Defiant To The End / Live-Action Films

Warning: As this is often a Death Trope, expect spoilers.

Those who remain Defiant to the End in Live-Action Films.

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• The Alamo: With just himself and two other men left, captured and about to be killed by the Mexican army, Davy Crockett is asked if he has anything to say. He tells them that if the Mexicans surrender, he'll go easy on them. And then the order to kill him is given, and being about to be bayoneted to death, Davy's last words to Santa Anna are "I'm warning you—I'm a screamer."
• Hudson's demise in Aliens consists of swearing, yelling, swearing, shooting anything that moves, swearing, shooting everything that doesn't move, and swearing some more. Even when being dragged through the floor to his death.
• Downplayed in Balibo. Roger begs for his life as the Indonesians prepare to execute him, but he also repeatedly insults them and calls them out for their cruelty as well.
• In Bent, Horst gets killed by the guards. But he manages to scratch their face, horrifying them.
• In Blooded, Lucas regards his position as the public face of the hunting lobby as so important that he refuses to read a prepared statement condemning hunting and remains stubbornly silent despite being captured, humiliated, hunted like an animal, and tortured by the Real Animal League. He only cracks when the RLA string Live up and threaten to gralloch her like a stag. And doing this shatters him completely.
• Braveheart is, of course, the definitive example of the Nineties. William Wallace is so heartily defiant after he's been disembowelled alive, that the mere sound of his shouting is enough to push one of his foes over the edge of his deathbed. (This is considered true in essentials, but painfully inaccurate in particulars.)
• Breaker Morant: As Lt. Morant and Lt. Handcock face a firing squad (following a court martial setting them up as fall guys for war atrocities):
  Morant: Shoot straight, y'bastards. Don't make a mess of it!
• In A Bridge Too Far (Which was based on an actual WWII campaign), the Germans point out to the cut off and outnumbered Allied troops that many lives could be saved by a surrender. The Allied response? "I'm sorry, but we don't have enough room to take all of you prisoner!"
• Children of Men: "Pull my finger!"
• Luke in Cool Hand Luke, complete with Ironic Echo ("What we've got here is a failure to communicate").
• In Creepshow, Richard gets buried up to his neck at low tide. As the water slowly rises, he roars, "I can hold my breath for a long time!"
• The Dark Crystal: When the Chamberlain reaches for the dying Skeksis Emperor's sceptre.
  Emperor: Mine! Ehh-ehh! Mine! Not! I-I-I-I am still em... pe... ror.. I ... [dies, crumbles into dust]
• Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead (1985).
  Choke on 'em!
• Deconstructed in The Devil's Rejects. As Otis is about to kill a man he has kidnapped, the man insults Otis... who mocks him for it, calling it a meaningless gesture that doesn't make him any less of a powerless victim. Otis then proceeds with the killing like it never happened.
  Adam Banjo: [spits blood on Otis] Fuck you!
  Otis: That's what they all say. [in a mocking tone] "Fuck you"! Well, it ain't gonna save you. It don't scare me none and it don't suddenly make you a fuckin' hero! Do you wanna see what happens to heroes, boy?
  • Otis eats his own words later on in the film, when the trope is deconstructed but on him and his family. When he along with Baby and Captain Spaulding are captured by sheriff Wydell and taken to their now-destroyed house, they mock the sheriff and the people they've killed, including Wydell's brother. Of course, that does nothing except piss off Wydell, and he proceeds to gleefully torture them like they've done to countless people before. Even after they escape, they are cornered by the cops on a road, they decide to go all out against the police instead of surrender. Unsurprisingly, they are overpowered and taken easily by the police.
• Die Another Day: All James Bond has to say after months of brutal torture is an appropriately acerbic Bond One-Liner. General Moon drops the trope name before apparently having Bond marched in front of a firing squad.
