Top 10 Movie Villains

Okay, so the list is a purely personal one and the criteria of selection is based on what genuinely freaked me out or impressed me, in terms of completely bad ass, sinister behavior. After compiling the list, I noticed that I didn't think of any female candidates in the category. There are many, but the list, as I said, is based on my reaction to 'evil' and it seems I react more to overt, violent and physical shades of evil than the more subtle, deeper but equally deadly emotional/psychotic variety which most of the women in movies seem to display - Kathy Bates in Misery, Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and so on. Not that there aren't any physically violent, gory femme-fatales in mainstream cinema, many such women appear in action/thriller movies, especially in the Asian cannon. But in compiling a top ten list, I had to prioritize. Oh, by the way, the list is in no particular order of 'evil'ness.

So here goes..

1. The Joker

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008)

He finds humor in suffering and mayhem, doesn't want anything material and hates everyone and everything. The prospect of death doesn't even give him pause and his message to the world is simply that "Everything burns.."
Extremely intelligent and unpredictable..

2. Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Certifiable genius, an accomplished psychiatrist and an extremely dangerous psychopathic, cannibalistic serial killer with an unknown body count.

3. Anton Chigurh

Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men (2007)

Calm, deadly and ever so menacing in his movements, deliberate speech and the coldness in his eyes - an assassin who relishes his work.

4. Michael Myers

Halloween Franchise

The physically imposing, unstoppable killing machine that escapes from the darkest of asylums to pursue his baby sister, the sole survivor of his massacre of his family as a child. Pure animalistic psychopath, driven simply by the need to kill and hides his perceived ugliness in a generic Halloween mask revealing only his soul less eyes..

5. Col. Hans Landa

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

The highly intelligent, soft spoken, articulate Nazi 'Jew Hunter' whose eyes hint at the malevolence and darkness that lies beneath. Piercing but polite conversationalist who slides effortlessly from chit chat to menace to explosions of violence and then returns, smiling, to his charming self.

6. Idi Amin

Forrest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland (2006)

The real life, brutal Ugandan dictator whose volatile temper, bloodthirsty savagery and paranoid personality formed a dangerous mixture resulting in the horrifying torture and murder of many - those who oppose him and those closest to him.

7. Amon Goeth

Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List (1993)

Another real life fiend, a cowardly but sadistic Nazi Commandant of a Polish labor camp who kills and tortures the prisoners for work and pleasure - even to alleviate boredom. An example of the atrocities that can occur when evil obtains undeserved power over the helpless.

8. Pazuzu - the demon

Linda Blair in The Exorcist (1973)

The ancient, demonic entity that possesses a young girl, transforming her into a hideous, foul mouthed, powerful and just creepy being who emotionally, physically and spiritually tortures and kills those who come in contact with her.

9. The Devil

Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Need I even say anything.. Charming, seductive, master manipulator and all powerful bad guy who will take your hand and walk you in to the darkness, laughing and cracking jokes the whole way.

10. Gabbar Singh

Amjad Khan in Sholay (1975)

The eccentric, sadistic and brutal outlaw bandit who became an iconic villain in Indian movie history.


There are so many honorable mentions that I'm having trouble deciding..but  Denzel Washington in Training Day, Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones, Jack Nicholson in The Departed, Hopkins again in Fracture and Red 2, Ian Mckellan in Apt Pupil,  are a few that come to mind right now.. Yeah, I know it's a strange selection but then I have specific tastes when it comes to evil..

Gimme a few suggestions of your own..

P.S. Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger - you guys make me smile too.. ;)

Why So Serious?

Unless you have been living under a rock, in the woods...in the frickin’ Amazon,  and/or have no discernible values as a cultured human being, you know what I’m going to talk about. The Joker.

Specifically, the Joker as played by the immortal Heath Ledger (R.I.P), in The Dark Knight (2008). NOT the Cesar Romero or Jack Nicholson versions. Maybe a little bit of the Mark Hamill voice over animated one. Now, I know what you’re thinking, what’s left to say? It’s already the stuff of legend for the fans and it’s been five years since it came out. But you see I gotta put my two cents in. For my own peace of mind.

I will NOT be analyzing Ledger’s performance, because it was practically perfect and also it’s douchey to do that. The man can’t defend his choices against the all knowing, can’t shut the f*ck up critics.

All I’m going to expound upon is why I love that character, so much so that it used to be a slight cause for concern.

I shall begin at the beginning.  A couple of my closest friends and I were at the movies, at PVR Cinemas, Forum Mall, Bengaluru, about to be disappointed by Will Smith in and as Hancock, when the trailer for The Dark Knight came on. It was the one with Ledger’s voice explaining how Batman “changed everything”. I had heard that Ledger was playing Joker, but to me he was still the guy from A Knight’s Tale. So I had no idea that it was Ledger’s voice, and I had expected TDK to be in the same league as Batman Begins, good enough but nothing spectacular. And then the Joker revealed himself – “Evening, Commissioner...” HOLY SHIT! I mean, there was an audible gasp from the audience. I knew then and there that my new favorite movie character of all time had just declared his awesomeness in just two sweet, sinister sounding words.

