Satan. Lucifer. The Prince of Lies. Iblis. Beelzebub. Balial. Ol’ Nick. Mephistopholes. Many have played the Prince of Darkness, but who did the best job?
I recently watched a few clips of “Lucifer” and that portrayal sucks. He’s just kind of a scamp. On the other hand, the version played by Peter Stormare in “Constantine” was unsettling and weird, a very interesting version.
What do you think?
Peter Cook in Bedazzled
George Burns in Oh God, You Devil. It’s a comedy, but he had an undertone of scariness.
I forgot to add that characters who seem to be the Devil but are not formally identified as such are fine to mention.
In Needful Things, Max von Sydow plays a character not called the devil, but he kind of is. I always liked that story, both book and movie, because the devil never does anything evil… not directly. He just gets other people to do evil things out of desire.
Hmmm… I have a couple close runners up, but I’m going to go with the depiction in O Brother, Where Art Thou? A lot less screen time than the others I have in mind, but he steals every scene he’s in.
Robert DeNiro in Angel Heart.
I liked Pacino in Devil’s Advocate.
Another vote for DeNiro in Angel Heart.
But comedy wise, I love whatever the guy’s name is in Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell.
I liked him in the 40’s Heaven Can Wait.
Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy. He was mesmerizing - In a way, similar in feel to Stormare in Constantine with the barely-covered-up insanity and violence, but … way, way more attractive, as the Devil should be, IMO. This was before LOTR, so he was unknown to me, but fascinating.
I have to agree. He was great in a not very good movie.
Same. Reeves let the film down IMHO but Pacino was brilliant.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere here, I’m enjoying the Lucifer series but you can’t take Tom Ellis’s character seriously at all or the show doesn’t work.
+1. An example of his evil work is ripping out the last pages from a huge stack of Agatha Christie novels.
Laird Cregar in Heaven Can Wait.
Tim Curry as Prince of Darkness in Legend,
This! Or also Him from Powerpuff Girls. And Stormare from Constantine is also great. Really Stormare always delivers.
Agree with that, and by the way, I love that movie.
I don’t know about the “best”, but I personally enjoyed the devil’s portrayal in the Keanu Reeves movie, “Constantine”.
Yep, Lou Cypher is my call, too. Very much in the mold of the “please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste” style of devil.
“They say there’s just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another, but not enough to make them love.”
In a more classical vein Gustav Gründgens in the old adaptation of Faust was very good. Of course he had Goethe put the words in his mouth.