• In Die Hard, the terrorist leader Hans Gruber threatens to kill Joe Takagi, head executive at the Nakatomi building, if he doesn't tell Hans the access codes to the Nakatomi vault. Not only does Mr. Takagi adamantly refuse, he outright goads Hans into killing him (although he sounds so calm that he doesn't seem like he's expecting Hans to kill him):
  Takagi: I don't know it, I'm telling you. Get on a jet to Tokyo and ask the Chairman. I'm telling you, you're just going to have to kill me.
• A villainous example in the Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact. When Ray Parkins is finally confronted by Jennifer pointing a gun at her:
  "So, the bitch is here. [Takes what she knows will be her last swallow of beer] So tell me, how's your slut sister?"
• Dog Soldiers:
  • Joe. When he realizes a werewolf is lurking right behind him in the land rover, instead of trying to escape or freaking out, he (probably pissed beyond all reason by witnessing Terry's horrifically torturous death a minute earlier) leaps into the back at the thing screaming like a berserker.
    "I'm gonna fucking have you!"
  • Spoon's last words when he's outmatched and held to a wall by two werewolves:
    "I hope I give you the shits, you fucking wimp!" [Spiteful Spit]
• In Equilibrium, Partridge actually doesn't care when he's eventually exposed, going so far as to calmly quote a Yeats poem in front of Preston. He refuses to bend to Libria's will, even with Preston standing over him with a gun. Part of the reason for his defiance can be better demonstrated in the conversation below since his questioning with Preston clearly involved trying to get the latter to do the same himself and fight against society instead of with it. We later discover he was part of the Resistance, enabling Preston to have his Heel–Face Turn, join them, and help take down the corrupt governing power..
  Partridge: You always knew. … "But I being poor have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams." I assume you dream, Preston.
  Preston: I'll do what I can to see they go easy on you.
  Partridge: We both know they never go easy.
  Preston: Then I'm sorry.
  Partridge: No you're not. You don't even know the meaning. It's just a vestigial word for a feeling you've never felt. Don't you see Preston, it's gone, everything that makes us what we are traded away.
  Preston: There's no war. No murder.
  Partridge: What is it you think we do?
  Preston: No. You've been with me, you've seen how it can be, the jealousy, the rage.
  Partridge: A heavy cost. I pay it gladly.
• In Escape from Sobibór, a girl named Naomi is offered a chance to live at the cost of her baby, which she was trying to hide. Her response is to spit in the Nazi's face (figuratively and literally).
• The Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury (also known as The Chinese Connection or The Iron Hand) very famously ends with Bruce Lee's character, Chen, the villains defeated and his master avenged, agreeing to take all the blame for the deaths of the karate school, saving his friends. He walks outside to find a row of Japanese policemen with their rifles and pistols trained on him. Realizing he's going to be publicly executed, he lets out a final cry and performs a running jump kick at them, the final freeze-frame catching him in mid-air as a crescendo of rifle fire sounds. Though naturally, being Bruce Lee, it's entirely possible that instead of him dying for the ending, he instead horribly slaughtered all of the policemen and the whole scene was cut out for being just too violent for television...
• Funhouse (2020): When Headstone finds out that Nero was lying to him about the rules of the cage fight, he calls Nero a coward and goes down fighting.
• Grandpa's Psycho: Kelly. Even as Murry is finishing her off, she still keeps telling him that she doesn't believe in God.
• In The Great Wall, one of the Crane Corps warriors continues to hack and slash at the Tao Tei with a knife even when the bloodthirsty monsters are tearing her to pieces.
• Godzilla:
  • Rebirth of Mothra 3: King Ghidorah refuses to flee from Mothra Leo after his wing is cut off, instead merely glaring at him in pure anger before resuming his fight and being destroyed.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): King Ghidorah corners Madison Russell, roars, and prepares to fry her with his Breath Weapon. She roars back. Fortunately, Godzilla intervenes before she can be killed.
  • Godzilla vs. Kong:
    • Kong suffers a non-fatal version. After being defeated, and found himself pinned by his opponent, the latter roars to assert his dominance, only for the former to roar right back at him. Godzilla, as if impressed by that, spares him.
