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Even Evil Has Loved Ones / Film

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Examples of Even Evil Has Loved Ones in movies.

Animated

  • Gru in Despicable Me, though to a lesser extent. It came as a surprise that Mr Perkins has a picture of himself giving a young Vector a piggyback ride and both seem to be happy.
    • The spin-off film Minions has Scarlet Overkill and her husband Herb, who genuinely love and care for each other despite their villain status.
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • Yokai/Professor Robert Callaghan from Big Hero 6, whose plan is to get revenge on Alistair Krei, whom he believes caused the death of his daughter.
    • In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride when Nuka is crushed to death, it's clear that Zira and the Outsiders are genuinely broken up about it. It's also arguably Zira's breaking point that causes her to blow up on Kovu, and attack Simba and his lionesses later on.
    • Ursula of The Little Mermaid, despite her infamous reputation as a dangerous sea witch who enjoys inflicting pain on others, seems to actually care for her two minions, a pair of eels named Flotsam and Jetsam. During the final battle, Ariel throws off her aim and causes her to accidentally kill them instead of Eric. As a result, Ursula mourns for the eels out of remorse, then goes on a giant Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Ariel and Eric for this.
      Ursula: (horrified that she killed the eels by accident) BABIES! My poor little poopsies!
    • Likewise, just about the only redeeming quality of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty was her affection for her raven companion Diablo. Just look at her reaction when one of the fairies turned him to stone:
      Maleficent: Silence! You! Tell those fools to— (realizes that Diablo's been turned to statue and covers her mouth) NO!!
  • Mandrake from Epic (2013), surprisingly enough for a classic Evil Overlord, has a pretty good relationship with his son Dagda; he even temporarily gives up his pursuit of Queen Tara to aid Dagda when the latter is fatally shot with an arrow by Ronin.
  • Groove Squad: Even if Dr. Nightingale's a power-hungry Mad Scientist bent on world domination and even if Star is arguably just as evil as he is, they really do seem to genuinely love each other, just as much as any other (non-villainous) father-and-daughter would.
  • Incredibles 2: Despite Evelyn's hatred of her brother's love for superheroes, she returns to save him before their yacht crashes into the city. After learning her plan, however, Winston isn't having it and jumps off her escape jet to save everyone on the yacht. Evelyn is also emotionally compromised thanks to her father's murder, as she views the tragedy to have been preventable.
  • Isle of Dogs: Mayor Kobayashi is a dictator-like mayor of Megasaki and uses anti-dog propaganda to oust all of the city's dogs to Trash Island. But he does genuinely care for his nephew/foster son Atari, and when he sees how much trouble his nephew has gone through, he turns over a new leaf, admitting his crimes and helping Atari in the end.
  • Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths:
    • After J'edd J'arkus (Martian Manhunter's doppelganger) is killed in the opening act, Ultraman has a moment of silence and states "God rest his soul." Even when they divide up J'edd's territory and mooks, that's treated as only a matter of business rather than the Syndicate taking advantage of his passing.
    • Similar to the main earth, Jimmy Olsen has a watch that allows him to call Ultraman at anytime, and Ultraman is legitimately upset about Lex/Superman ganging up on him. The first thing he does when he's called is tell them to lay off Jimmy, even calling him "his boy", although whether as his right-hand-mook/sidekick or because of an even deeper love and respect is up for debate. Either way you slice it, it shows that he does care for him.
  • Kubo and the Two Strings:
    • As Monkey explains later on in the film, the Moon King and the Sisters don't actually hate Kubo; they want him to live with the rest of his mother's kin. The issue is that they want to take Kubo's remaining eye so that he can become blind too and shed his humanity, believing this to be the best life for him. It should be noted that even though they killed her husband, ripped out her infant son's eye and planned to kill her, kidnap her son, and rip out his other eye, Kubo's mother refers to them as Kubo's grandfather and aunts instead of "The Moon King and his daughters" or even just "my father and sisters". Then again it's possible she simply didn't want him to be shocked when he learned the truth or manipulated due to being relatives.
    • When Kubo later gets to meet his aunts and then his grandfather, it is shown that she was right, they honestly want him in their family and believe he will be happy in the Heavens.
  • Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 is a ruthless despot who plans on declaring war on and taking over all of China and also ordered the genocide of the pandas as it was prophesied that one would stop him. But he does genuinely care about the soothsayer (she effectively raised him) and while it's not enough for him to stop his plans, he treats her as a family member rather than a prisoner.
  • In SCOOB!, Dick Dastardly schemes to open the gates of Hades but for a noble cause: to retrieve Muttley who had been left there after a previous attempt to raid it went awry.
  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
    • Kingpin's whole motivation is to find a dimension where his wife and son are still alive, and he detests Spider-Man because he blames him for their deaths. Never mind the fact that the car crash that killed them occurred when they walked in on him fighting Spidey, realized he was a supervillain, and fled the house.
    • The Prowler is an utterly terrifying hitman who sincerely loves his nephew, Miles, and refuses to hurt him. This costs him his life.
  • In the Finale Movie of Teacher's Pet, the villain is a Mad Scientist named Dr. Ivan Krank who also turns out to be Spot/Scott and Leonard's classmate Ian's uncle. While he still grounds his nephew for letting Spot get away, Dr. Krank is shown to be overjoyed by Ian coming to visit him over the summer.
  • Wonder Woman (2009): Ares, despite being obsessed with plunging the world into war and killing a lot of people, genuinely loves his son, Thrax. He is heartbroken when Hippolyta kills him. Later, he visits the Underworld and is horrified to find Thrax down there being tormented, and unfortunately cannot help him since Hades is much more powerful than him.

Live-Action

Creators:

  • Quentin Tarantino has this as one of the most recurring themes in his movies. They are always about violence and about how violent people deal with the same things as the other people do, after all.
