This is a ranking of modern Doctor Who, from 2005 (or NEW WHO). I’ll get around do ranking the seasons of Classic Who, but that’s for a different post. I’m looking at the seasons as a whole, so while that mostly means, “were the episodes in it better or worse?”, the structure of the season as a whole and any season long arcs are also factors. I am counting 14 seasons. So FLUX counts as a season, and the four Specials after season 4 also count as a season. I normally group any other specials with the nearest season, with the exception of two during Matt Smith’s time since, when I evaluated the nearest seasons, the BBC insisted that those were separate, and the fandom agreed, so I’ve just ignored 2 eps.

And for more info on which episodes brought a season up or pulled it down, check out my ranking of every modern Doctor Who episode:

The Lowest 3rd
The Middle 3rd
The Top 3rd

Now, starting in last place:

 

 

#14 Season 13 (FLUX)

Oh dear god, does Chibnall have no concept of story structure? FLUX is a single adventure split among 6 episodes. Two of those, War of the Sontarans and Village of the Angels, feel like stand alone eps that were rewritten to fit the longer work, but the other four eps cannot stand alone. And as a single, season long story, it is a mess. OK, the good first. The cinematography is very good, probably the best Doctor Who has ever been shot. And Yaz is much more of a character now, even with a bit of agency and less petulant. And while new companion Dan doesn’t do much, he is amiable and a pleasant addition. Semi-companion Jericho is also reasonably well developed. And I like the makeup and performance of the two villains, Swarm and Azure. And that’s it. The rest is junk.

OK, what went wrong: Two many story threads, many left dangling or missing parts. Far too many characters. Extra villains who are irrelevant and underdeveloped (Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen, The Grand Serpent). Extra allies who were irrelevant and underdeveloped (Vinder, Bel, Kate). No emotions on events that deserve big emotions (trillions upon trillions have died and the universe is in ruins and no one shows any sign of caring). Lots of emotion shown when there’s no explanation of why they deserve any concern (why does the Doctor care about her past?). Vague motivations (what exactly did the Doctor do that so upset The Division? Bringing “hope” is not an answer). Really distracting concepts of the size of the universe (apparently it is very small) and of physics (matter “slows” antimatter…). Everything ended way to quickly.

Word is that the season was supposed to be 10 episodes long and got cut. OK, then there needed to be some re-writes before they started filming that removed things that didn’t matter to the story so that important things still had room.

Best “individual” ep: Village of the Angels
Worst “individual” ep: The Vanquishers

 

#13 Season 11

In comes a new Doctor and a new showrunner, creating a season of consistency. Unfortunately, it’s consistently not very good. It doesn’t have the worst episode, but it is close, and it never shines. A majority of the eps sit in the middle of the lower third of all modern Who. It’s easy to blame the generally drab writing, but the problem is larger, with the structure of the show. Perhaps three companions were too many. None of them develop personalities, or enough agency to do anything other than meekly obey The Doctor. And none of them have any kind of relationship with The Doctor. They are non-entities that hardly react, and when two of them are motivated by a recent death, not reacting is a huge problem. This is one of the worst depictions of widowhood I’ve ever seen.

Jodie Whittaker’s general take on The Doctor has potential, but that consistency becomes a problem again. She doesn’t change. Not only does she lack an arc (most Doctors don’t have one), she doesn’t behave any differently in different situations. She’s always the same. She’s a little breathless and rattles off exposition with a single tone. The playful childlike Doctor could work, but she needs to respond to her environment.

Chris Chibnall brings with him a dark, ugly aesthetic. He’s trying to make the show look more cinematic, but he lacks the skill and the money. The blocking is flat, the lighting is dim, and the colors are off. Oddly, to go with that, he makes the show more juvenile, with non-stop messaging to kids to “be the best you can be” and “gosh, you can overcome your disadvantages.” It’s both off-putting and twee.

Best ep: Demons of the Punjab
Worst ep: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

 

#11 Season 12

It’s like Season 11, with all its flaws, but a little better. Not much, but a little. The Doctor is still too unchanging, the companions are still drab and have no relationship with The Doctor (but do become petulant once, which is not an improvement), the production is still weak, and the message is still only suited to pre-teens, but individual eps are a step up. The big change was more references to older seasons, with a lot of returning villains, which isn’t in itself good, but the writers seemed to have a better idea of what to do with those.

There were multiple big reveals, that really didn’t mean much. The Doctor is the Timeless Child… So? How does that effect anything? Why would that effect anything? Big emotional arcs need to be emotional. This one isn’t, and, based on 50 years of the show, shouldn’t be. This is the one time the Doctor is emotional, but we’re given no reason why she’s emotional. Considering how often the Doctor has tossed off past personalities (and sometimes shown distain for past selves), why is this past important? The show needs to show us, not just assume that it is.

Best ep: The Haunting of Villa Diodati
Worst ep: Revolution of the Daleks

 

#12 Season 10

This was the season of unfulfilled potential. Peter Capaldi had perfected his Doctor in season 9 and then was given nothing to do with him. Bill was an interesting new companion, on paper, but never developed a rapport with the Doctor and was made into an idiot by the second ep, and truly annoying by the third. The Doctor was a professor (for 50 years) and that was ignored. The great mystery of the vault was no mystery at all and Missy’s arc promised to be the best part of the season but did nothing and petered out—that might be the season’s greatest flaw as it brings a memorable character to nothing after repeatedly building her up.

The individual episodes were surprisingly close in quality, with a majority ending up in the lowest third. Season 10 doesn’t sink to the abysmal lows of Season 8, but it has eight episodes in my lowest third. I count the Christmas episode Twice Upon a Time as part of season 10 instead of part of season 11 as is usually the case as it has The Doctor, companion, writer, and showrunner from season 10, all of which would change for season 11. And season 10 could use the help.

