NB: The following contains spoilers. If you stumble on an entry for a movie you haven't seen yet, you're advised to skip to the next one.

We love them, we hate them, and sometimes, we love to hate them. Villains are the driving force of just about every story, and there was no shortage of great ones in 2013's movies. Whether they were violent and weapon waving, or quiet and slyly insinuating, last year's films were full of great antagonists of every sort.

You're sure to have some of your own ideas over who deserved to be listed among 2013's best baddies (so feel free to add yours in the comments, as ever), and honourable mentions  should go to James Woods' Martin Walker in White House Down and Cameron Diaz's Malkina in The Counsellor. But at any rate, here's our pick of the finest movie villains of last year.

Butch Cavendish - The Lone Ranger

We remain quietly addicted to the reliably brilliant William Fichtner's performances, and he was really on form in Gore Verbinski's larger-than-life western, The Lone Ranger. Perhaps realising that he had to play against Johnny Depp with a dead bird on his head, Fichtner appears to put every sinew into his turn as vicious outlaw Butch Cavendish. With his gruesome complexion, curious teeth and snake-like stare, he's a fearsome creation, and one scene of cannibalism remains among the more unexpectedly harsh movie theater moments of last year.

Reactions towards The Lone Ranger were mixed to say the least, and audiences failed to queue up for it in the way they did for Verbinski's Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, but none of this detracts from Fitchner's performance - as ever, he brings menace, humor and personality to what could have been just another stock villain.

Agent Kruger - Elysium

In director Neill Blomkamp's second feature, Elysium, Sharlto Copley switched from the quirkily affecting anti-hero of 2009's District 9 to outright villainy. And as Agent Kruger, the hirsute assassin who does the bidding of Jodie Foster's snootily brittle Defense Secretary Delacourt, Copley pretty much walks away with the movie thanks to his raving performance.

While Matt Damon is saddled with a likeable but somewhat anonymous everyman hero character, Copley gets to fire and fling a variety of exotic weapons, has a temper tantrum during a lonely barbecue on the roof of his own house, and yells "It's just a flesh wound!" at a victim he's just blown to smithereens.

Kruger isn't exactly the most sly or subtle villains of the year, but he's definitely one of the most fun to watch - just look at the moment where he comes stomping down the corridor of the title space station, headlights glaring out from each of his man chests. It makes us chuckle every time we see it.

Smaug - The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

We waited a long, long time before we finally got to see Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien's gold-obsessed dragon, and thankfully, it was more than worth the wait. As voiced and partly performed (via the miracle of motion capture) by the seemingly indefatigable Benedict Cumberbatch, Smaug is a villain of both wit and menace - and vitally, Jackson gives him a grand entrance.

That first glimpse of Smaug, who's revealed one scale at a time as the mountain of gold he's lying beneath gradually falls away, is a great introduction, showing us how gigantic he is compared to the diminutive Bilbo (Martin Freeman). Freeman's scene with the returning Gollum in An Unexpected Journey was one of the highlights of that movie, and in The Desolation Of Smaug, WETA once again created a masterful interplay between live actors and CG characters.

Most importantly, though, there's Cumberbatch's sonorous voice growling out from behind all those pixels - and it's this, as much as technical wizardry, that brings this timeless villain so memorably to life. And while we were in two minds as to whether we should include Cumberbatch's villain John Harrison in Star Trek Into Darkness on this list, we decided that, although the former's a great adversary in his own right, he's roundly eclipsed by this incarnation of fantasy's most famous dragon.

The Mandarin - Iron Man 3

Drew Pearce and Shane Black's handling of longstanding comic book antagonist the Mandarin was always going to be controversial for some, but for us, it worked magnificently. Just as Tony Stark wrestles with his own demons in the wake of The Avengers' events, so enigmatic terrorist the Mandarin turns out to be a mirage created to strike fear into the population of America.  

