Top Ten British Movie Villains

Posted on May 9, 2008 by archiearchive FCD

1. Laurence Olivier as Richard III
Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955)
Britain’s greatest actor plays Shakespeare’s misshapen Machiavellian who watches as his plots and schemes fall apart. Olivier brings humanity to history’s favorite hunchback, lifting him beyond caricature to become the definitive wicked uncle.

2. Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
Cushing is synonymous with Hammer horror where, as Dr Frankenstein, his perfect vowels, gaunt profile and twisted genius made him the ultimate evil mastermind. But it was as Princess Leia’s tormentor, Grand Moff Tarkin, in Star Wars that he’ll be best-remembered — and where he was toppled, as the best British villains are, by his own arrogance.

3. Christopher Lee as Dracula
Dracula (Terence Fisher, 195 8)
Cushing’s tall and imposing partner in crime, Christopher Lee was best known as Hammer Horrors’ in-house Dracula. His chilling, sonorous tones were later brought to Hollywood, most notably as treacherous and overreaching power-seeker Saruman in “Lord of the Rings.”

4. Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine
Return of the Jedi (Richard Marguand, 1983)
All the really evil ones in Star Wars speak like British toffs, but it was sadistic, cowled Emperor Palpatine, McDiarmid, with his darkly seductive voice, who stole the show. (Admittedly, the electric blue lightning helped.) A masterclass in ruling through fear and manipulation.

5= Alan Rickman as The Sheriff of Nottingham
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds, 1991)
“Locksley! I’m going to cut your heart out with a spoon!”
The only redeeming feature in Kevin Reynolds’ stocking-stuffed turkey, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham rages in the mire, surrounded, like all the best baddies, by imbeciles. Sorry Al, sometimes life’s just not fair.

5= Basil Rathbone as The Sheriff of Nottingham
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 193 8)
Rathbone shone as the nemesis to Errol Flynn’s swashbucklingly superior Robin Hood. His menacing Gisbourne is a snarling, degenerate, luxuriously garbed coward who’s a dab hand with a sword: the epitome of an overprivileged upbringing?

7. Malcolm McDowell as Alex de Large
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
McDowell’s unsettling turn as Alex in Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” shows that even psychopaths can be alluring. The mascara-loving head Droog is the concentrated essence of the British villain — precociously intelligent, emotionally frozen, sadistic and perverse.

8. Carl Boehm as Mark Lewis
Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
This voyeuristic fear-fest sees Boehm play softly-spoken photographer-cum-murderer Lewis in Michael Powell’s claustrophobic thriller, “Peeping Tom.” Shy, retiring and perverse, was this Freudian portrait hinting at what could lie beneath the famous British stiff upper lip?

9. Ian McKellen as Magneto
X-Men (Bryan Singer, 2000)
McKellen and fellow RSC alumnus, Patrick Stewart, lent gravitas to the entertaining yet ultimately silly X-Men franchise. Only an actor of McKellen’s caliber could utter his lines convincingly while wearing a dorky-looking bowling-ball on his head.

10. Terry-Thomas as Raymond Delauney
School for Scoundrels (Robert Hamer, 1960)
Not a classic villain so much as a cad, Thomas was the template for the lily-livered upper class bounder. Generally found twirling his cigarette holder while charming the ladies — at least, when not swindling, cheating or behaving like an absolute rotter…

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5 Responses to “Top Ten British Movie Villains”

  1. nursemyra, on May 9th, 2008 at 4:40 pm Said:

    Peeping Tom is definitely in my top 50 films of all time

  2. Philipa, on May 9th, 2008 at 5:04 pm Said:

    You forgot Gary Oldman.

    In the Fifth Element? Dracula (like Rickman, Oldman was the only good thing in this turkey), oh crikey there’s a list of baddies that Oldman has played. But the best, and I think one of his best films, is ‘Prick Up Your Ears’ as Joe Orton. Written by Alan Bennet it’s a very powerful film from a strong, tight cast with Alfred molina turning in an equally strong performance. A superb portrayal of the dynamic of a relationship and of selfishness.

  3. archiearchive FCD, on May 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm Said:

    This (and all lists in this series) is CNN produced so I expect it to show extreme cross-pond views and to have little relevance to reality :) Feel free to make suggestions and criticisms. If it reminds you, or any reader of the archive, of good times, it has succeeded.

  4. Puddock, on May 10th, 2008 at 6:45 am Said:

    I had such a crush on Olivier as Richard III!

    Philipa - I agree about Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element - he is a delicious villain.

  5. archiearchive FCD, on May 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am Said:

    Delicious villain? So this is why bad guys get the girl :)

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