In no particular order:

• The Joker. Not just Heath Ledger's take on him (which was, of course &%$ #ossum), but the character as a whole. He's one of the most enduring - and, if we're honest with ourselves -

  In that we can identify with him; not that he's easily identified

  identifiable villains of of the modern era.
• CLU, from Tron: Legacy. Also clever, ruthless, and a True Believer ... made all the worse because he was intentionally designed that way.
• Magneto. The yin to Xavier's yang. He, too, is a True Believer, made bitter and twisted by the fear and loathing of a public that refuses to be educated.
• Xanatos. Guy's got his own TV Trope. #nuffsaid
• Satan, from Incarnations of Immortality. Not only does he want to overthrow God (granted, it's part of the job description), he actually does it.
• Coriolanus Snow, from The Hunger Games. As vicious an autocratic despot as ever there was, he created the Games - where children are forced to fight to the death as entertainment - as a way of controlling an empire. Plus, he smells of blood and roses. *shudder*
• Walter White, AMC's Breaking Bad. Just watch it, already.
• The Umbrella Corporation, Resident Evil. Created a virus that turns almost all of humanity into zombies? Bad enough. Hunkering down in secret underground bunkers while the world burns? Worse. Continuing to study and develop said virus? Pure eeeeeeevil.
• Rushkin, Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint. The vampiric doppelganger of the famous artist Vincent Adjani Rushkin, Rushkin does terrible things to one of VAR's apprentices. The psychological torture Izzy experiences as Rushkin hunts down and destroys her art, and the emotional rape she endures as struggles to understand why her hero and mentor does such horrible things to her makes Rushkin one of my all-time favorite villains.
• The Other, Watchers by Dean Koontz. Pure creep factor here. A genetically-engineered baboon intended to be "the perfect warrior", it hates with the loathsome malice that only a broken child can have. It grew in a lab, watching the other half of the experiment (a golden retriever) get showered (unintentionally) with love and affection, while it didn't even have a name. I'm generally not a fan of Koontz, but this one had me looking over my shoulder at night for months.

Khellendros / Skie - Dragonlance Chronicles - The epitome of Lawful Evil in my opinion. Everything he does is for Kitiara, ever after she dies. And it's not love, just the ultimate in respect

Hexidecimal - Reboot - Megabyte has the cool voice. Hex has the insanity. I think the Cut-and-Paste episode was the best thing done in Reboot.

Room 1408 - Room 1408 - If you haven't seen it, yes a hotel room can be a villain.

Darth Vader - Star Wars - There were no prequels

Grand Admiral Thrawn - Star Wars Expanded Universe - And the great thing about him is that he never saw himself as one. He was just trying to bring order to the known galaxy because he know what threats existed in the unknown parts, and civilization can't stand up to them unless united.

Randall Flagg - The Stand - I think the only thing I don't like about him is that his personalty kept changing in each book he was in. But the one from The Stand was by far the best.

Achilles de Flandres - Bean series by Orson Scott Card - If ever there was a 14 year old who could take over the world by betraying every single country on the planet, this is the guy who would've done it.

Pazuzu - The Exorcist - I blame the acting for liking this one. Still the best possession ever portrayed.

Clown / Violator - Spawn - The most perfect suck-up piece of crap in existence, until you get up him upset

Lucifer - Constantine - He only had 5 minutes of screen time, but DAMN!

Pshaw top 10 not 15 gaaaaah. I feel you pain though it's hard to narrow them down.

Jagaaang is an awesome choice. That for some reason completely escaped me.

First appearance of vader, woot

Also it seems as though Xanatos has earned a position in the master list.

The other scared me senseless when I was a kid and read that book. Good call sir.

@ the Professor. I am only speaking of the character as shown in the source. Bane from The dark knight rises and no other.

@Anvil of War, I understand this an that is be entire reason I feel it's a bit premature. To Me he was Mweh I honestly think tht should have lost his face rig an just put him in a luchador mask. Plus I had a few other nit picky things. But I am often told I'm a GIANT hater so don't take it to heart.

However I didn't have nearly as many issues with his portrayal as I had originally thought I would he'a awesome. Just not top tier. But that's in my book not yours. I respect the fact that you think he's spectacular sir.

1. Ashur (Spartacus series)(my favorite villain of all time)

2. Sauron (LotR)

3. Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal series)

4. Robert De Niro as Neil McCauley (Heat)

5. Joker in Dark Knight

6. Raynald of Châtillon (Kingdom of Heaven)

7. Michael Corleone (Godfather)

8. Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York)

9. Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction)

10. Shane Walsh (Walking Dead)

Yay, bill the butcher

I love Jules but in my opinion he's not the villain of the story so I didn't throw him on my own list.

Ah hell!

Most Game of Thrones characters are hard t define as evil, but I should've put Joffrey up as portrayed on the show. Still upset that Gleason isn't up for an Emmy.

True, he wasn't, and you could consider most characters in pulp fiction to be villains, in the stereotypical sense of the word I guess (they're not Mary Sue's...).

What do you think about Michael Corleone? Does he count as a villain? :P

Same I guess I'm not saying they houldn't be on anyone's list it's just for me I didn't do it. Because there's a ton of grey character or villain protagonists out there nd until I start making some other list threads I guess they need a home to.

But I would say Corleone, starts out as a grey character and becomes an outright villain. The opposite of Jules who becomes redeemed