History Main / BountyHunter

* ''Anime/OutlawStar'' deconstructs several aspects of the trope. Gene Starwind and his kid partner Jim are technically odd-job men rather than bounty hunters, not least because [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome bounties occur far too infrequently for them to make a living on hunting alone]]. And in the rare case where a bounty is put out, the reward they get is usually far less than the trouble they spent on it. In the end, most of their time is spent on unrelated activities like treasure-hunting and squaring off against the pirate clans.

* Many {{MMORPG}}s have a large proportion of their {{Side Quest}}s involve collecting bounties on named monsters or [=NPCs=].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}} series:

* The Regulators in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' are bounty killers who target evildoers and turn in their {{fing|ore}}ers for caps. Players with very good karma can join them, while evil players will be hunted by them. The Talon Company Mercs likewise are hired to hunt down players who do [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished too many good deeds]].
* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', the player can pursue bounties for [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Fiend]] leaders for the NCR, who will pay for their heads. The catch is that the player must leave the head intact and recognizable (IE no [[BoomHeadshot headshots]] or any attacks that [[LudicrousGibs gibs]][=/=]disintegrates them) or else the Major in charge of the bounties can't verify them and cannot pay you full price.

* ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'': The beginning of the remastered version reveals that one of Kyril's means of income is pursuing infamous orc warlords with ostentatious names. To get his bounty, he heads to the bounty board, [[DecapitationPresentation presents their heads]], and gets his gold.

The Bounty Hunter is increasingly popular in SpeculativeFiction ever since [[Franchise/StarWars Boba Fett]] made it cool. It helps that space is thought of as '''another''' "frontier," and Western tropes [[SpaceWestern go well with science fiction]]. And since it's so cool, most often bounty hunters in fiction are depicted as extremely skilled individuals and will prove a challenge for the main characters unless they are either there just to show us how overpowered our hero is or if the bounty hunters are themselves the main character(s).

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': In "Bounty", Captain Archer is captured by a Tellarite bounty hunter who wants to hand him over to the Klingons in exchange for enough money to buy back his spaceship. [[spoiler:Archer eventually convinces the Tellarite to give him the means of escaping the Klingon cell once he's been handed over.]]
** Before that, Series/StarTrekVoyager featured the Hazari, an alien species from the Delta Quadrant who's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is bounty hunting.

* The ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe has numerous Bounty Hunters; the most infamous is known simply as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Bounty Hunter]], an enigmatic figure who never shows his face and rarely speaks. He's famous for his relentless nature, for never once letting a bounty escape, his unfailing loyalty to his employer, and his signature emerald-green ''Marauder'' Battlemech. In truth, the Bounty Hunter is a legacy of individuals who have been passing the title (and Mech) for over a century.
** [[spoiler:Recently, the Bounty Hunter betrayed his employer and seems to have been replaced by an impersonator]].

* ''Anime/OutlawStar'' deconstructs several aspects of the trope. Gene Starwind and his kid partner Jim are technically odd-job men rather than bounty hunters, not least because [[PerpetualPoverty bounties occur far too infrequently for them to make a living on hunting alone]]. And in the rare case where a bounty is put out, the reward they get is usually far less than the trouble they spent on it. In the end, most of their time is spent on unrelated activities like treasure-hunting and squaring off against the pirate clans.

The bounty hunter is one of the most diverse roles and depending on their choices (and their employers) they can be ''anything''. Sometimes the Bounty Hunter is a villain, a sadist who profits off the death and suffering of others and who couldn't care less about justice. In that case, the best they can possibly be is a NominalHero who may hunt villains and do the right thing for all the wrong reasons. If that's the case then it is almost guaranteed that they will come in conflict with the heroes either because their head promises the biggest paycheck or because they want to be the one to capture the criminal and won't hesitate to kill and become a criminal over it themself. Sometimes they’re a GlorySeeker who wants to bring down the toughest targets. More often, though, they are just a working stiff who tries to do the right thing -- or something close to it. Buried deep within they’re grizzled, world-weary exterior is still an idealist with a heart of gold. Because there is nothing that prevents a Bounty Hunter from taking both legal and shady bounties, this character is usually a LawfulNeutral.

The Bounty Hunter is increasingly popular in SpeculativeFiction ever since [[Franchise/StarWars Boba Fett]] made it cool. It helps that space is thought of as ''another'' "frontier", and Western tropes [[SpaceWestern go well with science fiction]]. And since it's so cool, most often bounty hunters in fiction are depicted as extremely skilled individuals and will prove a challenge for the main characters unless they are either there just to show us how overpowered our hero is or if the bounty hunters are themselves the main character(s).

* ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} was employed to hunt down unregistered superheroes, for about an hour, during ComicBook/CivilWar. Then he was sacked, mainly thanks to Cable. It didn't help that the first heroes he went after were the ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers, who were ''registered''.

