Everybody has to answer to someone, even bad guys. Some criminals talk a big game in the trailer, but their bark is worse than their bite in the actual film.

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In movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a super villain is presented as the ultimate baddie for the first hour of run time, but eventually, is substituted for a hidden villain. Bait and switches for villains are the result of misdirection from a trailer, a misleading movie title, or films that reveal the villain’s leader at the end of the movie.

9 Hans Landa - Inglorious Basterds

Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa in 'Inglorious Basterds'
Image via The Weinstein Company

Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglorius Basterds helped the actor collect an Academy Award. The terror unleashed by the soldier in the opening scene establishes him as the guy to fear in the motion picture. Although he’s the main antagonist, the Basterds’ efforts are focused on taking out his boss, Adolph Hitler.

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The Austrian soldier is a leader in Hitler’s paramilitary organization. The loyal lapdog follows his leader up until Hitler’s death.

8 Silver Surfer - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

The movie’s title and trailers served as misdirection for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Embedded deep within the film’s runtime is the reveal that The Silver Surfer is a henchman to the true threat in the story, Galactus.

Silver Surfer is an early secondary antagonist in the comic book movie. Galactus extorts the former Herald by dangling his family’s safety in the balance. In addition to Galactus, Dr. Doom makes a return and both of these threats are considered more dangerous than the Silver Surfer. Although it was disclosed during the press run that the film would showcase a larger threat, most viewers walked in with the trailers as the seed for their expectations.

7 Bane - The Dark Knight Rises

Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises
Image via Warner Bros.

Bane had huge shoes to fill when the League of Shadows veteran followed the footsteps of the Joker in The Dark Knight Rises. The trailers promoted the highly anticipated terrorist as Gotham’s reckoning, but when the dust settled, the brute was nothing more than a number two.

After breaking the bat, it’s revealed Bane’s strings are being pulled by Talia al Ghul. Talia does most of their army’s heavy lifting by infiltrating Wayne Enterprises’ board of directors and getting access to Wayne’s nuclear bomb. Bane may “feel in charge”, but he’s nothing more than a glorified bodyguard.

6 Mandarin - Iron Man 3

ben kingsley as the mandarin slouching in chair

The twist behind the promoted super villain in Iron Man 3, is one of the MCU’s most polarizing subject matters to date. When Tony Stark and Co. finally locate the Mandarin, they learn that the criminal is an actor taking cues from Aldrich Killian, the real mastermind of the picture.

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Ben Kingsley’s monologue provides the voice over for the Iron Man 3 trailer. The horrifying words are revealed to be lines for the propaganda shorts in the film. The thespian has gone on to be a punchline in the Marvel cinematic universe in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

5 Brixton Lore - Hobbs & Shaw

BrixtonHobbsandShaw

The Fast and the Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw featured Brixton Lore as the main antagonist of the film. Known as Snowflake, Idris Elba’s character is merely taking orders from the voice in his head, the overarching villain of the spin-off.

Brixton’s leader is voiced by Ryan Reynolds and not much is known about the menace. The anonymous Eteon Director is the mysterious voice that commands “Black Superman”. The boss villain orders Brixton to kill half of humanity and presses the kill switch when Brixton fails the mission.

4 The Winter Soldier - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain-America_ The-Winter-Soldier (2014)

The masked terrorist unveiled in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier promotions was expected to be one of the most menacing terrors unleashed in the MCU. The super soldier is a product of HYDRA’s mind-controlling research and is incapable of making decisions on his own without direction from the top bad guy in the Captain America sequel.

The head of S.H.I.E.L.D., Alexander Pierce, is the real mastermind in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Equipped with a list of trigger words that morph the brainwashed Bucky Barnes into a flawless killing machine, Pierce is in control and is backed by his guard dog Bucky and HYDRA.

3 Loki - The Avengers

Loki in The Avengers (2012)

Loki is regarded as the first Avenger-level threat in the MCU. The god of mischief leads the Chitauri in an attack on New York that tallied up one of the largest casualty counts in Marvel history. Although Loki can be sinister at times, he was simply acting on orders from Thanos and the mind stone.

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Hulk credits Thanos for the events of The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron during his warnings at Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum in Avengers: Infinity War. However, to see the true pecking order of power, fans didn’t have to wait until an Avengers sequel. In a scene with The Other in The Avengers, Loki takes orders from the guy who’s taking orders from Thanos, making the main antagonist in the movie a foot soldier in Thanos’ army.

2 Voldemort - Harry Potter series

Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort in 'Harry Potter'

Voldemort is the overarching antagonist for all the Harry Potter films. In poetic fashion, “He Who Must Not Be Named” serves as a secondary antagonist in the background of the first six Harry Potter movies.

Voldemort’s influence is on full display during the early entries of the franchise. The Dark Lord barks orders at Professor Quirinus Quirrell while hiding in plain view underneath his turban in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort’s faithful servants Wormtail and Barty are instructed to collect the ingredients for the regeneration potion by Voldemort himself.

1 Darth Vader - The Original Star Wars Trilogy

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader fight in the 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Disney+ series
Image via Disney+

Darth Vader is regarded as one of the most iconic villains in cinematic history. A slave to The Rule of Two, Darth Vader is the apprentice in his mentorship with Darth Sidious.

Darth Vader is endorsed as the face of the Empire in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, but in the sequel, the main antagonist of all three Star Wars trilogies is introduced. The Emperor is credited as Vader’s master. Darth Vader blindly follows his master until he finally breaks rank in the last picture in the original trilogy.

NEXT: Every MCU Villain Ranked From Worst to Best