First aired in 1984, Dragon Ball is the oldest series on this list. It enjoyed high popularity during its time, and would later receive two sequels. The revised edition aired today is not as well-known, as newer anime conquer the scene.

Simply put, Dragon Ball and its follow-up series follow the quest of young Gohan to find the seven magic dragon balls, and later to save the world from various foes using super natural powers. During the progress of the series, characters achieve a way to continue to aid their friends after death, even returning to Earth for brief periods of time.

All in all, Dragon Ball is an action packed anime that has somewhat lengthy cycles of fighting. It is especially recommendable for younger viewers, and those who like old style anime.

A recent anime, Black Butler enjoys moderate popularity, which quite frankly it deserves. After the original run was completed in 2009, a second season of the supernatural black comedy was announced.

The story follows the demon Sebastian Michaelis who, through Faustian contract, serves Ciel Phantomhive, a twelve-year-old earl in Victorian England in return for the latter’s soul when he dies. While Sebastian appears the perfect butler who follows his orders completely and utterly, he also has a somewhat sadistic nature, an example being him locking an unwanted guest in a lit oven, or piercing kidnapper’s skulls with normal forks. Due to its dark comedic nature, this anime is definitely worth seeing.

Admittedly, some people may have given this anime a higher rank on the list. The anime is still shown on TV around the world, and its sequel Naruto: Shippuden is equally successful. However, Naruto is aimed at younger ages than most of the other anime on this list (making it somewhat boring for older anime fans), and many of the characters are very stereotypical to shönen manga.

As for the plot, Naruto follows the young ninja Naruto Uzumaki and his friends in their development and journeys as Naruto attempts to become the most recognized ninja in his village. The action/fighting scenes are nicely balanced with comedy scenes, which gives it more balance than Dragon Ball.

Quite frankly, Hellsing is just plain cool. Based on a still-running manga, Hellsing features one arc and several OVAs. Though differing from the manga somewhat in terms of plot, most of the characters are the same.

Hellsing is another supernatural anime. It follows the work of the Hellsing organization, a secretive British organization that destroys vampires with the help of the ancient vampire Alucard. The series shows great action and some suspense. Don’t let the vampire thing turn you off – Hellsing is nothing like a certain teenage romance fad. Let’s just say it’s no match for an invincible double gun carrying vampire with a knack for destroying all those who oppose his superiors.

Elfen Lied is German and literally means “the song of the elves,” giving this anime a peaceful and beautiful sound. However, the first seven minutes of this anime are probably the most brutal in anime history. All in all, this anime is high in brutality and nudity, which is one of the reasons it’s so widely known.

The other reason is, of course, the plot. In the world of Elfen Lied there exists a humanoid species called the Diclonius. They differ from humans in that they have two horns on their heads and varying numbers of invisible arms, called vectors, on their backs. The story focuses on morality, revenge, and identity, among other themes.

The somewhat complex storyline focuses on Lucy, a Diclonius, who escapes from a research facility and is take in by the cousins Khota and Yuka, who protect Lucy and her second personality “Nyu” (like I said, it’s complicated). To get a better idea of this gripping series, I highly recommend you watch it.

This anime is perhaps best known for the OVA “Trust and Betrayal,” which serves as a prequel. Set during the early Meiji period in Japan, Rurouni Kenshin follows Himura Kenshin, a former assassin who now wanders the country and helps those in need in an attempt to atone for the sins he committed as an assassin. The series is of the more dramatic type, showing the consequences of war and the difficulties of those affected by it. There is also comedy, however, keeping the anime from becoming too somber. This deep anime is definitely worth watching.

This still ongoing series differs greatly from number five on this list. It portrays the values of friendship and loyalty alongside action and comedy, with unique characters and amazing character development.

The story focuses on the high school student Ichigo Kurosaki, who is given the powers of a soul reaper to save his family. It is now his job to protect humans and souls alike from hollows. Soon after, however, the reaper who gave him her powers is sentenced to be executed, and Ichigo decides to save her along with his friends. Thus a conspiracy within Soul Society, the land of the dead, is revealed and becomes the main plot line in the series. Sadly, various filler arcs disrupt this plot, making it less enjoyable.

Full Metal Alchemist and its sequel are set in industrialization era Europe, in a parallel world where Alchemy is the highest science. It focuses on morality, friendship and brotherhood, philosophy, and equal trade. The anime features light action, suspense and comedy.

After an attempt to revive their dead mother goes terribly wrong, the young alchemists Edward and Alphonse Elric set off on a quest to re-acquire their lost bodies (Edward has lost an arm and leg, Alphonse his entire body). Along the way they are faced with often morally related difficulties. This sometimes very sad anime will keep you gripped.

One of the longest ongoing anime series, One Piece is a definite must for this list. Sadly most of the early episodes were heavily censored during the making of an English dub by 4kids, though this should not cloud one’s opinion of the original anime.

One Piece follows the quest of seventeen year old Monkey D. Luffy, a boy with supernatural powers gained from eating a magical fruit, who along with his rather ragtag crew, travels the Grand Line in search of One Piece, the ultimate treasure. The plot is beautifully set in an amazing fantasy world, with individual characters and great story arcs.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if I should switch this anime with number two on this list or not. The reason being that they are so very different. Death Note is an amazing suspense Anime, set in modern day Japan. It focuses on the questions of good and bad, of moral and justice. The characters hold a high intellect, and many plot twists make the storyline unpredictable. Three live-action movies were made based on the anime (one of them being a prequel), though they are not nearly as recommendable as the anime.

The story follows high school student Yagami Light, who finds a mysterious notebook, called Death Note, that allows him to kill whoever’s name is written in it. Light uses this notebook to kill prisoners, but the police soon catch wind. The world’s greatest detective, L, and so a suspense packed cat-and-mouse game ensues as each tries to keep one step ahead of the other.

Swedish film Let the Right One In and its American remake Let Me In are a pair of delightful horror/romance films featuring a twelve-year old boy befriending and eventually loving a vampire girl, respectfully named Eli and Abby in the two films. While appearing young due to their immortality and are seemingly innocent, both girls need human blood to live, forcing their guardians to venture out and murder people. This is to be expected of vampires, but without blood, it is implied that the girls have a more bestial side to them. In both films, Eli and Abby are left without blood and are forced to attack people like animals and drain their blood by force. They also show an ability to move at lightning speed and scale buildings and trees easily.

Two particular creepy scenes in both films involve Eli and Abby lapping up spilt blood like a dog when their friend cuts his finger, and when they enter the boy’s apartment uninvited and start bleeding from every orifice until he invites them in. In a surprising turn, it turns out in the novel the films are based on, Eli is in fact a boy who was castrated when he was turned into a vampire. However, this plot point was not passed over into the films.

This poor psychic girl had a rough life living in Silent Hill. Pretty much born and raised by her mother to be a host for an evil god which Alessa would eventually give birth too. Through a traumatizing ritual to impregnate Alessa, she received severe burns, and part of her soul split away to be reborn as baby Cheryl Mason who would have a role to play in future events. Alessa was hidden away in the basement of the local hospital, forced to stay alive due to an incantation put on her by her mother. Wishing to cease to exist and stuck with a dormant unborn god inside her, Alessa’s life has been pretty miserable. Alessa’s suffering and hatred materializes as the shifting worlds of Silent Hill, complete with twisted, inhuman monsters that stalk the streets, representing different parts of Alessa’s psyche.

In the 2006 film, Alessa was considered a demon by her crazy aunt Christabella and burnt alive to “purify” her. And it didn’t help that beforehand, she was bullied by her fellow students and raped by a janitor. Alessa was saved, but ended up in hospital with a charred body and a fury to match. She manifested her anger into Dark Alessa, a burnt, sinister and delightfully creepy incarnation of herself, who engulfed Silent Hill in darkness to punish those who had wronged her. Dark Alessa is a particularly creepy girl who wants nothing more than to exact revenge of her tormentors and dance in their blood. Alessa also frees her goodness as Sharon Da Silva, who is later lured back to Silent Hill to reunite with Dark Alessa. With help from Radha Mitchell’s character, Alessa is able to break into the church of the evil cult who condemned her to exact bloody vengeance upon them.

