Movie villains are everywhere in the films hitting the box office this week—from Victor Cherevin, who is played by Kenneth Branagh in the new film “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” to the mysterious secret kingpin in "Ride Along," which stars Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.

But where do these villains come from? And how do they change with our nation’s politics and major events?

In some cases, it’s easy to see where we get our villains from. During the Cold War era, we were always fighting Eastern Europeans, Germans, and Russians villains in films—consider Blofeld in “Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and other James Bond movies.

There was a period in the 1980s where villains were all scary urban drug lords from Latin America, or homemade right here in the USA—think Hector the Toad with his chainsaw in “Scarface.”

We’ve had more than a few North Korean villians in recent years. Who can forget the singing marionette version of Kim Jong Il in “Team America: World Police”?

And in films over the last year, like our new “Jack Ryan” movie, we return once again to the Russian supervillain.

Helping us to understand how our villains have evolved is James Furbush, he’s the founder of the Sly Oyster blog, and co-author of the essay “Hollywood’s Evil Men: A Symbol of America’s Collective Fears.”

And, as usual, the Movie Date team, Rafer Guzman and Kristen Meinzer, give their reviews of the new releases.