Curated playlist
Male film villains
- Darth VaderDarth Vader first appeared in 1977, and the question George Lucas put before his production team was deceptively simple: how do you make a villain feel like a force of nature? The answer began with a single instruction. Lucas told the…
- Kylo RenKylo Ren is, in the words of Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw, "gorgeously cruel, spiteful and capricious." He is, Bradshaw added, a Star Wars villain given to "petulant temper tantrums, with his lightsaber drawn." Long before he earned that…
- Stormtrooper (Star Wars)Stormtroopers are among the most recognized fictional soldiers ever put on screen, introduced to audiences in the original Star Wars film of 1977. In white armor that covers every inch of the body, they march in lockstep through the…
- IagoIago has more lines in Shakespeare's Othello than Othello himself. With 1,097 lines, the villain of the play speaks more than its hero, a structural fact that hints at something strange and central about this character. Who is the real…
- PalpatineSheev Palpatine is the main antagonist of the Star Wars franchise, a character so carefully constructed that his first name did not appear on screen until decades after his debut. He first appeared in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back,…
- SarumanSaruman the White arrives in Middle-earth as one of five angelic emissaries, dispatched by the godlike Valar to challenge the dark lord Sauron without resorting to direct force. His name, drawn from the Mercian dialect of Anglo-Saxon,…
- Gríma WormtongueTolkien describes Gríma Wormtongue as "a wizened figure of a man, with a pale wise face, and heavy lidded eyes" and a "long pale tongue." In Edoras, the seat of Rohan's kings, every inhabitant had a contemptuous nickname for the chief…
- Darth MaulDarth Maul arrived on screen in 1999 with a face that concept artist Iain McCaig described as what you would see if you stripped the flesh off your own face: the muscles beneath forming a pattern he called "Darth Maulish". That face,…
- Captain AhabCaptain Ahab stands at the helm of the Pequod with a leg carved from ivory, staring out at a sea that once took something from him. Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick introduces him as the monomaniacal master of a whaling ship, a man…
- SauronSauron is the main antagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a figure who rules the land of Mordor and covets dominion over all of Middle-earth. He is almost never seen. He does not speak in the novel. He does not stride…
- Supreme Leader SnokeSupreme Leader Snoke stepped onto a movie set before anyone, including the actor playing him, knew what he would look like. Andy Serkis later said, 'It's the first time I've been on set not yet knowing what the character's gonna look like.…
- Vega (Street Fighter)Vega arrived in Street Fighter II in 1991, unlike any fighter the game had seen before. He was a Spaniard fighting in a style that merged Japanese ninjutsu with Spanish bullfighting, and "Spanish Ninja" was the nickname that stuck. Players…
- PeliasPelias, king of Iolcus in Greek mythology, owes his entire reign to a single missing sandal. When a young stranger arrived in Iolcus wearing only one shoe, Pelias recognized the man at once as his greatest threat. An oracle had warned him…
- GollumGollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, and he may be the most pitiable monster in the history of English literature. He began life as Sméagol, a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near…