Angelina Jolie brings the malevolence as the dark sorceress who curses a princess in Maleficence, Disney's live-action remake of Sleeping Beauty out this weekend. Jolie's severe cheek bones and devilish smile make her the ideal actress to embody cartoon wickedness, and her role as Maleficent now puts her in illustrious company as one of the movies' most iconically evil women. Whether as femme fatales preying upon noir losers and suckers, supernatural vixens bent on consuming innocent prey, or conniving tyrants driven to achieve their ends at all costs, women have always proven fantastic villains. Melding wicked cunning, sexual magnetism, and hard-hearted cruelty to form chilling visions of malice and iniquity, they remain every bit as formidable and frightening as their male counterparts. Inspired by Jolie's admission into this esteemed club, we present the ten most intimidating, unsettling, and out-and-out terrifying women in cinema history.