    • Bill, Beatrix/The Bride and Vernita from Kill Bill are all merciless murderers as well as loving parents. Also, Budd's sword has the inscription: "To My Brother Budd, The Only Man I Ever Loved. Bill". Budd acts aloof when Bill comes to warn him about The Bride but the last thing Budd says to her before he buries her alive is "This is for breaking my brother's heart".
    • The anguish on Vernita's face when she realizes her baby girl Nikki is about to walk in on a deadly situation is perfectly played. She looks at Beatrix and silently begs her to put her knife away and call a temporary truce, just long enough to welcome her first-grader home, to which Beatrix obliges.
    • The Bride's horrifying dilemma about killing Bill in the end stems from the fact that she finds out he's actually a good daddy to their child, BB. The little girl is well taken care of, knows that her mommy isn't dead, and actually is very happy to meet up with the Bride since Bill had told her that she would come to visit her someday (though he didn't tell her what for...). The scene in which The Bride is given the shock of her life once she sees BB when she's about to sneak in on Bill to kill him is perfectly played as well.
    • Bill's Parental Substitute Esteban is a ruthless and Affably Evil pimp, but he fondly remembers Bill himself.
    • Inglourious Basterds: Granted, Sgt. Wilhelm did look like a Punch-Clock Villain who compromised with the Basterds so that he could see his baby son and his family again, but his calling von Hammersmark a traitorous bitch shows that he was genuinely supportive of the Nazi regime and believed in its dark agenda.
    • When Candie is killed by Schultz in Django Unchained, Stephen, his head house slave and father-figure, and arguably the most villainous character in the film, bursts out screaming and rushes to his side, cradling his body in his arms.
    • It is implied that Candie saw Stephen as a parental substitute. He also seemed to care about his sister.
    • One of the Klansmen's wives made bags for Bennnet's gang. When they complain about the quality, he gets pissed, and he later storms off when they keep insulting her.
    • Django is initially unwilling to shoot his first bounty from a distance, since he's doing it in front of the man's young son. At that point, King takes the opportunity to remind Django that their target may be a father, but he's also a stagecoach robber and murderer, showcasing both sides of this trope.

Individual Movies:

  • In Act of Valor, Christo, the leader of the drug smuggling and arms-trafficking cartel, has a wife and daughter and loves them deeply. This fact is what Miller uses to break him when he is interrogated late in the movie — not through threats, though; Miller simply tells Christo that he will never see them again and spend the rest of his life in prison if he doesn't cooperate.
    Miller: [shows Christo a recording of him and his daughter] I wanted you to see that, so you would think about some things very seriously. 'Cause you're going to be sitting in a box somewhere. You'll be treated properly and humanely. But that girl is going to grow up, and get married, and your wife is going to find someone else, and you're going to miss everything. (...) If I had done something to endanger my family, I would feel just like you do right now.
  • The Archer: Bob is a cruel, corrupt asshole. He still seems to love his son in his own twisted way.
  • The Assignment (2016): Dr. Rachel Jane is coldly indifferent to most people, and views them as simply test subjects. However, she still feels something for her brother, and sought out the hitman who killed him in revenge. That hitman in question, Frank, is also an example. He has a girlfriend he's obviously fond of, and takes care of a pit bull who'd been forced to fight. Additionally, he's got some close Latino friends.
  • Aquaman (2018):
    • As ruthless and bloodthirsty as he is, Orm dearly loves his mother. It's implied that her death is a serious motivator for his crusade against the surface, and when she returns, he surrenders peacefully and seems to acknowledge his own failures.
    • Black Manta was very close with his father. He begs Aquaman to save him and, when he refuses, spends the entire movie seeking revenge against Arthur for letting him die.
  • Avatar: The Way of Water: The Recom Miles Quaritch seeks to kill Jake Scully and Neytiri and has no issues with committing atrocities to do so along the way. Still, he clearly has a soft spot for his original self’s son Spider. Near the end of the film, he gives up Kiri as a hostage to keep Neytiri from killing Spider.
  • Max Shreck in Batman Returns convinces The Penguin to capture him instead of his son Chip.
  • Berlin Syndrome: Andi cares for his aging father and frequently visits him. His father is entirely oblivious to Andi's evil side from all that we can tell.
  • In Best Seller, the amoral hit man character is shown to have grown up in a loving family who he cares for. They have no idea what he does for a living. When Meechum asks what will happen when the book is published, Cleve argues that they will defend him, which will give them a purpose in life.
  • In The Bodyguard From Beijing, Wong, The Dragon and a bloodthirsty murderer himself swears vengeance on the titular protagonist for killing his beloved younger brother, a fellow assassin.
  • Bone Tomahawk: Brooder, the racist cynical and unlikable Indian fighter, tears up when he has to euthanise his beautiful and loyal white horse after it gets injured.
  • The Bravados: Two of the outlaws have families.
    • Alfonso Parral's mother is in town to watch the execution and has a very solemn presence.
    • When Lujan escapes over the border, he's shown to have a wife and baby who he greets affectionately.
  • A rather important plot point in Clear and Present Danger, in which the drug lords seem to spend a lot of time partying with their wives and children. When a military airstrike disguised as a gang bombing takes out nearly all of them, the shady U.S. President who secretly authorized this covert war on them in the first place watches a live report on his television in horror as some of the rescue workers searching for survivors haul some poor child's corpse out of the wreckage, and starts questioning whether taking down the drug cartels is really worth killing the drug lords' children.
  • Cold Pursuit: After the drug lord Viking murders his lover Dexter, Mustang gets revenge by informing White Bull of Viking's plan, ensuring that Viking is heading into an ambush.
  • Compliance: The caller, who manipulated people into having a young woman raped at his orders (after she's been stripped and humiliated), is shown happily speaking with his small daughter.
