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Tags: Movie Villains
Guest writer Joshua Lucht writes:
10 ) The Killing – Stanley Kubrick (1956) - Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay is the ultimate badass. He’s tall, tubby and middle-aged, but who the hell cares? He’s the smartest, toughest guy in the room. Seeing the cops get their man in this movie is just heartbreaking.
9 ) Reservoir Dogs – Quentin Tarantino (1992) – The only things I wanted when I saw this film was for Mr. Orange to pull through and for Mr. Pink & Mr. White to find a way to get out of this mess with their hard-earned bag of diamonds. Mr. Blonde, Joe and Nice Guy Eddie, who really cares about them? I just like to tell myself Mr. Pink, in all the shouting and gunshots we hear at the end, managed to blast his way through the cops and get away. Probably not, but still.
8 ) 2,000 Maniacs – Herschell Gordon Lewis (1964) – They’re sadistic, they’re evil and they’re southern, but they are just so damn happy to be killing people, you just want to laugh along with their sick glee. And they dispatch our heroes in such inventive ways, too! (The remake is also more than worth checking out.)
7 ) Serial Mom – John Waters (1994) – Come on, she’s just a protective mother. Somebody hurts her little girl, so she impales him with a fireplace poker and removes his liver. It’s more than fair. Besides, how can you not love a woman who makes prank calls with such a dirty mouth? If only she had gotten her hands on Suzanne Somers in the end.
6 ) Heavenly Creatures – Peter Jackson (1994) – The first two acts of this movie achieve such a sense of wonder and create such a believable bond between these two girls that even when they turn to murder, we don’t want them split up.
5 ) Deconstructing Harry – Woody Allen (1997) – This one is an unusual choice. Horror movie villain? No. Bad guy? The worst kind. Everything Harry Block touches turns sour. He’s a horrible person and he admits it freely. But every time someone yells at him or calls him on his awful, selfish behavior, I kind of want them to back off the poor guy. We’re alone in the universe, are you going to blame that on him, too?
4 ) Scream – Wes Craven (1997) – Officially, I don’t really think of this as a good movie and Skeet is just awful. But tell me the first time you saw this movie, you didn’t want Matthew Lillard’s bug-eyed freakazoid to win the day. I actually left the theater pissed off because the good guys won.
3 ) Sin City - Robert Rodriguez (2005) – Hell, there aren’t any good guys to root for here. Especially Marv. He’s one of the most brutal thugs in film history, but he has a moral code of his own. If you end up on the wrong side of his fist, you probably have it coming. “I love hitmen. No matter what you do to them, you don't feel bad.” The man loves inflicting pain, but he knows the difference between right and wrong and that just makes you want to give the giant ugly son-of-a-bitch a cuddle.
2 ) Arsenic and Old Lace – Frank Capra (1944) – Two compassionate old ladies euthanizing strangers, offering the ultimate cure for their loneliness. I have seen this movie countless times and laugh my ass off every time I watch it. You adore the two balls-out insane old women with Teddy Roosevelt burying ‘yellow fever’ victims.
1 ) The Devil’s Rejects – Rob Zombie (2005) – From the moment Baby Firefly says, “I love you, mama,” as their house is under siege to the end when she’s firing her gun wildly, determined to take as many cops with her as possible, you just can’t hold anything against this girl. Her giggle is just so infectious. She could kill everyone you love and then turn to you and laugh and just make your heart melt. And that’s not the only thing she does with that mouth.
Joshua Lucht is a film critic who reviews for a local media outlet and occasionally has his work syndicated. He has a degree in film from Columbia. After directing several films for festivals, (winning best short at one) sitting on jury panels and writing reviews for shorts and features, he has settled into a life of criticizing the work of others while working on his own small independent and largely unscreened projects. You can read more of his writing at http://theresidentfilmsnob.blogspot.com.
I would have included The Asphalt Jungle in the list. I was rooting for Sterling Hayden and Sam Jaffe to get away.
I think I'd have tried to fit Bonnie and Clyde in there somewhere.
How about Butch & Sundance?
I'm thinking Frankensteins monster...
"Quicksand" with Mickey Rooney
and "Side Street" with Farley Granger...
And then there is the underrated, generally unknown British classic "How to Murder a Rich Uncle" with Nigel Patrick and Charles Coburn. What Patrick doesn't concocte to do the old boy in. But oh how, with brilliant British understatement he asseses each failure. From 1957 and co-starring Wendy Hiller, Anthony Newley and, in a tiny part, Michael Caine. Brilliant!
