30 Movie Villains Who Should Have Won

Darth Vader

The Villain: Jedi Knight turned Dark Lord of the Sith. A bit wheezy. You know the fella…

Up Against: His wrinkled old employer and his meddlesome son, neither of whom ought to be any match for Lord Vader, but who repeatedly serve as a pair of flies in the ointment.

Unfair Fight: Skywalker spends most of his time mooning around after his sister, whilst Palpatine looks as though a stiff breeze would put him on his backside. Vader on the other hand can choke a man out without lifting a finger. How he doesn’t end up bossing the galaxy is a mystery.

How He Should Have Won: He should have taken the opportunity to bump off both Palpatine and Luke when they were scrapping at the end of Jedi. What sort of super-villain suffers a last-gasp wave of compassion? A soft one, that’s what sort.

Freddy Krueger

The Villain: A kiddie-bothering psychopath who stalks his victims’ dreams from beyond the grave.

Up Against: A troupe of sleep-deprived teenagers.

Unfair Fight: Freddy has a set of knives attached to his fingers, lives in people’s dreams, and crucially, is already dead! His opponents on the other hand are a collection of spotty little oiks with zero combat experience. No contest.

How He Should Have Won: In a way he does, as he never seems to be definitively killed off. But maybe if he stopped horsing around like a panto dame, he’d get through his victims a bit quicker…

Biff Tannen

The Villain: Hill Valley’s resident bully-boy with a distinctly overactive pituitary gland.

Up Against: Gibbering pervert and Mr. Muscle prototype George McFly.

Unfair Fight: Biff has already proven himself to be a total psychopath (note how willing he is to potentially cripple Marty under the wheels of his car!) and towers head and shoulders above George. Yet one punch from McFly knocks him out? And there are no further repercussions? Please.

How He Should Have Won: He should have stayed focused. He takes his eye off the ball and ends up in a heap on the ground. A lifetime of waxing cars awaits…

The Terminator

The Villain: A time-travelling, seemingly indestructible Cyborg boasting the physique of an Austrian bodybuilder.

Up Against: A timid Los Angeles waitress.

Unfair Fight: He’s a robot assassin, created specifically for the task of exterminating humans. She pours cups of coffee for a living. Who’s your money on?

How He Should Have Won: If bumping off a defenceless young woman is too big an ask, why not take her out when she’s a defenceless little girl? He can time-travel remember…

Virgil

The Villain: Hired muscle who enjoys killing people to watch their expression change. Nice fellow.

Up Against: Dainty working-girl Alabama Whitman.

Unfair Fight: She must be giving over a couple of hundred pounds to start with, not to mention the fact that Virgil kills people for a living. Surely even a single punch from one of those ham-fists would put her in a coma for a month?

How He Should Have Won: Maybe giving her a free shot with a corkscrew was a mistake? Just a thought.

Drexl Spivey

The Villain: A murderous pimp with a nasty temper.

Up Against: Clarence Worley, a mild-mannered geek who works in a comic-book store.

Unfair Fight: Clarence has never fired a gun before, whereas Drexl spends his days fraternising with assorted scumbags from the Detroit underworld. He looks on the brink of murder even when he’s smiling.

How He Should Have Won: He should have realised he was living in a Tarantino-penned fantasy land and drawn his gun on every harmless-looking putz who crossed his path.

Agent Smith

The Villain: The nastiest computer software since that aggressive strain of malware we picked up from a “rhythm website”.

Up Against: Mumbling computer geek Keanu Reeves.

Unfair Fight: Agent Smith crushes human upstarts for breakfast. Even if you can match his kung-fu tricksiness, he can just multiply a few more versions of himself as backup. However, since Keanu is some sort of Messiah figure, we guess he was never going to lose. But still…it’s a shame to see such a badass villain wiped out by a “woah, dude”-spouting piece of ply-wood.

How He Should Have Won: He should have brought a hundred versions of himself to the original film, before Neo got all “The One” on his ass.

The Wicked Witch Of The West

The Villain: A green-skinned sorceress with an army of airborne simians at her disposal.

Up Against: A small child and a trio of Village People rejects.

Unfair Fight: Given that the Wicked Witch can perform magic, it seems unacceptable to be defeated by an infant, no matter how distractingly weird her travelling companions are. “I'll get you, my pretty...and your little dog, too!” Big chat, but where’s the follow-through?

How She Should Have Won: Kill Dorothy first, worry about the slippers later. And if you’re allergic to water, don’t keep a bucket of the stuff sitting in your living quarters…

Ivan Drago

The Villain: A soviet block of pure muscle, carved from the excess materials left over from the Iron Curtain.

Up Against: A shambling, washed-up bruiser with a swollen, battle-worn face like a bag of spanners.

Unfair Fight: Did you see what Drago did to Apollo Creed? That’s what you call one-sided. Don’t tell us a bit of woodcutting in Siberia would prepare Balboa for that sort of onslaught.

How He Should Have Won: In the inimitable words of Nick Moran, “don’t touch him up, knock him out!”

Jaws

The Villain: An oversized, metal-toothed henchman boasting a physique that would make Arnie think twice.

Up Against: An ageing, preening Roger Moore, who looks far more at home tackling a three course dinner than a giant assassin.

Unfair Fight: He’s stronger than Bond, meaner than Bond and damn near indestructible. Meanwhile, his opponent perennially has one eye on seducing Barbara Bach, and the other on figuring out his next one-liner. His mind’s not on the job!

How He Should Have Won: If he isn’t going to use those gnashers to bite Moore’s face off, he should stick a gumshield in to ward off the inevitable electrical mishap.