The iconic daughter of the creepy and kooky Addams Family. In the television show, Wednesday was a friendly, sweet girl whose only oddity was to collect spiders. But her more familiar appearance is a pale-faced, gothic girl who never smiled, had a deadpan attitude, and was obsessed with physically harming or even killing her brother Pugsley. Maybe it was her own way of showing love for her brother. She has a collection of severed dolls heads, and her favorite doll was guillotined by Pugsley. Together, the two kids are quite sadistic, enjoying the misery of others and consider touring graveyards and torturing one another to be fun. Thankfully the Addams Family is a comedy, or Wednesday would have been sent off to the nearest mental hospital years ago, although the ironic thing is she would probably enjoy it.

Alma is a key character in the F.E.A.R. games and the main antagonist and source of the supernatural goings on. While she is quite similar to Samara Morgan in terms of appearance and powers, Alma isn’t stuck in a videotape. In fact she is a constant presence in the video games, appearing to players throughout the games as a disturbing little girl whose face is hidden under black hair. Having powerful psychic powers, Alma can turn her surrounding environment into a warped, hallucinogenic nightmare and possess people. Alessa had a terrible childhood, developing psychic powers from an early age, and spent her life stuck in a laboratory as a lab rat. And then she was forced into a coma, impregnated twice to create super soldiers who become the series’ main hero and secondary antagonist, and she gave birth to both at the ages of 15 and 16, and she eventually died. That was until her psychic energy pretty much resurrected her as a vengeful spirit. And to make matters worse, in the second game she causes more mayhem, appearing as a naked adult woman and rapes Michael Becket to conceive a third child, although the pregnancy only brings her more pain.

Elfen Lied is a heartbreaking, emotional and bloody manga and anime, focusing on a subspecies of humans called Diclonius, notable for having horns and psychic powers which materialize as deadly transparent tendrils called “vectors”. Most of the Diclonius are physically and mentally abused by a research centre which imprisons and tortures Diclonius, removing even their basic human rights on the basis that they are not even humans. As a result, most of the Diclonius are mentally unstable and violent, taking great pleasure in slaughtering humans. Lucy, the main heroine, suffers a lot in the series and makes a gruesome breakout of the research facility using her vectors to slaughter everyone in her path. During her escape, she is hit by a bullet which causes her to develop a second personality named Nyu, who is curious, child-like and has no memories of her other self. When she receives an injury, Lucy returns and resorts to her homicidal ways.

Other Diclonius appear in the series. Nana, younger than Lucy, manages to maintain her sanity thanks to her attachment to scientist Kurama, but ends up getting into a fight with Lucy and has her limbs chopped off. Marika Kurama, Kurama’s biological daughter, is even worse than Lucy. Cute and in a wheelchair, Mariko is deceptively deadly. Trapped in a cramped container with no human contact aside from the voice of a scientist, Mariko is understandably quite psychotic for her young age and uses her twenty-six vectors to maliciously rip people apart for fun. She eventually reunites with her father who was responsible for locking her up, leading to an emotional encounter between father and daughter.

I was unsure whether or not to put Samara Morgan or Sadako Yamamura of The Ring films onto this list. I decided to go with Samara. The iconic stringy haired ghost girl from The Ring lingers in the minds of moviegoers, tossed down a well by her foster mother and rose again as a vengeful spirit haunting a cursed videotape which kills whoever watches it within seven days unless certain conditions are met. The film has audiences sympathize with Samara, until it becomes clear that she is willing to drag the whole world down to hell to make everyone know of her suffering in life and “never sleeps”.

Sadako was good-intentioned and relatively gentle before she turned into a ghost, whilst Samara seemed to be homicidal even when she was an eight year old, willing to murder her parents’ beloved horses just to get their attention. And another creepy factor is that Samara actually torments those who watch her tape, causing them to suffer from realistic hallucinations and nightmares until she crawls out of the nearest TV to scare them to death. While can be speculated that Samara is simply a poor little girl wanting to be loved after being betrayed by three parents, she has a quality of creepiness to her that brings the former theory into question – she wants you to know her suffering and then she wants you dead.

A step up from Samara and Sadako is Kayako Saeki, the terrifying antagonist of The Grudge/Ju-On series by Takashi Shimizu. While Samara has at least some degree of reason to do evil, Kayako is completely consumed by a blind, unending fury. Murdered by her husband Takeo after he discovered she loved their son’s teacher, Kayako, her son Toshio, Takeo himself and the family cat Mar were all killed and their combined rage resurrected them as vengeful ghosts in the form of a curse. Whoever steps into their haunted house becomes part of the curse and will be eventually killed by the ghosts to spread the curse. While in the American films, the curse only spread to those who enter the container of the curse, in the Japanese films the curse was spread from person to person and place to place, even by mere association.

Anyway, the scariest aspect of The Grudge is Kayako herself. Since her ankle and neck were broken by her husband, Kayako can barely walk as a ghost and must crawl her way around, letting out a chilling death rattle with her black hair dangling over her face. She does have an extension of other powers, able to appear as a phantom made of hair, and materializes out of photos and popping up out of nowhere to drag her victims into an unknown oblivion; although in later films, it is revealed that the victims can turn into ghosts themselves to spread the curse. Kayako’s most iconic scene is crawling her way down a staircase to kill, crawling her way out of her own body bag. And the most disturbing thing is that she does this again and again, unable to end the curse and move on.

The Shining is considered one of the greats of horror films, and it is no surprise, with Jack Nicholson’s performance and the numerous iconic images and lines of the film. The Grady twins who appear in the movie give a brief but memorable performance. Nicholson’s son Danny encounters the two girls whilst cycling around the corridors of the Overlook Hotel, standing in the middle of the corridor and invite Danny to play with them. The scene is intercut with shots of the twins lying on the ground in a pool of blood, having actually been hacked to pieces by their father would went mad and killed his family before taking his own life. It is rumored that the way the twins stand side by side is based on the Twins photo by Diane Arbus, although Stanley Kubrick denies this despite studying the works of Arbus including the photo.

A relatively new member of the creepy child family, Yuno Gasai is the lead heroine, if you want to call her that, of the manga Future Diary. The series focuses on Yukiteru Amano, a lonely kid whose cell phone is given the power to predict his future by the resident god of time and space Deus Ex Machina. However, it turns out Yuki and eleven other people are in a survival game where the last man standing will become Deus’ successor. Yuki’s closest ally is Yuno Gasai, who happens to be obsessively, madly in love with him and has been stalking him for a year.

Yuno has two sides to her personality – a relatively normal, sweet side with a strong sense of loyalty and affection towards Yuki; and a psychotic, obsessive, murderous side that has zero empathy and considers anyone who even gets close to Yuki to be a potential threat. She wields knives and axes like a maniac, and seeing her interswitching between cute and psychotic is quite unnerving. Her personality is based on the Japanese character archetype called “Yandere”, a character who has an unhealthy romantic obsession, is violent and mentally unstable. Yuno has a tragic past like most of the characters on this list, and became attached to Yuki through a promise to go stargazing with him by becoming his eventual wife. Yuno’s violent tendencies and seeing how far she will go to protect Yuki make her a compelling character, and definitely one of the most disturbing characters to come from a manga.

At the top of the list is Regan MacNeil, a cute, harmless twelve year old girl. Who is possessed by the devil, better known as the demon called Pazuzu. The Exorcist was one of the most terrifying, and back in the 1970s, controversial horror films. Regan is possessed by Pazuzu and it is up to Father Damien Karras and Father Lankester Merrin to exorcise the demon from her. Linda Blair does a fantastic job as the possessed Regan, although the voice of Pazuzu was done by radio star Mercedes McCambridge. Linda had quite a lot to deal with in the film, not only was she thrown around a lot in stunt work, but the iconic exorcism scenes were shot inside a freezer, with Linda only wearing a nighty

Nevertheless, Regan is a marvelous horror villain even though it is Pazuzu who is in control, because everything she does is creepy and disturbing. Her body slowly undergoes a demonic transformation; she speaks in Latin and curses a lot; able to speak with the voices of the dead; telepathically throw stuff around; and spit out green vomit on characters. But those are just the tip of the scary stuff Regan does. She curses a lot as said before, telling her own mother to molest her and is a shocking scene, stabs herself in the privates with a bloody crucifix. The way she “spider walks” her way down the stairs on her back, and the awesome scene where she spins her head around a full 360 degrees. The exorcism scene is a moment of sheer chills, Regan putting up quite the fight against the two holy men, spitting slime in their face, tormenting Karras with the voice of his late mother, and even faking the release of Regan by floating up into the air and down again.

