After seeing a screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Donald Virgil Bluth taught himself how to be an animator. He eventually got his dream job working at Disney, but by the 1970s, the company had lost much of its magic and was more focused on cutting costs. This led to Bluth leading a mass exodus of animators to make his own studio and provide an alternative to Disney's monopoly on animation.
Bluth's films are remembered thanks to their dark atmosphere and for not being afraid to present audiences with the harsher aspects of life. This can especially be seen in his villains, who stand out thanks to memorable designs and how ruthless and evil they can be.
10 Sharptooth - 'The Land Before Time'
In an ever-changing prehistory landscape, dinosaurs fight daily to find food and survive. This includes Sharptooth (Frank Welker), a massive and infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex. His quest for food leads him into conflict with the Brontosaurus, Littlefoot (Gabriel Damon), resulting in the death of his mother (Helen Shaver).
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Compared to other villains in The Land Before Time franchise, Sharptooth isn't really evil. He is a predator doing what predators do: hunting living things to survive. Of course, to the young dinosaurs, Sharptooth may as well be an unstoppable force of nature, and his actions might be motivated by revenge after being partially blinded.
9 Drake - 'The Pebble and the Penguin'
As the biggest, strongest, and most handsome penguin in his colony, Drake (Tim Curry) wants the best penguin for his mate. He chooses Marina (Annie Golden), despite the fact that she has already chosen a nervous penguin named Hubie (Martin Short). Drake gets around this by tossing Hubie into the sea with a hungry leopard seal, and though Marina wants to hold out for Hubie's return, she will be banished if she doesn't choose a mate.
Compared to other small-stakes bully characters, Drake is alright. He does his job of being an obstacle for Hubie and Marina's love, and his design has moments of being intimidating and hilarious thanks to how massive his pectoral muscles are. As for his voice, you can never go wrong with Curry voicing a villain, even a dumb muscle-head.
8 The Grand Duke of Owls - 'Rock-A-Doodle'
Being a nocturnal bird, the Grand Duke of Owls (Christopher Plummer) despises the rooster, Chanticleer (Glen Campbell) for raising the sun with his singing, so he forms a plan to drive away to the city. When a young boy named Edmund (Toby Scott Ganger) tries to bring Chanticleer back, the Duke transforms him into a kitten with his magic breath. He gets rescued by Chanticleers' friends, but the Duke isn't gone for long.
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Rock-A-Doodle is a crazy movie, so it's only fitting that the villain is likewise all over the place. His plan involves eternal darkness and eating farm animals, but he always presents himself in a dignified and sophisticated manner. His magic breath also makes it difficult to face him, since he can transform others into whatever he wants, summon tornadoes, or just choke people to death.
7 Queen Gnorga - 'A Troll in Central Park'
The self-titled Queen of Mean, Gnorga (Cloris Leachman) rules over the kingdom of Trolls. She despises all things good. kind, and cute and remains in power thanks to her black thumb, which can turn others into stone. The only thing that keeps her in line is her kinder husband, Llort (Charles Nelson Reilly), who can occasionally convince her to be less severe to look better in the tabloids.
Gnorga is not one of Bluth's more complex villains, but she certainly has fun being evil. Besides turning people to stone, her hobbies include listening to babies crying and cursing people with her magic. Combined with Leachman's over-the-top performance, she becomes the highlight of one of Bluth's worst movies.
6 The Drej - 'Titan A.E.'
Ruled over by their queen (Christopher Scarabosio), the Drej are a species made of pure energy. When they learn that humanity has created a device capable of terraforming planets, they fear what kind of power humans could achieve. As such, they launch a surprise attack on Earth, destroying it, and spend the next twenty years looking for the weapon.
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The Drej operate entirely on fear and show all the dangers that come with that. Just because someone has the means to do something doesn't mean they have intent, but the Drej decide to attack first because of that slim possibility. Inevitably, their ruthless attempts to avert their fearful vision results in their destruction.
5 Ludmilla - 'Bartok the Magnificent'
Since Tzar Ivan (Phillip Glenn Van Dyke) is too young to rule Russia alone, his aunt Ludmmilla (Catherine O'Hara) acts as his regent. Of course, Ludmilla would rather rule the empire herself, so she kidnaps Ivan and frames the witch, Baba Yaga (Andrea Martin). To save face, she tasks the bat Bartok (Hank Azaria) with recovering the prince, hoping that he will be either destroyed or defamed when he returns in failure.
Ludmilla checks all the boxes of your evil family member who wants to seize power and control, but there are a few things that make her fun to watch. O'Hara's performance has so much condescending malice in each word like she is only barely keeping things together. This is reflected in the lyrics to her villain song, during which she transforms into a dragon, the embodiment of avarice and pride.
4 Carface - 'All Dogs Go To Heaven'
Co-owning a casino alongside Charlie B. Barkin (Burt Reynolds), Carface (Vic Tayback) desires full control of the business and its profits. When his plan to get Charlie locked in the pound fails, he resorts to murdering him with a car and a lake. He also kidnaps an orphan girl named Anne-Marie (Judith Barsi) who can talk to animals, so he can win big by betting on animal races.
Carface is as ruthless a canine gangster as can be found. He uses his silver tongue to keep in people's good graces, lulling them into a false sense of security before taking them out, all in the name of business. This also extends to his own overworked and underpaid employees if they fail or annoy him one too many times.
3 Warren T. Rat - 'An American Tail'
As mice arrive from overseas into the harbors of New York City, they quickly fall prey to a gang of cats called the Mott Street Maulers. Their leader, Warren T. Rat (John Finnegan) dresses up as a con man to further swindle the mice. While his gang attacks their businesses, he pretends to be their friend and collects their money for protection from the cats.
Warren T. Rat preys on the most desperate and ill-informed individuals without remorse. Not even children are safe from his cruelty, as seen when he finds Fievel Mousekewitz (Phillip Glasser) separated from his family. With a warm smile, Warren promises to reunite them, only to sell Fievel to a sweatshop for a quick buck.
2 Grigori Rasputin - 'Anastasia'
When Tzar Nicolas II banished him from the palace, Grigori Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd) sold his soul to dark forces to get revenge on the Romanov family. His curse sparked the Russian Revolution and the death of most of the Romanovs, though Rasputin died trying to kill the youngest daughter, Anastasia (Meg Ryan). Now he remains trapped between life and death until his curse is fulfilled.
Rasputin's desire for vengeance is an all-consuming flame. It doesn't matter how many innocent Russians get hurt in the aftermath of the Revolution, or if any member of the Romanov family had anything to do with his fall from grace or not. His methods for hunting Anastasia ten years later also get nefarious, such as using illusions of her deceased family to lure her to a watery grave.
1 Jenner - 'The Secret of NIMH'
One of the twenty rats captured by the National Institute of Mental Health, Jenner (Paul Shenar) was granted enhanced intelligence and a prolonged lifespan by their experiments. While the other rats began to question their new responsibility thanks to their intelligence, Jenner sought only as much power as he could. Things came to a head when their leader, Nicodemus (Derek Jacobi) propose a plan for the rats to become self-sufficient without stealing from humans.
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Jenner is the rat who retains the most animalistic tendencies, which makes him so dangerous. He never misses an opportunity to increase his power, including when Mrs. Brisby (Elizabeth Hartman), the widow of the mouse who saved the rats from NIMH, comes to them for help to move her home. When things don't go his way, he lashes out like a feral beast and doesn't care who he kills to regain control.
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