Best ep: Twice Upon a Time
Worst ep: The Pyramid at the End of the World / The Lie of the Land

 

#10 Season 8

If I gave equal weight to the bad episodes in a season, S8 would end up worse than S12, as this season has some truly awful eps. It has both the very worst and the third-worst. But it also has multiple mediocre eps, which isn’t something to be proud of, but is more than S11 or 12 can say.

Clara was weak and distracted. The Doctor was grumpy and miserable; in theory that could make a fine story, but in practice, it was simply unpleasant to watch. Past grumpy Doctors took some pleasure in it. Then there is the arc. Missy/Heaven turned out not to be the arc, as the little glimpses along the way were only preludes to a single two-part episode. The true arc was the Clara/Danny relationship, which was mishandled, starting with the lack of chemistry between the actors, and then going into the poor writing and underdevelopment of the two. It needed warmth, but we never saw that.

Best ep: Dark Water / Death in Heaven
Worst ep: Kill the Moon

 

#9 Season 7

Matt Smith’s final year was sloppy: Starting with a Xmas ep (the Narnia take-off Mother’s story) that didn’t require The Doctor, passing through some family Pond and overly moralistic eps, and then slipping into the whole “Clara is a Mystery” arc. That arc not only ended with a whimper and a cheat, but also was designed to strip Clara of all agency and strength. She was great in her two pre-companion appearances but then had all her personality stolen and she didn’t get it back till season 9. This season has only one ep in my top 3rd and four in my bottom 3rd.

Note: The 50th Anniversary and Eleven’s regeneration eps are not considered parts of season 7, belonging to no season, though they wouldn’t change 7’s placement if I included them.

Best ep: The Angels Take Manhattan
Worst ep: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

 

#8 Season 6

This is a strange season. With the exception of A Christmas Carol and The Doctor’s Wife, all the best episodes are part of the arc, but the arc completely falls apart into meaningless pudding and a huge cheat in the end. Still, I can’t recall having more fun with pudding and a cheat. Amy & Rory are the heart of it all and are engaging and funny. River is the icing. Those three together are a riot, producing some of the funniest episodes of the show, while also pulling at heartstrings. 

The non-arc eps were a tangle of repeats, giving us another stupid healing machine, another horror story based on a kid needing love, another thick morality tale on identity, and another joke ep that included defeating cybermen with love.

Best Ep: A Christmas Carol
Worst Ep: The God Complex

 

#7 Season 9

A huge improvement over S8, S9 avoided the depths of S8 & S7, but rarely reached the top tier of episodes. It managed to break into my top 3rd, but only with the solid and emotional final eps, Heaven Sent and Hell Bent, and with the wonderful Christmas episode, The Husbands of River Song. Most of S9’s eps hovered a bit below the mid-point. What worked was the improved Doctor. They’ve never shifted the personality of a Doctor so noticeably before, and only Sylvester McCoy’s and William Hartnell’s come close. Gone is the man who hates everything. In comes the old rocker, and him I want to watch. Clara returned to a character worth watching by finally reverting to the person we first saw as Soufflé Girl.

The arc was a non-starter, since Moffat’s main concern seemed to be setting up red herrings. The hybrid, Missy, and “Me” came to very little and the Time Lords should have been left out of the season.

S9 just barely edges out S6, not due to overall quality, but by its best being a step up from S6’s best. There’s a good argument for moving it above the Specials, but its four eps in my lowest 3rd drag it down.

Best ep: The Husbands of River Song
Worst ep: Sleep No More

 

#6 The Specials “Season”

Not exactly a season, but with five oversized episodes, it manages a half-season. It’s a mixture of fluff, the ridiculous, and the brilliant. Both Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor get a lot of undeserved hate in Who Fandom, mostly due to expectations (did they really think that the Next Doctor in The Next Doctor was going to be the Doctor?). They are both pleasant upper mid-tier eps.

After the buildup in The Waters of Mars, I’d have liked to have seen a final for Tennant dealing more with his slip into godhood, but the long, wandering goodbye was satisfying. If I could chop off the last 25 minutes of that rambling two-parter and make it into its own episode, it would be the best of the season and one of the greats.

Best ep: The Waters of Mars
Worst ep: The End of Time

 

#5 Season 5

Matt Smith takes over, switching The Doctor from a brilliant, dangerous, romantic figure to a cocaine-fueled, slapstick comedian. It’s a move toward the series’ roots as a kid’s show. Luckily kids shows can be fun, and this one is. Eleven works well in the light eps, but doesn’t pull off the serious ones, and never appears dangerous, though he is supposed to.

Amy is everything I’d want in a companion: strong, sexy, a bit wild, and smart. More than The Doctor, it is Amy who caries the season. Rory, the man who dies, starts off uninteresting, but improves greatly, though some of that shows more in later seasons. River is wonderful, but Alex Kingston has no chemistry with Matt Smith. This is more of a problem in season 6.

Both the plot arc and character arc are unusually heavy, with the crack in time not only mentioned in all the episodes but actually playing a part in many. Luckily, it was an arc that worked. The new Matt Smith music is excellent if overused.

Best ep: The Eleventh Hour
Worst ep: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

 

#4 Season 3

S3 was all over the place. Only Season 9 has as extreme quality changes. Leaping from The Family of Blood to The Daleks Take Manhattan can give you whiplash. However, most episodes are above the average. In the end, I rank it above S5 due to awarding more points for great episodes than the number I take away for terrible ones. And now, with so many weaker seasons, The Lazarus Experiment doesn’t seem quite as bad as it once did.