The only character on this list to originate from a Disneyland attraction, the Phantom is the villain of Disneyland Paris’ version of the Haunted Mansion, Phantom Manor. A mysterious spirit of malicious intent, the Phantom turned the Ravenswood Manor into his own ghostly retreat, inviting nine hundred and ninety eight others ghosts to live with him. He even hung the fiancé of bribe-to-be Melanie Ravenswood, who wandered into the manor in search of her lover until she died. It is speculated that the Phantom is actually Melanie’s father who returned from the grave to prevent his daughter from getting married and leaving the family home. The Phantom’s most distinct feature is his chilling laugh, performed by Vincent Price, who was meant to narrate the Phantom Manor’s spiel, but it was replaced with a French-narrated one.

Out of all of the Disney villains, Sykes is one you would find in real life. Sykes is a ruthless loan shark and only cares for money. He gave money to Fagin and his band of dogs, but coldly wants his cash back. Granted that is the purpose of a loan shark, but Sykes is pretty much willing to kill Fagin if it means getting his money back. He eventually learns of Oliver and his new owner Jenny, Sykes kidnapping her and holding her for ransom. Oliver, Fagin and the dogs manage to rescue Jenny, but then Sykes goes on a suicidal and frightfully startling rampage to get her back. He ends up killing his own guard dogs, wrecks his car, chases the heroes on electrified subway rails, and eventually meets his doom when he is pulverized by a train. He does not say a word during the climatic chase; his actions alone prove just how crazy and determined he was to get what he wanted.

Pixar’s first film Toy Story did not need an evil sorceress, pirate, sea witch or wicked stepmother to act as the antagonist, but rather a toy-destroying bully named Sid. One of the worst nightmares for a toy, Sid gets a thrill out of blowing up toys and turning those he has into mismatched mutants. Among his victims is a Combat Carl who is blown to smithereens by a stick of dynamite, and Buzz Lightyear is strapped to a miniature rocket. The most disturbing thing is that Sid’s mother does not really seem bothered that her son has got his hands on dynamite and an exploding rocket. Woody rallies the mutant toys to stand up to Sid and remind him what the purpose of a toy is – by terrifying him. Although Woody’s actions could have left Sid mentally scarred, it seemed he came out alright, since he cameos in Toy Story 3 as a garbageman. Who knows what might have happened if Woody had not scared Sid. He might have started harming animals, or even people.

Starting off as another troubled kid thanks to his rejection by his idol Mr. Incredible, Syndrome grew to despise superheroes and became an ingenious supervillain himself. Creating numerous gadgets like a device able to fire zero-point energy and rocket boots, Syndrome used them for evil and murdered a dozen or so superheroes to test out his giant robot, even challenging Mr. Incredible. His ultimate goal was to remove the very meaning of a superhero by pretending to be one at first and then selling his gadgets to the public, so they can become superheroes themselves, to the point that everyone is the same and not “super” anymore. Syndrome is a very twisted villain, more than willing to blow up Mr. Incredible’s family and kidnap his youngest child just to see him suffer. Perhaps if Mr. Incredible has been kinder to Syndrome, he would have turned out all right and become a better person.

One of the leading antagonists on Disney’s Gargoyles, David Xanatos is an eccentric billionaire who moves an ancient Scottish castle to the top of a skyscraper to awaken the slumbering Gargoyles. He really seeks immortality, and is an intelligent genius and a master of making gambles. He is ruthless and amoral, but is smart enough not to make mistakes, considering vengeance pointless and even tries to look on the brighter side of his defeats. Xanatos eventually falls in love, gets married and has a son, who is saved by his nemesis Goliath, causing Xanatos to drop his feud with the Gargoyles, becoming their ally, and allowing them back into their ancestral castle.

Long John Silver has appeared in several of Disney’s adaptations of Treasure Island, but appeared as a cyborg in Treasure Planet, the ambitious sci-fi take on the classic novel. Like other portrayals, Silver is the cook of the ship bound for Treasure Island with the goal of seizing Captain Flint’s treasure. However, this Silver forms a memorable and touching bond with Jim Hawkins, acting as a father figure to him after his distant father abandoned his family. Silver is really more of an anti-hero than a true villain, but he was added to the list for his development as a character, willing to throw his fortune away to save Jim, and was one of the most memorable characters created by Disney during the 2000s.

After Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa, Davy Jones is by far the most iconic character in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Sporting a beard of squirming tentacles, a lobster claw for an arm and walking on a “peg leg” made from a crab’s leg, Jones really leaves a lasting impression in Dead Man’s Chest. Carving his own heart out after being betrayed by his lover Calypso, Davy Jones became pretty much the Grim Reaper of the seas, turning his ship the Flying Dutchman and his crew into fish monsters and shanghaiing sailors into his crew for one hundred years of servitude. All those who defy Davy Jones were killed by his pet, the Kraken. Bill Nighy did a fantastical performance, and it was a surprise to many when it turned out Nighy’s “makeup” was actually computer-generated. Overall, Jones is a fantastic villain, but a tragic one at heart, and he knows how far he has fallen and cannot seek salvation.

Pete’s Dragon, which seems to be a forgotten classic of Disney’s live action/animated films, has a number of memorable characters like the drunken, panicky Lampy and his daughter Nora who sang the lovely “Candle on the Water,” but the best character is Dr. Terminus. A charismatic, colorfully dressed quack doctor, Dr. Terminus and his assistant Hoagy come to the town of Passamaquoddy to give the townsfolk wacky health cures for money, a daunting challenge since they were chased out of town last time. Dr. Terminus is great fun, and his numerous cures are imaginative if not deadly. At first skeptical to the possibility of the dragon Elliot, Dr. Terminus decides to chop up Elliot and sell off his body parts to make amazing cures and become rich. Jim Dale gives a memorable and hilarious performance, not to mention he’s got one of the best entrances and exits of a Disney villain ever.

One of the scariest villains to come from the House of Mouse, I failed to put the Horned King in my Top 10 Terrifying Disney Monsters, so I added him to this list. A demonic skeleton king, the Horned King seeks to resurrect his undead army using the Black Cauldron. He is completely focused on his goal and has no time to banter with his minions or have a villain song. But he does need them because his mere presence makes him an awesome villain. John Hurt gives an eerie performance, and although The Black Cauldron is often criticized, the Horned King is definitively one of the highlights of the film.

This list started with Vincent Price, and it ends with him as well. Professor Ratigan is often left out of the most popular of the Disney villains and he really deserves to be in the inner circle. Based on Professor Moriarty, Ratigan is a magnificent villain. Intelligent, funny, suave and downright bonkers, Ratigan wants to take control of the British monarchy and outwit his arch enemy Basil of Baker Street. It is great fun watching Ratigan, but beneath his charismatic and funny exterior is a mad, raging beast wanting to get out and seeing him pretty much have a full blown meltdown every time he is called a rat is quite unnerving. Eventually when Basil foils his plans, Ratigan finally snaps and reveals his feral self, and seeing him charging his way through Big Ben to murder his nemesis is a truly nightmarish sight to behold. Professor Ratigan truly earns the title of “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind.”

Bart: I don’t want a new dog. I want Santa’s Little Helper!
Homer: Well, crying isn’t gonna bring him back, unless your tears smell like dog food. So you can either sit there crying and eating can after can of dog food until your tears smell enough like dog food to make your dog come back or you can go out there and find your dog… Rats, I almost had him eating dog food.

Groundskeeper Willie: It won’t last. Brothers and sisters are natural enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!
Principal Skinner: You Scots sure are a contentious people.
Willie: You just made an enemy for life!

Mr. Burns: Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she’s losing. Well I say ‘hard cheese.’

Grandpa: Metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogs-head and that’s the way I likes it! (In real terms, that’s 0.8m per litre.)

Homer: Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals … except the weasel.

Homer: Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.

Homer: I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman.

Homer: Books are useless! I only ever read one book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin… but what good does that do me?

Mr. Burns: I’ll keep it short and sweet. Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. When opportunity knocks, you don’t want to be driving to a maternity hospital or sitting in some phony-baloney church. [Narrows eyes] Or synagogue.

Kent Brockman: Things aren’t as happy as they used to be down here at the unemployment office. Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors. Useful people are starting to feel the pinch.

Sideshow Bob: Your guilty consciences may make you vote Democratic, but secretly you all yearn for a Republican president to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king!