Ben Kingsley is great value in his twin roles as the Mandarin and booze-addled British actor Trevor Slattery, and while some would argue that the villain deserved a more respectful handling on the big screen, it nevertheless provided one of the funniest and most surprising rug-pull moments in 2013 mainstream movie theater.

Uncle Charlie - Stoker

Director Park Chan-wook's first English-language movie was an ice-cold and visually sumptuous thriller in the Hitchcock mold, and the quality of its performances and production really lifted it from being just another genre movie to something far more complex and symbolic. Matthew Goode plays the handsome and seemingly benign Uncle Charlie, who shows up at the remote, rambling house of his niece India (Mia Wasikowska) and late brother's wife Evelyn (Nicole Kidman).

Although it's evident that something dark lingers behind Uncle Charlie's broad smile, Park Chan-wook keeps the suspense taut, and Goode's turn here is perfectly restrained - we know there's something not quite right about him, and we're just waiting to see when the mask will finally slip. In a movie full of great acting - Wasikowska and Kidman are both excellent - Goode is a vitally brilliant part in Chan-wook's twisted love triangle.

Calvin J Candie - Django Unchained

Before finally settling down in a theater to watch Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, we were anxiously wondering whether the fresh-faced Leonardo DiCaprio was really right for the role of the brutal Mississipi plantation owner Calvin J Candie - especially considering he'd have to share one major scene with Christoph Waltz, who blazed through the screen as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds.

As it turns out, we needn't have worried; in every one of Tarantino's lengthy scenes with the character, DiCaprio is seldom less than pitch-perfect. The dinner table with Christoph Waltz's Dr King Schultz and Jamie Foxx's Django is electrifying, with Candie's horrifying monologue laced with menace.

In fact, DiCaprio became so immersed in the moment that he famously injured his hand when he slammed his hand down on the table, breaking a glass - the wound ultimately required stitches, but his unblinking performance remains in the movie.

Mizuki - 47 Ronin

Here's a late entry to the list, and a character who's the exact opposite of the one Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi brought to the screen in her other major movie of 2013, Pacific Rim. In director Carl Rinsch's flawed yet entertaining fantasy samurai movie, Kikuchi plays Mizuki, a witch whose magic helps central villain Lord Kira to bring about his plans to dominate a tract of 18th century Japan.

Although Tadanobu is perfectly entertaining as said villain, it's Mizuki who emerges as the most memorable and downright fun character in the entire movie. She's a slithering sorceress who can transform herself into a menagerie of creatures, conjure up deadly purple spiders from surprising places, and gets to generally antagonise every other player in the story.

Kikuchi attacks the role with evident glee, and the sense of  fun she has as Mizuki lifts every scene in which she appears.

Polite Leader - The Purge

This mash-up of dystopia, horror and home invasion flick was by no means perfect, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have plenty of good things going for it, not least a superb turn from Rhys Wakefield as its central villain.

Ethan Hawke plays James Sandin, the father to a wealthy middle-class family in a near-future America, where an annual event called the Purge gives citizens a 12-hour period where they can commit whatever crime they like. But when a group of feral thrill seekers turns its attention on Sandin's household, he's forced to resort to extreme measures to protect his loved ones.

Like Smaug, Wakefield's nameless villain is given a superb introduction. A leader to a masked group of impeccably dressed killers, he's first seen through a distorted fish-eye lens on Sandin's front door. Then he takes off his ghoulishly grinning mask, revealing that the face beneath is even more leering and scary.

That image proved to be effective enough to lead the movie's advertising campaign, and it's made all the more powerful because Wakefield's performance is so economical - the bit where he smilingly explains why he has the right to kill Sandin's entire family is, in the midst of a sometimes uneven genre movie, utterly chilling.

Crystal - Only God Forgives

There certainly aren't any heroes in Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, where it's almost always night time and karaoke cops mete out brutal acts of bloodshed. Yet even among the movie's minimalist (and divisive) landscape of retribution and despair, Kristin Scott Thomas' glowering gangster matriarch emerges as its darkest shadow.

