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

7. John Doe

In the movie Seven, we meet a serial killer known as John Doe. While he leads the detectives on the case on a merry chase, there is something about this particular killer that stands out from the pack, and it all has to do with his reason for murdering people in cold blood.

John Doe is killing people to set an example (his words, not ours). All of his victims are based on the Seven Deadly Sins, and while Brad Pitt’s detective, David Mills, wants answers to why Doe killed all of these innocent people, this is a man who feels that he is in the right. He doesn’t see any of his victims as being innocent, and he has no problem pointing out the things each person did that made them an example of a Deadly Sin.

In John Doe’s mind, what he is doing is righteous, as he points out to the world all of the sins that they are allowing to happen around them. He believes the world is apathetic and he wants people to pay for that apathy. In fact, he appoints himself as judge, jury, and executioner, not even seeing the irony of his own actions.

Of all the movie villains on this list, it is perhaps the fact that John Doe is killing based on the biblical ideas of the Seven Deadly Sins that makes him one of the worst, because he uses his own righteousness as an excuse for his actions. And it is hard to deny that in certain circumstances, there are plenty of people who would agree with Doe and his motives, after all just look at how that movie ended and you’ll understand how easy it is for people to fall into certain traps based on internal justifications.