Homer: Now son, on your first day of school, I’d like to pass along the words of advice my father gave me. [Thinks of Grandpa’s advice]
Young Grandpa: Homer, you’re as dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it!
Homer: Lousy traumatic childhood.

Marge: Well, did you call one of your friends?
Lisa: Hah! These are my only friends [Holds up books]: grown up nerds like Gore Vidal, and even he’s kissed more boys than I ever will.
Marge: Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls.

Rev. Lovejoy: [preaching against the Movementarians] This so called “new religion” is nothing more than a bunch of weird rituals designed to take away the money of fools. Now, let’s say the Lord’s Prayer 40 times, but first let’s pass the collection plate.

Skinner: And, for the first time ever, our computer lab actually has a computer in it.
[Ralph is sitting at their newly installed computer]
Ralph: Hi, Lisa! Hi, Super Nintendo Chalmers! [He types "cat," which prompts a "meow" sound from the computer] I’m learn-ding.

Lisa: Do we have any food that wasn’t brutally slaughtered?
Homer: Well I think the veal died of loneliness.

[There is a fire in Principal Skinner’s kitchen]
Superintendant Chalmers: Good Lord, what is happening in there?
Principal Skinner: The Aurora Borealis?
Superintendant Chalmers: The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?
Principal Skinner: Yes.
Superintendant Chalmers: May I see it?
Principal Skinner: No.

Homer: You’ll have to speak up, I’m wearing a towel.

Homer: I have three kids and no money. Why can’t I have no kids and three money?

Homer: Alcohol, the cause of, and the solution to, all of life’s problems.

Punch-Drunk Love is a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler. Hold on, hold on. It’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will be Blood) and Sandler portrays his character as a realistic version of his Happy Gilmore self. Instead of the whole world being his playground and accepting of his reckless and selfless behavior he’s now a mentally-unstable man who’s desperately alone and afraid. We’ve seen Sandler act mean before this but never in such a spiteful and hurtful way. It’s this side to him that makes the later part of the film work, where he meets a woman who balances him out and he finds something to care about and fight for. Sandler gives a performance that surprised everybody and makes his current film roles even more of a disappointment.

While not a strict drama, it’s Wilson’s performance that has a lot of depth too it. It’s also not his first ‘serious’ role, as he’s been in Behind Enemy Lines and The Haunting, but those were before he became typecast as the reliable funny man. Wilson plays one of three brothers (the other two being Adrian Brody and Jason Schwartzman) on a train traveling across India. Along the way the estranged brothers grow closer and begin to bond, opening up old wounds and burying various hatchets. The most interesting thing about Francis, Wilson’s character, is (spoiler alert) that his character is wearing bandages because of a suicide attempt and this film came out after Wilson himself had attempted suicide. It adds a certain sadness to the character, who wants to atone for opportunities and has a new appreciation of life. Wilson plays it much more quiet than usual and gives the character meaning.

Alright, this may be considered cheating, because Louis C.K.’s Louie is a reflection of Louis’ real life and is intended as a comedy. The thing is though, anyone who’s watched the show knows that it’s more than that. It does have many funny moments (Louis’ deconstruction of a heckler and the numerous standup segments that open and close the show) but there are just as many serious moments (Louis’ conversation with a friend who’s made up his mind about killing himself, and protecting his daughters from two Halloween thugs) so it’s a definite genre mix. We’ve seen in Louis’ standup he’s a man of deep thought and honesty but seeing him portray a character, even one based off himself, who’s such an everyday man with the same hopes and despairs and wants and needs of the average person is refreshing because we don’t get the lighthearted fictional worlds of happiness and sunshine we see in normal shows.

Patton Oswalt is an overweight nerd. That’s not an insult, because I’m pretty sure that’s how Oswalt would describe himself. He has numerous routines on Star Wars and video games and he’s always happy and jovial. That’s what makes Big Fan so shocking. In it, Oswalt is a lonely, massive sports nut who spots his favorite player and ends up following him into a night club. When he finally approaches him, the sports star is violent and angry, and thinking Oswalt is stalking him, beats him half to death. What follows is Oswalt’s mental health slowly slipping, as he refuses to sue the player and takes the blame for the incident. His few friends ostracize him as he begins to have outbursts and eventually heads to a rival teams sports-bar where he confronts another huge sports nut and this is where we see him fully break down. I won’t say what happens but the character is given a lot of depth and we’re able to easily sympathize with somebody who we shouldn’t much care for. It’s a remarkable performance by a comedian who spends a lot of time providing voices for silly cartoons.

Will Ferrel, for most of his career previous and post this film, has played a petulant man-child. It’s this odd role of his that stands out after a series of comedies where he largely played the same character. In this film by Marc Forster, Ferrel plays an IRS agent whose life begins to be narrated by an author played by Emma Thompson. In the midst of this existential crisis, Ferrel falls for a woman who he’s audited, Maggie Gyllenhaal and finding that Thompson’s characters are always killed in the end, decides to live life to the fullest. There’s a gravity to Ferrel’s performance that we don’t see often, in comedians or elsewhere. He’s a man of routine that seems hollow, but once given a reason to live, is shown to be full of heart and hope.

Again, this could be argued as cheating, due to Reynolds not strictly being a comedian, but largely his roles are of a funny, fast-talking wise guy. Buried, an experimental film by Rodrigo Cortés, places Reynolds in a coffin for an hour and a half. That is the entire movie. One actor, one location. It would take a great actor to really pull us in and keep us engrossed, and when thinking of that actor, Van Wilder does not come to mind. Yet Reynolds pulls it off. He’s able to emote easily though bodily language and his eyes, and we hear the desperation and strain in his voice as the movie continues and we find out more about why he was buried alive. It’s a very different movie, not just for him but as a whole, with its focus on camera shots and atmosphere. Reynolds is not a hero, a badass, a funny man, or anything like we’ve seen of him before. He’s a man who’s in a very dangerous situation, scared, confused, and alone, and we’re able to feel this.

Michael Keaton, before Batman, did have some dramatic roles. None of them were a huge success, though, and it was the comedies he starred in that really put him on the map. Maybe that was why, when he was announced as Batman, that fans were very upset. They didn’t think Beetlejuice or Mr. Mom could ever be the dark, brooding protector of Gotham. Yet, like Heath Ledger many years later, their mouths were shut. Keaton and director Tim Burton brought something new to the Dark Knight. Instead of the camp and lighthearted silliness of the Adam West era, this new Batman was full of dark imagery and adult themes, and drove home the villainy of his foes and the heroism of the Batman. Keaton, as Bruce Wayne, played the role similar to Christian Bale – he was a womanizer and a partier, but unlike Bale, who’s Wayne was over the top and loud, Keaton’s was more easily seen as a projection and a show when looked upon closely. As Batman, he had the right sense of confidence, anger, and vengeance needed to make a convincing hero full of confliction and mixed emotion.

Robin Williams started out as a comedian who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and say whatever the hell he wanted to say. This confidence added with his manic comedic ability landed him various parts in film and television, where he began to be used for the same role over and over. Unlike other actors, he took offense to this. He was an actor and he would prove it. Williams began taking heavier roles in dramas, going from Mork and Mindy to Deat Poets Society, from Popeye to Awakenings. More and more, this type of work began to balance his equally large comedic background. That’s why I found it hard to choose one film to showcase his dramatic talent. One Hour Photo, directed by Mark Romanek, is the role that Williams fully loses himself in. It’s a complete transformation and that’s why I chose it. In it, he plays a depressed, lonely, mentally-ill photo technician who, over the years, develops film rolls for a growing family. He sees the young couple grow from naive young adults to full fledged parents, all in a large span of pictures. Growing attached to them, he begins to wish to be a part of their family and becomes obsessed with them. Williams completely embodies this character. We don’t know if he’ll implode or explode, but we know he’s on the edge. We still feel feel for him, though. He’s an old man who we can tell has been hurt and all he wants is acceptance. It’s a mesmerizing role by an actor who seems to have infinite range.

