Ralph Fiennes took Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List to this level. The one scene that stands out for me is the, uh, “shooting people from the balcony” scene, where you see that he gained a lot of weight for the role and has a gut, you see the character pissing in the bathroom, he flicks the spent cartridges from his gun onto his girlfriend like a bratty child… he’s just gross in that scene. Without that, he could be simple a very beautiful, cruel villain who was still attractive in a twisted way, but that scene took him into “viscerally repellant” territory.
Robert Mitchum in “Cape Fear”
Michael Madsen in “Resevoir Dogs”
Tim Roth definitely embraces the nastiness of his character in Rob Roy.
I haven’t seen the new Thor movie but Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is phenomenal and complex - likable while being utterly, ruthlessly amoral. Not as cartoony as the character could have been.
Jack Gleeson as King Joffrey in Game of Thrones.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in *Atonement *was so thoroughly repellent that I hadn’t managed to watch him in anything else until Sherlock.
Also from Game of Thrones, Alfie Allen does a very good job of portraying how a sort of regular dude can get caught up in the situation and be party to some really evil stuff as Theon Greyjoy.
Good one.
Another good one. Though Caligula is the only movie I’ve ever walked out on, so I haven’t seen the whole thing (obviously).
Interesting!
Fully agree - you can almost believe he would enjoy the rotten, twisted things the character was doing in real life.
I think he is the only truly evil character on the show/books so far. Everyone else has degrees of evil and situations that make them evil.
Jack Gleeson also pulls off that arrogant sneer, that “beneath me, scum” attitude that really makes you hate him.
Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (the mother) in “The Manchurian Candidate.” She was the essence of evil.
Clancy Brown as Brother Justin in Carnivale. 
Which is a tribute to his acting ability; RL everything I’ve heard is that he’s humble, warm, friendly, and generally a great guy. A friend of my flight instructor wound up hanging out with (and getting smashed with, heh) him in Pittsburgh somehow or other. 
I think Ramsay Snow and Gregor Clegane are similarly “truly evil”.
Denzel Washington in Training Day.
I agree with this, and this young man is a really great actor. I just hope he doesn’t get type-cast too badly. But, that is always a potential issue when you have such a high-visibility role for so many years.
Joe Pesci, in Goodfellas and Casino. I love how he portrays his characters as feeling that all the evil things they do are perfectly justified and just normal everyday events.
And speaking of Casino, James Woods always seems to get off on playing a vile piece of humanity. About 25 years ago, I suggested to a friend, that he go see the movie** Salvador**, particularly for Woods’ performance (he was a good guy in that one). My friend said he could never watch Woods in a movie again, after his nasty portrayal as Nazi in Holocaust.
Special mention to Dwight Yokum in Slingblade. If I ever saw Yokum walking my way, I’d crossover to the other side of the street.
James Woods WASN’T a Nazi in the miniseries Holocaust. He played a nice man, a Jewish artist who dies in a concentration camp.
Michael Moriarty was the main Nazi in that series.
Ha! Ha! I never knew that!
I missed Holocaust when it ran on TV and never saw it. My friend must have confused Woods and Moriarity 25+ years ago, and I just picked up on his confusion.
Classic!
Most of the examples are Movie characters, but what about Larry Hagman as JR Ewing in Dallas?
How about Gene Hackman? His roles in *Unforgiven *and The Firm spring immediately to mind
Kinda surprised to see no mention yet of Christoph Waltz as Col. Landa in Inglourious Basterds.
I also loved Aaron Eckhart’s character in In The Company Of Men. Utterly immoral and repellant.