Why do movies have villains?

Answer 1

Villains give the protagonist (the star of the story) something to fight against. All movies, stories and novels have the same structure: conflict, followed by resolution. The protagonist (the main character) is given a problem (a conflict), and spends the rest of the story trying to solve that problem (resolve the conflict).

A villain provides the story with a problem: the wicked Queen wants to kill innocent Snow White. This gives Snow White a problem to solve. Cruella DeVille wants to kill the Dalmatian puppies and skin them and make a coat from them. This gives the mother and father Dalmatians a problem to solve. Voldemort wants to kill Harry Potter and all the Muggle-born wizards, and set himself up as the tyrannic dictator of the wizarding world. This gives Harry and his friends a problem to solve.

The villain can be a group of people, too, as in War Movies: the bad guys want to take over the world, and the good guys have to stop them. Zombies are trying to eat everyone alive, and it's up to the few remaining humans to stop them.

Sometimes, the "villain" is not a person. Disaster movies are good example of this: a meteor is about to strike and destroy earth, presenting the lead characters with a problem to solve. In this case, the meteor is the villain.

The villain can also be a disease, as in movies like Outbreak or Contagion: a horrible disease is wiping out humanity, and the heroes of the story have to stop it.

Sometimes there can be two villains. In many of these disease epidemic movies, the government wants to kill everyone in the infected area, because it's easier than trying to save the uninfected. In that case, the villains would be the disease AND the government.

In short, all movies and stories have to have a problem to solve. That's what fictional stories are all about. A villain provides a problem.

Answer 2

they are bad because they want to rule the world