The arc is a complete failure for multiple reasons, but none more so than its ending, with mini-troll Doctor becoming Jesus due to the old Tinkerbell “kids wish really hard” shtick, the Master going for bad comedy, and the whole thing being undone. Basic rule with an seasonal arc: You have to stick the landing. This didn’t. Last of the Time Lords would be the worst ep if it wasn’t part of a two-parter, and gets slightly elevated by its first part.

Freema Agyeman could have made a good companion, but her Martha Jones was given nothing to do, and her failed love story was a bust.

On the other hand, don’t blink.

Best ep: Blink
Worst ep: The Lazarus Experiment

 

#3 Season 2

A new Doctor, and for my money, the best, along with a continuation of one of the great companions makes this a solid season. This was the most emotional season and the two leads had fantastic chemistry. The Torchwood/Alternate World/Cyberman arc is well done as it isn’t overly intrusive while telling a story and not cheating in the end. But S2 ends up in 3rd place because it can’t beat the writing for individual episodes in several of the other seasons. A majority of this season is in my top 3rd, with real standouts like The Girl in the Fireplace, and The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, in addition to the arc-heavy eps, but it barely cracks my top 10 and has several episodes below the 50% mark (Fear Her, The Idiots Lantern).

Best ep: The Girl in the Fireplace
Worst ep: The Idiot’s Lantern

 

#2 Season 4

So much good: The Doctor is fantastic; Companion Donna starts overly shrill but ends up golden; The return of Martha, better than she was in her own season and of Rose, and both get better endings than they had previously. The Dalek/Doctor Donna arc is one of the best, finishing with a fan service episode that delivers exactly what this fan wanted while avoiding being embarrassing. And we get the introduction of River. There’s real emotion in these tales while also telling good stories and delving into the characters. Even the weaker episodes aren’t that weak, not compared to other seasons.

Season 4 has twelve episodes in my top 3rd (counting two-parters as 2), including multiple in the top 10.

Best ep: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Worst ep: Midnight

 

#1 Season 1

It started with the best. With 12 eps in my top third, including #1, and none in the bottom 3rd, S1 easily ranks as the best season. The plot of the arc is wobbly, but the real arc is the change in The Doctor, from broken, angry warrior to a Time Lord with a future, and the growth of Rose, and those both work beautifully. Add in Captain Jack, meaning, emotion, and a lot of fun, and S1 sings. The only flaw is that there isn’t more of it as Christopher Eccleston was a great Doctor and there was a lot more that he could have done. But perhaps his arc wouldn’t have had quite the power if he’d stuck around, but I’d have been willing to chance that.

Best ep: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
Worst ep: BoomTown

 

 

It’s that time of year again to choose the best, and the worst of the year. I’m starting with the worst. Why 7? Because the year isn’t over yet, and there are a few films I haven’t seen yet (though I doubt The Hunger Games 4 will make either my top or bottom list if the past episodes are anything to go by). I’m using “science fiction” in a very broad sense. If the film pretends to be SF, it is. I’d planned to make a “genre” list as I have in the past, but there’s a good number of fantasy films I haven’t seen yet, and the ones I have didn’t make either my top or bottom list. Fantasy is very middle of the road this year. So, counting down the worst of the worst, starting with #7:

 

#7 Self/less

A stereotypically nasty businessman is given a chance to extend his life by transferring his consciousness to a lab grown body. When he discovers the body wasn’t grown, but has a past which includes a wife and child, he becomes guilty, and the secret company decides he needs to die.

This action film, that could have been rewritten without the science fiction elements, plays like a first draft spec script. Guns get fired. Cars crash. It’s not horrible. It is simply completely forgettable. Nothing about this film will be remembered in a year. It isn’t worth the effort to avoid. Ben Kingsley, who’s demonstrated he’ll be in anything if paid is again there for the paycheck, while Ryan Reynalds demonstrates, again, that he ought to be good in genre films, but somehow isn’t.

 

 #6 Tomorrowland

A teen genius, a robot girl, and a cynical ex-inventor travel to a parallel universe to save ours.

A corporate created kids’ film that should have been a family film, Tomorrowland has some interesting ideas but they were wasted. The main character is irrelevant. The movie could have been about the robot and older man, but then it should have been rewritten before even getting to that point. This is a movie that needed magic and adventure and it came up empty. Miscasting of Clooney didn’t help matters.

 

 #5 Jupiter Ascending

A maid learns she’s the genetic duplicate of the dead matriarch of a powerful galactic family (sure…) that owns the Earth. Their wealth is build on harvesting humans for a youth tonic and every member has a scheme for using the maid. But she has a protector in the form of a wingless, man-wolf, soldier, hoverboard pro (OK…). Do man-wolfs usually have wings? Seems so.

How far the The Wachowskis have fallen: Channing Tatum in wolf ears on a hover board; Mila Kunis spending two hours playing damsel in distress and being more worried about her outfit than the fate of the world; Eddit Redmayne overacting such that any proper society would repossess his Academy Award. Don’t worry about the story; they didn’t. It’s very pretty. The pretty doesn’t make up for the poor acting, nonsensical plot, or annoying characters, but its enough to put it a few notches away from worst of the year.

 

 #4 Infini

A rescue team teleports to a deep space outpost to stop a deadly cargo aimed at Earth and to rescue the lone survivor. They just have to avoid dying from the cold and from whatever pathogen drove the last rescue team insane.

Remember Event Horizon? Remember how it was pretty good, but copied too much from Alien? If not, watch Event Horizon. Or better, watch Alien. Infini is what you get if you set out to make a copy of a copy, and run out of script and money halfway through. It looks good, and the acting is passable, but all we end up with is crazy people who like to talk and walk down mysterious corridors. It had potential, and I still had hope—though fading hope—an hour in, and then they just give up. Suspense, mystery, and action fades away, replaced by crazy people chatting. I doubt if you could save this, but cutting twenty minutes would be a step in the right direction.

