Film

Villain

Name: Villain
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Released: 1971
Cast: Richard Burton, Ian McShane, Nigel Davenport, Donald Sinden, Fiona Lewis

Other titles called Villain: the 2017 film.

Crime

A crisp 1971 British crime thriller where Richard Burton plays a vicious mob boss whose blackmail scheme against Parliament brings Scotland Yard down on him. It's a lean, unsentimental look at London's underworld—no romance, no redemption, just efficient brutality and the machinery that stops it. For anyone who loves their crime fiction blunt and procedural.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like crime films driven by cold, talky menace and a lead performance that carries the whole picture, with Richard Burton playing a gangster who is smarter and sadder than he looks.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting and set pieces, since much of this 98-minute film runs on conversation, cramped rooms and a slow build of pressure rather than action.

What it asks of you: It asks you to sit with long dialogue scenes and a grim, rain-soaked London mood, and to hold onto who is playing whom, because the tension grows from words more than from events.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Get Carter1971

Michael Caine as a ruthless enforcer in Newcastle, equally brutal and focused. Same year as Villain, same hard-edged British crime energy, but from the criminal's perspective. Devastating final act.

But It's relentlessly grim and the pacing is deliberately slow. No catharsis, no clever dialogue—just a man methodically destroying himself.

In the Heat of the Night1967

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in a cat-and-mouse police procedural with real teeth. The interrogation scenes have the same taut, intelligent antagonism as Villain's best moments.

But It's more interested in racial politics than crime-solving mechanics. If you want pure plot, you might find the themes heavy-handed.

Serpico1973

Al Pacino as a cop fighting corruption from inside the system. Like Villain but inverted—the law as the protagonist instead of the villain. Based on true events, which gives it weight.

But The middle section drags as it builds toward the climax. Some dated late-70s sentimentality creeps in toward the end.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Villain

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Krays1990

Both explore the vanity and vulnerability of men who think they're untouchable. Villain shows Dakin's brief moment as king before the fall; The Krays gives you the full arc of how charisma curdles into pathology.

Two things: This is about the actual London gangsters who inspired everything in Villain's world. And it's directed by John Landis, which means you get operatic violence and style. Fassbender and Luke Evans play the twins as twins separated by temperament—one a psychopath, one trying to be businessman. It's a tragedy told like a music video.

But The aesthetic is so stylized it sometimes works against believability. And the film can't quite decide if it's sympathetic or condemning. Some viewers find the homoerotic subtext sensationalized.

The Long Good Friday1980

Bob Hoskins as an East End gang boss watching his empire collapse in one night. The same London underworld, the same sense of an outsider's world colliding with forces he can't control.

But It's more stylish than Villain—almost operatic. If you want grit over atmosphere, the visual flourishes might feel like excess.

Sexy Beast2001

Ben Kingsley as a terrifying criminal who disrupts another man's careful life. Deeply uncomfortable to watch in a way that feels earned. Brilliant, suffocating tension.

But The opening thirty minutes are very slow-burn. The violence, when it comes, is shocking in a way that'll make some viewers want to turn it off.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle1973

Robert Mitchum as a small-time criminal caught between the FBI and the mob. Procedural, understated, and genuinely sad. This is what the criminal underworld actually feels like.

But Nothing really happens in a traditional sense. It's about decline and betrayal, which means it ends the way you might expect—not with a bang.

The Killers1946

Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in a noir about two assassins and the woman who comes between them. Taut, punchy, and Siodmak's direction has real menace. The DNA of what Villain inherits.

But The first act moves fast but assumes you'll keep up. The chronology jumps around and some plot threads resolve too neatly.

Performance.1970

James Fox as a gangster on the run hiding with a rock star (Mick Jagger). Only a year before Villain but radically different—experimental, psychedelic, obsessed with identity and performance. A provocation.

But It's willfully strange and the narrative barely exists. If you want story clarity, this will frustrate you. It's also very 1970 in ways that don't age well.

Stalking the Bogeyman

Both are fascinated by men who have decided to take the law into their own hands, and what happens to them when the actual law arrives. The moral vertigo is identical.

This is not a crime thriller—it's a documentary about one man's real act of revenge against his childhood abuser. It's a complete register shift: intimate, moral, devastating. But it has the same question Villain asks: Who gets to decide justice? What does vengeance actually cost? And it's shot with the restraint Villain uses.

But It's a real documentary about real trauma. If you came for thrills, the slowness and the weight of actual human suffering will be a shock. Some scenes are very difficult to watch.

Headhunters2011

Both are studies of men who think they're smarter than the system, and both spend their runtime proving them right, right up until they're catastrophically wrong. Same arc, different countries and decades.

A Norwegian thriller about a corporate recruiter who moonlights as an art thief. It has Villain's DNA—the lead is a compact, clever predator with a specific skill set—but it's a completely different engine. Faster, wittier, with a moral complexity that catches you off-guard. Tarantino-adjacent but with a real conscience underneath.

But The tonal shifts are jarring. It goes from thriller to dark comedy to bloody revenge without warning. If you need genre consistency, it will feel scattered. It's also very Scandinavian in its violence—abrupt and unglamorous.