While The Princess and the Frog (2009) and Tangled (2010) gave us Dr. Facilier and Mother Gothel respectively, we haven't seen a traditional villain since 2013. Even in that case — Hans from Frozen — the villain pales in comparison to the conflict that Elsa has with her own powers.
Ultimately, Disney has stepped away from cartoon-type villains that are exaggeratedly evil and have honed in on more human conflicts. Rather than one character being an incarnation of all things evil, conflict stems more from interpersonal conflict and differences in values.
1. Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians) Cruella De Vil, 101 Dalmatians' glamorous, sociopathic, and elitist villain, is on top of our list.
Darth Vader can be considered the greatest villain of all time for a plethora of reasons, namely his appearance, his iconic voice, his immense strength and his unrelenting rage.
Te Fiti is a major character in Disney's 2016 animated feature film Moana. She is a goddess with the power to create life—an ability that she used to create the islands of Polynesia. After her heart had been stolen by Maui, she became Te Kā, a demon of earth and fire and the main antagonist of the film.
In Frozen, Hans goes from a courtly charmer to power-hungry villain. According to Hyrum Osmond, one of the supervising animators for Hans, Hans initially appears as a handsome, dashing character. The crew wanted the audience to fall in love with him and the relationship he could have with Anna.
In Disney's original animated “101 Dalmatians” from 1961, Cruella de Vil is an evil woman in her sixties whose goal is to kill and skin the Dalmatians for their fur as a new fashion statement.
Ercole Visconti is the main antagonist of Pixar's 24th full-length animated feature film Luca. He is an Italian teenager and local bully and showoff in the town of Portorosso, but as the film progresses, he shows that he's much more vile than that.
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Hans from Frozen are currently the youngest Disney Villains to date, with Hans being 23 and Gaston being around his mid-20s.
Scar, the villain in The Lion King, was so closely associated with his disability and disfigurement that he didn't even have a separate name.
Did you know the only Disney villain never to appear on screen is "Man" from Bambi? Or, did you know that the only Disney hero never to utter a word in their movie is Dumbo?
1. Judge Claude Frollo The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) Hands down, the scariest and most ruthless Disney villain of all time is Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He is downright evil and diabolical from the very start of the film.
For decades, Cruella de Vil has been known as one of Disney's most evil characters. “Cruel” and “devil” are literally in her name. She's on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains—coming in just before Freddy Krueger and the Joker.
Unlike the other three fairy godmothers in the movie, Maleficent is an evil sorceress, and her evil enables her to perform many magical and powerful spells.
villainess. noun. vil·lain·ess ˈvil-ə-nəs. : a woman who is a villain.
The Pure Evil villain is a type of villain that is considered to be one of, if not the most evil character(s) in the story with no redeeming qualities. A villain who is Pure Evil is completely evil.