The 10 Greatest Villains From DC Movies

It is ironic that, in a year where other superhero movies were sidelining supervillains in favour of having the heroes go at it, Suicide Squad put numerous bad guys centre stage. Such a simple yet nifty idea had to come sooner or later - and it made the most sense that it would be DC who got there first. Noting exceptions like Doctor Octopus and Loki, DC movies have generally always produced stronger supervillains than Marvel. But, just who are these great DC movie villains of which we speak? Read on to find out, as we count down the 10 antagonists we most love to hate from DC films – from 1978’s Superman all the way to 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. Also, note that we're only including characters who were the antagonists of their respective films, so the majority of the cast of Suicide Squad do not count. 10) Lex Luthor - Kevin Spacey, Superman Returns With its dreary plot and over-reliance on callbacks to the Christopher Reeve movies, 2006’s Superman Returns was not the revitalization of the Man of Steel that DC were looking for. One thing that did work, however, was Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Unlike the more recent appointment of Jesse Eisenberg in Batman V Superman, Spacey was a natural choice for the role. Though Gene Hackman gave the more iconic performance, Spacey was a fitting replacement and was able to strike a similar balance between ham and menace. Closer to the comics, this Luthor was hellbent on defeating Superman as a means of proving his intellectual prowess. That said, he still shared Hackman’s love of nonsensical schemes to take over the world with real estate. 9) The Penguin - Danny De Vito, Batman Returns There's a reason Christopher Nolan didn’t use The Penguin in his Dark Knight films – he often isn’t the most interesting of Batman villains. That’s not the case with the iteration seen in Batman Returns, however. In fact, he’s probably the most detestable but oddly pitiable of the lot. Thanks to Tim Burton’s gothic direction and a committed performance from the perfectly cast Danny De Vito, Oswald Cobblepot became a literal penguin – a disfigured man warped on the inside, too, from living in the sewers after his high society parents abandoned him. It is thanks to Penguin's layered characterization that he remains a great villain despite having such a goofy plan - attempting to destroy Gotham with kamikaze penguins. 8) Bane – Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises It was never going to be easy to follow on from the incredible performance of the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, but Tom Hardy gave it his best shot as the formidable Bane in the grand finale to the Nolan Batman trilogy. In his own way, he has even seeped into popular culture just as much – though that's mostly due to his unique muffled voice. With his breathing apparatus replacing his Venom superserum, Bane isn’t too close to his comics iteration, but he still retains all his might and fiendish mind. While a late reveal that Bane is a lovesick puppet of Talia Al Ghul feels disingenuous with what had gone on before, the character still stands as one of the toughest of Batman’s foes. Say what you like about the Joker, but he never managed to break the Bat’s back and takeover Gotham city. 7) Ra’s Al Ghul – Liam Neeson, Batman Begins After the cartoonish depths of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman in Batman & Robin, Batman Begins needed a villain with real gravitas to wipe away any lingering bad memories. They definitely made the right move, then, in casting Liam Neeson as one of the most layered Batman villains we've ever seen. Unlike a lot of these entries, Ra’s Al Ghul isn’t a cackling madman but just someone with a slightly different moral outlook than Bruce Wayne. They both want to clear up the corruption of Gotham – it’s just that Ra’s wants to raze it to the ground rather than beat up some criminals. Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow also deserves a shout-out here as well. He might be Batman Begins’ secondary villain, but Murphy makes sure the psychotic psychiatrist is a lot of fun to watch. 6) General Zod - Terence Stamp, Superman II Sorry, Michael Shannon. You might have made a decent stab at the character in 2013’s Man of Steel, but you were never going to meet the towering heights of Terence Stamp’s General Zod from Superman II. In, fact you could say Shannon was kneeling before him. On the page, Zod really had no right to become the terrific villain that he is – it’s all thanks to the British character actor’s performance. What Stamp does brilliantly is to take this incredibly hammy character and play him with all the seriousness and reverence of a Shakespearean villain. It is his scowling intensity and haughty demeanour that makes the originally corny lines work – the apotheosis of which is, of course, the iconic “Kneel before Zod!” 5) Two-Face – Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight While Heath Ledger justifiably gets most of the plaudits for The Dark Knight, it is a shame that the film’s secondary villain doesn’t get the praise he deserves. After the disappointingly cheesy turn of Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever, Aaron Eckhart restores Harvey Dent to the tragic character Two-Face is meant to be. Thanks to Eckhart’s likeable performance as Gotham’s white knight in the movie’s first half, it is all the more dramatic when Dent falls off the deep end by the climax. It was also a stroke of genius to tie the character in with the Joker, as – funnily enough – the two villains are somewhat like two sides of the same coin. Both believe in the random chaos of the world, Two-Face just symbolizes it with his scarred two-headed coin. 4) Lex Luthor – Gene Hackman, Superman 1978’s Superman’s importance in the superhero movie genre cannot be overstated – thanks to it being a mega hit at the time, it paved the way for every subsequent comic book film. As such, its villain should also be recognized for being the first big-screen DC supervillain. Starting a long tradition, Superman featured its biggest star – Oscar-winning Gene Hackman – as our hero’s nemesis Lex Luthor. Naturally, he was brilliant. Smug, vain and surrounding himself with dumb henchman, the character could have been a hammy joke but Hackman brings a steely glint to the part. Though the franchise got worse with each subsequent instalment (and it’s a shame he appeared in the abysmal Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), Hackman’s Luthor still remains one of the most iconic supervillains there is. 3) The Joker – Jack Nicholson, Batman Though a lot of actors were considered for the role of the Clown Prince of Crime in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie, the studio immediately set their sights on Jack Nicholson – and it’s not hard to see why. The man has made a career from playing unhinged maniacs, so he was naturally a terrific Joker. Just as Michael Keaton portrayed the first serious, brooding on-screen Batman, Nicholson’s Joker was the first time the character was presented as the twisted serial killer that fans knew from the comics. Sure, some liberties were taken for the film – like the fact that we find out his pre-Joker identity and, most infamously, his status as the Waynes' killer – but Nicholson’s gimlet-eyed performance has remained evergreen (and white and red and purple). 2) Catwoman – Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns The only character to make it on both this list and our picks for 8 Greatest Female DC Movie Characters, Michelle Pfeiffer is hands-down the best female villain DC’s movies have produced. And if it wasn’t for one even more outstanding character, she would be the best villain period. It’s not easy to be the star of the show when you are sharing the screen with Danny De Vito, Christopher Walken and Batman himself, but Pfeiffer’s Catwoman manages to do it. Apart from the iconic visual of the actress in her stitched-up PVC outfit, the character is a fascinating ticking time bomb – a woman with her psyche split in two between her timid, repressed ego and her highly-sexualised, uninhibited id. It’s too bad the planned spinoff film for Pfeiffer never happened (instead becoming the awful Halle Berry movie). 1) The Joker – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight For the sake of originality we would love to place someone else at the top of this list, but the thing is you just can’t argue with the facts. Heath Ledger’s incandescent turn as the Joker is unquestionably the greatest DC movie villain. And we suspect he will remain so for a long time to come. One of those rare performances that isn’t quite like anything else you’ve seen, Ledger’s much-discussed influences and preparatory practises made his Joker something unique. The script work and costume design are also terrific. On the outside, he’s a washed-out creepy clown from your childhood nightmares, while his acts of thoughtless terrorism and moral dilemmas are enough to chill your adult mind, too. At once, the character is the most disturbing and enticing comic book movie villain ever.