Hero Killer / Live-Action Films

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• The titular Alien was a Meta-Example, as well as an In-Universe one: originally, Dallas was scripted to be the film's protagonist; most of the audience concurred — thanks to clever writing, first-billing in cast order, and camera shots - up til the product film's midpoint when he was Killed Offscreen and Eaten Alive by the Xenomorph. In-Universe, it claimed the lives of all crew except the film's true protagonist — Ellen Ripley.
• In Bodyguards and Assassins the final assassin is a highly skilled martial artist before whom all the bodyguards, all capable fighters in their own right, can only desperately throw themselves in his way in an attempt to buy time.
• The Dark Knight has a straight version of this trope in the form of The Joker. He outright murders former GCPD officer Brian Douglas (one of the vigilantes wearing a Batman costume), kills several known Gotham City cops and other law enforcement including Commissioner Loeb and Rachel Dawes, and finally causes Dent to slide off the slope of sanity, leading to several more deaths, including Dent's own.
• Eragon has Durza. Alongside his original deeds in the books of hastening Eragon's journey by poisoning Arya, he takes the Ra'zac's role of the character that kills Brom, slaughters dozens of Varden soldiers, and creates a Giant Flyer made out of smoke that grievously wounds Saphira.
• In the Godzilla franchise, a Kaiju's badass rating is generally measured by how long it can last against Godzilla and how much trouble it can give the King of the Monsters before dying. With that in mind, the few monsters who have actually taken down Godzilla, to any degree, get a special mention.
  • King Ghidorah normally comes close, but never quite manages to defeat Godzilla. Mecha-King Ghidorah, however, managed to fight Big G to a Mutual Kill.
  • Destoroyah is the living personification of the Oxygen Destroyer, the weapon that killed the original Godzilla, In its first appearance as a kaiju, it killed Godzilla Jr., and in Rulers of Earth, managed to knock Godzilla unconscious in a one-on-one fight.
  • The Heisei Mechagodzilla goes above and beyond by defeating both Godzilla and Rodan together. Only Rodan's Heroic Sacrifice allowed Godzilla to return to life with enough power to finally defeat his mechanical opposite.
• In Highlander, the Kurgan hunts other immortals to steal their power. All of the immortals are potential hero killers, but the Kurgan stands out among them.
• The Velociraptors of Jurassic Park are a rare animalian, reptilian example. They flirt their Protagonist-murdering potential within the first five minutes of the film after they rip a full-grown man from the grip of the Park's Warden and tear him to shreds inside their pen. This potential matures by the film's Third Act, as, at this point, all three of them have escaped their pen and have begun offing humans — for territorial reasons, for competitive reasons, for hunger, or for one or two or all of those reasons. The first person to be preyed and eaten is Mr. Arnold in the basement, but by far the most frightening execution is that of Robert Muldoon — he who knew their nature better than anyone.
• The Harpists in Kung Fu Hustle, who kill off Coolie, Tailor and Donut after the three prove themselves to be Pig Sty Alley's resident badasses (and forcing the Landlord and Landlady to drop their Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass facades to take them down.)
• Magua from Last of the Mohicans. Aside from being a powerful, skilled leader, (he's the only one who lasts more than several seconds against the film's main characters), he personally kills Uncas and is indirectly responsible for the death of Alice, who chooses to fall to her death after Magua kills Uncas.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • The Winter Soldier is introduced with this reputation in the film of the same name; he nearly kills Nick Fury, shoots Cap three times, and generally gives the protagonists the toughest fight of their lives, but they survive the movie. He also gave Black Widow serious injuries several years previously. Then Civil War shows that he's a hero killer just the same, since one of his missions was to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark.
  • Though not as successful as his comics counterpart, Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron gets credit for being one of the few villains to kill an Avenger permanently: Quicksilver.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Hela immediately establishes how much of a threat she is by casually killing Fandral and Volstagg, two of Asgard's finest warriors, as soon as she steps out of the Bifrost. She then follows this up by utterly decimating the Asgardian army in a Curb-Stomp Battle, which ends with her impaling Hogun, the only remaining member of the Warriors Three from the previous movies. In the backstory (seen via flashback), Hela also personally massacred the Valkyries, the Asgardian elite force made up of Action Girls, with the last surviving member reduced to an apathetic, alcoholic mess by the ordeal.
