In most movies, it’s assumed that the villains will be defeated and the hero will be victorious, but there are some villains who don’t deserve this outcome. A good villain should be just as complex and layered as the protagonist, and writers can sometimes create a villain so compelling and intelligent that there seems to be no way for them to lose. In these cases, villains often lose thanks to a stroke of luck, just because this is what the movie requires.
On the surface, this may sound like bad writing, but there are a lot of great movies that dispatch their villains using luck or outside forces. Sometimes, this is used intentionally to highlight the chaos of life, and that luck can often play a bigger role than people like to admit. Many memorable movie villains have done everything right, but since the good guys have to win, they have fallen at the last hurdle through no fault of their own.
Related 10 Movie Villains Who Were Actually Right All Along
Some of the most compelling movie villains are even more justified than the heroes. What makes them evil is the way they pursue their goals.
10 Professor Quirrell
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
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Director Chris Columbus Release Date November 16, 2001 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Rupert Grint , Emma Watson , John Cleese , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Richard Griffiths , Ian Hart , John Hurt , Alan Rickman , Fiona Shaw , Maggie Smith
Professor Quirrell spends the entire school year at Hogwarts operating in the shadows, with Harry and his friends failing to identify him as the true villain. While they set their sights on Professor Snape, Quirrell edges closer to obtaining the Sorcerer’s Stone. Harry is shocked to find him waiting beyond Fluffy, the devil’s snare, and the other obstacles, proving how effectively he kept his true mission a secret.
The only reason that Quirrell fails to get the stone and bring Voldemort back to life is that he disintegrates whenever Harry touches him.
Ultimately, the battle for the Sorcerer’s Stone comes down to a fight between Quirrell and Harry. This wasn’t exactly the plan, but Voldemort and Quirrell would likely have favored themselves in a physical altercation with an 11-year-old boy. The only reason that Quirrell fails to get the stone and bring Voldemort back to life is that he disintegrates whenever Harry touches him. He had no way of foreseeing this, however, and neither did Harry. It remains to be seen how the HBO reboot of Harry Potter will portray Quirrell.
9 Russ Cargill
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
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Director David Silverman Release Date July 27, 2007 Cast Julie Kavner , Nancy Cartwright , Hank Azaria , Dan Castellaneta , Harry Shearer , Yeardley Smith
The Simpsons Movie introduces a new character to play the villain. While Mr. Burns could easily have been the one to plunge Springfield into chaos, much like he does in the classic Simpsons episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns?,” introducing Russ Cargill allows the writers to provide a fun moment where the villain is killed off. After seeing his plan to contain Springfield within a giant dome fall apart, he is dispatched when Maggie pushes a boulder onto his head.
Russ is defeated when Homer pulls off something that would be utterly impossible in real-life.
Russ’ plan is cruel and deranged, but there’s no reason that it shouldn’t work. The only way that the dome gets shattered is by having Homer ride a motorcycle upside-down on the glass. The Simpsons has always had a strange relationship with cartoon physics. For the most part, it remains relatively grounded for a cartoon, and it only journeys into Looney Tunes territory for a quick joke, not an important story beat. The Simpsons Movie is an obvious exception, as Russ is defeated when Homer pulls off something that would be utterly impossible in real-life.
8 HAL 9000
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
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Director Stanley Kubrick Release Date April 3, 1968 Cast Keir Dullea , Gary Lockwood , William Sylvester , Daniel Richter , Leonard Rossiter , Margaret Tyzack
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the first movies to use an artificially intelligent villain, and HAL remains the gold standard many decades later. In keeping with their primary objective, HAL tries to eliminate the astronauts on the Discovery One’s mission to Jupiter, seeing them as inefficient and potentially damaging. HAL kills all but one of the astronauts, and they nearly make a clean sweep.
The only way that Dave manages to find his way back inside is by launching himself through the vacuum of space without a helmet.