Jim Carrey, much like Will Ferrel and Adam Sandler, is popular for a certain type of role. A goofy, over-the-top, scenery chewing madman. It was completely surprising when The Truman Show hit, and we saw a whole new side of him. There was potential. Man on the Moon came out and we saw even more. Eventually The Majestic was released, and while not a perfect movie, showed even more of the Jim Carrey hiding behind a mask of tomfoolery. It wasn’t until the Michael Gondry-directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hit theaters that we saw Carrey’s full potential. Playing a man who comes out of a disastrous relationship and goes through an operation to have the girl erased from his memory only to find, at the last moment, that he wishes to keep these memories, Carrey is unlike we’ve ever seen him. His character is a shell of his former self, a former self who was never that happy in the first place. He’s socially awkward, alone, weird, and prone to puppy love. He’s needy but he’s been hurt, leaving him a constant state of relationship paranoia. We feel everything Carrey does as he travels through his memories and we see snippets of his best moments and his worst. We root for him, because in some way or another, we can all relate. Even in the end, and spoiler alerts here, where Clementine (Kate Winslet) and him realize their relationship will never work, his shrug and words of “OK…” are heartbreaking, because we know they’ll try again and fail, but even with that knowledge, we hope it’ll work, because they only have each other. Carrey shows all of this in his performance with a sense of innocence and humanity. It’s a very subtle role, a far cry from his early days as an attention seeking clown.

Was there really any other choice? Bill Murray, along with Robin Williams, are the two actors who comes to mind when you think of a comedian playing it serious. Murray has a long list of comedic vehicles, and his typecast, while growing more droll in recent years, has been that of a sarcastic, bitter, asshole. The most obvious choice for a serious role of his is Lost in Translation, but while Murray is excellent in it, there isn’t much range shown. Broken Flowers, I feel, shows more of what Murray is capable of. After getting a letter informing he has a son, Murray travels across the country to find former lovers to see who sent the letter. The character is a womanizer who’s found himself solitary, with few friends and a pessimistic outlook on everything. As he visits various past flames we see him realize that the common denominator is him. He’s not a good guy and he wrestles with this, and eventually decides that the idea of being a father might be exactly what he was looking for. At the end of the film, his search is fruitless and when he comes home, he has a conversation with a drifter who he thinks is his son, but comes on too strong and the young man flees. Murray chases after him but ends up in the middle of a literal crossroads, where he sees another teenager drive by listening to the music Murray listens to. A vivid emotion of acceptance and hopelessness crosses his face as his past has caught up to him and the bridges he’s burnt leave him nowhere. It’s a role that seems to reflect Murray’s own personal life, and it comes across as semi-biographical. There’s a ton of emotion in his performance and we see the gradual changes in his perspective and feeling. It’s a marvelous job by one of the funniest, most genuine, hard-working men in Hollywood.

Everyone knows the story of Batman: the boy who watched his parents gunned down by a low-life criminal, and declared his lifelong battle against the forces of crime, to make sure no one ever had to suffer through what he had. Prometheus is an inverted case. The son of two criminal hippies, Prometheus (we never learn his real name), traveled the country with his parents for years until law enforcement agents cornered the three of them, and shot his parents down in front of his eyes. Prometheus’s hair turned white due to the trauma, and declared that he would spend his life battling the forces of justice. While Prometheus doesn’t have the most prolific record in supervillain history (he did come close to defeating the JLA once, and then later appeared in the awful Cry for Justice mini-series), his story serves as a reflection of the “Why?” in super-hero stories. Prometheus views the forces of justice as an oppressor, who reign an iron fist down on people like his parents, who in his eyes, weren’t doing anything wrong. It is very much a case of nature vs. nurture, and perhaps in an alternate reality, Prometheus could have been a great hero.

From the panels of Alan Moore’s acclaimed graphic novel on the nature of the superhero itself, Adrian Veidt is a manipulator to put Svengali to shame. Once a member of the Watchmen, Veidt was known as Ozymandias, and was considered to be the smartest man in the world. The novel itself details Veidt’s retirement from ‘costumed-adventuring’ like the other members of the team, along with the revelation that the murders that have been occurring were directed by him. At the end of the book, Veidt nukes New York City, in order to unite the world (in the midst of a cold war) against a false alien menace. While Ozymandias may have more of a superiority complex then a desire to truly do good to the world (it’s a deep novel), he is nonetheless, believing that he is doing the right thing. Veidt desires not power, not wealth, but simply peace, and is willing to cross the line to obtain it. And, while his plan is certainly full of holes for someone who claims to the be world’s smartest man, Veidt is a reflection of what someone with that much power could do in the real world, all in the name of peace & justice. It’s difficult to explain, but read Watchmen and you’ll see that nothing is black and white.

Dr. Curt Connors began as Peter Parker’s friend and fellow scientist, until experimenting with lizard DNA in an attempt to regrow his amputated arm had a horrible side effect. Connors became the Lizard, and repeated an endless pattern of trying to keep his alternate personality under control, losing it, and having Spider-Man develop a temporary cure. There is little room to indict on Connors predicament, as he is very much a victim of his own sensible ambitions. He is Spider-Man’s friend, and has helped him scientifically on numerous occasions, cursed with a violent altar-ego he can’t control. He’s lost his humanity, his career, his family, all over an attempt at regaining something he lost. The Joker once said that all it takes to drive a person insane is one bad day. Curt Connors has been living with the results of that day for his entire continuity.

Don’t let Arnold’s performance as this great villain in Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin” fool you; Mr. Freeze is a tragic villain if there ever was one. He began as a gimmick-based villain during the Silver Age of Comics. It wasn’t until Paul Dini, co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series imagined a new form for the character, that he truly got a chance to shine. In the episode “Heart of Ice” Batman faces Mr. Freeze for the first time, when Freeze launched ice-based attacks on divisions of a Gotham based company. Batman then discovered that Freeze began life as Dr. Victor Fries, a scientist who specialized in cryogenics. Fries’ wife, Nora, had contracted a terminal disease, and Fries, using money he had embezzled from a science experiment the company had hired him for, cryogenically froze her so that he could search for a cure while she waited. After going over-budget, the CEO discovers Fries’ embezzlement and pulls the plug on Nora, leaving her to die from her illness. When Fries tries to stop him, he gets knocked into a bunch of chemicals, which leave him in a state where his body cannot survive out of sub-zero temperatures, hence the freeze suit. “Heart of Ice” went on to win an Emmy and has had its story adapted into mainstream Batman continuity. Now, Mr. Freeze is the tragic villain in Batman’s rogues gallery, always working alone and wanting to spread cold and despair onto all those he encounters, especially the man who ruined his chance for revenge against those who killed his wife: Batman.

Depending on who you’re talking to, Bizarro is either an imperfect clone of Superman, or a reversed version of Superman from another world. The one thing that is consistent is that Bizarro is the 10-year-old with issues in DC’s supervillain lineup. Bizarro’s intelligence is that of someone under ten, with all the powers of Superman, and spends his time either being used by other, smarter super-villains (Lex Luthor, The Joker, etc.) or just getting angry and fighting Superman. But, at heart, Bizarro just wants to be like Superman, albeit in his own, inverted way. He can’t control his powers, he’s too dumb to truly discern right from wrong, and uses his powers as an outlet for anger and frustration that he himself can’t fully understand. It’s almost like Bizarro was constructed as a massive manipulation tool for readers’ sympathies.

Another character brought to us from Batman: The Animated Series, and created by Paul Dini. Dr. Harleen Quinzel was an intern at Arkham Asylum, who attempted to get inside the mind of the Joker so she could write a tell all book on the subject. What emerged was “Silence of the Lambs” if Jodie Foster hadn’t matched Hannibal in intelligence. By trying to get inside Joker’s mind, Joker got into the good doctors, and she ended up falling for him, and becoming his sidekick and girlfriend, Harley Quinn (get it?). She’s been adapted into the comics, where she’s become a fan favorite, and is always involved in some sort of on-again off-again relationship with The Joker. And, as you’d suspect, a psychotic killing clown prime of crime doesn’t make for the best person to have as your significant other. Harley has become someone of an icon for abusive relationships, as Joker is constantly cruel to her, always telling her she “isn’t getting the joke” and pushing her out of windows. Sadly, Harley finds it hard to go back, and just ends up crawling back to Mr. J, convinced of her own worthlessness, and blaming herself for upsetting him. And I thought Bizarro was sad.

This thousand year old arch-nemesis of Captain Marvel (who’s actually a DC creation despite the name), has only recently shown himself to be as sympathetic as this list qualifies him for. Adam hails from ancient Egypt, and draws his powers from the gods of their pantheon. After removing the ruthless dictator of his country from power, Adam took control and ended up failing in the long run, largely due to the deaths of his family members. After launching a World War, Adam takes his status as a corrupted anti-hero, who simply wants to protect what he loves in the world, namely his home and his people, but is driven to villainous means due to his personality and desperation. Black Adam’s story is one of a failed hero, who is eventually replaced by the boy scout Captain Marvel, and his constant anger and need to have things the way he believes they should be. Adam has even sided with heroes from time to time, including nearly sacrificing himself to repel the forces of Darkseid. We can only hope that he doesn’t get corrupted any further.

