Its All About Me / Film

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Films — Animation

• Alice in Wonderland: In Wonderland, all ways are the Queen's ways. And if she doesn't get her way, someone's head always rolls for it.
• In Antz, General Mandible justifies sending soldiers loyal to the Queen on a suicide mission against a peaceful termite colony just to get them out of the way, assassinating said Queen, and flooding the ant colony to kill off the "weak" workers by claiming it's "for the good of the colony". Near the end, his own second-in-command Cutter has had enough of Mandible's murderous ways and sides with the heroes, saying it's "for the good of the colony". Mandible snaps and screams "I AM the colony!", revealing it was all about his satisfying his own ego.
• Beauty and the Beast: "Belle, it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things... like me!"
  • This characterization carries over to Gaston's appearances in House of Mouse, when he'll interject with "Nobody X's like Gaston!" Except for "Nobody shuts up like... never mind."
  • Rather fittingly, the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation gives him a song called "Me."
• Cats Don't Dance: Darla Dimple is the poster girl for this trope in the film: She is a spoiled, deceitful, manipulative, child star who hates animals and doesn't want any of them getting HER spotlight, to the point where she has her butler Max flood her movie's sound stage after she deceives Danny into gathering the animal actors into performing an audition for L.B. Mammoth, which gets them blamed and fired afterwards. Only at the "Lil' Ark Angel" premiere does she get what she deserves: A Humiliation Conga that rapidly improves the animals' final musical number for the movie's audience and injures her every time, an Accidental Public Confession of what she did and who she really is (followed by Pudge giving her a stage drop), and the animals' rise to stardom by having them replace her, while Darla is demoted to a lowly janitor as punishment for her crimes.
• The Trope Namer is The Emperor's New Groove. The main poster shows human Kuzco in front of a giant "ME". Properly read, the poster says "It's all about me".
• Frozen (2013): Justified and deconstructed with Prince Hans. He reveals his calculated plot to fake his romance with Anna, kill Elsa, and become king of Arendelle. Aware that he is Spare to the Throne back home and permanently estranged with his family since childhood, he seeks to rule elsewhere and crave the recognition he felt he deserved. Realizing she was only a pawn to him, Anna tells Hans that he's the only one with a "frozen heart", and the few good deeds he did were only done to gain public trust. His sociopathic "frozen" heart stops him from bonding with others and shows that he's willing to forsake all relationships for more political power. In one scene, he even wanted to invite his older brothers just to rub it in their faces out of spite.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Judge Frollo spares baby Quasimodo only because he believes he may be useful to him later in locating the Gypsies' hideout and because the Archdeacon demanded he do so as atonement for killing the boy's mother on the cathedral steps. This is the only time Frollo has a Heel Realization, but even then, he cares only about his own salvation rather than any actual guilt.
• The Incredibles:
  • Syndrome a.k.a. Buddy Pine. As a boy, he constantly pesters Mr. Incredible and implores him to let him be his sidekick. When he tries to show his skills, and almost gets killed doing so, the resulting damage leads to a widespread Super Registration Act which forces Mr. Incredible into retirement and hiding. Yet years later, Syndrome still has the gall to say he got the short end of the stick.
  • Helen accuses her husband Bob of this in their argument, believing he is prioritizing his desire for relevance as a hero than his family (specifically their son Dash's academics).
• Inside Out: Joy is a Well-Intentioned Extremist version. She always wants Riley to be happy, so essentially she always wants Riley to focus on her. She's the one behind all of Riley's core memories, and the conflict of the film is kicked off when Sadness creates a new core memory, which Joy is so opposed to that she yanks it out before it can take and tries to send it to the Memory Dump, thus leading to the rest being knocked loose and being sucked through the tube, with her and Sadness following when she tries to save them.
• Both Simba and Scar in The Lion King (1994) think this about being king, although Simba grows out of it:
  • As a cub, Simba thinks this is what being a king means, and sings a whole song, "I Just Can't Wait to Be King," about how excited he is about being able to get people to do what he wants when he becomes king. Unlike his uncle, he grows out of this mindset...through some pretty harsh circumstances. A lesser example is after he and Nala escape Zazu, where he gives himself the credit calling himself a genius, even though Nala points out it was her idea and he only pulled it off with her help.
