Who are your favorite movie villains?

Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear" and as the sinister preacher in "Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton only outing as a director (dissapointing that he never directed another movie).

Another thread post prompted me not to forget "Kill Bill Vol. I & II" with David Carradine and Darryl Hannah as great villians, not to mention Lucy Liu and Michael Madsen (one of the best of deserved endings for a villian with that lethal suitcase of money opening).

Jason Isaacs in `The Patriot` thought he made a great villain.

Castor Troy - Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

Two good ones!

Jason Isaacs was likely the only good thing as a bad thing in a so-so movie. Take him out of the mix and you've got a bland mediocre action flick.

My favorite screen villain is the old lady in the french film TATI DANIEL because she's evil in a very ordinary way. Whether she is stomping on the flowers in her neighbor's garden, sicing the dog on the mailman or pushing the ladder out from under someone changing a light bulb.

The actress who played the mother in the movie `Frances` she was pretty good at it, I thought.

Welcome to A2K, Elly and film forum, Elly.

That was Kim Stanley who has a very sparse filmography:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0822535/

I would have liked to see her in more films.

Thanks for both the welcome and the info link. have never saw any of her other movies.

"Seance on a Wet Afternoon" is rather slow and methodical -- not a great movie but worth seeing once for the performances.

Hear Hear! An archetypal creep.

Other memorable baddies:
"Death" in "The Seventh Seal", although he isn't actually evil, but just doing his job.
The father in the Finnish film "Häjyt", an orthodox Christian sadist and sociopath.
Robert de Niro as Louis Cypher in "Angel Heart"
Henry in "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer"

And as a wildcard: "General Boundworth" the really scary rabbit in "Watership Down".

Kudos to you, Greyfan, for mentioning this scene. I completely agree with you: that's one of the finest pieces of pure acting I've ever witnessed.

I would add in recalling the Ingmar Bergman script for "Torment" (he didn't direct) the creepy and ultimately evil teacher.

I'd add a whole list of my favorite villains, but I think they've all been mentioned already. I am surprised, however, to see that no one has mentioned Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even as a CGI, he was far more animated and life-like than many of the actors in those films. Plus, he was way creepy.

You're right, Joe (as usual) -- not only Gollum but Sauron and Saruman (a very convincing performance by the veteran evil emoting actor), not to mention a whole hoard of villians like the Orcs. LOTR can be called the ultimate tale of good against evil but that over-simplifies it's thematic nature. I've mentioned it before but Gollum in the books was so evil in the last chapters that my Mom bogged down reading some of the sections as she found him a really depressing character. Actually the film handled Gollum better than the book (oh, am I going to get some comments there!)

What about that slob covered in boils in "Dune?" Not only was he nasty, he was nasty-looking. Yuk.

The dude who killed Mozart.

The dude from American Psycho.

Anti-villain - Bill Paxton's character in Frailty.

Gary Oldman in Fifth Element.

That was Salieri in "Amadeus" and F. Murray Abraham did deserve the Oscar for that electrifying performance.

Christian Bale was horriifyingly evil in "American Psycho" -- that waltz with the nail gun made me shudder.

Prince John (Richard Lewis) in Robin Hood - Men in Tights

Somehow, I never saw Salieri as a true villian. Pitiful, pathetic and unable to stand up to his challenge without stooping to lowly levels? Yes. But a villian? Nah. Maybe I need to watch it again? It's been over a decade, I'm sure, since I've seen it.