What makes a great movie villain?

[wattabrownsound]

Hi.
What would you say are the qualities that make a great villain?

For one, I think a great villain should make the audience not want to be anywhere near them because of what they would do to you like Hannibal Lecter, Jaws, Cujo and Dracula.

 

[Octoberist]

You can't make a villain do 'evil' things and think he's automatically a compelling charaacter.

You need gravity. You need weight. You need CHARISMA and MENACE.

Look at Hans Gruber from Die Hard. The Joker from The Dark Knight. Darth Vader. Where as Jaws and Cujo are more like forces of nature, but you can still feel their presense.

 

[SuperFerret]

Relatability. If the audience can recognize something familiar in the villain, such as a part of themselves or something they want to be, the villain becomes that much more chilling.

Cujo and the shark from Jaws aren't villains, though Cujo fits with the theme of something familiar turned frightening.

 

[Boom]

A great villain is one that brings out the hero's inner demons. One that can get under the hero's skin, and stamp self doubt, confusion, fear, and/or anger into their minds. One that forces the hero to overstep his boundaries.

A great villain has such a commanding presence on screen, that every line is delivered with such tension and suspense that you can help but hold your breath.

 

[Octoberist]

The opposite of the villains from xXx and The Transporter 2.

 

[redhawk23]

A belief in what they are doing. Even when they know what they are doing is terrible, great villians still are comfortable with themselves. the scariest villians are those that to crazy unthinkable things, but are shockingly same. like lector. Hans Landa takes great pride in his traking of Jews. The Joker is simply amused at watching the result of his work.

 

[Wolfwood]

An awesome maniacal laugh really helps.

 

[Lighthouse]

Intelligence.

 

[Spider-Fan]

What makes an effective villain is how well he reflects the themes of the film and adequate opposition for the main character to overcome. There is no right formula for an effective villain outside of good writing. Smart villains won't be the best villain for certain characters. Overtly serious villains won't be good villains for certain films. It all depends on your film's style, atmosphere, themes, and main character. Your villain should be a foil somehow to your main character, so I think you need to first learn who your hero is, and go from there. After that, what is the point of this piece, and what kind of villain best brings out that theme?

 

[Lighthouse]

What makes a great villain? Being two things.

Being Christoper Walken.
Being Christoph Waltz.

 

[:eek:]

Get a good script and a good actor/actress and a good director and you might have something.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

There is no recipe to make a good villain. There never has been. Dr Drakken is a fantastic villain, but he has all the menace and intelliegence of a rubber ducky. Contrast with Johan Liebert from Monster (Or rather, the Monster), the perpetually smiling 20yr old whose entire existence is based around killing and corrupting, simply to prove a point. He's one of the greatest villains too.

The only thing that really makes a great villain really is pulling off successfully what the story demands; be it a hilariously inadquate villain, a vile hateable villain, a lovable magnificent bastard villain, or whatever else.

Also; see Spiderfan's and to a lesser extent Eek's responses.

 

[Spider-Fan]

There is no recipe to make a good villain. There never has been. Dr Drakken is a fantastic villain, but he has all the menace and intelliegence of a rubber ducky. Contrast with Johan Liebert from Monster (Or rather, the Monster), the perpetually smiling 20yr old whose entire existence is based around killing and corrupting, simply to prove a point. He's one of the greatest villains too.

The only thing that really makes a great villain really is pulling off successfully what the story demands; be it a hilariously inadquate villain, a vile hateable villain, a lovable magnificent bastard villain, or whatever else.

I posted something similar

But I completely agree with you. There is no how to book in reality when crafting a villain or film really. It all comes down to story, execution, etc.

 

[8wid]

Antagonist
Evil
Compex background

Win!

 

[Silvermoth]

Hi.
What would you say are the qualities that make a great villain?

Great facial hair like Evil Lincoln.

 

[dark_b]

a white cat

 

[Judge Holden]

I don't think you can really some up what makes a great villain. There is just too many different kinds.

But i always say you know a villain is great when you love to hate them. When no matter what they do, no matter how despicable their actions are... you are just drawn to them.

 

[ttotheusher]

I think one of the better ways to look at how a villain should behave is by Ricardo Montalban; all good villains do villainous things, but think that they are acting for the "right" reasons.

Not true for all villians ever, but certainly a stronger character trait than most.

 

[BlackLantern]

yes, a true believer can sometimes be the best villain

one of my personal favorites is Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) from Tomorrow Never Dies...probably the best Bond villain in the recent era of films, behind Sean Bean

utterly out of his tree, but truly believes he can manipulate the world, start WW3, and cover it all on his media empire

 

[Sentinel X]

Cujo and the shark from Jaws aren't villains

They certainly are. Are you implying that because they are not humans they do not qualify?


ITs hard to say what is a good villain. They work differently for different films. But one of my favorite villains are the ones that are conniving and may even actually seem like they could have possibly been good people when they're really purely evil Ex. Keyzer Soze, Hannibal Lecter, Hans Landa.

 

[S.A.A.D.]

Charisma,writing,and direction are the key. If the quality of them is lackluster, then that villain,whoever it is,has failed or semi failed.

 

[Silvermoth]

a white cat

aw :3

 

[SuperFerret]

They certainly are. Are you implying that because they are not humans they do not qualify?

No, they're not villains because they don't have any malicious intent. The shark is doing what sharks do, eat. And Cujo is a diseased animal who cannot control what happened to him (though I suspect that the movie put more emphasis on the idea of him being kinda possessed).

They're threats and obstacles in the protagonist's way, but they are not actively acting in opposition of the protagonist.

 

[General Vulcun]

Three things for me:

1. They have to be formidable opponent for our hero. The villain's presence and abilities cannot be so out of proportion to our hero that whatever the hero does to combat this villain comes across as a ridiculous reach. They must match each other, but the villain must still be able to give the hero a run for his money. They cannot be dominant in one section of the film and a weakling in another section; he/she must be a constant threat throughout.

2. The villain must be unpredictable. We cannot watch a villain a predict their every move. There's no fear in that, there's no excitement, there's no tension. To have a villain that we can never guess exactly what they will do next creates a lot of tension and fear for our protagonist's life, and maybe even a bit of that in ourselves.

3. The villain cannot be just a physical threat but also psychological threat. It's easy for a villain to kill people with a gun, man a battle ship, or blow up a building and *still* be considered a big threat, but to play around inside our protagonist's head...to make them question themselves, what they belive in, to push them to their limit is the sign of a great villain. Even when the villain is not around or even near the hero, the hero still feels the effect/the presence of the villain, and we see it eat away at the protagonist.

Of those 3, The Joker and Hannibal Lector immediately come mind. Another thing that these 2 have in common that proves, IMO, their greatness as villains is their screen time. For these villains to have between 10-20 minutes of screen time each and *still* have their presence felt for the whole runtime is very impressive.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

one of my personal favorites is Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) from Tomorrow Never Dies...probably the best Bond villain in the recent era of films, behind Sean Bean

utterly out of his tree, but truly believes he can manipulate the world, start WW3, and cover it all on his media empire

Man, Elliot Carver was great. A lot of people dump on Tomorrow Never Dies, and while I don't think its a spectacular Bond film, its very entertaining and Jonathan Pryce is simply perfect as the villain, I don't think many others could have pulled off such enjoyable insanity, ruthlessness and hilarity as well as him; "There's no news, like bad news".

They certainly are. Are you implying that because they are not humans they do not qualify?

They are not villains because they are monsters. They aren't committing evil acts because they have no concept of evil, they are either doing what's natural to them or have been affected somehow, but either way they are running on instinct.