5 Best Movie Villains Of 2025, Ranked

All things considered, 2025 was a pretty good year for movies. Since a great film is all the greater with the right villain, that leaves us plenty of options to choose the best bad guys of 2025 cinema. In narrowing it down to the top five, we must set the criteria for a great villain and ask the right questions.

Compiling the best movie villains of 2025, is a villain worthy of inclusion because their actor delivered an unforgettable performance? Were they a scary presence onscreen? Did they have a valid point/justification to their actions, or did they not and still remain compelling in spite of that? Does their role in the movie say anything at all about the problems and/or real villains we face in the world right now?

The best villains are the ones that tick “yes” in all those categories. Though there were many worthy contenders that could merit an honorable mention, there was never any real doubt for me that it had to be some variation of this line-up.

Yes, there have been many Lex Luthors over the years, from Gene Hackman in the 1978 “Superman” to Clancy Brown’s voiceover in “Superman: The Animated Series.” Yet, already, Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor from James Gunn’s “Superman” feels like one of the best.

“Superman” has been praised for finally getting the titular hero (David Corenswet) back on track in theaters, but the movie accomplishes the same for Lex. Unlike the often buffoonish cinematic Luthors of days past, Hoult’s Lex never forgets to be devious first and foremost. The Lex Luthor of the comics has finally made it to the big screen, because “Superman” runs the gamut of all the types of evildoer Lex has ever been: twisted scientist, billionaire businessman, and a plain old hater.

There’s a tragedy to Lex too, though one entirely of his own making. With all his genius, he could easily change the world for the better; heck, nobody knows that better for him. Instead, he lets jealousy rule him and doesn’t even deny it, because he hates that Superman can change the world more easily than he can. “My envy is a calling,” Lex declares, saying that only by destroying Superman can he save humanity from its own docility and mediocrity. Yet, he only proves that even the world’s smartest man can be small-minded; for all his scheming, Lex, at the end of the day, is just another rich white guy who hates an immigrant.

Until now, no “Avatar” villain has measured up to Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). When the villain is so good you have to bring him back for the sequel, you know you’ve got a winner. But with the third “Avatar” film “Fire and Ash,” writer-director James Cameron has finally found an equal for Quaritch. 

“Fire & Ash” features a new tribe of Na’vi, the Mangkwan, led by the witch Varang (Oona Chaplin). A brutal leader who fights with her soldiers on the frontlines, Varang has a past of hardship: her village was destroyed in a volcanic eruption. But out of fire, new life can emerge, and Varang has rebuilt her people up stronger and harsher than before.

Unlike other Na’vi, Varang shows the ability to control other Pandoran life by interfacing her kuru with theirs. Not that she needs it to get Quaritch on her side. The Colonel is drawn to her power and will, just as Varang is enchanted by the power of guns that create instant death. Varang alone turns this “Avatar” into the kinkiest, most sexually charged blockbuster of 2025. Even if you can’t get behind Varang ideologically, you can still definitely understand how she sways people to fight for her.

“Fire and Ash” never comes more alive than the scene when Varang doses Quaritch; she’s brought him to his knees, but they’re seducing each other. The camera itself frames the scene from Quaritch’s lower POV, as if itself is in awe of Varang’s dominant power. The VFX of the “Avatar” films have been praised to Pandora and back, but the way the motion capture preserves Chaplin’s playful, sinister smirk on Varang’s face might be the best work yet.

The best movies of 2025 shut down any argument that art isn’t political, and there was hardly a more political movie last year than Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” The heroes of the movie are literally leftist revolutionaries, and so the only appropriate villain is an arch-reactionary. Enter Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a bumbling, anti-charismatic, and deeply racist soldier working in immigration enforcement.

Penn’s performance, playing a character built to inspire only mockery and scorn, is a courageous one. But “One Battle After Another” remembers that clownish weirdos like Lockjaw can still be dangerous — just ask the French 75, the revolutionary group who he hunts down and, in some cases, personally murders.

The Colonel wants to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a cabal of powerful white supremacists. Many years ago, though, he had an affair with French 75 soldier Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), and there’s a chance her daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), might be his. Tainting his “purity” like that will prevent him becoming a Christmas Adventurer, so Lockjaw sets out to erase the evidence. Yet, given his goals, Lockjaw’s doggedness only makes him more pathetic in the end.

If there’s another villain Lockjaw reminds me of, it’s Claude Frollo from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” — a bigot who lusts for a brown-skinned woman he deems “inferior” to him. Yet, the movie also shows a key way to defeat white supremacy is to mock it. Lockjaw trying to excuse his affair as being assaulted because “[the enemy] saw the power of my mind and body [and] they desired it” is all the more hilarious because who could desire him?!

There’s few villain archetypes better known than a wicked switch — and “Weapons” may have delivered one of the best cinematic witches since Margaret Hamilton starred in “The Wizard of Oz.” Introduced only halfway through “Weapons” but with a presence felt from the beginning, “Aunt” Gladys Lilly (Amy Madigan) steals the show. Director Zach Cregger has said the movie doesn’t work without Madigan as Gladys, and he should know better than anyone.

Gladys is introduced rather innocuously, strolling into Principal Marcus Miller’s (Benedict Wong) office for a parent-teacher chat, but her aura says “bad news” right off. Her sweet old lady act, from her soft words to her toothy smile to her guilt-hiding laugh, is as fake as her clown-like make-up. That make-up (particularly the smeared red lipstick), mixed with Gladys’ public wardrobe, from her huge glasses to her red wig to her grandma-like necklace and button-downs, are a triumph of costuming. She looks like a demon walking in a mummified corpse, trying and failing to project innocence.

“Weapons” is set in the suburban town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, which suffers a bizarre loss when 17 kids all run away from home one night. It’s Gladys’ doing; sick and dying, she’s moved into the Lillys’ house and summoned (via voodoo dolls) the children to drain their life force. But if you think she’s just desperate to survive, like a wolf that eats a helpless fawn, think again. The first onscreen demonstration of Gladys’ power is when she binds Marcus to her will and makes him murder his husband via repeated headbutts.

We’re still pulling for Madigan to take home an Oscar for playing Gladys, but even if the Academy ignores her and “Weapons,” horror fans for years to come will not.

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is an absolutely remarkable work, and the film of the year, so it’s hard to single out just one thing it does great. Among its sea of accomplishments, it inscribed a new entry into the movie vampire pantheon: Remmick (Jack O’Connell).

A ghoul who’s come all the way from Ireland, Remmick starts building a vampire coven in 1930s Mississippi. He and his vampires lay siege to the opening night of the Smokestack Twins’ (Michael B. Jordan) juke joint, but it’s not just blood that Remmick seeks. He senses that young Sammie’s (Miles Caton) musical talent can transcend time itself, and he covets that talent. 

“I want your stories, and I want your songs. And you’re going to have mine,” Remmick tells Sammie as he prepares to sire him with a vampire’s bite. “You will taste the sweet pain of death, [and] we will make beautiful music together.” 

It’s hard to say what I like more about Remmick: O’Connell’s performance or how the character adds depth to the movie’s themes. The best alignment of the two factors is when Remmick leads his thralls to perform “The Rocky Road to Dublin,” an anthem of his Irish roots and a facsimile of the community he wants back. 

“Sinners” may be set in the Jim Crow South, but it weaves together its story by remembering that, throughout history and across the world, oppressors have taken names besides “Klan” (say, Cromwell). From there, the movie explores the options left to the oppressed; assimilate, separate, or scrape by under the heel. Remmick has chosen the former and, just as “the men who stole [his] father’s land” forced Christianity onto him, now too does he try to bring another community under his will.