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The 18 Most-Hated TV Villains Of All Time, Ranked
Ah, the most hated TV villains of all time – the characters who make us scream at our screens and clutch our pillows in frustration. These are the antagonists who have mastered the art of being despicable, turning our favorite shows into emotional roller coasters. Whether through their sinister plots, heartless betrayals, or sheer malevolence, they've etched themselves into our minds as the epitome of evil.
Take Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones, for instance. His sadistic tendencies and casual cruelty made him one of the series' most unforgettable foes. Or consider Fred Waterford from The Handmaid's Tale, whose patriarchal tyranny and moral hypocrisy created a chilling depiction of dystopian authority. Both characters are prime examples of villains we love to hate, serving as constant reminders of what true malevolence looks like in the TV realm.
Now, it's your turn to weigh in. We've compiled a list of the best TV show villains, and we want to know who tops your list. Vote for the worst TV villains who have earned your ire and see how your picks stack up against those of other fans. After all, nothing brings viewers together quite like a mutual hatred for a well-crafted antagonist.
- 1262 VOTES
Ramsay Bolton, 'Game of Thrones'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 3.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Ramsay’s many candidates for “Most Ruthless Thing” include: emasculating Theon Greyjoy; murdering his own father Roose Bolton; and murdering Rickon Stark in front of his half-brother Jon Snow. But arguably the worst moment of them all was when he assaulted Sansa Stark on their wedding night. It’s often cited as the worst offender on a frequently controversial show’s list of worst offenses.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Probably the most likable character in the series is Jon Snow, the illegitimate overlooked son of a noble family. Ramsay comes from the same circumstances, but he’s everything Jon is not. On a show where devastating acts of violence occur regularly, Ramsay is one of the few characters who seems to enjoy it.
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- 2157 VOTES
Black Jack Randall, 'Outlander'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: At the end of Season 1, it’s revealed that Randall has sexually assaulted protagonist Claire’s husband Jamie. While he’s already committed plenty such assaults on the show at this point, including against Claire, this episode explores in detail the misery Randall has wrought.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: He’s a military officer who hides his sadism, particularly of the sexual variety, underneath a veneer of upper class British respectability. He quickly becomes obsessed with protagonist Claire as yet another person he can potentially exploit.
- 3144 VOTES
Fred Waterford, 'The Handmaid's Tale'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Serving as the architect of a society that subjugates women and eliminates their reproductive rights.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Fred Waterford is a convenient stand-in for the chauvinist males who build Gilead and oppress June and her fellow Handmaidens, but what’s particularly galling is his hypocrisy. When it suits him, he’s perfectly willing to bend the rules that ordinary Gileadeans would be executed for breaking.
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Season She Was Introduced: Season 3.
Most Ruthless Thing She Did: Creating a “beauty balm” out of her victims’ pancreases.
Who She Is And Why We Hate Her: She’s an immortal New Orleans socialite from the 1800s who once had a penchant for tormenting and killing enslaved people. Her immortality was granted as an ironic punishment by a voodoo priestess whose lover she tortured and killed. Her views were already reprehensible in the 19th century and are even more so today.
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- 5136 VOTES
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 3.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: It may be understandable that The Governor/Philip Blake would keep his zombiefied daughter chained up in a room in the hopes of finding a cure, but keeping fish tanks full of zombiefied heads just to “toughen himself up” for the zombie apocalypse goes a step further, or five.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: The Governor is the first human big bad who opposes Rick Grimes's crew in The Walking Dead, and he's perfectly willing to torment our favorite characters to keep his own community safe. This even includes beheading the gentle soul Hershel.
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- 683 VOTES
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 2.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Sexually abusing the guests at a summer camp run by his father, then flavoring his martinis with their tears.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: At least Hannibal Lecter has something resembling a code, whereby he only slays and eats the rude. Verger, meanwhile, is a sexual sadist who will victimize anyone, and who wants revenge after Hannibal disfigured him. It’s not easy to root for Hannibal Lecter, but Verger makes him a bit more palatable.
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- 7133 VOTES
Kilgrave, 'Jessica Jones'
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Season He Was Introduced: Kilgrave is fully revealed in the third episode of Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Using his mind control powers to keep Jessica Jones sexually enslaved for months.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: A supervillain with mind control powers derived from childhood experiments performed on him by his own parents, Kilgrave is especially hateworthy because he believes what he’s doing is justified. To him, keeping Jessica in his thrall is a twisted way of proving his love.
- 8150 VOTES
Stormfront, 'The Boys'
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Season She Was Introduced: Season 2.