  • Scar wants the throne for himself because he considers it part of his "dues" and thinks of the "prizes" to be had from ruling. He is perfectly willing to kill his brother and try to kill his nephew to get it, and drives the Pridelands to ruin because he's not willing to take the responsibilities that come with the power. In essence, Scar is a Simba without the proper guidance and restraint needed to become a king.
• Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: Daniel is introduced as a selfish character who doesn't think about the rest of his family.
• In Megamind, when everyone is mourning the apparent death of Metro Man, Hal seems to think it is an appropriate time to invite Roxanne to his party. His selfishness is made worse by gaining superpowers.
• A Monster in Paris: Commissioner Maynott sees the population of Paris only as a way to become the mayor. When he reads on the newspaper people's complaints about the flood he asks exasperatedly "Who are they taking me for? Moses? A miracle?" and, when Paté explains they expects help, Maynott dismiss it disdainfully, insisting into giving them a diversion to make them forget their problems. He woos Lucille because he thinks her beauty makes her a suitable Trophy Wife, and sees the "monster" (Francoeur) that is terrifying Paris as an opportunity to recover his popularity. His hunting after Francoeur is more about his bruised ego than anything; he causes accidents, forces Paté to pedal all the way to the Eiffel Tower and pushes Lucille from it (Raoul saves her) when she calls him a monster. It is implied that he is the monster of the title, not Francoeur, who, despite being a giant flea, is gentle and naive.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games
  • Principal Cinch has a lot of this, including directly equating the school's reputation with her own and doing her best to increase it, even at the expense of CHS.
  • Twilight says that no-one at Crystal Prep gets excited about anything they didn't do themselves.
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has Big Jack Horner, a selfish Villain who makes it clear he absolutely doesn't care about anything else, and there's no reason except that he's completely lacking in empathy.
  Jack: (sad) You know, I never had much as a kid... Just loving parents... stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit... Useless crap like that. (hopeful) But once I get my wish, I'll finally have the one thing that will make me happy!
  Cricket: (happy) Oh, well, what's that?
  Jack: All of the magic in the world... for me! And no one else gets any. Is that so much?
  Cricket: (horrified) Yes!
  Jack: (matter of fact) Agree to disagree.
• In Quest for Camelot, Ruber thinks more of himself than everyone else, and declares Camelot as his during his Villain Song. This is lampshaded by none other than King Arthur himself.
  King Arthur: Sir Ruber, always thinking of yourself. As knights of the round table our obligation is to the people, not to ourselves.
• Both the Big Bad and one of the good guys in Rock and Rule have this quality:
  • Mok is so self-absorbed it falls squarely into A God Am I territory — this is a man who routinely writes songs solely about how divinely awesome he is, and how everyone must worship him. When people don't completely worship him, he snaps and decides to summon a demon to teach them a lesson.
  • Omar only wants to sing his own songs, and when Angel sings "Send Love Through", Omar walks off the stage. He apologizes.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: The whole dimensional crisis is the result of Wilson Fisk/Kingpin attempting to bring back his lost family (who died in a car accident trying to get away from him after witnessing his fight with Spider-Man) by retrieving versions of them from an alternate dimension. Not only is Fisk ignoring the damage his experiments are causing to New York, but he also never seems to consider the possibility that the alternates he abducts may not want to be with him in the first place.
• Toy Story 2: Stinky Pete tries to act like it is about the Roundup Gang being together again when he starts taking extreme measures, but when Woody and Jessie accuse him of not being fair, he finally snaps and, after claiming they'd always end up in a dime store like he and other unpopular toys did, goes from "we" language to "me" language:
  Stinky Pete: "FAIR?!" I'll tell you what's not "fair": spending a lifetime on a dime store shelf, watching every other toy be sold! Well, finally, my waiting has paid off, and no hand-me-down cowboy doll IS GONNA MESS IT UP FOR ME NOW!!!
