Parvini's Top 20 Movie Villains
After AFI compiled their Top 100 Movie
Heroes and Villains there have been several subsequent attempts to
produce similar such lists. Most of these tend to be rather cliche
orientated in my view, and this Australian website
features such a list. I did find one set of lists (here)
that contained some interesting choices bt even there, there is too much
agency given to sub-par action movies like Robocop and charcters
who aren't really villains like Mr. T in Rocky III. At a website
called Crazymofo.com I found
the most detailed and compelling list but even there is committed the
cardinal and, for some reason age old, crime of ommitting The Emperor from
contention - it even has a Star Wars villain section which lists
both Maul and Dooku but no Palpatine, absurd! My list has had quite a lot
of thought poured into it. I have taken every possible step to avoid
hackneyed cliches and have attempted to be as honest as possible - only
including those who have genuinely affected me. I have taken the
controversial move of ommitting characters who are undoubtedly bad but who
also function as a movie's protagonist (e.g. Travis Bickle in Taxi
Driver Alex in A Clockwork Orange, to be a true movie villain
you must be an antagonist. In Aristolean terms the likes of Travis
Bickle or Scarface's Tony Montana are 'tragic heroes' rather than
villains - its the difference between Othello and Iago. To make up for
this I have compiled a Top Ten of those movie villains that occupy the
grey area between audience sympathy and revulsion. I have also, in the
main, ommitted characters who are mad. If you are mad you are not a
villain but merely a lunatic, there is massive distinction which is seldom
made between, for example, The Joker and The Penguin: The Joker is
insane, the Penguin is not. When an insane character (and by
'insane' I mean not in control of their actions) does evil things it is
less evil than a character who does it knowingly in cold sanity. I do not
claim my list to be as definitive as AFI's but I guarantee that my
villains are more evil than their's are.
After AFI compiled their Top 100 Movie Heroes and Villains there have been several subsequent attempts to produce similar such lists. Most of these tend to be rather cliche orientated in my view, and this Australian website features such a list. I did find one set of lists (here) that contained some interesting choices bt even there, there is too much agency given to sub-par action movies like Robocop and charcters who aren't really villains like Mr. T in Rocky III. At a website called Crazymofo.com I found the most detailed and compelling list but even there is committed the cardinal and, for some reason age old, crime of ommitting The Emperor from contention - it even has a Star Wars villain section which lists both Maul and Dooku but no Palpatine, absurd! My list has had quite a lot of thought poured into it. I have taken every possible step to avoid hackneyed cliches and have attempted to be as honest as possible - only including those who have genuinely affected me. I have taken the controversial move of ommitting characters who are undoubtedly bad but who also function as a movie's protagonist (e.g. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver Alex in A Clockwork Orange, to be a true movie villain you must be an antagonist. In Aristolean terms the likes of Travis Bickle or Scarface's Tony Montana are 'tragic heroes' rather than villains - its the difference between Othello and Iago. To make up for this I have compiled a Top Ten of those movie villains that occupy the grey area between audience sympathy and revulsion. I have also, in the main, ommitted characters who are mad. If you are mad you are not a villain but merely a lunatic, there is massive distinction which is seldom made between, for example, The Joker and The Penguin: The Joker is insane, the Penguin is not. When an insane character (and by 'insane' I mean not in control of their actions) does evil things it is less evil than a character who does it knowingly in cold sanity. I do not claim my list to be as definitive as AFI's but I guarantee that my villains are more evil than their's are.