10 of Fiction’s Best Villains and Why We Love to Hate Them

I’ll admit it—I’ve been a villain fangirl for a long time. I stan the baddies, and I appreciate when writers offer real insight into how their villains tick. Plus, our favorite heroes wouldn’t have the opportunity to show off as much without an archenemy to challenge them. So, I’ve rounded up ten of my favorite Darksiders, in no particular order—it was hard enough to narrow them down—and made my case for why you should love to hate them.

Mindless monsters and horror flick–style baddies were left off this list in favor of intellectual characters whose motives and thoughts we can examine more closely. Being a villain isn’t all about running up the highest body count, after all.

You can also check out my Villain playlist (because they always have the best songs) if you feel like listening to some minor keys while you browse this post!

Darth Vader

“No, I am your father.” There are few cinematic villain moments as significant as that one. Darth Vader evolved then from a mysterious antagonist into an enigma that spawned an entire prequel trilogy. Who would cut off his own son’s arm and presumably try to kill him? What happened to Anakin Skywalker to make him turn from the ranks of the Jedi? In his case, which is pretty rare in the case of most villains, we got a full explanation. Vader’s sacrifice at the end of Return of the Jedi was redeeming, but his journey to the Dark Side showed the audience that he was so much more than just the villain of the original trilogy—he was human. This was his story all along and his family’s legacy. (Sure, his grandson gave him a run for his bad-guy money for a while there, but we all know that Kylo Ren Is a Punk B*tch—there’s even a Jordandené T-shirt to prove it.)

Now that the Skywalker Saga is complete and The Mandalorian was released, there’s even more to appreciate when it comes to the villains of the franchise, and I can’t wait to see what happens next in the Star Wars universe.

Voldemort Dolores Umbridge

Sure, You-Know-Who is undoubtedly the master villain of the Harry Potter series, and he is one of my favorites for many of the same reasons I love Vader. We get the opportunity to see why Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort and the motive behind his attempts to kill Harry. But let’s face it—Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge is worse than Voldemort when it comes to fan hatred. She elicits scowls just by walking into a room and provokes fear with the tiniest “hem hem.” She’s a wizarding supremacist who hates any type of being she deems less worthy than herself—and the list is lengthy. She tortures children, for crying out loud.

Her two-faced “sweet” demeanor and rise to power in the government (thanks to other ignorant and corrupt officials) make her terrifying, because the latter gives her the means to carry out her oppressive, even genocidal desires and get away with it. Imelda Staunton’s performance in the films was chillingly effective, showing how a villain who is subversive, even demure on the surface, can often be scarier than one who shares his or her motives outright.

Gollum

Smeagol was an accidental villain. His corruption by the One Ring was not his fault, but it did make for an unforgettable antagonist in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. You might be wondering why he’s on this list. He is not powerful, can’t do magic, is cowardly, and often seems distressed and weak, especially throughout The Two Towers as he leads Frodo and Samwise to Mordor (they couldn’t just walk in, after all).

The internal conflict between his personalities—Smeagol, the pathetic soul who just wants to try and help, and Gollum, the wretched creature who would do anything to get his Precious back—makes us sympathetic toward him. After all, we see that this could easily be one of our heroes, Bilbo or Frodo, if they gave into the power of the Ring. Therefore, what makes Gollum scary and relatable to every member of the audience is that he is a corporeal representation of failure, and that’s a near-universal fear.

Prince Zuko

Everyone loves a good redemption story, right? The main antagonist of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, has perhaps one of the best villain character arcs of all time. He is a tragic baddie, whose malice was spawned from his survival instincts and the desire to please his father any way he could. His motivation to capture the Avatar wasn’t dutiful in the sense that he cared about destroying a rival to his nation’s power; it was selfish, a personal vendetta against himself as he longed to prove that he could be the heir his father wanted. (Princess Azula gets an honorable mention here for being mad and sadistic, but her story is almost as tragic as her brother’s.)

What makes Zuko a love-to-hate villain is that, from the beginning, we see through his Uncle Iroh’s eyes that he is just a scared teenager. We want to see him rise above his father’s hatred and fight for the greater good instead. All I can say about the path he must take to get there is “That’s rough, buddy.”

The Joker

What’s scarier than a sinister mastermind with a grand scheme to rule the world through corruption and brute strength? Someone who doesn’t have a plan. Someone who is just in it for the thrill, who enjoys causing chaos and pain to the extreme. Who fits that description better than the Joker? One of Batman’s longest-running villains, and certainly the most infamous, he said it himself: “I’m just a dog chasing cars.” (R.I.P. Heath Ledger, we love you.) And with the new Joker film grossing over $1 billion at the box office in 2019 and gaining acclaim from both critics and fans alike, it seems he just might be everyone’s favorite Batman bad-guy.

