The Best Disney Villain Ever

Walt Disney was truly a visionary. He pioneered the techniques that propelled American animation into the art form it is today. Even years after his death, his company produces films that warm the heart and touch the lives of people everywhere.

Whether it’s an adaptation of a familiar fairy tale, an original story, or a modern classic, Disney’s animated films have given timeless tales of heroism. Disney’s heroes overcome countless adversities to resolve the conflict within their respective stories. But a hero is nothing without a strong villain to oppose him every step of the way. That’s where Disney animated films have succeeded best.

So who’s the best villain Disney has ever produced? I will take a look at a few and give my thoughts briefly. Before I can, I must admit my own flaws. I have not seen every Disney animated film. There are just too many of them. I will only comment on the things I know. I also must lay down the criteria I use to make my judgments. For the sake of this article, the villains discussed will have appeared only in theatrically released feature films. No villians from direct-to-video sequels at all. Also, the villain must be a serious villain, a sincere threat to the film’s protagonist. Madame Mim and other such farces automatically do not make the cut.

Lastly, a number of villains may be discussed besides these here. I simply selected a few and chose a best from among them. Many other arguments could be made concerning these and others. In the end, this is just one man’s opinion. Without further ado, I give you my list.

The Evil Queen

I’m starting where Disney started, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The villain here has no name. She is simply the Evil Queen. One of the Seven Deadly Sins is Envy, and nowhere is that better demonstrated than in this person.

This Queen desires to be “fairest of them all,” the most beautiful in all her land. Unfortunately, her magic mirror tells her that Snow White has already claimed that title. Envy makes the Queen dress Snow White in rags and force her to do menial labor around the palace. When this doesn’t work, she has her huntsman take Snow White into the forest to kill her. The huntsman can’t bring himself to do it, and Snow White escapes, finding refuge at the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs.

When the Queen learns of this, she pulls out the stop. She devises a plot to poison Snow White with an apple, and disguises herself as an old hag. In this, Disney teaches us a valuable lesson. Envy transforms. The Queen, desiring to be the most beautiful of all, becomes a rotten, decrepit old witch. Or has she been so along? Maybe Envy doesn’t transform. Perhaps Envy simply brings the secret things to light, finally exposing us for what we really are.

Because of her cunning in sorcery, her ambition, and the incredible lesson learned, the Evil Queen earns a spot on this list.

Lady Tremain

Better known as “the Wicked Stepmother” from Cinderella. Unlike the previous entry, this villain is rather simple. She’s no sorceress, no schemer, nor envious of the titular character. But there’s just something about this woman that makes me want to punch her face.

Lady Tremain never throws a punch, never fires a weapon, but the malice she inflicts is very real. She spoils her two daughters and gives Cinderella nothing, even locking in her room. This is a classic example of a villain who doesn’t need magic. She is quite capable of wickedness on her own power.

I know it’s a simple entry, but what makes me put her on this list is one simple feature: her smile. Even when expressing joy, she just looks wicked. Her lips curve upward in a smile, but curl back downward ever so slightly at the edges. Seriously! It’s a frown and smile combined. Sheer evil.

Scar

Leaving the human kingdom, we enter Pride Rock and the world of The Lion King. Often hailed as Disney’s greatest achievement, Lion King gave us two incredible characters: Simba, a cub who must overcome his personal demons and claim his rightful place, and Scar, the conniving uncle lusting for power.

There isn’t much to say about this character. He wants his brother’s throne and will do anything necessary to obtain it. However, his vision is slightly more skewed when he introduces the hyenas to Pride Rock. Is he just after the throne or he does he wish to plunge the Pridelands into chaos?

Throughout the movie, Scar schemes more than he fights. The battle sequence at the end of the film depicts Scar in his only real fight. But he earns a definite place here, because he is one of the few Disney characters actually seen to kill his victim. Several villains do away with a character, but Mufasa’s death, or murder rather, is actually seen to occur by Scar’s hand.

