Dry Styx TOP 40 films with the most interesting villains

Typically, a World War 2 film will follow six allied soldiers in enemy territory. In "49th Parallel", we instead see six notorious Axis soldiers, survivors of a UBoat disaster in Hudson Bay. They wreck terror across Canada. Ironically, the film was made before the U.S. was involved in the war, so the German soldiers make a roundabout way to get to the states. Each of the six is a different component of what made the horrible German machine work in that war. The leader (Eric Portman) is a materialist Nazi who believes in his cause. Second in command is an aristocrat. Another is the one heroic and worthy soldier (Niel MacGinnis) who is ill appreciated by his comrades. Another is a terroristic brute. Another a career soldier who loses his nerve when he goes from uniform to civies. The last is an opportunist with no real beliefs. They do encounter heroes along the way who stifle their plans.

Bogie was the master of "villains with insecurities". This is his most notable A villain with insecurity. "Dobbs" might not be a villain, as the old man says, in normal circumstances. His villainy stems from fear more than anything, with a touch of greed, and the need to rationalize his greed. Unlike the traditional Hollywood villain, he isn't perfect. He makes mistakes.

This film actually begins with the two villains, although one is a semi-hero who was the sole survivor of the first safari that encounted Tarzan. He is in love with Jane. Fat chance that he (Neil Hamilton) gets her, but he's a bit more noble than his rogue friend, the famous villain "Martin My Friend", played by Paul Cavanagh, whose motives are very credible. Through it all, "Martin My Friend" seeks to make back his investment by bringing back ivory from dead elephants, and he must kill Tarzan to do this. While he is mercenary, he only does what he feels he has to do, and in the end, he wants to save Jane from a dastardly fate. A true "anti-villain".

Clint Eastwood's best film by far. He plays a more credible character than usual, in a more credible violent situation than usual. He is wrongly hanged as a rustler by nine men, and then saved by Ben Johnson, who brings him to an anti-hero judge played by Pat Hingle. The nine men have warrants on them, but aside from Bruce Dern, they aren't "movie villains". For example, "Skipper" Alan Hale Jr. is a blacksmith, and the others are ranchers or ranch hands.

At the risk of a spoiler, I'll say that the villain with insecurities, played by Bogie, is not the true villain here. This is one where the "snake oil villain", whom I won't name, gets a comeuppance at the end, although it probably doesn't last long. It's a very credible tale of true villainy, though, and of how the wrong man is often accused of being the villain.

Paul Newman as the ultimate anti-hero, ready to shoot down an evil man who carries a white flag of truce to increase his odds against murderous villains. While the leader of the ruffian villains is a stock villain played by Richard Boone, the real villain is played by Fred March, who snake oils his evil throughout the movie so well that most viewers forget he is the villain. Cameron Mitchell is a sheriff gone bad who joins the villains, for the money. The most memorable and likable of the villains is Frank Silvera, who has a lot of fun dialog with the "hombre", and who becomes very disappointed when he has to actually face him in a duel to the death.

An incredible classic whose more descriptive title would have been "The Four Farmers", but who would watch a film with that title? All of the characters are explored, though the villains to a more subtle degree. There are about 40 bandits, and we learn that they are mere humans who aren't invulnerable as most movie villains seem to be (until they meet the one hero who can harm them). These aren't demigods. In fact, when we find that the wife of one of the farmers is sleeping with them, and we see that they aren't sure who is among their number, we realize that "bandits" are really people from various towns who feel like they're too good to be farmers.

Tyrone Power plays the lead, who is the villain, supposedly, as Orsini. The Orsini (or Orisini in most books) was one of the two biggest families of cardinals in the early church, so he is of noble blood, so to speak. His character struggles to be the evil Machiavellian "prince of foxes", with the facade of beauty hiding an evil heart, but instead he can't hide his caring heart, and he becomes the exact opposite of the Machiavellian prince, a noble heart with a facade of evil. The heroine of the fifth Indiana Jones film, Dial of Destiny, is based on the same character, except that she never is announced as a villainess.

Like many great dramas, it may be difficult to label someone a villain or a hero, but since Gene Hackman is definitely a "hero", the villain is his antagonist played by Ernest Borgnine, who utters the famous lines "How do you know?" when the hero continually professes to know everything. In this case, the hero does know everything about how to survive.

Like "Hombre", the true villain of this classic snake oils his way through to the end without looking like the villain, but it is Lee Hackett (Van Heflin) who is the problem. His oldest son, played by Tab Hunter, wants to be like his father. He listens to the exploits of his father and friends much like Opie would hear tales of his father in Floyd's barber shop, and the son wants to live the same violent life. Throughout the movie, three characters, including Edward Platt, remind the audience that the real villain is Lee Hackett, but at the end, he evokes the sympathy that his snake oil evil evokes from the feebler minds.

The villain in this film is described as a sadist, played by Robert Taylor, but he isn't your usual movie sadist. Taylor plays it like Bogie, with insecurities. He needs support from his friends.

This classic Russian film is almost identical to the book. All of the characters are villains, and all are motivated. One is a super psycho evil homicidal maniac who is killing all of the other villains. They aren't likable characters, but they're believable.

