'Bah! Humbug!' A Definitive List of the 12 Greatest Christmas Movie Villains of All Time

Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life

Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) isn't just one of the greatest Christmas bad guys of all time; he's ranked No. 6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 greatest villains in American film history.

The main antagonist of Frank Capra's 1946 classic It's a Wonderful Life, Potter is the rich, curmudgeonly old slumlord of the fictional town of Bedford Falls, N.Y., who refuses to give James Stewart's George Bailey a much-needed holiday loan.

Potts was played by Drew Barrymore's great-uncle, who is also credited for partially inspiring The Simpsons character Mr. Burns.

Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas

This terrifying potato sack full of worms puts the nightmare in Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas.

A gambling-addicted bogeyman from Halloween Town, Oogie — voiced by Ken Page, who died at 70 in 2024 — and his cronies kidnap Santa and hold him hostage in a casino-style underground lair while Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) makes a mess of Christmas.

Jack eventually saves Santa and defeats Oogie by unraveling his cloth, revealing a squirming pile of insects.

Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story

Along with his bully buddy Grover Dill (Yano Anaya), Scut Farkus (Zack Ward) terrorizes young Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) and his friends in 1983's A Christmas Story. With his yellowy eyes, sadistic laugh and coonskin hat, Farkus looked every bit the villain in this childhood favorite.

Of course, fans eventually get the satisfaction of watching Ralphie give Farkus a taste of his own medicine — a fact the now-grown-up actor who played the bully is never allowed to forget.

"So many people come up to me and are like, 'You got your a-- kicked by Ralphie,' and it makes them so happy," Ward told Page Six in 2017. "I think they're connecting to themselves as that little kid who had a bully, and when they saw Scut Farkus get beaten up, they were just like, 'Yeah!' They greet me with a lot of love. It's usually very kind."

Comet and the Abominable Snow Monster from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The Abominable Snow Monster of the North — or Bumble, as Yukon Cornelius (both voiced by Larry Mann) calls him for short — is the most recognizable villain from the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. However, even after having all of his teeth pulled out by Hermey (voiced by Paul Soles), the socially awkward, wannabe-dentist Elf, Bumble becomes a good monster, and his height becomes an asset to the elves' Christmas tree-decorating operations.

On the other hand, Comet the reindeer (voiced by Paul Kligman) never reforms his bullying ways. As the coach of the reindeer games, Comet teaches all the young bucks how to leap like the pros. Once Comet catches a whiff of Rudolph's (voiced by Billy Richards) red nose, he ridicules him in front of his fellow reindeer and kicks him out of the games. When Rudolph ends up leading Santa's sleigh, Comet is noticeably absent from the group.

Hans Gruber from Die Hard

The ultimate Christmas action movie got the villain it deserved in Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber from 1988's Die Hard. In one of his most memorable roles, the late actor — who died at 69 in 2016 — played a German master terrorist who takes a Los Angeles holiday office party hostage in a plot to steal $640 million in bearer bonds.

Gruber meets his end at the hands of John McClane (Bruce Willis), a shoeless New York City detective who wipes out his entire squad of machine-gun-toting terrorists, saving his estranged wife and her co-workers in the process.

Ted Maltin from Jingle All the Way

Hilariously played by the late Phil Hartman, Ted Maltin is something like a cuckolding Ned Flanders. He's the annoyingly friendly next-door neighbor of Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who, albeit beloved by the neighborhood community as a generous single dad, wants nothing more than to steal Howard's wife, Liz (Rita Wilson).

Despite his constant overtures toward Liz as Howard fights to find his son the Turbo Man doll, she eventually turns him down with a very satisfying cup of eggnog to the face.

Harry and Marv from Home Alone

Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) — a.k.a. the Wet Bandits or Sticky Bandits — are the two dimwit criminals who get repeatedly outsmarted by 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) in both the 1990 film Home Alone and its 1992 sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Harry and Marv get burned, bruised and generally brutalized by the preteen as they try (and fail) to rob his parents' house while they're away for the holidays.

The Grinch from How the Grinch Stole Christmas

This fuzzy green hermit has become synonymous with Christmas-hating curmudgeons and greedy holiday buzzkills worldwide since Dr. Seuss introduced him in his 1957 children's book of the same name.

Suffering from a chronic case of small heart, the Grinch (Jim Carrey) and his pet dog, Max, conspire to steal all the presents from the citizens of Whoville in the 2000 Christmas fantasy comedy. When the happy Whos celebrate Christmas morning anyway, the Grinch realizes there is more to Christmas than gifts, and his shriveled heart miraculously grows three full sizes.

Despite his literal change of heart, the Grinch continues to symbolize holiday party poopers everywhere.

Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol

OG Christmas hater Ebenezer Scrooge's reign of holiday terror goes back nearly 200 years to Charles Dickens' 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol.

His name has become the very definition of miserliness, and even his favorite anti-Christmas catchphrase, "Bah! Humbug!" has become infamous despite it only appearing twice in the entire story.

Like some of the other holiday villains, Scrooge — portrayed by the late George C. Scott in the 1984 classic — eventually sees the error of his ways and embraces Christmas by the end of his ordeal. However, his reputation as a world-class Christmas hater endures.

Jack Frost in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Jack Frost has had many interactions in cinema, but none have been as clever as Martin Short's icy interpretation in 2006's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

In the third Santa Clause film, Frost uses his cold charisma to seize the North Pole, tricking Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) into wishing he'd never worn Santa's red-and-white suit in the first place. This cunning act changes not only the timeline but also the dynamic of Scott's family.

Turning Santa's little helpers into unhappy amusement park workers and his reindeer into petting zoo attractions, Frost is as selfish and sinister as they come — but not for long. Much like the Grinch, his ice-cold heart is thawed in the warmth only the Christmas spirit can bring.