  • Conan the Barbarian (2011): Khalar Zym seems to genuinely love his daughter Marique, along with his wife, her late mother. He watched distraught as his wife was burned alive, with one of his main goals in the film being to resurrect her. Marique's love toward him also seems genuine, though in her case crosses into inappropriate feelings.
  • Used in a rather twisted way in The Crow (1994). Top Dollar, as depraved a villain as he already is, genuinely seems to love his sister despite the incestuous nature of their relationship.
  • The Dark Knight Trilogy:
    • In Batman Begins, Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul mentions that his Start of Darkness was the death of his wife. The Dark Knight Rises expounds on that when it's revealed that his wife took his place in a Hellhole Prison and was raped and murdered there. Their daughter (see Talia below) escaped the prison and found her father, where he massacred the prisoners who raped and murdered his wife.
    • In The Dark Knight, the mob are shown in several scenes sharing camaraderie. One in particular has two gang bosses (The Chechen and Salvatore Maroni) eating dinner together. Subverted by the Joker.
      Batman: He must have friends!
      Maroni: Friends? Have you met this guy?
    • In The Dark Knight Rises, regardless as to whether it's a platonic relationship or a romantic one, Bane and Talia clearly love one another, enough for Bane to rescue Talia and keep her safe in the Hellhole Prison and help her in her plan, and enough for Talia to stand up to her father when he wouldn't accept Bane.
  • In Death Line, Hugh Armstrong does a remarkable job of portraying the male cannibal's inarticulate grief and rage when his mate dies.
  • In Death Rides a Horse, Pedro is an outlaw, but he goes absolutely ballistic and nearly whips Bill to death after he kills his equally-evil brother Manuel.
  • Vogel (Nazi war criminal) in The Debt is married to a nurse at his office, who is horrified when told that her husband has had a heart attack.
  • In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Sebastian is the owner of Roundhouse, running illegal Pokemon battles in Ryme City, as well as a drug dealer for R. His main desire to battle Detective Pikachu however is more out of personal pride for his Charizard who lost their previous match. He also calls Charizard his "baby" and genuinely panicked when Charizard was in danger.
  • Die Hard:
    • Karl in Die Hard grieves over McClane killing Karl's brother Tony, the first of the villains to die.
    • Used again Die Hard with a Vengeance when Simon reveals that McClane killed his brother, Hans, despite Simon admitting that he disliked his brother.
      Simon: There's a difference, you know, between not liking one's brother and not caring when some dumb, Irish flatfoot drops him out of a window.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Forge Fitzwilliam is selfish, greedy, and is willing to let an entire city of innocent people die so he can have their treasure. With that said, he did what Ed asked and took care of Kira while Ed and Holga were in prison. He seems to be a surprisingly good parent, as Kira refers to him as Uncle Forge. Towards the end, when Sofina is about to drain the life out of everyone in the arena, he makes it clear that part of their deal was that she'd spare Kira (and himself) if no one else.
  • End of Watch: The Border Patrol footage of the Cartel leader ordering that Z and Taylor be murdered for uncovering one of his gang's LA houses shows his little daughter in the background.
  • The Enforcer (1951):
  • The Expendables has General Garza, the dictator of a small island nation who willingly takes part in the oppression of his people and allows his corrupt ex-CIA partner Munroe to use them as slave labor in their cocaine plantation. But he's still unwilling to kill his daughter, Sandra, even though she's suspected of being a traitor and is even disgusted when Munroe insist they do so. Garza's love for Sandra eventually leads to him having a Heel Realization and attempting to turn on his corrupt American backers... but unfortunately Munroe shoots him in the back before he could finish his Heel-Face Turn.
  • Face/Off: Castor Troy genuinely loves his eccentric idiot-savant brother Pollux. He refuses to kill him even after Pollux accidentally betrays their location to Archer by personally paying for the private jet (instead of letting one of their cronies do it) as most terrorists would have, sheds tears when Pollux dies and even ties his shoelaces for one last time before leaving.
  • The Fifth Commandment: The Outlaw Couple villains, Z and Li, loves killing as much as they love each other. In fact, Z swears vengeance over the film's hero, Chance, after Chance killed Li in a shootout.
  • The Fast and the Furious:
    • After Brian pins Johnny Tran, one of fellow protagonist Dom's biggest rivals for the truck heists, Tran seems just as angry that the S.W.A.T team "disrespected" his family by dragging him off while they were having dinner and causing his father to slap him out of anger, as he was about being arrested.
    • In the seventh entry in the franchise, the new Big Bad Deckard Shaw is out for revenge on Dom and his team, after they left his younger brother critically injured and in a coma during the last film. The next film also shows that their mother is also on good terms with them and that their family bond is so strong, when Dom offers to bury the hatchet and help reunite the Shaw brothers, as part of his gambit to defeat the Greater-Scope Villain, Deckard solidifies his Heel–Face Turn and they part on good terms.
  • First Love, directed by Takashi Miike: when a cruel woman's pimp boyfriend is murdered, she is utterly distraught.
  • Well-justified in The Fly (1986), as the story is a Protagonist Journey to Villain. As Seth unknowingly begins succumbing to a Split-Personality Takeover as part of his Slow Transformation following a Teleporter Accident, his relationship with his lover Veronica decays as she tries to convince him that he's ill and finally he near-throws her out of his apartment/lab. Shortly afterward, he realizes what's actually happening to him and his better self reemerges; he eventually asks to see her again as he has no one else in the world (and having realized how much she truly loved him to show such concern about what was happening to him). Despite his now-hideous appearance she becomes his Love Martyr and Living Emotional Crutch, but as his mind continues to deteriorate and he starts working on a Godzilla Threshold plan to maybe save himself, he decides to send her away for good because eventually he won't be able to keep himself from hurting her. Tragically, he learns shortly afterward that she's pregnant with his child, and decides she and the unborn child will be the "pure" human subjects he will genetically merge with to save himself, realizing that he gets to be with them FOREVER as a bonus.
