Movies/franchises with their own pages:
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Films — Animation
- Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: Jafar passes up an opportunity to kill Aladdin, and in circumstances where he could have gotten around the rule preventing genies from killing (since Abis Mal is the one who pushes Aladdin off the waterfall) in order to discredit and humiliate him for the Sultan's murder. Despite that, he still nearly succeeds!
- Edgar in The Aristocats. Gee, leaving a bunch of cats out on the countryside to get rid of them, wonder if they'll find their way back! In Real Life, cats are known to be able to find their way back to their owners from extreme distances, but since Edgar is Too Dumb to Live he probably does not know this. This should explain why he simply assumed the cats would outlive him after taking the old saying that cats have nine lives literally and multiplying nine by their expected lifespan, an assumption that got the plot moving in the first place.
- Az Erdő Kapitánya: When Zéró finds Góliát in his secret hideout, instead of killing him, he mails him back to the police just to rub it in Kapitány's face. Perhaps Zéró hoped that pushing a stamp on Góliát would kill him, but the flea survives and tells the police the location of the hideout.
- BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui: After Makuta, Nidhiki and Krekka have killed off all but one of the guardian Toa, they leave Lhikan alive, locked in a cell that has a thin wall with a tunnel behind it, with no guards. Even after capturing three of Lhikan's successor Toa, they put them in the same cell, with no regard to what their Elemental Powers or mask powers could do — sure enough, thanks to Lhikan's training, they escape. Makuta only needed Vakama alive until he finished the Mask of Time, the rest were of no use to him. The book series tried to justify this, explaining that Makuta secretly arranged for Vakama's team to become Toa, believing they're too incompetent to succeed even if left alive. He was initially proven right, the Toa couldn't stop phase 1 of his plan, but it turned out they were destined to defeat him, and they do.
- BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows: Invoked, exploited and inadvertently played straight by Roodaka who dissuades Sidorak from killing the Toa on sight, convincing him the event needs to be spectacular, the Toa should be deformed before being killed and their bodies kept as proof (in reality, she just wants the bodies for her own needs). Thus they wait until the Toa are mutated by venom and plummet from their tower, neither of them bothering to stay and check if they've hit the ground. This gives the six Rahaga enough time to rescue the Toa. The villains do this again when they capture five Rahaga, keeping them tied and hung from their tower despite knowing they can fly. Sidorak even plans to put them in a cage but never does. They're of course freed and fly away when no one's looking. The novelization at least alluded to a reason for keeping the Rahaga alive, Sidorak and Roodaka had a shared past with them and they knew where the Mask of Light was, which the movie never explains.
- The Great Mouse Detective: Professor Ratigan has Basil in the ideal situation: bound in a Death Trap, demoralized from being outwitted, and helpless. However, instead of staying to watch the death trap go off, Ratigan just leaves Basil to his fate. It's justified, since Ratigan wanted to stay and watch Basil get splatted beneath an anvil, but has to leave before he gets the chance because Basil arrived fifteen minutes later than Ratigan expected. It does make one wonder though why Ratigan couldn't have left one of his henchmen behind at the scene to act as a guard to make sure the trap works or if it fails then the guard can kill Basil as soon as the detective escapes.
- Played with in Frozen. The Duke of Weaseltown (IT'S WESELTON!) can't justify sending his men out to kill Elsa for witchcraft until after it looks like she did something to Anna, because, y'know, offing another country's queen is a big deal (ice powers notwithstanding). When the "rescue group" finds her, though, Hans, being the Nice Guy he is, tries to peacefully keep Elsa and the soldiers from killing each other. When he takes her prisoner later, even though everyone thinks that killing her will stop the eternal winter, he still promises to try to save her. We then get a very nasty justification. He just saved Elsa to continue to uphold his façade of being a kind, gentle man. In reality, he intended to murder her from the start so he could marry Anna and be king. It was only a question of when he'd do it and, by waiting until he could frame Elsa for Anna's death, he could kill her, take the throne, and look heroic the entire time.
- In The Incredibles, Syndrome has a few opportunities to kill the Parrs, but he squanders them all by talking. Discussed by Lucius as he relates his fight with Baron Von Ruthless who, despite having him "on a platter", never shut up, giving him an opportunity to recover and win.
