Who is the greatest fictional villain of all time? We asked our culture experts to weigh in

Tell us who we missed in the comments.

“This night, the land will be stained with the blood of Rohan. March to Helm’s Deep. Leave none alive. To war!” So declares the corrupted wizard Saruman to an army of 10,000 Uruk-Hai from the top of his tower in Isengard, in a rousing speech so terrifying that it brings a single tear to the eye of his sycophantic adviser Gríma Wormtongue. “There will be no dawn for men,” he concludes with wicked implacability.

Portrayed by the late, great English actor Christopher Lee, Saruman the White may not be the primary antagonist in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, but as a power-crazed, bloodthirsty ally of Sauron, he gets my vote for the most thrillingly evil characters in blockbuster history. Whether he’s striding through his dark tower in his long white robes, his pristine platinum mane flowing amid the putrid air of Isengard, peering into far-flung Middle Earth locales using his palantír — those sickeningly long fingernails hovering above the indestructible crystal ball — or simply giving his blessing to freshly-baked Uruk-Hai as they emerge from the muck, Saruman comes off colder than a Misty Mountain snowstorm.

And sure, maybe he lacks the complexity or redeemability of a villain like, say, Stringer Bell, or the inscrutable wickedness of someone like Anton Chigurh, but there is something deeply appealing about the stark simplicity of Lee’s Saruman, and the way he represents the dark side of Tolkien’s Manichean view of morality. — Richie Assaly, Toronto Star

Nobody in their right mind would say that the whale is the hero of “Moby Dick.” So why do some people — at best misinformed, more likely in denial or else severely deranged — sympathize with the Roadrunner, a character who is not only the villain of the Looney Tunes community but also very obviously evil incarnate?

If, like me, you think the indefatigable Wile E. Coyote is one of the great tragic heroes of American popular culture — a canine cousin to Don Quixote on a spiritual quest whose purity is guaranteed by its futility — then the Roadrunner is unambiguously the bad guy in their encounters — a vacuous parody of innocence as elusive, aloof and indifferent to his pursuer’s suffering as the White Whale was to Ahab. But Moby Dick, at least, was mortal, and obeyed the laws of Nature. The Roadrunner, by contrast, is indestructible, evading every trap laid for him in ways that reflect something fundamentally true about the universe, and about our best-laid plans to understand or master it. None of us are apex predators: we’re prey to our own basic instincts, and technology — whether ordered factory-direct from ACME or Apple — only makes things worse.

Let me say, for the record, that I hate the Roadrunner. I also fear, despise, and respect him because, to paraphrase Don Draper on “Mad Men,” I know that he doesn’t think about me at all. — Adam Nayman, writer and movie critic

Sometimes evil wears a house dress.

You think evil seems like too strong a word for Livia Soprano, the mother of mobster Tony in “The Sopranos,” played by the late Nancy Marchand? How about Machiavellian? Narcissistic, conniving and manipulative also fit. It may seem strange to single out a seemingly fragile older woman in a series filled with men who regularly commit ruthless acts of violence, but how many mothers would try to engineer the execution of their son — not once, but twice; remember Artie in the parking lot with the rifle? — because they were annoyed that he moved them into a cushy retirement home?

Livia, that’s who. It’s what gave her the edge over my runner-up, Logan Roy of “Succession.” Father of the year he wasn’t, but at least he never plotted to have his children killed.

Do you remember the smile, the one Livia gave Tony in the hospital after her supposed stroke when he confronted her about the botched hit? It said: “Yeah, I did it, I’m not sorry and there’s nothing you can do about it.” That, my friends, is a villain. — Debra Yeo, Toronto Star 

When Halloween crypt-master Richie Assaly asked us to name our favourite villains, my first instinct was to go high with my low choice. Maybe select a classic Shakespeare baddie, such as the royally conniving Lady Macbeth? Or how about Robert Mitchum’s wonderfully wicked Preacher Harry Powell — based on a real serial killer — in Charles Laughton’s chilling film noir “The Night of the Hunter”? Excellent choices both, but who am I kidding? These villains can’t touch my favourite badass: Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” spy satire series. This pinkie-sucking, cat-stroking megalomaniac — one of several characters played by Mike Myers in the movie — never fails to amuse me and my family

As far as meaty villains in the theatre go, few can beat the titular barber and his sidekick, Mrs. Lovett, from “Sweeney Todd,” the bloody 1979 musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. After all, the conniving tag-team from Victorian-era London kill their victims by slicing their throats, before using them as filling for Mrs. Lovett’s hearty meat pies. (Did I mention that this was a bloody show?)