While Miss Selina Kyle probably has the most sympathetic back story of any character on this list, she’s become so far from villainy and is actually so tame when it comes to her crimes, she ranks higher as an anti-hero than a straightforward villain. Beginning her story as a prostitute in Gotham’s seedy underbelly, Selina learned to survive by being as tough as nails, and as flexible as a cat, going on to don the famous costume when times hit especially hard. She has been a jewel thief for most of her career in crime, and is always on the look out for herself and her surrogate sister Holly Robinson. Selina never asked to be a criminal, she just did what she had to do to survive, and just got used to it over time. She’s also assertive as hell, always looking out for number one, and can side with anyone who can benefit her needs, which is usually Batman. The relationship between herself and Batman has become one of the enduring dualities in comic book history, as Batman rarely battles her in her criminal doings, and the two have even been romantically involved at several points, leading to her discovering Batman’s secret identity. With a troubled past, a hard-times-call-for-such-measures approach to life, and actually managing to get to Bruce Wayne’s soft side, Catwoman is so layered, that she barely even qualifies as a supervillain.

Harvey Dent is Batman’s greatest failure, and a constant reminder of how much someone call fall from grace. Once the bold and crime-fighting district attorney who was on the verge of cleaning up Gotham for good, Dent’s own personal demons arose at just the wrong time. A childhood full of abuse and hardship lead to Dent’s revelation of a split-personality that he could barely control. Again keeping with the Joker’s idea of one bad day, Dent was finally pushed over the edge when a gangster threw acid in his face during a trial, which lead to the left side of his face hideously melted away. The psychological and physical trauma overwhelmed Dent, leading to self-doubt, self-loathing, and the violent altar-ego influencing his other half. Dent eventually became Two-Face, a villain at odds with his own duality, and so tortured that he couldn’t even tell right from wrong, and left all of his decisions to the fair flip of a coin. To this day, Two-Face not only is a victim as much as he is a tortured soul, but he represents Batman’s biggest failure in losing someone as good as Harvey Dent. Many are familiar with this story due to The Dark Knight, which perfectly summed up what Two-Face is: confused, angry, unsatisfied, and tortured. A man who lost control of himself, and thus, surrenders all in his life to chance.

Whether he is Max Eisenhardt, Magnus, or Erik Lehnsherr. Whether he is Sir Ian McKellan or Michael Fassbender. Whether he wears a stupid looking bucket on his head, or bathes himself in purple, Magneto is everything a supervillain needs to be. He is ruthless, incredibly powerful, has done horrible things, and can justify all of it. Magneto is a survivor of the Holocaust, but not without losing his family and his home, and witnessing first hand what truly horrible things human beings can do each other. After discovering his mutant power to control magnetic fields and calling himself Magnus, he clashes with his close friend Charles Xavier over the hypothetical existence of a new race of humanity (which are revealed to be mutants). Xavier believes in peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans, but Magnus’ fear and first hand accounts of the Holocaust drive him to believe in inevitable war between the species. After discovering that Xavier is a mutant, Magnus becomes Magneto, and leaves his friend to found the X-Men. Originally portrayed as a megalomaniac, Magneto has become the Malcolm X to Xavier’s Martin Luther King. Magneto believes in protecting mutant kind from humanity that hates them, and is willing to use whatever means necessary (sound familiar?) to achieve that. Magneto stands as the self-imposed realist to Xavier’s dream, using his vast power to help keep mutant-kind safe from decimation and persecution, a fear he has every reason to believe given his backstory. He has even joined his enemies, the X-Men, to carry on his friend Xavier’s dream after Xavier supposedly died. He’s the Malcolm X of mutants, and given the story of Malcolm X, only close-minded people wouldn’t find either case sympathetic, and even valid.

Mola Ram was the monster of The Temple of Doom. He and his subjects worshiped a God called Kali Ma, and performed human sacrifices in his name in the most gruesome fashion. He would rip out their hearts, before lowering them into a fiery pit to their deaths. Mola Ram even made people drink a kind of blood that twisted their minds into doing his bidding. Indiana Jones was on a mission to retrieve the sacred stones for the benefit of a starving village. Mola Ram caught up with Indiana and fought with him on a bridge above a stream with crocodiles. Ultimately, Mola Ram fell into the stream, where the crocs devoured him.

Professor Padriac Ratigan was a mouse who wanted to become king of Mousedom. To accomplish this, he had Mr. Flaversham build a robot replica of the queen of mice to claim Ratigan as king. Ratigan threatened Flaversham to build the robot by informing him that Ratigan would have a cat eat Flaversham’s daughter if he did not comply. Ratigan uses cat threats throughout the movie on his subjects for Ratigan’s demands. In the end, Ratigan confronts Detective Basil in a fight atop the Big Ben and Ratigan falls to his death from the top of the great London clock.

The Big Bad Wolf has a craving for little pigs. The three pigs attempt to shield themselves from the wolf with houses. However, the wolf huffs and puffs and blows down the straw house of the first pig, the stick house of the second pig and devours these first two pigs. The third pig, however, builds a brick house and lights a fire. The wolf is unable to blow this house down, so he descends through the chimney to eat the pig. The wolf falls into the fire, where he gets cooked and the pig eats the wolf for supper.

Vincent Crabbe is one of the mates of the newly appointed Death Eater, Draco Malfoy. Harry Potter and his friends are on a mission to find soul-containing objects of dark lord Voldemort, called Horcruxes. Harry must find and destroy these objects, so he can destroy Voldemort. Otherwise, Voldemort’s soul, which is concealed in these objects will give him the ability to come back if his body is destroyed. Harry, Ron and Hermione are searching for one of the Horcruxes in the Room of Requirements, when, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle appear. Crabbe shoots the killing curse at Hermione, but missed. Then he tries to kill Harry and both his friends with Fiend Fire. After Crabbe sets the Room of Requirements ablaze, the three baddies find themselves trapped. They climb up onto a stack of rubble, but Crabbe loses his footing and falls into the very fire he had made.

Rosina’s father wanted her to marry a rich man named Charlie Kempthorne. Charlie was a greedy, selfish character who cared nothing for others. Nonetheless, Charlie would make sure to have Rosina as his wife, although they had barely met. Rosina’s father forced his daughter into marrying Charlie, even when she refused to do so, physically assaulting Rosina to the point of injuring her. Kempthorne later went on trial on suspicion that the money did not belong to him. He was found guilty of embezzling all the money and was sentenced to death by cliff fall.

“What goes on two legs in the morning, four legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening.” That is the sphinx’s riddle. The sphinx lived at the top of a cliff, had the body of a lion and the head of a man, and would ask this riddle to everyone who passed by. Nobody was able to guess the answer and the sphinx would always devour the person for being unable to guess correctly. One day, a man answered, “Man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs in his youth and walks with a cane in old age.” The sphinx, furious that he had guessed the correct answer, flew itself from the top of the cliff and was never seen again.

Hans Gruber works with a band of criminals and takes many people of the Nakatomi Plaza hostage on Christmas Eve. Gruber holds the siege with intent to extort the plaza of $640 million from its vault. After Gruber interrogates executive Tagaki for the code to open the vault, Police officer McLane orders the release of the hostages. McLane manages to kill some of Gruber’s accomplices, until Gruber discovers that he can kidnap McLane’s wife Holly. McLane pretends to laugh at Gruber, and while Gruber is distracted by the laughter, shoots Gruber in the shoulder. Gruber falls through the window to the street below.

The Weeping Angels will penetrate your mind, battle you, draw the goodness out of you, that is, only if you happen to close your eyes. Once you see them, they stand, as still as statues, which is actually what they look like. The Weeping Angels are designed to look like statues, while, in reality they are neither statues nor angels, but an evil, manipulating race. Amy Pond sees one, and, not knowing what it is, the angel works its way into her mind. Doctor Who tells her to keep her eyes constantly closed, or it will feed off her optical receptors, ultimately destroying her. When the angels attempt to come on board the doctor’s Tardis, he tips the angels off, sending them falling into the crack of time, where they are erased from existence.