Shere Khan

Also in the cat family, the tiger from Jungle Book is an interesting character. He is named the villain almost from the start of the film, and the entire cast in one way or another attempts to take the man-cub Mowgli away from the imminent danger.

We expect vicious savagery from a tiger. When Shere Khan brandishes his claws, or leaps after his prey, it’s a move we expect. But he stands apart in his suave demeanor. He makes bad look good. The subtle way he talks to his victims, drawing the information out of them all the while threatening them, is a true work of art.

In savagery, he is the opposite of Scar. Scar was at “the shallow end of the gene pool.” Shere Khan, on the other hand, is large and in charge. In most of his appearances, he takes up most of the screen area, possibly an attempt to make the character larger than life. Yet he prefers to give his victims a sporting chance. It makes the game more interesting, “for me,” as he so memorably puts it.

Cruella DeVille

The villains of 101 Dalmatians are typically more comic relief than anything else. So why include one in this list? Well, quite frankly, Cruella deserves it. The woman is just plain crazed. Honestly, who could ever take someone who does her hair like that seriously? God forbid we sell her a little of puppies.

That’s what does it for me here. I understand wanting someone’s throne, craving power, wanting money, even disposing of the potential threat. But she wants to make a new line of clothing out of dogskin coats. To do that, she has to obtain, kill, and skin 101 dalmatian puppies. Someone call PETA!

Ursula

Another sorceress, the villain from Little Mermaid plays her role very well. It’s a little unclear where her true intentions lie. She wants King Triton’s power, no question. But does she want it just to have it, or is it revenge for something Triton did in the past? The film doesn’t state specifically, and in the end, it matters little.

She devises the typical divide-and-conquer strategy. In order to gain Triton’s power, she gives his daughter Ariel what she wants most, a chance to walk among the humans, but at a price. In order to save his daughter, Triton signs over his crown and trident. Thus, Ursula becomes ruler of all the ocean, and she grows to a monstrous height.

Not to mention, she has one of the best appearances of any villain ever: she’s half-octopus! Dark magic, wicked schemes, and half-cephalopod, but that’s not the icing on the cake. Ursula has perhaps the best musical number any villain ever had. How many of us still have nightmares of her singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” as various bottles of potions and creatures plunge into her clawed cauldron?

Gaston

A notalbe change of pace for Disney, this one almost warrants more laughter than respect. Beauty and the Beast is another hailed as Disney’s greatest achievement. But this is where it gets interesting. This film forces us to reconsider its title. Obviously, there’s a large beast in the film, but is that beast THE beast? Who’s the real beast, anyway?

Gaston is a man known for his hunting prowess. He’s also the finest looking gentleman in the village. But all of that goes right to his head. He is rude, conceited, anything but proper. He turns his affections toward Belle, the Beauty, though he could have any girl he wants. She continuously rebuffs his advances, which leads him to take more drastic measures.

Gaston’s character devolves quite quickly. He wants Belle, but he has to obtain her by threatening to lock her father in an asylum. When he learns that there really is a beast, and Belle’s father is NOT crazy, his affections seem to melt away. At this point, I wonder if he really even wants Belle. Is she simply an element he can’t control, a chance to prove his dominance? Either way, he does become a good villain at the very end of the film. The crazed look in his eye when attacks the beast is quite convincing, and this from a character you’d never suspect at the start of the movie.

It begs the question. Who’s really the beast here?

Judge Claude Frollo

This one is a personal favorite of mine. He is the villain from Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of the most controversial films Disney has ever produced. This man is wicked to the core. In the film’s opening sequence, he hunts down a family, murders the woman, and nearly drowns her baby. Pleading from Notre Dame’s arch-deacon forces him to change his mind. Instead of drowning the child, he locks the child away in the belltower, instructing the boy that the world hates him.

The decision may have been the lesser of two evils for the boy, but the decision was no less an evil. Frollo continues his unscrupulous hunt of the gypsies, giving them no mercy. He burns them alive at every chance he gets. The character is well drawn. The lines of his face, the wrinkles, the dark shadows under his eyes, all look menacing. He’s hiding something.