Much of what Crystal says can't safely be repeated on a family site such as this, but it's sufficient to report that she has her own brand of acid-tongued putdowns. The key scene where she sits down for an extraordinarily uneasy meal with her monosyllabic son, Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his girlfriend Mai (Rhatha Phongam) makes for painfully uncomfortable viewing, and it's interesting to note that, in a movie full of wince-inducing violence, it's Crystal's cajoling, bullying performance that emerges as one of its most unforgettable aspects.

Or for a further illustration of Crystal's fearsome nature, just look at the scene where Julian describes the cruel murder his brother committed on an innocent girl. "I'm sure he had his reasons," she coldly shoots back. Brrr.

President Snow - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Donald Sutherland’s President Snow doesn’t get much screen time in The Hunger Games movies, but crikey, he makes the most of it. Sutherland’s clearly feeling the importance of working on a project that talks to a relatively young audience about ultra serious things. And Snow, a man who quietly oozes power, is the archetypal man in power who will do whatever it takes to preserve it.

More to the point, he’ll do whatever it takes using some cunning, often passive-aggressive tactics to do so. Manipulative and almost living under the skin, we suspect we’ll be talking about his performance in the next Hunger Games movie this time next year too...

Trent Ramsey - The Way, Way Back

One of the most wonderful gems of the summer movie theater season, The Way, Way Back not only provided a golden role for Sam Rockwell, but it also proved once more the range of Steve Carell. He’s come a long way since the days of Dunder Miflin, and here, he creates one of the most compelling villains of the year. He’s compelling because in many respects he’s so normal. He plays Trent, the new man in the life of Duncan’s (played by Liam James) mother.

And while he starts off as the friendly, wanting-to-get-to-know-you type, he gradually french fries away at Duncan, undermining him and inflicting subtle, knowing damage. It’s a controlled performance from a skilled actor. And by pulling back and being so believable in his work, Carell creates one of the very best antagonists of the year.

Edwin Epps - 12 Years A Slave

There’s hardly an abundance of pleasant people in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave. On the surface, Benedict Cumberbatch’s William Ford is quite a good person, but the movie does point out that for all his niceties, he still keeps Chiwitel Ejiofor’s Solomon as his slave. Yet Michael Fassbender’s Edwin Epps chills to the bone (edging out an excellent turn from Paul Dano too). Epps is overt in beliefs on slavery, and how he feels he’s entitled to treat 'his' slaves.

Cruel and abusive, Fassbender plays the character straight and unpleasant, a man contained within what he believes – and, to be fair, many around him – to be reasonable. His vile actions are ones you can sense are coming, but their power is never diluted. Epps isn’t a character you’d want to spend any more time in the company of. Fassbender’s work, however, is outstanding.

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As a gage of lingering fan affection, the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign was a huge success. Soaring past its initial goal within its first day, screenwriter Rob Thomas' movie project ultimately accumulated $5.7m, meaning that, almost seven years after the TV series abruptly finished in 2007, viewers could finally look forward to a proper conclusion.

Nine months or so on, and here's the first trailer for the forthcoming Veronica Mars movie, which sees Kristen Bell reprise her role as the former high school detective. There are returning faces, some unexpected cameos, and a new murder to solve in Veronica's hometown, Neptune. And who knows? If the movie's a success, maybe this won't be the last we've seen of Bell's sleuth on the big screen after all.

Veronica Mars is out on the 14th March in the US. If a UK movie theater date becomes available, we'll be sure to pass it along.

THR

Here on Den Of Geek, It's become something of a tradition that when the end of the year rolls around, and the big awards bodies almost determinedly overlook genre movie theater, and that we compile a list of the underrated and underappreciated performances by actors in the last cinematic year.

We've tried to pick out turns that either went unnoticed in most reviews, or simply should have gotten more praise. It's less about the great performances that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are sure to overlook, than it is about giving praise where it's due.

It's unusual that this is either the most wide-open race in a while, or there aren't nearly enough people talking about who will definitely win Oscars this time around (Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine notwithstanding).

