21 most ruthless movie/TV drug lords

Played by: Bryan Cranston

You have to remember where he started: a sad sack high school chemistry teacher who was given a terminal lung cancer diagnosis. But, in attempting to leave behind a nest egg for his family, Walter White morphed into a frightening crystal meth kingpin, and every batch was laced with lies and/or murder. —Dan Snierson

Played by: Al Pacino

As Rick James taught us, cocaine is a hell of a drug. Though he begins with a code of honor, the white lady erodes Montana's humanity, making it possible for him to knock around his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), murder his best friend (Steven Bauer), and freely use a grenade launcher to (unsuccessfully) fight off invaders in the film's bloody finale. —Kyle Anderson

Played by: Jamie Hector

Any dealer who starts a war against Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris) is either a force to be reckoned with or a soon-to-be-dead fool. Stanfield falls in the former category. When the deceptively quiet heroin overlord decides to speak, it's often to order his minions to kill anyone who even appears to disrespect him. —Maricela Gonzalez

Played by: Denzel Washington

Portraying the real-life 1970s Harlem drug kingpin — who built an empire by smuggling heroin out of Southeast Asia in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam — Washington punctuates quiet menace with moments of brutal violence, like when he smashes his cousin's head inside a piano. —Josh Rottenberg

Played by: Jacqueline Obradors

Drug lording is stereotypically a man's world, but Paloma was the one calling the shots both in her Mexican cartel and in her mission to exact revenge against Gibbs (Mark Harmon), who killed her father. Though Gibbs won this war, Paloma stayed true to form with a pretty badass set of last words in Mary Howitt's ''The Spider and the Fly,'' about a seductress' use of flattery to ensnare naïve weaklings. —Lanford Beard

Played by: Vince Vaughn

There's only one thing this thug hates more than tanning weird, bat mitzvah crashers, and people who don't know the difference between a boat and a yacht: underlings who fail their assignments. Do your job right, and you'll be fine; mess up, and you'll get a one way ticket to the ocean floor. —Hillary Busis

Played By: Gary Oldman

Oldman's dreadlocked jive-talking L.A. pimp — who problematically thinks he is a Black man — is about 10,000 times more menacing than his Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). This guy doesn't just kill people with pretty little neck nibbles — he eats souls with his milky eye. —Leah Greenblatt

Played by: Danny Pino

This brutal drug lord had no qualms with putting heroin into schools, tattooing doves on the faces of women he raped, or burning rivals alive. But, sometimes, the burn was on him, like when Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) put his face onto a stove. Armadillo eventually got the point, thanks to a rival stabbing him to death with a knife while in a holding cell. —Dalton Ross

Played by: Wesley Snipes

When discussing the first time he killed somebody, New York crack kingpin Brown says, ''It's always business — never personal.'' In Nino's board room, that means using little girls as human shields and summarily executing the entirety of his Cash Money Brothers gang for lack of loyalty. —K.A.

Voiced by: Luis Guzmán

A flop-sweating Tony Montana–meets–Napoleon Bonaparte, Diaz is the kind of guy who touts himself as a philanthropist, but is actually just funneling through shell corporations. He's the kind of guy who relishes crushing ants under his boot just as much as murdering his rivals. The brute once shot up his VCR because it was unplugged and issued these last defiant words: ''You stupid pricks...my beautiful house...look what you've done to it!'' —L.B.

Played by: Cole Hauser

In one particularly memorable scene, the drug lord forced a crooked cop to do his bidding by tying him down, placing a rat on his stomach and a bucket over the rat. Then, Verone took a blowtorch to the bucket, causing the rat to scratch at the cop's skin — leaving one nasty mark. —Denise Warner

Played by: Hazelle Goodman

Homicide casting director Pat Moran called Goodman's portrayal of the Baltimore drug mistress a ''dragon lady, the ultimate bad girl in a Chanel suit.'' Taking over for slain brother Luther (Erik Dellums), Georgia Rae's tyrannical yet calculating approach to the trade proved chilling because she didn't just subvert the system (ordering her own sit to murder a cop, blackmailing another), she twisted it in her favor by filing a lawsuit against the police over Luther's death. The suit was dismissed, and civil war in her ranks ultimately led to her death at her own men's hands, but you have to admit: the woman had some brass. —L.B.

