Adam Sutler, V For Vendetta
John Hurt’s fascistic dictator doesn’t get much screen time in V For Vendetta, but the extent of his evil is keenly felt. A gifted demagogue with an unwavering hatred of any and all minority groups, he is responsible for leading Britain into a dark, dystopian future. As a pastiche of Hitler, Sutler is very on the nose but he is still an effective warning on the dangers of electing the wrong person.
President Snow, The Hunger Games
Every YA dystopia needs a callous dictator for the teenage rebels to fight, and the most recognizable is The Hunger Games‘s President Snow. As played with icy menace by Donald Sutherland, Snow understands how to subjugate the people by keeping them down but also by offering tiny (and utterly false) rays of hope. Plus, he came up with the idea of making kids fight to the death. Definitely not a nice guy.
White Witch, The Chronicles of Narnia
In C.S. Lewis’ timeless fantasy series, The White Witch is pretty much the personification of all the world’s evil, so she naturally finds a place on this list. In order to retain control of Narnia, the Witch is willing to humiliate and murder a benevolent godly lion. And she keeps Narnia in permanent winter but never allows it to be Christmas. Now that is evil.
Chancellor Palpatine/The Emperor/Darth Sidius, Star Wars
The first character that springs to mind when you think of ‘evil movie dictators’ is naturally Star Wars‘s Emperor, the leader of the Sith. Once Chancellor Palpatine of the Republic, he weaseled his way to the top position only to wipe out the Jedi and run the galaxy through his chief enforcer, Darth Vader. As well as being a movie icon, Palpatine is a terrifying example of how democracy and government can be totally upturned by the actions of one man.
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