There’s no villain like a Disney villain, from the earliest (the wicked Queen in 1937’s “Snow White”) to the most basic (the devil Chernabog, from the 1940 “Fantasia”) to the most modern (Turbo in 2012’s “Wreck-It Ralph”).
They’re sometimes witty, usually when they have the upper hand over the good chaps. They don’t need no stinkin’ motivation.
Now, in celebration of all that is evil, we bring you a complete ranking of 10 classic Disney villains.
Gaston is a male narcissist in love with his own sense of virility and obsessed with his desire to conquest Belle, which makes him unique in the world of Disney animated films.
We know he's a jerk because he's willing to lock Belle's father up in an asylum, but his truly villainous side doesn't appear until the rousing anthem "Kill the Beast."
Better known as Cinderella's step-mother, Lady Tremaine "doesn't harm her stepdaughter physically, but seeks to destroy her psychologically, motivated by jealousy of Cinderella's beauty, as it serves to accentuate the greediness and awkwardness of the stepmother's own daughters, Anastasia and Drizella.
Lady Tremaine is also a socialite, determined to gain higher status by marrying one of her daughters to Prince Charming or some bachelor of noble state," as noted on the Disney Wiki.
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was definitively dark for a Disney film, the kind of thing your mom maybe wished she didn't take you to see in theaters ... and a lot of those sexualized evil undertones / general hellfire was perpetuated by Claude Frollo.
Don't be fooled by the stupid hat, the Minister of Justice thought nothing of locking a baby in an attic and considering burning down "all of Paris" just to find a gypsy that he has a crush on.
While demons are most often associated with head-spinning and excessive vomit, Cruella de Vil did her best impression of a hell beast, while managing to appear just as fabulous as a skeletal high-power fashion editor.
She isn't a calculating villain like the rest in the Disney canon, just an impulsively stylish lady, who really doesn't mind skinning 101 puppies to look good.
What's that saying? I'd rather go naked than skin puppies for their fur?
I mean, Uncle Scar is just the worst and errybody knows it. He's the kind of cowardly villain who has his minions do most of the dirty work for him, which makes him half-scary/half-pathetic.
His song, "Be Prepared," is fraught with tension, though, and this scene where he's trying to kill Simba at the end is a real nail-biter. Jeremy Irons' voice - shudder!
She's awful, yes, and her song "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is creepy and heartless, but there's something a little bit lovable about Ursula, too, isn't there?
I don't know if it's the way she just goes for it with the red lipstick, white hair and wild gown even though she's a big girl, or if it's because she's so darn clever, but somehow we all get how a funny fat girl could turn mean, no?
A little trivia for you, according to Wikipedia:
"The Queen is the villain in the 1937 Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This version of the Queen was often referred to as Queen Grimhilde in Disney publications of the 1930s, and was voiced by Lucille La Verne."
Yeah, her shriveled old lady self is terrifying, but let's not forget that her beautiful, narcissistic self wanted Snow White's heart in a box. Gulp.
Hades is so campy, it's easy to forget he's the god of the underworld, acting as Hercules' sworn enemy.
Really, it's a challenge to have any character be voiced by James Woods and still make them seem genuinely malevolent, but it works.
Despite his grand plot to overthrow Zeus' throne, Hades takes the shape of a trickster-type character with serious anger management issues.
He also gets points for having a theme song that sounds like it cold have been written by Mumford and Sons.
The Royal Vizier of Agrabah is an amoral psychopath. With no understanding of remorse and a penchant for pure evil, he is perhaps more consistently evil than his villainous brethren.
Essentially, his entire goal is to trick Jasmine into being his slave queen, only so that he can kill her and take the throne.
Yet, despite all of the unabated maleficence, there is something vaguely comical about his sense of humor and enduring flair for sarcasm, executed flawlessly with the help of his sidekick parrot Iago.
There is probably no single more frightening scene in a Disney movie than when the evil Maleficent turns into a fire-breathing dragon at the end of Sleeping Beauty and tries to destroy Prince Phillip.
(Unless you're willing to count the transformation of Maleficent's live-action counterpart Queen Narissa into a dragon at the end of Enchanted.)
Overall, though, Maleficient is still the most evil Disney villain, because who puts a death curse on a baby, y'all? The most evil person you can imagine, that's who!
