Who do you think is the greatest villain/most evil character in movie history???
personally i d say " Nurse Mildred Ratched" in “one flew over the cuckoos nest” but i am sure there are a lot more…
I don’t know if Rutger Hauer’s character in The Hitcher is the most evil, but he certainly deserves special mention. He slaughters who-knows-how-many people (including ripping a woman in half by using her as a tractor-trailer hitch) just for the sake of messing with C. Thomas Howell’s mind.
Hitler, Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich don’t count, right?
Then I’d say…Kevin Spacey’s character in Se7en.
With a nod to the Joker in Batman. ('natch.)
Kayser Houze from The Usual Suspects strikes me as someone you wouldn’t want to mess with unless you had actual, supernatural powers. Probably not even then.
What about Mike Myres? I mean, he was called “The Evil” by his psychiatrist. I can’t think of anyone more evil than that.
Brick Top from Snatch may not have been the most powerful, but he was incredibly brutal.
My two nominations are both named “Frank”.
Henry Fonda’s “FRank” from Once upon a time ine the West.
Dennis Hopper’s “Frank” in Blue Velvet.
Both of these guys are EVIL…
Laurence Olivier’s character in Marathon Man.
“Now that you’ve called me by my name…”
Also, DeNiro as Max Cady in the Cape Fear remake.
I’d rank Hannibal Lecter up there pretty highly.
From L.A. Confidential, Captain Dudley Smith, played by James Cromwell, is pretty damn evil, especially since we think he’s one of the good guys until the big climactic reveal 2/3 of the way through the film.
Alan Rickman’s terrorist leader Hans Gruber from Die Hard may not have been the most EVIL per se, but he’s definitely one of the best movie villains of all time.
Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction” deserves a mention - hell, she boiled a little girl’s bunny, for Christ’s sake.
Does Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello count?
Probably my favorite villain of all time.
How about Grand Moff Tarkin? He commited planetcide, basically just to prove how big his sack was.
No, Robert Mitchum’s Max Cady in the original. He’s the first I thought of. Beautifully understated, and just thinking of the scene in the bar with Gregory Peck still sends chills up my spine.
Benoit from Man Bites Dog
Kills children while telling the filming camera team that this is the part he doesn’t like.
On a couple of Disney notes, Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations, or Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Can’t get more evil than personification of evil himself.
The little girl in The Ring. The Demon in the Exorcist
For non-supernatural Alex from Clockwork Orange talk about a pure sociopath.
“Henry” in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer… based upon the life of RL evil bastard, Henry Lee Lucas
Keyser Soze from the Usual Suspects is the person that immediately came to mind.
Commodus from Gladiator was a bit of a badass.
Hannibal Lector and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.