• Wreck-It Ralph: The phrase "going Turbo" originated when the racing game character Turbo got jealous of a new game stealing his popularity, so he abandoned his game to join the other one, getting both games decommissioned. He so greatly considers himself more important than anyone else that he invades another racing game, Sugar Rush, recoding it so its intended main character (Vanellope) becomes a bullied glitch, and takes over her role as ruler of the game, so that he has yet another chance to be a popular and victorious racer as King Candy.

Films — Live Action

• In 12 Disasters of Christmas, the town's mayor becomes fixated on the idea that a prophecy states that a teenage girl must be sacrificed to prevent a prophesy of global destruction. He even suggests that he's there to do what her father "couldn't", but for all his claims that he wouldn't be able to do this if it was his daughter, he is clearly more interested in being the one responsible for saving the world rather than actually taking time to establish what has to be done to achieve that goal.
• 22 July: Anders demonstrates this best after demanding medical attention for a cut on his finger — a cut, as he himself notes, that was caused by the skull fragment of a teenager he murdered.
• Nick Evers in 5 Card Stud:

I got just one rule. Me first, nobody second!

• In the 2024 horror film Baghead, Neil is initially presented as just wanting to use the power of the witch to say goodbye to his wife, but ultimately he goes so far as killing Iris so that he can become the "guardian" of the witch and use her power to basically resume his relationship with his wife, ignoring the various rules of the process that make it clear such an attempt wouldn't even work.
• At the end of Brazil, the protagonist is tortured by his old friend and informational retrieval specialist, Jack. As he begs for mercy, Jack angrily calls the protagonist a "stupid bastard" for putting him in the position of being associated with a dissident.
• The Bronze: Hope's attitude initially-she's a completely selfish jerk.
• Capote: Truman Capote views the world this way, but the best example of it is the party celebrating the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Everyone is singing Harper Lee's praises, congratulating her on a successful book and movie, and generally having a good time. That is, everyone except Capote, who's sulking alone at the bar because they're not singing his praises.
  Capote: Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about.
• In the film Chasing Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Past has become so disillusioned with his work that he decides to stay in the past while on his latest assignment, even if that means that Jack Cameron- the current subject of the Ghosts’ visits- will be erased from history. After being pursued through history by Present and Jack, Past is caught in 1958 when Future shows up along with the ghosts’ supervisor, Trevor James, who informs Past that he has been the most selfish person in history, and Trevor actually checked that.
• Circus of Horrors: The only thing that Elsa cares about is being a star. She becomes consumed with envy any time another woman is billed higher than her, and does not care that Schüler is murdering women who try to leave, so long as she remains the star.
• Citizen Kane: Kane’s philosophy of life is to be loved in his own terms. Lampshaded spectacularly:
  Kane: [pleading] Don't go, Susan. You mustn't go. You can't do this to me.
  Susan: I see. So it's you who this is being done to. It's not me at all. Not how I feel. Not what it means to me. [laughs] I can't do this to you? [odd smile] Oh, yes I can.
• The Dark Crystal: Selfishness is probably the core character trait of each individual Skeksis. The accompanying material says that although they hate each other as much as they hate Gelflings, they need each other to maintain their hold over Thra; the minimum number of them to maintain the balance being ten. It's probably the only reason they don't kill each other off completely. Word of God says it's also why urSu, the leader and wisest of the urRu chose to die — to unbalance the Skeksis by taking skekSo with him.
• Koba from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes claims to be fighting for all apes and genuinely believes it. Even if it was true at one point, by the final act of the movie his one and only concern is venting all his pent up anger and resentment towards humans. By the climax, even his friends aren't safe from his outbursts and the slightest insinuation that he doesn't know best is taken as an affront worthy of death.
  Koba: Caesar brother to humans! Koba fight for ape! Free ape!
  Caesar: You killed ape. Koba fight for Koba. Koba belong in cage.
