10 Worst Disney Villains of All Time, Ranked

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King Magnifico smirking with his arms spread in Wish

Born with Autism (formerly classified as Asperger syndrome), Tyler B. Searle has been obsessed with storytelling since he was old enough to speak. He gravitated towards fairy tales, mythology, the fantasy genre, and animated movies and shows aimed at family audiences. When not writing, Tyler enjoys watching more cartoons and reading fantasy books in his home in Ontario, Canada.

When thinking of the best villains in animated movies, chances are most of them come from Disney. Thanks to a blending of stellar animation, high-quality voice acting, and strong character writing, they become the stuff of nightmares, pushing their respective heroes to the limit as they pursue their goals with a wide array of powers and minions. More often than not, their foundation can be found in the worst of human faults, making them also serve as cautionary tales of what to avoid in our lives, and ensuring the villains remain timeless for generations to come.

However, not every villain can be a winner, nor should they be. The worst villains in Disney's canon help to elevate the winners by giving us something to contrast them against. Still, poorly written villains can be very annoying, especially when you can see the potential that just wasn't fully realized. This list will rank the worst Disney villains based on their unrealized potential, their mostly ineffective role in their stories, and their overall weak legacy within the studio's pantheon.

10 Edgar - 'The Aristocats' (1972)

When Madame Bonfamille (Hermione Baddeley) decides to refine her will, she leaves her fortune to her pet cat, Duchess (Eva Gabor) and her three kittens, Toulouse (Gary Dubin), Marie (Liz English), and Berlio (Dean Clark), and then pass it to her butler, Edgar Balthazar (Roddy Maude-Roxby), when they die. Edgar mistakenly believes that the cats will outlive him, and so he schemes to get rid of them. A pair of dogs causes him to lose the cats and most of his effects, forcing Edgar to recover the evidence while Duchess and the kittens try to make their way home.

Edgar comes very close to being a decent villain: his animation is very expressive and fluid, leading to lots of great slapstick comedy, and Maude-Roxby gives him the perfect English butler's voice. Where he falters is in his motivation, which doesn't expand far beyond the greedy butler, and his execution, because let's face it, losing to a bunch of alley cats is pretty lame. Yes, Cruella de Vil (Betty Lou Gerson) was also taken down by animals in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but she at least was intimidating, and the dogs feared her, while Edgar is mocked and humiliated by the cats.

9 Alameda Slim - 'Home on the Range' (2004)

As a farmhand, Alameda Slim's (Randy Quaid) love of yodeling annoyed his bosses and got him fired from dozens of ranches. However, his yodeling has a hypnotic effect on cattle, which Slim used to steal thousands of animals at a time to drive his former employers out of business. Then, after selling the cattle to a slaughterhouse, Slim used the money to buy up the farmland in the guise of Mr. Yancy O'Del.

The best thing that can be said about Alameda Slim is that he's the best part of one of Disney's worst movies, but that isn't saying much. His plan is pretty boring, especially because we don't know what he intends to do with all the land he purchased, so his revenge scheme doesn't feel like it has a payoff. Beyond that, Slim is just not intimidating, being repeatedly outfoxed and knocked unconscious by the bovine protagonists once they find a way around his yodeling.

8 Kron - 'Dinosaur' (2000)

Kron and Bruton realize there is no water

For years, Kron (Samuel E. Wright), the Iquanodon, has led a mixed herd of dinosaurs in crossing a vast desert to reach the Nesting Grounds where they can lay their eggs. Over time, Kron developed a survival of the fittest attitude, never stopping to help any weaker members of the herd. Following a dangerous meteor shower, Kron finds the herd swollen with orphaned dinosaurs looked after by his sister, Neera (Julianna Margulies), and Aladar (D. B. Sweeney), an Iguanodon who arrives with a family of lemurs, and a very different worldview from Kron's.

Dinosaur is one of those movies that is equal parts amazing and lackluster, and Kron sadly falls into the latter. The idea of a social Darwinist villain among animals could work, but Kron is given no time to develop beyond the basic foundation of a grumpy leader who won't listen to any opinion beyond his own. It's a shame, because Wright's performance is pretty solid and has the potential to be intimidating, but he's never given the chance to go all out.

7 Bill Sykes - 'Oliver & Company' (1988)

Bill Sykes surrounded by smoke and smiling in Oliver & Company

In the shadows of New York City's underworld, loan shark Bill Sykes (Robert Loggia) preys on the desperate and downtrodden, and sends his twin Dobermans, Roscoe (Taurean Blacque) and DeSoto (Carl Weintraub), on anyone who can't pay. At present, his target is Fagin (Dom DeLuise), a homeless, down-on-his-luck pickpocket who lives with a large collection of dogs. While frustrated at Fagin's lack of progress in repaying his debt, Sykes smells opportunity when Fagin attempts to ransom a kitten named Oliver (Joey Lawrence), who was recently adopted by the daughter of the rich Foxworth family.

Sykes is a character who is animated beautifully and voices with appropriate menace, and yet leaves zero impression on the audience. Not only is he not in the movie for very long, but there's nothing to set him apart from any other crime boss in film, and certainly nothing that makes him stand out compared to other versions of the Oliver Twist character. If anyone remembers anything about Sykes, it's that his death is one of the most brutal in any Disney film.

6 Prince Hans - 'Frozen' (2013)

Hans and a group of men looking up in awe in Frozen

As the youngest of 13 brothers, Prince Hans' (Santino Fontana) best hope of becoming king was to marry a foreign princess. When the neighboring kingdom of Arendelle finally opens its borders again after years of isolation, Hans travels there and quickly deceives the naive Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) into falling in love with him. Soon after, Anna's older sister, Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel), flees into the mountains when her ice powers become public knowledge, and though Hans does what he can to help the citizens, he bides his time for a chance to eliminate Elsa.