  • In Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, the Nazi spy villain loves his daughter. At one point, the heroes try to use that against him by tricking her into going off on a trip to the country with one of them while the other tells the villain she's been kidnapped and will be killed if he doesn't release the diplomat he has abducted. At the end of the film, the plane carrying the villain, his daughter, and the heroes is shot down over the Atlantic, and the villain allows himself to drown so he won't weigh down the bit of wreckage his daughter is clinging to.
  • Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare: "It wasn't my fault...You saw what they did to me when I was a kid. You saw. I loved you and your mother. I tried so hard to be good...But when they took you from me, it wasn't right." - Freddy Krueger to his daughter Maggie Burroughs A.K.A. Kathryn Krueger.
  • The Gentlemen: Both Mickey (one of the most powerful drug lords in the UK) and Matthew (the American drug lord that Mickey's trying to sell his business to) are shown to be Happily Married. And the Russian gangsters who come after Mickey in the last act are motivated by the death of their boss's son.
  • Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi, an unrepentant racist and murderer, is shown getting fighting mad at reporters for putting lights in his elderly wife’s face and is later shown playfully fooling around with her as he waits for the jury to deliberate. He also plays patty cake with his granddaughter as they do.
  • In Goodfellas, even though Tommy Devito was an Ax-Crazy psychopath, he dearly loved his mother. Also Jimmy, despite killing nearly everyone involved in the Lufthansa heist is deeply distraught upon learning of the death of his friend, Tommy. Also, no matter how bad Henry got, and no matter how many times he cheated on her, Henry still loved Karen and his kids.
  • The entire focus of the South Korean film Harmony. Every inmate of the choir has mention of their loved ones.
  • In Hobo with a Shotgun, Drake opens the film by executing his brother for no reason other than to intimidate the townsfolk, and spends most of his free time abusing his son Ivan. His other son, Slick, however, is one of the few things in the world he gives a damn about, and he shows genuine affection towards the boy. When the Hobo blows out Slick's groin and leaves him to bleed to death in a phone booth, Drake is utterly crushed, and goes from just playing around to calling in the Plague.
  • In Hocus Pocus and Hocus Pocus 2, the Sanderson sisters are evil, child-killing witches, but they genuinely care about each other. Even Winnie, usually a Big Sister Bully who treats her two less-intelligent sisters with disdain, really does love them, and at the end of the sequel she willingly accepts her death because she'll be reunited with them.
  • In the Mexican film El Infierno, which deals with the violence of the drug cartels, "Cochiloco", one of the most ruthless drug cartel enforcers takes the protagonist to his home and introduces him to his wife and children. Cochiloco then glosses over this by saying "What? You thought I lived in a cave and ate human meat?". However, later his employer kills his firstborn in retaliation, triggering his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • Iceman (2017): After some Rape, Pillage, and Burn on the protagonist's village, the villains trek back to their home village, where they are warmly greeted by their wives and cute kids.
  • Imperium: Gerry Conway is a committed white supremacist and it's revealed he's planning a terrorist attack along with some compatriots. He also has a wife and two children who are clearly his world. The day prior to the planned attack, we see his wife in tears knowing that she's going to lose him.
  • In I Shot Jesse James, Jesse James has a wife and three children, all of whom he's rather fond of. The ballad written after his death even brings this up, claiming it to be a demonstration of his humanity and how callous Bob Ford was to kill him.
  • I Spit on Your Grave:
    • Johnny seems to really love his children, and when his wife comforts her son while waiting for him to return, it does seem a bit heartbreaking — until you remember that Johnny raped (and nearly killed) a woman. This is heartbreaking from the innocent children's eyes who know nothing of their father's evil, unlike the viewer. In Deja Vu, many of the rapists' family members seek revenge against Jennifer and her daughter over her killing them, and refuse to believe they did anything.
    • The sheriff in the remake also has a wife and a daughter, with another baby on the way. He seems to genuinely love them, and is distraught when he thinks Jennifer kidnapped his daughter.
    • The traffickers from the second film are brothers who clearly care for one another and their mother (who is a victim of trafficking herself and now is complicit in their crimes) cares for them as well. Valko, whom they sell Katie to, also has a wife. He fearfully says she must go home when Katie's appearance in the church freaks him out.
    • From the first film, in a rare instance of heartwarming is Andy and Stanley. Both were portrayed as useless bums but when Jennifer does her revenge on Stanley, Andy was not only crying and screaming hysterically but he risked his own neck to try to save Stanley, entering the pool only to get killed as he tries to help Stanley swim to shore.
  • Commander Van Schram from the first Jaka Sembung, who leads the Dutch forces in colonizing Indonesia and opporess the citizens, having numerous locals suspected to be part of the resistance shot or thrown into the mines. Despite his ruthless nature, Van Schram still loves his daughter Maria, where he's visibly upset when she pulled a Defector from Decadence and even breaks down in shock during the climax when he accidentally shot Maria while trying to kill the titular hero.
  • The Big Bad of John Wick Viggo Tarasof, only goes after the hero in defense of his son Iosef, who stupidly stole John's car and killed his dog, while his was still morning his wife's death, leading him to start his quest for revenge. Viggo even acknowledges that his son is an idiot and the whole movie is all his fault, but nonetheless throws everything he has at John to defend him and after Iosef is killed, his main goal becomes seeking retribution on John.
    • Subverted by the second film's villain Santino, who claims that he is putting a hit on John as revenge for him murdering his sister, despite the fact that he's the one who not only ordered her assassination, but practically strong armed John into doing it and is more likely just trying to tie up loose ends.
    • The same film had Cassian, the aforementioned sister's bodyguard who genuinely cared about her and takes the offer to kill John more out of revenge, rather then the considerably large reward.
  • Kin (2018): Taylor swears vengeance on Jimmy for accidentally causing his brother's death.
