Best Movie Villains of All Time

Top 25 Movie Villains

The Top Big-Screen Bad Guys (and Gals)

They're the men and women we love to hate. And really, what would a good guy be without a baddie to threaten virtue, menace the innocent and foil the best-laid plans?

So here's to the black hats, our list of the 25 hissable heavies who are the ultimate bad seeds. --By Tom Johnson

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25. Agent Smith, 'The Matrix' (1999)

Played by: Hugo Weaving


Agent Smith, voice dripping with disdain, eyes covered with his trademark shades, is the "muscle" of the Matrix and Neo's (Keanu Reeves) indefatigable foe. Intent on erasing Neo and obliterating the Zion warriors, Smith can replicate himself into the hundreds and thousands -- a virtual army with superhuman martial arts skills to boot.

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Warner Bros.

24. Khan Noonien Singh, 'Star Trek: Wrath of Khan' (1982)

Played by: Ricardo Montalban


A vestige of Earth's late 20th-century eugenics wars, superman Khan has a super ego to match. Banished to a deserted planet in an episode of the 'Star Trek' TV series, Khan seeks revenge on the man who imprisoned him, his nemesis: Capt. James T. Kirk.

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23. Frank Booth, 'Blue Velvet' (1986)

Played by: Dennis Hopper


Crime kingpin of Lumberton, N.C., Booth never met a form of depravity that he didn't like. His kinky sexual affinities include huffing gas, erotic asphyxiation, sadomasochism ... and those are just the ones we can print. Throw in mutilation, kidnapping and murder and you've got one well-rounded (if not well-grounded) sociopath.

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22. Cruella de Vil, '101 Dalmatians' (1961)

Voiced by: Betty Lou Gerson


Her name (an amalgam of cruel and devil) sums up this crazed old bag who steals puppies with an eye to weaving their fur into ... gulp! ... coats. A monstrous fashionista, Cruella looms large in the pantheon of animated villains. As the song goes: "Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil, if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will."

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21. Alonzo Harris, 'Training Day' (2001)

Played by: Denzel Washington


Over the course of a single day, rogue narcotics agent Harris "evaluates" a rookie (Ethan Hawke) and subjects him to a litany of depredations and humiliations that end in extortion and murder. Washington won a Best Actor Oscar in the role of a streetwise cop on the make who can't distinguish between good and evil anymore.

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Warner Bros.

20. Lex Luthor, 'Superman' (1978)

Played by: Gene Hackman


"Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Time" Luthor plans an uber real-estate swindle when he purchases thousands of miles of worthless Nevada desert intending to detonate a nuke in California's San Andreas Fault and voila! ... instant invaluable "coastline." Hackman's peevish, droll turn as the ultimate robber baron is hilarious.

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19. Joan Crawford, 'Mommie Dearest' (1981)

Played by: Faye Dunaway


Dunaway chews more scenery than Secretariat ("No. More. Wire. Hangers!" ring a bell?) and keeps daughter Christina in such a state of abject terror in this camp classic that it's hard to believe the angelic child ever had the strength, years later, to write a dishy, tell-all memoir. Talk about payback.

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18. T-1000, 'Terminator 2' (1991)

Played by: Robert Patrick


Ah-nuld's original Terminator gets all the glory, but it's Patrick's T-1000, a prototype model made of shape-shifting liquid metal, that truly terrorizes. This homicidal robot is the ultimate hit man who won't stop until his mission (to kill resistance leader John Connor) is completed or he ends up on the scrap heap -- whichever comes first.

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17. Dr. Christian Szell, 'Marathon Man' (1976)

Played by: Laurence Olivier


Ex-Nazi concentration camp dentist Szell (in a role inspired by the infamous Dr. Mengele) uses a variety of drills, probes and picks to get to the, um, root of the matter when torturing Dustin Hoffman on whether "it's safe" to retrieve his horde of diamonds at a Manhattan bank. Pass the Novocaine, please.

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