5 Best TV Villains Of 2025, Ranked

Few things in entertainment matter quite as much as having a good villain. No matter how charming or cool a show or movie's hero is, they have to have an equally powerful baddie to face off against, or it all falls apart. Not only that, but a truly terrific villain can often make something mediocre worth watching or elevate something good to being great. (Just look at Raul Julia in 1994's "Street Fighter" if you really want to see a villain performance completely save a terrible movie.) 

2025 was a year of extremes that saw a whole bunch of real-life villains making things tougher on everyone; hence, their fictional counterparts were that much more important. From the most deliciously manipulative hotties of escapist dramas to the science fiction stand-ins for real world monsters, TV and streaming in 2025 had some absolutely excellent baddies. Let's take a look at the five best villains on television last year, with their rankings based on just how good they were at being bad.

The Netflix streaming drama "The Hunting Wives" is exactly the kind of tawdry escapist fun a lot of us needed in 2025. The series follows Sophie O'Neil (Brittany Snow), who moves with her husband from Massachusetts to suburban Texas and faces all of the culture shock that comes with it. She also ends up falling head-over-heels for the wife of her husband's new boss, a socialite named Margo Banks (Malin Åkerman). There's just one teensy problem (besides Sophie cheating on her husband with Margo, of course): Margo is a Machiavellian string-puller who treats everyone like puppets for her own amusement. She will use both friends and lovers and toss them aside in an instant, leading to some seriously hurt feelings and even more trouble for Sophie, but my goodness is it fun to watch. 

The great thing about Margo is that she's a femme fatale having fun and being awful for the sheer love of the game, something that's often only ascribed to male characters. Åkerman's performance was one of the best of 2025, and it's pitch perfect because it's understandable why people put up with her fickle behavior. She's equal parts charming and manipulative, and while there may be no fixing her, it'll be a blast to watch Sophie try in season 2. (Danielle Ryan)

While incredibly hot bisexual Texans are one kind of scary, the "The Boys" spin-off series "Gen V" gave us a very different sort of master manipulator to fear. "Gen V" follows the superpowered students at Godolkin University, where they're being groomed to be the evil Vought corporation's next set of supes. After the incredibly powerful Marie starts fighting back against the various Vought goons, they send in their most mysterious mediator: Hamish Linklater's Cipher, whose powers allow him to take over and control other people's bodies. He thus uses his abilities to force Marie and her classmates to fight against one another, which is pretty awful, and can even make someone hurt themself. Eventually, we learn there's even more to Cipher's evil, but he's honestly horrific right from the start. 

Linklater's performance is truly phenomenal, as he's generally soft-spoken throughout while still managing to be menacing. He's clearly having a blast being a little arch here and there, and his admonishments of Godolkin's students for their various "failings" is brutal. He's like if Professor X from "X-Men" was the biggest jerk to ever live, and he's one seriously nasty villain. In a franchise with baddies like Homelander (Antony Starr) and Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), that's really saying something. (Danielle Ryan)

Unfortunately, sometimes even the mightiest heroes can fall and become villains, which is the case with Rick Flag, Sr. (Frank Grillo) in the DC Universe (DCU). The beloved character, whose son Colonel Rick Flag, Jr. (Joel Kinnaman) was killed by Peacemaker (John Cena) in "The Suicide Squad," started his tenure in the DCU as a hero, promising to uphold justice and serve the public good. Unfortunately, after losing his son and then seeing the massive destruction caused by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) in "Superman," Rick started to have some pretty prejudiced ideas against anyone with superpowers. By season 2 of "Peacemaker," he was almost entirely out for revenge for his son's death and helped enact policies that would have horrific consequences for any metahuman who steps out of line. By the end of the second season he's a full-blown baddie, having gone from hero to villain because of revenge and paranoia.

After teaming up with Luthor in order to banish Peacemaker to another dimension, it's clear that Flag has completely lost the point of his mission in the first place. He's a lost, angry man with too much power and not enough oversight, and that's a villain type that was all-too-relatable in 2025. It will be interesting to see how his character progresses in the upcoming "Man of Tomorrow" film, which promises all kinds of unusual team-ups between good and evil. (Danielle Ryan)

The most frightening villains are the ones we can relate to our own lives, whether it's through allegory or just a straight depiction, and young Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) on the Netflix series "Adolescence" is so exceptionally nightmarish because he's so real. Jamie is a 14-year-old boy who murdered a girl classmate in cold blood because she made fun of him on social media, and we get to watch in real time as he's questioned by both investigators and then forensic psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty). Jamie can be a scared little boy one moment and a sneering devil in the next, treating women and girls of all ages with complete disrespect. "Adolescence" was one of the best shows of 2025 not only because of its unique single-shot storytelling, but because of Cooper's astounding performance. 

While there's plenty of great acting in the series, Cooper's nuanced portrayal of Jamie is stunning, making it almost impossible not to compare him to young men or boys in your own community. There are moments where you have hope for Jamie, only to realize that his innocence was destroyed by toxic misogynistic ideology. It's really scary to think about how an otherwise good kid can become so monstrous, and Jamie's particular brand of monstrosity on "Adolescence" is as timely as it is terrifying. (Danielle Ryan)

There was no TV show this year that matched the moment quite like "Andor" did. Our rebellious heroes like Mr. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) himself stand against an Empire, and the story's most persistent face of that Empire is Imperial Security Bureau Officer Dedra Meero (Denise Gough). The Empire has been the primary villain of "Star Wars" since 1977, but this time, there are no Sith Lords in sight. "Andor" finally explores the banality of Imperial evil, and Dedra is the avatar of that. She's basically a white collar office drone trying to climb the ranks of a galaxy-wide death machine. Worse, she's not unaware of the reality of the Empire; her eyes are wide open and where others see suffering, she sees order.

"Andor" season 2 showed a new side of Dedra through her relationship with Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), yet proved that ambition and duty always come first for her. Just as Dedra has purged herself of all compassion, Gough transforms herself to embody that evil onscreen with a permanent scowl and posh accent (a ways away from her real Irish brogue). A key manager of the Ghorman genocide, Dedra — who never even bothered asking what the Empire wants the planet for — shows how hollow an excuse "just following orders" is for atrocities.

Yet, as chilling as the sneering Ms. Meero is, "Andor" never forgets that she's just a small cog in a much bigger machine. Dedra's tenacity proves her undoing in the final arc of "Andor," a reminder that in a system as heartless as the Empire, one crucial mistake is all it takes to condemn even the most loyal patriots. Anyone that empowers a fascist state should remember that, one day, it'll come for you too. (Devin Meenan)