Okay, now a little context to the obsession. Me and my best friend at the time, hung out pretty much every day after class to bitch about how much bullshit there was around us. After I had a couple of drinks, complaining would turn into analysis of the situation and then into a debate about why people were juuuust sosoo stuuupid.. I’m not going to go into all the details of that, but trust me when I say there was a lot of stupidity. A LOT. Then again, stupidity like beauty is often in the eye of the beholder, so..

For dissatisfied, intellectually disenfranchised, armchair revolutionaries like us, the Joker was tailor made, with his hatred for “the plan” and “schemers” and people who live by things that are “bad jokes”. In fact, for almost the entire movie we were rooting for the Joker, we couldn’t give a crap about Rachel Dawes or Harvey Dent, no fault of their own though.

We came out of the movie speechless. We stayed that way for a few minutes, then we couldn’t stop talking about it for days. The character of Joker permeated most every discussion we tried to have. Funny thing was he fit into it, often seamlessly. Besides, I had always been fascinated by the full spectrum of the human psyche, especially serial killers and stuff. I’m currently in the process of getting a P.G. Diploma in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling, btw. It wasn’t exactly a ‘phase’ I was going through.

Then there’s the incident. Don’t hold your breath, it was nothing monumental. But it does make me smile. One evening, we were walking out of a local bar where we were known patrons,  after one of our two hour discussions about life, skimming across and dipping into many social disciplines, with my arguments fueled by liquor and smokes and my relatively sober friend reigning me back in (unique conversations as you can imagine, when only one person’ s drunk), we see something lying on the ground right outside the bar, on the side of the road. We almost stepped on it. It was.. wait for it.. A Joker card... I know what you are thinking -  well screw you, it was bloody awesome! The odds of that particular card, no other ones from the deck, lying in front of that bar, that evening, in that less than cultured street, in that kinda local, almost rowdy neighborhood, for us to find and no one else... We laughed out loud for a few seconds. Then we stared at it and each other for a few seconds. We both knew that no one would or could give a crap about what had just happened, like you probably don’t right now. Then my friend picked it up, didn't say a word and put it in his wallet. Then we continued on with our evening.

He carried that card in his wallet, all the while I knew him - till the end of college. Maybe he still does, I dunno.. To us two self proclaimed outcasts, it was a reminder to never be one of those bad joke, scheming, followers of the plan “trying to control our little worlds”.

Every time I see TDK I am not only reminded of all these things, but I see new things about the Joker himself. Little things he does and the way he says certain things. I’m sure that in all probability, neither Nolan nor Ledger, ever intended to give all the meaning in all the things I read into, but like I always say ‘The author is dead’.

The way that he is high on what seems to be, to him at least, a higher truth, and so you never see him intoxicated. He casually throws the drink out of the glass before putting it to his lips at Wayne’s fundraiser. How he emphasizes ‘gentle’ when he says “Ladies and gentlemen”. The only time he loses his cool demeanor is when he tells the mobsters that he is not crazy, “No I’m not..No I’m not.” He has no problem admitting he’s a freak but insane he is not. I like that fact that his voice changes from its usual high, taunting one to almost a heavy animal roar precisely twice. When he yells at Batman to hit him with the bat-bike or whatever (“Hit me!!”) and when he tells the Batman wannabe to “Look at me!”, and this is he does symbolically from off camera. The way the anchorman is hanging upside down when reading out the threat. How Joker always gets away in a school bus and how the diversion on the road during Dent’s prison transport was a fire engine on fire. How he sanitizes his hand after walking out of Dent’s hospital room, before pressing the button on the detonator and blowing up the hospital. And the layers to the lines he throws out somewhat casually: “I believe what doesn’t kill me, makes me stranger..”, “Let’s see how loyal a hungry dog really is”, “Insanity is like gravity, sometimes all it takes is a little push” and so on.

Ledger’s Joker is right up there with, maybe even a little above, Hopkins’ Lecter, in my book. I was devastated when I heard that Ledger passed away at 28 years. I was incredibly glad that he won the Academy award, though it was posthumously. C’mon... young medieval British commoner pretending to be a knight, a revolutionary war soldier, a European- well – ‘Casanova’, a gay cowboy and the most deep, layered and menacing villain maybe of all time... all by 28. A true tragedy. And I’m just a fan of his work.  To the people who actually knew him? Wow.. Don’t wanna go there.

Anyways, to me the Joker remains the epitome of how a bad guy should be played. I mean he practically made a guy in black, tight, bat costume legit and the story feel real. I’m also a huge Nicholson fan but his Joker is not in the same league as Ledger’s. Yeah, I know... different time, first attempt at a serious Batman movie, different kinda movie, Tim Burton and all that. But I have to work with what I have. To put it simply, The Dark Knight’s Joker, is the definitive Joker to me because he makes a saying I read somewhere on the internet seem pretty true – “When super villains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories.”   

Now..Let’s put a smile on that face...