Curated playlist
Works featuring villain protagonists
- Mad MenHBO passed on Mad Men, and its CEO later called that his biggest regret. AMC made it its first original series.
- Richard III (play)Shakespeare's Richard III opens with its villain announcing he is determined to prove a villain.
- Don GiovanniMozart filed Don Giovanni as a comic opera, though it opens with a murder. Demons drag its hero to hell.
- The SopranosThe Sopranos aired on HBO from the 10th of January 1999 to the 10th of June 2007. It ran for six seasons and 86 episodes. At its center is Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, a New Jersey Mafia boss who suffers panic attacks.…
- Breaking BadBreaking Bad began as a joke about two unemployed writers cooking meth in an RV.
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeA dream gave Stevenson the idea for Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. His wife woke him mid-transformation.
- Fight ClubFight Club hid its twist by never filming Tyler Durden in two-shots with groups of people.
- Taxi DriverPaul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver in ten days while living in his car. He had been through a divorce and a breakup.
- VolponeThree men queue at the bedside of a rich Venetian, each carrying an expensive gift and each hoping to be named heir. The patient is not sick at all. He is the title character of Volpone, a comedy by the English playwright Ben Jonson, first…
- Death NoteA plain black notebook sits at the center of Death Note, a Japanese manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Anyone who writes a person's name in its pages ends that person's life within seconds. In Tokyo, a…