The revelation that Hans was a twist villain is one of the least praised aspects of Frozen, mainly because it doesn't make a lot of sense. A good twist villain plants seeds that they will show their true colors later on, but Hans is nothing but a kind, brave, and compassionate person, who even saves Elsa's life from the Duke of Weselton's (Alan Tudyk) men, which is the exact opposite of what he should want. Combined with how forced his evil dialogue sounds and his lack of personality, Hans feels less like a successful twist villain and more like a robot that the writers flipped from good to evil.

5 Bellwether - 'Zootopia' (2016)

Assistant Mayor Bellwether sitting at a desk and looking confused in Zootopia

To most of the residents of Zootopia, Dawn Bellwether (Jenny Slate) is a meek but friendly little sheep serving as the overworked assistant to Mayor Lionheart (J. K. Simmons). Behind closed doors, however, she is a criminal mastermind who plans to take over the city. Using a special flower, Bellwether creates a drug that causes predators to go savage, which she uses to stir up fear in the prey species and create chaos that will see prey rise above predators.

Bellwether is another twist villain who is only revealed as the antagonist during the last few minutes of Zootopia. This choice ends up being her undoing as an antagonist; she only gets a few seconds to let the mask drop before she is taken down, meaning she leaves even less of a villainous impression than Hans, who at least got a few scenes to monologue and try to kill the sisters. The lack of foreshadowing also doesn't help Bellwether, making her offer to Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) at the end of the movie about ruling together feel arbitrary, since there were never previous scenes of the two talking about how hard it is to be small, cute animals in society.

4 Governor Ratcliffe - 'Pocahontas' (1995)

Governor Ratcliffe smiling in Pocahontas

Appointed by King James I to lead the New World colony of Virginia, Governor Ratcliffe (David Ogden Stiers) sails the Atlantic Ocean and establishes Jamestown. However, Ratcliffe has major ambitions and instructs his men to begin digging for gold, bringing the settlers into conflict with the native Powhatan tribe, especially when Ratcliffe becomes convinced that they are hoarding all the gold for themselves.

Ogden Stiers, who previously voiced Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast, was a phenomenal actor, and by God, did he try his best. Sadly, Ratcliffe's entire character begins and ends at "greedy," and he doesn't even have Edgar's comedy potential to balance it out. He's also just too simplistic for the story that Pocahontas is trying to tell, because it's really hard to take the conflict between two factions forced to try and get along seriously when your villain is as flat as the paper he was drawn on. Pocahontas has not aged well, and sadly, Ratcliffe is one of the major reasons why.

3 Marina Del Rey - 'The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning' (2008)

As governess to the daughters of King Triton (Jim Cummings), Marina Del Rey (Sally Field) is tasked with educating and instructing them on their roles as princesses of the sea. However, she loathes the position and longs to become Triton's advisor. The position is currently held by the crab Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright), but Marina gets her chance when she discovers that he has been breaking Triton's ban on music.

When compared to the beautiful ball of charisma that is Ursula (Pat Carroll) and even her copy-and-paste sister, Morgana (Pat Carroll), Marina is a massive step down. Her goals and personality are just too small-scale and too basic, so much so that her friendly manatee helper, Benjamin (Jeff Bennett), leaves a stronger impression. It doesn't help that her design looks like it could be a mermaid version of Ursula (who did live in the palace at one point), and she has electric-eel henchmen, so what little there is to try and make her a unique villain is drowned out.

2 King Magnifico - 'Wish' (2023)

Magnifico (Chris Pine) working magic with three floating orbs in 'Wish'

After losing his old home, a sorcerer named Magnifico (Chris Pine) created the magical kingdom of Rosas, which he and his wife, Amaya (Angelique Cabral), rule as king and queen. Magnifico requests that every resident of Rosa surrender their deepest wish to him on their 18th birthday, and once every month, he selects a random wish to be granted, so long as it's not a threat to his rule. When a young girl named Asha (Ariana DeBose) ends up summoning a wishing star after discovering Magnifico's intentions, he declares her a traitor and delves into dark magic to ensure he can hold onto power.

Magnifico is just one of many reasons why Wish became a lackluster and disappointing entry into Disney's animated canon, rather than the centennial celebratory movie it should have been. The film tries to turn him into a classic villain with charisma and presence, but his flat personality, coupled with how quickly he gives into the dark magic when the threat hadn't escalated that far, makes it hard to take him seriously, even with Pine doing his best with the voice. It also doesn't help that he has one of Disney's worst villain songs, and that he and Amaya were going to be an evil power couple in the original script, which alone would have made him more memorable.

1 Sarousch - 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame II' (2002)

Wherever the traveling carnival called the Cirque de Sarouch travels, people find their valuables mysteriously misplaced because the carnival is actually made up of thieves and robbers, led by their narcissistic leader, Sarousch (Michael McKean). His latest scheme will be taking place in Paris and involves stealing a bell from Notre Dame Cathedral that, for some ungodly reason, has an interior covered in gemstones and gold.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2 is already among the worst of Disney's straight-to-DVD sequels, so it's pretty fitting that it also has such a lame antagonist. He's about as boring and one-dimensional as they come; he's a greedy, vain, and egotistical con artist, and he never once poses a serious threat to the heroes. McKean is doing his best to try and draw some blood from this stone, but the more you watch Sarousch, the more you appreciate how amazing a villain Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) was in the original movie.

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