  • In the very first scene of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos impales Heimdall for allowing The Incredible Hulk to escape and warn Doctor Strange, and then violently strangles Loki to death after the trickster makes a Heel–Face Turn and tries to stab him. He later sacrifices Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone, albeit with regret, and then kills The Vision to get the Mind Stone. And unlike the heroes killed by the Snap, those deaths all stick at the end of Endgame. At the end of the film, after successfully gathering all of the Infinity Stones and using them to complete the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos wipes out half of all life in the universe, including Black Panther, Doctor Strange, The Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, all of the remaining Guardians of the Galaxy except for Rocket, and even Spider-Man. When the dust settles, the original six Avengers, War Machine, Okoye, Nebula and the aforementioned Rocket are the only heroes confirmed to still be alive.
  • For an added gut punch, one of the Stingers in Ant-Man and the Wasp reveals that The Wasp and her newly-reunited parents (Hank and Janet, who were the original Ant-Man and Wasp) were also among those who died when Thanos snapped using the Infinity Stones.
  • A deleted scene from Avengers: Endgame would've had an extreme case. In that movie, time travel effectively creates an Alternate Universe that branches off from the point you arrive there: one of the timelines created starts in 2014, just before Guardians of the Galaxy. Upon finding out about his death in the future, the Thanos of that timeline would have immediately headed to Earth and killed the Avengers four years early, in a fit of rage. To prove it, he would have opened the final battle by throwing out Captain America's severed head.
  • In Eternals the Deviant Kro is responsible for the deaths of two Eternals, Ajak and Gilgamesh. The Eternals had survived just fine for thousands of years before then and were nearly successful in killing all the Deviants.
  • In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Scarlet Witch kills off The Illuminati, meaning Mister Fantastic, Professor X, Captain Carter, Black Bolt, and Alternate Universe Captain Marvel all die at her hands (and in rather horrific manners).
• The Matrix: The Agents are designed to stop and kill members of the resistance and have superhuman abilities in the Matrix far beyond even what the enlightened humans can achieve by "hacking" it. They have superior Super-Strength as well as Super-Reflexes that allow them to almost always Dodge the Bullet, and are Nigh-Invulnerable. Besides of this, they're not programmed to actually die even if you kill their current body. You may be able to run from them, but no-one can fight one. This is also a plot point in that only The One could possibly hope to beat an Agent.
• No Country for Old Men: Anton Chigurh, whose participation in the plot accounts single-handedly for almost every terrifying moment in the film. One example: he hides in the bathroom of a crime scene with a loaded shotgun as Detective Bell despondently investigates the complex.
• Appropriate for a Darker and Edgier installment in the James Bond franchise, No Time to Die has two examples.
  • The first was Logan Ash, a member of the CIA partnered with recurring character Felix Leiter. Unfortunately, it turns out he was a Double Agent working for the Big Bad, and when he's found out he proceeds to shoot Felix in the stomach and sink his boat, leading Bond to escape without him.
  • The second was the Big Bad himself, Lyutsifer Safin. His plan may have been foiled and he ultimately died, but his last act before death was to infect James with a special strain of the Heracles project specifically targeted to Madeleine Swann's DNA, ensuring that he can never see his wife or daughter again without killing them. As such, James elects to stay on the island he called a missile strike on to guarantee Heracles be destroyed for good. It may have been a Posthumous Villain Victory, but he still managed to do the impossible: remove James Bond's Plot Armor and successfully kill him.
• Part of Rita Repulsa's Adaptational Badassery in Power Rangers (2017) involved being a member of a past team of Power Rangers that she turned on and wiped out but for Zordon, who, in the face of defeat, chose to call a meteor down on his own location and try to catch her in the blast radius. The fact that she was strong enough to take down a full Ranger team on her own increases the urgency of the new team's training when she re-emerges, as Zordon's surviving consciousness is perfectly aware of what she's capable of and knows the new Rangers have to be as strong as possible to survive against her, let alone stop her from conquering the world.