 

 #3 Insurgent

In an post-apocalyptic dystopian city, citizens are split into five rigid sects. A divergent girl (doesn’t fit into a single group) and her combat-trainer boyfriend are on the run after the first film. The evil, nasty, bad, naughty smart people want to capture her for a secret weapon.

Insurgent, the sequel to the cliché-ridden, anti-intellectual, but well-structured young adult film, Divergent, drops the “well-structured” part, and gives us dreams and tantrums. Lots of dreams. If you like your films filled with events that turn out neither to be real nor matter, this is the film for you. There’s ten minutes of story, pointless grousing, and dreams. If you’ve seen the first film, and want to see the upcoming third one, have someone spend a few minutes explaining the very little you need to know from this one. Then go watch something else.

 

#2 Fantastic Four

A soft spoken young genius with no charisma is brought onto a dimension jumping project. He, Doctor Doom, his abused buddy, and the son of the project leader experiment with…  Wait. Isn’t Sue Storm one of the fantastic four? But she isn’t part of the 4 that try out the experiment? Huh. OK. So, the experiment goes wrong and gives them super powers, which they don’t do much with.

On the bright side, the pre-release word on this film was so bad that I was not disappointed. It’s as bad as you’ve heard, but no worse. The characters have no chemistry, no interesting dialog, and I wouldn’t have cared if that experiment had killed them all. The superhero part of the film doesn’t start for an hour and doesn’t go anywhere. And to strip away an possible enjoyment, the movie is tinted an ugly green.  The best thing I can say about this film is that the actors would be good…in something else.

 

#1 Pixels

Aliens attack using weapons that look and act like old arcade games. Adam Sandler, playing the same guy he always does, must save the day with his old time video game skills, because that isn’t stupid in any way.

Could a good movie have made from this premise? No, but a better one. If they’d let the not-very-funny moments come from the weak story, it could have been watchable. Instead it’s filled with horrible jokes that could have been extracted from ten other Adam Sandler films. Sandler spits out his low level quips, and they are never funny and usually unpleasant. When Kevin James is the sophisticated one in your film, you’re in trouble. Peter Dinklage deserves better, although you’d never know from his performance.

 

I’ve seen multiple rankings of all the Doctor Who episodes (or just all the modern ones) recently, and they all have been horribly wrong. I know this because they don’t match mine, and mine are correct. That’s just the way the universe is. Obviously I will have to fix this.

OK, if I’m going to rank all the modern Doctor Who episodes, let’s start with the minisodes. And there are a lot of them, and many of them are hardly stories. With that in mind, I’ll skip anything that was intended as an intro or break for a film, musical production, or non-Who TV show, or anything which is a game or part of a game show. I’ll also skip cut scenes (like Born Again) or episode prequels (there are a lot of them). Few of them are required viewing in any case (only the two Lady Vastra ones that act as prequels to The Snowmen really need to be searched for). Though in some cases, the “minisode” prequel is a bit more, in which case I’ve included it.

#17

Death is the Only Answer

The Doctor meets Albert Einstein in the TARDIS. Written by school children who won a competition. Well, hard to say mean things about something written by children.

#16

Good as Gold

Another episode written by children. Eleven and Amy want to go on an adventure and instead end up saving the spirit of the Olympics. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like it would be. Again, don’t want to say mean things about something written by children.

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With the Nebula Awards coming up in a week(ish), all things are science fiction. So, here is my list of the top 15 SF-related songs. Just so one or two groups/artists didn’t dominate, I’ve restricted it to one song per group. And I’ve given a little nudge to songs that truly show their love of SF. I’m pretty flexible on where songs ended up on this list–so just make a mix of all of them.

 

#15 Keeper Keep Us – Intergalactic Touring Band

The Intergalactic Touring Band was a concept album that barely appeared and then slipped into obscurity. I discovered it in the back bins of a record store in 1979, two years after its release. Half of the working rock musicians of the time seemed to pop up on the album, which told a vague story about a musical group flying about space in the distant future. The last track, Keeper Keep Us, was a religious hymn. Since the previous song had been about a planet where people leap into the fire so their burning bodies could give some warmth to those left behind, I think the Keeper isn’t doing his job.
(Edit: That song is no longer available to post, so I’ve replaced it with an earlier song, Star Ship Jingle a future ad used to persuade people to go into space.)

 

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I ranked the MCU films, so I thought I’d dig a bit deeper. The quality of the villain can have as much to do with the quality of a film as the quality of the hero. Die Hard is often cited as an example of when a great villain makes a great movie. But for the MCU, that normal relationship doesn’t hold up. Except for a very few cases, the Marvel villains are weak. This isn’t a flaw; it is a feature. In a twisted way, this is what makes the MCU films work, because these are not action driven films, but character driven ones. The Iron Man films are not about how Iron Man solves a particular problem and defeats a villain; they are about Tony Stark. The Captain America films are about Steve Rogers. Strong villains can change that focus. A strong villain is all about the plot he creates for the hero to dwell in. And plot isn’t that important in the MCU. In only a couple cases dos the villain really matter. These movies shine because we know these characters, and we love them. Still, ranking villains is fun and I do not want to rank the heroes. So here’s my ranking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains, from weakest to strongest.

I’m only dealing with main villains, so no henchmen (except for one special case) or stooges. I am sticking with the films, where direct comparison makes more sense. That makes it 36 (the Iron Man films have two each, as does The Incredible Hulk and Cap 2, while there are two cases where a single villain is the big bad in two films). Also, SPOILERS!, as sometimes it’s meant to be a surprise who the main villain is.