HAL strands Dave outside the ship in a small pod and refuses to open the pod bay doors to allow Dave re-entry. The only way that Dave manages to find his way back inside is by launching himself through the vacuum of space without a helmet. It’s incredibly lucky that this risky maneuver pans out. If it had failed, Dave would have died before getting the chance to disconnect HAL.
7 Hans Gruber
Die Hard (1989)
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Director John McTiernan Release Date July 15, 1988 Cast Bruce Willis , Bonnie Bedelia , Reginald VelJohnson , Paul Gleason , William Atherton , Hart Bochner
Alan Rickman’s first movie role produced an iconic action movie villain. Hans Gruber has some of Die Hard‘s best quotes, enhanced by Rickman’s unmistakable deep voice, but he’s most memorable for being a truly well-developed antagonist who pushes John McClane to the limit. This is relatively rare for an action movie, since so many villains aren’t as complex as the heroes.
Gruber’s plan to steal from the vault of Nakatomi Plaza is brilliant, and he knows just how to distract law enforcement.
Gruber’s plan to steal from the vault of Nakatomi Plaza is brilliant, and he knows just how to distract law enforcement, even tricking them into disabling the safe’s electromagnetic lock. He is only stopped by a hero cop with seemingly supernatural amounts of luck. John McClane is one of the few people who could ever have a chance of stopping Gruber, and he just happens to be in the building on the day of the heist.
6 The Colonel
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
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Director Matt Reeves Release Date July 14, 2017 Cast Judy Greer , Steve Zahn , Mercedes de la Zerda , Max Lloyd-Jones , Woody Harrelson , Alessandro Juliani , Amiah Miller , Terry Notary , Andy Serkis , Aleks Paunovic , Ty Olsson , Devyn Dalton , Gabriel Chavarria
Woody Harrelson delivers a menacing performance in War for the Planet of the Apes as a rogue military commander making a bold stand against the new variant of simian flu. His methods are extreme, but the Colonel sees himself as the last hope for the future of humanity. He accepts that some collateral damage will be necessary, and he understands that even then, his chances are slim.
The Colonel does everything within his power to achieve victory, even though he knows he is facing the might of the U.S. army, violent apes and a deadly virus.
The Colonel ultimately succumbs to the mutated strain of simian flu himself while his army is under attack. It’s a stroke of poetic bad luck, but he sticks to his principles by taking his own life. The Colonel does everything within his power to achieve victory, even though he knows he is facing the might of the U.S. army, violent apes and a deadly virus at the same time. Ultimately, his obstacles prove to be too great.
5 Shooter McGavin
Happy Gilmore (1996)
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Director Dennis Dugan Release Date February 16, 1996 Cast Adam Sandler , Christopher McDonald , Julie Bowen , Frances Bay , Carl Weathers , Allen Covert
Shooter Gavin is a great sports movie villain, as someone who represents the closed-off attitude of the golfing world. Not only does he see Happy as a threat to his sporting aspirations, but he also believes that his unorthodox style and brash personality undermines the prestige of golf. Shooter does everything he can to defeat Happy, including hiring people to heckle him and hit him with a car, but he still loses.
Shooter gets to a position where his victory is all but certain, but he couldn’t possibly have anticipated this miraculous putt.
Happy’s winning shot on the final hole couldn’t be any luckier. After a TV tower collapses between the ball and the hole, Happy is forced to make a putt which bounces around the wreckage like a makeshift game of crazy golf. Shooter gets to a position where his victory is all but certain, but he couldn’t possibly have anticipated this miraculous putt. Shooter will get a chance at revenge in the upcoming Happy Gilmore 2.