• Dead Poets Society: Neil Perry's father only sees his son as a vehicle for his legacy, insistent that he goes to Harvard and become a doctor, and won't let him do anything else. After Neil commits suicide, all he can say is "My son, my son!", and he blames Mr. Keating and his teachings instead of admitting that he was wrong to have been so controlling of his son's life.
• Die Hard franchise:
  • Richard "Dick" Thornburg from Die Hard is smug reporter whose own fame and glory matter more than the safety of others. In the first movie, he reveals her relationship to John on TV, and thus to Hans by forcing his way into Holly's house, blackmailing her maid, and putting her children in the spotlight.
  • In the second movie, he expects special treatment on the plane, and when learns of the terrorists plot, he reveals it to the airport and embellishes the extent of the danger, causing a panic at the airport that impedes John and airport security from taking down the rogue soldiers.
• In Doctor in Love, Dr. Hare asks Sir Lancelot for help getting a serum from Dr. Mincing to save a sick boy's life and Sir Lancelot remarks that he doesn't mind if Dr. Hare makes a bloody fool of himself but is annoyed at the idea of having to make a bloody fool of himself. However, he does relent after Dr. Hare reminds him of the patient.
• Colonel Tom Parker from Elvis (2022) is a quintessential example. He repeatedly meddles with Elvis's career so he'll remain profitable and refuses to let him cut ties with Parker so that he can continue to parasitically leech off of him. And he does it all while insisting it's in Elvis's best interest. His first lines in the film, which he narrates as he's lying on the back of a Las Vegas ambulance dying from a bad fall? That he cannot believe the world at large has painted him as the villain of the story. If the audience didn't walked in knowing how that was a big fat lie, they sure knew it afterwards.
• In the climax of Equilibrium, DuPont tries to convince Preston that he lives, breathes, and feels, and now that Preston (who's spent his entire life before the movie on emotion-suppressing drugs) knows what it is like to live and feel, he can't kill him because doing so will enact too high an emotional price. DuPont, note, is the ruler of Libria, and so is responsible for the deaths of an awful lot of people who "live and feel".
• In The Finest Hours, we get a nice subversion of a particular flavor of this trope: the love interest who tries to halt the plot out of concern for the hero. Miriam's repeated, forceful demands that the rescue effort to save the crew of the Pendleton be called off to keep Bernie out of danger are refused by Bernie's C.O. She gets kicked out of the Coast Guard station over it, and on the way home she hits a snowbank and is bailed out by a worried housewife and her children, whose father is trapped on the sinking ship. This gives Miriam a much-needed reality check that she is not the only person out there with a loved one's life hanging in the balance, and that as dangerous as Bernie's mission is, a lot of other ladies will definitely become widows if he doesn't at least make the attempt.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Unsurprisingly, Ghidorah could be seen as this. Whether as a form of Hostile Terraforming or out of sheer sadism, his aim is razing the entire planet to the ground to benefit no-one but himself. Emma and Mark Russell can also be accused of this: it's implied Emma's plan is ultimately her way of lashing out at the world over her son's death in her Sanity Slippage, and Mark Russell displays A Million Is a Statistic attitude in regards to finding Madison while the rest of Monarch are more concerned about the threat of Ghidorah and the other Titans to all life on the planet. Meanwhile, Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist Jonah has an extra moment in the film's novelization that explicitly confirms this about his misanthropic goals.
• The Harvest focuses on Doctor Katherine Young, who has kept her son in isolation all his life due to apparent medical conditions. It is eventually revealed that she actually abducted the boy who thinks she is his mother years ago to serve as a source of organs for her real son, who she has kept in a comatose state in the basement. Katherine is fixated on keeping her real son alive even when there's no sign that he's actually getting better, and when her husband asks her how she can justify killing Jason (the kidnap victim) to save Andy (her son), Katherine defines the situation as Jason saving Andy, as though Jason isn’t even a person in her eyes.
