Times where the villain creates their own hero in Live-Action Films.
- In Andhadhun, Akash was content to pretend he never witnessed anything, and then Simi blinded him and Manohar tried to kill him. Only then does he start to plot against them — because he wants his eyesight back and he wants to be sure that they don't try to kill him again.
- In Batman (1989), Jack Napier's murder of Bruce Wayne's parents was the event causing him to become Batman. Ironically, Batman himself would later cause the accident resulting in Napier becoming the Joker. They discuss both this trope and the reverse.Batman: I made you, but you made me first.
The Joker: Hey, bat-brain, I mean, I was a kid when I killed your parents. I mean, I say "I made you", you gotta say "you made me". I mean, how childish can you get? - Yet another example occurs in Batman Begins, with not one but two villains unintentionally creating Batman:
- Bruce confronts mob boss Carmine Falcone who had recently had the murderer of Bruce's parents killed to prevent him from testifying against the mob boss. Despite Bruce trying to prove not everyone in Gotham is afraid of Falcone, Falcone gives the Wayne heir a verbal tear down about how completely out of his element he is when it comes to dealing with the mob. This results in Bruce taking the journey across the globe that leads to him becoming Batman.
- Not only did Henri Ducard aka the real Ra's al Ghul provide Bruce the skills he needed, but he reveals that the League of Shadows deliberately exacerbated the poverty and corruption within Gotham to "make everyone a criminal". In other words, if not for the League, Joe Chill probably never would have killed the Waynes and Bruce would have never become Batman.
- Black Scorpion: The villain of the first film creates the heroine by killing her father.
- Braveheart: It portrays William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson) as a relatively-apathetic farmer who would have remained so had his wife not been subject to Droit du Seigneur and killed by the occupying English. This turns him into the leader of the burgeoning Scottish War for Independence.
- Conan the Barbarian (1982): Thulsa Doom raided Conan's village, killed all the adults including Conan's parents, then sold him and the other children into slavery. Conan survived, became a mighty warrior, and sought revenge. When they confront each other, Doom declares Conan owes him because if he didn't raid his village, Conan would have grown up an ordinary peasant who didn't make a mark on the world, then claims this makes him Conan's real father.
- The Crow (1994): Top Dollar unwittingly created his own nemesis when he orders T-Bird's gang to lay waste to several apartments and murder their residents to create chaos. He never paid it any second thought until Eric Draven returns from the dead to exact revenge on his killers.
- Deadpool: Ajax, who was running mutant test-programs disguised as new cancer treatments, successfully recreated Wolverine's healing powers in mercenary Wade Wilson. Unfortunately, these tests involved incredibly painful torture, caused the destruction of Wilson's relationship, and made him ugly, so he destroys the lab, takes up the moniker Deadpool, and hunts down every single person involved in Ajax's plot, up to and including Ajax himself.
- Inglourious Basterds: Hans Landa murdered the family of Shoshana Dreyfus in their home, leaving only her alive. A few years later, we find her running a cinema as she plots her vengeance against the Nazis.
- Joker (2019): After Arthur becomes Joker and inspires Gotham's citizens to riot, the ensuing chaos forces the Waynes to take a way down a back alley after a trip to the theater. There, a follower of Joker's ideals (implied to be Joe Chill, but left unnamed) sees an opportunity and guns down Thomas and Martha, leaving Bruce to begin his journey to become Batman.
- In the movie version of Kick-Ass, Frank D'Amigo ruining Damon McCready's life was what caused the former cop to become the superhero Big Daddy and train his daughter into becoming Hit-Girl.
- King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: Arthur has no idea he's the Born King until Vortigern forces him to pull the sword from the stone. Vortigern then monologues about murdering Arthur's parents and attempting to murder Arthur. Then he sets up a public execution so he can flaunt his power, beginning by murdering the woman who raised Arthur. After Arthur escapes, Vortigern orders the complete destruction of the village Arthur lives in. Previously vehement about not wanting to be part of La Résistance, Arthur decides Vortigern must die and successfully does just that. Had Vortigern left well enough alone, Arthur would have lived and died a charismatic but inconsequential street tough.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Iron Man: The Big Bad Obadiah Stane causes Tony Stark to become Iron Man after the latter spends three months in the captivity of an Afghan terrorist group (defying Stane's instructions to kill him). Not only is he confronted with the reality of war for the first time, but he learns that his own weapons are being sold to terrorists without his knowledge. Tony is forced to create the first Iron Man prototype to escape, and he and Pepper Potts eventually expose and stop Stane.
- Thor: Loki gets Thor exiled from Asgard by setting things up to show that his brother isn't worthy of taking their father's throne. In doing so, he humbles Thor enough for him to become worthy. Sending the Destroyer after him gave him a chance to prove it.
