnny Ringo and Ike in "Tombstone."
John Malkovich and Glenn Close's characters in "Dangerous Liasons."

Gary Oldman plays the best villians.

Bram Stokers: Dracula - Dracula
True Romance - Drexl
JFK - Lee Harvey Oswald
The Contender - Rep. Sheldon Runyon
The Fifth Element - Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
Airforce One - Ivan Korshunov
Murder in the First - Milton Glenn
Beat the Devil - The Devil

The old lady in the french film "Tatie Danielle" (1990) If you haven't seen it I recommend it.
It's a great black comedy
Dan Aykroyd in "Grosse Point Blank"
Jonathan Pryce in "Something Wicked This Way Comes"

he kinda scared me in that role.
I choose Doug Bradley as Pinhead in Hellraiser.

LOVE that film. I mean to get it on dvd.

Darth Vader. Hands down.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing....."

Scariest guy I ever saw in a film - Tim Robbins as Bob Roberts. Chilling.

How about Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" - "Here'ssssss Johnny……………."

Or a little different type of villain - Kathy Bates in "Misery".

And Hannibal Lector of course has to be up there. Some one also mentioned Ed Norton in "Primal Fear" - also a good one.

Micheal Madsen--(is that his name?) Reservoir Dogs. How can he be so good and so bad? So charming and so inhuman...?

As long as the subject of female villains has been brought up, how about Charlize Theron in Monster?

Don't remember that film name at all, but was it about a hitman who protects a 12 year old girl whose family have been shot by Gary Oldman's goons? If so, I know it as 'Leon', and GO's baddie is great in that.

'Leon' was the international release name. 'The Professional' was the name of the American release.

My vote for best all time villian(s): Nazis.
Everyone wants to get the Nazis. Everyone from Indiana Jones to The Blues Brothers to those nuns at the end of 'The Sound of Music'.