• As it turns out, Dr. Mann of Interstellar was one of the unfortunate astronauts who landed on a planet that was not suitable for human habitation, but was too much of a Dirty Coward to perform a Heroic Sacrifice and instead forged data about his planet and activated his beacon anyway so the party can drop by and rescue him. When you're willing to put a mission to save the entire human race in jeopardy just to save your own sorry ass, you count as this. Naturally, when the Awful Truth is revealed to the heroes, the "one Precision F-Strike only in a PG-13 film" rule is used to brilliant effect.
  You fucking coward.
• Henry Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. He's a Morally Bankrupt Banker who wants to squeeze the residents of Bedford Falls dry, steals $8,000 from the Building and Loan, and tries to frame George over it. Seriously, does this jackass who views others "worth more dead than alive" care about anyone else? In the alternate reality, he not only took over Bedford Falls and renamed it Pottersville, he even turned it into a Wretched Hive full of sin and debauchery.
• Jurgen Voller, the Big Bad of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, demonstrates this in two ways: the first is that his plan to travel back to 1939 is centered around assassinating Hitler and replacing him with a more competent leader, which, from Voller's dialogue, is strongly implied to be Voller himself. The second is when the plan in question goes awry and the time fissure he travels through sends him and his crew back to the Siege of Syracuse instead of to 1939, and when his plane starts taking damage from Greek and Roman artillery, he starts freaking out and demanding that the pilots fly him back through the time fissure, specifically telling them to get him out of there and that he can't be there, clearly not caring about the lives of everyone else who followed him on his mission.
• James Bond: This is the prime motivation of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, 007's biggest Arch-Enemy and the tyrannical head of SPECTRE, as they always revolve around his personal gain, something for which he is willing to destroy countless lives. Even in Spectre, where it's escalated to a personal grudge against Bond, his Evil Plan to coerce several of the world's major intelligence agencies into working for him so SPECTRE can counteract their plans without any sort of obstacle involves some sort of monetary gain.
• Waldo Lydecker of Laura is so full of himself, even when he flashes back to Laura's old life, it's through the filter of how great he is.
• The main character of Little Sweetheart is a sociopath, so this is a given.
• The Lucky One: Almost every time Judge Clayton speaks to one of his relatives, it is to emphasize how preoccupied he is with his campaign for mayor. He gushes proudly about his grandson properly reciting his campaign slogan and later compliments the boy's violin recital by saying he can play it at the victory ceremony. After assuring his son that his Reckless Gun Usage can be covered up, the judge adds that it will blow ever "by the election." The only exception to this is after his son's death.
• Gidi from Mabul shows little concern for how his screw-ups affect other people. When he accidentally cancels the catering for his son's Bar Mitzvah, he says, "I've had a difficult week. You don't understand." Later he says, "I apologized! What more do you want?"
• In Madame Web (2024), in the name of preventing a vision of his own death, Ezekiel Sims attacks and potentially kills various cops and random civilians who get in his way to eliminate the girls who he has envisioned will cause his future death. Santiago even states he sought the Amazonian spiders for his own selfish purposes.
• Mandalay: When he reunites with Tanya, all Tony can think about is himself. Sure, the first time he frames as if he is concerned with his broken relationship with Tanya but, quickly enough, he just plain asks if Tanya can't just forget her time as the hostess of the "Jardin d'Orient", completely ignoring he was the one who dumped her in there. Oh, he doesn't blame her, but it's not been very fun for him either. The second time is much more blatant. He just goes about how is he going to open a nightclub in Mandalay with Tanya as the hostess, how much he missed Tanya, and how difficult have things been for him while evading justice.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: A recurring theme of the series. Villains often pursue personal needs and desires unlike those who try to stop them. Some heroes also start with this attitude before Character Development kicks in.
  • Self-centeredness has long been a character trait of Tony Stark, but initially it was portrayed more as an endearing/annoying factor than a true flaw. Such as when he bought a giant tower in order to put his name on it in big letters. As he says, "It's like Christmas, but with more... me."
