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

6. Colonel Hans Landa

In the movie Inglourious Basterds, there were plenty of villains, including Hitler himself. But none were quite as impressive in their villainy as Colonel Hans Landa. What Christoph Waltz did with this character was sheer brilliance.

Considering we are watching a movie that actually gives us a version of Hitler, you have to give Waltz a lot of credit for creating a villain who is even more despicable than the man we all consider one of the worst human beings in history.

Hans Landa has a nickname that proves he is ruthless and morally corrupt. Known as the Jew Hunter, Landa doesn’t even believe the rhetoric about hating Jewish people or the Nazi ideology that Hitler spouted. Instead, he is all about himself and what he is good at. He has orders and he follows them.

Landa is smug, but he almost has a reason to be, as he is truly brilliant in terms of his intellect. And the fact that he was willing and able to sell out Hitler himself, strangle the actress, Bridget von Hammersmark, and cause the death of countless Jewish people all in the name of his own success and betterment, makes him one of the most ruthless villains on this list (and that’s saying something).

Inglourious Basterds might be a bizarre film in its own right, but Colonel Hans Landa takes it from being a spoof of war into a bold and terrifying reality of murder and deceit.