There is no other major movie franchise more drastically, dramatically varied than the films based on DC Comics. It's been a wild ride, man. Richard Donner made you believe a man could fly. Tim Burton turned Gotham City into a Gothic dreamscape. Beautiful madman Joel Schumacher slapped some damn nipples on Batman's chest and then Christopher Nolan made such tomfoolery illegal in all 50 states. Zack Snyder leveled Metropolis and then smashed two titans together before Joss Whedon took over his post and boy is that conversation still happening. David Ayer compiled what I've been told is some sort of Suicide Squad, which spun off into Cathy Wan's Birds of Prey, a candy-colored gift to bisexuals across the globe. Somewhere, in the middle of all this, Jason Momoa rode a Lovecraftian sea-beast with the voice of Julie Andrews out of the Earth's core and that movie made more than one billion dollars.

The point being, the concept of a "DC Comic Movie" has more definitions than a Joker mood swing, and I can say that because the list you are about to read features no less than four Jokers. (Two won Oscars for it. One had grills and it was terrible.) Right, the list. The villains. No matter what, the leg up DC has always had on its Marvel Cinematic competition is an endlessly interesting roster of movie villains. So we ranked them, all of them in all their villainous glory. But first, some quick caveats:

  • To be included on this list the character had to be portrayed in live-action. This is mostly because an earlier draft included "Mark Hamill is the best Joker" at the bottom of every entry and it just took up a lot of room.
  • I did not include Cesar Romero's Joker, Frank Gorshin's Riddler, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, or Lee Meriwether's Catwoman because those are performances—with the exception of Meriwether—that originated on television. If this offends, just know they would've ranked 12th, 15th, 18th, and 22nd, respectively.
  • Despite technically being the first-ever DC Movie, I also didn't include Superman and the Mole Men because it is a 60-minute indie film and in the end the true villain kind of turns out to be the concept of bigotry. If this offends, just know the concept of bigotry probably would've ranked #1.
  • Pop culture rankings are more of a conversation starter and chance to explore a wide range of movies than they are an objective blueprint for any "correct" idea of fandom. If you think this ranking is deranged horse shit, buddy, that's cool, because there is no "right" or "wrong" opinion here.
  • Unless your opinion is in any way negative toward the octopus who plays the drums in Aquaman, in which case I will see you in a court of law.

With all that out of the way, here is every DC Movie Villain, ranked from worst to best.

45. Parallax, 'Green Lantern'

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Image via Warner Bros.

At this point, nine years later, to say the Green Lantern film had a few problems is like saying the Titanic had a buoyancy issue, so let's not belabor the point. But, okay, one thing: Parallax, one of the Lantern Corps' most enduring villains, an ancient, demonic embodiment of fear itself, looks like a newspaper strip cartoonist drew a fart. For shame, all around.

44. Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), 'Justice League'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Yes, if you've ever spent a minimum of 0.25 seconds on Twitter you probably already know that Darkseid, not Steppenwolf, was supposed to be the Big Bad of Justice League. But Steppenwolf is what we got, he's what we have to live with (for now!), and no antagonist has ever given off stronger Last Minute Replacement vibes. Ciarán Hinds truly tries his best but Steppenwolf, the New God commander of Apokolips' parademon army, is a shoulder-shrug emoji come to life. An above-average sized CGI warrior looking for a glowing box. A vital part of Steppenwolf's plan involves casually dropping by off-screen and plucking a Mother Box off the roof of a cop car. After two hours Superman just, like, beats his ass until even his supernaturally loyal soldiers are like "wow, yeah, this dude sucks."

43. Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow), 'Superman IV: The Quest for Peace'

Image via Warner Bros.

Oh, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, my beautiful sloppy son. A notoriously cheap-looking cheese-fest needs a villain to match, and boy did director Sidney J. Furie get his money's worth in Mark Pillow's Nuclear Man, an unstoppable foe whose powers deactivate without exposure to the sun. To defeat this absolute titan either call Superman or the shadiest tree in your backyard. My favorite part about this character—besides the fact he looks like the Ultimate Warrior's estranged father—is that someone on the creative team looked at the finished product, decided it simply wasn't terrible enough yet, and had Gene Hackman dub over Pillow's lines, taking the whole thing from uncomfortable to uncanny.

42. Bane (Jeep Swenson), 'Batman & Robin'

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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

His name is Bane, he's very strong, and he says "Bane!" If we're being honest here, I love this absolutely deranged take on DC's biggest Venom addict from Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, but only in the way one loves a three-legged table for its novelty. In reality, it probably wasn't the best idea to take away any semblance of the comic book character's genius intellect in favor of a "MUSCLES BIG, BATMAN BAD" approach, even if that character design remains a campy, bulging delight.

41. Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson), 'Steel'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Steel is such a hyper-specific snapshot of the year 1997 that it's actually illegal to watch it while sitting in anything other than an inflatable chair you bought at Spencer's. We just decided Shaquille O'Neal was going to lead a superhero movie, and Judd Nelson would play the villainous Nathaniel Burke, a corrupt soldier who plans to auction off advanced weaponry over something called "the internet". Nelson is fine, but like pretty much everything in Steel his character is just...kinda lame! (I say "pretty much" because Richard Roundtree is in this movie.) Judd Nelson shoots a laser gun at four-time NBA Champion Shaquille O'Neal in a metal suit and the laser bounces off the metal suit and Judd Nelson dies. Steel!

40. Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), 'Jonah Hex'

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Image via Warner Bros.

One of the most disappointing truths of modern cinema is that John Malkovich played an evil cowboy who wants to blow up the U.S. Capitol Building with a super-cannon and it was all kind of boring. The only thing you really need to know about the depth of characterization to every role in Jonah Hex is that this movie is 81 minutes long and that includes credits.

39. Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), 'Suicide Squad'

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Image via Warner Bros.

I mean, who the hell even knows what the deal was with Suicide Squad, a movie chopped to candy-colored, vaguely racist pieces by a studio in full panic mode. The best thing to say about its Big Bad, the ancient demonic witch named Enchantress (Cara Delevigne), is that she was able to speak more than one line before her head exploded, which is more than we can say for dearly departed Slipknot (Adam Beach). But all the gyrations in the world can't elevate a paper-thin character driving a paper-thin plot about the most stock end-of-the-world scenario you've ever seen in your life. There was even a sky beam. Of course, there was a sky beam. In the end, this interdimensional deity with the power to end humanity was taken out by a team where the like third most important member throws a boomerang.

38. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), 'Green Lantern'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond is probably the #1 piece of evidence that just because a character's design is faithful to the comics doesn't mean that character design was a good idea. (And that's coming from someone who desperately wants a live-action M.O.D.O.K. to join the MCU.) Bless every thespian bone in Sarsgaard's body, but there's not a performance strong enough to not get overshadowed by the fact this Green Lantern baddie, infected by a piece of Parallax, looks like the avocado you ask a Ralph's employee to get rid of as a safety concern.

37. Doomsday, 'Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Good lord, this thumb-looking motherfucker.

36. Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn), 'Superman III'

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Image via Warner Bros.

On paper, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. star Robert Vaughn playing an evil, scheming industrialist while serving several iconic winter jacket lewks in the process is a home run. The problem with Superman III's Ross Webster is that, as written by David and Leslie Newman, he's just very obviously a second-rate Lex Luthor. Gene Hackman had done this before in a much better movie. Adding to the bummer of it all is the fact Webster's ploys lead to a self-aware supercomputer, bringing to mind a depressing whiff of Richard Donner's original plans to bring Brainiac into the franchise before departing the project altogether.

35. Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone), 'Catwoman'

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Image via Warner Bros.

For most of its runtime Catwoman doesn't really have a villain, content instead to wage a war on the concept of film editing. When the third act rolls around and we've seen Halle Berry's butt from every angle humanly imaginable, it's revealed that Sharon Stone's wannabe beauty mogul Laurel Hedare is both a murderer and has also covered herself in enough toxic beauty cream to make her skin hard as a rock. Or, you know, a stone. Anyway then she falls out a window and shortly afterward you're forced to reckon with the fact you just watched the film Catwoman.

34. Selena (Faye Dunaway), 'Supergirl'

Image via Warner Bros.

Faye Dunaway, absolute legend. Director Jeannot Szwarc's Supergirl is unfortunately as forgettable as forgettable gets, but I'd be lying if I said there isn't some thrills to be had watching Dunaway devour every inch of the scenery as a witchy woman named Selena. It's a performance that would've felt more at home in a B-movie creature feature than a feel-good DC Comics movie, and no, it does not work. But yes, it is just kind of fun that it exists.

33. Ares (David Thewlis), 'Wonder Woman'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Because two things can be true at once, Wonder Woman is one of the best superhero movies of the last ten years and also features the funniest third-act fight scene of all time. Casting David Thewlis and his vaguely menacing purr to play Ares, the God of War, especially when the character is lurking in the shadows the entire time? Great idea. Rendering an inhumanly jacked CGI body inside a massive suit of armor but for some reason keeping David Thewlis' face on top? Genuinely funny, and perhaps the clearest example that there is no actual law that says a comic book movie needs to end in a 20-minute CGI barf battle.

32. Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson), 'Aquaman'

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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

The sound of Ocean Master shouting mid-combat like he's powering through song six of a birthday karaoke night plays on a loop inside my head 24/7. What a choice by my man Patrick Wilson, a stellar actor who nonetheless agreed to wear that top knot. My love for Aquaman is well-documented across this website, but even I can admit James Wan's absolutely wackadoodle undersea adventure is too crowded. Between a globe-trotting treasure hunt, Black Manta's (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) quest for revenge, a reunion plot with Nicole Kidman's Atlanna, and that part where a Lovecraftian sea-beast voiced by Julie Andrews bursts from the Earth's core, there's not much bandwidth left to dive much deeper into Orm as an antagonist. It's a good performance inside your standard First Movie Villain arc.