  • Iron Man 2: As the NYPD haul him away, Hammer accuses Pepper of trying to "pin [the blame]" for the Hammer Drone attack on him (while simultaneously complimenting her on her ruthlessness). This, despite the fact that the Hammer drones going rogue, resulting in millions of dollars in property damage and dozens of casualties, was basically entirely his fault. While he didn't specifically intend to cause what was going on, he illegally broke Vanko out of prison and gave a known mechanical genius and psycho access to all his technology, all just to further shady-at-best business practices. The most charitable option is that his plans have Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • Thor: Thor is so self-centered that he is willing to kill countless Jotuns, endanger his outnumbered friends and brother, and start a war with Jotunheim — after King Laufey had just excused their trespass and allowed them to leave in peace — because one of the Jotuns called him “princess”. He continues to behave self-centeredly on Earth during his banishment until he learns that he cannot get away with that sort of behavior there.
  • Thor and The Avengers: Loki is so self-centered that he is willing to destroy (in the first film) or subjugate (in the second one) an entire planet to get the appreciation he thinks he is owned. Taken up to eleven in the second case where he is more of a pathological Narcissist.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Ultron's first goal was "peace in our time" when he started out. By film's end, he firmly refers to his goal as "peace in my time". His primary reason for creating the Vision was so that he'd have a body that would look the part of a savior to those that survived his Colony Drop.
  • Doctor Strange: The titular character has a colossal ego before he develops out of it. Both Christine and the Ancient One accuse him of this mindset.
    The Ancient One: Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
    Dr Strange: Which is?
    The Ancient One: It's not about you.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Star-Lord's father's plan is to grow bits of himself on all the planets in the universe, thereby becoming the only living thing, except for Star-Lord, since he needs Peter's energy to activate "The Expanse." He isn't called "Ego" for nothing.
  • Thor: Ragnarok:
    • Hela is solely focused on herself and putting the blame on everyone else. She wants to conquer the universe by pretty much killing everything else and cannot comprehend why Odin or other Asgardians oppose her. She also gets frustrated that no one remembers her.
    • The film features a literal monument to Loki's vanity, and while posing as Odin, he's written an epic tragedy about his "fallen son", ergo, himself. Thor, having deduced that Odin is actually Loki in disguise, almost gets him to give himself away by prodding his ego, making insulting remarks about Loki as though he isn't there.
  • Black Panther: Killmonger claims to be fighting for oppressed Africans and condemns the Wakandan government for selfishly hoarding its advanced technology. However, he only cares about himself since he's fine with bossing around other black people, misappropriating African culture, and keeping the Black Panther's powers for himself. When T'Challa points out how the flaws in his methods and that his actions would only bring needless suffering, Killmonger doesn't care and just wants the world to experience his suffering.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: According to the commentary of the directors and writers, the real reason that Thanos wants to kill half the universe is not to save it from an Overpopulation Crisis (which he could easily use the Infinity Gauntlet to do), but out of a selfish desire to prove to himself that his idea to save Titan was right... Hence the massive amount of Insane Troll Logic and Artistic License – Biology it involves. This is expanded upon in Avengers: Endgame, when past Thanos sees that everyone despises him for what his future self did, actually killed him for it, and that the Avengers are trying to undo his actions, he decides instead of killing half the universe, he'll kill the entire universe and replace it with one who will be grateful towards him and never know of the universe-wide genocide he committed.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: For all that his claims of nobility, it's very clear that the High Evolutionary's main priority is feeding his own ego. He expects everyone to live and die on his command regardless of whether it's even necessary, and gets angry when it isn't do. It's also notable that his main requirement for all his creations is that they worship him as a god.
• On Chesil Beach: Edward unravels when Florence runs out of their hotel room after a moment of Interrupted Intimacy on their wedding night. Edward interprets Florence's aversion to sex as a personal rejection and can only rant about his own suffering. When Florence tries to placate Edward and explain he is not the problem, Edward only responds to chastise her.
  Edward Mayhew: You tricked me. You’re a fraud. And I know what else you are. Do you know what you are? You’re frigid, that’s what. Completely frigid. But you thought you needed a husband and I was the first bloody fool to come along.