 

#36 – Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton)

Film: The Marvels
Fiendish Plot: Use a magic bracelet to steal resources from other planets.
Motivation: Restore the Kree and revenge

She’s pretty much Ronan or Malekith, 2.0, and as the originals weren’t very good, a retread is worse. She’s just there. She hits things with her hammer (didn’t Ronan have one of those) and not much else. And as several other of the poorer villains, her power levels are impossible to figure from the movie. Ashton isn’t just there in her acting, but is way over the top (again, not unlike Ronan), but not in a fun hammy way, but more as if she had no idea what she was supposed to do so just yelled.

 

#35 – Malekith (Christopher Eccleston)

Film: Thor: The Dark World
Fiendish Plot: To bring darkness to the universe…maybe metaphorically, maybe literally. Maybe just part of the universe. Honestly, not sure he’s thought it through.
Motivation: Feeling mopey

So, they spent money on an actor instead of buying a manikin and there’s no way to tell. Eccleston is invisible under his makeup. Since he was given a script that gave him nothing to do and no personality to play, he apparently just gave up. The greatest sin in art is to be boring, and Malekith is boring.

 

#34 – Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía)

Film: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Fiendish Plot: Do as many stupid things as possible, I guess…
Motivation: Protect his kingdom

Namor was a disappointment in a film that was destined to be disappointing. He’s supposed to be noble, an anti-hero who just happens to be on the opposite side of our heroes. Instead he’s a wishy-washy idiot. He never makes a single move that makes sense. Why attack Wakanda? It isn’t his enemy, and he knows it. Why force others to do what he could do himself? He’s written too poorly to be higher on this list.

 

#33 – Ronan (Lee Pace)

Film: Guardians of the Galaxy
Fiendish Plot: To kill…people
Motivation: Angry zealot.

So Malekith…oops, sorry, I meant Ronan, is unhappy about some stuff that’s given no importance in the film, and he wants to hurt a lot of people who don’t mean a whole lot to the audience. His method of expressing this is to stand and yell. If it wasn’t for the dance-off, he’d only have one expression. A shame as Lee Pace has a great deal of character, none of which shows here.

 

#32 – Darren Cross / Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll)

Film: Ant-Man
Fiendish Plot: To make money by selling shrinking technology to bad guys.
Motivation: A bit of an ego issue, but really he just wants money.

In case all the many, many Iron Man “industrialist” villains aren’t enough for you, here’s another one. Like those higher on this list, he’s businessman first, but scientist next. He just isn’t a good enough scientist to do what he wants to do. If he’d spent a bit more time in the lab, maybe he wouldn’t have all these problems. Though his biggest problem is he doesn’t seem to understand what’s valuable. He desperately wants shrink-suit technology, for no reason other then selling it, then he ignores that he has ultimate assassin gun technology already. He could just sell that and stay clear of any Ant-Men. As Marvel villains go, he isn’t bad, but he’s drab, and too much like so many others.

 

#31 – Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors)

Film: Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania
Fiendish Plot: Use Hope to repair his power core.
Motivation: Escape so he can conquer and destroy.

Don’t know if this went wrong in the writing stage or the directing stage, but just as the movie as a whole lacked character and depth, so did Kang. He seems like the stand-in for the real villain that they’d write later. It made it worse that his power levels fluctuated so wildly. I had no idea what he could do and what actually was a threat to him.

 

#30 – General Ross (William Hurt)

Film: The Incredible Hulk
Fiendish Plot: To kill the Hulk and make more super soldiers.
Motivation: The Hulk is a threat. Or Banner is a leftist. Or Banner dated his daughter. Or Super soldiers will save the US.

I always like William Hurt and he put more life into Ross than anyone else could have, but there’s so little to work with. Ross is an old cliché—the grumpy, right-wing general who yells a lot. He’s not interesting in the comics and he’s not interesting here.

 

#29 – Dreykov (Ray Winstone)

Film: Black Widow
Fiendish Plot: To continue using mind controlled female assassins for world domination.
Motivation: Well, world domination

As the master mind, the general, the puppeteer, controlling an army that does his bidding, he’s…fine. He’s arrogant and cruel, but it isn’t enough to give him much of a personality. There’s nothing wrong with him, but there’s also nothing to make him interesting. He’s got no charisma—the very impersonal threat who is supposed to be personal. He’s generic bad guy #17. He doesn’t do the fighting, but then he doesn’t do a lot of thinking either. He mainly just sits by his desk.

 

#28 – Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung)

Film: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Fiendish Plot: Destroy a magical city unless he gets his dead wife back
Motivation: Love and grief

Wenwu had everything to make him a great villain. There’s lots of back-story, first with his rise as a warlord, then his redemption due to love, then his grief causing him to abuse his children, and finally his delusion of resurrecting his wife. But it doesn’t work in the film because Legend of the Ten Rings wants us to like him, to deeply care about him having a healthy relationship with his children and doing the right thing in general. And I do not. Yes, I understand how and why he’s evil, but that doesn’t mean I want to cuddle. He’s the bad guy. Let him be that. It’s OK for his abused children to hate him and another redemption is one too many.

 

#27 – Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan)

Film: Black Panther
Fiendish Plot: To kill T’Challa and become king
Motivation: Revenge for how his father was treated mixed with random evil

The problem is that Killmonger isn’t really a character. He’s whatever is needed to set the tone. So sometimes he’s rational, sometimes he’s crazy, sometimes he’s trying for justice, sometimes he’s just an evil SOB. His background makes him a justified advisory for T’Challa, but that makes for a complicated film with lots of shades of gray, and MARVEL was already taking all the chances they wanted to with Black Panther,  so they simplified him so the kiddies wouldn’t have to wonder if maybe he ought to win. He could have been top notch, but he’s a disappointment.

