In the movies who was the best all time villian?
It can’t be a real person (Hitler, Stalin).
It can’t be a pre-existing entity (Satan).
Its gotta be invented for the movie
Hans Gruber in Die Hard.
Disney’s had some real good villians.
Among my faves are
Shere Khan (Jungle Book), a villian with panache.
Cruella DeVille (animated 101 Dalmations)
Ursula (Little Mermaid), another wonderful villian.
Zev Steinhardt
Hannibal by far is my favorite villain. He put the E in EVIL.
I also loved the guy that played Satan in the movie “Switch” but his name escapes me for the moment. He’s my second favorite baddy.
As far as cartoon character bad guys go, I just adored Dick Dastardly. He wasn’t at all really a bad-guy, but he tried sooooo hard. He mainly was just a loveable meanie.
Khan in Star Trek 2
Jim Carrey as the Riddler in Batman Forever
Sho 'Nuff from The Last Dragon
NO!NO!NO!
The all time best villain is:
The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.
Runner-up:
Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.
Zev Steinhardt? I don’t remember him from any Disney movies; Was he the ugly one?
Actually, he was left on the cutting room floor during the editing of Disney’s original production of The Three Little Pigs. Zev (which means “wolf” in Hebrew) was the character who tried to convince the Big Bad Wolf not to eat the pigs because they weren’t kosher. He tried to get the wolf to go after the chickens instead. Alas, his chance at stardom ended when he went into a lengthy halachic discourse on the details of salting meats to make sure they’re kosher. 
Zev Steinhardt
My criteria for judging is the amount of hatred I have towards a charactor. And they have to be built up as evil with their personality as well as actions. An actor simply killing 100 people without any charactor development is not going to make me despise him/her.
There’s two that come to mind:
There was Doyle Hargraves (played by Dwight Yoakam) in Sling Blade.
A close second would be Albert, the resteraunt owner (played by Michael Gambon) in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
It’s pretty rare that I get all worked up hating a charactor in a movie…but those two did it to me.
I took the OP’s challenge in this manner:
Worst scum bag? (nope - don’t have a good example, but mouthbreathers’ example of the guy in Sling Blade will do)
Creepiest ? (nope, that would have been Lechter, a creepy, but totally IMHO unrealistic character)
“deliciously evil”? (nope, tho’ zev’s focus on Disney characters would make it).
No, I went with: Which character made the movie, not only in a believable manner, but totally unscrupulous, tho’ able to disguise their inante lack of morals with a veneer of respectabilty.
The character (as portrayed), was urbane, witty, greedy, intelligent, and totally without morals. He’d kill if it suited his own selfish intersts at all. with no more passion than one would use in turning off a light that wasn’t necessary.
Snidely Whiplash.
He did his best work in Wacky Racers. (Poor Penelope Pitstop!)
Wait! Maybe that was Dick Dastardly.
Try several of the many parts played by Edward G. Robinson.
http://www.moderntimes.com/egr/ And I know he also could play the good guy, but that isn’t what he was known for.
Oh folks, what about Darth Vader and the Emperor in the Star Wars series?
I second the nomination of the Wicked Witch of the West.
BTW Snidely Whiplash was the villian on Dudley Do-Right or the RCMP.
Actually, I’m gonna go with John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) from The Hitcher.
I’ve always been partial to The Joker.
There have been plenty of villains I’ve loved to hate, but only a few that I’ve actually hated. At the top of that list is the utterly heartless, downright reptillian Chad from Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men. I really wanted to see that SOB die a nice, slow, painful death.
And speaking of Disney villains, what about Jean Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame? The rest of the movie may have only been so-so, but Tony Jay’s awesome preformance really made the guy interesting. You’ve gotta’ love a Disney villain with a song about being tormented by the temptations of the flesh!
Dr. No from logically enough “Dr. No”
Iago from “Othello”
El Guapo from “Three Amigos”
ok here are my picks:
~Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty
~Ursula from Disney’s The Little Mermaid
and
~Darth Vader from Star Wars
Maleficent is the best villan ever though and she had a really neat looking outfit 