The top 25 underrated screen villains

When you think of your great villains, your Darth Vaders, your Jokers, and Hannibal Lecters, what stands out? It boils down to one thing: showmanship. Whether it is in terms of appearance, personality, or action, characters like these hog the spotlight — when they are onscreen you cannot take your eyes off them.

In forming this list, I found that I was gravitating toward characters who lacked this kind of showmanship. Maybe the title of this article should have been ‘understated’. While there are a few on this list who you could count as flamboyant (and one played by Gary Busey), on the whole, the characters on these list prefer to hide in the shadows, where they can hide their deeds and plot their next scheme. They’re the kind of people you would not expect. The kind you would overlook.

Let’s illuminate them, shall we?

25. Sam Wilde, Born to Kill (Robert Wise, 1947)

Today, if he is remembered at all, Lawrence Tierney is known as the fatherly gang boss behind the botched heist in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). In the late 1940s, Tierney made his name on a series of poverty row thrillers and crime dramas in which he essayed variations on his amoral shithead persona. None was more successful than his role in this surprisingly bleak and nasty film noir.

An unhinged psychopath with an eye for the ladies and the good life, Sam Wilde introduces himself to the viewer by stalking an old flame home and battering her to death with a bottle after he catches her on a date (the date doesn’t get out of the encounter either). Obsessed with enriching himself, Sam manages to control his temper long enough to ensconce himself into the life of a wealthy young debutante, but not before he’s hooked up with an icy femme fatale (Claire Trevor) with her own designs on the young woman’s fortune.

However, with his poor impulse control and compulsion to ultra violence, Sam is no innocent fall guy, as Trevor learns to her detriment.

24. Harry Sledge, Supervixens (Russ Meyer, 1975)

Primarily well known for Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Russ Meyer is famous (or infamous) for his Looney Toon sexploitation features of the '60s. Generally, Meyer’s movies are well known for their shameless objectification of his leading ladies and, bizarrely, their empowerment of these characters. The Meyer woman is a buxom ubermensch who ploughs through anyone who gets in her way, and won’t take shit from any man.

With 1975’s Supervixens, Meyer shifted gears into darker territory and created an evil male counterpart to his Amazonian leading ladies, a grinning psychopath by the name of Harry Sledge. Played by character actor Charles Napier (most recognisable as Murdock in Rambo II), Sledge is a tour-de-force of misogyny and impotent rage. With his lantern jaw and too-wide grin, Sledge resembles a cartoon of machismo — Johnny Bravo by way of Travis Bickle.

A deranged cop with a vendetta against anything without a Y chromosome, Sledge is unlike anything else in the Meyer canon. Introducing himself by gleefully stomping a woman to death in her bathtub, Sledge is a terrifying presence who stands as one of the most underrated monsters of Seventies exploitation cinema.

23. The Truck, Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971)

There are occasional flashes of the truck’s occupant, but for all intents and purposes, the truck itself becomes the villain of this, Spielberg’s first TV film (and first feature release, since the film was expanded and released to cinemas outside the US). For an inanimate object, Spielberg manages to get a lot of personality out of this machine.

With its large grill and headlights, the truck has what amounts to a permanent grin, appropriate since its pursuit of Dennis Weaver’s increasingly alarmed driver betrays a sadistic glee in pushing the poor man to the brink of insanity. Outside of Weaver, the truck displays an ability to improvise — especially in a darkly comedic scene where Weaver, terrified of his enemy, abandons a stranded school bus, which the truck then helps back on the road.

By the time the foes have their final confrontation, the truck has attained the status of a mythical beast, an elemental force that Weaver must destroy if he is to make it out of the desert heat. An unforgettable creation from legendary writer Richard Matheson, and an early plaudit for Spielberg, the truck from Duel punches far above its weight to become a genuinely menacing and unlikely movie monster.

22. The aliens, They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)

“What’s the threat? We all sell out every day. Might as well be on the winning team.” The most insidious villains John Carpenter ever created, ‘They’ are an alien race who have covertly taken over the planet. Though they have brainwashed the populace and boast futuristic technology, their chief weapon is human greed. As long as people are distracted by the latest fashions, celebrates and popular trends, ‘they’ do not have to do anything.

If anyone stands against them, they can be bought. Or locked up. A satirical takedown of Reagan-era America, the aliens in They Live are basically intergalactic super-capitalists. They just want their slice of the pie — rather than space ships and lasers, they merely co-opt humanity’s potential for excess and selfishness to their own ends.

21. Quaritch, Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

All of James Cameron’s villains operate on the same set of principles. They all have a simple objective. They are highly capable of achieving this objective. They will pull out all the stops to attain their objective. Whether it is the Terminator, the Alien Queen, the terrorists in True Lies, or Michael Biehn’s deranged Navy Seal in The Abyss, all of these characters embody these three principles.

Miles Quaritch fulfils these principles to a tee. Basically a dark revision of the Colonial Marines Cameron introduced in Aliens, Quaritch is a refreshingly uncomplicated antagonist in an era where every blockbuster must have a villain with a ridiculously over-complicated scheme (The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall). Quaritch just wants to wipe out an entire species.

One moment in particular cements Quaritch’s status in Cameron’s filmography — as his transport falls toward the planet’s surface, Quaritch marches down to the hold, straps himself into a combat suit, jumps out of the transport and lands while his ship crashes behind him. He does all this while on fire. For sheer batshit dedication, Miles Quaritch deserves more credit as one of the more relentless villains to come along in the last couple years.

