Random Movie Villains Who Suffered A Fate Worse Than Death (14 items)

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  (#14) Hans Landa

  • Inglourious Basterds

  Relative to the scope of his crimes, Hans Landa gets off pretty easy. After spending years at the top of the Nazi's military engine, he's managed to curry enough favor, money, and gimmes that he can actually help the Basterds get out of Germany in one piece. He even works out a deal with the head of the OSS that nets him a full pardon and benefits after the war.

  Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way for Landa. After arriving in Allied territory with Aldo Raine and Private Utivich, Landa's driver is shot and scalped before Raine puts Landa on his knees and carves a swastika into his head. He still ultimately survives, but after he pulls off a successful elaborate plan to betray his own country in exchange for immunity, he's still going to spend the rest of his life atoning for the sins of the Nazi Party.
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  (#12) Jack The Ripper Gets Stuck Hurtling Through Time For Eternity In 'Time After Time'

  Jack the Ripper, or as he's known in Time After Time, "John Leslie Stevenson," is famously a bad guy both in and out of fiction. While going toe-to-toe with H.G. Wells in this classic time travel movie, Stevenson nearly escapes from 20th-century San Francisco in Wells's time machine, but there's one thing that he didn't anticipate - a much-needed part whose absence can send the driver through time and space without any way to stop.

  Wells defeats Stevenson by removing this super important part, and jettisons him into the space-time continuum with no way of stopping at any particular time or place. We're not particularly upset that Jack the Ripper is doomed to an eternity of falling through a time tunnel, but it's a bleak ending for someone who should have served time for their horrible crimes.
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  (#1) Carmine Falcone

  • Batman Begins, DC Universe

  At the onset of Batman Begins, Carmine Falcone is living large as a member of Gotham City's underworld, but like all villains of his stature, he wants more power. After going into business with Jonathan Crane and Ra's al Ghul, he helps them move fear toxin into Gotham for Ghul's plot to destroy the city.

  After Falcone is put in jail following a tussle with the Bat, he tries to blackmail Crane and ends up getting dosed with an insane amount of fear toxin. He's left in Arkham Asylum muttering "Scarecrow" over and over. There's no way to know if the toxin will ever wear off, which means that Falcone's going to spend the foreseeable future living in terror.
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  (#5) Riddler

  • Batman, Batman: Under the Red Hood, Batman, Batman Forever, DC Universe

  Batman has never been known to be especially kind to his rogues' gallery, but in Batman Forever, he dishes out his most hellacious punishment to the Riddler of all people. Throughout the film, the Riddler goes out of his way to ruin the Dark Knight's life, but that's just what the villains of Gotham do (that and wear thematic outfits).

  After a fight against Riddler and Two-Face on Claw Island, Two-Face is apprehended by the authorities, but Riddler is hooked up to a giant brainwave receiver that shoves all of the knowledge of Gotham City into his frontal lobe. As he is wont to do, Batman destroys the brainwave machine, but the malfunctioning creation zaps the Riddler and turns his mind to mush.

  Following his defeat on Claw Island, Riddler is doomed to spend the rest of his life in Arkham Asylum living out the fantasy that he's Batman. Kept alive by the staff at Arkham, there's no telling how long Riddler will spend carrying on as Batman, going on adventures from the privacy of his padded cell.
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  (#2) Red Skull

  • Captain America, Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel Universe

  After spending much of his professional career lusting after the Space Stone, Red Skull is presumed dead after being sucked through a wormhole, but his fate was much worse. Rather than perish in the vastness of space, Red Skull is brought to Vormir, where he's given the job of guarding the Soul Stone.

  When the audience catches up with Skull in Avengers: Infinity War, he's been on Vormir for 70 years and is tortured with the knowledge that he can never attain the Soul Stone because he can't love anyone other than himself. He doesn't age; he doesn't perish - he just exists alone on the planet.

  After Thanos sacrifices Gamora to gain the stone, Red Skull is finally freed from his curse. It's not clear if he dissipates into the universe or is brought back to his guardianship of the stone once Tony Stark sacrifices himself to undo Thanos's snap.
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  (#9) Emily Taylor

  • Side Effects

  Emily Taylor isn't someone we'd like to know in real life, but her plan to off her husband and get away with it after claiming temporary insanity is admirable. After feigning depression, Emily is prescribed an experimental antidepressant that she claims caused her to stab her husband in her sleep.

  She's sent to a psychiatric hospital where her doctor (and the guy who prescribed her the medication) discovers that she made the whole thing up and ruined his life in the process. After getting Emily to work with him in order to put her partner behind bars, her doctor sends her back to the psychiatric facility after she refuses treatment with Thorazine and Depakote - and he's allowed to oversee her case.

  Did she kill her husband, help out in a securities fraud case, and try to ruin her doctor's life? Yes. But should she be locked up in a hellish psychiatric facility where her fate is overseen by a doctor with a grudge? No way. It's honestly chilling to think about.

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