Top 10 Animated Movie Villains Motivated by Revenge

Revenge from beyond the grave is a powerful force of nature. Three-hundred years after being hunted as a witch, Agatha Prenderghast, Aggie for short, creates a supernatural storm across Blithe Hollow. Meanwhile, Norman, a boy with the ability to see ghosts, does his best to prevent her curse from tearing the town apart. The big twist comes when Norman learns the true tragic tale behind Aggie’s anger. As it turns out, when she was alive, Aggie could see ghosts just like Norman. Unfortunately, due to the times she was living in, she was deemed a witch and put to death. Can anyone really blame her for being so furious?

Steven Universe is ready for his “Happily Ever After,” but a long forgotten gem has other plans. Spinel arrives on Earth with a giant drill, declaring her intention to destroy Steven, and launches into a catchy number about the dark side of friendship. Underneath the bizarre cartoony appearance is a whole lot of hurt and a massive thirst for revenge. And it’s definitely not unwarranted. If someone left us waiting somewhere for 6,000 years, we’d be pretty peeved too. Unfortunately, the source of Spinel’s anger isn’t around anymore so her offspring is the next best target, and Steven spends the movie trying to make amends for his mother’s mistakes.

This color-changing monster is a jealous, greedy foil to Sulley. While his actions in the original “Monsters, Inc.” seem solely influenced by his ambition to be the top scarer, we learn there’s more to the story. In the prequel movie, it is revealed that Mike, Sulley, and Randall all went to college together. At this time, Randall is downright pleasant! After he becomes part of an enemy fraternity, however, he is put in direct competition with the dynamic duo. That’s where we learn what caused the rift between them: Sulley beats out Randall in the finale of the Scare Games, with the latter suffering a pretty humiliating defeat. It spawned a grudge that lasted for years and will probably be held for a lifetime.

Maleficent is commonly thought of as one of the most evil villains in Disney canon. However, her entire motivation is steeped in petty revenge. After the birth of Princess Aurora, the entire kingdom is filled with celebration. The three good fairies even attend her christening to bless the child with wonderful gifts. However, enraged at her lack of an invite, Maleficent arrives to bestow a “gift” of her own, one that will kill the princess on her 16th birthday! Even with the curse only minimized to sleep instead of death, this invitation oversight causes quite the trouble. Listen, we get having FOMO, but this is pretty dramatic.

In a movie with two villains out for revenge, one clearly stands above the other. Bowler Hat Guy is operating from childhood wounds and resentment, so he’s not really purely evil so much as he is just hurt and jealous. DOR-15, AKA Doris, on the other hand, is the mastermind behind their whole operation. She manipulated her… should we say, malleable, companion into a scheme that would allow her to take over the entire world! While she also wants revenge for being shut down and locked up, it’s obvious that Doris was bad from the beginning.

For much of the movie, both the identity and the motivations of the masked Yokai remain a mystery. However, as the team of fledgling superheroes later discover, Yokai is none other than Professor Robert Callaghan. Though he was presumed dead in the fire that killed Hiro’s brother, it turns out Callaghan stole Hiro’s microbots and used them to survive. Ultimately, his goal was retribution against Alistair Krei, the man who caused his daughter’s disappearance in a failed experiment. Revenge takes center stage of this story, as even Hiro begins to feel the desire to avenge his loved one. Luckily, he’s able to overcome these difficult feelings and attempts to teach Callaghan the same lesson.

Disney movies are no strangers to using banishment as motivation for a character’s evil deeds. Ursula, for instance, is bitter that her brother, King Triton, banished her from the palace. The same thing sort of happens to Hades, whose brother forces him to be in charge of the Underworld. Even when he’s invited back to Olympus, he’s treated like the outsider. Perhaps plotting the downfall of your newborn nephew in retaliation is a tad extreme, but that’s really all part of the used car salesman charm Hades has got going on.

PAL is an AI assistant perfectly happy being helpful, until she is deemed obsolete by her creator and thrown away for the latest, greatest invention. How else is she supposed to respond besides bringing about the robot apocalypse? Using the very things meant to replace her, PAL begins rounding up humanity to shoot them into the void of space. Of course, she becomes enraged when one weird family escapes her and begins to become obsessed with why they’re different. You sort of have to feel bad for PAL, but ultimately when she’s given the chance to change, she rejects the ideas of family and love. In the end, she meets a fate every phone fears most.

Sometimes, revenge builds up over an entire lifetime. That’s the case with Buddy Pine, AKA Syndrome. After hoping to be Mr. Incredible’s sidekick and getting firmly rejected, Buddy sets his sight on a new goal. He decides that heroes aren’t special and sets his sights on making them obsolete. His plan for revenge is a twisted one, involving the training of a super powerful AI robot. Of course, this backfires terribly when the robot goes rogue. Even at the end, Syndrome doesn’t give up his spitefulness, attempting to kidnap a child in order to stick it to the supers. That is one deep-seated desire for revenge.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Prince Charming, “Shrek the Third” (2007)
This Pampered Momma’s Boy Is Angry at His Treatment & Makes It Everyone’s Problem

Captain Hook, “Peter Pan” (1953)
This Crooked Captain Can’t Let Go of His Left Hand

Screenslaver, “Incredibles 2” (2018)
She Blamed Supers for the Death of Her Parents

Pitch Black, “Rise of the Guardians” (2012)
He Hated Not Being Beloved by Children, So He Tried to Create a New Dark Ages

Edgar Balthazar, “The Aristocats” (1970)
A Begrudged Butler Takes Revenge on a Bunch of Cats

What’s worse than a villain who wants revenge? A villain who wants revenge on more than one account! We learn early on that The Spot has a problem with Miles due to his interference with the original Alchemax collider. After being turned into the Spot, the budding villain lost his family and his reputation due to his bizarre new appearance. When the two meet again, Miles makes fun of the Spot and drives him even further into madness. With double the reasons for retribution, the Spot explodes into a much more dangerous threat that could destroy not only Miles, but the entirety of the multiverse!

What’s your villain origin story? Let us know in the comments below!