O'GRADY FILM

One of the primary thematic questions driving Disney’s recent animated output has been “Where does evil truly reside?” As in real life, the answer isn’t alwa...

In light of the recent controversy surrounding the independently-produced visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club!, I decided to do something I’ve been meanin...

Unlike some Marvel movie fans, I don’t feel that Thor: The Dark World (2013) is a bad film, necessarily. It does, however, suffer from one glaring, nearly fa...

When The Force Awakens was first released one year ago, I sang its praises, but even I had to admit that the film had, for lack of a better term, a “Villain ...

In the weeks since the release of The Force Awakens, I’ve observed two distinct and powerful reactions to the film’s central villainous figure, Kylo Ren. A s...

As played by the incomparable Klaus Kinski, Loco is the definitive Black Hat: cunning as a fox, venomous as a rattlesnake, and dirtier than a rat. And yet… h...

Can true evil exist in the absence of malice? Can a character really be considered a villain if he is incapable of comprehending morality as we understand it...

When you get right down to it, the sadistic sociopath (indirectly) responsible for the creation of the metal-headed hero in Paul Verhoeven’s over-the-top sci...

The dashingly handsome protagonist of Michael Crichton’s 1979 heist movie (played by the always-charismatic Sean Connery) isn’t necessarily evil–he is, after...

Robbery. Rape. Murder. To Alex DeLarge, it all adds up to a day well spent. This common thug with delusions of “culture” loves torturing the weak and innocen...

Played by Orson Welles at his charismatic best, cinema’s most memorable black marketeer manages to charm nearly everyone he encounters–including the viewer (...

When I first learned that a significant number of Shakespeare scholars consider Iago–slimy, scheming, irredeemably evil Iago–the protagonist of Othello, my m...

Of all the henchmen and hired killers buried by suave super-spy James Bond, few are more gleefully sadistic and psychotic than Mister Wint and Mister Kidd. E...

In terms of storytelling, what really defines a character as a villain? His actions? Well, consider Putnam, who spends the entirety of The Wizard (a feature ...

In the process of developing a personality for the charismatic killer in Quentin Tarantino’s throwback to ‘70s low-budget cinema, Kurt Russell drew inspirati...

4. Suganoichi, Blind Menace: Unlike Zatoichi, Shintaro Katsu’s more famous blind masseur, Suganoichi is rotten to the core. As a boy, he takes great pleasure...

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder if Orion. I’ve watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gat...

Few cinematic serial killers ooze calculated creepiness quite like Sir Anthony Hopkins’ “Hannibal the Cannibal.” From the slurping to the sniffing to the spe...

5. Wang Kang, Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman Forget Batman v Superman. In the world of martial arts cinema, this is the gladiator match to end all ot...