00:00Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're ranking antagonist archetypes in film
00:12based on how reliable they are in captivating audiences.
00:15You know what date is on this coin?
00:18No.
00:181958. It's been traveling 22 years to get here, and now it's here, and it's either heads or tails.
00:27Level 1. The Henchman.
00:30Nah. No.
00:32Minions, this handle.
00:34Okay, okay.
00:36Ambitious villains couldn't realize their evil vision without help.
00:40So why are henchmen stereotypically incompetent?
00:43They often just serve action with no backstory, personality, or even individualized wardrobe.
00:49But then there's the likes of the heist crew in Die Hard,
00:52with each member having a unique skill to drive an operation.
00:56Our guy?
00:58Back, you here?
00:59Hello?
00:59The James Bond films further exemplify a sort of henchman hierarchy,
01:04based on characters' personalities, pathos, and novel design.
01:08The recurring Jaws is almost as identifiable with the Roger Moore era as Moore himself.
01:21And although Star Wars is littered with faceless soldiers, consider that Boba Fett and Darth Maul
01:27entered the franchise as enigmatic enforcers.
01:30Their aesthetic and competence were just so intriguing that they became recurring characters,
01:35pop culture icons, and protagonists in spin-offs.
01:38You should never underestimate a henchman, especially when writing one.
01:51Level 2.
01:53The Disturbed.
01:54I want to go home, please.
01:56Please help me.
02:11The
02:12Kathy Bates won an Oscar as unhinged literary fan Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner's Misery.
02:26Kevin Spacey was more reserved, but more brutal as a nameless religious fanatic in David Fincher's
02:32Seven. Of course, the gold standard remains Norman Bates of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho,
02:37who disassociates from his murders with the persona of his late mother.
02:47This terrifying premise inspired not only a franchise, but a whole horror subgenre.
02:53Michael Myers, Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees are just a few slashers who have
02:58haunted audiences for generations. With such superficial madness often comes trashy tension,
03:11but it never fails to tap into audience's paranoia. Level 3. The Criminal
03:18We're not talking about petty hoods. Cinematic criminals are usually cunning in their pursuit
03:24of profit, revenge, or ideology, with ample resources. Real-life gangsters have such
03:29cinematic lives that they frequently inspire fictional villains and biopics.
03:33The only one who could do what I do is me. A lot of people had to die for me
03:40to be me.
03:44Do you want to be me?
03:45But greedy masterminds like Die Hard's Hans Gruber are popcorn fantasies that a hero must
03:51thwart to restore the status quo. Over time, it's become more popular to frame organized crime
03:56within very real systemic or cultural issues. Alonzo Harris of Training Day takes that further
04:03as chief of police who are bigger criminals than the criminals. We often accept criminals as
04:08anti-heroes, if they have enough sympathetic qualities. But why do we accept Tom Ripley,
04:17a protagonist so inexcusable in his bloody schemes that he should be the antagonist? Following the
04:24paradigm that way illustrates why criminals engage us, whether they represent the worst of us or the
04:30idea that anyone can be a criminal. It's too much. You're making all the hairs on my neck stand up.
04:35Level 4. The Authority Figure. Some villains flout the law, and some are the law. These authority
04:42figures weaponize legitimacy, institutions, and protocols toward domination, at best.
04:48Even adults can relate to the disdain for bureaucratic oppressors like Principal Ed Rooney in
04:54Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What is so dangerous about a character like Ferris Bueller is he gives
04:59good kids bad ideas. Last thing I need at this point in my career is 1500 Ferris Bueller disciples
05:06running around these halls. Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest represents stickier
05:12institutional flaws, as she seems reasonably motivated in punishing psychiatric patients' reckless
05:18insubordination. Ultimately, the conflict between order and freedom leads to tragedy. That same
05:29attitude means the same fate for both Private Lawrence and his tormentor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman
05:35in Full Metal Jacket. Never mind totally corrupt tyrants, from Mayor Vaughn in Jaws,
05:48to Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption, whose personal interests harm everyone. Such characters
05:54always represent something bigger than them, but fighting the system is always harder than it looks
05:59in the movies. Level 5. The Monster. There's always the instinctive fear of an opponent that has
06:06no reason, just a drive to survive or simply kill. Such creature feature favorites as the birds,
06:13Jaws, press particularly hard on that fear.