• Star Wars:
  • Darth Vader. In the first film, he kills Obi-Wan Kenobi in a lightsaber duel and shoots down numerous Rebel pilots during their assault on the Death Star, including two squadron leaders and Luke's Childhood Friend Biggs, along with dealing R2-D2 serious damage. In the second, he cuts off Luke's hand and has Han Solo suspended in carbonite. In the prequels, he double teams Mace Windu with Big Bad Palpatine and slaughters a whole class of youngling Jedi along with Jedi Master Shaak Ti. In Rogue One we get to see him do some heavy-duty Darth Vadering on a ship as he effortlessly shreds his way through an entire squad of Rebels in a moment that is made of awesome and downright chilling. In the Expanded Universe he hunts down and defeats numerous Jedi as well.
  • General Grievous is known for being a prolific Jedi hunter, but this ends up being an Informed Ability as across the films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars he's only killed one Jedi on screen. In deleted scenes for Revenge of the Sith he was originally intended to kill Jedi Master Shaak Ti but that honor ended up going to Vader in the end.
  • Psycho for Hire Aurra Sing was a Dark Jedi Bounty Hunter who turned on the Order after being kidnapped and raised by pirates, and in Star Wars Legends is shown to have a particular hatred for Jedi while being a skilled lightsaber duelist who uses ones she collected from various victims similar to General Grievous. In Coruscant Nights, Vader himself hires her to kill Jedi for him.
  • In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren has this reputation among the First Order as he was responsible for the destruction of the new Jedi Order. He later earns it in full when he kills his father, Han Solo, showing that he's even more evil than Vader, as Vader couldn't bring himself to kill a member of his own family. The film also ends with Finn in a coma after Ren nearly kills him.
  • In Rogue One, the Death Troopers demonstrate that these stormtroopers are not to be fucked with by killing Lyra Erso, Chirrut Imwe, and Baze Malbus and non-fatally shooting Cassian Andor. Not to mention the scores of Rebel redshirts whom they chew up like lawnmowers.
• The various Terminators were created for this purpose, but only the T-800 in Terminator: Dark Fate was successful in killing John Connor whereas the original T-800 sent back to kill Sarah (though he did kill Kyle Reese) and the T-1000 failed. The T-850 also killed John in the future before being reprogrammed and sent back to protect him and Kate, and the T-5000 turned John into a T-3000.
• Von Ryan's Express: Gortz is a ruthless and taciturn SS officer. He commands a detachment of crack troops whose sole purpose in the story is to hunt down the American and British airmen who got out of the Fascist Italian P.O.W. camp — and either recapture them or kill them. American officer "Von" Ryan and his British counterpart and Vitriolic Best Bud Fincham hold off the Nazis before running for the train as it crosses into Switzerland. In a fit of Tranquil Fury, Gortz grabs a gun from one of his men and shoots Ryan In the Back just before he gets aboard as a parting shot to his escaping prey.
• X-Men Film Series
  • In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Victor Creed murders about 80% of the cast. His resume includes: Wolverine's Only Friend John Wraith, Wade Wilson (though Stryker somewhat brings him back brainwashed), Silverfox twice, Bradley and finally Blob (at least that's what's implied by his dialogue with Wraith). Meaning the only main cast members he never killed were Wolverine, Gambit, Agent Zero and Stryker.
  • In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Future Sentinels are downright unstoppable; even a combined team of half-a-dozen really powerful mutants can't defeat them. They kill most of the characters in the Bad Future, some of them more than once, and the only way to escape from them is to run before they even find you. Plus the only way to stop them completely is to retcon them out of existence, as the X-Men's plan is to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • In Logan, there’s X-24 the titular Anti-Hero’s Evil Twin who kills Charles Xavier and kills Wolverine himself in the final fight. Technically Dr. Zander Rice also counts as thanks to him all mutants are now extinct — thankfully Wolverine guns him down before dying himself.

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