- The Lion King:
- Scar really should have known better than to trust the Hyenas to kill Simba. Also, whispering to Simba that he indeed killed Mufasa wasn't too bright, as it led to Simba's Heroic Second Wind.
- On the Hyenas' side, when Scar orders them to go after Simba after Mufasa's death, Simba escapes through a bunch of brambles and into the desert; the Hyenas refuse to pursue him through said brambles, believing that Simba is as good as dead in the desert. To be fair, Simba would have died if Timon and Pumbaa hadn't found him.
- Throughout My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks the Dazzlings have Canterlot High in the palm of their hands due to how smart they were, and ultimately manages to regain their lost power. Victory really is within their grasp, but after they knocks down the Rainbooms during the final showdown, they suddenly stop and stand still floating above their foes instead of trying to finish them off while they are down, which gives the Rainbooms the opportunity to get back up and counterattack with the aid of Sunset Shimmer. By the time they do decide to attack it is already too late and the heroes' counterspell is cast, freeing everyone from their control and summoning their alicorn avatar to destroy their magic pendants.
- Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers has Pete doing this to Mickey. This is notable in that he averts this with Goofy and Donald Duck, who he flat out attempts to kill.
- Deconstructed in Megamind as when Megamind kills Metro Man (or so he believes), he soon grows bored with his unchallenged villainy, which soon causes him to decide to create a hero.
Films — Live-Action
- In a non-lethal example, in the final face-off in 8 Mile, Papa Doc makes the grave, and just plain stupid mistake of letting B. Rabbit go first. Big mistake, as it lets Rabbit take away every single possible verbal weapon Doc might have used against his opponent, thus losing him the battle.
- The Assignment (2016): Dr. Rachel Jane, instead of killing Frank (possibly after extended surgical torture) subjects him to an involuntary sex reassignment and leaves him alive that way, with ample ability to track her down. Later, when her mooks catch him, they also didn't search him at all it seems since they miss his hidden gun which he uses to shoot them after waking up.
- Spoofed and lampshaded in the Austin Powers movies, where Scott Evil is quite offended by Dr. Evil's insistence on dining with his titular arch-nemesis, instead of shooting him in the head on sight.
- In the first movie, Dr. Evil has Austin and Vanessa Kensington on an "unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism" over a pit of mutant seabass. (He wanted sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams attached to their heads, but his organization couldn't clear up the red tape.) Right after that, Dr. Evil refuses to watch, just assuming that it's all going to go to plan. Scott lampshades the ridiculousness of it, saying that there's a gun in his room, and it would only take seconds to shoot them. Dr. Evil then remarks that Scott just doesn't get it.
- In the second movie, Dr. Evil unveils his time machine, which he plans to use to go back in time to when Austin was still frozen and steal his Mojo, thus rendering him incapable of foiling his plans — Scott quickly points out that it would be much simpler and more effective to just kill him, to which Dr. Evil responds with "how about no?" without elaborating further.
- Later in the film, Dr. Evil has Austin and Felicity Shagwell over a pit of molten lava. Austin concocts a crazy scheme to try and escape, but Felicity just flashes her boobs at the guard, and they escape. Notably, soon after this, Dr. Evil does order his guards to just shoot Austin, but Austin kills them all first.
- In the third movie, Dr. Evil tries to kill Austin's father Nigel Powers with the classic "cutting in half with a laser beam" schtick, but it moves so slow that Nigel has time for some Casual Danger Dialogue.
- Batman & Robin: Robin survives Poison Ivy's kiss and reveals to her he was wearing rubber lips. Robin is still sitting right next to Ivy as he says this with their faces still only a few inches apart, but instead of grabbing Robin and giving him another more forceful and less romantic kiss to kill him for sure she just glares at him for tricking her and shoves him off her throne and into the pond to drown him instead. Then instead of staying to make sure Robin drowns so her plans remain a secret she attempts to leave, just saying a mocking "see ya!" to Robin. It's like she was treating the whole thing like she was breaking up with Robin instead of trying to kill him.