  • In King Arthur (2004), Saxon King Cerdic is a violent Blood Knight who invades Britain mainly for a campaign of Rape, Pillage, and Burn, but he does seem to care for his son and second-in-command Cynric. He threatens to cut his son's tongue out if he openly defies his authority again, but he seems quite willing to die by his hands if his son were strong enough to overthrow him. Later he refuses to kill Cynric for a defeat against Arthur's forces when Cynric offers his life, and when he sends in the last of Cynric's auxiliaries into an obvious death trap during the final battle he keeps him by his side to keep him from harm.
  • In King of Thieves, Psycho Party Member Terry is shown to be a devoted family man who takes his granddaughter to her ballet lessons.
  • Krampus: The dark elves storm the house at the climax in order to save Der Klown (the jester Jack-In-A-Box monster). Blink and you'll miss it, but during the chaos Der Klown can be seen giving one of the elves a hug, implying that Krampus' minions are all rather close to each other.
  • A major theme in The Last Rites of Ransom Pride:
    • The Bruja's brother was a Catholic priest. She doesn't share his faith, but still loved him and wants vengeance for his death.
    • Early Pride dearly loved his wife and tried to reform himself for her. Her Death by Childbirth in giving birth to Champ hurt him badly and left him an alcoholic. Though an abusive father, he still loves his sons on some level, is devastated by Ransom's death, and is motivated entirely by his desire to keep Champ safe.
    • Juliette Flowers' devotion to Ransom is very sweet, but she is no saint herself. It is left ambiguous whether she really intends to trade Champ's life for Ransom's body as Reverend Pride fears, or take it by force with his help.
    • Ransom was a murdering, swindling, cheating smuggler who wanted to make enough money to get his little brother away from their abusive father.
  • Depending on whether Abby in Let Me In is viewed as an evil or a tragic monster, she qualifies. She's a vampire who only sees people as enemies or prey, but she makes an exception for Owen. She really loves him and she takes care of him and protects him, and whoever harms Owen feels her anger. Owen's Bullies feel this particularly clearly.
    • A small example are Kenny and Jimmy. Though Jimmy acts like a Big Brother Bully on occasion, he genuinely cares for Kenny.
  • Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li) at the end of Lethal Weapon 4 is attempting to flee Riggs and Murtaugh with his brother, all the other villains having been killed. When Murtaugh shoots Ku's brother while aiming for Ku himself, Ku sticks around and tries to kill Riggs and Murtaugh in revenge. Riggs then shoots Ku underwater after they fall off a pier while fighting.
  • The Loved Ones: Lola and her father are a disturbing pair, but clearly care for one another. Lola really goes crazy after Brent kills her father.
  • The Man from Laramie: For all their faults, Alec repeatedly insists that he genuinely does love Dave despite knowing what a messed-up guy he's grown up to be.
  • In Man on Fire, 'The Voice', the mastermind behind the kidnapping scheme, turns out to be a divorced man with a family he deeply cares about. He's shown with some of his children, while Creasy specifically gets him to release Pita by threatening to cut up his family and starts with his.
  • Man of Steel: General Zod, might've been a Sociopathic Soldier and Super Supremacist, but he did genuinely care for his subordinates, showing explicit affection and comfort to his Number Two Faora when she despairs over over the destruction of Krypton. When Superman and the military get them sucked into the Phantom Zone, the utter despair Zod expresses is very real, fueling his Unstoppable Rage against Clark and desire to kill every last human in revenge.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Ivan Vanko from Iron Man 2 genuinely loved his father Anton and nursed him in his deathbed as well as letting out a Death Wail when his dad kicks the bucket. Ivan pursues Tony in revenge due to his dad Howard ruining Anton's career and leaving him to die slowly in Siberia.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy:
      • Yondu Udonta is a ruthless pirate who'll gladly kill for a profit — or if you just annoy him — but he also cares about his men and doesn't hesitate to forgive adoptive son Peter when the opportunity presents itself. A Ravager even states that he's always had a soft spot for Peter and in the sequel Yondu performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Peter, after his biological father Ego tries to kill him to further his own plans.
      Yondu: He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn't your daddy.
      • Ronan the Accuser mentions having lost his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather to the war with the Nova Empire. But unlike most examples, this does not humanize him or make him sympathetic in the slightest, and it's implied he's just using it as an excuse for his own sadism.
      • Peter's biological father Ego the Living Planet does genuinely love his son and his old lover, and presumably the many other children and lovers he had over the eons. Unfortunately, he still cares more about his own plans for the universe, than anyone else. As such he sees loving his family as a weakness to overcome.
    • Everything Loki does in Thor is to try and earn his father's respect and admiration, making it a case of Love Makes You Crazy. And despite his actions, his brother, his mother, his father, and his friends still love and care for him. In The Avengers, he's more Ax-Crazy than he was before, and he explains during a Motive Rant that he hates Odin and Thor, but he never says a bad word against his mother, Frigga. In the beginning of Thor: The Dark World, she's the only person he still cares about. In Thor: Ragnarok he's clearly deeply affected when Odin tells him he loves him before dying, and despite his betrayals of Thor, he chuckles along when Thor reminisces about their childhood misadventures. And in Avengers: Infinity War, he proudly calls himself Odinson and dies for his brother, showing that Love Redeems.
    • While it isn’t delved into much in the movie Kaecilius from Doctor Strange motivation stems from losing his wife and son prior to the events of the movie and infuriated that Ancient One refused to help him bring them back with magic from the Dark Dimension (even though she uses it) causing Kaecilius to go rogue. Unable to cope with his family's death, he serves Dormammu to rid the universe of Time and Death, but it doesn't end well for him.
    • The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming is textbook case as all the crimes he commits (thievery, murder and vandalism) are done to support his wife and daughter. He's still a crook, but he makes it clear to Spider-Man that he will do anything for his family and ensures they're taken care of when he gets arrested, even moving them out of Queens so they don't have see him go to jail.
