In his second Oscar acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay, Quentin Tarantino said that he believes what makes his films memorable – and what will make them hold up in the long run – are the characters that populate them. While Tarantino has created plenty of noble heroes, from Django Freeman to the Bride, he’s also brought a ton of morally reprehensible villains to the screen.
Inspired by grindhouse cinema, Tarantino’s mind has come up with some truly twisted souls. From hammer-wielding white slavers to trigger-happy gangland sociopaths to murderous misogynistic stuntmen, here are the 10 most evil characters from Quentin Tarantino movies, ranked.
Stephen
Calvin Candie’s house slave Stephen has the distinction of being a black villain in a movie about the horrors of slavery. When he recognized that Django and Broomhilda know each other, rather than simply letting a husband and wife reunite in harmony, Stephen confronts a terrified Broomhilda and then brings the conspiracy to Candie’s attention.
Samuel L. Jackson usually plays the good guys in Tarantino movies – or, at the very least, some sort of antihero – but here, he commits wholeheartedly to the role of a bad guy.
Virgil
When Clarence and Alabama make off with a boatload of drugs in True Romance, Virgil is the hard-as-nails enforcer sent to get answers. While Clarence is out buying lunch for himself and Alabama, gleefully unaware of the horrors unfolding back in his hotel room, Virgil is beating Alabama to within an inch of her life.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, he seems to genuinely enjoy the chance to brutally torture her. The great James Gandolfini played Virgil’s unbridled sadism in a really chilling way.
Daisy Domergue
The violence inflicted against Daisy Domergue throughout the three-hour runtime of The Hateful Eight was deemed controversial upon the film’s release. But as outlined by John Ruth in the movie, Daisy is a mass murderer. She’s killed countless people in horrific ways and laughed about it. When she gets hanged at the end and Marquis and Chris watch in glee, that’s why.
As John succumbs to his poisoning, Daisy looks into his eyes with a sick sense of satisfaction and says, “When you get to Hell, John, tell ‘em Daisy sent you.” Tarantino has described Daisy as the “Susan Atkins of the Wild West.”
O-Ren Ishii
To be fair to O-Ren Ishii, she has a good reason to have a cold heart. She started emotionlessly killing people when she was a kid, after watching crime lord Boss Matsumoto ruthlessly murder her parents.
Lucy Liu nailed the callous look in Ishii’s eyes whenever she kills someone, like when she walks across a table during a criminal underworld board meeting to lop off an insubordinate guy’s head.
Stuntman Mike
Although Tarantino has never made a straight horror film, his exploitation-flavored slasher Death Proof is probably the closest thing. The story’s antagonist, Stuntman Mike, drives around in a “death-proof” car, looking for young women to crash into. The guy has serious issues.
As a traditional movie star hailing from ‘80s action cinema, Kurt Russell doesn’t often get to play villains, but in Death Proof, he relished the opportunity to play a murdering psychopath.
Zed
Zed is a security guard, so his job is to keep people safe, but what he does in his spare time is quite the opposite. His friend (or brother; the movie isn’t quite clear on that), pawn shop owner Maynard, is a “spider” on the lookout for “flies.” When he catches flies, he calls Zed, who comes over so that the two can sexually assault the unsuspecting victims in the basement of his pawn shop.
The only good thing about Zed is that his interference in Butch and Marsellus’ disagreement ended up getting Butch off the hook, as he returned with a samurai sword to save Marsellus from Zed’s assault.
Mr. Blonde
Easily the most sadistic and trigger-happy character in Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Blonde is unnervingly blasé about committing heinous acts of violence. Michael Madsen played the character with an unsettling smirk that really sold his psychopathic nature.
Even after he determines that Marvin Nash, the cop he kidnapped, doesn’t know anything about the undercover officer who’s infiltrated their crew, Mr. Blonde decides to torture him. He knows he doesn’t have any information; he just thinks it’ll be fun to cut off his ear and light him on fire.
Drexl Spivey
Quentin Tarantino didn’t direct True Romance, but he did write the script, and it certainly has a Tarantino feel. Drexl Spivey, the drug dealer played spectacularly by Gary Oldman, is a classic Tarantino character.
He’s an unabashed psychopath who uses violence as the answer to all his problems. He takes delight in exacting bloody revenge on his business rivals.
Col. Hans Landa
From Col. Hans Landa’s perspective, he’s a detective, like Sherlock Holmes. He’s been given a job to do, and he takes pride in doing that job well. But that job is to drive around Europe, enforcing Hitler’s bigoted policies, finding out where refugees are hiding and having them slaughtered. He even earned the nickname “the Jew Hunter.”
And in saw to it that Landa’s evil deeds would not be forgotten.
Calvin Candie
Quentin Tarantino has said that Calvin Candie is the only character he’s created that he really hates on a base level. As a white slaver running a plantation in the antebellum era, Candie is evil enough. But on top of that, he enjoys forcing people to fight to the death and watching his attack dogs tear runaway slaves to pieces.
The scene in which Candie calls out Django and Dr. Schultz for knowing Broomhilda when he takes out the skull and the hammer, is a terrifying demonstration of the malice hiding beneath Candie’s camp, theatrical facade.