Nevertheless, we can safely predict that these are the best movie performances of 2013 that nobody is talking about for awards recognition.

Amy Acker: Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon's black-and-white adaptation of Shakespeare's original romantic comedy was a product of the writer-director's geekdom for the Bard, and of play readings he's been hosting at his house since around the time he was working on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. None of the players in the movie had really acted in Shakespeare productions before, but it doesn't show.

While Nathan Fillion's hilarious comedy turn as the incompetent Dogberry received great notices, Amy Acker's Beatrice is the standout in the center of the movie. The witty dialogue trips off her tongue like it was written for her, and she has a canny knack for emotional deliveries too.

Rekindling the Wesley-Fred chemistry from Angel, she plays off Alexis Denisof's Benedick marvellously, and generally lights up the screen whenever she appears. Also, she gets what is, for our money, the finest cinematic pratfall of the year, trying to navigate some stairs while eavesdropping on her mischievous cousin and her friends.

Nicolas Cage: The Croods

If I were to list some Nicolas Cage movies from the last couple of years, it would be interesting to see how many you had forgotten: The Frozen Ground, Stolen, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, Trespass, Justice... the list of throwaway performances goes on and on. Surprisingly, it was DreamWorks Animation who really captured the best Cage performance of the year.

The Croods was a pleasant surprise in general - a family movie with a terrific message about how shunning intellect and innovation will only lead to extinction and entropy - but it's Cage's turn as conservative caveman Grug that really stands out. While DreamWorks has been guilty of stunt casting in the past, it's been ages since I've seen an animated movie so convincingly represent the same presence that we recognise from an actor's live-action work.

More than that, it's not purely the Ridic-olas Cage that launched a thousand memes and YouTube montages. There are some stirring emotional beats, and Cage nails them just as well as the wackier, more comedic moments. As much as we applaud the technical prowess that is integral to realising a performance like this, he feels more present here than he has been in any number of recent live-action films.

Jude Law: Side Effects

Billed as Steven Soderbergh's final directorial effort for the big screen, (barring the pleasant surprise of HBO's Behind The Candelabra getting a UK movie theater release back in August) Side Effects was an early gem in 2013's cinematic calendar- a near-masterpiece of its genre, which never let you get comfortable with the story's gymnastic twists and turns.

The trailers made Jude Law's role look like a supporting turn in a psychological horror about medication, which was a part of the movie's misdirection in itself. But Law takes a much more integral role, playing against the type of smarmy, suave character that had been attached to him until recently, and he does a terrific job too.

Soderbergh has a knack for bringing the best out of his actors, (see also: the recent Channing Tatum renaissance) and Law keeps pace with the myriad twists and turns quite impressively, alternating places in the audience's sympathies in a way that lends to the overall sense that this one demands a second viewing.

Eddie Marsan: Filth

James McAvoy arguably gave the year's best movie performance, as the bipolar, corrupt DS Bruce Robinson in Jon S Baird's Filth, and was duly rewarded with a gong for Best Actor at this month's British Independent movie Awards. McAvoy is incredible in the movie, and we're glad that's been recognised, but it means we can instead draw attention to another terrific performance.

After a brilliant against-type role in The World's End (more on which later), this is slightly more familiar terrain for Eddie Marsan, who plays Bruce's Masonic best bud and emotional punchbag, Bladesey.

He's such a helpless man, as Bruce kicks him around emotionally and physically, but the actor carries it off in a terrifically likeable fashion. One of the movie's funniest moments finds Bladesey off his head on drugs, rubbing his nipples as he dances around a gay bar in Amsterdam, but Marsan also excels in the quieter moments of pathos.

Colm Meaney: Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

It's interesting when a movie manages to make you feel sympathy for its villain, but it's not usually a good thing when you consider him to be better than the movie's hero. Alan Partridge's first feature movie, Alpha Papa, revolves around a corporate takeover of the North Norfolk Digital radio station, prompting fears of a clearout of the old guard.

