Decepticons: Names, Leader and Members in the Transformers Movies

Megatron is the Decepticons leader, voiced by Frank Welker in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), and in Transformers One he begins life as a miner named D-16. In the 2007 film, voiced by Hugo Weaving, he crashes on Earth during the hunt for the AllSpark and freezes in the Arctic, where Captain Archibald Witwicky finds him in 1897. Sector 7 later studies the frozen body at the Hoover Dam. The film ends with Sam Witwicky driving the AllSpark into Megatron's chest, which destroys both the cube and the villain's leader.

He does not stay down. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) his followers revive him, and the Fallen orders him to kill Optimus Prime and capture Sam. He escapes with Starscream when Optimus kills the Fallen. In Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) he joins forces with Sentinel Prime, and Optimus Prime kills both of them. By Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) Megatron's forces team up with the government to take the talisman that Cade Yeager carries, Megatron kills Sir Edmund Burton at Stonehenge, and Optimus defeats him once more.

The origin story flips all of that. In Transformers One, D-16 learns that Sentinel Prime stole the cog of his hero Megatronus Prime, accidentally shoots his best friend Orion Pax, kills Sentinel and takes Megatronus's cog, naming himself Megatron. Optimus Prime exiles him, and he turns the exiled High Guard into a new faction, with Megatronus's face as its symbol. Brian Tyree Henry voices D-16 and Megatron there. More detail is on the megatron transformers page.

Starscream is the villain who walks away from fights that kill his bosses. He appears in Transformers (2007), voiced by Charlie Adler, and as a High Guard leader in Transformers One, voiced by Steve Buscemi. In Revenge of the Fallen he flees the battle at the Giza pyramids alongside Megatron, so both of them leave the field alive while the Fallen dies.

In Transformers One, the High Guard is the Primes' old army, now rebelling against Sentinel Prime, and Starscream is its leader until D-16 beats him and takes charge. Sentinel's forces later capture D-16, B-127 and Starscream together. The role is small, but it puts Starscream next to Megatron at the point where the faction forms. The character page for starscream transformers covers him in full.

The Fallen outranks Megatron in Revenge of the Fallen, but he is not the permanent leader of the faction. The film explains that seven Primes once harvested suns for energy, and one of them broke the rule by trying to destroy Earth's sun, which is how he became the Fallen. Tony Todd voices the character.

Once Megatron is revived, the Fallen orders him to kill Optimus Prime and take Sam Witwicky, who holds the knowledge of where to find a lost Matrix of Leadership. Optimus is killed protecting Sam while the villains strike around the world. At the Giza pyramids, where a giant machine is hidden to destroy the sun, Sam is killed, the old Primes tell him he can bring Optimus back, and Jetfire gives up his own body to join with Optimus. A newly powered Optimus then destroys the machine and kills the Fallen. In the other films Megatron leads, so the Fallen is better read as a one film overlord than as the standing head of the group.

Galvatron is Megatron rebuilt, and the movies have done it twice. In The Transformers: The Movie (1986), the planet-sized Transformer Unicron rebuilds the broken Megatron as the more powerful Galvatron, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, and sends him to bring back the Matrix of Leadership. Galvatron seizes the Matrix, but Unicron swallows him as well, and Hot Rod uses the Matrix to become Rodimus Prime and destroy Unicron.

The second version is a different build. In Age of Extinction, the tech company KSI melts down fallen Transformers to make drone soldiers for the CIA man Harold Attinger, and one of them is built from Megatron's remains. Frank Welker voices this Galvatron, who breaks free of Joshua Joyce's control, takes over the drones and builds an army of his own. In the end he retreats and swears he will come back. See galvatron transformers for the character page.

Sentinel Prime is the former Autobot leader who betrays his side in Dark of the Moon and sides with Megatron. Leonard Nimoy voices him. The Autobots find him on the Moon, aboard the Ark that crashed there in 1962, along with five Pillars that can create a Space Bridge. Once he is revived, he secretly turns on the Autobots, hoping to save the dying Cybertron.