 

#26 – Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce)

Film: Iron Man 3
Fiendish Plot: To gain money and power by killing the president in the most awkward way imaginable, and soothing his ego.
Motivation: Tony was mean to him at a party (hey, it’s the Sad Puppies)

Iron Man gave us an industrialist out for money and power. Iron Man 2 gave us an industrialist out for money and power. So Iron Man 3 plays it wild, giving us an industrialist out for money and power. How original. Killian lacks the backstabbing paternalistic substance of Obadiah Stane. He lacks the comedy and cruelty formed from stupidity of Hammer. Instead he has… well… He dresses well. Killian is smarmy, but not in a good way. He’s mainly pathetic, but he does breath fire, which really is not a plus.

 

#25 – Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen)

Film: Ant-Man and the Wasp
Fiendish Plot: Suck away the energy from Janet Van Dyne
Motivation: One part revenge to two parts making the pain go away

You can’t have a top villain when she’s in a movie that didn’t need a villain. She’s simply unnecessary. She could have been cut in favor of two or three extra scenes with the three leads. I suppose it would have been OK if she’d been a touch more interesting, but the script never seems to decide what to make of her. Is she sympathetic? Is she evil? For a moment I thought they had something when she acts gothic and weird after she’s captured Ant-Man, The Wasp, and Hank, but that was apparently her just goofing off (which doesn’t fit anything else we ever see of her).

 

#24 – Green Goblin (Willem DaFoe)

Film: Spider-Man: No Way Home
Fiendish Plot: Get Spider-Man
Motivation: He’s crazy

I almost left him off as the real villain of the film is Peter Parker. All the pain, suffering, and death are due to Peter being naïve, childish, and arrogant. OK, Aunt May is an enabler, but it’s all on Peter. But then I suppose the same could have been said for Tony Stark on several occasions, so Green Goblin gets the job as big bad (with Electro, The Lizard, and Sandman being sidekicks, and Otto Octavius in a different category). The Goblin does as well as possible in the role due to Willem DaFoe’s “I can out-Joker the Joker” performance. As it’s mainly a repeat performance from a previous decade, involves limited screen time, and he’s not really the big bad, he can only rank so high.

 

#23 – Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen)

Film: Doctor Strange
Fiendish Plot: Allow the demon Dormammu access to Earth and by so doing that, gain immortality
Motivation: Hatred of death due to losing both his wife and child.

Kaecilius is a solid villain, if not a particularly interesting one. Like many MCU bad guys, he doesn’t get enough screen time to become layered. He has a few nice speeches, he looks good fighting, and he displays significant malice. He feels like a threat. He serves his purpose, but he could have been replaced by another standard villain without changing anything. I’m not counting Dormammu on this list (in one way of looking at it, he’s the actual villain and Kaecilius is a henchman) as he is barely in the picture and really just takes the place of a weapon–he’s the equivalent of a gigantic nuclear bomb.

 

#22 – Raza (Faran Tahir)

Film: Iron Man
Fiendish Plot: Acquire big weapons
Motivation: Terroristy motivation.

Raza is a one trick pony, a generic Arab terrorist, but he oozes menace and supplies what the film needs. As the primary villain, he’d have been wanting, but as a secondary who exists to prod Tony to become Iron Man, and as a red herring, he is adequate.

 

#21 – The Supreme Intelligence/Yon-Rogg (Annette Bening/Jude Law)

Film: Captain Marvel
Fiendish Plot: To gain the powers Carol absorbed and/or use her in their destruction of the skrull
Motivation: Devotion to the Kree genocidal empire

I’ve got to include both as neither quite qualify on their own. And one half of this dyad is much better than the other. Bening’s Supreme Intelligence should be a frightening representation of fascism, but she’s just sorta snarky.

Luckily, Yon-Rogg is much better. Giving off Nietzsche’s Übermensch vibes, he works so well due to his appearance of kindness and caring. And it isn’t clear that it’s all an act. He goes out of his way to be a mentor to Vers. Of course he’s gaslighting her the whole time, but he no doubt believes it’s for the good. He’s a recruiter for fascism. It all looks nice and pure and good, until it isn’t. So much of this comes from Law, who gives such a likeable performance, until you want to strangle him. He seems helpful, until challenged, and then he’s a patronizing ass. I think there might be a message there.

 

#20 – Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale)

Film: Thor: Love and Thunder
Fiendish Plan: To kill all gods
Motivation: Justifiable hatred of Gods

I give big points to Bale’s performance. He sells Gorr’s anger, loss, and bitterness. I buy it all. In a vacuum, Gorr is one of the better MCU villains, but he seems to be in the wrong movie. Gorr is one creepy dude, but was a creepy dude what was needed? Hela had threaded the needle on frightening and fun, which is what Love and Thunder should have had. Gorr is too intense for the mostly comedic movie he’s in.

 

#19 – Thanos (Josh Brolin)

Film: Avengers: Infinity War, End Game
Fiendish Plot: Collect the Infinity stones so as to kill half the life in the universe
Motivation: To save the Universe from over population.

Thanos is the main character of Infinity War as we follow his story, giving him the opportunity to be one of the very best. Brolin does a nice job and there’s plenty of emotional beats but in the end he’s just OK. What drags him down is that he is both nonsensical and inconsistent. Marvel decided his motivation from the comic books (love of the incarnation of Death) was too…comic-booky, so they removed that to be replaced by wishy-washy fears of overpopulation. Love I’ll buy. Overpopulation is just stupid as he could solve the problem in so many other ways (more resources) while killing people doesn’t actually solve anything for more than a few years–and if he’d been developed well, I shouldn’t have been thinking that while watching. At least as problematic is his powers. Sometimes he seems just slightly stronger than an Avenger and at others he’s unstoppable. For all his back-story, we don’t get anything clear on what he can do. And End Game makes his powers even more inconsistent.

