10 Movie Villains Who Won AFTER They Died

Who doesn’t love a good movie villain? Usually, they steal the best scenes and take the audience along a rollicking good adventure, matching the hero's strength and resourcefulness by being a seemingly unstoppable force.

Naturally, audiences expect the bad guy to meet his or her maker at the end of a film. Even though that doesn’t always happen, it is usually a safe bet that the villain will be vanquished, allowing peace and tranquillity to be restored.

However, don’t always bet on that being the case. The darkest of films often take a step that allows the bad guy (either in that film or over the course of several films) to triumph, either directly or indirectly, in whole or in part.

For instance, their evil scheme may finally be achieved without their further intervention or the so-called villain may actually be no better or worse than the character that the audience perceives as being the hero. The villain may even achieve some other form of victory that is only vaguely related to their actual scheme, gaining some small measure of victory, even if their main goals are thwarted.

Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006) revolves around two magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) competing with each other in increasingly violent ways, particularly following the death of Angier's wife, Julia McCullough (Piper Perabo) in a water tank illusion that goes terribly wrong.

Borden and Angier establish rival versions of the same illusion, "The Transported Man", that become increasingly bizarre. Angier is so desperate to outdo Borden that he commissions Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) to construct a device that appears to physically transport him. During a performance, the curious Borden ducks backstage and witnesses Angier falling into a water tank and drowning; Borden is ultimately tried, convicted, and hanged for the perceived murder.

Content in his victory, Angier, in his true identity as Lord Caldlow is shot by a mysterious figure who is revealed to be Borden. Mortally wounded, Angier/Caldlow suddenly understands that Borden had a twin (also played by Christian Bale), who assisted him in his act and was hanged for Angier's perceived murder.

As Angier succumbs to his injuries, Borden realises that Angier's own Transported Man device literally duplicated him and, during each performance, his duplicate would be plunged into a water tank beneath the stage to drown, waiting for the day when Borden's curiosity would get the better of him.

Even though Borden is able to move on with his daughter, Jess (Samantha Mahurin), he will always know that he lost his identical twin brother in a savage game of wits with Angier.