There are plenty of things you’d expect to experience in just about anyQuentin Tarantinomovie. The big ones are, naturally, scenes of shocking violence, dialogue filled with profanity and/or pop culture references, non-chronological storytelling, and the featuring of many… well, feet. Also, he quite likes telling stories that have morally murky characters, be they anti-heroes, tragic villains, or people who feel rather ordinary thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
To focus on the bad guys (and gals) though, here’s a rundown of each central villain in every Quentin Tarantino movie, ranked based on how memorable they are. One disclaimer: for some of these films, it’s hard to single out a main villain,because some Tarantino movies don’t have traditional villains, while in others, pretty much every main character is some shade of evil. Hopefully, you’ll understand, and if not, feel free to strike down this writerwith great vengeance and furious anger.
‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
So, withPulp Fiction, picking a central antagonist is tough. Some might say it’s Marsellus Wallace, because he’s kind of the antagonist toButch in one of the stories, but doesn’t really fulfill a villainous role in the other stories. Also, he and Butch end up coming to some sort of uneasy understanding because they both come up against a more vile character, Zed.
Zed isn’tin the movie as much as everyone else, but he’s truly despicable in what he does with the limited screen time he has, andmakes the likes of Marsellus and Butch look positively heroic in comparison. Still,Pulp Fictionis an amazing moviewithout the need to have a big bad, so to speak, meaning that compared to the other “central” villains (well, the villains in other Tarantino movies that are more central), he’s not quite as memorable. But for the limited role inPulp Fictionhe has to play, he still works.
Pulp Fiction
9Tex Watson
‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ (2019)
So much ofOnce Upon a Time in Hollywoodfunctions like a hangout movie, and because narrative takes a backseat so often, there’s less of a need for a central villain.Charles Mansonlooms over parts of the story, but doesn’t have a ton of screen time in the end, because Tarantino seemingly didn’t want to make him a big part of this, partly because he doesn’t factor into this version of Hollywood’s late 1960s as much as he (grimly) did in real life.
Instead, it’s probablyTex Watsonwho makes the biggest impact as an antagonist,having a little more screen time as a prominent member of the Manson Family. He’s great when he’s on-screen, but he’s not on screen a lot… at least not until the very memorable final act, when Tex and a couple of other Manson Family members get what’s coming to themin a brutal and cathartic sequence.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
8Daisy Domergue
‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)
After this point, it gets a little easier to single out the main villains in the films of Quentin Tarantino. But the final hurdle, for current ranking purposes, is what to do withThe Hateful Eight. This is a movie that sees all its characters being some level of – you guessed it – hateful.They’re all confined to the one cabin, and they’re all sketchy and suspicious, both in general and around each other.
A couple of people near the end emerge as “not as bad,” while a handful of others are revealed to be more hateful than the rest. Of those, Daisy Domergue is probably the central antagonist in the end, given she’s particularly cutthroat and, yes, hateful. But given the company she has in this, her level of evil can only stand out so much.Good characters are hard to come by inThe Hateful Eight, even compared to some of Tarantino’s other downbeat/cynical films.
The Hateful Eight
7Ordell Robbie
‘Jackie Brown’ (1997)
Samuel L. Jacksonhasplayed villainous roles for Tarantinoon more than one occasion, getting to be the central villain inJackie Brown. Again, there are a few people here who are quite easily definable as “not good people,” to put it mildly, but of them, the only other person who comes close to feeling like a mainvillain isRobert De Niro’s Louis. And Louis is too much of an idiot to feel threatening, at least most of the time.
Jackson’s Ordell Robbie is a whole lot more cunning and charismatic, but his ruthlessness is summed up pretty early on, when he murdersChris Tucker’s character, Beaumont.Ordell pulls strings, proves coldly calculating, and comes fairly close to getting what he wants inJackie Brown, emerging as a pretty damn effective antagonist for what’s surely Tarantino’s most underrated film.
Jackie Brown
6O-Ren Ishii
‘Kill Bill: Vol. 1’ (2003)
Here, it’s best to save the titular character for a bit later, because Bill isn’t inKill Bill: Vol. 1a whole lot, by design. His presence is felt, his hand is seen, and his voice is heard, but he’s not a huge part of things until the second part. So, if one countsVol. 1as its own movie, the person who probably fulfills the main antagonist role the most is O-Ren Ishii, given how much screen time she has.
