10 Great Movies About 10 Worst People Ever
There’s a reason Hitler books sell better than Churchill books. As long as it is kept at arm’s length, abstracted into words or images rather than on our faces or in our homes, evil is much more convincing than good.
These 10 people are some of the worst people in history – ruthless despots, ruthless killers, stockbrokers – but their horrific deeds provide the material for fascinating, unforgettable films that explore what drives evil. Maybe watching one of these movies will help you recognize the evil in real life and avoid it. Probably not, but they are great films anyway.
Adolf Hitler – Fall (2005)
You have to start a list like this with the big man who modernized the genocide, the one and only and most infamous, Adolf Hitler.
There are many strong films about Nazis, but The Fall is my favorite. Based on eyewitness testimony and corroborated facts, he invites viewers to the Fuhrerbunker, the underground bomb shelter where Hitler, his girlfriend, his closest allies and their families huddled like rats during the last days of the war. This film, based on truth, refuses to moralize or exaggerate, because to see Hitler and his collaborators as they really were is the worst thing you could imagine.
Where to stream : Hoopla, Kanopy
John Wayne Gacy – Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes (2022)
Serial killer John Wayne Gacy is terrible. He led a seemingly normal, honest life — he was married, ran KFC, worked as a shoe salesman, and was an active member of the JayCees — all the while torturing and killing 33 innocent boys in his suburban Chicago home. He also dressed up as a clown for children at local parties. Startle .
This documentary series shows the when, what, where, and how about everything that happened in the Gacy case, but it doesn’t really get close to the why . Even the way Gacy tells his story in his own words doesn’t make his actions intelligible. Probably because there is no answer.
Where to stream : Netflix
Idi Amin Dada – The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Ugandan warlord Idi Amin Dada was one of today’s most brutal dictators, but Forest Whitaker’s fateful portrayal makes it clear that Amin’s power over the people of Uganda was based on more than fear. Like the most dangerous despots, he is hypnotically charismatic, hiding his venomous heart behind a wide grin and spanking laughter until it’s too late to run. The Last King of Scotland is a chilling film about the insidious allurement of autocrats, especially idealistic people who assume that strangers have good intentions.
Where to stream : Starz, DirecTV
Elizabeth Bathory – Chastity Bites (2013)
Elisabeth Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman who is said to have tortured and killed up to 650 people. If her accusers are to be believed, her favorite victims were young girls, because she thought that bathing in the blood of virgins would keep her forever young. Chastity Bites is a horror/comedy that shows that Bathory’s beauty regimen has worked and she still lives by preying on modern high schools by organizing religious chastity vow programs to make sure her victims are virgins. This underrated film is low-budget and crude, but it’s funny, smart, and cuts through the sex of the horror genre = obsession with death, right-wing hypocrisy, vapid teen culture, materialism, obsession with beauty, and pretty much everything else. what happened in America in 2013.
Where to stream : Tubi, FreeVee
Jordan Belfort – The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Okay, Jordan Belfort is probably not one of the worst people in history – he’s more of a two-bit con man who got lucky – but The Wolf of Wall Street is such an extremely entertaining, candy-colored movie that it’s upping his pennies. shares the scam into something epic. I think that’s the power of cinema. Here he represents the disasters that stem from rampant greed and immorality (in other words, capitalism)—the idea that countless little actions by not-so -bad people can add up to something monstrous.
Where to stream : Prime Video, Paramount+, Epic, DirecTV, Showtime
Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The gruesome crimes of Ed Gein, the Ghoul of Plainfield, inspired both Normal Bates from ” Psycho ” and Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ” (and, by extension, every slasher villain since). Director Tobe Hooper mixed Gein’s mad chaos with the more organized (but no less brutal) style of Houston serial killer Elmer Wayne Henley to create the twisted Sawyer family at the center of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I have seen many horror movies and this is the scariest and most merciless ever made.
Where to stream: FuboTV, Paramount+ Showtime, AMC+, Tubi, DirecTV, Shudder
Miscellaneous – Act of Murder (2013)
If your idea of a fun evening is to look into the deepest depths of the abyss of human evil, I have a movie recommendation for you! The Act of Murder is a documentary about the butchers who killed over a million people in Indonesia in the mid-1960s. Since right-wing death squads became the government of the country, these mass murderers were not held accountable; they were rewarded. Fifty years later, the heads of the death squads – the oldest figures of evil – are a kind of celebrity, but a celebrity that everyone is clearly afraid of.
The act of murder asks these men to recreate their crimes as movie sequences. They are too vain and too stupid to realize that they are actually being asked to explain themselves, so they pose as action heroes, but they do not always manage to maintain appearances, as the self-reflection necessary to create art forces them to reckon with what they are. made.
Where to stream : Hulu, Roku, Hoopla, Tubi, Fandor, Pluto
Tomas de Torquemada – Witch Hunter General (1968)
In Witchfinder General , horror icon Vincent Price delivers an uncharacteristically restrained and chilling performance inspired by the life and crimes of Tomás de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.
Like their real-life counterparts, the “religious” people who travel from town to town torturing people and burning heretics at the stake in Witchfinder General l are not fanatics; they are heartless operators. No one, not the inquisitors, not the victims, not the townspeople, eager for a public execution, seriously believes in witches, or heresy, or even in God. They believe in money and power and are not at all opposed to killing inconvenient people for both, a fact that is a million times more terrifying than any witch.
Where to stream: Hoopla
Vlad Tepes – Nosferatu (1922)
Known for his boundless cruelty, Vlad the Impaler (aka Vlad Dracula) ruled as Prince of Wallachia from 1448 to 1462. During these 14 years, he killed about 20% of the population there, boiled people alive, fed babies to their parents and pierced his victims with sharp peaks from the buttocks to the mouth – hence the honorary nickname “Tepes”.
Vlad inspired the protagonist of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula , who in turn has inspired every cinematic vampire. But the bloodsucker Nosferatu is not the cultured, seductive aristocrat of Bela Lugosi in Universal’s Dracula . He is a straightforward monster, like a real Vlad Tepes – solid claws and teeth, no charm. Despite the fact that the Nosferatu is a hundred years old, he is as immortal as an undead ghoul. It’s still scary , and director F. W. Murnau’s Chiaroscuro, a German-expressionist production, is a more flamboyant and stylish setting for Dracula than any other vampire film.
Where to stream : AMC+, Roku, Hoopla, Tubi, Kanopy. redbox, directv, wince
Al Capone – The Untouchables (1987)
Movies usually glorify organized crime – it’s easy to get an audience rooting for a badass anti-hero, especially if he’s wearing a nice costume – but in reality, gangsters like Al Capone are the most dangerous criminals. The “organized” part of organized crime not only breaks the law, it undermines the foundations of the law itself, and the law is the only thing that keeps our society in a semi-civilized state.
The Untouchables doesn’t take the easy path of embellishing Capone’s misdeeds. Instead, he’s taking a much more complicated route by asking us to root for round-jawed G-man Elliott Ness and his law enforcement team, even though they’re a bunch of squares and the best charge they can hold. bring. tax avoidance.
Where to stream : HBO Max, DirecTV