Most Ruthless Thing She Did: While attempting to apprehend Kenji Miyashiro, a superhero terrorist, she pursues him through an apartment building occupied by African-American residents and terminates several, for no reason other than their race.
Who She Is And Why We Hate Her: She's a member of Vought International's supervillain super group, but she's so much more than that. Like her name suggests, she's a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer who takes pleasure in killing anyone different from her.
- 9123 VOTES
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 5.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Murdering child witness Drew Sharp after Todd, Walt, and Jesse robbed a freight train full of methylamine, then taking the boy’s pet tarantula for himself.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Most of the offenders with whom Walt and Jesse associate are like Walt and Jesse, forced into a life of crime out of necessity. Todd, on the other hand, is a bonafide psychopath. Even worse, Walt and Jesse are forced to keep relying on him even after he’s proven himself to be a monster.
- 1090 VOTES
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: While Theodore Bagwell has committed enough reprehensible deeds in prison to fill an entire article, it’s his pre-incarceration habits that take the cake. Specifically, a fugitive T-Bag convinced a single mother that he was an upstanding member of society, good enough to start a relationship with. His partner, Susan, was forced to find out the truth on America’s Most Wanted.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: On a show about a protagonist who lands himself in prison in order to spring his wrongfully convicted brother, it’s pretty easy to hate a rightfully convicted white supremacist leader who first tries to sexually abuse said protagonist, then dominate him in various other ways.
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 3.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Burned his son's face for speaking out of turn, leaving him with a permanent scar. Then he forced him to leave the country, saying he could only return if he brought back the elusive Avatar - essentially banishing him.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: The ruler of Fire Nation, one of the four main countries that make up the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Only, Ozai openly wants to conquer the rest of the world, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Live-action Ozai actor Daniel Dae Kim sees the character as the Darth Vader of the franchise.
- 1277 VOTES
Piscatella, 'Orange Is the New Black'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 4.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Before the events of the series, Piscatella tortured and murdered a male inmate at another prison by scalding him with shower water. This was the reason for his transfer to Litchfield.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: By the time Season 4 rolls around, the audience has grown very attached to the women of Litchfield Penitentiary. So, a guard captain character who enjoys hurting those characters isn’t going to win many popularity contests.
- 1360 VOTES
Phil Leotardo, 'The Sopranos'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 5.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Setting up a female FBI agent who was investigating him to be beaten and assaulted.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: True, The Sopranos asks the audience to sympathize with a depressed wiseguy who's committed plenty of reprehensible acts. And like other shows that follow an anti-hero, it takes an even more reprehensible character to make us root for them. Phil might be a shade more ruthless than Tony Soprano, but it's not by much.
- 1443 VOTES
George Hearst, 'Deadwood'
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Season He Was Introduced: While he’s a major presence throughout the series, Hearst doesn’t appear onscreen until the Season 2 finale.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Overlooking the horrific extracurricular slayings and assaults committed by his employee Francis Wolcott, all because Wolcott is an effective mining agent.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Hearst isn’t any more ruthless or greedy than most of the other characters on Deadwood. But as a wealthy industrialist who’s trying to seize Deadwood for himself, he serves as a handy avatar for the entitled rich.
- 1530 VOTES
Roy Tillman, 'Fargo'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 5.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: While Roy Tillman is a murderous sheriff who breaks any law that serves him, it’s his home life that’s the worst. Season 5 explores his history of abusing and subjugating his wives, including Dot, the main character of Season 5, Linda, her predecessor, and Karen, Dot's successor.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: For a certain type of audience member with a certain political bent, a Bible-thumping, family values-touting hypocrite of a sheriff is pretty much everything wrong with America.
- 1672 VOTES
Captain Sobel, 'Band of Brothers'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Trying to court-martial the much more well-liked Dick Winters for failing to comply with Sobel's deliberately impossible-to-follow orders to inspect a latrine.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Captain Sobel definitely isn't the most reprehensible character to appear on television, as his goals are the same as the subordinate officers and soldiers he leads: to defeat the enemies. Yet he's written to be so petty and uncompromising that the audience hates him as much as his soldiers did.
- 1746 VOTES
The Grand Inquisitor, 'Star Wars Rebels'
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Season He Was Introduced: Season 1.
Most Ruthless Thing He Did: Hunting down and killing scores of children with Force-sensitivity.
Who He Is And Why We Hate Him: Since Star Wars: A New Hope, fans have been conditioned to root for the Jedi and against the Sith. And the Grand Inquisitor is pretty much the embodiment of the Sith's genocide against the Jedi.