- Subverted in the 1997 movie version of Le Bossu. After a long sword fight, the hero gets cornered by some soldiers and the Psycho for Hire. From what we have seen earlier, it will be difficult, but possible for him to escape. At this moment, the villain, exasperated by the long fight, steps up to the Psycho for Hire, draws his gun, asks why they can't do it "quick, modern and effective" and shoots the hero, who only survives because of his Plot Armor.
- Had Bane chosen to end Batman's life in their first confrontation in The Dark Knight Rises, he and Talia al Ghul would have succeeded in their plan to destroy Gotham City. Batman even asks Bane in prison when he first woke up: "Why don't you just kill me?" to which Bane replies, "You don't fear death. You welcome it. Your punishment must be more severe." Later, Talia monologues at length to Bruce about how much better revenge is when it's done slowly, giving the heroes enough time to block her remote triggering of a nuclear bomb. Bruce lampshades this shortly after, responding, "maybe the slow knife was too slow." Once Talia leaves Bane, having learned his lesson, he ignores her order to let him live and tries to kill him then and there; only Catwoman's Big Damn Heroes arrival saves him. The villains do have a justification of sorts, since torturing Batman for revenge was actually their main objective — they do want to destroy the city as well, but it's secondary to that.
- Death Warrant: Almost immediately after the Sandman arrives in the prison, he has his admirers gang up on Burke in a surprise attack to string him up and kill him. Then the Sandman suddenly decides to let Burke go so he "won't know when it's coming", despite having just achieved exactly that.
- Simon in Die Hard with a Vengeance handcuffs John McClane and Zeus to a bomb on a ship and leaves them to die, instead of shooting them and blowing up the ship after.
- Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler: Mabuse never tries to kill von Wenk by simple, efficient methods. This leads to his downfall.
- In The Expendables 2, Vilain captures the entire team of Expendables and lets almost all of them go for no apparent reason. The only one he kills is the youngest and most inexperienced member.
- In Flash Gordon (1980), Ming the Merciless(!) disembarks onto the Hawkmen's floating city (evacuated except for Flash) and has a conversation with Flash, offering him a kingdom of Mongo to rule for himself. After Flash refuses, instead of simply ordering his bodyguards to dispatch the hero, Ming leaves and has his ship's guns blast the city into oblivion. While the city is reeling from the blasts, Flash conveniently falls into a hole where he discovers a rocket cycle.
- John Wick: About halfway through the film, Big Bad Viggo Tarasov manages to hit the title character — whom he knows better than anyone is the world's deadliest and most thoroughly pissed-off assassin — with a car, knocking him unconscious. Had he simply put a bullet in John's brain then and there, it would have been the end of it. Instead, he has him dragged away for execution by plastic bag. No prizes for guessing how this turns out.
- Johnny Mnemonic:
- After Johnny regains consciousness from a Tap on the Head and finds himself strapped to a table in the back of Ralfi's club, Shinji explains the orders he has been given to cut off Johnny's head and freeze it—orders he could have reasonably carried out at any time mere moments prior, while Johnny was still unconscious, instead of waiting for Johnny to wake up and explaining the situation he is in. Consequently, this gives Jane time to intervene before Shinji can carry out his orders.
- Baldy spends significant time taunting J-Bone when he catches the LoTek leader at a disadvantage, giving Johnny time to sneak up on Baldy and attack him from behind.
- In Jupiter Ascending, Titus vents Caine into the vacuum of space in an attempt to kill him, but leaves him his jet boots and allows him to kick a crate filled with instant-space suits that get vented along with him, thus allowing Caine to survive until the Aegis arrive to rescue him. Not only was it a sloppy attempt to murder him, it was also completely unnecessary, as there was nothing Caine could do to thwart Titus when he was merely imprisoned.
- Done no fewer than three times with the Bride over the course of Kill Bill
- In Vol. 1, after getting it very close to right the first time by shooting Beatrix in the head, Bill calls off Elle's attempt to kill her while comatose after she unexpectedly survives.
