The Marvel Cinematic Universe has introduced general audiences to the amazing heroes of the Marvel Universe. However, a lot of the time, the villains of the MCU haven't been as well served by the movies. This makes sense to an extent —the movies are about the heroes after all— but it does a grave disservice to some of fiction's greatest villains.
Some of the villains are pretty amazing and a big part of that is the actors who play them. The actors not only portray the characters with grace, but their performances elevate the entire movie. On the other hand, some of the performances fall well short, dooming the villain to obscurity.
10 Nailed Their Role: Daniel Bruhl's Zemo Is A Charming, Magnetic Villain
To begin with, Captain America: Civil War didn't really need a villain, but thankfully, Daniel Bruhl knocked it out of the park. His performance as Zemo really sold the character's motivations and took a role that could have been overshadowed by the movie's sturm und drang and made it memorable.
His return in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier was amazing, building on the work he had already done with the character and bringing it to the next level. Even people who weren't fans of Zemo's role in CA:CW fell in love with the character, all because of Bruhl's wonderful performance.
9 Fell Short: Corey Stoll's Yellowjacket Wasn't Comparable To Ant-Man's Other Character
Corey Stoll was going to have a rough time regardless —Paul Rudd and Michael Peña's characters were so amazingly charming that anything he did was bound to be overshadowed. It also didn't help that Ant-Man was the height of cliché MCU origin movies, recycling tropes including having a bland villain.
Sometimes, a good performance can overcome weak writing, but Stoll just wasn't up to the challenge. His Yellowjacket never really seemed like anything but a stereotypical bad guy and wasn't at all memorable. He was overshadowed, the character was underwritten, and both of these factors doomed him.
8 Nailed Their Role: Tom Hiddleston's Loki Is An Icon
Watching Tom Hiddleston's Loki in Thor and then watching him in any subsequent film he's in is a revelation. The character has grown so much and while there are some who believe that the villain has overstayed his welcome, that growth combined with Hiddleston's wonderful performance has made Loki into one of the most popular MCU characters.
Hiddleston was able to combine the humor, malice, and heart of Loki in a way that a lesser actor wouldn't have been able to. Loki has become an MCU icon and that's because Hiddleston's performance perfectly captured Loki.
7 Fell Short: Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian Is The Least Memorable Part Of Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 has a lot of problems, and Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian doesn't help alleviate any of them. Pearce is usually a pretty good actor but he wasn't given much to work with in Killian and it shows. One of the problems is that Killian is basically like every villain in an Iron Man movie: someone who believes that Tony Stark ruined their life and wants revenge.
Cliché plots like these are one of many mistakes made by the MCU and Pearce's performance didn't do anything to make it better. Instead of trying to make the character in some way memorable, he played it exactly as it was on the page and there was nothing special there, to begin with.
6 Nailed Their Role: Josh Brolin's Thanos Is Amazing
Thanos had been teased since 2012's Avengers and Josh Brolin certainly delivered. His Thanos was a key part of Avengers: Infinity War, basically the main character of the movie, and his performance helped cement its place as one of the best MCU movies. It gets all the more impressive when one realizes how hard mocap acting can be for someone who has never done it before.
Thanos became a fan favorite overnight and so much of that was because of Brolin's performance. He perfectly captured everything about the character, setting the bar that much higher for everyone to play an MCU villain after him.
5 Fell Short: Lee Pace's Ronan The Accuser Couldn't Compete With How Great Everyone Else In Guardians Of The Galaxy Was
Lee Pace was always going to have a tough time playing Ronan the Accuser. In a movie full of characters with huge personalities, his one-note character wasn't going to give the actor much to do and this was obvious from his performance. Pace played him just as blandly as the character was written.
In any other MCU film, Pace's performance wouldn't have appeared so mediocre but Guardian of the Galaxy's other performances were so much better. It was easy to see just how lackluster Pace's role was.
4 Nailed Their Role: Michael Keaton's Vulture Was Almost As Compelling As Tom Holland's Spider-Man
Spider-Man: Homecoming had an uphill battle —Tom Holland was great as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War but the stink of Amazing Spider-Man 2 was still fresh. Spider-Man: Homecoming could have easily failed but it didn't, partly because of Holland but also because of Michael Keaton's the Vulture.
Keaton's Vulture was a working-class man trying to make a living for himself, his family, his workers, and their families. Keaton presented this side of the character wonderfully, while also still making Vulture seem dangerous. He was compelling and Keaton's performance made him into one of the MCU's greatest villains.
3 Fell Short: Christopher Eccleston's Performance As Malekith Didn't Do The Character Any Justice
Thor: The Dark World was not a good movie for a lot of reasons and Malekith was one of them. The villain was forgettable and bland and Christopher Eccleston's performance didn't do anything to distinguish the character. It's hard to really say why —it could have been he wasn't used to acting under prosthetics or because of the script, but either way, it wasn't a great performance.
It's hard to even say if a better performance would have done the character any justice —as written, there was nothing at all interesting about Malekith but it's possible it could have helped. Eccleston is usually a wonderful actor but his role here fell far short.
2 Nailed Their Role: Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger Stole The Show
The late, great Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther was amazing but he was overshadowed in his movie by Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger. It's rare for an MCU villain to be better than the hero but Jordan was able to pull it off, really selling who Killmonger was and why he did what he did. Jordan's performance elevated the character where another actor may not have been able to.
Jordan's Killmonger was so good that just about everyone can agree that killing him at the end of the movie was a massive waste of an amazing character and actor. Jordan made everyone agree with Killmonger and while he may have gone a bit far with his actions, he was actually more relatable than Boseman's T'Challa.
1 Fell Short: James Spader Basically Just Played James Spader When He Played Ultron
Avengers: Age Of Ultron is easily the worst Avengers movie. There are several reasons for this and James Spader's Ultron didn't do any favors for the movie. Part of it is how the character was written —Ultron was written more like a quippy human villain than a terrifying genocidal machine— but part of it was James Spader's performance.
The problem is that Spader played the character like he plays every other character. This was a weird choice and did a lot to de-fang Ultron as a scary villain and basically make him into a metal Loki —a quippy, sort of charming villain that was hard to take seriously.