Angelina Jolie just brought the classic Sleeping Beauty baddie Maleficent back to the big screen, and she looks damn good doing it. Maleficent is one of the biggest hits of the summer, having made $163 million, which proves that the stunning Jolie (who just turned 39 years-old) is hotter than ever, and so are villains. Sexy, sexy villains. Chalk it up to their dark, brooding behavior or to the fact that we just can’t help but fall for the bad boys and girls, but in spite of their deplorable actions, sometimes we just can’t help but want the villain to get away and/or take their shirt off. In honor of Jolie’s turn in Maleficent, we picked the 20 sexiest movie villains.
Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns
With all due respect to Anne Hathaway and Halle Berry, no one made for a sexy, modern-day Catwoman better than Michelle Pfeiffer. Between the leather cat suit, the whip, the sultry, purring voice (particularly when she’s lying on top of Batman), and all that scratching, there’s little doubt that Pfeiffer’s Catwoman shortened the gap between comic book nerds and S&M enthusiasts. Pretty much the gold standard for sexy villains.
Tom Hiddleston in Thor/Thor 2/The Avengers
No one should have to chose between Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, but we’ll be damned if that’s what Marvel hasn’t been making us do over the past few years. Yes, technically you’re supposed to root for the heroic Thor (Hemsworth), but his equally hot, hell-bent-on-destroying-Earth adopted brother Loki (Hiddleston) just has that wicked smile and confident swagger that’s so hard to resist. Can we at least just attend their family reunion?
Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction
Yes, Fatal Attraction is one helluva cautionary tale about the perils of having an extramarital affair, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get why Daniel (Michael Douglas) totally got it on with Alex (Glenn Close) before she unleashed her torrent of crazy. Close never looked better than as the blonde bombshell/bunny boiler, and their sex scenes at the beginning of their affair — in the elevator, against the kitchen sink — are some of the hottest you’ll ever see on screen.
Denzel Washington in Training Day
Washington won his second Oscar playing crooked detective Alonzo Harris, and with good reason. Alonzo was a terrifying, menacing, and downright dangerous character, but you can’t help but be completely enthralled and captivated by him. He screams confidence, sometimes literally (“King Kong ain’t got shit on me!”), and is the ultimate baddest bad boy.
Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct
The leg cross seen ’round the world. Enough said.
Timothy Olyphant in Scream 2
The Scream saga had its fair share of insane, but very attractive killers (Skeet Ulrich, Scott Foley, Emma Roberts) but none were quite as sexy as Timothy Olyphant in the 1997 sequel. As psycho killer Mickey, it’s truly a damn shame that Olyphant had to keep that Ghostface mask on for a huge portion of the movie. Still, as hot as Olyphant was in that movie, we can never forgive him for having a part in murdering Randy. RIP Randy.
Jennifer Aniston in Horrible Bosses
If anything helped shed Jennifer Aniston’s good girl image from our minds completely, it was this. As a perpetually horny dentist named Julia who sexually harasses her unwilling employee Dale (Charlie Day), Aniston spends most of the comedy saying incredibly dirty things, wearing skimpy lingerie (or nothing), or suggestively eating penis-shaped foods. Or sometimes, all three of those things at once.
Anthony Perkins in Psycho
On paper Norman Bates actually kind of sounds like a catch: handsome, small business owner, likes to surprise you in the shower. And won’t have to deal with some pesky mother-in-law if you get married! Of course, he’s actually a mentally disturbed murderer, but that doesn’t mean you still won’t feel something when Perkins flashes that devilish glint in his eye as the horror villain.
Natasha Henstridge in Species
Species probably didn’t do much for feminism (beautiful woman who is actually an alien will stop at nothing to procreate, kills anyone who tries to stop her) but it definitely put model-turned-actress Natasha Henstridge on the map for being able to stick her tongue so far down a guy’s throat that it actually goes out through his head. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Cillian Murphy in Red Eye
Cillian Murphy pretty much has sexy scary down to a science. Case in point: his turn as Scarecrow in Batman Begins (as well as The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) and hired assassin Jackson Rippner in Red Eye. In the latter, what seems like a flirtatious meet-cute between airplane passengers (played by Murphy and Rachel McAdams) actually transpires into a deadly cat-and-mouse game thousands of feet in the air. If he wasn’t so damn dangerous and, you know, murder-y, you’d probably considering joining the mile high club with him.
Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn
Vampires? Hot. Exotic dancers? Way hot. Salma Hayek as an exotic dancer with incredible moves who also happens to be a vampire? Quite possibly the hottest combination imaginable.
Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street
First things first, if you don’t think DiCaprio is the villain of Wolf of Wall Street, you’re watching it wrong. That said, if you do know he’s the bad guy but you still find yourself attracted to the chest-thumping, suit-wearing, coke-sniffing, money-grubbing Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio, only getting better with age) in spite of all that, then you’re watching it right.
Rebecca Romijn in X-Men/ X-Men 2/ X-Men: The Last Stand
Rebecca Romijn paved the way for Jennifer Lawrence to play the blue-skinned, shape-shifting mutant Mystique and set the bar awfully high for not-actually-being-nude but giving the illusion on screen. Better yet, being pretty much nude while also kicking some serious ass.
Christian Bale in American Psycho
Sure, Patrick Bateman (Bale) is a yuppie scum, sexist, materialistic, sociopathic homicidal murderer who plays Phil Collins while having sex with prostitutes, but jeez, look at those abs.
Demi Moore in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
This Charlie’s Angels sequel had two obscenely hot villains (Demi Moore and Justin Theroux) but Moore gets the edge as former angel Madison Lee (even the name is over-the-top sexy) who goes rogue. At the time the movie was released the bikini-clad, jaw-dropping Moore was 40 years-old and helped jumpstart the 40-is-the-new-30-is-the-new-20 mania.
Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley
The creepiest, but cutest lying, murdering, identity-stealing, repressed homosexual sociopath there ever was on screen. Matt Damon’s youthful Matt Damon good looks are on full display here (as is his obsession Dickie Greenleaf, played by Jude Law), which makes his transition into a charming killer all that more chilling (and, in turn, hot).
Lucy Liu in Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Actually, all of The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) nemeses are crazy hot (including Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver and Vivica A. Fox’s Vernita Green), even if they did deserve to pay the price for what they did. But Liu’s skilled assassin with a dark past, the sexy, but deadly O-Ren Ishii, is so hot you’ll lose your head over it. (I mean, she sure did.)
Mark Wahlberg in Fear
Say hi to your mother-who-warned-you-against-guys-like-David-McCall for me. Wahlberg, in his post-Marky Mark pre-Dirk Diggler days, plays a hyper-obsessed boyfriend who carves his girlfriend’s name Nicole (Reese Witherspoon) into his very chiseled chest. When he’s not fingering her on a roller coaster, he’s harassing her family and threatening their lives, giving a bad name to guys who finger their girlfriends on roller coasters everywhere.
Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body
When evil, blood-thirsty possessed cheerleader Jennifer (Megan Fox) isn’t, quite literally, eating men alive, she’s walking around in sexy clothes, skinny dipping, licking fire, and planting kisses on her hottie best friend Anita (Amanda Seyfried). We know this movie was supposed to strike fear in the hearts of guys everywhere, but we’re pretty sure that’s not the way to go about that.
Benedict Cumberbatch in Star Trek Into Darkness
He makes you wanna scream “Kaaahhhhhhhhhn,” but for totally different reasons.