Played by: Leandro Firmino da Hora

A case of absolute power corrupting completely, the unchecked dictator raped, beat, and murdered his way through his isolated Brazilian favela. The flashy Zé is eventually killed in cold blood by the very ''Runts'' he educated in the ways of war, pictures of his corpse making for an ironic callback to earlier photos that gave him notoriety (and put a target on his back), as well as a fitting result of his insatiable hunger for fame and status. —L.B.

Played by: James Spader

Sleaze, thy name is Rip. Spader used his monotone affect to inhabit one of the more sinister dealers of the '80s, preying on susceptible, glamour-lusting rich kids. Rip even makes Julian (Robert Downey Jr.) prostitute himself to help pay off a $50,000 debt, pulling his former classmate back into his thrall every time Julian tries to get clean. —Lindsey Bahr

Played by: Miguel Piñero

Leaving a trail of dirty cops and dead bodies — including the brother of Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) — in his wake, Calderone made drug lording a family franchise. Son Orlando (John Leguizamo) took up the mantel, and Esteban's barbaric vengeance quest, after Tubbs' partner Crockett (Don Johnson) took down Esteban in a hale of machine gunfire. Interestingly, Piñero himself did a stint in prison, but he chose to use the time to fashion a legitimate, respected career as a playwright and actor. —L.B.

Played by: Christopher Walken

A gentleman's trap lord, Frank White rides around Manhattan in limousines, runs his business out of the Plaza Hotel, and dresses in sharp suits. He's still willing to get his hands dirty, though: He kills one cop in a shoot-out, and then murders a second at the first's funeral. Hardcore! —K.A.

Played by: Salma Hayek

Whether it's her vulgar language, ruthless ability to murder for business, or intimidating haircut, Elena is as merciless as cartel queens come. Mrs. Sanchez, as she requests to be called, took over the Mexican Baja Cartel family business and has dozens of employees both answering to her every demand and doing all of her dirty work. With her eerie monotone Spanglish, piercing eyes, demand to be feared, and inability to be fearful, this icy ghost of an assassin remains head honcho of the dangerous operation, all while keeping her crisp suits blood stain-free. Even after being shot by her right-hand man Lado (Benicio Del Toro) and surrendering to 30 years in prison for her crimes, Sanchez hardly blinks. —Jacqueline Andriakos

Played by: Clifton Collins Jr.

This sweaty, fidgety Army vet clearly violates the first rule of dealing: Don't get high on your own supply. His constant state of coked-outness makes for some very unpredictable interactions with his clients, especially pretty boy coed Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), who always finds a way to smooth-talk his way out of Rupert's crosshairs. But despite his circa-early-2000s red leather pants, Rupert is an old soul at heart; his favorite (and hilariously oft-repeated) catchphrase is a pusher classic: ''Where is my money?'' —Katie Atkinson

Played By: Gary Cole

Cole brings the same inimitable blank-faced smarm to his murderous Pineapple drug kingpin that he does to his drawling, suspendered Office Space boss Bill Lumbergh: "Yeah, hi, so I'm gonna need you to collate those TPS reports, and also, if you could, just go ahead and shoot that narc in the back of the head and bury his body in the killing fields, mmmkayyyy? Also, Friday is Hawaiian shirt day." —L.G.

Played by: Robert Davi

Bond villains are a flashy bunch. They tend to come with razor-sharp metal teeth or sleek bald heads and a pussycat on their lap. But Robert Davi's brutal cartel boss in 1989's License to Kill stands out for the banality of his evil (well, that and his Miami Vice-inspired wardrobe). Sanchez is more than just a narco-kingpin putting Timothy Dalton's 007 through his paces. He's a deliciously sick sadist, whether he's whipping Bond babe Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) or lowering Bond's pal into a shark tank. Plus, he's smart enough to have chosen a young Benicio Del Toro as one of his henchmen! Sanchez may not be the most cartoonish double-O adversary, but Davi makes him unforgettable. —Chris Nashawaty

Played by: Tchéky Karyo

Fouchet the French drug kingpin is a classic bad guy. But if his über-villainy isn't already completely obvious when he murders two associates in cold blood, the dude then knocks down a group of basketball players in wheelchairs during his escape from narc detectives Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Lowrey (Will Smith). —M.G.