Alan cheerfully throws his colleague under the bus with a scribbled “Just Sack Pat”, not banking on Pat coming back that night with a shotgun and holding the station hostage. As the movie swings back to satirising corporate takeovers, Colm Meaney really makes the most of Pat's somewhat tragic backstory.

In an interview with Den Of Geek last month, Meaney told us: “I tend to play more active, sometimes aggressive types. This guy seemed curiously gentle and introverted in a way, even though he was a DJ.”

It's a testament to his moving performance that the gentleness comes across just as strongly as his temper, making for the year's most sympathetic screen antagonist.

Bill Nighy: About Time

Since Richard Curtis cast Bill Nighy as aging rock star Billy Mack in 2003's Love Actually, he's found ways to bring him back in everything he's done since, from The Boat That Rocked to his Doctor Who episode, Vincent And The Doctor, and now as a wise, time-travelling dad in About Time. It's understandable - if you can have Bill Nighy in your movie, you should have Bill Nighy in your movie.

And if About Time were better, Nighy would almost certainly be in the running for Best Supporting Actor nods up and down awards season. As much as the posters billed it as a romantic comedy, young Tim's quest to get a girlfriend with timey-wimey shenanigans is really more of a sub-plot, and the movie really comes to life whenever Domhnall Gleeson's Tim sits down with Nighy for a natter.

Towards the end, while Curtis faffs about in what seems like yet another movie with a whole TV series' worth of subplot crammed into it, Nighy brought us to the brink of tears in the movie's moving finale. As geeks, we all know that the ending utterly ignores the already shaky rules of time-travel that the movie has established. As sons and daughters, we don't care - Nighy is a perfect screen dad.

BJ Novak and Jason Schwartzman: Saving Mr Banks

Technically cheating? Well, there were a lot of good performances this year and these two are inseparable from one another in their superb performance as the Sherman brothers. While Emma Thompson seems set to get some attention for getting spectacularly cross with them and every other American who's trying to adapt Mary Poppins, these are the unsung heroes of the movie.

As you'd expect from both Novak and Schwartzman, they have impeccable comic timing as Robert and Richard Sherman, respectively. If you've seen 2009's The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, you might have an idea of what you're in for, but for the uninitiated, certain passages of Saving Mr Banks are like watching the Sherman brothers biopic you never knew you wanted.

You can also hear their renditions of songs from the Mary Poppins songbook on the soundtrack for Saving Mr Banks, and it's only a shame that Mrs Travers interrupts most of them - if Disney released an album of them with Bradley Whitford's Don DaGradi singing the whole soundtrack, we'd buy it. More than that, it would be very nice to see that biopic...

Simon Pegg: The World's End

Much has been written about Gary King in The World's End, not all of it nice. After Shaun Ryder and Nick Angel, Simon Pegg gave up the straight man role to play more of a lovable screw-up, with far less emphasis on the “lovable” than many viewers could stomach. Gary is a manipulative, alcoholic arsehole, who ultimately leads his friends down the path to armageddon.

Whether you like the character or not, it's a brave performance for Pegg, and it's probably a career-best for him in terms of acting. The pathos in Gary's character comes out so late in the story, that if it weren't for the strength of Pegg's performance, he'd be pretty much unwatchable.

Without going into spoilers, we can't really argue that the ending of the movie is a tad shambolic, and it's understandable if you come away feeling that Gary didn't really learn anything, but for once, we have the chance to single out Simon Pegg the actor over Simon Pegg the screenwriter.

While we're on the subject, special mention should go to Nick Frost, who also puts in a revelatory turn as Gary's former friend and long-suffering enabler, Andy - this one was a terrific showcase for his range as a straight man and an action man, and if you did feel Gary was unwatchable, it's Frost's Andy that always keeps you on side.

[related article: Our Top 10 Films of 2013]

Saoirse Ronan: Byzantium

Neil Jordan's seaside vampire noir was one of the underrated films of the year, finding a different spin on the nocturnal beasties in a market that has been saturated with mail-modernity and Twilight movies in recent years - we've never really seen a mother-daughter vampire dynamic before.

