I’m all about the movies, so I find myself drawn to the Oscars every year, even as they invariably annoy the crap outta me. Since I’ve had kids, I don’t get the opportunity to see everything that comes out, which is a bummer, but I still get invested in what’s out when, and what gets buzz.

And let me be clear, when I say I like movies, I really mean it. I don’t limit myself by actors or topic. Nor do I arbitrarily toss out genre movies. People who say they love movies and then qualify that love with a list of entire categories of movies they feel are beneath them don’t like movies, at least not in the way I mean. I like big movies, little movies, special effects movies and indy movies, chick flicks and gorefests. Every genre and category have their good ones and bad ones… and even some of the bad ones can entertain in their own special ways.

So, I’ve been thinking about movies (obviously) and I got to thinking about movie villains. A good villain is a joy to behold, and I started working on my top-ten movie villain list. Granted, its a list I came up with at this particular moment, but there are a few names on there that would probably remain over the long haul.

But what a hard job, narrowing that list down to ten. So many fantastic villains that deserve special mention that, for whatever reason, did not quite make the cut at the moment I was typing them out. I feel I almost owe an apology to cinema baddies like Norman Bates, Nurse Ratched, The Wicked Witch of the West, Alex DeLarge, Harry Lime. And Michael Corleone, what do you do with him? He was hero, then anti-hero, then villain, then tragic anti-hero?

So anyway, below is my top ten for the moment. I encourage folks to add their own… and my maybe-surprise pick for my favorite movie villain ever is definitely not one of those impulse choices. He’s always the first villain I think of when I consider my favorites…

1. Detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) – Training Day (2001). Best. Bad Guy. Ever. Denzel Washington won an Oscar for this role, and boy did he deserve it. Harris was played as alternately magnetic and creepy, scary and reassuring, and utterly diabolical. At several points, you find yourself sympathizing with his seductive rationales for crossing the line. In that way, the film becomes a test of how far into evil the viewer can be led before faced with the realization that Harris is simply a violent, sociopathic nightmare. Good stuff.

2. Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) – Blade Runner (1982). One of those perfect combinations of script, director and actor that can never be planned for. It’s like lightning striking. The emotional roller-coaster of watching this character is like no other; frighteningly inhuman to painfully, tragically human. Strong and unstoppable to completely fragile. The sudden, whiplash-inducing turn from being terrified of this Frankenstein-esque monster to crying for him as a tragic character should never be attempted in film, as it’s too much to ask an audience to come along with – but in Blade Runner, it was a roaring success, and the result was amazing.

3. The Joker (Heath Ledger) – The Dark Knight (2008). What more is there to say than has already been said about this performance? Creepy, disturbing, even repelling. Ledger’s Joker was not your seductively-styled evil. Credit also goes to the writers for a creatively conceived manifestation of the classic Batman villain, but it was the late Ledger that made you buy that – despite the mystery and unanswered questions around who he was and where he came from – this Joker was not merely a force of nature or a plot device, but a terrifying, if unique, human monster. No small feat, considering how over the top the character is.

4. Regan MacNeil/Satan (Linda Blair) – The Exorcist (1973). Uhhh. Speaking of non-seductive evil. Shudder. Can still give this catholic boy nightmares if I think about it too much.

5. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) – The Silence Of The Lambs (1991). Another one that needs no explanation, and another that depended on a fantastic performance. How many nightmares did “Silence of the Lambs” cause anyway? It’d be creepy enough if he was just a crazed killer, but he eats people. Ew.

6. HAL 9000 (Douglas Rain – voice) – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Come on, there have been plenty of evil-computers-gone-bad stories… but really, there has been only one evil-computer-gone-bad as far as I’m concerned. Kubrick made you feel totally isolated and utterly at the mercy of this inscrutable, unknowable, omninpresent, all-powerful, and completely inhuman thing.

7. Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey) – The Usual Suspects (1995). Even though the movie is 16 years old, its still a no-no to talk about the end of this movie and the whole Kaiser Soze thing, so I won’t. But what a unique and amazing villain. More cinematically impressive and cool than scary, but that counts.

8. Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) – Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982). The ultimate scenery-chewing, obsessed, old-school comic-book style bad guy in movies, bar none (and super-strong to boot). Also, the universe’s coolest latino-sikh.

9. Darth Vader (David Prowse / James Earl Jones – voice). This is one of those names like Norman Bates or the Wicked Witch that I could easily have left off, but he made the list. Vader is sort of a cinematic bad guy archetype, and while I love those sorts of characters, they lose some of their charge for me over time. But, hey, its Darth Vader. Just seemed like no list would be complete without him.

10. Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) Fort Apache (1948). Okay, this is my impulse choice for today (as I noticed I only had 9 on my list as I’d accidentally listed Heath Ledger’s Joker twice). He probably shouldn’t be on a “best” list, but I just hated this guy. Great movie (if you ignore the peculiarly tacked-on, cheeseball epilogue scene), but this guy – as perfectly portrayed by Fonda – just embodied all our worst, paternalistic American impulses, while those under his command (who were learning to work with and build trust with the native tribes before Thursday came along) seemed to be rising above them.

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Your turn…. who ya got for me?