    • Baron Zemo from Captain America: Civil War wants to destroy the Avengers because their actions in Age Of Ultron inadvertently caused the deaths of his father, wife and son. He spends much of the movie driven by a need for vengeance and frequently replays the last voicemail his wife left him before Sokovia "went for a ride". It helps that this version is far more sympathetic and agreeable than his comic counterpart.
    • In Black Panther, a major part of Erik Killmonger's motivation stems from a desire to avenge the death of his father, N'Jobu, while the rest of his motivation mirrors a more extremist version of his father's beliefs. When Erik meets his father in the ancestral plane, he tries to downplay his grief with the statement, "Everybody dies here," but it's undermined by him shedding tears as his father speaks to him.
    • As shown in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos deeply cares, albeit in a messed-up and abusive fashion, for his adoptive daughter Gamora, despite how much she hates him. When it is revealed that he can only take the Soul Stone if he kills someone he loves, he is saddened, but he tosses Gamora off the cliff as a Human Sacrifice to get the Soul Stone anyways.
      • His conversation with Scarlet Witch and with young Gamora in the Soul Stone at the end of the film suggest it isn't just Gamora. He loves all of his six adopted children, five of whom died by this point in the film.
      • In Avengers: Endgame Thanos shows and expresses his care for Nebula who was The Un-Favourite up until that point. Firstly he explicitly regrets his treatment of her when she vouches for his honesty in front of The Avengers moments before Thor chops his head off and secondly his past 2012 self treats Nebula better when she proves to be vital to his plans, saving her from Ebony Maw and being concerned when she goes missing in the Final Battle. Another example, as Thanos's army dissolves, in the distance, Proxima Midnight is seen cradling a wounded Corvus Glaive, and hugging him as they dissolve.
    • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings could be described as Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Movie. Xu Wenwu's reasons for all his actions in the film are to bring his wife back. He also genuinely cares about his children, wanting Shang-Chi to take his "rightful place" within the Ten Rings and showing a nicer side to himself whenever he was interacting with them. Even when they were against him, he never kills or even harms them if he can avoid it, simply locking them up in a cell when they oppose his plans and clearly holding back in his fights against Shang-Chi, even seemingly proud of him when he demonstrates his skill and wields some of the Rings against him. Ultimately, his last use of the Rings is in a Heroic Sacrifice to push Shang-Chi away from the Dweller-in-Darkness, his last moments spent remembering the times where he and his family were happy.
    • While not "evil" per se, Eternals has Ikaris, who not only fell deeply in love with Sersi and was even married to her for 5,000 years, but he also loved his fellow Eternals deeply and was distraught that he had to kill Ajax for the sake of fulfilling the Convergence. Ultimately, it's his love for Sersi that convinces him to stop fighting and allow her to stop it from happening.
    • Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness may be completely unhinged and willing to murder anyone, even an innocent child just to get what she wants, but she's doing what she's doing so she can find her two children, Billy and Tommy, in a universe where they're real. She loves them so much she almost goes irreparably insane trying to reunite with them and cares nothing for the havoc she wreaks in the process. In fact, it's their horrified reaction at seeing what she's become that prompts her Heel Realization. Similarly, she notes how Vision was the love of her life and his death left her a broken woman.
  • In The Mask of Zorro although Big Bad Don Rafael Montero is an utter bastard and Arch-Enemy of Diego de la Vega aka original Zorro, he did clearly love Esperanza Diego's wife, despite her choosing de la Vega over him. He genuinely never intended to hurt Esperanza even while capturing his nemesis — her husband, when she is shot accidently in the ensuing fight by one of his soldiers while trying to protect Diego, Rafael gives a Big "NO!" and kills the soldier on the spot. After Esperanza's death he keeps a massive painting of her in his estate. Montero also did come to love and Esperanza and Diego's daughter Elena as his own, despite it him only taking her initally to spite de la Vega and make up for the loss of Esperanza in his life. While he certainly wasn't above holding a gun to Elena in order to make Diego drop his sword during their duel in the climax, Rafael still states it was a bluff and would never actually hurt her.
  • In Monkey Business, Big Joe Helton is a ruthless racketeer, but he is genuinely concerned for his daughter Mary.
  • MonsterVerse:
  • In Moonraker, Jaws pulls a Heel–Face Turn during the climax to protect his new girlfriend, who would have no place among the new "master race" that Drax wants to create after wiping out humanity with nerve gas from his space station.
  • Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers. She killed or helped kill dozens of complete strangers, but she doesn't lay a finger on her younger brother and stops Mickey from hurting him as well.
  • The villains in The Neighbor may be a family of kidnappers, murderers and rapists, but they still care about each other. One scene show them honoring the memory of their mother, and when Cooper is killed by the protagonist, they show either Unstoppable Rage or Tranquil Fury while trying to avenge him.
  • Night Train to Lisbon: Mendez was a brutal secret policeman under the Salazar regime, but deeply loved by his granddaughter. She was distraught after finding out about what he did in the past.
  • Nite Tales: The Movie: In "Karma", Mr. Hinkley, the patriarch of the Cannibal Clan, reveals to the robbers that the guard they killed during the Bank Robbery was his brother: just before they are devoured.
  • In The Northman, the hero's Evil Uncle Fjölnir is devastated by the death of his son Thorir, who also expressed grief and rage at his companions being killed. We also see him being a genuinely good father to Gunnar, joining him in work and explaining his reasons to him.
  • Patriot Games: Sean Miller attempts to take revenge on Ryan and his family for killing his brother to stop a terrorist attack the two were a part of.
  • Peppermint: Brutal drug lord he may be, but Diego has a daughter who he clearly loves. Seeing her when she's about to kill him stays Riley's hand, giving him the chance to get away.
  • The Phantom Creeps: When Dr. Alex Zorka's wife is assassinated early on, he's so crushed, he stops using his terrible weapons of warfare For the Evulz and starts using them in a targeted fashion against those who would try and steal them, blaming her untimely demise on the same parties.
