As Disney has entered the modern age, the unambiguously over-the-top depictions of classic villainy have been phased out in favor of stories with no clear-cut villains, deriving conflict from broader concepts than just an outright "bad-guy". While some films have achieved this through tackling inner-family and emotional self-discovery, most films have implemented a shocking twist villain whose unassuming nature is later revealed to be more realistically diabolical than the classic fairy tale baddies.
This list will highlight some of the strongest surprise villains to come out of Disney and Pixar over the past two decades, judging them by how they effectively operate as more subtle villains and plot-twists that tie into the themes and ideas of their respective films.
Assistant Mayor Bellwether in Zootopia (2016)
Zootopia’s conflicts are derived from a gutturally identifiable aspect of our own reality by tackling heavy issues like systemic oppression and racial prejudice. With a veritable animal kingdom coexisting in an urban cityscape, the film’s mammalian metropolis shows what social complexities arrive when animals of all different species and sizes try to coexist and how they affect individuals. The film effectively shows that the root of the city’s problems come from inequalities present in its society and its readiness to judge animals based on their stereotypes. This is best illustrated by Assistant Mayor Bellwether, played by Jenny Slate, whose plots to achieve power and heighten the conflict between predator and prey demonstrate the disparity of their world and highlight the film’s overall message. Just as the film works to dispel animal prejudices in the eyes of farm-raised Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) through her investigation, Bellwether uses her status as the meek subordinate lamb to fix the blame on her powerful lion mayor and become the new head of state. Through fanning hatred and fear in the city, Bellwether is driven to change the system that left animals like her constantly serving under more domineering and physically advantages beasts to benefit the most.
Robert Callaghan in Big Hero 6 (2014)
Big Hero 6 shows what unhealthy processing of grief can do to a person and twist their ideals. Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) tragically lost his brother and is driven by vengeance to catch the villain responsible at any cost, along the way losing sight of what his brother would have wanted and edging towards darkness. Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell) is a reflection of what Hiro is going through. Having supposedly lost his daughter to a failed experiment, Callaghan swears revenge on the company and scientists behind the accident and works out his grief through criminal violence and plots of murder. Hiro and Callaghan are of the same belief to find peace in their loss through revenge, but where Hiro learned to honor his brother through helping others, Callaghan was blinded by hatred and chose to pass his suffering onto others, leaving him unable to reunite with his daughter.
Hans in Frozen (2013)
In the post-modern tradition of films like Shrek and Enchanted, Frozen did a lot to demystify the simplistic appeal of the traditional Disney fairy tale, primarily by challenging the notions of true love and marrying someone you just met. The film championed true love in the form of familial bonds and genuine selflessness as opposed to superficial attraction and flowery romanticism. Hans of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana) fits the role of the dashing prince that whisks Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) away with romantic niceties and songs after spending a childhood isolated from any human contact. Once his true intentions are revealed, Hans represents the danger of placing your love and trust into the wrong person and how some people will use the appearance of love to hold power and influence over another’s life. Hans took the trust and love Anna had for him to his advantage to take the throne for himself, making his treachery and opportunism look like noble heroism
Turbo/King Candy in Wreck-It-Ralph (2012)
Unlike most characters on this list, Wreck-It-Ralph's King Candy (Alan Tudyk) was a villain from the start, maintaining control over his Sugar Rush kingdom with a sweetly iron fist, keeping Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) from the racetrack at all costs. It is not the fact that he is a villain that is the twist, but rather the kind of villain he is revealed to be and becomes by the climax that makes him memorable. King Candy for most of the film is an eccentric control freak that seeks order in every facet of his kingdom, with a cheery Ed Wynn-esque voice that chimes in with a punny joke from time to time. When he is revealed to be the thought-to-be decommissioned retro character Turbo that rewrote the code of the game and stole the throne from Vanellope, his true motives are made clear of not only wanting control, but to be the center of his newly adopted game world. Furthermore to that, he becomes a viral cybug fusion monster who threatens to take over the whole arcade in his own name. King Candy’s arc strikingly shows how gradually a minimal annoyance can evolve into a literally monstrous threat.
Evelyn Deavor in Incredibles 2 (2018)
With a name literally a play on the phrase “evil endeavor”, the twist of Incredibles 2’s Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener) being the villain did not have as much of the element of surprise as characters like Hans or Bellwether. At this point, twist villains had become the new norm in Disney and Pixar films so viewers had become savvier to looking for clues and tips as to who the story’s true antagonist is actually going to be. Regardless, Evelyn’s motivations and the way she carried out her plan through strategically placed hypnosis gave the long-awaited sequel worthy stakes and a compelling story. As the world was on the brink of supers coming back out of hiding, Evelyn Deavor, under the guise of “Screenslaver”, puppeteered a plot to make supers a greater threat to the world than ever before and arguing the case that the presence of superheroes makes normal people weaker and less reliant on themselves. Her hypnosis technology gave the film action set pieces and character dilemmas that, at times, stood above what had been done in the original film.
Ernesto De La Cruz in Coco (2017)
As bad as most classic Disney villains are, at least they wrote their own songs! Ernesto De La Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) secured his fame in the worlds of the living and the dead by lying, cheating and murdering his way to fame. Much like Hans, Ernesto’s villainy plays into the story by having the hero put their trust and love into the wrong person. For Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez), meeting Ernesto and earning his blessing as a musician was more important to him than honoring his true family. Upon learning that Ernesto murdered his true great-great-grandfather and stole his songs, he learns to respect family and become a musician through reaching an understanding. The film’s true musical brilliance comes into how Ernesto selfishly appropriated the song “Remember Me”, contorting it from a loving lullaby to a self-congratulating plead for attention.
Zurg in Lightyear (2022)
With the very announcement of a spin-off movie for Toy Story’s favorite Space Ranger, Lightyear had a lot of fans expecting the villain to be the Evil Emperor Zurg, the sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance first introduced in Toy Story 2. While Zurg indeed played a key role in the final film, the conceit of his character and the motivations of his villainy were made to more so fit the context of the story. Outside of him no longer being a parody of Star Wars’ Darth Vader, the twist of the villain being an alternate future, older version of Buzz (James Brolin) brilliantly demonstrates the film’s thesis of letting the past be the past and owning up to one’s mistakes, as opposed to refusing to accept them. Zurg is a manifestation of the egotism that characterizes young Buzz (Chris Evans) throughout the former half of the film, thinking that he must take his mission upon himself to fix his mistakes instead of learning from them and living to do better by them. The Zurg twist works both meta-textually for fans of Toy Story and for the film’s story itself in isolation.
Prospector and Lots-O-Huggin' Bear in Toy Story 2 (1999)
Not only do both villains of the first twoToy Story sequels bank on being deceptively non-threatening and kind-hearted, but both of them are motivated by the insecurities that fuel most of the series’ drama. Each Toy Story film chronicles the turmoil and heartbreak that go with being a toy in service to a kid who loves them. What toys fear most are the prospects of being replaced, abandoned, neglected and overall unloved. In Toy Story 2, the Prospector (Kelsey Grammar) spent a lifetime unloved by a child as a thrift store shelf-warmer and is bent on achieving fame and immortality as a museum piece with his fellow round up gang, whether they want to or not. In Toy Story 3, Lots-O (Ned Beatty) is a victim of circumstance and the nature of his existence as a manufactured object as he was abandoned by his owner and replaced. The life of a toy hinges on their role in the life of a child and both of these characters were denied such love and force their grief and grim worldview onto others, fooling them with cuddly exteriors and soft-spoken voices.