The Wicked Witch of the West

The Wicked Witch of the West was terrorizing Dorothy long before Wicked ever made its way onto bookshelves or Broadway. Author L. Frank Baum released The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. Its onstage musical debut followed in 1902, and, of course, the witch appeared in terrifying technicolor on screen in 1939. The film is her most iconic appearance. Perhaps it’s that evil cackle, or the way she wrote threatening messages in the sky from her broomstick, or her army of flying monkeys; whatever it was, audiences and munchkins everywhere cowered before her.

She’s still ranked at Number 4 on the American Film Institute’s list of the Greatest Villains, and the Library of Congress calls The Wonderful Wizard of Oz “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairy-tale.”

Mother Gothel

When considering the Disney princesses and their respective villains, I have to put Mother Gothel from Tangled at the top of my list. (The Evil Queen is Number 10 in the aforementioned American Film Institute rankings, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Rapunzel’s “mother” when it comes to psychological abuse.) In the original fairy-tale, Gothel is a sorceress who blackmails a couple into giving her their baby after she catches them stealing from her garden. Disney’s adaptation takes her to the next level. She steals the infant princess and locks her away in a tower, using the child’s magic to stop herself from aging.

But that’s not the truly evil part—Gothel convinces the child, Rapunzel, that she is her mother. She also feeds Rapunzel propaganda about all the terrors of the outside world for eighteen years. And when Rapunzel asks to take a quick trip outside for her birthday, Gothel shames her by telling her that she must not love or trust her mother enough to believe her. Later, she ties up Flynn Rider and tells Rapunzel he left her behind, trying to manipulate her “daughter” into coming back to the tower. So, although “Mother Knows Best” is one of my favorite Disney villain tunes and Donna Murphy nailed the voiceover for the role, Mother Gothel is pretty high on my most-hated-villains radar.

Helmut Zemo

I considered Erik Killmonger, Hela, and Thanos for my top MCU villain (but not the Winter Soldier because he is not a villain), but in the end, I had to go with Helmut Zemo. His tragic backstory and rage coupled with his high-level training as a Sokovian commando made for the perfect modern adaptation to the classic comic-book villain. While Baron Zemo in the comics can be kitschy and perhaps even overpowerful, Daniel Brühl’s character in Captain America: Civil War is more chilling as a grieving man with nothing left to lose.

Enraged after his family dies in Ultron’s attack on Sokovia and that there seemed to be no consequences for the Avengers who created Ultron in the first place, Zemo hatches a genius-level revenge plot to take earth’s mightiest heroes down from the inside. What’s even more impressive is that he succeeds. His scientific precision and patience in carrying out each step are thrilling to watch, and his actions, masterfully crafted by the Russo brothers, led to the Phase 3 MCU stories that became some of the franchise’s strongest installments.

President Snow

President Coriolanus Snow of the Hunger Games series fits the bill as another of the best villains in YA fiction. Snow hides his malice behind a demeanor that suggests he is laid-back and charming, while we know he is depraved and sadistic. He even drank poison to avoid suspicions that he poisoned others. Although he took an antidote to survive, it left his mouth bloody with sores. It produces an odor Katniss points out multiple times throughout the series. (He tries to hide the odor by wearing genetically modified roses in his lapel, making an even more unpleasant aroma.)

President Snow is power-hungry. His fear of losing his status in the Capitol leads him to blackmail and/or destroy anyone he feels could be a threat. He delights in watching children slaughter each other during the annual Hunger Games, even though he claims that it is just a necessary ritual to keep the peace between the districts. From torture to sex-trafficking, his evil seems to know no bounds. When that’s coming from the most powerful man in the country, it makes for a terrifying villain.

Winifred Sanderson

Hello, Salem! After that last entry, I want to close out the list with one of the most delightful villains to grace the screen. Winifred Sanderson and her witchy sisters in Hocus Pocus are evil, sure, but they are just so much fun! You almost end up rooting for them—or maybe you do. Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker are no doubt some of the world’s favorite witches, bringing the big laughs to an otherwise dark Halloween story as they attempt to suck the life out of all the children of Salem, Massachusetts, in a single night.

Winnie is one of the most quotable movie characters, with gems like “Oh, look. Another glorious morning. Makes me sick!” and the infamous “I Put a Spell on You” performance (thank you Kenny Ortega for that brilliant musical number). And, in case you didn’t know, a Hocus Pocus sequel is in the works for DisneyPlus! In the meantime, you can shout “Boooooook!” and pick up the next installment in novel form.

Who do you think are some of the best villains ever? Why do we love to hate the bad guys? Let us know in the comments or on social media @sartorialgeek!