Don't forget Das Boot. At some point we all wanted the Germans to get back to their submarine base alive .
Personaly, I wanted gangster Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart)in "High Sierra" (and Wes McQueen played by
Joel McCrea in the western re-make "Colorado Territory"); also, Jeff Bailey played by Robert Mitchum in "Out of the Past"; along with Jack Burns played by Kirk Douglas in "Lonely are the Brave"...to somehow make it out alive. Great movies ALL.
many a Vampire - and I know I am not alone on this one. the Frankenstien Monster; Butch & Sundance; DeNiro and Kilmer in Heat - can you believe he got chased down by that scrawny out of shape Pacino??
Speaking of Das Boot - gotta like those wiley Russians that sailed into Cape Cod.
DeNiro in Godfather II
Some of my favorite "Bad Guys": Mel Gibson in "Pay Back" (1999); Wendell B. Harris as 'Douglas Street' in "Chameleon Street" (1989); Karl Malden as the hotel thief in "Hotel" (1967); Robert DeNiro in "The Score" (2001); and Michael Caine in "A Shock to the System" (1990).
Throw Momma from the Train!
Anthony Hopkins in "Fracture"..I was really
rooting for him.
Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra.
Edward G Robinson,Broderick Crawford,and Edward Brophy in Larceny INC.
Three Godfathers(1949)John Wayne,Harry Carey JR,and Pedro Armendariz.
Hapless Al,Tom Neal, who does in the absolute meanest woman ever in a movie, Vera, Ann Savage, should have had the chance to get together with Sue, Claudia Drake in the best Noir film ever DETOUR
I agree with Brian for Bogart in 'High Sierra' and I will add James Cagney in both 'The Roaring 20s' and 'Angels with Dirty Faces'
On the lighter-side..."We're No Angels", 1955, Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov. Gotta love 'em:-)
Fred McMurray in Double Indemnity.
Also, let's not forget the "ladies"..."Thelma & Louise"!
Steve McQueen in Baby The Rain Must Fall and also in Love With The Proper Stranger, atleast the latter had a happy ending.
Alec Guiness in: 'The Lavender Hill Mob'; Jack Hawkins and his friends in: 'The League Of Gentlemen'; various murderers on: 'Perry Mason'.
A couple of guys mentioned them--Bogart in High Sierra and We're No Angels.
Easy; "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn." Kahn Noonein Sing was bad, but. James. Tiberius. Kirk. Was. Worse.
Miss Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer".
Jack Hawkins & co. in 'The League of Gentlemen' A great heist movie. Also The Score & Payback. There's also Heist.
Don't forget The Postman Always Rings Twice....the John Garfield version. He was a right bastard but we wanted him to come out on top in the end????
Like a few others before me said, I'd go with Bogart in "High Sierra", Sterling Hayden and Sam Jaffe in "Asphalt Jungle", and Alec Guiness in "The Lavendar Hill Mob".
How about Peter Lorre in "M"? So he killed some little girls, with a face and voice like that, he was destined to be a serial killer!!! Wink, Wink
"15 minutes" the Russian with the Video camera filming the killing of DeNiro then laterfilming his own death...
What about Cagney in White Heat?? I agree with your assessment of Sterling Hayden in The Killers apart from describing him as tubby...hardly. Maybe out of shape!!!!
And the Oceans' 11; Assualt on a Queen; Does the Dirty Dozen count with a twist? - I mean they were convicted felons. Clooney played a sexy thief in more than one story...
Jason Bourne - was an anit-hero - since he was a volunteer trained killer.
Niven in the Pink Panther - Sellars in After the Fox.
Like a number of other similar root-for-the-bad-guy movie lists I’ve seen, most of the names on this roll call aren’t really villains but anti-heroes — the non-heroic protagonists of their films, characters of moral ambiguity at the center of their stories who elicit mixed emotions from the audience. To me, a true “bad guy” is the antagonist to the protagonist. I’m still waiting for a list like this that roots for characters like Darth Vader, Lex Luthor, Eve Harrington, or Jeff D. Sheldrake.
How about Sinatra and his gang in the original "Ocean's 11", or the crew in "The Dirty Dozen" recruited from prison?
Oh, most definitely Gus Van Sant's remake of PSYCHO.
Never have I wanted more to see a leading lady (Anne Heche) bumped off.
Alan Ladd in "This Gun for Hire."
