FRANK "I'll fuck anything that moves!" BOOTH from BLUE VELVET. He doesn't have any superpowers, he isn't rich. He's just a motherfuckin' terrifying piece of white trash shit. Plus, he does oxygen instead of meth.
In this movie-goer's opinion, Emperor Palpatine is the greatest villain film has ever seen, no doubt about it. He radiates pure evil, and is the type of individual who could be caught cutting the heads off of kittens with large sheers and within eight minutes of talking to him you'd be completely convinced that you're so glad he did it since those kittens just had to go. He is a man completely unfettered by a conscience, but he speaks truthfully throughout the trilogy. He is convincing precisely because he is so correct, and that is what makes him so completely terrifying.
Copying and pasting from a two year old topic on a Star Wars message board is kind of lame, even if you are the original author.
Daniel Plainview:There Will Be Blood Think of it this way, there are very few films that can be based around a villain, where the bad guy is the lead character. Even fewer can pull it off well, yet this film does it with ease. If there is one word that would some up Plainview it's "vicious". The entire story of the movie revolves around him fucking people over. Just about everybody he comes in contact with ends up getting fucked over in the end. He fucks over poor people, he fucks over his adopted son, he even fucks over a Church (a fake dust bowl Church that's completely corrupt, but a place of worship nonetheless). There are very few people who come into contact with Plainview who don't end up worse off then they were before meeting him. The thing that sets apart Plainview is that he does everything himself. He is not Michael Corleone who has an a virtual army of psychopaths ready to act on his very whim. He is not Bill the Butcher who rules out of pure muscle. He is not a thug with a "little friend" like Tony Montana. He doesn't have to because Plainview's drive for greed would never allow him to share anything with anybody he didn't have to. Yes he fucked people over and over. Yes he lived alone in a house where he would drink himself into unconsciousness thereby leaving him an easy and open target for righteous retribution. Yet in the end there is nothing anybody can do about it because the facts of the matter are that you do not fuck with Daniel Plainview. He will fuck you up. Of course this ends up taking a toll on what is left of his soul and he is an empty shell of a man at the end, yet he is still vicious. I for one realize that at the end, he will get out of a brutal murder of Paul Dano because he can. He has the resources to pretty much do anything he wanted. Problem is, by the end he is alone in every sense in the world even if that's what he strived for. Daniel Plainview is in essence the physical embodiment of the viciousness of Tony Montana mixed with the intelligence of Michael Corleone added with a touch of Harold Hill and finished off with Patrick Bateman's seething hatred of society as well as himself. Matched one on one against any of the characters listed above, I would take Plainview, especially if money were on the line. To paraphrase the Wu-Tang Clan: Daniel Plainview Ain't Nuthing Ta Fuck Wit
The worst villain is recent memory that I can think of is 'Ryder', as played by John Travolta in the latest version of "The Taking of Pelham 123." Travolta is about as good as a psychopath as he is at playing an unamusing fuckstick is any so-called comedy he's ever been in. Gary Sinise in that role would have made the movie suck 10,000 times less that it did with Travolta in it.
How has noone said nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" She is the ultimate evil. She imposes her will on helpless victims using threats, blackmail and violence. When somebody stands up to her she will lobomitize them against their will. The worst part is, that on one can stop her, because she is the authority in that hospital.
Sure, it may seem like a cop-out, but Heath Ledger's "Joker" from the Dark Knight was one of the best portrayals of Psychosis gone Wild on celluloid. Sadistic, evil, destructive and casual about inflicting as much pain and death as possible. The Joker is the only villain that can turn three innocent little words ("Why so serious?") into a death-sentence.
Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations. What good can you say about a chick that wants to use puppies to make a coat.
I would have to agree with the other posters on Anton Chigurgh. I had chills watching No Country For Old Men, especially when he strangles that police officer in the beginning with the cuffs. As is obligatory for these kinds of threads, I think Patrick Bateman deserves a mention. Christian Bale's representation of American Psycho's anti-hero is absolutely brilliant and spot on. He's oozing with a contrived coolness broken up by fits of hysterical crying and rage. I mean he stabs a homeless man and stomps on a goddamn dog... nothing more despicable than that.
Esther from the movie "Orphan"! Spoiler That whole barrel of dwarven crazy killed multiple families after her adopted "fathers" wouldn't give her the bone. And that shit with the paintings was just creepy.
Off the top of my head, a movie that I can't bring myself to watch again is Misery - because of Kathy Bates' character. The worst psychos are the ones that think their beliefs and behavior are perfectly reasonable, and they go about their business appearing calm and rational. Until someone pisses them off by daring to imply that they are in fact batshit crazy. Over on the camp side, Ming the Merciless with a side dish of Klytus. Some villains are so cartoony that they lose their edge. Not Ming. He's evil and slimy enough that you find yourself rooting for the annoying blonde do-gooder. Go, Flash, go!
For me, it's gotta be Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa in "Inglorious Basterds." In the movie, he is basically the head of the S.S., and throughout the movie he ruthlessly hunts and kills Jews. However, the scene that earns him greatest movie villain is easily the very first scene of the movie. When he visits that French farmer's house, the dialogue chilled me to the bones and, despite the obvious inevitability that he was going to find and kill the stowaways, there was still a great deal of suspense. His acting was spot on and the character was beautifully constructed.
Jason Isaacs as Colonel Tavington in The Patriot. A heartless raging dickhead who clearly took it up the ass from his horse when he wasn't torching churches or killing unarmed teenagers.
I would like to second this, but my favorite bit to demonstrate his evil was his negotiating his agreement with the commanders. Germany might go down but he will be living comfortably in the USA, free to do as he pleases, with a government pension for whatever he may desire. if not for Aldo Raine being Aldo Raine, there'd be no flaws in that plan's execution.