31. Dr. Anton Arcane (Louis Jordan), 'Swamp Thing'

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Image via Embassy Pictures

Wes Craven straight-up made a rubber-suit creature feature in which Louis Jordan's evil scientist Anton Arcane turns into a boar-monster and swings a sword at Swamp Thing and the fact we're not out here constantly celebrating this fact is a detriment to humanity. Admittedly, your mileage may wildly vary on this one; Swamp Thing is an unapologetic cheese factory, its creature effects have aged like yogurt, and Jordan is mustache-twirling before he drinks that secret formula. But for anyone with B-movie sensibilities, this is the dream right here.

30. Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston), 'Wonder Woman'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Danny Huston is absolutely, 100% serviceable and fine as General Erich Ludendorff, because if you put Danny Huston and his extremely villainous face in a scary German uniform you've pretty much covered all your bases. Unfortunately, Wonder Woman does not, in fact, do much more than this, so Ludendorff just sort of serves as a stand-in while Diana (Gal Gadot) fights the concept of war itself. The character doesn't have an elevated comic-booky hook like Elena Anaya's Doctor Poison, and it's eventually revealed that he's not even The Big Bad. (See: David Thewlis and his hilarious CGI trapezius muscles.) In the end, Ludendorff having served his narrative purpose, Diana shows up and very easily beats his ass to death.

29. Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya), 'Wonder Woman'

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Image via Warner Bros.

I just wanted more Doctor Poison, to be honest! Elena Anaya put in a great, oddly perverse performance as the mustard gas enthusiast Isabel Maru, aided by those facial prosthetics modeled off of real-word WWI medical tech. It's a shame she played third fiddle to the less-interesting Ludendorff and the immensely more-hilarious-looking Ares.

28. The Joker (Jared Leto), 'Suicide Squad'

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Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Where.........to begin. Back in the halcyon days of 2015, a series of tabloid stories about Jared Leto sending gross shit to his Suicide Squad castmates somehow got people believing the actor might've committed himself to something special, despite the fact we all saw that picture of the Joker with a forehead tattoo. The one, single way the entire situation could've been more embarrassing was if it all led to roughly six minutes of screentime, and then literally exactly that happened. Unless HBO Max is feeling particularly generous we'll probably never see Leto's full performance, so, yeah, you could chalk this bad boy up to the editing process. But woof, I'm not sure more of Jared Leto doing an impression of a Topeka strip club manager is the answer here. The man committed 1000% to a bit that doesn't click, and the truly funny thing is that it almost, almost did. A person who dresses up like a clown to commit crimes would also be the kind of person to tattoo their own nickname across their belly. A realistic Joker would, in fact, have strong B-Level Vine Celebrity energy. Jared Leto's Joker is effectively repellent, for sure—I can say with absolute certainty that he smells like the ashtray in a 2001 Dodge Charger—but the actor didn't add any layer on to the grime that makes you want to see him do anything but go away.

27. Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard), 'The Dark Knight Rises'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Nothing in the history of cinema will confound me more than the fact Christopher Nolan, hyper-competent nitpicker of every frame and shot, allowed this death to make it to screen. Marion Cotillard's Talia al Ghul dies like a Tamagotchi running out of batteries. It's hilarious and I love it. Besides her final moments, Cotillard was an A+ choice to play the deadly daughter of Ra's al Ghul, but having her hide in the shadows as Wayne Enterprises board member "Miranda Tate" for 85% of the script is one of the few times Nolan's sleight-of-hand storytelling fuckery didn't quite work. You're asked to care about Talia as an antagonist for about 15 minutes, while the villain we were just told was unstoppable for 2+ hours, Bane, suddenly looks like a puppy dog. Everyone, in the end, is underserved.

26. Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), 'Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice'

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Image via Warner Bros.

Much like Jared Leto's Joker (see above), it's clear as day what Zack Snyder was going for here, and there is a pocket of the multi-verse where it works. How best to update DC's most corrupt billionaire for the 21st century? Make him one of the many tech gurus who have popped up in Silicon Valley, many of them trust fund kids hopped up on money and power they didn't earn. And hell, while you're at it, cast Jesse Eisenberg, once nominated for an Oscar for playing the real-life example of this archetype, Mark Zuckerberg. It's a great narrative decision, and there are parts of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice where Eisenberg's trademark motormouthed delivery soars next to Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck's competition to see who can have the stiffest face. But what brings it down is the same anchor around the entire movie, an unflappable insistence that all of this is the most serious, philosophical shit ever put to film. There is not a whiff of tongue-in-cheek to Eisenberg's long, long monologues about demons coming from the sky or that truly terrible jar of piss moment. It dilutes the whole idea to have this Lex Luthor be both clownish and an absurdly fortunate mastermind pulling every string.