 

#18 – Zemo (Daniel Brühl)

Film: Captain America: Civil War
Fiendish Plot: To set The Avengers against each other
Motivation: To avenge himself on The Avengers.

I liked everything about Zemo. There’s no downside to this sympathetic, violent killer, except, perhaps, that he doesn’t have any wild, standout quirks. But this is as high as I can put him on the list because he just doesn’t have enough screen time. He’s a good villian, but not an important one. Zemo instigates the problems, but the direct conflict doesn’t involve him, or even his minions. Note: Zemo has no minions.

 

#17 – Emil Blonsky / The Abomination (Tim Roth)

Film: The Incredible Hulk
Fiendish Plot: To become a fearsome killing machine
Motivation: He’s old. And he likes to kill.

Tim Roth has personality to burn, which comes in handy since Emil Blonsky is not exactly a deep character. He apparently is very violent and would like to be more violent. That’s all he is. But as the monster he becomes, that’s all he needs to be.

 

#16 – Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges)

Film: Iron Man
Fiendish Plot: Kill Tony and take his inventions to build better weapons
Motivation: Money and power

The personification of the coldness of the corporate world, Stane has just the right amount of fatherly charm to make him truly vile. He’s not a genius, and he knows it, but he’s smarter than most and he’s ruthless. I’ve seen this type of character too many times to be really excited by him, but he’s a good rendition of the type, particularly due to Jeff Bridges spot on performance.

 

#15 – Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal)

Film: Spider-Man: Far From Home
Fiendish Plot: Use illusions to get Peter to give him power over Stark Industries
Motivation: Adulation

Just how many super villains is the Stark family responsible for creating? Mysterio would be higher on this list if it wasn’t clear he was the villain before the film started. The story REALLY wants us to think he’s a good guy which is a problem when we know he isn’t. Still, Quentin Beck is believable, and played so well by Gyllenhaal, with his easy switch from caring father-figure to angry, sleezy bro.

 

#14 – Ego (Kurt Russell)

Film: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Fiendish Plot: To make all life himself
Motivation: It’s in his name: ego. Lots and lots of ego.

Ego is a really nasty guy. What works so well about him is he doesn’t act that way. He’s a jovial villain. He smiles and pats shoulders and really does want to spend a little time with his son. Kurt Russell can be quite charismatic and he turns that up to 11 for Ego. Still, Ego is not a top notch villain; he isn’t important enough. The film is about the development of the Guardians, and there are a lot of them. Ego doesn’t get enough time, thought, or focus to really thrill. He’s as good as any villain could be who’s forced to play 10th fiddle.

 

#13 – Ikaris (Richard Madden)

Film: Eternals
Fiendish Plot: Do anything necessary to make sure the Celestial’s plan comes to completion.
Motivation: Fanaticism mixed with Despair

One of the best twist villains in any film, Ikaris is so likeable, heroic, and bland right up until it’s clear he isn’t any of those things. Unlike Obadiah Stane, Alexander Pierce, or Ego, I felt his betrayal.

I’ve seen some press counting Kro the Deviant or Arishem the Celestrial as the big bad, which clearly isn’t how the film is written.

 

#12 – The Winter Soldier / Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan)

Film: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Fiendish Plot: To kill whoever he’s told to kill
Motivation: none

The Winter Soldier makes a great adversary for Captain America in the action scenes, and he’s got more of a back story than most villains from being Bucky in Captain America 1, but outside of the fights, he’s a robot. He doesn’t have his own motivation. He doesn’t want things or do things. He’s a terminator. He becomes more of a character as a hero, but for what he was in Captain America 2, he ends up at #12.

 

#11 – Red Skull (Hugo Weaving)

Film: Captain America: The First Avenger
Fiendish Plot: To destroy major cities, allowing Hydra to take over the world.
Motivation: A belief in the inferiority of everyone else

You can’t dislike Hugo Weaving playing evil. Plus an Anti-Captain America is a good adversary for Cap. He’s also very familiar. Take away the red head and he is a typical Nazi commander from about a hundred movies made in the ’40s and ’50s. That’s not a bad thing as there’s a reason why that kind of villain was common, but Henchman Dr. Arnim Zola is more interesting and a lot more fun.

 

#10 – Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford)

Film: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Fiendish Plot: Use terror to convince people to give up their freedoms, and then shoot any potential opposition.
Motivation: To make a better world

Pierce is the political villain in a political thriller, and as Redford had played the hero in similar films, it was brilliant casting. What makes Pierce stand above so many others is that he’s not a typical comic book “bad guy.” He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, or damage the world, nor is he out for his own gain. He genuinely wants to help and is willing to do as much as any hero. It’s just he has a different view of how to help the world than The Avengers. Freedom leads to pain. People are not capable of leading themselves. And he wants what is best for them. He even got part of his philosophy from Nick Fury. True believers are always the most dangerous.

 

#9 – Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell)

Film: Iron Man 2
Fiendish Plot: Get new weapons from Vanko to sell to the military
Motivation: Money is good

Justin Hammer is what Stark might have been, if he was not so brilliant and didn’t change his ways. Hammer is smarmy (but unlike Killian, in a good way), greedy, and powerful in the corporate world, but not powerful  enough. He’s the only purely comedic villain on this list, and he runs with it unapologetically. There are some great actors in the MCU that never connected with their characters (see the bottom of this list), but Rockwell inhabits Hammer with glee, and glee really is the word to use when discussing Hammer.

 

#8 – The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)

Film: Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness
Fiendish Plot: Steal the power from a young superhero
Motivation: To be with her children

She’s appeared as a villainous hench in Age of Ultron, then a hero Civil War, Infinity War, and End Game and back to a villain in the twisty WandaVision. She’s a solid hero, so not surprisingly, a solid villain. Nothing is scarier than a mother, if you are standing between her and her children. I understand her, and completely believe she’ll do horrible things—not that she wants to, but she will.

