(I have searched the sub to find that AFI posts were allowed in the past, and figured it should be alright since it is strongly Oscars-adjacent in terms of honours. Please delete if it is no longer allowed.)

I am obsessed with the AFI lists and would like to start a discussion on who do you think would make a revised version of the Villain list if they were to do it again 22 years later.

There are only three criteria:

1. It must be from a film released in 2004 onwards.
2. It must not have been nominated in the original list in any form. (No, you can’t pick the Joker again.)
3. It must be from an American production.

To illustrate what counts, I have included the following examples to start the conversation. (Only doing Villains for this post because a) I am still unsure if it is allowed and; b) To potentially make it into a series of posts that are better organized.) 

Almost Certainly Would Be Top Three

-Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood

-Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Man

-Col. Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds

Would Be in the Top Ten

-Terence Fletcher from Whiplash

-Col. Steven J. Lockjaw from One Battle After Another

-Abduwali Muse from Captain Philips 

-Lydia Tár from Tár (A villain in my opinion, even though calling her so misses the point of the film.)

Would Be in the Top Fifty

-King Paimon from Hereditary

-Thanos from Endgame (I don’t like Marvels, but it seems possible.)

-Aunt Gladys from Weapons

-Jigsaw from Saw

-The Armitages from Get Out

-Jobu Tupaki from Everything Everywhere All at Once 

Would Be Nominated

-Bane from The Dark Knight Rises

-Two-Face (Harvey Dent) from The Dark Knight

-Darla from Finding Nemo

-Syndrome from The Incredibles

-Carl Fogarty from A History of Violence

-Robert Ford from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

-Dick Cheney from Vice

-Phil Burbank from The Power of the Dog

-Lewis Strauss from Oppenheimer

I recently found out that he considered it the biggest regret in his career that he did not get to play Al Lewis in the film version because of a prior engagement with a TV show.

The problem is that in our timeline, the award was mostly a tribute to the great George Burns, much in the same way as how Albertson himself won for The Subject Was Roses in '68. (But then the totally miscast Matthau made it into Best Actor, so there must have been a degree of support for the film.)

In which case, Brad Dourif (Cuckoo's Nest) seems to have the best shot since he won BAFTA and was in the Best Picture.

Do you think Albertson could have even been nominated? If not, Richard Benjamin of the same film, who won GG because Burns ran for Lead there, probably would get the spot and a career changed.

What do you think?

(Edit: Okay, I completely messed up. Albertson was Willie on the stage, lmao. None of this makes sense. Still fun to imagine this race without Burns though. I highly doubt Sam Levene could have even come close to getting the nom; Benjamin would get the spot; Albertson definitely would have been nominated for Lead.)

(Edit2: Interesting. Alan Arkin directed the original Broadway production.)