- In Vol. 2, she is injured and disabled relatively easily, but rather than kill her on the spot, Budd chooses to bury her alive, giving her the chance to dig her way out and come back for seconds. Subverted in that Budd is completely consumed with guilt over his past actions and figured that it's right that she escapes his trap and comes to kill him. Also subverted in how Budd is already dead by the time she gets to him, as Elle took advantage of her apparent death to kill him.
- Later in Vol. 2, Bill has her at his mercy for quite some period of time but doesn't kill her. Partly justified in that instance in that he wanted information from her; there's also an implication that he (like Budd) is not actually that bothered about living through the experience.
- Kingsman: The Secret Service:
- Played with. Valentine knows when to be practical. He simply shoots Harry in the head after a minimal exchange, lampshading his lack of this trait. That said, he does describe enough of his plan before killing Harry, which was broadcast via his glasses to the Kingsman, to allow them to figure out the rest of it.
- Unlike Valentine, who refuses to abide by the cliches of classic Tuxedo and Martini villains, Arthur does not appear to have paid much attention to them, as he explains the Evil Plan shortly before his death and falls for a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo. The victory of the heroes largely relied upon Arthur's lack of foresight.
- In The Last Dragon, media-obsessed villain Eddie Arkadian first plays this trope straight, stopping a minion from plugging the hero during a big staged fight because it would ruin "the show". But then at the end of the movie when the show is "over", he whips out his own gun, gives a short sneering speech about "all this kung-fu crap", and fires. The hero catches the bullet in his teeth.
- The villains twice have our heroine helpless in their power in The Long Kiss Goodnight, and fail to just shoot her. The first time is justified by their need to interrogate her in order to learn what she knows of their plans, but despite them knowing how dangerous she is, they leave only one guy to handle her and she easily kills him and escapes. The second time, full on Bond Villain Stupidity kicks in as the bad guys fully describe their evil scheme to her then leave her Locked in a Freezer while they take her partner out and debate whether to shoot or stab him. They don't have time as she manages to blow up the building, having filled her daughter's dolly with gasoline just in case she needed to set stuff on fire.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- At the start of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Scarlet Witch gets the drop on Tony, but instead of just using her powers to kill him (or hell, even just bashing him over the head with a heavy object), she lets him go so that he can create Ultron, reasoning that the Avengers will eventually tear themselves apart over this. A deleted scene even has Quicksilver angrily chastise her for letting Tony go after the two of them had spent years trying to find a way to kill him for what he did to their family.
- Ultron himself is guilty of this at several points, most notably when he keeps Black Widow alive just so he can monologue to her. Although at one point Ultron lures Tony into thinking he's going to spiel about his grand plans before just ending the conversation and initiating the fight instead.
- In Black Panther, Erik Killmonger overpowers T'Challa during their duel for the throne of Wakanda, but simply tosses him over the waterfall instead of killing him directly. This allows T'Challa to return later in the film and defeat Killmonger.
- Mission: Impossible Film Series:
- Mission: Impossible (1996): When the mole has Ethan at gunpoint he has a conversation with him and shoots his accomplice instead for looking like she cares for Ethan, after her role in the whole thing was to flirt with Ethan and try to get him romantically involved with her. While the original plan was to frame Ethan for the mole's actions he already knows Ethan has ruined that, so him fleeing and giving Ethan a chance to kill him is not the best idea.
- Mission: Impossible III: After Ethan has already stolen and handed over the "Rabbit's Foot", and confirming its authenticity through torturing Ethan and shooting his wife in front of him Davian wants to beat Ethan rather than just killing him while also revealing that the woman he shot wasn't actually Jules and that he still has Jules captive in a nearby building, giving Ethan a chance and motivation to escape.
- The Mummy (1999): After regaining his full power, Imhotep has the heroes completely surrounded by his mooks. He orders the mooks to kill the heroes and then... turns around and leaves. There was absolutely no reason why he wouldn't kill them himself or at least stayed for a few more minutes and made sure they were dead. Obviously the heroes immediately escape through a convenient manhole.
