The best villains are the one’s you love and hate. There’s a fine line between the two for a reason. Movie villains have come a long way since silver screen vamps, gangsters and homocidal maniacs. Norman Bates in Psycho was a clear cut villain, with little redemptive quality except for maybe having been over-mothered as a youth. Tom Powers was obviously the villain in Public Enemy, always compared with his do-good, fight-for-our-country brother whose job did not include murder and stealing like Tom’s. And Eve Harrington in All About Eve was your typical villain insinuating herself into Margo Channing’s life and manipulating anyone who stood between herself and the fame and fortune she sought desparately. Nowadays, and most fortunately, villainsare more three-dimensional and inspire empathy. Even comic book villains like Magnito from X-Men. Even gangster film villains like Henry Hill and Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas. Movies have come so far that some films are made almost entirely of likeable (not huggable *wink*) villains like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or on some level, Freeway.

Here are some of the best villains I’ve seen in recent years (in no particular order):

• Don (Ben Kingsley), Sexy Beast
  What makes a villain villanous is that he terrifies without much effort. Don does so, leaving Gary and Deedee, his “victims” quaking. I never knew how talented Ben Kingsley was until I saw this film. Don isn’t just a gangster, but crude, unpredictable, and seems to know exactly what to say to get you to do what he wants, not that you have much of a choice.
• Stansfield (Gary Oldman), The Professional
  I love Gary Oldman. I think he is one of the top 5 best actors in films today. He’s the kind of actor who acts and doesn’t perform. You believe he is whomever he plays and that’s the difference between an actor and a film star (Tom Cruise). Granted, his role as Stanfield, the very crooked and cruel cop in The Professional, is not his best, but he was bloody good!
• Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close), Dangerous Liaisons
  I love period pieces. Absolutely love them. Dangerous Liasons with Glenn Close (there are other versions) is one of my favorite because of the story, but mostly because of Glenn Close’s portrayal of the oh so vicious, cunning and yet very human Marquise de Merteuil. She had one of the best monologues in a film:

  “When I came out into society I was 15. I already knew then that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest to me, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learn how to look cheerful while under the table I stuck a fork onto the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with, and in the end it all came down to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die.” (from imdb.com)

• Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), Monster
  Despite being very blonde and very pretty, I like Charlize Theron. I like her ’cause she can actually act and isn’t always just “the woman” in a film. She played Aileen Wuornos, a real life serial killer, very, very well. The movie itself was a glorified lifetime television movie more than a feature film. Not so great. But, Theron made the film because you simpathized with Aileen. She was less to me a villain than a very fucked up person doing almost justifiably bad things. The mark of a great actress is that she can convince you her character’s good no matter what fucked up things she does. Only a handful of actresses and actors can pull this off.
• Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Psycho
  Norman Bates was a sick bastard whose only redeeming quality was that he was emotionally abused as a child by an overbearing mother. At least, that’s his story and it’s hard not to believe given his distrubing attachment to a dead mother. He’s creepy and sad. You feel both empathy and chills. I’d recommend seeing Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake (shot-for-shot) starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore and Viggo Mortensen. A first in American film history, Van Sant’s Psycho is a shot-for-shot remake of the 1960 Hitchcock classic. Some of you might think, what’s the point of that? I say, why the hell not? It’s worth a look.
• Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), Schindler’s List
  He was a despicable character doing despicable things to innocent people who’s only crime was being Jewish. Ralph Fiennes portrayal of Commandant Amon Goeth was impeccable. He was vicious with soft moments. Very human. What can make a villain so terrifying is that you can recognize humanness in him or her. It’s of course scary to recognize ourselves as humans in other people who seem quite inhuman. But, human is not a definitive word. Ralph Fiennes shows us this as Goeth.