The most fascinating film about the Klan was done in 1937. Bogie, the king of the "insecurity villaiins", plays a naive man who sinks into villainy with the "black legion", even betraying his friends. Even in 1937, the klan was seen by Americans as the satanic evil that it was.

This is a "war mystery" set in World War II in the European theater. A German spy is sent to mingle with displaced U.S. troops from different units to get back to the Allied base and bring back a resistance leader. We don't know which soldier it is, but there are seven who make the odyssey back to base, and some are killed along the way, two by the spy. When you find out which one it is, you understand a lot of the motivations for everything that went on during the film. There is also a femme fatale who appears for a while, and she may be the hottest babe you'll ever see in a war film, who has her own motivations and her own story.

I would argue that the tyrannical commander played by Robert Taylor is the villain instead of Padron, played by Ron Randell. In fact, Padron is much more caring to his men. He actually tries to make a better life for those who follow him. Still, in this film, he is the antagonist, and he is helping a tribe to remain in savagery.

Stephen McNally is a count who is his own law. He's fearless and cruel. His main henchmen include a mute and fearless brute played by Lon Chaney Jr., and a less fearless one, who pretends to be fearless, played by Michael Pate, The count wants revenge on three Englishmen who proved to Africans that the count wasn't a god,

Lt. Col. Thursday, is obviously Custer, and as this character, Henry Fonda gives the most credible portrayal of the famous villain. In 1948, Custer wasn't quite the villain he is today. Today, he's just beneath Hitler as the most hated character in History, but his name had to be a bit disguised for this film. As the ill fated "Thursday", we see Henry Fonda play a very three dimensional villain. He actually believes he has a code of honor, even though he betrays the Indians, who are depicted as very much the noble heroes in this 1948 film, with the exception of Geronimo, for whom History has been rewritten. Fonda's greatest performance and role as a villain, hands down.

Most of the villains in this classic are very motivated. The only one that is a typical movie villain is Wilson, played by Jack Palance. We have a situation where a sadist is introduced into the story by the real villains, a pair of brothers who hate homesteaders. The more interesting villains here are the two Ryker brothers, played by Emile Meyer and John Dierkes. They actually try to get rid of the homesteaders without killing them for a long time, but they are stubborn and self righteous in their hold on the land. Those of us who always lived as strangers in a strange land can't identify with them, but we have seen people like them.

The villains of this classic drama are the two antagonists. As Sgt. Watson, Ronald Fraser shows cowardice and refusal to follow orders in his effort to survive. Guess what? Unlike what Hollywood usually tells us, cowards survive more often than brave men. The other antagonist is a cold blooded designer of "aeroplanes" played by Hardy Kruger. Everyone has bits of villainy in them when in a survival situation. All of the motivations here are very credible.

For about 80% of the film, most reasonable people sympathize with the nurse "wretched" as I call her, because in the end we finally find out she is not reasonable, and is truly evil. We still don't care much for the self righteous control freak played by Nicholson, but he's not one percent as evil as the nurse played by Louise Fletcher. Evil as only a woman can be. Some naive people buy into her excuse that she commits a horror because she is a friend of the boy's mother, but that's impossible to believe. As Nicholson's character realizes. What's her motive? Sheer evil, but she isn't "perfect". She isn't the demigod that Hollywood makes out of evil people.

Real villains are frightening, because we know it's possible. The lynch mob is something we see today, with people ready to condemn others on ridiculously slim evidence, although few lynch mobs feel comfortable enough to actually commit a murder. The outspoken members of the lynch mob are nasty people, but there were countless others who didn't vote to stop the lynching. As explained in the movie, many of them were too scared of being lynched alongside the three men, and many were just tired. It was tiresome work to do what they did.

Like a few other movies on the list, this movie is about the villains. Led by Alex Nicol, these bad guys have different motivations and characters, and at the end we see just how depraved Nicol's character is, and we get a credible revitalization for the good in other characters. The downside is that this is a story of gods and demigods instead of humans, but here we get some actual human motivation, unlike the more ridiculous spaghetti westerns.

Just about everyone is a villain here, but everyone is a character in this mystical tale of a Western town that is mostly allegory for Satan, who goes by the more mortal villianous name of Herod, (played by Gene Hackman). He has no sympathy nor any "retirement benefits" for his lackeys. Our heroine hates the lackeys, but learns throughout this process that the real enemy is the principality of Satan, and that the mortal villains are just vulnerable fools who suffer, since Satan gives no brownie points.

With the Allied POWs as heroes, the Germans will be the villains. We get three villains with names and lines, all of whom are very believable. Director Preminger plays the no nonsense commander of the camp, whose main motivation is his ambition to rise higher in the ranks. Sig Ruman is a different Sgt. Schultz than Hogan had, but he does try to be a go between for the prisoners, and wise cracks with them. He wants to be thought of as humane, even if his job is brutal. Of course, I can't tell you the name of the third one, because he's a spy, but he is doing his rotten job, too.

In this movie, the lead bad guy is snake oiling his way through it as a semi good guy, but he isn't. He recruits what today are three big name stars for his bad guys, and all three are different. Jack Elam is a simpleton. Lee van Cleef is a greedy rat. Neville Brand is a workman for hire who works on the wrong side of the law.