Favorite Die Hard Villian

[Dean Winchester]

I have to say it was Simon Peter Gruber from Die Hard With a Vengance. He had personality and charisma, plus he was the villian who you wanted to get away and survive from the good guy and he almost did too until McCaline shot him down. He also had the best quotes a villian during the Die Hard Series had too. In my book he was better then his brother Hans Gruber who was the villian in Die Hard.

 

[SorgFamily]

I'm going with Alan Rickman from the original Die Hard. He was sniveling and just had a evil aura around him.

After that I'd go with Jeremy Irons from "With a Vengence" and then the 2nd villian whose not important enough for me to remember. Ex-Marine I think, whatever.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

For me it's still Hans Gruber from the original Die Hard. His brother Simon was great too, but he wasn't evil enough to strike at Christmas!

I prefer Hans because he'd calculated everything well in advance even to the point that he knew the FBI would actually inadvertedly assist him with his biggest obstacle he faced when trying to get in the vault.

Simon just seemed to want to fuck with McClaine before paying attention to the real work, whereas if he'd just blown up the subway station and gotten on with it, he'd have succeeded with very few problems.

 

[A Mod's Best Friend (aka Bitch)]

Gabriel from Die Hard 4.0 was awesome i thought and the whole plot had me totally hooked along with him. Hans was also very good and just had the voice and actions that made him a special villain. They are my favorite.

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

It has to be Hans - he just oozes class and menace. He'll happily discuss culture with you and then turn around and blow your head off. Colonel Stuart didn't reach his level of threat mainly because he was an underling to General Esperanza. Simon Gruber suffered from one weakness - he's a Bond/ Austin Powers villain; instead of just putting a bullet in his head when he's drunk, he has to concoct elaborate schemes. Gabriel? Well at the heels of the hunt, he's just a computer nerd.

He's not my favourite Willis villain though - that honour goes to Milo in The Last Boy Scout. He is just the epitome of evil and his insistence on calling people by their full names is just the nicest touch.

 

[Dean Winchester]

It has to be Hans - he just oozes class and menace. He'll happily discuss culture with you and then turn around and blow your head off. Colonel Stuart didn't reach his level of threat mainly because he was an underling to General Esperanza. Simon Gruber suffered from one weakness - he's a Bond/ Austin Powers villain; instead of just putting a bullet in his head when he's drunk, he has to concoct elaborate schemes. Gabriel? Well at the heels of the hunt, he's just a computer nerd.

He's not my favourite Willis villain though - that honour goes to Milo in The Last Boy Scout. He is just the epitome of evil and his insistence on calling people by their full names is just the nicest touch.

Lol Jeremy Irons was badass man, his conversations with McClaine were good, I mean Gabriel from Live Free or Die Hard was lame. He and McClaine did not have the chemistry that the Gruber bros had with McClaine. Both Gabriel and Stewart were weak villians and Esperanza aswell.

The Last Boy Scout was amazing. I'am glad somebody finally has made a statement about that film. It is one of the best action films of all time. And yes Milo was a good villian, I miss them days when you had fun, entertaining villians but now you have mostly boring villians with no personality and chemistry.

 

[UltimateHitman]

Let me just get this out of the way. Last Boy Scout was a great movie.

Getting to the question, I would have to go with Hans as well. He was just more menacing in my view.

Simon had some good mic skills, yes, but he just came across more flippant than Hans did. I think he was just a little too over the top, for lack of a better term.

Simon was creative with his games, and the dynamic between Willis and Jackson played off nicely so some of the "over the top-ness" didn't really come across too much in the grand scheme of the movie.

The best comparison I can make would be that Simon was the Riddler to Hans' Joker. Sure, the Riddler can stand on his own and is a great character in himself, but you just can't get much better than the Joker.

 

[INDYjon22]

Timothy Olyphant is a tremendous actor and was awesome as Gabriel. Olyphant just has a natural heel persona about him, even though he is a really cool guy. That said, Alan Rickman in the first Die Hard is by far the best villain of the series. He was simply brilliant. He was cunning, deceiving, charming and ruthless. As someone said before, he could go from talking about world politics to shooting you in the face in mere seconds, and you would probably thank him for doing so because he was just that darn charismatic while doing it. He is one of the all time great villains in action movie history and really should have won in the end, I mean if John Malkovich in Con Air and Alan Rickman in Die Hard can't come out of a fight with their hand raised high then who can?

 

[a0161613]

I enjoyed Timothy Olyphant. He is a good actor and was a good fit for the film.

And as good as Jeremy Irons was, Alan Rickman is known as someone who is very good at playing creepy, villainous, dare I say heelish characters just like the one he played in Die hard. The Gruber character was a fantastic fit for him. Irons' Gruber was more playful. Rickman allowed a little play but always had his goals in mind.

 

[Dean Winchester]

Timothy Olyphant is a tremendous actor and was awesome as Gabriel. Olyphant just has a natural heel persona about him, even though he is a really cool guy. That said, Alan Rickman in the first Die Hard is by far the best villain of the series. He was simply brilliant. He was cunning, deceiving, charming and ruthless. As someone said before, he could go from talking about world politics to shooting you in the face in mere seconds, and you would probably thank him for doing so because he was just that darn charismatic while doing it. He is one of the all time great villains in action movie history and really should have won in the end, I mean if John Malkovich in Con Air and Alan Rickman in Die Hard can't come out of a fight with their hand raised high then who can?

Yeah I agree Gruber in Die Hard should have won at the end but McClaine was able to outsmart Hans at the end. I mean McClaine was at the end smarter then Hans. Hans under estimated him and you cannot under estimate anybody because they can be very dangerous.

 

[Starchild]

My honorable mention goes to Timothy Olyphant for Live Free or Die Hard. I liked how all the the new technology of the last 20 years since the original was used and made it seem like McClane had to adapt. Olyphant was the evil genius type that already has everything planned out including contingency plans and just looks like a villain. He'd easily be the best if it wasn't for...

Hans Gruber. The original Die Hard is still the best and arguably one of the best action movies ever. Alan Rickman was spectacular as a villain...using the FBI, attacking on Christmas Eve, faking like he's a worker. The back and forth with he and Willis over the walkie and in person was the best between the hero and villain in the series. In my opinion I associate Hans with Die Hard almost as much as I do McClane. To this day, he remains as one of the most intelligent villains ever in cinema and it's a testament to how great Rickman truly was with the character.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I prefered Jeremy Irons as he was a little less one dimensional than all the other characters. Especially when little bits of the plan unfold... I guess thats the key to the characters, Hans was not a great "actor" and didn't have the tools outside the plan... hence McClane sussed him when they met, where as Simon completely fooled McClane till the last possible moment. Simon is also the one guy in the series who is in total control till the plan is pretty much complete, he has the gold and was simply toying with McClane... all the other villains plans are really getting screwed up from the moment McClane shows up... McClane is more lucky he ran into Zeus than clever in DHWTV.

For me the clincher was when his motivation on using McClane and even Zeus is simply "not liking your brother is one thing, not careing when someone drops him out a window is another".