Heroes get all the hype, but deep down, we all love a good villain. I can take or leave the square-jawed boy scout, the do-gooder who gets the girl and saves the day; but the villain is a different kettle of genetically modified laser wielding fish altogether.

Villains have more fun and get most of the best lines. Movie history is littered with fiendish foes, evil overlords and malevolent masterminds we loved to hate. The summer blockbuster is the perfect breeding ground for evildoers and this year’s pageant of box office behemoths provides rich pickings, from robots out for revenge to muggle-hating wizards.

We’ve scoured exotic locations from hollowed-out volcanoes to secret space stations; dodged doomsday devices and nefarious plots, even sat down with some fava beans and nice Chianti; all to bring you the best of the worst.

So sit back, relax and enjoy as we run through the villains that are good at being bad in our list of 50 fiendish movie villains.

50. Dr. Evil (Mike Myers) – Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

If you take all of the ingredients that constitute an evil mastermind and turn them on their head in a comedic bizzaro world, you end up with Mike Myers the crackpot crimelord. He’s the epitome of camp cruelty and the only villain on this list to own a tank of ill-tempered sea bass.

49. Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

There’s a few key characteristics that mark your card as a terrifying movie villain. Cannibalism, a mask made out of human skin and a propensity for slaughtering your victims with a chainsaw are just three of them.

48. Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) – Rocky IV (1985)

He’s 6’5”, 261 pounds and he killed Apollo Creed. Rocky’s hard punching uber-Soviet makes the weight on our villainous countdown.

47. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) – The Matrix (1999)

Hugo Weaving’s virtual villain is the personification of The Man. His bland attire, ruthless precision and belief in the system is the perfect representation of middle-management automata; the real villains of the average moviegoer’s life made flesh for Keanu Reeve’s hero to beat upon before uttering some kind of heart skipping inflection like ‘Whoah’.

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