While Gemma Arterton puts in solid work, Saoirse Ronan does that Saoirse Ronan thing of being absolutely brilliant in everything. Given the more integral and understated role, she brings a real sadness to the role of Eleanor. There's a sense that Arterton's Clara has numbed herself to the angst of eternal life in the time she has on her daughter. Ronan makes that raw and fragile, but there's a steely resolve beneath that.

After I originally saw the movie, I immediately felt that it might have been even more interesting if a younger actress were cast as the mother and an older actress as the daughter, playing with vampire aging in a different fashion, but on the strength of Ronan's performance, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Maribel Verdú: Blancanieves

Pablo Berger's silent movie re-telling of Snow White has a callous and frightening villain in the form of Maribel Verdú's Encarna, the most sinister incarnation of the wicked stepmother character since Disney's. Her rivalry with her step-daughter, Carmen, is intense, and even though you know the story, there's an air of not really knowing what depths she will stoop to next.

Berger updates the story to the 1920s and imagines Encarna as a ruthless social climber- she starts out as a nurse to Carmen's beloved father, before marrying him and later inheriting his wealth and belongings.

Verdú plays the role magnificently. It's all the more impressive for being a silent movie performance- there aren't many people who can pull off this style of acting without lapsing into gurning, but Verdú is a perfectly hateful villain.

Honourable mention: Anybody in Cloud Atlas

Okay, so this is definitely cheating. It came out in US cinemas back in October 2012, but by the magic of UK release dates, it's actually been almost a year since people were embroiled in not praising the ambition and vision of Cloud Atlas, one of the better adaptations of an “unadaptable” text in recent years.

Turning the six-pronged novel into a 172 minute movie is a daunting task, but by using the same actors to visually link recurring themes, directors Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski both simplified and contextualised the unwieldy source material for the big screen.

And so, the cast are literally all over the store, with race and gender proving no bar to which roles they can be cast in. Even if the make-up lets them down in some scenes, the bravery and believability of some of these turns is spectacular throughout.

We considered singling out one actor, but it's tough to pick just one, mostly because everyone in the cast makes a good fist of it, but also because when you start comparing, it comes down to which actors were consistently the best in different segments of the movie, which isn't entirely the point.

To pick a few highlights, Jim Broadbent is superb in the knockabout Ealing comedy strand in which his character unwittingly commits himself to a nursing home, Ben Whishaw gives an excellent portrayal of a tormented, bisexual composer, and Hugh Grant furiously rages against type in a variety of villainous and downright scary roles.

In a year that has also included Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks, Tom Hanks adds a few more great turns to his CV (even if we're not sure about his Irish gangster-cum-author) all at once, as the de facto lead.

One villainous monologue from the movie turned out to be oddly prophetic of the movie's reception. There's a natural order, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. It's unfortunate that the movie hasn't been appreciated in its time, but in a way it's fitting that the most underrated movie of the year is packed to the gills with underrated performances.

Have we missed any performers that you feel deserved more attention from critics and awards organisations? Leave your suggestions in the comments - we'll have our own damn awards show!

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A live-action adaptation of Yasuomi Umetsu's ultraviolent anime about a deadly young female assassin has been in various stages of development for years, but we can now be sure that Kite is finally nearing completion.

Stuntman turned director David R Ellis was making the movie in Johannesberg when he sadly died in January last year. Director Ralph Ziman then stepped in to complete it. The result is a hyper-stylised, violent yet inevitably less explicit take on the Japanese original, with India Eisley playing the worryingly youthful-looking killer Sawa, and Samuel L Jackson providing support as a corrupt cop.

The (very NSFW) first trailer and clip, introduced by Samuel L Jackson, gives an idea of the movie's look and feel: a kind of grungy collision of Leon, Sucker Punch and Hanna with a dash of Drive thrown in for good measure.

There's no firm release date for Kite yet, but we'll let you know when one appears.

Bloody Disgusting

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