6. John Doe – Se7en (1995)
No list of movie villains with genius plans would be complete without a mention of Se7en‘s John Doe. He spends most of the movie pulling the strings from off-screen, but that’s sort of why he’s on this list. His plan is so darkly brilliant that the police can’t catch him in time to stop him.
Doe’s plan involves committing murders to represent each of the seven deadly sins. He wants to shock an increasingly corrupt society into seeing the error of their ways, and sees himself as a messenger of God. The thing is, the murders are so carefully and elaborately staged that Detectives Mills and Somerset can’t catch up to him. That is, until he turns himself in.
Unfortunately, that was part of his plan, too. His sixth victim, representing the sin of Envy, was Mills’ wife, whose head he delivers in a box to a remote desert location. Realizing what Doe has done, Mills shoots him in cold blood, becoming the final victim: Wrath. Though the film ends with his death, Doe’s plan comes off without a hitch. It’s one of the best movie endings of all time, and it proves that Doe belongs on any list involving movie villains with genius plans. Or in psychiatric care, but it’s a little late for that.