06:22The Jurassic Park franchise reanimated prehistoric monsters as an epic cautionary tale about the perils
06:29of novel science. But not all monsters are of this world. Hollywood's King Kong and Tokyo's Godzilla
06:36built a global industry on paranoia about encountering a beast too big for one person to handle.
06:49And the Alien franchise perfected predatory horror with the Xenomorph, one of the most terrifying
06:55species in film history. Founding director Ridley Scott envisioned a personification of natural
07:09violence that supersedes any human hubris, monster movies offer a healthy, harrowing reminder that
07:15we only think we're at the top of the food chain. Level 6. The Natural. Not all villains are sentient.
07:23Mother Nature will always overpower human endeavor, so her employment as an antagonist forces characters
07:30to rely on a natural capacity for survival and problem solving. Disaster films thrive on immersing
07:44audiences into a simulated catastrophe that tests our will. Be it climate change in The Day After
07:50Tomorrow, the wind in Twisters, or the whole ocean and James Cameron's Titanic. There's no taming this
08:04villain. Our supposed dominion over nature collapses under a conflict that characters merely have to
08:09escape. Even as survival films like Cast Away remove an urgent threat, that goal drives narrative action.
08:25The antagonist in these stories may be abstract, but the challenge in calculating and fighting for
08:31survival hits especially hard. Level 7. The Supernatural. There are other antagonistic forces
08:38that are beyond reason, beyond defeat, and hopefully beyond reality.
08:51Supernatural villains tap into our deepest paranoid imagination by violating physical laws to center
08:57on a story with lore building. Horror films based on demonic possession and folklore further engage
09:03pre-existing cultural connections with religions, myths, and other underlying mysteries. With ghost stories
09:09like the Paranormal Activity series, the suspense is in the mystery itself.
09:20At least we can reason our way around the paranormal tension conjured up by the storyteller's imagination.
09:26When it's applied to HAL 9000 in 2001 A Space Odyssey, or the machines in the Terminator saga,
09:32it's no longer just superstition.
09:41Artificial intelligence villains ground irrational fears of the supernatural with rational anxieties about where
09:48scientific innovation could lead. Level 8. The Nemesis.
09:58One reliable method for crafting an intriguing villain is to mirror the hero.
10:11The way Heat's Neil McCauley and Vincent Hanna operate on either side of the law splinters the character
10:17and philosophy of similarly skilled nemeses. In the case of arch-nemeses, like the deductive genius Sherlock
10:24Holmes and Professor Moriarty, or countless superhero-supervillain pairings, the skills are identical.
10:30So you're not fighting me so much as you are the human condition.
10:37All I want to do is own the bullets and the bandages.
10:41The tragic father-son relationship between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have even been mythologized
10:47as an example of related nemeses being separated only by circumstance.
10:52With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
10:59But with super-strong family man David Dunn and the fragile loner Mr. Glass, M. Night Shyamalan's
11:06Unbreakable explores how villains are complemented by heroes. Nemeses symbolize the yin-yang at the core
11:12of classic storytelling's philosophical intrigue. Never mind the moral intrigue in heroes meeting their match.
11:20Level 9. The Mastermind.
11:23Audiences love a manipulator with complex motivations. Take Ernst Stavro Blofeld,
11:28whose extreme wealth and genius are precisely why he's James Bond's most iconic enemy.
11:34Allow me to introduce myself.
11:38I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
11:42And what unhinged killer could be as compelling as the sophisticatedly nihilistic cannibal Hannibal
11:48Lecter. This template has even given women the edge in regressively gendered storytelling via the
11:54femme fatale.
12:05Indeed, a Mastermind can reach a level of skill, mystery, and philosophical compromise that's
12:11considered evil incarnate. From Sauron in The Lord of the Rings to Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men,
12:17the moralized conflict is plainly turned against destruction for destruction's sake.
12:22You know what date is on this coin?
12:25No?
12:251958. It's been traveling 22 years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails.
12:33Christopher Nolan most notably intellectualizes this trope with the Dark Knight's interpretation
12:39of the Joker. All we ever learn about Batman's disturbed gangster nemesis is that he just wants to
12:45watch the world burn. A good bad guy is never just one thing, but good filmmaking always needs
12:51something for us to root against. What quintessential movie villains do you love to hate? Give us your
12:58analysis in the comments below.
Comments