5 Scariest Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains, Ranked

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is full of powerful characters – the mightiest possible heroes, and villains so dominant, it can take two whole movies and a mountain of characters to defeat them.

Across two decades and dozens of movies and TV shows, the MCU has changed superhero adaptations and blockbusters themselves, both how they are made and how audiences watch them. Not all of it has been good — take the many issues VFX artists have with Marvel, for instance — but there is no denying just how hugely entertaining it's been to follow along for 18 years as this universe grows and grows.

In that time, Marvel has delivered plenty of superhero stories and introduced tons of heroes and villains. In the beginning, it was recurring joke among fans how bad the Marvel villains were, but with time, the MCU started improving its antagonists to the point where they are now among the most popular characters in the entire franchise.

With the Multiverse Saga about to come to an end, it's time we look back at some of the most memorable villains the MCU had to offer. But to be clear, this is not a list of the best MCU villains (if it was, Killmonger would be near the top), or a list of the strongest MCU villains (if it was, Thanos would be included). Instead, this is a list of the scariest villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — the characters that spook us and give us chills. Even if these villains don't have the ability to destroy the world, they can destroy our dreams and haunt our nightmares.

Of every villain the Avengers faced together in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ultron remains by far the scariest. "Age of Ultron" is now considered one of Marvel's most underrated movies, and with good reason. This is the movie that best challenges the idea of The Avengers (sorry, "Civil War") and whether the good they do justifies all the destruction they bring. It features a fantastic performance by James Spader, and it brings Elizabeth Olsen and Linda Cardellini to the MCU.

Most importantly, it features Ultron, who is not just a very capable villain, but is scary as hell. In many ways, he is Thanos-lite: He has a genocidal plan that will bring "balance" to the world, and forces the Avengers to come together to stop him. The difference is that Thanos didn't really care about the Avengers. He saw them as mere obstacles in his path. Ultron, however, is a direct dark mirror of the Avengers, and seeks to personally punish them along with humanity at large. He's a reflection of the Avengers, but without their instinct to protect. He deems them unworthy of being called heroes because they've killed people, and calls into question the entire point of superheroes and the incredible power they wield. 

Crucially for the purposes of this list, Ultron is incredibly creepy. His introduction — crashing an Avengers party as a half-built robot walking like a J-horror villain, his modulator adding an uncanny element to the performance — is unlike any other villain's in the MCU. And it must be said that Ultron is one of the few villains that genuinely rocked the Avengers to their core, impacting every single member for several movies and altering their arcs because of the personal nature of his attacks.

When it comes to scary evil plans, few Marvel villains come close to the scope of what Ego tries to do. He obliterates entire planets in order to find an heir, and plans to essentially xenoform every planet and turn the universe into an extension of his consciousness. Not out of some misguided vision of balance or harmony, like Thanos or even Ultron — Ego just sees himself as the ultimate entity and wants to annihilate all else. He impregnates countless women and kills both them and their offspring, and gives a brain tumor to Peter Quill's mom.

Sure, that's evil, but what makes Ego genuinely scary is the magnitude of cosmic horror about the character. Though Kurt Russell makes Ego's human form quite charming, the reveal that Ego is actually a giant sentient planet is horrifying. Thanos is still just a very tall and strong guy. Even Galactus and Arishem are just huge but still humanoid villains. Ego? He is an actual planet who can change everything about his surface and atmosphere at will, and who can spread his consciousness across the cosmos through seedlings on each planet, which he then uses to try and xenoform the universe. Though "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is still an action-comedy, Ego's story is the closest the MCU gets to genuine cosmic horror.

Most villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are a threat to the whole world. They're frequently big screen villains that can destroy entire continents and kill millions. But that's not really scary in a personal way, and certainly not the way The Purple Man is scary. Introduced in Netflix's "Jessica Jones," The Purple Man, aka Kilgrave (played by David Tennant), is scary because he works on a smaller, more relatable scale. Born Kevin Thompson, he was experimented on as a young child, which eventually gave him the power to control minds. Kilgrave is one of the scariest Marvel villains because his evil is emotionless, dismissive, and indiscriminate. He doesn't have a higher purpose, he doesn't have an agenda or ideals. He just wants to control and torment a woman because he can.

Throughout "Jessica Jones," we see Kilgrave go through rather inventive ways to mess up completely innocent people with his powers, making them kill themselves or others. His powers essentially let him violate people, which makes him a horrifically real monster. He doesn't have to threaten to flatten the Earth or to drop an entire city on the ground to annihilate humanity. He just has to cross your path and decide he will make your life miserable, just for kicks. He is the MCU's equivalent of the masked killers from the horror film "The Strangers," tormenting you simply "because you were home."

It's common for artists to say they want their work to speak for them rather than having to explain their process. If we apply that to the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), he is certainly the scariest and most horrifying villain in the MCU. The High Evolutionary is so evil that not even Iwuji could defend him. There is no nuance to this character, no moral ambiguity to his plan that can allow audiences to like him even a little bit. There is only cruelty and evil here, a clear-cut villain so bad that Nebula herself says in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" that his abuse of Rocket was even worse than what she suffered under Thanos. That's saying a lot, considering Thanos took her eye and also replaced most of her body with machines.

The High Evolutionary is a hyper-intelligent being who uses his gift to truly twisted ends. He's an unprecedented evil man in the MCU who is essentially a cosmic version of Joseph Goebbels, a space Nazi who constantly enacts galactic holocausts in the name of science because of twisted ideas of purity. He's killed trillions by the time we meet him in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," and he conducted truly horrifying experiments on animals and other creatures. He's responsible for Rocket's entire existence and every tragedy therein. His plans and methods are so evil, his mere existence is scary.

There was never really any other choice. Green Goblin might not be the biggest threat in the MCU, and he might not necessarily have the power to destroy the universe. Yet, up close, he's the scariest villain. First and foremost, he is an MCU villain, as confirmed when "Spider-Man: No Way Home" recognized Willem Dafoe's portrayal as the best Spidey villain and officially incorporated the character into the universe. Dafoe's Green Goblin is not just evil, he's a horror movie villain, stalking his prey and terrorizing him at every turn. We're talking about a villain who has bombs that turn people into skeletons (instantly vaporizing them), a maniacal laugh, and a psychopathic tendency of talking to his alter ego in the mirror.

And that's before we get to the times Green Goblin actually scared Spider-Man and his loved ones. Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" can get legitimately scary at times, like when Green Goblin bursts into Aunt May's room just to scare her out of her mind, or the big jump scare in the burning building when he disguises himself as a defenseless woman just to spook Spidey. Willem Dafoe plays Green Goblin not only as an often-cartoony comic book villain, but also a bonafide horror movie monster that lives in the nightmares of the protagonist. Green Goblin wouldn't technically be much of a threat to the Avengers, but he does terrorize Spider-Man and everyone around him. It's why he becomes the main villain in "No Way Home," despite there being supervillains with actual superpowers in that movie. But none of them are as menacing or scary as Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, just as no other MCU villain can spook as much as that burning building scene can.