Summary

• Christmas villains add conflict and excitement to festive movies, making them more fun to watch.
• Whether it's harmless villainy or true evil, Christmas villains contribute to the holiday movie experience.
• From sophisticated Hans Gruber to comical Clark Griswold, these memorable Christmas villains bring out the holiday spirit in their own twisted ways.

The holiday season inevitably leads to many fans enjoying charming and cozy movies about the festive and joyful aspects of this time of year, but even these types of movies need conflict supplied by the Christmas villains. While it is best to avoid the naughty tendencies and show kindness to people this time of the year, these bad guys prove there are some who are moved by the Christmas spirit, or that the idea of yuletide celebrations is causing some mayhem and destruction.

Some of these villains come from the most classic Christmas stories, like A Christmas Carol or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Some of them offer the kind of harmless villainy that is fitting for a family-friendly movie. However, there are also some Christmas villains from those rare R-rated movies that really show they belong on the naughty list. In any case, these villains from memorable Christmas movies help to make the holidays a little more fun with their bad behavior.

20 Hans Gruber - Die Hard (1988)

Played By Alan Rickman

There are people who disagree that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. However, the entire movie's plot is about a group of criminals who show up at a Christmas party and hold them captive while their boss sets up a scheme to steal a fortune. The villain in Die Hard is one of the best in movie history, Hans Gruber. He was the perfect sophisticated and cultured villain to go up against Bruce Willis' down-to-earth hero. From his over-the-top line delivery to his genuine threat of violence, Alan Rickman delivered in spades in this movie. He also has a dry sense of humor that makes it easy to root for him a little as well. The entire franchise is fun, but no one ever met the level of brilliance of Hans Gruber.

19 Frank Cross - Scrooged (1988)

Played By Bill Murray

Frank Cross ended up as a good guy by the end of Scrooged. However, this was a remake of A Christmas Carol and Frank was a perfect modern-day version of Scrooge. He did so many bad things that it was easy to see him deserving everything that happened to him. He ordered his employees to work overtime on Christmas. He fires one underling for daring to question him. He suggested a prop man staple antlers to a mouse's head. He even demanded his girlfriend abandon the charity she was working at in order to spend time with him. Given his selfishness, the torment Frank gets at the hands of the ghosts is fitting.

18 Jack Frost - Jack Frost (1997)

Played By Scott MacDonald

This is not the family Christmas movie from 1998 with Michael Keaton. Instead, this movie hit one year earlier and was a black comedy horror slasher about a killer snowman coming to life. The entire premise was ridiculous, but it was enough to develop a cult following. The villain here was a serial killer named Jack Frost. The truck transporting him to his execution crashed into a truck with "genetic material." Thanks to the genetic material, Jack ended up merging with the snow on the ground and turning into a killer snowman. With laughable death scenes and terrible special effects, this is a fun movie to watch at the least.

17 Billy - Black Christmas (1974)

Played By Albert J. Dunk

While most people mention Halloween as creating the slasher horror movie genre, there was a slasher film that came out four years earlier. This was Black Christmas, which saw Margot Kidder star in the movie about a sorority terrorized by an unknown serial killer. It was the first Christmas movie by director Bob Clark, coming years before his masterpiece, A Christmas Story. The best thing about this killer was that no one saw him, especially when the movie ended with the twist that he got away with it. He is a lurking menace the entire run of the movie and delivers some truly memorable kills which cements him as an underrated horror movie villain.

16 Professor Hinkle - Frosty the Snowman (1969)

Played By Billy De Wolfe

When it comes to Christmas movie villains, some aren't scary but provide a good antagonist for younger viewers to love to hate, like in the original Frosty the Snowman. In this film, the bad guy is Professor Hinkle. He was a man who wanted the magical hat that brought Frosty to life. Professor Hinkle got his chance at redemption at the end when Santa Claus gave him an ultimatum. However, before this, he was almost irredeemable. He was a childish scoundrel who only wanted the hat once he knew it was actually magic. He even tried to melt Frosty in order to get his hands on the magical garment.

15 Mayor Maywho - How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Played By Jeffrey Tambor

It's easy to cast a crooked politician as a villain, but it takes a certain amount of skill to outdo Jim Carrey's Grinch in of meanness. Yet while the green ghoul living on Mount Crumpit is open with his general not-niceness, Mayor Augustus Maywho in Whoville is a different kind of wicked. He prefers a more underhanded approach to his misdeeds. Beneath that smiling and glad-handing exterior lives the heart of the movie's real monster. If the flashbacks are right, it was the mayor who triggered the Grinch's dislike of all things festive, a point that is tragically driven home with his "gift of a Christmas shave." He even belittles a young girl for trying to be nice to The Grinch.

14 The Abominable Snow Monster - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Played By Larry D. Mann

The Bumble might get away with a little wiggle room after his teeth are removed, but that's not saying he isn't terrifying before the film's ending. To quote Sam the Snowman, "He's mean, he's nasty, and he hates everything to do with Christmas." By that logic alone, he should qualify as the film's biggest villain. He stalks around the North Pole, threatening any creature that dares to cross his path. Of course, like so many Rankin/Bass baddies, he's redeemed and made into one of the good guys. After being tamed by the eccentric Yukon Cornelius, he goes from abominable to adorable shockingly fast.

13 Clark Griswold - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Played By Chevy Chase

He might be the star of the show, and he is one of the funniest characters in Christmas movies, but Clark Griswold is definitely the villain of Christmas Vacation. He's so blinded by his ambition to create the perfect Griswold family Christmas that he cannot see how much damage he's doing despite his good intentions. His motivations might not be necessarily evil, but there's a certain tipping point in the film where he goes from dopey to damaging. From his verbal abuse of his cousin to his outright destruction of his neighbor's property, it's hard to call Clark a good guy. That's all before his famous Christmas meltdown.

12 The Gremlins - Gremlins (1984)

Played By Frank Welker

The Mogwai are adorable creatures, but while Gizmo seems to be inherently nice and gentle, the others are interested in mischief and mayhem right from the beginning, including throwing Gizmo down the laundry chute. However, it is when they eat after midnight that their truly vicious side comes out and they are no longer cute and cuddly. They set about wreaking havoc all over town, including launching an old woman through her roof with her chair life and driving a snowplow into a house. While they are all demonic, Stripe their leader is the worst of them all.

11 Maestro Forte - Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)

Played By Tim Curry

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas might not win any accolades like its predecessor, but it does have one of the most interesting and underrated Disney villains. It's hard to make a pipe organ look threatening, but Disney did a marvelous job with this member of the enchanted castle. Forte is also an interesting villain for the mythology of the story as he is the one member of the enchanted castle who prefers the curse which makes him one with his beloved instrument. By keeping the Beast out of love, he maintains his power over his broken heart. When he sees a romance blooming between Belle and the Beast, Forte is willing to bring down the entire castle rather than see the curse lifted.