    • Even as Kong is hacking it apart limb-from-limb, Mechagodzilla still attempts to fight back and even tries to use his Breath Weapon in retaliation before Kong ruptures its core. The influence from Ghidorah might be a driving factor behind this steadfast determination.
• In Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, we see the titular general as he's liquidating the last of the recently assassinated General Antonio Luna's friends and allies. Manuel Bernal, as he's being tortured and coerced, refuses to give in, preferring to insult Del Pilar, Aguinaldo, and all those that follow them. Even when they bring his brother in, Manuel just reminds him to remember what they fought for and to stay strong.
• In Heneral Luna, the titular general refuses to go down as he's being killed by soldiers of the Kawit Brigade, drawing his own sword and gun and decrying them for the traitors they are as they struggle to kill a man who just doesn't want to die.
• In The Hunger Games Katniss refuses to play by the rules of the titular game ("They have to have their winner."), when she and her fellow gladiator Peeta are the last two standing and are expected to try to kill each other. Instead, Katniss prefers joint suicide. ("No! Why should they?")
• In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Katniss was told that the lightning strike will be deadly. Nonetheless, she accepts to die and uses the force of the lighting to strike back at the evil empire and destroy their weapon.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; he manages to escape, but when Irina Spalko is about to order her troops to kill Indy:
  Spalko: Any last words, Mr. Jones?
  Indy: Yeah. I Like Ike!
• Inglourious Basterds: Sergeant Werner Rachtman does this when he is captured by the Basterds and offered to be spared in exchange for information on another German patrol. He makes it very clear to Lt. Aldo Raine and his companions that he isn't about to put any German lives in danger.
• Jaws: While he understandably loses his cool, Quint goes down fighting the shark and even manages to stab it in the snout with a sword before being devoured.
• In John Wick: Chapter 2, The Don Santino D'Antonio spends most of the film bullying the titular dragon — blowing up his house, forcibly recruiting him to kill one of his friends, and trying to have him assassinated once he does — and then, once cornered at gunpoint in a Truce Zone, makes taunting comments about the menu and dares John to walk away. John does not.
• Kill the Irishman: When Danny Greene realizes he's about to be blown up by the car bomb next to his Cadillac, he sees Ray Ferrito driving by with the detonator in one hand and tipping his hat in farewell with the other. Accepting death, Greene pointed his finger like a gun just as the bomb kills him.
• And, thanks to The West Wing, many children of the 80s and 90s now know of a misquote from The Lion in Winter. Quoted properly here:
  Prince Richard: [In a dungeon, hearing his captor approach] He's here. He'll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn't going to see me beg.
  Prince Geoffrey: My you chivalric fool... as if the way one fell down mattered.
  Prince Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.
• In Lockout, Alex captures Emilie and threatens to sic his psychotic rapist brother onto her if she doesn't tell her father (the president of the USA) to call off an attack on the space-jail they are in. Defiant to the end, she tells her dad to blow the jail — including her — out of the sky.
• Colonel Hardy in Man of Steel: He starts off in a helicopter, which Faora then knocks down. He empties two guns (ineffectually) into her as she casually slaughters his men. His response is to stare her down and draw his knife. Even she's impressed. Superman manages to save him, but he does this again later when he really does die.
  "A good death is its own reward."
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • The Avengers:
    • This seems to be the set-up for the old German man who refuses to bow before Loki in Stuttgart. However, Captain America swoops in to save the old man before Loki can kill him.
    • Played straighter with Coulson's death.
      Coulson: So that's what it does.
  • Thor: The Dark World: Frigga fights Malekith and Kurse and when defeated refuses to reveal the location of the Aether. Her last words are "I will never tell you."
  • Captain America: Civil War:' Hanging from the ceiling by his feet with his head in a sink, the Hydra agent Baron Zemo captures in Cleveland is asked for "Mission Report: December 16, 1991". His only two sentences he responds with before Zemo drowns him in the sink? "Go to hell!" and "Hail Hydra."