  • Planet of the Apes (1968): Zaius isn't too evil, but he has plenty of Kick the Dog moments, and he mentions having a granddaughter who plays with dolls modeled after humans.
  • Prom Night (1980): Alex Hammond's motivation is to murder the kids who killed his sister six years ago. On top of that, he would never harm his other sister Kim, trying his best to knock her out of his way when he comes to kill her boyfriend, who was one of the kids who killed their sister.
  • In The Proposition, Charlie Burns is a criminal, but he loves his little brother Mikey and wants to protect him, almost enough to kill his other brother Arthur at Captain Stanley's order. Arthur is a psychopath but loves both his younger brothers and the rest of the Burns gang intensely, and thinks Charlie quite reasonable in choosing to buy Mikey's freedom with Arthur's life. In the end, they team up to bust Mikey out.
  • What drives the plot of The Punisher (2004). After one of the sons of Howard Saint is killed in an FBI sting operation, his wife orders the death of Frank Castle's entire family. When he survives, his revenge centers around getting Saint to disown and kill his own wife and best friend, whom he loves dearly, through manipulation.
  • Punisher: War Zone sees its main villain Jigsaw and his brother Jim do love each other as Jigsaw's Berserk Button seems to be anyone badmouthing his brother, including calling him "Loony Bin Jim" and Jim returns the favor by destroying reflective surfaces so that Jigsaw won't see his reflection in them. Also, in contrast to their comic counterparts, Cristu and Tiberiu Bulat also love each other as the film Tiberiu goes about trying to get revenge on Jigsaw after Jigsaw sells Cristu out to the FBI as part of a deal.
  • Rampage: Bill is a politically motivated mass murderer, but when Chip presses him on what his mother would have thought of his actions, Bill says that his rampage doesn't negate his affection for her. The third movie also shows Bill with a German-American girlfriend and a baby.
  • Red: Halfway through the film, just as he fears he may be in over his head facing off against the heroes, the "villain" of the film is shown tucking his young children in at night and worrying if they'll be safe.
  • The two main villains of Red Wolf are a terrorist mastermind called the First Mate and his girlfriend-slash-Dark Action Girl henchwoman, Elaine, but despite their sadistic nature they genuinely loves each other; after plotting a heist for the ship's plutonium cache, the First Mate tells Elaine "they'll start a new life in Switzerland once they receive their 20 million dollar ransom". When Elaine was incinerated alive, the First Mate is visibly breaking into tears as he puts her down via Uzi.
  • The Retreat (2021): Gavin is a vicious murderer, but clearly still loves his wife Layna, who's his accomplice in the crimes he commits.
  • In Road House (1989), extortionist businessman Brad Wesley loves his sister enough to promise her to look after her only son by forcing the owner of the Double Deuce to make him the bartender, even if his nephew is a stupid failure.
  • Tony Montana in Scarface (1983) tries to take care of those he loves even as he becomes an increasingly bigger criminal and general jerk. His affection for Gina in particular is very strong, although laced with incestuous implications. Subverted later in the film, as he eventually becomes a malignant presence in their lives when he drives Elvira away, kills Manny because he proposed to Gina, and locks Gina up in his own mansion out of an obsession with "protecting" her.
  • Scream:
    • Played for Laughs during the climax of Scream (1996). The killer's accomplice Stu, badly injured and realizing that he's probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison even if he survives, meekly cries out "my mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!" as the Final Girl Sidney taunts him with the knowledge that she just called the cops on him.
    • In Scream 2, the killer's motive is that Sidney killed her son Billy Loomis, one of the killers in the first film. Mrs. Loomis already blamed Sidney's mother Maureen for destroying her marriage and didn't really fault Billy for killing her (the inciting incident of the series), so Sidney killing Billy gave her a vendetta against the entire Prescott family.
    Sidney: You're as crazy as your son was.
    Ghostface: What did you just say? Was that a negative, disparaging remark about my son? About my Billy?
  • In Shark Week, the Big Bad Tiburon undertakes his elaborate scheme of revenge in order to avenge his son's death.
  • Hertz, the main Big Bad in Shoot 'Em Up, has a wife (who keeps calling him on the phone) and an eight-year-old son.
  • In The Silence of the Lambs, when Buffalo Bill traps Catherine in a hole planning to starve, torture and kill her, Catherine saves herself by luring Bill's pet poodle into her prison, ensuring he can't kill her for fear that she'll hurt the dog.
  • In Sleepy Hollow (1999), the Hessian who would become the Headless Horseman was described as a pure evil Psycho for Hire who fought for no reason other than the thrill of spilling blood. Despite all this, he genuinely loved his horse: when the animal dies he is visibly saddened and takes a moment, in spite of being chased by enemy soldiers, to stroke the animal's face and comfort it as it dies.
  • Small Soldiers: The Commando Elite, in spite of being genocidal plastic action figures, are visibly distressed and shed Manly Tears at the death of Nick Nitro. It's fitting as, in spite of their murderous tendencies, they were meant to be the good guys and were programmed to be brave honorable soldiers.
  • Spawn (1997): "Loved" may (or may not) be overstating, but Wynn is actually saddened when Priest's body is wheeled away after she's killed by Spawn.
  • Briefly used in Spy Kids when Floop informs the Big Bad he has built soldiers for him and to demonstrate their effectiveness asks him to disarm one. Then an evil robot kid looking exactly like his son runs in the room, the Big Bad does nothing and the kid knocks him to the floor.
    Floop: You hesitated.
    Lisp: I had to — he's my son.
    Floop: Are you sure?
