#40: Koba - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Koba has honestly got one of my favorite villain deaths ever. I have Koba on my list because he gets dissatisfied with the way Caesar leads. This will lead Koba to murder and revolt, based on his belief that all humans are evil.
#39: The Shark - Jaws: I've talked about the shark on my favorite horror movie villains list, so I'll just say that the shark's mindless feeding frenzy is absolutely terrifying. It works best because you barely see the shark, making this creature all the more memorable.
#38: Max Cady - Cape Fear: Max Cady is one of those villains who has one thing on his mind, revenge. The man is a rapist who is out to get his lawyer. Among his methods are kissing the man's teenage daughter, killing the family dog, attempted rape, and murdering the private inspector that the family hired.
#37: Ma-Ma - Dredd: Ma-Ma is a ruthless drug lord who rules over the building called Palm Trees with an iron fist, treating the men she pays and the people living inside the building as nothing more than pawns in her game. Things get even worse when two judges enter the building, and she will offer anything up to make sure they don't make it out alive.
#36: Jack Torrance - The Shining: Jack Torrance is another one of those characters I've talked about before. What I love most about the character is that he does start out as a family man. Granted, he does have a rough history, but the insanity he's driven to is chilling.
#35: Vincent - Collateral: Vincent is a character I love because this was just such a different performance for Tom Cruise. The man proves he is able to play an ice cold assassin to a tee. One line in the movie always sticks out to me. Jamie Foxx's Max is in awe after just seeing Vincent kill a man. "You killed him," Max says. Vincent's response is an emotionless, nonchalant "No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him."
#34: Magneto - X-Men: I am aware that Magneto is truly a sympathetic villain. He is a victim of the cruelty of humans, being a holocaust survivor. What he wants is mutant freedom. Unfortunately, his methods of going about this goal is to kill all humans, believing that is the only way mutants can possibly be free of persecution.
#33: Alec Trevelyan - GoldenEye: Alec Trevelyan "006" is my personal favorite James Bond villain. He was brought up by agency he spent his life resenting, blaming them for the deaths of his parents. He was close personal friends and partners with James Bond. As far as I'm concerned, that kind of humanity can help make a great and memorable villain.
#32: Mr. Glass - Unbreakable: What's so great about Elijah Price/Mr. Glass is that, for most of the movie, you don't think he's the villain. In many ways, he helps the movie's hero understand his true destiny and purpose in life. It's not until the end of the movie that you find he masterminded all of these heinous acts for the sole purpose of finding his exact opposite. He even says it best by saying something along the lines of "You know how you know who the villain is? He's the exact opposite of the hero."
#31: Leatherface - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: On one hand, Leatherface seems to be the butt of his family's cruel jokes. On the ohter hand, feeling sorry for someone who kills people, skins them, and wears their faces as his own, can only be taken so far.
I like Magneto a lot; I love that he is a more complex villain, not just straight up evil for the sake of being evil. I like that in a villain, because I think people are that way - take the elders of "The Village", or Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, - the list is actually endless - of people who were conflicted and/or confused, or had the goal of doing better, but went about it in a poor way, or got lost or confused or took it too far or whatever. I like complex villains. (Except Angelus. Angel without his soul was just straight up bad and enjoyed it, but he was fun that way. So it's all about the setting. :))
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