  • Thor: Ragnarok: Hela completely slaughters the assembled forces of Asgard, but promises to let a wounded Hogun live if he agrees to serve her. Hogun rejects the offer and makes one final effort to attack Hela, only for her to spear him through the chest.
  • Skurge the Executioner pulls one as a means of redemption. Protecting the ship that is trying to escape with Asgardian refugees, he throws himself into a horde of enemies while dual-wielding M-16's until they run out of ammo. When that happens? He starts bludgeoning the enemies with the empty guns, roaring defiance and issuing a direct challenge to Hela even as the ship - his only means of escape - takes off and leaves him behind to die.
  • Black Panther (2018) has Erik Killmonger. Fatally wounded by a blade in his body after losing a fight with T'Challa and knowing full well that he will go to prison for the rest of his life even if Wakanda's advanced medical technology healed him, he pulls the blade out and bleeds to death while watching the Wakandan sunset. In doing so he chooses a dignified death over a life of bondage, just like his ancestors who jumped from the European slave ships.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: Loki's final words to Thanos while being strangled after attacking him are: "You will never be a god."
  • Avengers: Endgame: Thor and Iron Man are down, and Cap is down to half his shield, and Mjolnir. Thanos, on the other hand, summons all of his army from the past ready to devastate Earth and the universe itself using the Infinity Gauntlet. Cap, much like his comic counterpart above, is undaunted and steels himself to face the entire army by himself, with just his shield and Mjolnir. Thankfully, The Cavalry arrives.
• In Men in Black II, the pizza parlor owner actually the alien protecting Laura, the Light of Zartha, begs Serleena to let him go protesting that he doesn't know anything. When he realizes she isn't fooled, he drops the act. Speaking with his true voice, he tells her that she's too late and sarcastically apologizes for wasting her time.
• None Shall Escape (a 1944 film about a trial against a Nazi officer following the end of the then-ongoing second world war, where the bulk of the story is told via flashbacks from the points of view of the witnesses at the trial): After all the Jews that were to be deported have been gunned down, the rabbi tells Wilhelm "We will never die. It will be you, all of you!" Wilhelm shoots him with his handgun at point-blank range.
• Olympus Has Fallen has the Secretary of Defense, on the hostage situation she and the President are in:
  "We may die here, but no way will I let my tombstone say 'she went down without a fight.'"
  • Ironically, she's the only hostage other than the President to survive.
  • Roma, the head of the Secret Service detail for the White House. Injured and down to his last bullet, he reports the situation to his superiors, and then spins around and shoots one more terrorist. "Fuck you!"
• Pacific Rim: When Striker Eureka is disabled by Leatherback, the two pilots stand on the shoulders of the Jaeger, one of them yelling at the circling Kaiju to bring it on while carrying a flare gun in each hand, with one of them shooting it in the eye while being fully aware it is kind of a bad idea. The two Russian pilots, earlier, also manage to keep landing punches on the Kaiju that's currently crushing the cockpit while holding it underwater for them to drown, right until the Jaeger blows up.
• Payback
  • Rosie is a hooker who attracts the attention of Val the guy who betrayed her friend (who is turning increasingly into her Love Interest) Porter. Val is a vicious mobster whose only real value to his bosses is that he's a sadist skilled in torture. He's beating the crap out of her and imminent rape is implied. She keeps taunting him about the fact that he's hitting her only proves that he's a powerless, impotent weakling, just as she described him earlier.
  • And then there's Porter himself. Late in the movie, The Syndicate thugs catch him and begin torturing him with a hammer, taking out his toes one by one. What does Porter say after they smash his first toe and start lining up a second?
    Porter: This little piggy stayed home. [Torturer slams the hammer down on second toe]
    Bronson: It's starting to look like roast beef.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End:
  Davy Jones: James Norrington, do you fear death?
  James Norrington: (stabs him, and then dies)
  Davy Jones: I'll take that as a no.
