Are there any great villains anymore ?

Lotso the Hugging Bear.

I nominate Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) from No Country for Old Men. Cold, methodical, and while he's a killer, he has a code that requires he keep his word.

Sounds a great deal like Dexter....

I agree. Bardem's performance as Chigurh in No Country for Old Men is in my movie villans hall of fame.

Joker from The Dark Knight.

Yes! In I Saw the Devil both the protagonist & antagonist are great villains. Check it out!

Thats one of the problem, the other is of course that some bad guys are not written as good(bad) as they needed to be. Also add that they sometimes is miscast, sometimes to much cgi to be scary, and sometimes just bad directed and not very well edited.

There are plenty of good exampels were the movies actually manage to have a bad guy that works for the movie.

We have the classic bad guy thats so despicable that you just want to find him and kill him yourself (preferably with a spoon). (Dirty Harry)

A bad guy sometimes needs to be more complex then just being evil. He should be in the border land between good and evil. So the viewer can understand (not sympathise) with the bad guy. (The Rock Movie)

And he needs to better then the good guy, the hero is never stronger then his foe. (The Terminator)

First off - what movie genres would make use of great villans?

Horror
Comic Book
Crime Drama

Scifi (Wrath of Khan)
Comedy (Naked gun)
War (Hitler should count as a bad guy)
Romantic (Bridget Jones)

Hell, even classic Disney cartoons. For instance, Cruella De Vil was a great villain.

I used to hold out hope for a "Ming the Merciless" movie, but have given up on that..

I agree. The Joker in The Dark Knight is a lot more complex than it seems, partly because his backstory is never fully explained. He's mysterious, crazy, merciless, yet we'd like to know him more, what made him like that. Of course, Ledger more than nailed it. It's the last "great villain" I've seen to date, the kind of character we "love to hate".

Yeah, I have to agree Bardem's nastiness is beyond reproach (of course, I am excluding ex-wives here).

Also, Jigsaw from Saw 1-4 (the only good ones). Great multi-dimensional villain.

ah, yes I forgot about him! ...and an actor with an inimitable voice!

Of the Dr. Mabuse, master criminal sort of villain:

Buddy Pine/Syndrome: The Incredibles
Thump: Winter's Bone

Of the complicated, not totally evil sort:

Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto: in the earlier X-Men films
Raven Darkholme/Mystique: X-2
Cao Cao: Red Cliffs do the Cao Cao boogie
Arthur Leigh Allen: Zodiac evil but very sick

Of the Man You Love to Hate variety:

Sebastian Shaw: X-Men: First Class
Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira: 13 Assassins can measure up to any villain, anywhere
Vidal: Pan's Labyrinth

... to name but a few. Any paucity of great villains can at least be partly traced to a lack of good writing.

MEGAMIND!!!...really though, I thought Micky Rourke's character in Iron Man 2 was a pretty good villain.

The shark in Jaws.

larry

One of my favourites of all time is Col. Hans Landa, brilliantly played by Christoph Waltz. Easily one of my favourite acting performances of all time. As a villain, he is complex, had the intuitive nature of Sherlock Holmes, charismatic and he could make you shudder with a single look.

Some other excellent villains:

John Doe, Se7en
Hannibal Lector, Silence of the Lambs
Scar, Lion King
Norman Bates, Psycho
The Devil, The Devi's Advocate
Longshanks, Braveheart
Commodus, Gladiator

Sometimes parents can be villains. The parents in Dead Poets Society, for example. Not complex characters, but I hate them more than most other villains at times.

Doug Hutchison as Percy Wetmore - The Green Mile

Yeah he has sort of an enigmatic charisma that never makes him quite normal... (his scariest character though is his latest husband turn...what happened to him? apparently his agent dumped him after his marriage and I'm not sure he'll get many offers given his questionable private life lately... I know it's off topic sorry, I was just thinking of it at the same time - shame cause I really like him as an actor)

Pedophilia is NEVER acceptable.
I think it is safe to say he will have some trouble finding work in the future...

I second the nomination of Col. Landa.

She's 16 (which is legal in some states), and had full consent of her parents. Two things are obvious here, in my opinion:

1. He's fulfilling a taboo fantasy under legal grounds during a mid-life crisis (all that's missing is a Harley)
2. Her and her family see $$$

I read this and was thinking why are you being such a hard a$$? Then I re-read and saw it was PEDOphilia not NECROphilia...

Just watched that a few nights ago, damn what a movie! Highly Recommended!

Col. Hans Landa was just masterful, couldn't agree more. Going back a bit but also agree on The Devil from The Devils Advocate, unsettling to say the least.

Not a movie villain, but Arthur Mitchell in Season 4 of Dexter was one of the greatest villains of recent times, masterfully played by John Lithgow, who, deservedly, won an Emmy for the role.