Likable Villains

[Satchmo Distel]

Discussion of Gatsby on the Trump thread made me wonder about movies that express empathy for characters who are doing wrong. Great literature does this (my reading of Gatsby is that we feel something for him) but how often can movies pull it off? Harry Lime? Bonnie & Clyde?

In television, The Monocled Mutineer, Raffles, maybe Regan and Carter, Arthur Daley?

[evilC]

Likable Villains

This probably makes me a terrible person (even more) but I always chuckle at The Kurgan's driving scene in 'Highlander'. Every time I hear 'New York, New York', I think of it.

So, yeah - him.

[Gerontophile]

Likable Villains

Hannibal Lecter.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Likable Villains

Alonzo Harris.

[Nurse Duckett]

Likable Villains

Gene Hunt

[Gerontophile]

Likable Villains

Practically everyone in GoodFellas, except Joe Pesci.

[Incandenza]

Likable Villains

Not necessarily a villain, more like an anti-hero: Omar Little.

Roy Batty in Blade Runner is more interesting and entertaining than Deckard is.

[Cal Alamein]

Likable Villains

Always liked Frank Gorshin's Riddler.

[Sits]

Likable Villains

Bit of an open goal, but a number of the main characters from The Sopranos, especially Steve Van Zandt's Silvio Dante.

And do Mark Rylance's Thomas Cromwell and Damien Lewis' Henry VIII in Wolf Hall count as villains? I think they do.

[Sits]

Likable Villains

Avon was the only character I liked in Blake's Seven.

[3 Colours Red]

Likable Villains

Charles Montgomery Burns.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Likable Villains

Dick Dastardly
Skeletor

[Wouter D]

Likable Villains

Just finished watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Tom Waits makes a quite charming devil.

[evilC]

Likable Villains

Bender in Futurama.

Again, maybe not a villain (that'd be 'Mom') but a really, really, really bad role model.

[Various Artist]

Likable Villains

Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living. He was awesome, and also rather pathetic at the same time due to, you know, being an ancient shambling corpse trapped inside a pyramid. Then all these self-righteous cat people landed on his planet and started making his life a misery.

I guess that's what you call an 'alternative character interpretation' look at Thundercats.

Nurse Duckett wrote: Gene Hunt

Surely Gene Hunt is an anti-hero, not a villain?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Likable Villains

This is so obvious it should probably trigger a klaxon or something, but I'm going to say it anyway: Saul Goodman

Disclaimer: I haven't yet seen Better Call Saul Season 2.

(Edit: having just read VA's post above, it now occurs to me that Saul is almost certainly on the wrong side of the anti-hero/villain distinction for this thread. )

[3 Colours Red]

Likable Villains

Raul Julia as M. Bison in that shite Street Fighter film.

[elguapo4]

Likable Villains

Nidge in the Rte series love /hate, an out and out scumbag but you wanted him to get away with it, from a different era but the same description applies, JR Ewing

[EIM]

Likable Villains

Hans Gruber. What a Don.

[Benjm]

Likable Villains

Mr Gruber. Top fella to have elevenses with, even if the mark-ups on his antiques were shocking even by West London standards.

[Benjm]

Likable Villains

Wile E Coyote

[multipleman78]

Likable Villains

Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham
Keyser Soze
Darth Vader
Katherine Tremmell
Christopher Walken's crime boss in Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead
Hans Landa
Hedley Lamar

[Jah Womble]

Likable Villains

Walter White (as mentioned elsewhere)

Mark 'Rent Boy' Renton and Daniel 'Spud' Murphy (from Trainspotting)

Tucker Jenkins (well, he did steal the geography exam paper...)

[ad hoc]

Likable Villains

I think Walter White is a cunt. Jesse Pinkman on the other hand...

[Gangster Octopus]

Likable Villains

Alec Guinness in The Lavender Hill Mob.