The Allure of Anti-Heroes: Movies that Will Have You Rooting for the Bad Guy

Even if they are bad in the movies, it gives us a different pleasure to watch them. In fact, we watch most movies because we want to see them. In this content, we have listed the most loved villains and their movies in the world of cinema.

20. Halloween (1978) - Michael Myers

Fifteen years after killing his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental institution and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again. Myers is one of the most iconic killer characters in Halloween-themed movies. Like many of his horror contemporaries, his influence has waned over the years, but in his original form he can still scare anyone with a sense of wonder.

19. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - T-1000

A cyborg identical to the one that failed to kill Sarah Connor must now protect her 10-year-old teenage son John from a much more advanced and powerful cyborg. When James Cameron was looking for something to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator form, he designed something more complex and brutal. Robert Patrick was the man chosen to play the cunning metal killer, and he took Terminator 2 beyond the original in terms of popularity. Schwarzenegger's version may be famous for never stopping, but Patrick's sneaky shapeshifter is faster than him.

18. A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) - Freddy Krueger

Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth hidden by her parents after she and her friends are haunted in their dreams by the spirit of a knife-gloved serial killer. Freddy Krueger is a chillingly efficient creature with crispy skin and deadly fingers. As Freddy continued to dismember teenagers in their pajamas, he also developed an increasingly demented sense of humor. Freddy became a kind of cute mascot and his appeal grew.

17. Matrix (1999) - Agent Smith

A beautiful woman leads hacker Neo into an eerie underworld, and he discovers the shocking truth. The life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber intelligence. Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, with his perpetually downturned mouth and magnificently furrowed brow, is a ruthless enforcer whose only job is to maintain cold, rigid order. Of course, he's just an AI program in virtual reality designed to keep humanity in a coma. Technically, his files are clearly corrupted, as his 'I hate this place' speech reveals. This is the key to Smith's effectiveness as a villain: He is not only the epitome of an oppressive regime stooge, but also someone who hates his job.

16. Psycho (1960) - Norman Bates

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, escapes and settles in a remote motel run by a young man dominated by his mother. The man behind the woman at the end of the knife in cinema's biggest shower scene is not just a 'bad guy'. He is the first of his cinematic kind: a movie monster that is one hundred percent human. Not a fanged ghost or a hairy monster, but a man so pure-looking that he could walk past anyone right now. It's safe to say that Norman Bates, the hotelier controlled by his mother, was shocking and frightening to audiences in 1960.

15. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)- Palpatine

After the Rebels are brutally defeated by the Empire on the ice planet Hoth, Luke Skywalker begins Jedi training with Yoda. His friends are pursued across the galaxy by Darth Vader and bounty hunter Boba Fett. The first time we meet Palpatine face to face, we recognize him in a heavy robe as black as his soul, with a growling voice.

14. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - Nottingham Sheriff

When Robin Hood faces the tyranny of the Sheriff of Nottingham, he decides to fight back as an outlaw. Alan Rickman plays the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham with great relish. Every sneer, every eye roll, every outburst of rage is a pleasure to watch.

13. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - Nurse Mildred Ratched

In the fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal defends his insanity and is committed to a mental hospital. Here he rallies the frightened patients against the cruel nurse. The coldest of hearts and the hardest of looks, nurse Mildred Ratched is much more than the administrative head of a psychiatric hospital. She uses passive-aggressive repression to efficiently and effectively break the morale of the mentally ill.

12. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - Sauron

A meek Hobbit and eight companions from the Shire embark on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron. In the movie, we see Sauron as a huge, mace-wielding maniac who can defeat entire battalions with a single blow. Even though he loses his physical form, he can enter Frodo's mind every time he touches the ring.

11. The Lord Of The Rings (2001) - Gollum

While Sauron is seen as the main villain of the Middle-earth films, Gollum is a much more sympathetic character. Sauron was evil first and foremost, but Gollum is a lovable creature who is dominated by the power of the One Ring and becomes something more dangerous, but from the moment he comes into contact with it, his mind is shattered and his first impulse is murder.

