10 Best TV Villains of All Time, Ranked

Since their inception as an art form, stories have often relied on fearsome and clear-cut villains to oppose the goals of their heroes. Television is no exception. A good television villain is one who’s so intimidating and formidable that they’re able to provide conflict that lasts over the course of several episodes, seasons, or even the whole show. When a TV villain is well written and played by an outstanding actor, they leave an indelible mark on pop culture forever.

Whether it’s a classic long-running villain like The Master from Doctor Who, or a despicable antagonist from a more modern show like Joffrey Baratheon from the groundbreaking Game of Thrones, the best television villains are always the ones that audiences love to hate, the ones that they’re yearning to see defeated and gone yet somehow can’t get enough of.

Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead.

10 The Master — ‘Doctor Who’ (1963 – )

Played by Various Actors

The BBC’s seminal sci-fi show Doctor Who ran from 1963 to 1989, and its present iteration is the revival that began airing in 2005. It follows the adventures of an alien called the Doctor capable of changing his appearance and personality when near death, as he travels through time and space with a variety of companions. In his many escapades, the Doctor has come across multiple iconic enemies, but it’s his nemesis, the Master, who has probably had the biggest impact on the story.

The Master has all the qualities that a villain from an enduring sci-fi show should have. He has a strong personal connection to the protagonist, he has committed multiple nefarious deeds, and he’s one of the scariest sci-fi villains ever. Perhaps most importantly, since he’s able to regenerate like the Doctor, he can also reinvent himself for new generations of fans, having been played by many actors (from Roger Delgado to John Simm).

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9 Joffrey Baratheon — ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011 – 2019)

Played by Jack Gleeson

Game of Thrones is the story of nine noble families fighting for control over the lands of Westeros, and over the course of its eight-season run, it had a surprising number of great villains, most of them truly despicable. However, if there ever has been a television villain so detestable that fans all cried tears of absolute joy when he was finally killed off, that was Joffrey Baratheon, the son of Queen Cersei Lannister and eighteenth king to rule from the Iron Throne.

Played impeccably by Jack Gleeson, who relished every bit of his character’s depravity, Joffrey is a cruel and sadistic boy who also happened to be an idiot. Mix those things together and put them on the throne, and you get one of the show’s most evil characters. There’s always something fun about a television villain whose main quality is simply being hateable, but Joffrey even has lots of nuance and layers as the cherry on top of his intelligently written character.

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8 Livia Soprano — ‘The Sopranos’ (1999 – 2007)

Played by Nancy Marchand

There’s no way around it: The Sopranos revolutionized TV as an art form and created the concept of prestige television as it’s known today. It’s about a New Jersey mob boss called Tony (James Gandolfini) dealing with personal and professional issues that affect his mental state, leading him to seek psychiatric counseling. Like all great crime shows, The Sopranos had multiple fearsome villains, but if there’s a case to be made for one being the root of most evil in the series, that would have to be Tony’s mother: Livia Soprano.

Nancy Marchand was a formidable actress, and the way she was able to steal the show with the relatively limited screentime that she had is a testament to that. Livia is a horrible mother and an even more loathsome human being, whose only source of pleasure in life is making those around her — including Tony, who she even tried to kill — as miserable as possible. Due to Marchand’s untimely passing, her character’s arc unfortunately had to be cut short, but the damage she dealt to her son was permanent, and he eventually paid the price.

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7 Cersei Lannister — ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011 – 2019)

Played by Lena Headey

She may not be the most dangerous or the most detestable villain in the series, but Cersei Lannister is surely one of the most complex and best-written characters that Game of Thrones ever had. The last monarch to sit on the Iron Throne, she was the twentieth ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and the first officially recognized queen in the land’s history.

Cersei’s arc throughout the show is full of nuance, bolstered by an exceptional performance by Lena Headey. As one of the series’ main antagonists (and one of the few that lasted throughout all eight seasons), she’s both manipulative and cruel, but with a love for her children and brother/lover Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) that can often turn out to be her biggest blind spot. She’s one of the show’s best characters, and arguably its best villain.

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6 Homelander — ‘The Boys’ (2019 – )

Played by Antony Starr

The Boys took the world by storm in 2019 with its incredible adaptation of the comic book series of the same name. It’s the bloody, nihilistic, intensely satirical story of a group of vigilantes in a world where superheroes are real, as they set out to take down corrupt supers who abuse their powers. The series’ main antagonist is Homelander, the leader of this world’s most prominent superhero team, and easily one of the best TV villains of the last decade.