- In Quigley Down Under, Quigley has rejected Marston's offer to hire him to kill the local aborigines. Marston has his goons beat him into unconsciousness. It would be easy to simply shoot Quigley in the head, bury him in a shallow grave, and tell the British soldiers that he went back to port. But that would mean the movie would only be a half-hour long, so Marston decides to have his men take him into the middle of the Australian desert and leave him to die of exposure. Inevitably, this backfires spectacularly. As if that wasn't enough, he captures Quigley AGAIN, decides he's going to beat him in an Old West style quickdraw, and gives the man a fully-loaded pistol. Fortunately, Quigley never much cared for pistols...
- In Raiders of the Lost Ark, after stealing the titular ark, Belloq leaves Indy and Marion to die in the snake-infested Well of Souls. Less than an hour later, our heroes have escaped the well, killed a bunch of Nazis, and reclaimed the ark.
- In Revenge (2017), Dimi has Jen dead to rights when her attempt to sneak up on him fails, but instead of just killing her then and there, he can't resist toying with her first, complete with lengthy Evil Gloating. It gives Jen enough time to grab his hunting knife and perform some impromptu eye surgery on him.
- Averted by Hoffman in Saw 3D. Once he gets Jill into the Reverse Bear Trap, he stands there and watches until she dies, which she notably didn't do when she put him in the same situation in the previous movie.
- In Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, Professor Moriarty originally intends to kill Holmes off quickly, but Holmes goads him into coming up with something "more creative," giving an example himself of the sort of death trap he would use if he had Moriarty at his mercy. Moriarty decides to prove his superior intelligence and creativity by... using the exact idea that Holmes just came up with! He does at least stick around to watch the death trap in action, and prepares to shoot Holmes when he decides it's taking too long; but he waits a bit longer than he should have, and Watson rescues Holmes Just in Time.
- In Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Katrina's stepmother has Katrina unconscious, isolated, and is armed with a pistol. Also, everyone believes the stepmother is dead, so no one would come looking for her later. Rather than just shooting Katrina, she decides to spend a lot of time summoning the Headless Horseman to do the job, giving Katrina plenty of time to wake up and run away (though granted the stepmother is hardly concerned when Katrina escapes, probably as she figures she's dead soon anyway).
- In Spider-Man, Green Goblin knocks out and captures Spider-Man, but neither kills him nor takes his mask off to see who he really is. Instead he asks Spider-Man to join him, and amazingly, he just leaves him alone to "think it over" after Spider-Man turns down the offer.
- Star Wars:
- Return of the Jedi: Jabba the Hutt meets his downfall thanks to a hefty dose of this. After Luke Skywalker makes it clear that he intends to spring Han Solo from his clutches, and successfully manages to kill Jabba's prized Rancor while completely unarmed, for some reason Jabba thinks it's a good idea to fly Luke and his whole posse of allies out into the middle of the desert to stage an elaborate execution at the pit of the great Sarlacc. Mind you, this is after he catches Leia trying to free Han while in disguise as the bounty hunter Boussh, and after he probably should have guessed that Chewbacca (who got in under the guise of being Leia's prisoner) was part of some kind of rescue plan. He doesn't even think to cuff Luke's hands before trying to feed him to the Sarlacc. Surprise, surprise: Luke and co. manage to stage an uprising and escape together.
- The Force Awakens: Because he's freaked out, Kylo decides that leaving Rey in a room with one stormtrooper is a great idea, despite the fact that he just learned she can use the Force, her powers are rapidly growing, and she has a knack for imitating Force powers. Like Ren's own mind powers.
- The Last Jedi: Despite clearly being able to kill Rey himself, Supreme Leader Snoke orders Kylo Ren to do it to demonstrate his conviction and loyalty. Kylo, who has forged a bond with Rey (thanks to Snoke's manipulations), instead chooses to kill Snoke.
- In The Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine sends a broadcast that announces his return to the galaxy with an armada of planet-killing Star Destroyers, which serves no real purpose other than removing the element of surprise. This subsequently leads to the entire chain of events that cause the Resistance, and later tens of thousands of volunteer soldiers, to destroy his fleet before it has the chance to leave Exegol.
- After John's cover is blown in Stone Cold, the bad guys put him into a chopper (which is vital part of their Evil Plan) where they plan to strap him with explosives and then drop him on unsuspecting cops below. He gets loose, some other guy gets blown to bits mid-air instead and the chopper crashes.
