This is pretty solid.

At first glance, one might say "Oh yeah, the Nazi guy from Schindler's list. Thanks, Ebert."

But really, that was a masterful character and performance. He was truly insidious. I loved the fact that he had fallen for his house servant, and was so woefully inhuman that he could not understand how to proceed at all. It was like watching a wolverine try to open a pack of gum.

Anyway, yeah. Nice call.

Well how about tossing a grenade into the square dance by submitting Michael Corleone in "Godfather 2" as a top villain? Everything Corleone did in that film was, at best, cynically self-preserving, or, at worst, downright cruel. How he set up Frankie, pushed him into an untenable corner, then gave him suicide as the only honorable way was pretty awful. I know most people don't think of him as a classic villain, but it's pretty hard to see Michael Corleone in this film as a hero, or even an anti-hero.

Captain from Cool hand Luke



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fuDDqU6n4o

This...this is always my first choice.

But...this gentleman would like to have a word with you.

Anyone for Bricktop?

Blarg, I have a question. What character in the film do you find most appealing? Guy and Ann are merely ciphers, but Bruno is alive, charming, crazy, of course, and appealing. Besides Ann Morton's sister, who else has any life in the movie? Can Bruno really be a villian?

I guess I have the same problem with Hannibal Lecter. The psychiatrist seems much more the villian than does Hannibal.

Bruno is my favorite character because of his charm and energy. But he's certainly nuts. I forget the character names, but the girl he strangles, Pat Hitchcock, is the one I'd be most sympathetic to in real life rather than a movie. Bruno's strangling of her is ugly enough that he can't really be a hero. Guy is a bit of a hypocrite and weakling, if I recall correctly. And I forget why since I haven't seen the movie in so many years, but if I recall correctly, he's also a bit of a fraud.

My memory is not great re: the details anymore, but again to the best of my recollection Bruno is an insidious villain, but not entirely like the vampire who will only come in the door if you grant him permission. He will be inside sitting on your couch when you come home from work. His part is an active one. He's like the devil of temptation. An ordinary devil might give you a handgun, and your response might be to put it in a drawer and forget about it. Bruno will make sure you remember, spring up to pop it into your hand at the oddest and most compromising moments, and try to create problems for which it would be a solution. He would like you to come running to him, but he will chase you to start your heels moving.

Compare to Roger O. Thornton in North by Northwest, whose main crime is that he is a big zero inside and so not closed off to the things of an unsavory nature that would come his way. Roger is swept up and propelled along a path different from his life, Eva St. Marie as its agent aside, by a force that does not tempt but merely overpowers. James Mason's character does attempt to buy him off, but he is appealing to a false identity. Thornton isn't really a spy and therefore cannot follow through and give Mason what he wants or make a deal. It is Bruno's conviction that he is appealing to the true identity of Guy, who is really a murderer at heart. Like, as Bruno might believe, any reasonable fellow.

Bad guys are all about the twist the actor brings to the role.

In that respect, one of the most original for me was Tilda Swinton's character in Michael Clayton. A neurotic, OCD cold-blooded psycho is a very satisfying twist.

John Travolta in Primary Colors. And Emma Thompson, too. Kathy Bates recognizes them as evil incarnate. It's like when Albert Brooks tells Holly Hunter that William Hurt is the Devil in Broadcast News. The Devil is sneaky that way.

Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchinson) You know it's a good acting job when you want to smash villains face in.

Bill "The Butcher" Cutting from Gangs of NY



Scene from pic

Debo from the movie Friday.

Predator from the move Predator.

Lord Humungus from The Road Warrior.

Darth Vader from Star Wars.

Teddy KGB.

Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth

Comedy gold!

Or......is it?

Teddy is an antagonist, sure, but he is not a bad guy imo. He's a pretty stand-up guy I think.

Orson Wells in Touch of Evil

+1. How bout Joe Don Baker's character in Charley Varrick?

#6 War of the Worlds: The entire movie

AMIRITE?!?!?

+1

Also Lee Van Cleef as "The Bad" in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

WTF? Then what about Lee Marvin in Point Blank?

Pretty big difference between an "anti-hero" and a "villain"...

Has to be hands-down #1. Apparently when he appeared in costume in front of a concentration camp survivor, she almost fainted with fear. Spielberg said that "she didn't see an actor. She saw Goeth."

yea..unbelievable performance and movie overall...Ralph Fiennes owned it