But he does all this evil under the guise of righteousness. He’s a church official. He believes he must stamp out the heathen, in this case, the gypsies, so the righteous can inherit the earth. The epitome of a Bible-black tyrant, Frollo even confesses to lusting after the woman Esmerelda, while still calling himself “a righteous man, of my virtue I am justly proud.”

The bottom line here: this is a villain we REALLY hate. A job very well done.

Jafar

Back to sorcery, Aladdin’s villain is more the archetype. He wants power, nothing less. But it is unique in what kind of power he desires. At first, he wants the power of the lamp, for the genie, presumably to obtain the sultanate.

After obtaining the sultanate, and still not commanding his subjects as he desires, he wishes to become “the most powerful sorcerer in the world!” So he has the power to do what he wants, whenever he wants. He is able to change form into a huge cobra, which is very cool. But is this power enough?

Tricked, Jafar wishes to become an all-powerful genie, like the one of the lamp. Finally obtaining the phenomenal cosmic power, Jafar realizes that this power comes with a price: eternal servitude. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and lust for power enslaves. Just for the sheer scope of his ambition, Jafar earns a spot on this list.

Maleficent

Another favorite of mine, in many senses, this one defines the fairy tale villain. Maleficent is the antagonist of Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorite Disney films. The character is drawn in the way you typically expect a fairy tale sorceress to look, long black robe, long staff, horns.

But of all things, she gets upset when she is not invited to a party for the newborn princess. So she retaliates by promising to kill the princess and plunge the kingdom into chaos, on the princess’s 16th birthday. Talk about holding a grudge.

This villain embodies the sorceress concept. She manipulates the princess to prick her finger on a spinning wheel. This action fulfills her earlier promise, by placing the princess in an eternal sleep. She can teleport at will, appearing and disappearing at various intervals, and to some of the best animatics ever developed. She can manipulate the elements, causing thorn-briars to completely enshroud the castle and summoning storm clouds and lightning at her whim. Furthermore, she controls her very form, shape-shifting into a dragon at the film’s climax.

Her grudge, cunning, and multiple levels of power make her an incredible contender.

Horned King

Who? Well, this one is from the more obscure film The Black Cauldron. The film has never gained ground as a mainstream Disney release due to its incredibly dark tone. It was an attempt in the 80’s to reach more teenage and sword-and-sorcery fantasy audiences.

The villain is simply the Horned King, an evil tyrant of sorts who seeks the titular device, the Black Cauldron. The film and characters are based on the novel from the Chronicles of Prydain, but the film does stray from the source in a few key respects. In the film, Horned King wants the Cauldron to control the world. A typical villain-like desire, right?

Well, he wants to take over the world by releasing armies of Cauldron-born, armies of the undead. Yep. This wasn’t a typical kid’s movie. The imagery is some of the most disturbing Disney has ever managed. Horned King himself invokes images of demons escaping from Hell. If he isn’t the Devil, he is the next best thing.

Conclusion

So who do I think is the best? Obviously, there are dozens more, and each could reasonably be argued. From this list, there are three contending. It’s either Frollo, Maleficent, or Horned King. But my instincts tell me to give it to Horned King. He’s just so bad he even resembles the Devil.

Speaking of which, Disney actually did produce a Devil once. In Fantasia, the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment features a demon rising to assert its dominance over a valley. These are the only images that can possibly top the sequences in Black Cauldron, and this is the only villain I’d consider better than Horned King. So why not include him?

Fantasia isn’t really a story film. It’s a sequence of images representing the lyrical tones of the musical score. It’s really all about the music, and the imagery such music provides. It’s not a story like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, or Lion King. Plus, it’s much too short. Had this demon appeared in such a story, he would certainly claim this article’s prize. Unfortunately, things are as they are, and I have made my decision.

It’s Horned King for me.