Mufassa the lion, is king of the jungle, and one day, his son Simba will be king. Mufassa’s brother, Scar, is jealous, and will stop at nothing to make himself king. After a failed attempt to have Simba eaten by hyenas, Scar makes Simba roar up a wildebeest stampede that tramples Mufassa to death. Scar blames Simba for his father’s death and Simba gives up his future role as king. One night, an apparition of Mufassa appears and tells Simba he must return as king. Simba returns to Pride Rock, where a fight breaks out between him and his uncle. Scar falls down the cliff face, where the hyenas devour him.

Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant detective who works at solving murder cases. Holmes has a nemesis called Professor Moriarty. Moriarty works with and is a protector of many criminals. He offers them protection from law enforcement if they obey his commands. In the end, however, Holmes pursues Moriarty to Reichenbach Falls and both hero and villain fall to their deaths in mortal combat.

Every year at E3 has some weird and wacky moments, but 2010’s event really took the cake. From Microsoft’s conference promoting the Kinect (notably the terrifying tiger from Kinectimals) to Ubisoft’s conference being “crashed” by people firing invisible lasers at each other, 2010 was a very awkward and weird year. But the winner was Konami’s conference. The conference can be best described as odd. Konami’s highlights included countless technical faults, some bizarre hosts, Glee popping in for a musical number, a bunch of Mexican wrestlers fighting onstage, one of Silent Hill Downpour’s representatives trying to glare a hole into the back of his associate’s head, and some awkward introductions to new Konami games including Ninety-Nine Nights II Ramble. Needless to say, Konami might want to rethink their onstage shenanigans for their next E3 conference.

Advertised extensively in the movie The Wizard, the Power Glove was implied to be a revolutionary video game gizmo, able to recreate the movements of the user’s hands on a television in real time. However, the Power Glove didn’t appear to be all that impressive. It was criticized for its difficult-to-use controls, and ultimately became one of the console devices that failed to live up to its marketing promises. But the Power Glove has become an icon among the video game community, as a symbol of the NES, and there is even a speed metal band named after it.

Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Street Fighter, Alone in the Dark, Doom, BloodRayne. The list could go on. Movies based on popular video games have never really done well in the box office. The continuing problem seems to be that the movies in question barely resemble the games they are based upon, not to mention most are pretty shoddy-looking films. There are some exceptions, such as the Professor Layton film, and Silent Hill was better praised for its production design rather than its plot. The biggest contributor to this failing genre is Uwe Boll, considered one of the worst filmmakers ever. His butchering of BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead has made him a hated figure in the eyes of gamers, but Boll does not seem to care and challenges his critics to boxing matches. Hopefully, video game movies will get better sooner or later, but not with people like Boll directing them.

The CD-i was created by Philips and one of the first game consoles which played CDs. However, the console was an abysmal failure, most notably for its crude attempts at making Mario and The Legend of Zelda games. Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Zelda’s Adventure and Hotel Mario are among some of the worst games ever created. While the gameplay was bad, it was the fully animated cutscenes that made the games stand out. These games are now used commonly in YouTube Poop’s with their cutscenes used to hilarious measures. Quotes like “Check out the enclosed instruction book” and “All toasters toast toast” will likely be the highlight of the CD-i’s legacy.

How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us. That is pretty much what the game Zero Wing is famous for. Considered one of the worst games ever, Zero Wing is infamous for its poorly translated English dialogue, and the above quote has become a popular internet meme similar to the fate of the CD-i.

John Romero is a notable figure in the first person shooter genre, developing several classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. But then he got the idea of Daikatana, a first person shooter game involving a magic time traveling sword and a fight to keep the player’s two sidekicks alive without dying. Taking four years to complete, Daikatana’s production process was a bumpy ride. Halfway through the process, Romero realized the designers were behind in the latest technology and switched to a better game engine, leading to eleven months worth of work being discarded. The advertising process was just as painful, with a large red poster promoting Romero’s infamous trash talking. Romero also received extended focus in Time magazine during the game’s development. After numerous setbacks, altered release dates, and the advertising, Daikatana bombed upon release and joined the ranks of dreadful games.

Duke Nukem Forever is on this list for having one of the longest periods of development hell ever – fifteen years worth of it. The game was announced in 1997, switched game engines in 1998, everything got scrapped around 2001-2002, new teasers popped up in 2006, and the entire game’s development team got fired in 2009. And those are just some of the problems that the game and its developers faced. The game was eventually released in 2011, but was met with mixed reviews and a fan base who got fed up of waiting years ago.

While the Wii and Playstation 3 had their issues, the Xbox 360 has the biggest out of the consoles. Since its release, the 360 suffered from internal errors. The now infamously named “Red Ring of Death” on the front of the console flashed red whenever an internal problem occurred, requiring the owners to get the consoles fixed. These major errors included freeze-ups, graphical problems, sound problems, and game discs being scratched inside the console. The Xbox 360’s failure rating grew quickly, eventually gaining the estimate of 54.2% failures. While the console was a financial success, its errors have made it the faultiest of the current game consoles. And the worst part is that Microsoft originally announced a three-year warranty to deal with the damaged consoles, only to release a slimmer version of the console which only has a one-year warranty if it develops problems similar to those of the original.

One of the darker elements of video games is that they can become very addictive and may lead to trouble. Some of extreme cases often end up in the news and only help fuel the fire for those who consider all or most video games to be bad for children and adults. Game addictions can lead to theft, violence, serious psychological damage, and tragic scenarios like murder and suicide. The culprits of the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres have been said to have game addictions. I recommend reading the “Top 10 Cases of Extreme Game Addiction” for individual cases.

This entry is not an embarrassing entry, but more of a tragic one. Gunpei Yokoi was one of the most iconic and influential figures in video games, he helped develop the Game & Watch collection, ROB, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem, Metroid and made the successful Game Boy. His only real failure in life was the Virtual Boy. Yokoi eventually left Nintendo after thirty years in the company. However, in 1997, Yokoi was involved in a car accident. While getting out to inspect the damage he had done to a truck, Yokoi was struck by a passing car and died shortly after. His sudden death shocked gamers, and he has been honored as one of the greats in video gaming.

Tetsuo is one of my personal favorite villains. He began as a member of a biker gang with his close friends, when suddenly he got strange and cosmic powers that made him a living god. Tetsuo went mad with power and was angry at his old and closest friend, Kanada, for treating Tetsuo as inferior and younger than himself. This neglect however, was just a conception caused by Tetsuo unable to control his new-found powers and having scientists run experiments on his brain. At the climactic end of Akira, Tetsuo horribly mutates into a disturbing monstrosity that kills his friend Kairi and brings about the apocalypse. Tetsuo is a creepy character because he is a young teenager who turns into a monster that dooms humanity. In most movies, a character this young would be living life to the fullest in cliche hip and cool ways, not betraying his friends and being a monster dooming the universe as we know it.

Technically, Varvara doesn’t belong on this list. She isn’t human, she’s a centuries old demon who disguises itself as a little girl. But her childlike glee and playfulness earns her a place here. Varvara was a Mongolian demon who refused to take Peter the Great’s soul. In 1946, she was head of the Russian paranormal studies center, and worked with the American B.P.R.D., best known for bringing up Hellboy, to stop the Nazi project Vampir Sturm. She is immortal and kills humans cold-heartedly with her powers and considers humanity as playthings.

Without the movie The Bad Seed, the evil child character might have never caught on. Rhoda is an eerie, but silly girl. She looks kooky and acts like a clown, and her mother loves her dearly and treasures her. Her mother is shocked and goes insane when she realizes how cold-blooded her daughter is and of her murdering record.

The Lord of the Flies is one of the greatest portrayals of human nature in literature ever. One of the book’s greatest characters is Roger, a insane boy who hates society and likes to kill and maim humans and animals alike. Roger is a symbol for humanity’s love for chaos and discord itself.

These kids are among the most terrifying villains I have ever seen. The result of an evil experiment on a small, European town, these children were a force to be reckoned with, always together, always strong, and never showing mercy.

Reagen herself is not an evil character, the daemon is, but she still is possessed and having a young girl being used as an instrument of evil shocked audiences everywhere. The fact that a little girl was spewing profanity at priests, showing disgusting supernatural powers, and being used by Hell, let alone being a horror movie’s main villain, was a new and disturbing idea.

