Top 10 Most Iconic Movie Villains of All Time

Heath Ledger's posthumous Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight redefined what a comic book villain could be, delivering anarchic chaos that transcended the genre.

Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor with barely 16 minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs, making the cannibalistic psychiatrist cinema's most chillingly intelligent monster.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named terrorized a generation of readers and moviegoers alike, with Ralph Fiennes bringing serpentine menace to the Harry Potter saga's ultimate evil.

Alan Rickman's suave, sardonic terrorist in Die Hard set the template for every charming action movie villain that followed and made the film a permanent Christmas classic.

Anthony Perkins' boyish motel owner in Hitchcock's Psycho pioneered the modern psychological thriller villain and made audiences terrified of shower curtains for decades.

Josh Brolin's motion-capture performance gave the MCU a villain audiences could almost understand, and the snap heard round the world became a defining moment of 2010s cinema.

Javier Bardem's coin-flipping hitman in No Country for Old Men is cinema's purest embodiment of fate and unstoppable death, earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar with a terrifying haircut.

Louise Fletcher's icily controlling nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest showed that institutional cruelty could be more terrifying than any supernatural threat.

Jeremy Irons voiced Disney's most Shakespearean villain in The Lion King, delivering "Be Prepared" with enough theatrical menace to traumatize an entire generation of children.

Heath Ledger's posthumous Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight redefined what a comic book villain could be, delivering anarchic chaos that transcended the genre.

Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor with barely 16 minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs, making the cannibalistic psychiatrist cinema's most chillingly intelligent monster.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named terrorized a generation of readers and moviegoers alike, with Ralph Fiennes bringing serpentine menace to the Harry Potter saga's ultimate evil.

Alan Rickman's suave, sardonic terrorist in Die Hard set the template for every charming action movie villain that followed and made the film a permanent Christmas classic.

Anthony Perkins' boyish motel owner in Hitchcock's Psycho pioneered the modern psychological thriller villain and made audiences terrified of shower curtains for decades.

Josh Brolin's motion-capture performance gave the MCU a villain audiences could almost understand, and the snap heard round the world became a defining moment of 2010s cinema.

Javier Bardem's coin-flipping hitman in No Country for Old Men is cinema's purest embodiment of fate and unstoppable death, earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar with a terrifying haircut.

Louise Fletcher's icily controlling nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest showed that institutional cruelty could be more terrifying than any supernatural threat.

Jeremy Irons voiced Disney's most Shakespearean villain in The Lion King, delivering "Be Prepared" with enough theatrical menace to traumatize an entire generation of children.