THIS MONTH AT EMPIRE

THE WORLD HAS officially gone mad. It’s turned upside down. It’s wearing its skin inside out. And everything we thought we knew, we don’t know. The bad guys are the good guys. Or still the bad guys, sitting in the good guys’ chair. Life should be easier, somehow. The greys should be splashed over by the whites and the blacks. Thankfully, for us, there is one place where the good old villain is still, without debate, a bad old villain. Where the guy with the breathing issues and black helmet is on the wrong side, and there he’ll remain. For me, the simple structure of heroes and villains offered up by the cinematic world is something I can cling on to when I can’t quite see the world through the mucky smears. So it seems only right that we take a moment to toast these guys (and they are, pretty much, always guys. Sorry, guys). To thank them for their unwavering evil and the comfort it gives the world. Turn to p65 to discover who made our top 20, and once you’ve violently agreed/disagreed with each other (you voted for the list!), dive into the rest of the issue. We have the people behind this year’s biggest films: Duncan Jones on Mute, John Boyega on Pacific Rim Uprising, Steven Soderbergh on Unsane and Todd Haynes on Wonderstruck. And so many more. Enjoy. After all, as Shredder said, “It feels so good to be so bad!”