 

#7 – The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji)

Film: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3
Fiendish Plot: Kidnap Rocket so he can use him to create a perfect race.
Motivation: God Complex and hating everything.

You want evil? Here’s evil. The High Evolutionary might be the most loathsome villain of the MCU: A vivisectionist with no empathy. What makes him all the worse is he’s less competent than most MCU villains in that he has never succeeded, and never will. He’s delusional. Whatever he creates will never be good enough and he’ll kill it off like has done so many times before. He’s insane in a way we haven’t seen before. When your villain cuts up small animals, it’s good to not attempt some complexity. He’s just evil, making it all the better when he loses it all.

 

#6 – Ivan Vanko / Whiplash (Mickey Rourke)

Film: Iron Man 2
Fiendish Plot: Use arc technology to screw with Tony Stark in any way possible
Motivation: Revenge and hatred, not entirely without basis.

With drab and understated villains filling much of the MCU, it is nice to get one that goes full bizarro. Vanko has a truly unique look (tats, shiny teeth, questionable hygiene, and an epic hair style), a flashy if impractical weapon, and a love for his “bouuurd.” He also has what many of his colleagues lack: complexity and a touch of reality. He’s angry and hurt and mourning. Angry people do not yell all the time (Ronan, that’s for you). Mourning people do not stand still and mope (that’s you Malekith). They do sometimes act a bit odd, lashing out one moment, laughing the next, switching from in control to lost. They do what Vanko does. And since Vanko really only wants to hurt Tony Stark, the questionable nature of his plans isn’t a problem. He’s not trying to win. He just wants Stark to lose. I know this is where I’ll get the most disagreements. But read what I’ve written, then go watch Iron Man 2 again, and see if you warm to him.

 

#5 – Ultron (James Spader)

Film: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Fiendish Plot: Wipe out humanity so that it can evolve…kinda.
Motivation: His programming to save the world, the blight of humanity, and daddy issues.

Ultron is a drab, predictable android in the comics and animated films/shows. He could have been that in the MCU film, but he isn’t. Whedon’s script, and the always twisted performance of Spader (voice) created a deranged robot with major issues, and those issues make him enjoyable. Ultron never feels like the world-threatening menace he no doubt was meant to be, but his psychological failings did make me think he was a specific threat, someone who could cause pain, misery, and death to a few of the characters I did care about, and that makes him a fine villain.

 

#4 – Hela (Cate Blanchett)

Film: Thor: Ragnarok
Fiendish Plot: Conquer everything and kill anyone in her way. Less of a plot than a lifestyle
Motivation: Primarily she likes killing and conquering, but a bit of nostalgia and wanting to be noticed.

Sometimes you want a villain with nuance and layers and sometimes what you need is pure evil. Hela goes the pure evil route, with fabulous flamboyance. Her costume does half the heavy lifting, making her the best looking MCU villain by a significant margin. She’s a heavy metal album cover come to life. Like the film, Hela manages the strange feat of being epic while also being funny. She’s repeatedly hilarious, right before she murders an army or after she stabs out someone’s eye. Now that’s a balancing act.

 

#3 – Adrian Toomes / Vulture (Michael Keaton)

Film: Spider-Man: Homecoming
Fiendish Plot: Use recovered high tech items to steal and create more high tech items to sell to criminals
Motivation: Take care of family and those he is responsible for, plus a bit of anger at those screwing the little man.

What allows Michael Keaton to create one of the best villains in the MCU is the same thing he used in one of the best superhero portrayals (that being Batman): his ability to layer two opposing character traits on top of each other. Keaton can appear to be an everyman while also coming off a bit deranged. And that works perfectly for Vulture. He’s just a guy, trying to get by and give his family a good life. But he’s been pushed and now as he embraces his new way of providing for them, he becomes dangerous. There’s something likable about him at the exact same moment there is something very scary. Toomes is relatable–for an older member of the audience, his life and problems are more understandable and feel more important than Peter Parker’s. I wanted him to win even as I knew that wasn’t a good idea. Which puts him at #3.

 

#2 – The Mandarin / Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley)

Film: Iron Man 3
Fiendish Plot: To destroy Western civilization via terror, or to get some drugs
Motivation: Righteous indignation, or addiction.

The Mandarin, as introduced in Iron Man 3, is powerful and full of menace. An excellent way to start, but as the character is just an amalgamation of terrorist clichés, he gets boring very quickly. But then we’re thrown a twist, a twist despised by some comics purists (nothing is more boring than a comics purist), that makes The Mandarin something very different, and pulls the film out of its two acts of whining. The big twist shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Marvel was not going to have so racially problematic of a villain. Something was going to change. The change was Trevor, and he earns his spot at #2.  If The Mandarin’s ranking seems high compared to how I ranked his film, look where I placed the other villain of the piece.

 

#1 – Loki (Tom Hiddleston)

Films: Thor, The Avengers
Fiendish Plot: To become king of Asgard, and then take over Earth and rule it as a god
Motivation: Family politics, ego, need to do something.

Loki not only wins as best MCU villain, he is one of the greatest film villains of all time. In Thor, he was the semi-sympathetic, thoughtful, but damaged one in a room full of idiots. In The Avengers, he was the sympathetic, thoughtful but damaged, witty, doomed, needy, lonely, cruel, overwhelmed, powerful, brave, egotistical one in a room full of…well, mainly idiots, but a few geniuses. Hiddleston balances these conflicting characteristics and creates a personality that’s more fun than any of the heroes. Since his villain turns, he’s appeared in several more films playing part hero, part villain and he’s continued to be one of the best things about the MCU.