10. Alien (1979) - The Alien

After investigating an unknown transmission, the crew of a commercial spacecraft encounters a deadly life form - aliens. These are the sentences that best describe Alien, created by Ridley Scott and subsequently used by countless movies, comics and games over the decades: 'The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. It is not clouded by a conscience, remorse or moral delusions.'

9. Harry Potter (2001-2011) - Voldemort

Some say that Voldemort's name was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's character M. Valdemar. In reality, it comes from J.K. Rowling's love of French, which resulted in the nickname meaning 'death flight'. ''I needed a name that evoked both power and exoticism,'' she said in 2009. Voldemort is exotic because he is an eerie mix of man and snake, cut-nosed and cold-blooded. He is also so powerful and his command of dark magic so complete that he can fly without a broomstick. You feel his presence in every shadow on the screen. Whatever his name means, there is a reason no one dares to say it.

8. No Country For Old Men (2007) - Anton Chigurh

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande. When Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, accepted his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2018, he specifically told the Coen brothers that 'that hair is one of the scariest haircuts in history'. In No Country For Old Men, Bardem's extreme evil is very different from other killers. He takes lives or spares them according to the pleasure of flipping a coin, as if his victims were cattle. It's really creepy.

7. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - Kylo Ren

Being part of a movie franchise with names like Palpatine and especially Darth Vader is enough to cause performance anxiety. But Kylo Ren, played so well by Adam Driver, has become far more complex than his initial cynical emo baddie posturing could have been. In just two movies, he has evolved into a driven, deadly character who knows his path and will do anything to achieve victory. Vader blew up planets, took down Obi-Wan

6. Inglourious Basterds (2009) - Hans Landa

Nazis on screen, in movies, are quite different. Psychotic, deranged, cartoonish, or all of the above. But SS Colonel Hans Landa was completely different: Detail-oriented, culturally high-minded; polyglot and unapologetic about his love of fruit pie. He is definitely a psychopath, but he is also soothingly charming, which makes the whole thing that much more disturbing.

5. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) - Hannibal Lecter

While both Brian Cox and Mads Mikkelsen are memorable cannibals, Anthony Hopkins made Hannibal a legend. Most great villains are defined by their actions, but what makes Hopkins so disturbing is his serenity. As he stares at Jodie Foster through the glass, he frightens her with his slowly spoken words. Lecter's horrific actions and language are as violent as a knife or a bullet.

4. Die Hard (1988) - Hans Gruber

During a Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles, a New York police officer tries to rescue his estranged wife and several others taken hostage by terrorists. In the movie, Alan Rickman did something very special by playing Hans Gruber. A cultured, collaborator, able to change the situation and improvise even when his initial plan is compromised by an annoying, barefoot NYPD cop, Gruber inserts himself into cinematic history.

3. The Thor Serisi (2011-2017) - Loki

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Even in the Marvel universe, a place overflowing with memorable, witty heroes, a bad guy has a better chance of being loved. And so it was with the gruff, scheming adopted son of Asgard, played by Tom Hiddleston.

2. Batman (1966) - Joker

From the comic book to the crazy version brought to movie and TV screens by Cesar Romero, the Joker was always a fun figure. Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson were on screen in darker tones in the reinvention of the big screen in 1989. It's not a stretch to argue that he found the perfect form in Chris Nolan and Heath Ledger's Dark Knight. Ledger's Joker is an ugly beauty, a man who will do anything to achieve his goals and, to paraphrase Michael Caine's Alfred, a character who just wants to watch the world burn.

1. The Star Wars (1977) - Darth Vader

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Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, was a Jedi Knight of the Galactic Republic, hero of the Clone Wars and, according to the Jedi prophecies, the Chosen One of the Force. His achievements as a battle commander during the Clone Wars earned him the nickname Fearless Hero. After turning to the dark side of the Force, he became known as Supreme Commander Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and apprentice to Emperor Darth Sidious. He is now the darkest and most evil character in the history of cinema.