  • There's also the group of pirates at the beginning of the film who sing Hoist The Colours even in light of being hung.
  • And a minor example is an unknown soldier from the first movie who rings the bell to call Norrington back to the besieged ship. Injured as he was, the guy could have easily played dead, but he did the one thing that was most likely to help his comrades while being almost guaranteed to get himself killed.
  • Though she doesn't end up dead, Syrena takes this attitude towards Blackbeard, refusing to give him the tear he needs for the Profane Ritual.
• In Plunkett & Macleane, facing certain execution, Macleane's last words before being sentenced are directed at all attending.
  Macleane: I am guilty of one thing for which I am heartily sorry. Namely cheating my friend and fellow highwayman. A man who has more nobility of soul in his little finger, than any of you bloated bastards have in your entire bodies.
• In The Professional, as Leon lays dying:
  Leon: Stansfield?
  Stansfield: At your service.
  Leon: (handing him something) This is from... Mathilda.
  Stansfield: (sees that it's a pin for a grenade) Shit.
• Toward the end of Raising Arizona, the bounty hunter from Hell catches up with Hy. It's a serious mismatch as Hy gets the stuffing beaten out of him — when the bounty hunter pulls him up, barely conscious, by the lapels, he defiantly spits a tooth out into the guy's face.
• In Red Dawn (1984), the Wolverines have been ambushed by helicopters and are scattering. Robert fires his last RPG round at one of the copters, damaging it... and then stands out in the open, engaging an armored helicopter intended to take out armored columns with nothing but his AK. The result is foreordained, but there's no doubt about who's Badass there.
• Played for Laughs on The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming with Pete Whitaker, who keeps on being defiant and insulting to the Russians that have taken over his family's house (and his father who is helping them, to the point that Pete even calls him a Commie collaborator) out of a seriously misplaced case of Patriotic Fervor (the Russians are stuck on the island by accident and wish nothing more than to leave, and Mr. Whitaker is quite willing to help them because 1) the Russians are peaceful and understanding and 2) the Russians are armed, and so it's not a good idea to anger them, like Pete is trying to do...)
• At the very end of Scarface (1983), Tony Montana is at the end of his famous Last Stand; his rifle is gone and Sosa's men are pouring their guns into him. Yet he refuses to fall, hurling taunts and insults at them until another henchman sneaks up and blows out his back with a shotgun.
• Boris the Bullet Dodger from Snatch., cursing at Tony even after being shot several times with a Desert Eagle. Tony finally decides to take his time to aim properly and puts in a point-blank headshot to make sure he doesn't get up again.
• At the end of Schindler's List when Goth is being hanged, he remains completely calm, gives one last stoic "Heil Hitler", and lets the guards kick the chair out from under him without a fuss.
• Speed: In the opening sequence, Mad Bomber Big Bad Howard Payne manages to take cop Harry Temple hostage and Harry tells him "fuck you". This trope is then discussed because Payne laments that modern people can't seem to think of a better "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner than that.
  Payne: In two hundred years, we've come from "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" to "fuck you"?!
• From Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, both Khan and Spock go out this way.
  • Khan especially. His last act is to activate the Genesis Device in one last attempt to kill Kirk while quoting Captain Ahab's last words from Moby-Dick.
• Star Wars:
  • In A New Hope:
    Princess Leia: Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.
    Grand Moff Tarkin: Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your life.
    Princess Leia: I'm surprised that you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.
  • In Return of the Jedi:
    C-3PO: But if any of you wish to beg for mercy, the great Jabba the Hutt will now listen to your pleas.
    Han Solo: Threepio! You tell that slimy piece of worm-ridden filth, he'll get no such pleasure from us! [to Chewie] Right?
    Chewie: [roars in concurrence with Han]
    • The novelization adds a hilarious touch, by having the mostly blind Solo look the wrong way and address his defiant speech to nowhere, so Chewie has to reach and turn him around to properly face the slimy piece of worm-ridden filth he was talking to.