20. Milo, The Last Boy Scout (Tony Scott, 1991)

An unlikely reposte to Bruce Willis’s brand of blue collar machismo, the sadly departed Taylor Negron lends the villain of this Joel Silver production an effete, well-tailored precision that makes Milo the most effective antagonist Willis has faced since Alan Rickman in Die Hard. In an age of hard bodied heroes and villains, Milo stands out like a sore thumb.

An unstoppable killing machine with none of the macho posturing or leather duds one would expect, Milo saunters through Tony Scott’s film with the slightly dis-interested air of a mid-level executive. Trading quips and bullets with equal ease, he proves to be the equal of Willis’s disgraced secret agent. The depths of Milo’s real, unpleasant personality only come out during a sublimely dark exchange where he threatens to show Willis’s 13-year old daughter “what a hot date I am.” A testament to the inventiveness of uber-screen writer Shane Black, Milo’s place in the Willis rogues gallery has sadly been overshadowed by Hans Gruber.

19. Mr. Joshua, Lethal Weapon (Richard Donner, 1987)

Before Commander Krill, before Celebrity Apprentice, before those barmy Amazon Fire adverts, there was Mr Joshua. Granted, Gary Busey already had a career (and an Oscar nomination), but his role in this seminal action flick gave him a second wind as a big screen crazy (and Gingerdead Man).

Mr Joshua starts out as an evil doppelgänger to Mel Gibson’s tortured super cop Martin Riggs. Another Vietnam veteran with a special forces background, unlike Riggs, Joshua is able to channel his craziness into his work. Whether self-immolating his hand or engaging Riggs in an utterly pointless fist fight in front of an army of cops, Mr. Joshua is up for anything.

Even when his boss’ plan goes up in smoke, Joshua, ever proactive, goes straight to Riggs’ partner Murtuagh (Danny Glover)’s home to massacre his family on Christmas Eve. If Joshua’s going to get caught, it might as well be for something truly horrific.

18. Necros, The Living Daylights (John Glen, 1987)

There is a good case to be made that Necros is the last genuinely threatening henchman in the Bond franchise. Lacking any gimmicks or physical idiosyncrasies, Necros is just very, very good at his job. From his one-man assault on an MI6 safe house to his final vertigo-inducing battle with Timothy Dalton’s 007, Necros is so formidable that Bond’s survival is always in doubt.

For a good portion of the movie Necros is the only villain, moving around Europe and picking off MI6 agents. Unlike most Bond henchmen, Necros can move around with relative anonymity, and is capable of orchestrating complex operations, such as the raid on the safe house, or rigging some electronic sliding doors to become a murder weapon. Combining brawn and brains, Necros is the most imposing antagonist the series has produced since the Sixties.

17. Félix Cortez, Clear and Present Danger (Philip Noyce, 1994)

The third of the Jack Ryan series features a story in which Ryan (Harrison Ford) uncovers international wrongdoing at the highest levels of the US government. Simultaneously, it is the story of how Felix Cortez, a freelance intelligence operative, manipulates this situation to gain control over a major Columbian drug cartel.

In contrast to Ryan’s middle-aged suburban family man, Cortez is a debonair ladykiller with a taste for the finer things and a ruthless approach to achieving his goals. Always playing both sides for his own gain, he is a combination of James Bond and Richard III.

Recognising the benefit of US strikes on the cartels, Cortez lets the operation play out until he is in a position to move against his employer. Callously using everyone around him, Cortez’s complete lack of principles makes him a deliciously immoral presence in a movie otherwise filled with furrowed eyebrows and Harrison Ford angrily pointing his finger.

16. Mad Dog, The Raid (Gareth Evans, 2011)

Mad Dog deserves a spot on this list simply based on the final battle alone — taking on our two heroes at the same time, Mad Dog takes an improvised spear to the chest and still kicks the holy heck out of their collective ass.

The most hardcore and badass character to emerge from Gareth Evans’ action palooza, Mad Dog is so relentless and balls out crazy, he deserves his own series. Due to the speed with which he dispatches his foes, this franchise would have to be a series of hilariously violent vines.

15. The Jackal, Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973)

A bland, unmemorable face and stuffy, boring voice provide the perfect mask for the world’s deadliest assassin. Actor Edward Fox might bristle at my description, but his nondescript looks and manner are perfect for the role of the Jackal, a hired killer charged with assassinating French President Charles de Gaulle.

Even when his employers have been caught, and the police are on his trail, the Jackal remains a few steps ahead of his pursuers. With his penchant for disguises and performance, the Jackal is a cipher, capable of moving anywhere without raising alarm.

Meticulous in his preparation, and completely cold blooded in his actions, it is a tribute to the Jackal’s implacability that, despite the fact that the real de Gaulle was dead long before the film’s release, the fate of the Jackal’s target remains up in the air until the film’s painfully tense conclusion.

14. William Stryker, X-Men 2 (Bryan Singer, 2003)

Still one of the best comic book antagonists of the last two decades, William Stryker is the rare villain with understandable, though repugnant, motivations. A homo sapien twin to mutant villain Magneto, Stryker is obsessed with saving his own species. Indeed, like Magneto, he is a victim in his own right — the subject of his telepathic son’s mind games, he was forced to watch his wife lobotomise herself with a drill to escape their offspring once and for all.

Of course, it could be that Stryker is simply a bigot who has embroidered this backstory to make his actions more understandable. In any case, his plan to use the mutants’ own powers against them is well thought out and he carries out every aspect of his plan with precision and unwavering dedication. And until Apocalypse makes his appearance next summer, Stryker remains the one X-Villain who came the closest to wiping the X-Men out once and for all. Not bad for a human.