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora is initially one of Thanos's minions, fiercely loyal to her father until she meets the other Guardians, and her sister Nebula rebels in the same way in the sequel. Vol. 2 and Avengers: Infinity War show that years of being forced to fight each other as children, countless cybernetic upgrades, and the slaughter of half of Gamora's homeworld, including her mother (and likely the same fate for Nebula's as well) built up enough resentment to cause the two sisters to finally break away.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: along with the literal implications of the trope, Star-Lord's father Ego qualifies. Ego, a Celestial with nearly limitless powers, passed on many of these powers to his son Quill. Unfortunately, Ego also slaughtered hundreds of Quill's half siblings who didn't manifest Celestial powers, and he killed Quill's mother to avoid getting too attached to her; the trauma of discovering both (but especially the latter) caused Quill to open fire on Ego immediately.
- Captain Marvel: Doubly so with Vers, a Kree who was saved from an explosion and Skrull attack by her superior Yon-Rogg, who infused her with his blood and gave her photon blasts. In reality, Vers is a human named Carol Danvers and was given her photon blasts when Yon-Rogg attacked an experimental light-speed craft carrying herself and her mentor, an undercover Kree named Mar-Vell; the exploding engine after the crash infused her with the powers of the Tesseract. Yon-Rogg saw her value, returned her to the Kree homeworld of Hala, and altered her memories to fit this new purpose. When Vers learns this, as well as the fact that the invasive, evil Skrulls she's spent six years hunting and killing are actually refugees escaping the genocidal Kree, she turns on the Kree and Yon-Rogg and wipes the floor with them.
- In The Mask of Zorro, Alejandro is motivated to become the new Zorro after Captain Love kills his brother.
- The Patriot (2000): Benjamin Martin was actively trying to avoid becoming involved in the Revolutionary War for the sake of his family. He only starts a guerilla movement to oppose the Redcoats after Colonel Tavington burns down his home and shoots one of his sons in front of him. (Coincidentally, Martin is once again portrayed by Mel Gibson.)
- Likewise with The Lady (becoming an expert gunfighter) in The Quick and the Dead, when the villian gets her to accidentally shoot her own father when she is a young girl.
- This is the origin of RoboCop: in the original film, Cop Killer Clarence Boddicker and his gang torture and gun down police officer Alex Murphy, but OCP then turns Murphy into the titular cyborg. Likewise, in the 2014 remake, crime boss Antonie Vallon sends one of his thugs to place a bomb in Murphy's car and it goes off, maiming Murphy, only for Omnicorp to turn Murphy into RoboCop. For both Boddicker and Vallon, this bites them in the ass as Murphy ends up confronting and ultimately killing them.
- Showdown in Little Tokyo: The current Yakuza boss killing the hero's parents as an assassin decades earlier is what drove him to become a cop in the first place.
- Spider-Man: OsCorp created the spider that bit Peter Parker and granted him superpowers. It is rather fortuitous for the rest of the world, since OsCorp's CEO becomes the evil Green Goblin.
- Star Wars:
- Luke Skywalker had no intention of fighting The Empire until they massacred his family, and in fact he was planning to join them until then (purely out of Small Town Boredom). Thanks to The Emperor's needless cruelty and the Stormtroopers' "shoot first, ask questions later" method of enforcing Imperial rule, plenty of Rebels had stories just like Luke's and had nothing left but to dedicate their lives to revenge.
- Luke's father Anakin was a more literal, convoluted example. It's established in Darth Plagueis that Palpatine's titular master was attempting to use a Sith ritual to Rage Against the Heavens and assume control of the Force itself. The Force rebelled against him and in retribution created The Chosen One Anakin through a Mystical Pregnancy, who eventually went on to destroy the Sith... for a time.
- In Street Fighter, Chun-Li says to M.Bison that her father used to lead an uprising against him when he was killed, supposedly by one of Bison's cronies, and it drove her to avenge him. Bison's response?"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."
- ''Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li: Bison abducting Chun-Li's father is what leads her down her journey to become a martial artist and a threat to his criminal organization.
- Terminator: Dark Fate: Although the Resistance leader in the new Bad Future with Legion isn't born because of time travel as John Connor was, sending the Rev-9 after Dani, the future leader of the Resistance, certainly starts their development into the badass future resistance leader. Once again, meddling with time probably only created the evil AI's own doom.
- Unbreakable: This happens in the Twist Ending. Elijah, aka "Mr. Glass", kills hundreds of people in order to find a real-life superhero, then convince him to follow the call.
- In The Waterboy, it happened twice to Coach Red Beaulieu, the film's main antagonist. First, he fires Bobby Boucher, the eponymous water boy from the University of Louisiana Cougars. When Bobby is hired by Coach Cline of the South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, they both discover that all of Bobby's repressed anger allows him to run fast and tackle any and all opposing players, and helps break the Mud Dog's legendary losing streak. Later, it's also revealed that Beaulieu and Cline were both assistants to the head coach of the UL Cougars, and when he was to retire, they both applied for the position, with Cline creating a playbook that would secure his bid, which Beaulieu bullied Cline into handing over. Once Beaulieu became head coach of the Cougars, he fired Cline on the spot. Just as Cline inspired Bobby to stand up for himself, Bobby inspires Cline to not be afraid of Beaulieu, and they win the championship game.
