# The 14 Most Iconic Mad Scientists in Fiction

> Some built life in a lab, some built a time machine in a garage, and a few are cartoons. All of them should have stopped sooner.

*By YPB Team · Published September 22, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-14-most-iconic-mad-scientists-in-fiction*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Victor Frankenstein** — score 1000/1000
   Mary Shelley's Genevan student who builds and abandons a living creature in Frankenstein (1818).
2. **Professor Farnsworth** — score 847/1000
   Hubert Farnsworth, the ancient inventor who runs Planet Express in Futurama.
3. **Dr. Jekyll** — score 753/1000
   Robert Louis Stevenson's physician who drinks a potion and becomes Mr. Hyde.
4. **Dr. Frank-N-Furter** — score 652/1000
   Tim Curry's sweet transvestite who builds Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
5. **Rick Sanchez** — score 652/1000
   The alcoholic, dimension-hopping genius of the animated series Rick and Morty.
6. **Dr. Henry Wu** — score 652/1000
   The geneticist who engineers the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and its hybrids.
7. **Doctor Octopus** — score 565/1000
   Otto Octavius, the Spider-Man villain fused to four mechanical arms.
8. **Rotwang** — score 462/1000
   The inventor who builds the robot Maria in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis.
9. **Dr. Moreau** — score 462/1000
   H.G. Wells' vivisectionist who turns animals into beast-men on his island.
10. **Dr. Strangelove** — score 462/1000
   Peter Sellers' wheelchair-bound nuclear strategist in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satire.
11. **Dr. Doofenshmirtz** — score 339/1000
   Heinz Doofenshmirtz, the bumbling inator-builder from Phineas and Ferb.
12. **Herbert West** — score 0/1000
   The reanimator from H.P. Lovecraft's story and the 1985 cult film Re-Animator.
13. **Seth Brundle** — score 0/1000
   Jeff Goldblum's teleportation pioneer who fuses with an insect in The Fly (1986).
14. **Dexter** — score 0/1000
   The boy genius with a secret basement lab in Dexter's Laboratory.

Tags: movies, sci-fi, characters, fiction, mad scientists