- In Superman: The Movie, Lex Luthor has Superman incapacitated by Kryptonite and unable to get out of his swimming pool. Then he leaves him, expecting him to die — even though he just learned that his girlfriend's mother lives in the town that one of his bombs is about to destroy. Somehow, he does not see her betrayal coming. He does this again in Superman Returns. He seems to think he's done a better job by actually shanking Superman with a Kryptonite shard and throwing him into the sea believing this time he would be as good as dead, but it just gives Lois a chance to find and rescue him.
- Annoyingly present in Terminator Salvation, when after luring John Connor into the heart of its main base, Skynet sends a single unarmed T-800 to dispatch our hero. Yeah. In a base probably full of hundreds of killer robots with guns, Skynet decides to send ONE unarmed unit to kill the hero. And it doesn't bother to send more armed killer robots after the fight drags out, with Connor getting backed up by Cyborg Marcus. Somewhat justified that the T-800 DID manage to critically wound John and if Marcus hadn't volunteered for a heart transplant, John probably would have died. Skynet doesn't even seem concerned when the fight spills into the T-800 assembly line, where countless Terminator power cores (I.E. easily set off miniature nuclear devices) lay for the humans to jury rig into a bomb that will destroy the entire base if they manage to defeat that lone T-800 you sent to kill them.
- Total Recall (1990) has an instance at the end of the second act which could possibly be intentional. Vilos Cohaagen has just gotten everything he wanted: Kuato has been assassinated, and he has Dennis Quaid (actually Carl Hauser) and Melina under his thumb again, and he plans to reinsert Hauser's memories and personality in Quaid (with the bonus of Melina being brainwashed into his personal plaything). However, neither Quaid nor Melina are drugged for the memory overwrite, which allows them to fight back against a group of unprepared scientists with nary a guard set up to make sure something like this didn't happen, leading to their escape. What could make this intentional is that the entire situation, just like the entirety of the movie's second and third acts, may be part of Quaid's initial Ego Trip he purchased from Rekall, meaning Cohaagen's complacency here was "scripted" in-universe.
- Justified in the same fashion in True Lies, where Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Harry Tasker is captured alive so that he can document for the authorities that the terrorists are capable of carrying out their threat, and afterward when they intend to torture him since he's an American spy who most likely has some valuable information in his head.
- In True Romance, Virgil has Alabama at gun point and is about to shoot her, but she proves she is willing to fight back. This impresses him enough to put his gun away and instead start a melee fight in which Alabama gets the upper hand and finishes Virgil off in spectacular fashion.
- Warlock (1989). When the Warlock retrieves the Grand Grimoire and learns the word that can undo all of creation instead of saying it straight away the starts ranting "I know the word that can undo all you have wrought!" giving Kassandra time to sneak up on him and inject him with salt water which is fatal to witches.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Judge Doom might have succeeded if he'd killed Valiant when he got the chance, instead of making him watch as the Dip slowly worked its way to them. That said, it makes perfect sense in light of The Reveal that Judge Doom is a Toon himself; Toons are psychologically bound to Rule of Funny, and Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor.
- In Wild Wild West, after Loveless captures West and Gordon, he fits their necks with the blade-attracting magnets that the professor in the opening was also killed with. Then he leaves before ensuring their demise.
- In The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort invites Agent Denham to see him on his yacht, complete with A Lady on Each Arm, and he even boasts of putting on an act as a "bond villain". He then behaves just like one, by offering to bribe Denham and boasting of his Paid Harem while Being Good Sucks. As Belfort's lawyer notes his invitation to Denham to see him in yacht is a really stupid thing to do, since it increased the FBI's focus on him and on the operations that he's trying to hide.
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, the title villain controls Professor X to telepathically broadcast his Evil Gloating to the world, allowing the heroes plenty of time to know what's up and work out how to find and stop him. If he'd just carried out his plan (fully possess Xavier's body and boost his powers, allowing him to Take Over the World) instead of bragging about it, he'd have won. Of course, every fan who points this out also notes that it is very much like Apocalypse to lose because he put theatrics before pragmatism.
