Cruella de Vil, Voldemort and the 25 greatest movie villains of all-time

16. Anton Chigurh

There have been plenty of hitmen throughout the history of cinema, and while many of them might be considered fascinating characters, none of them are quite as well crafted as Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh. In fact, it is because of the actor’s portrayal of the hitman, that no list of greatest movie villains would ever be complete without him. (It also helps that the hairstyle the man is wearing is just as iconic for being unsettling and yet strangely awful.)

As a hitman for the cartel, Anton Chigurh is an emotionless man with no moral compass or conscience. He knows that he has a job to do and he plans to do it. It doesn’t matter who his target is or why they have to die, if he was told it needed to be done, then he is going to do it.

Here is a character who truly does not seem to have any sense of remorse when it comes to the things he is doing. And the way that Bardem portrays the character is so spot on that it is hard to deny that this is a man willing to kill without even blinking.

It probably does not help that when it comes to carrying out a hit, Anton Chirgurh treated people like they were cattle and could change his mind about killing someone on a whim (or really a toss of a coin). You didn’t know who might live or who might die. And that ability to be unpredictable, while also seeming to be without remorse makes him a truly terrifying villain in the history of cinema.