Most Disney movie villains have one purpose: to make the protagonists' lives as miserable as possible. They do so through various methods of torment and sometimes even murder. Nevertheless, their dark schemes often wind up in failure.
However, even when the heroes achieve victory, it does not erase what happened. A Disney villain might pull something so nefarious that even with their defeat by the film's end, some audiences are still reeling from what they have witnessed. In any case, the Disney villains' evil plans play a significant part in their memorability.
10 Maleficent Planned To Hold Prince Phillip Hostage For A Century (Sleeping Beauty)
Maleficent cursed the baby Aurora so she'd die on her 16th birthday by pricking her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle. This set a high bar for Disney villains. The good fairy, Merryweather, remedies the curse so that Aurora will only fall into a deep sleep and awake through true love's kiss.
Things get worse when the curse succeeds, and Maleficent captures the teenage Aurora's love, Prince Phillip. Maleficent decides that rather than kill the prince, she'll lock him up for a century while Aurora will not age. Maleficent's plan relies on the fact that Prince Phillip will be too frail and old to save Aurora by the time she frees him.
9 Gaston Tried To Marry Belle By Any Means Necessary (Beauty And The Beast)
In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston seeks to make Belle his wife solely because he thinks she's beautiful. Belle rightfully refuses his affections due to his misogynistic ways, but he vows to marry her no matter what it takes.
Gaston sees an opportunity when Belle's father, Maurice, tries to warn the village about the Beast abducting Belle. The other villagers laugh him out, while Gaston bribes the local psychiatric hospital to commit Maurice unless Belle agrees to the marriage. The townspeople blindly follow Gaston's plan even when Belle proves Maurice told the truth. Gaston convinces the civilians that the Beast will kill them unless they kill him first, despite knowing nothing about him other than his existence.
8 The Evil Queen Went To Frightful Measures To Kill (Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs)
At the start of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Evil Queen learns that despite her attempts to have Snow White work as a scullery maid, the latter has surpassed her in beauty and is considered fairest in the land. Angered by this revelation, she formulates a dark plan to kill Snow White.
At first, the Evil Queen asks The Huntsman to do the deed and bring back Snow White's heart. The Huntsman cannot bring himself to do so and informs Snow White of the queen's plan. Upon learning of the Huntsman's deception, the Evil Queen dons a disguise to make Snow White eat a poisonous apple, which forces her into a deep sleep as she's buried alive.
7 Scar Won For Several Years (The Lion King)
The Lion King saw King Mufasa's brother, Scar, angered at the prospect of never being king due to the birth of the lion cub, Simba. Scar tries to set a trap with the hyenas to kill Simba, but Mufasa manages to foil the plan. Scar rallies the hyenas to formulate a stampede that will kill Mufasa and Simba.
The scene is intense, and despite Mufasa's strength in saving Simba, Scar eventually pushes Mufasa off a cliff and into the stampede below. Scar manipulates Simba into banishment and becomes king, letting the hyenas take over and running the land into the ground for years.
6 The Chernabog Personified Darkness And Evil (Fantasia)
Fantasia is composed of multiple segments with different purposes and narratives. The final part was "Night on Bald Mountain," which follows the devil-like creature known as the Chernabog summoning various spirits towards his domain.
The Chernabog only has one purpose: to engulf the world in darkness. However, he instills fear in how he goes about it and the imagery it brings. The looks of the evil creatures he summons and their actions can leave viewers unsettled. He's solely responsible for the spread of evil, and it's only through the arrival of dawn and the sound of church bells that he gets forced to retreat, saving his schemes for another night.
5 Mother Gothel Thrived On Manipulation (Tangled)
The story of Tangled begins with the film's villain, Mother Gothel, stealing the baby princess of Corona, Rapunzel. Rapunzel's hair contains the healing power of a magical flower, and Gothel planned to grow Rapunzel's hair to stay youthful forever.
Gothel commits this nefarious act for 18 years. All the while, she forbids Rapunzel from having any contact with the outside world. She manipulates Rapunzel by telling her about the dangers of outside. Rapunzel is left believing every word of it, thinking that so much as setting a foot outside makes her a terrible daughter. Gothel's dark plan leaves Rapunzel with no love.
4 Frollo Committed Despicable Acts (The Hunchback Of Notre Dame)
Frollo's wrath begins in The Hunchback of Notre Dame when he kills Quasimodo's mother and tries to drown him as a baby, only to get forced into raising him. His villainy further increases when his lust develops for Esmeralda.
Frollo psychologically abuses Quasimodo by keeping him locked in a bell tower. His lust for Esmeralda leads him to burn down most of Paris, killing innocent citizens while searching for her. When Frollo finally does capture Esmeralda, he forces her to pick him or die. While committing all these acts, he convinces himself that he's doing it in the name of his beliefs.
3 Cruella De Vil Stopped At Nothing To Hurt Poor Puppies (101 Dalmations)
101 Dalmatians introduces Cruella de Vil as a good friend of one of the human characters, Anita Radcliffe. She seeks to buy Anita's 15 puppies, but the family refuses. Thus, Cruella resorts to kidnapping them in the middle of the night.
This misdeed would be terrible enough, but people later see that she kidnapped 84 more puppies, all to fashion herself a fur coat. Cruella takes delight in killing the dogs by any means necessary. The puppies escape, but Cruella falls further into villainy when trying to recapture them. The puppies then experience arduous treks to return home.
2 The Horned King Sought To Raise An Army Of The Undead (The Black Cauldron)
The Black Cauldron follows a young boy named Taran who protects a pig that could give the location of The Black Cauldron. The film's villain, The Horned King, seeks to find it to unleash an immortal army upon the world.
Unlike his underlings, The Horned King is hardly known for being a humorous villain. In raising his army, he seeks to wreak havoc upon the world and have the world see him as a god. When he raises his forces in the movie's climax, The Black Cauldron has several shots of gruesome imagery that raise multiple questions about the creatures and their actions.
1 The Coachman Kept His Plan Going (Pinocchio)
The Coachman first appears in the second act of Pinocchio (1940). He seeks to lure boys to Pleasure Island where the boys can cause chaos without care. In the process, Pinocchio gets roped into the Coachman's scheme.
Although Pleasure Island seems like a boy's paradise, it's revealed to be a means to turn misbehaving boys into donkeys and sell them into slavery. Pinocchio and his conscience, Jiminy Cricket, figure out the plan and escape. However, there is nothing to signify that the Coachman got defeated. As far as the audience is concerned, he is still executing his dark plot, and no one is any the wiser.