Let's talk about storytelling.
Humans have a long history of making stories. From the first cave drawings made thousands of years ago to modern cinema and filmmaking, humans have always been obsessed with storytelling, telling others about the culmination of their ideas, thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
For a big chunk of modern storytelling, though, you’ll almost always notice a common theme, that being of protagonist and antagonist, hero and villain, good and bad. Some stories bring a stark contrast between the two opposing forces, black and white, so to speak. Some stories blur the line more, a shade of muted gray. And some stories are just weird (What could have been the discussion when DC wrote "The Batman Who Laughs"?).
For the majority of the audience, though, one thing is always consistent: We’re much more interested in the villain of the story.
Don’t believe me? Take one of the most famous action movies of all time, The Terminator. We remember the evil robot that kills people, but willing to bet a good chunk of you can’t name the person that the robot is trying to kill (it’s Sarah Connor, by the way).
Or you can take something lighter. In Gravity Falls, it’s not Dipper or Stanely or Mabel who’s the most famous. No, you remember and recognize the source of the conflict, everyone’s favorite mass-murdering triangle, Bill Cipher. 
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You could name endless other examples. Norman Bates from Psycho. Frankenstein’s monster from Frankenstein.
Pennywise from It. AM from I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream. Pyramid Head from Silent Hill. Heck, one of the only mainline stories I can think of that deviates somewhat from the pattern is the Resident Evil franchise, but that’s just because Leon Kennedy is Leon Kennedy.
But why is this phenomenon real? What makes villains more intriguing and more interesting than the apparent heroes of the story?
That’s a great question I’m sure you just asked.
Let’s see if we can’t answer it!
The first general reason I can think of is that villains are generally written, acted out, or created with more complexity and depth than your average hero. Why is that?
Well the reasoning is fairly simple. To make a good villain now, you need to think outside of the box. You need to do something new, do something that’s been done before in a new way, do something no one’s ever thought of before, do something that has been done before in a way that’s technically the same but different enough, and every single other variation of that.
What do I mean? Let’s take an example. Say you have a villain who wants to destroy a city.
Pretty standard. But to make him a good villain, you need to come up with reasoning. Why does he want to destroy the city? Was it because of his crappy childhood? Does he hate the system? Is he just bored? All of these reasons are plain and boring normally, but once they’re expanded on, that’s when they’re more interesting.
As a result, villains typically have more content, lore, and backstories, more stuff to look into, than our protagonists and heroes. The aforementioned Bill Cipher has a whole separate book called The Book of Bill which serves as an autobiography, detailing extensive lore.
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A lot of the time, villains are also just more relatable. They have either relatable backstories or motives a lot of people can identify with, just more extreme and often more brutal. For instance, people have argued that Scar had a point for a while.
His vision for the kingdom was brutal, but people have argued it was more progressive and inclusive than Mufasa’s elitist society. People also related to his motives and inner conflicts of feeling overlooked and his jealousy towards his sibling.
Alright, so we’ve covered what makes villains cool. But what makes heroes, so to speak, uncool?
Well, sometimes they’re boring. A lot of the time, they’re either naturally righteous, overpowered, or get everything handed to them on a silver platter (Cough, Superman, cough), or a bland, generic protagonist that’s just a punching bag for the antagonist(s). Hal Jordan (Green Lantern from DC), for instance, is criticized for being kind of bland or boring.
Meg Griffin from Family Guy is just a punching bag. Sam from Look Outside is literally an unemployed gamer, although since it’s a choice based game, you kinda get to mold his character. I may be critiquing characters, but credit’s due where credit is due.
So, yeah, there you go. We find villains more interesting because we have more to go off of. Heroes now mostly seem boring and bland in comparison to the complexity of the antagonist.
Of course, I'd argue there are exceptions. If a franchise presents a case where the protagonist(s) fight a series of villains and enemies over several movies or games (John Wick, Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Doctor Who, etc.), then of course the main character becomes more interesting because of his/her's increased screen time and experiences. We grow alongside them.
The theme varies from show to show and series to series, evidently, but it's certainly interesting to see villains growing more interesting over time. Maybe over time heroes will grow more interesting, too! I can't wait to see some good character development from...What's that?
Oh, a Marvel character got a character arc? Who? Thor?
Love that guy! What's the movie?
...Thor: Love and Thunder?
Nevermind. Villains all the way.