Her story mirrors the Bride’s, in some ways, given how much of her life has been dominated by revenge,making her a tragic villainwhose demise is actually quite bittersweet, in the end.O-Ren is also just really cool, being skilled with a sword, standing asa feared member of the yakuza, andhaving a small army at her disposal.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
5Mr. Blonde
‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)
It takes a special kind of evil to stand out, as a villain, in a film likeReservoir Dogs, given all the main players here arecapable of doing some pretty horrendous things. But of the bunch, it’s Mr. Blonde who’s easily the most horrendous, and it all comes down to one stomach-churning and regrettably memorable scene: the oneinvolving “Stuck in the Middle with You”and a severed ear.
Mr. Blonde might not be the mastermindbehind the heist that goes wrong, and he’s not alone in causing physical harm by any means (as far as the characters in this movie go),but the way he does it here, and the joy he seems to take from the act of torture, makes him the evilest. In the role,Michael Madsendoes a lot with quite a little, given Mr. Blonde’s screen time isn’t all that lengthy, but it’s really just that one infamous scene; that’s all he needs.
Reservoir Dogs
4Stuntman Mike
‘Death Proof’ (2007)
Few people would placeDeath Proofin their top 5 when ranking the films of Quentin Tarantino, but if it’s only central villains who are being talked about/ranked, then this film deserves to be right up there. That’s thanks to it having Stuntman Mike as its main villain, and he’s perhaps the most prominent character in the film, given he appears throughoutboth ofDeath Proof’s distinct halves.
There’s one group of women he stalks, torments, and then kills in the first half, and then the second half sees him try to do the same to another group of women, but they fight back and best him.Kurt Russell is one of the best parts of the film, and his performance as Stuntman Mike is him at his best, as an actor, with Russell –plus the climactic action sequence– more than savingDeath Prooffrom otherwise being a dud.
Death Proof
3Calvin Candie
‘Django Unchained’ (2012)
Django Unchainedis amovie with some fantastic performances throughout,Leonardo DiCaprio’s included. He’s the central villain here, playing a slave owner named Calvin Candie; the man responsible for owning the title character’s wife, whose rescue is what the entire film’s narrative focuses on.
DiCaprio does chew scenery here quite a bit, but he’s DiCaprio, so he’s pretty good at going over the top and still coming across as a great actor.Candie is not a nuanced villain, but he is a very effective one who’s easy to hate, all the while feeling uncomfortably believable, at least within the slightly heightened world ofDjango Unchained… well, it’s heightened at times, but is absolutely vicious and uncompromising with its depiction of the horrors of slavery. And Candie’s the one responsible for so much of that misery.
Django Unchained
‘Kill Bill: Vol. 2’ (2004)
After occupying a space pretty much just in the shadows throughoutKill Bill: Vol. 1, the titular Bill emerges as a full-fledged and central antagonist inKill Bill: Vol. 2. He appears on-screen throughout much of the film, and part of that has to do with the fact that of the Bride’s five targets (Bill being the last, naturally), two were already taken care of inVol. 1, meaning Bill is inevitably closer to death than ever inthis more dialogue-driven second halfof the story.
He emerges as a surprisingly complex character;someone who did have a bond with the protagonist, yet things went sour and put them both on an inevitably violent path for reasons that feel natural, and a little tragic.He deserves to be taken out, sure, but one of the best things thatKill Bill: Vol. 2does is make him a good deal more layered, as a character, than you might’ve expected based only onVol. 1.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
1Hans Landa
‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009)
It’s no competition, really.Hans Landa isn’t just the best villain in a Quentin Tarantino movie, but he’s up there amongthe best villains in cinematic history. This is especially impressive that he steals the show villain-wise in a film likeInglourious Basterds, consideringAdolf Hitlerhimself is a character here, and though his screen time isn’t huge, in just about any other World War II film featuring him, he’d feel like the central villain, given he started the whole conflict and all.
But Hans Landa is the main antagonist inInglourious Basterds, and he’s simultaneously entertaining, terrifying, oddly charismatic, and dangerous.Christoph Waltzseemed like he was born to play this role, and he’s a key part of whyInglourious Basterdssoars as highly as it does. And, to his credit, Waltz was also excellent inDjango Unchainedthree years later, playing a very different sort of character.
Inglourious Basterds
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