    [The kid's eyes flash]
  • Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • Subverted in Stardust. When two of the three evil witches are killed, the third, main witch acts as though she's grieving for her sisters, and pretends that she's about to let the protagonists go, because immortality seems empty without her sisters... only to reveal that she was just toying with the main characters. Played straight with the Princes, however. They are fine with killing each other to be King (because that's how their father earned his place on the throne), but Septimus reacts with offense when the King asks him if he killed their missing sister, Una. When the Princes finally reunite with her during the Final Battle, (although they're ghosts) they all joyfully shout, "Sister!"
  • In Star Trek Into Darkness, Harrison's actions are partially motivated by a desire to find and save his former crew.
    Harrison: My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
    • And Admiral Marcus does love his daughter and pauses to have her transported to safety before opening fire again on the rest of the Enterprise, who she was pleading for him to spare.
  • Star Wars:
    • Darth Vader has Luke Skywalker. Vader's fatherly love for Luke is also the entire reason behind Vader's various attempts to turn Luke to The Dark Side: the Emperor originally wanted Luke killed before Vader convinced him otherwise. This ends up being what ultimately causes Vader's Heel–Face Turn in Return of the Jedi.
    • On a more subtle level, Malikili, the Rancor trainer in Jabba's palace mourns the death of the monster.
      George Lucas: I like the idea that everyone loves someone. And even the worst, most horrible monster you can imagine was loved by his keeper. And the rancor probably loved his keeper.
    • Another Star Wars example is Boba Fett and his father Jango. The two genuinely loved one another and when Mace Windu is forced to kill Jango during the battle of Genosis, Boba is devastated and later goes hunting for revenge, beginning his transformation into the ruthless bounty hunter we know and love.
    • Deconstructed with Kylo Ren of the sequel trilogy, especially The Last Jedi. He genuinely loves his mother and Rey, but it does absolutely nothing to stop him from continuing to terrorize the galaxy. Both his loved ones, being moral and kind people, are upset by what he does and oppose what he stands for. Since no one is willing to budge on ideals, the entire situation only breeds frustration and difficulty for everyone involved.
  • Stoker: Charlie is a quasi-sociopathic creep, but he does genuinely love his niece, India. Trouble is, that love is... not quite familial.
  • Taken had Bryan slaughter endless mooks and the members of a human trafficking ring to rescue his daughter from being turned into a sex slave. Taken 2 reveals the bad guys had family, and they're not happy...
    Murad: He slaughtered our men, our brothers, our sons. We will find him. We will have our revenge.
  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Across all continuities, no matter what the Cannibal Clan's family name is, one thing stays the same. And that's the fact that Leatherface and his relatives, for all their insanity and dysfunction, care about each other deeply.
  • Theresa & Allison: Allison seems to genuinely like, perhaps even love Theresa, wanting her for an eternal companion as a fellow vampire. She's utterly ruthless however, trying to break Theresa from her moral qualms at killing humans. Previously, she had also been with Tony for many years, who's a ruthless vampire like her.
  • In They Live by Night, T-Dub's motive for committing the bank robberies is to raise enough money to get his brother Richard out of prison.
  • Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead: The Man With The Plan is a sadistic crime boss, but he clearly also loves his son Bernard, and his plan to cure Bernard's pedophilia kickstarts things. Bernard's loss clearly breaks him at the end.
  • Torn: Dark Bullets: Detective Jason Pearce is an entitled racist who murdered a teenager and beat up his family, but he has a wife and daughter he loves.
  • Tragedy Girls: Just about the only redeeming quality Sadie and McKayla show is that they truly and deeply love one another. They may be remorseless psychopaths, but they'd do anything for each other. They also show respect for their parents and never badmouth them even when alone.
  • The Truman Show: Christoff though undoubtedly an awful human being willing to keep Truman (a innocent man) unknowingly trapped in a Reality TV False Utopia and even basically prostitutes two actresses into being his partner and planned baby mother, does still genuinely love Truman as though he were his own son. One scene even showing him stroking a Truman’s face on a monitor as he sleeps. He explains in the ending that he does truly want to give Truman a life free from fear and suffering, which he will find in the real world (with Ed Harris revealing Christoff’s own childhood was deeply unhappy). When Truman does ultimately defy his expectations and leave, Christoff drops his head in unmistakable despair.
  • Pando, the main antagonist of Two Hands, is an Affably Evil gangster and a killer — who has a young son whom he clearly adores, watching kiddie TV with him and praising him for the origami pterodactyl he made. This goes back to the main theme of the film that bad people have some good inside them and good people have some bad inside them, as represented by the yin and yang.
  • In Underworld: Evolution, the Big Bad and The Dragon are actually brothers and when the former awakes from his centuries-long sleep, the very first thing he does is find a way to release the latter from his prison so they can create a race of immortal hybrids and rule as gods.
  • Valentine: Jeremy Melton is a ruthless Serial Killer in the present day, but cares a lot for his ex-girlfriend Kate because she was the only person who was nice to him when they were kids and wasn't in on the False Rape Accusation that ruined his life.
  • Vice depicts Dick Cheney as a ruthless, amoral man who nevertheless loves his family. Cheney spends ample time with his wife and daughters when not at work, and his political machinations were as much about proving himself to Lynne as they were about securing power and wealth.
  • Willy's Wonderland: Sheriff Lund helped cut a deal with the deadly animatronics, and continues to sacrifice people to them without a qualm. But she took Liv in after she survived a night at Willy's, and saddles up after she's told Liv is in there. She even says outright, "It'd just about kill me to lose that girl."
  • Wolves:Wild Joe Wills is a Manipulative Bastard and Fully-Embraced Fiend, but he goes from Evil Gloating to a brief Unstoppable Rage when he hears that Connor killed his brother, Carter.
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • X-Men: First Class: Erik Lehnsherr grows to love Charles Xavier as a brother over the course of the movie, but that doesn't stop him from betraying his best friend or abandoning him.
    • The Wolverine: Ichirō still seems to care for Mariko to some degree, given he purposefully diverges his sword slash so it doesn't hit her when she gets in the way.

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