Homelander is an absolutely terrifying force of nature, made even scarier and more effective by the fact that if superheroes truly were real, this is very likely what at least some of them would look like. Played by Antony Starr in a tour-de-force performance that often leaves fans’ jaws on the floor, he’s television’s scariest supervillain. Narcissistic, sadistic, and the product of profound trauma, he’s what happens when you give a broken man unlimited power.

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5 Ben Linus — ‘Lost’ (2004 – 2010)

Played by Michael Emerson

Some think its ending was a fraud, some think it was secretly brilliant; some think it dropped the ball in its last season, some think it remained top-tier television until the end. Whatever the case, what can’t be denied is that Lost is one of the best and most important sci-fi shows of the 21st century, with some of the genre’s most memorable antagonists. The best one, though, is easily and by far the terrifying and richly complex Benjamin Linus.

Played by Michael Emerson in what might be one of the most underrated acting performances TV has seen in recent years, Ben is the sinister leader of the Others on the Island that the survivors are stranded on, a longtime resident with a mysterious past and an unpredictable personality. Though for a long time he was the main antagonist of the show, as his character evolved he eventually became an ally to the story’s heroes, a layered arc that made him standout as perhaps Lost‘s best character.

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4 Logan Roy — ‘Succession’ (2018 – 2023)

Played by Brian Cox

Pretty much none of the characters in Succession are particularly likable. A Shakespearean tale of corporate backstabbings and family feuds, the show is about the Roy dynasty, a family of jerks who control (and fight each other for) the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. Even if no one in the show is a good person in any traditional sense, though, there’s one very clear villain throughout it all: Logan Roy, the patriarch of the family.

Brian Cox is terrific in the role, effectively making Logan’s motivations mysterious and his behavior unpredictable, but it’s mainly the terrific script that makes him such a formidable antagonist. Even in death, he’s always in control and constantly pulling each of his children’s strings. Though one can never tell with certainty what makes him tick, it’s always clear that whatever it is, it’s fueled purely by his own ambitions and thirst for power.

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3 J.R. Ewing — ‘Dallas’ (1978 – 1991)

Played by Larry Hagman

Though the art of writing television villains has certainly been mastered in more recent times, there are plenty of old classics that put formidable villains under the spotlight. For instance, the primetime soap opera Dallas (one of the most legendary TV dramas of all time) revolves around the affluent and often feuding Ewing family, focusing on manipulative oil baron J.R. Ewing and the questionable methods he uses to achieve his ambitions.

Only a character like J.R., played by an actor as naturally and effortlessly charming as Larry Hagman, could commit numerous acts of corruption, blackmail, and backstabbing, and never cease to be charismatic or strangely likable. The phrase “Who shot J.R.?” that CBS used to promote the show’s third season finale will forever be ingrained in American pop culture, and that’s an effect that only a truly phenomenal villain could have had.

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2 Gus Fring — ‘Breaking Bad’ (2008 – 2013) and ‘Better Call Saul’ (2015 – 2022)

Played by Giancarlo Esposito

There’s a good reason why, over the course of the entire Breaking Bad universe (including also its spin-off Better Call Saul), Gustavo Fring was a constant presence of antagonism and power. If these shows are two of the best TV series of the 21st century (and they absolutely are), it’s largely because of villains as well written as Gus, who’s generally agreed to be the best antagonist of modern television history.

Gus works as effectively as he does as a villain largely because he’s so similar to his nemesis, protagonist Walter White: Like Walt, he’s cold and calculating, extremely disciplined, and intelligent to a fault. Giancarlo Esposito plays the role perfectly, hiding all of Gus’s deepest desires and complex motivations under a composed, stoic surface. Gus is a fun antagonist because he’s impossible to read, making him a force to be reckoned with that can never be underestimated.

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1 Walter White — ‘Breaking Bad’ (2008 – 2013)

Played by Bryan Cranston

He may not be the antagonist of Breaking Bad, but over the course of the story, Walter White sure does become its biggest and most intimidating villain, proving that protagonists can also be villains. This exceptional crime drama, often regarded as the greatest show of all time, is the story of this chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with inoperable drug cancer, turns to crime as a last resort to provide for his family’s future.

Bryan Cranston delivers one of the best acting performances the world has ever seen, regardless of the medium, making Walter’s arc toward full-on villainy powerfully slow and complex. Many of his actions often lie in a moral gray area, and those that are inexcusably despicable gradually contribute to his inevitable turn to the dark side. Culminating with the highest-rated series finale of any show on IMDb, Heisenberg cemented himself as what might just be the best character ever written for television.

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