Almost nobody knows about this character. I had some trouble looking him up because I could only remember the name of the story from a middle school short story class I had. It’s very hard to describe this character. James for the most part of the story, sounds nothing like a villain. Just a small, troubled, though fairly normal kid dreading his teacher mocking everyday even though he admires her. But the last two pages we see him as disturbed, villainous, and enough to make your skin crawl through William Trevor’s subtle and implicit writing.

All I can say about this character is that he is one badass villain. He owns a crossbow that fires nails, knows how to manipulate adults to the point that it’s as if he’s mind controlling him, has a soulless quest for power, a grim, cynical view of life, and has killed a sibling and unsuccessfully tried to kill his little sister, mother, and cousin. Henry is played chillingly by Macaulay Culkin.

What else could you expect from Lucifer’s own flesh and blood? Damien was surprisingly cruel and evil for a child his age, and unlike Henry Evans or Rhoda, he would kill people simply by creating ‘accidents.’ Using his powers, people would get themselves horribly killed and no one would even think about Damien. Not to mention the memorable scene when his (human) father sees 666 burned into his scalp.

This little boy’s powers are way more deadly and impressive than any of the other children on this list. He doesn’t get his way by twisting adults and acting innocent, he gets his way by threatening to use his unexplained power to, well, get his way. Just by thinking he has all of reality in his hands, wishing away objects away from existence whenever he wants to. He isolates his insane, paranoid family in their tiny town, forcing them to do as he wishes for eternity. He comes from the episode “It’s a Good Life” and every day without him is a blessing.

This jealous Queen has had her beauty washed away by years of aging, and now her stepdaughter, Snow White, is the fairest in the land. Angered by her magic mirror that has brought her this news, she sends her huntsman to kill Snow White. After he cannot find the heart to harm the beautiful young princess, the Queen takes on a peddler’s disguise and offers Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White falls into a sleeping death, but her prince, and true love, kisses her on the lips and Snow White awakens. When the Queen intends to drop a boulder off a cliff on Snow White, the boulder crumbles into many tiny pieces and the Queen falls off the cliff to her death, where vultures devour her.

This queen is much like the one from Snow White. She sends Gizelle via a waterfall to New York City away from her love, a prince. The Queen is jealous of Gizelle’s beauty and wants her dead. Gizelle’s prince, Edward, journeys down the waterfall to find Gizelle. It turns out that Gizelle falls in love with a divorced father of a young girl and Edward falls for the man’s fiancee. It is proven that this father is Gizelle’s true love as he awakens her from the sleeping death from the Queen’s poisoned apple, whereas Edward’s kiss did not awaken her. Nonetheless, the Queen transforms into a dragon and chases Gizelle to the top of the empire state building, but she slips, breaks her wings and falls to the ground.

Gaston feels he is in love with Belle, a beautiful young woman who is regarded by the villagers as strange. Belle spends most of her time reading and her father is an inventor whose inventions never work. Nonetheless, Gaston feels attracted to her beauty and feels the need to woo and marry her. When Belle’s father gets lost, he finds himself at the Beast’s Castle. Belle’s horse takes her to find her father. The Beast sends Belle’s father away, but slowly grows to care for Belle, who has agreed to stay at the castle, in place of her father. The Beast releases Belle when she sees that her father is unwell. Gaston calls Belle’s father a lunatic for claiming to have seen the Beast. To prove him wrong, Belle shows Gaston the Beast with his enchanted mirror. Gaston resolves to kill the beast. After a great fight at the castle, Gaston falls from the roof. Belle admits to loving the Beast and he changes back into a prince.

A great example of a famous explorer turned madman, Muntz journeyed to Paradise Falls in his youth and brought back the skeleton of a giant, fabled bird. His colleagues thought the skeleton was fake, grew angry with him, and stripped him of his scientific awards. He promised to return to Paradise Falls to bring back a live specimen. 70 years of searching and tracking with dogs almost paid off, and would have if it was not for Carl Frederickson (an elderly widower who had dreamed of visiting Paradise Falls since boyhood) and stow-away Russell (a child wilderness enthusiast), both of whom were traveling in a balloon-hoisted house. They found the bird, and Russell called her Kevin. Muntz uses various wicked tactics at capturing Kevin, such as driving his dogs after Carl and Russell and trying to push Russell off his blimp in a chair. In the end, however, Muntz falls from his blimp into the jungle below, never to be seen again.

Captain Hook was a pirate who wanted to slay Peter Pan, the boy who would never grow up, and capture Wendy, the girl he took to live with him in Never Land. Hook was so evil he shot members of his own crew if they ever disagreed with him and tried to drown Wendy’s brothers. At the same time, there was a crocodile who had bitten off Captain Hook’s hand (hence the hook) and wanted to eat the rest of him. After the croc found Hook, Hook tried to fly away like Peter Pan by thinking happy thoughts, but, in the end, despair overtook Hook and he fell into the crocodile’s mouth.

Many believe Darth Vader to be the main villain in Star Wars, but perhaps the real villain deserving of first prize would be Emperor Palpatine, his master. Palpatine manipulated Anakin (the future Vader) since he was a boy to turn against the Jedi and join the Dark Side. Palpatine was successful until he decided to turn Vader’s son, Luke, to the Dark Side. When Luke refused, Palpatine unleashed lightning on the young Jedi intending to kill him. Vader, unable to see his son destroyed, turned on his master and threw him down the shaft of the Death Star, where the Emperor was vanquished.

Fantasia 2000 includes a rendition of The Steadfast Tin Soldier. The tin soldier is in love with a ballerina, but not if an evil, sword-wielding jack-in-the-box has anything to say about it. He loves the ballerina as well, and, upon seeing the pair dancing together, throws the tin soldier into the sewer! The soldier is released to sea, where a fish swallows him. Luckily, the soldier is rescued by a fisherman, and the soldier marches back to his box. The jack-in-the-box tries to turn on him again and they fight. However, this time, the soldier manages to send the the evil jack-in-the-box falling into the fire and the steadfast tin soldier affirms his love to the ballerina.

Maybe a bit of a victimized villain, but a villain nonetheless. Smaegol (the former Gollum) and his cousin find the ring while fishing in a lake, Smaegol kills his cousin and the ring corrupts him. Bilbo, the Hobbit, steals the ring and Gollum wants his “precious” back. Gollum meets Frodo, Bilbo’s nephew, whilst Frodo is on his quest to destroy the one ring of power. Gollum pretends to “swear on the precious” to lead Frodo on his quest to destroy the ring, when all Gollum really wants is to kill the young hobbit and take the ring back for himself. Frodo survives Gollum’s clever scheme to have him killed by spider Shilob, and proceeds to the Crack of Doom to throw the ring into the fire. Frodo succumbs to the ring’s power and decides to keep the ring, but Gollum bites off Frodo’s finger, and after an aggressive fight with Frodo, falls into the fire himself. Frodo is remembered as the hero who saved Middle Earth.

Probably the nastiest bishop you ever saw in twelfth century England. He poisoned the former bishop to make himself bishop and has Lady Regan Hamley kill the archbishop of Canterbury so he could become Archbishop. With the Hamleys (other villains) under his wing, they corrupted the church to take control. They impeded Tom Builder’s attempt to build a new Cathedral after the old church burned down. After framing Jack, Tom’s assistant, for the murder of Tom’s son, Jack’s mother presented irrefutable testimony against the bishop. Bishop Waleran climbed to the top of Jack’s newly build cathedral but fell from the roof after the audience of the trial pursued him. Prior Philip said “Ego the absolve” (I absolve you), but the Bishop just spat blood in Philip’s face and died.

The Hunchback, Quasimodo, from 15th century Paris, was a bell ringer that Frollo would never let leave the tower because of the hunchback’s disfigured appearance. One day, Quasimodo decided to disobey his master, and, despite much laughing and jeering from the villagers, met Esmeralda, and was immediately attracted to her. Frollo noticed Esmeralda, and wanted her as his own and had Quasimodo bring her to him. Quasimodo attempts to do so, but Frollo’s guards accuse him of kidnapping. Quasimodo is sentenced to pillory, but Esmeralda feels sorry for him when she sees him and gives him water. Frollo later sees Esmeralda making love with Phoebus and tries to kill him. The guards falsely accuse Esmeralda of the crime and sentence her to be hanged. Frollo says he will spare Esmeralda if she says she loves him, but she refuses. Quasimodo saves her from the hanging and pushes Frollo from the tower into molten copper. Quasimodo and Esmeralda confirm their love in the castle’s secret chamber.