4 Lord Business
The Lego Movie (2014)
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Director Phil Lord , Chris Miller Release Date February 7, 2014 Cast Chris Pratt , Alison Brie , Channing Tatum , Nick Offerman , Liam Neeson , Will Ferrell , Cobie Smulders , Elizabeth Banks , Will Arnett , Charlie Day , Jonah Hill
Lord Business wants to control his entire world with the power of the Kragle, and he almost defeats all the Master Builders to make his dream come true. Lord Business has everything in place, and Emmett is only able to defeat him by taking a leap of faith into the abyss, which transports him to the human world. There, he sees his entire existence for what it is, and he retrieves the Piece of Resistance before returning to defeat Lord Business.
There’s no way that Lord Business could have prevented or even foreseen Emmett traveling to a realm beyond his reality and gaining assistance from a human.
There’s no way that Lord Business could have prevented or even foreseen Emmett traveling to a realm beyond his reality and gaining assistance from a human, who essentially has the powers of a god within the narrative of The Lego Movie. This tips the scales in Emmett’s favor, but Lord Business would easily have won if the events had been kept to the only plane of existence he was aware of.
3 Ed Rooney
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
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Director John Hughes Release Date June 11, 1986 Cast Jennifer Grey , Matthew Broderick , Mia Sara , Alan Ruck , Jeffrey Jones
Ed Rooney has hilariously bad luck, but he’s smart enough to know the truth about Ferris Bueller’s truancy. If he makes a mistake, it’s that he takes the whole affair too seriously. However, he’s right to trust his instincts, even though it gets him into a series of comedic mishaps while Ferris is off with his friends having the greatest day of his young life. Rooney must be cursed in some way.
If Rooney had been even slightly luckier on one occasion, he might have rumbled Ferris.
Rooney is always the butt of the joke, being chased by dogs, falling down flights of stairs and being laughed at by his students. It’s easy to see why he is so obsessed with catching Ferris. He gets it spot-on when he says that Ferris is a bad influence, since he also drags two of his friends along on his misadventure in Chicago. If Rooney had been even slightly luckier on one occasion, he might have rumbled Ferris.
2 Evil Bill & Ted
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
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Director Peter Hewitt Release Date July 19, 1991 Cast Keanu Reeves , Alex Winter , William Sadler , Joss Ackland , Pam Grier , George Carlin , Amy Stoch , Jim Martin
The first Bill and Ted sequel sends the two slackers on a journey through the afterlife. They are killed by two evil robotic versions of themselves, sent from the future to prevent them from winning a Battle of the Bands contest. The evil Bill and Ted get rid of their targets almost immediately upon arriving in the past. They don’t know at that point that there’s any way for Bill and Ted to come back to life.
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
is a proudly silly comedy, and it comes up with one plot contrivance after another to try and get Bill and Ted back to Earth so they can win the Battle of the Bands contest.
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey is a proudly silly comedy, and it comes up with one plot contrivance after another to try and get Bill and Ted back to Earth so they can win the Battle of the Bands contest. In a fair fight without the use of a Deus Ex Machina, the evil robots would win easily, but this isn’t what the spirit of Bill and Ted is about. Considering the tone of the movie, it’s the robots who never stood a chance.
1 Gozer
Ghostbusters (1984)
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Director Ivan Reitman Release Date June 8, 1984 Cast Bill Murray , Dan Aykroyd , Sigourney Weaver , Harold Ramis , Rick Moranis , Annie Potts , Ernie Hudson
Gozer the Gozerian is summoned when Zuul and Vinz, the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster, unite at the secret temple on top of a building in Manhattan. She is an evil being from another dimension, come to wreak havoc on New York City, and the Ghostbusters seem powerless to stop her. Whether she takes the form of a human woman or an enormous Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Gozer is impossible to contain.
Whether she takes the form of a human woman or an enormous Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Gozer is impossible to contain.
Gozer is eventually defeated when Egon Spengler instructs the group to go against his previous instructions and cross the streams of their proton packs. Since he warned that crossing the streams could cause a disastrous explosion, it’s safe to say that this idea is a Hail Mary when he sees no other options. Without such a lucky break, Gozer would remain in New York City to rain down destruction forever.