    • With that, Luke tops his friends' defiance with this statement to Jabba, "This is your last chance; free us or die!" Jabba laughs at this impudence but instantly changes his tune as Luke puts his plan into action.
    • And later, in the Imperial throne room:
    Luke: You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.
• Super Mario Bros. (1993): Toad continues to rant at and badmouth Koopa as he's being shoved into the Devo Chamber.
• In cinema classic They Live!, Rowdy Roddy Piper's unnamed character makes it to the antenna broadcasting the alien mind-scrambling signal and just manages to start it blowing up when he's fatally shot. He raises his arm out of the fire and flips the aliens off, both as a gesture of defiance and as a declaration of victory (since even if he died, the aliens were about to be exposed).
• Jazz in the first live-action Transformers movie.
  Jazz: You wanna piece of me? You want a piece?!
  Megatron: No! I want TWO!
  • Sam has one too, more afraid and less badass but still impressive.
    Megatron: Give me the All Spark, and you may live to be my pet.
    Sam: (While clinging to a statue at the edge of a building) I'm never giving you this All Spark!
    Megatron: Oh, so unwise.
• Triple Threat (2019): The MI6 operative in the village refuses to cooperate with the mercenaries, and refuses to beg for his life when their leader Collins kills him.
• In United 93, once the passengers find out that hijacked planes have been flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they abandon all semblance of cooperation with the al-Qaeda terrorists and start actively planning their attack from the plane's rear. Even as the plane is plummeting towards the ground, they continue to fight for the controls in an effort to both thwart the terrorists and possibly save themselves. Either way, the passengers were going to make for damned sure that that plane was not going to reach its final destination in Washington D.C. Also serves as a Real Life example since the film is a very accurate portrayal of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
• V at the end of V for Vendetta. Mr. Creedy even describes him as, "Defiant to the end."
  • Also, Evey. After being captured and tortured by the government, they give her a choice: give them information on V, or be taken behind the chemical sheds and shot. Her response is to calmly say “Thank you, but I'd rather die behind the chemical sheds”. This is subverted though, it in that it turns out V was the one who kidnapped and tortured her, specifically to get her to the point that she would no longer fear death.
• Norwegian war movie We Leave for England from 1946 is built on this trope. The fugitives are herded up by Germans and arrested and are to be shot, and their defiance comes on stronger and stronger as the movie goes on - until the very end, where one Norwegian spokesperson is hit in the face without blinking before the lot of them are herded out to be shot. The end of the movie shows almost the entire cast vanishing behind a hill, followed by awesome music, while a Norwegian birch tree is standing over in the last shot of the movie (being an Arc Symbol for Norwegian independence). This ending could arguably have Defiant To The End written all over it (While the protagonists are executed, we carry on...)
  • Pick any Norwegian movie telling the story of World War II, made before 1960, and the trope comes through loud and clear. This particular movie has it in abundance.
• In What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted, after being caught by the murderous biker leader.
  Apeman: Look at me.
  Tania: I wouldn't want your face to be the last thing I see.
• X-Men Film Series
  • The Wolverine: Shingen refuses to take Wolverine's mercy and stabs him through the chest as one last act of defiance.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: Epically done by Professor X, who resists En Sabah Nur in any way he can even when the situation is absolutely hopeless and his options are virtually nil. Charles warps the ending of Apocalypse's New Era Speech to try to give the weaker individuals of the populace a chance (however small it may be) to survive, and as he's forced to carry out Apocalypse's bidding, Xavier sends Jean Grey a secret telepathic message to let her know of his location. Professor X initiates a psychic battle with Apocalypse to buy time for Mystique and Quicksilver, who are both in immediate mortal danger because of the god-like mutant. No matter how brutal or violent Apocalypse's Mind Rape is, Charles' spirit doesn't break as long it can still draw breath. Even as his mind is on the verge of death, he still uses what little energy he has left to respond to Apocalypse's threat with a Badass Boast, and Xavier then summons Jean to unleash the Phoenix.

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