* Bounty hunters are fairly commonplace in the Cursed Earth in ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'', due to the legal structure of the region being a ''lot'' looser than in Mega City One. A couple of them are even ex Judges, one of whom is on his Long Walk having [[DrinkingOnDuty taken to the bottle on the job]] and being forced to resign and another who was exiled for a minor mutation that led to her having a third kidney.

* DC also had a comic called ''ComicBook/{{Manhunter}}'' about a superpowered bounty hunter that retrieves super villains who jumped their bond, strictly for the money.

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' series of graphic novels, the Saint of Killers spent a while working as a Headhunter in the old west, long before transmuting into the ImplacableMan he is today...

* After ComicBook/SheHulk's disbarment in her late-2000s series, she became a Bounty Hunter employed by a bail bonds company owned by her former law firm.

* ComicBook/SheHulk worked as one for a time, alongside the undying Skrull Jazinda.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* Former Wrestling/{{ECW}} wrestler Wrestling/NewJack claimed to have been a bounty hunter in RealLife and that he committed four justifiable homicides. However [[TakeOurWordForIt there is no outside evidence that proves either one of these claims to be true.]]

* Before the creation of modern police in England, there were the thief takers, who tracked down and captured criminals for a reward. This system suffered from deep corruption though. Some thief takers such as Jonathan Wylde (who styled himself "Thief Taker General") were major underworld figures themselves, taking bribes to ''not'' apprehend certain criminals, blackmailing people whom they discovered compromising information on due to their connections, while turning in rivals. Others outright [[FrameUp framed people]] to take the reward. These scandals led to the abolition of the thief takers and the (eventual) creation of Scotland Yard, then more police forces around the country (though naturally they had [[DirtyCop corruption problems]] at times too).

* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'''s Bridget is a self proclaimed bounty hunter. However, he's not exactly very competent at it. His only real successful bounty to date happened to consist of innocent people (in Bridget's defense, the bounties were given to him under false pretenses). Ky Kiske only paid him due to feeling bad for the poor little guy.

* ''Film/TheNightOfTheGrizzly': Cass Dowdy will hunt for any man or beast (like a killer grizzly bear) if the price is high enough. He worked alongside Big Jim Cole and Sam Potts back when they were lawmen, but Cole claims that he'd sometimes gun down unarmed fugitives, and when one of those fugitives turned out to be innocent, Cass spent two years in prison. He resumed bounty hunting after being released from prison and wants revenge against Jim, although he is less interested in picking a fight with Big Jim than he is in claiming the bounty that Big Jim needs to save his property from foreclosure.

* The Warriors of the Organization in ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'' function a lot like the example of ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'' below. When a yoma preys on a settlement, the citizens round up money and make a request to the Organization. They dispatch a Warrior who slays the yoma and one of the handlers appears later to pick up the money. Reasonably, if the Warrior is slain, the Organization does not collect the fee until another Warrior successfully completes the mission. Blurring the lines of the trope, however, is the fact that while the Warriors do seem to have money (Clare once dumped a huge sum on Raki's lap when she was assigned to fight an Awakened One and Theresa could afford rather fancy clothes for a certain TagalongKid), they do not actually seem to want or even need the money. Their job is to kill yoma; it's what they do. Various motivations have been shown, but a pure mercenary motive has yet to be evident in any of the Warriors.

* ''LightNovel/VampireHunterD'' is a sort of the old west-style bounty hunter - [[VampireHunter albeit of a very specific type of quarry]]. Though as the books and {{The Movie}}s went on, he evolved from bounty hunter to a mercenary, or even an odd-job man. There's other bounty hunters in the canon, but they're usually of the sadistic type.

* In ''Film/GangOfRoses'', Zhang Li became a bounty hunter after the gang split up. She agrees to join with Rachel to collect the bounties on Left Eye and his gang.

See also: FauxbaFett, InspectorJavert, PriceOnTheirHead and WantedPoster.

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' has several, such as the FauxbaFett siblings [=SixSix=], [=SevenSeven=], and [=EightEight=], the [[WeCanRebuildHim cyborg]] crab alien Krabb, and the GoodAllAlong Tetrax.

* Before the creation of modern police in England, there were the thief takers, who tracked down and captured criminals for a reward. This system suffered from deep corruption though. Some thief takers such as Jonathan Wylde (who styled himself "Thief Taker General") were major underworld figures themselves, taking bribes to ''not'' apprehend certain criminals, blackmailing people whom they discovered compromising information on due to their connections, while turning in rivals. Others outright [[FrameUp framed people]] to take the reward. These scandals led to the abolition of the thief takers and the (eventual) creation of the Scotland Yard.

* In R.S Belcher's ''The Brotherhood of the Wheel'', the Blue Jocks are a Scottish-American Motorcycle Club. The Blue Jocks are members of the Brethren, the combat branch of descendants of the Knights Templar. To make ends meet, the Blue Jocks are also bounty hunters when they aren't fighting monsters and serial killers near the highways. They're so resource-strapped they had to trade one of their prized motorcycles to a gang of skinheads in return for a military flamethrower for monster fighting.