Megatron's side then uses the Pillars to start pulling Cybertron toward Earth, and they invade Chicago. Bumblebee destroys the Control Pillar that holds the plan together, and Optimus Prime kills both Megatron and Sentinel. Transformers One gives the name a separate use: Jon Hamm voices a Sentinel Prime who is the leader of Iacon and who murdered the real Primes to take the Matrix, until D-16 kills him. The sentinel prime transformers page compares both versions.

Bumblebee (2018) strips the villains down to three: Blitzwing, Shatter and Dropkick. Blitzwing is the first to find B-127 in California, taking his voice box and scrambling his memory before B-127 destroys him.

Shatter, voiced by Angela Bassett, and Dropkick, voiced by Justin Theroux, follow the signal that the Volkswagen Beetle sends out when Charlie Watson starts it. Their trick is political rather than physical: they persuade Sector 7 that the Autobots are the real threat, which turns the military into their hunting party. The plan ends at a harbor tower, where they try to call in reinforcements. Bumblebee and Charlie stop the call, Dropkick is torn apart and Shatter is crushed under a cargo ship in the flood. The full story is on the bumblebee movie page.

Airachnid is Sentinel Prime's lieutenant in Transformers One, voiced by Vanessa Liguori, and she serves him before the faction exists. She ambushes Orion Pax, D-16, B-127 and Elita-1 after they meet Alpha Trion, and she captures Alpha Trion, whom Sentinel then executes.

Her arc turns near the end. Orion, Elita-1 and B-127 capture her and broadcast her memory recordings across the city, which turns the people against Sentinel. The proof that finally lands comes from a villain's own memory rather than from the chip that was destroyed earlier. The film can be found at transformers one.

Scourge is the herald of Unicron in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, voiced by Peter Dinklage, and he leads the Terrorcons. He is sent to take the Transwarp Key, a device that opens portals, after Unicron attacks the Maximals' homeworld.

In the film's 1994 setting, Scourge and his Terrorcons attack, and he takes the key after killing Bumblebee, who is later brought back online. In Peru he corrupts the Maximal Airazor, who begs Optimus Primal to kill her, then rejoins the two halves of the key and opens a portal for Unicron. Optimus Prime destroys the key and collapses the portal, leaving Unicron stranded. The film is covered in more detail at transformers rise of the beasts.

The Decepticons and Autobots are two sides of one civil war, and in my opinion Transformers One explains that better than any other film. In that movie Orion Pax and D-16 are best friends and miners in Iacon, where a robot's place depends on whether it has a transformation cog. The split comes from a betrayal by Sentinel Prime and a fight over whether to kill him, not from a simple good and evil divide, and Optimus Prime exiles Megatron and his followers only after the Matrix is passed to Orion.

The live action films then play the result as a war over objects. In Transformers (2007) both sides want the AllSpark, and in Dark of the Moon the Pillars drive the plot. After the Chicago battle the Autobots stay on Earth as protectors, and in The Last Knight they leave to rebuild Cybertron. It could be argued that Megatron's side is the more consistent one: he is the name that keeps returning, whether he is freezing in the Arctic, answering to the Fallen, rebuilt as Galvatron or exiled in Transformers One, while the Autobots change allies, humans and homes. For the order to watch them in, see transformers movies in order, and for the story laid out in sequence see the transformers timeline.

My top five villains are Megatron, Galvatron, Starscream, the Fallen and Sentinel Prime, and this is opinion, based on how much each one changes the plot of the film they are in. Sentinel is an Autobot who switches sides, so he sits at the bottom with a caveat.

1. Megatron. He is the only one whose story covers the origin in Transformers One, the Arctic introduction in 2007 and the final fight of The Last Knight. Hugo Weaving, Frank Welker and Brian Tyree Henry have all voiced him, and the character holds up through every change.
2. Galvatron. Two different films rebuild Megatron from wreckage, once under Unicron and once at KSI, and each version has a clear job in its plot.
3. Starscream. He shows up in 2007, Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers One, and he escapes alongside Megatron when the Fallen dies. That kind of survival gives a supporting villain real weight.
4. The Fallen. He is the one master who gives Megatron orders, with a backstory about seven Primes and the sun.
5. Sentinel Prime. His betrayal in Dark of the Moon is the strongest twist of the saga, helped by Leonard Nimoy's voice.

If you want to follow the faction from its start, begin with Transformers One and then work through the transformers movies ranked list or the transformers characters index.