Believe it or not, but I was pulling for old "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef) at the conclusion of THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY. There were too many comedic episodes with the Eastwood and Wallach characters. The best parts of the film were during Van Cleef's appearances.
Humphrey Bogart in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in "Kiss of Death", Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster in Son of Frankenstein, Lon Chaney Jr. in "Of Mice and Men" and "The Wolfman", Paul Muni in "Scarface", and in "The Valiant".
I agree with (10)RESEVOIR DOGS, (9) THEKILLINH (I like Elisha Cook, Jr.) and (2) Arsenic and Old Lace, but really - the ladies did get away with it, living in a Sanituriam with their brother as they wanted, e.g. they didn't go to jail nor get killed (as we saw).
AS FOR SUGGESTIONS: Agree with Bogie in HIGH SIERRA, love(d) the guys in "WE'RE NO ANGELS", but don't really know where they went after...ended good! (The halo's, perhapss....?)
Also agree w/previous posts:
Sterling Hayden and Sam Jaffe in "Asphalt Jungle", and Alec Guiness in "The Lavendar Hill Mob", "The Postman Always Rings Twice", (John Garfield version), Fred McMurray in "Double Indemnity"and Sinatra and gang in the original OCEAN's 11....re: Cagney in WHITE HEAT? I really don't know, it is hard to say - he WAS mean...but with a "snitch" planted there, it made it hard, but to give up would be a NO-NO, and how could he escape?
This is probably bad, but I wanted ROBERT MITCHUM to get the money in "NIGHT of the HUNTER"! (Then, MAYBE he could repent and donate most of it to a church and/or a plcace for children, like L.Gish in a place, or something to repent for, and become a real preacher??? Would not be the same story, though!)
Also, I would say FARLEY GRANGER really DID get away in the end, though he went through a lot in "SIDE STREET".
(re: "Butch" and "Bonnie/Clyde" were based on true stories, so the endings really had to play out the way they were, though "Hollywoodized". Still, those ARE ones a person would root for.
I could probably think of others, but due to the prod code, many HAD TO GET CAUGHT, which is why I don't put the more rectent ones down.)
BTW - I did think "Mr.Pink" did get away with the diamonds in the end of "RESERVIOR DOGS"? Guess I need to see it again, though saw it recently.
TO ROBB IN LA - don't you think EVE HARRINGTON did win in the end? She got her trophy - just not the other gal's men...George Sanders is no one to turn your nose up at - I would be happy with him. We don't know if or when Phoebe did or didn't make it, but I hope(d) she would play an ingenue with Margo as her mom in the next play Lloyd Richards wrote. My ending to "All About Eve"!
Boetticher and Hitchcock provided some of the screen's most colorful villains; here's some ripe ones off the top of my head I would root for:
James Cagney in WHITE HEAT (Raoul Walsh)
Lee Marvin in SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (Budd Boetticher)
Richard Boone in THE TALL T (Budd Boetticher)
Pernell Roberts in RIDE LONESOME (Budd Boetticher)
Jean Gabin in LA BETE HUMAINE (Jean Renoir)
Randolph Scott in RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (Sam Peckinpah)
Arthur Kennedy in THE MAN FROM LARAMIE and BEND OF THE RIVER (Anthony Mann)
Robert Ryan in CAUGHT (Max Ophuls) and CLASH BY NIGHT (Fritz Lang)
Louis Jourdan in LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (Max Ophuls)
Burt Lancaster in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (Sandy Mackendrick)
Richard Widmark in PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (Sam Fuller)
Claude Rains in NOTORIOUS (Alfred Hitchcock)
Joseph Cotten in SHADOW OF A DOUBT (Alfred Hitchcock)
Robert Walker in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Alfred Hitchcock)
Humphrey Bogart in THE TWO MRS CARROLLS (Peter Godfrey)
I was rooting for Lon Chaneys' Wolf-Man and Also the 2010 remake of the Wolf-Man.
Jack Palance, the leering gun fighter in "Shane".
You can't see enough of him up to his demise.
Lee Van Cleef, as "Angel Eyes", in "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly."
I still have THE POSTER hanging up in my home now, for well over 40 years. It took a dirty trick from the supposedly "Good"
to do him in. I'm STILL rooting for him.
The SKIN JOBS in BLADE RUNNER. Especially Sean Young and Daryl Hannah.
Henry Fonda in "Once Upon a Time in the West". I think that's the one where he played a (very) bad guy. Loved him.