These two characters, which rank among the greatest roles in the musical theatre canon, have been brought to life by a host of illustrious actors through the ages, including Angela Lansbury and Canadian actor Len Cariou, who both won individual Tonys for their performances.

Sondheim’s operatic score, brooding in its heft yet undercut with some frighteningly dark humour in its lyrics, is the American composer at his most genius. But the most brilliant aspect of this revenge tale is Wheeler’s story, a searing indictment of England’s classism. It’s a testament to his writing that in spite of Todd and Lovett’s horrific deeds, the audience continually roots for them — murder after meat pie after murder. You can’t ask for much more after such a filling theatrical experience. — Joshua Chong, Toronto Star

As social media feeds become clogged with AI-generated slop, you may have found yourself scrolling past fake trailers for a hypothetical “Wes Anderson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’” or “Tim Burton’s ‘Harry Potter.’” By feeding the entirety of an artist’s work into the digital meat-grinder, such digitally rendered slop can feel like “a robot taking your humanity, your soul,” as Burton himself has recently said. That almost-but-not-quite human quality of artificial intelligence becomes unnerving when it dons a human mask. Imagine, then, how our old friend Godzilla must have felt when, in 1974’s “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla,” he was forced to match wits with a mechanical clone of himself. Like most of the kaiju menagerie birthed by Toho Co. Ltd., Mechagodzilla has undergone personality changes over the years (in 2002’s “Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla,” he fought on the side of justice), but to me, he has always been most resonant as a villain, reducing Godzilla, that most expressive of movie monsters, to pure brute force. That’s why I found it inspiring to see Godzilla and his frenemy King Kong team up to teach Mechagodzilla a lesson in 2022’s “Godzilla X Kong.” Sentient beings gotta stick together. — Will Sloan, writer and movie critic

My daughter loves “Paw Patrol,” and I abide it because of Mayor Humdinger. Paw Patrol is a kids show about a group of dogs that solve civic emergencies in Adventure Bay. Most of the trouble is caused by Mayor Humdinger and his crew of kittens. They live in the nearby town of Foggy Bottom, where nothing much happens, except for fog. Despite the gloomy weather (or maybe because of it) Mayor Humdinger has panache. He always wears a plum-coloured suit with tails and a top hat, and he rides around on a motorized cat carrier. If something good is happening in Adventure Bay — a star-gazing event, a friendship celebration, a film festival, he is consumed with jealousy. (Can you blame him?) But instead of asking nicely, he plots, strokes his moustache (classic!) and dispatches his kitties to wreak havoc on Adventure Bay, often destroying large swathes of infrastructure in the process. He never wins, of course, and he’s always a blubbering mess who requires his own emergency rescue. My daughter thinks he’s mean. She doesn’t realize that he is doing all the heavy lifting, while the pups are spouting off tired catchphrases. Mayor Humdinger is a complicated man. He loves cats, his mother, maintaining soft hands, and keeping a scrapbook of “schemes gone wrong.” Mayor Humdinger forever! — Katie Daubs, Toronto Star

Don’t get me wrong, choosing Dolores Umbridge as the “best villain” in no way means I like or respect her. I think she’s one of the most wretched, evil fictional characters I’ve come across in my 26 years. Clad in head-to-toe pink and obsessed with kittens — in an attempt to appear delicate and approachable — she crafts an appearance that’s the exact opposite of her two-faced, patronizing nature.

Growing up watching the “Harry Potter” movies, I developed a greater hatred for Umbridge than I had for Voldemort, who I thought was slightly silly at times on screen (if you know, you know). While most of us haven’t come in contact with a distorted snakelike narcissistic creature like Voldemort, many of us have come across a grown-up who resembled Umbridge, whether in a condescending manner or an instinct for making people miserable for their own pleasure. I won’t forget when she made Harry write lines using the “Blood Quill,” which carved the words, “I must not tell lies” on the back of his hand and used his blood for ink — chilling and just pure evil. — Asma Sahebzada

There are few characters in movies scarier to me than the “Reverend” Harry Powell, played with creepy charisma by Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton’s 1955 masterpiece “The Night of the Hunter.” He enters the film as a menacing voice, singing an old hymn, eventually worming his way into the central family’s life. The whole time, there’s just something off about him, and it’s all the more frightening that only the children seem to notice. When his violent designs are finally manifest, the results are chilling, and even the film’s fairy tale ending can’t quite extinguish the terror. — Corey Atad, writer and movie critic