• Revenge (2017): When Richard goes to talk to Jen after Stan raped her, he has the audacity to ask her to think about what it would do to him if she doesn't keep quiet about it. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't take it well.
• In the film Robot Overlords, advanced alien robots have basically taken over the world and maintain their authority with a group of human collaborators. Robin Smythe is one of these collaborators, trying to use his authority to force a relationship with a woman who lives in the neighbourhood he is responsible for while lying that her husband is dead (in reality her husband escaped and is on the run). More significantly, he is aware that the robots intend to ultimately drain all human creativity from the majority of the human population and continues to serve them because he has been told that he and other collaborators will be spared.
• Janet Majors in The Rocky Horror Picture Show follow-up movie Shock Treatment does a musical number called "Me Of Me" in the Denton TV studio after her Evil Makeover.
• SHAZAM! (2019):
  • Sivana is concerned only with his own power and benefit and doesn't care who gets hurt or what happens as long as he gets what he feels entitled to.
  • While Billy's biological mom claims she left Billy with the police because she felt he would be better off that way, the fact she didn't attempt to properly hand off custody of him to the state and ensure he'd have a stable environment (and could still visit him) shows she cared more about unburdening herself from being a parent than his well-being.
• During the climax of Sisters of Death, The Mole (Sylvia) rants to Judy about how the death of Liz seven years ago ruined her life. Apparently, she's the real victim, not Liz (shot in the head during a sabotaged hazing ritual) nor their sorority sisters murdered over the course of the film.
• The fictionalized version of Mark Zuckerburg in The Social Network has a pretty clear shade of this, expecting everyone around him to conform to his wishes, demands total devotion and praise, and is contemptuous of anyone who doesn't treat him as he feels he deserves. This video nicely sums it up.
• Star Wars: Emperor Palpatine's ultimate goal is to conquer the galaxy, destroy the Jedi, corrupt Anakin Skywalker into his apprentice, and allow the Sith to take their place as rulers. Of course, this is all for his own benefit, as he has no desire to let anyone else rule but himself. The entire series is practically a demonstration of this:
  • The prequels have him manipulate events on Naboo to get the Trade Federation to invade. Knowing full well that Senate bureaucratic proceedings will be grossly inefficient in halting the invasion, he subtly warns Queen Amidala about how events will play out when she attempts to provide evidence of what has transpired. While he's framing it as him trying to help rescue his planet, it's really a ploy to get him elected as Supreme Chancellor.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars demonstrates this further thanks to Darth Maul, who succeeds in conquering Mandalore. As Palpatine had largely ignored him up to that point, he only deals with his former apprentice personally because he poses a threat to his own plans to rule the galaxy.
  • And of course, this line in Revenge of the Sith best exemplifies it:
    Palpatine: I. AM. THE SENATE.
  • Rogue One: Tarkin and Krennic care more about screwing each other over and one upping the other than they do about actually making sure everything goes to plan. The long term effects their egos and feuding have on The Empire are quite substantial, to say the least.
  • By the time of the original trilogy, he's all too happy to goad Luke into killing Darth Vader, as he wants to corrupt the boy for his own amusement, giving little care about what happens to his apprentice.
  • Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker perhaps best exemplifies this trope when he finally gets to meet Rey, his granddaughter. He wants her to take over from him, but this requires her killing him to do so, which is exactly what he wants to begin with. For upon doing so, he intends to transfer his spirit into her body, so he can rule the galaxy in a fresh new body, regardless of what happens to his own kin in the process.
• Up Pompeii: When reading about Ludicrus Sextus' orgy in The Daily Tablet, Ammonia complains that they didn't mention the costume she was wearing.
• Scowler from Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie has this as his main personality trait. When he becomes leader of the herd, he gets Drunk with Power to the point of sociopathy.
• Weekend at Bernie's: Larry's response to learning that his boss has apparently snuffed it is to go on a rant about how inconvenient it is for him and why couldn't Bernie have been considerate enough to hold off on killing himself until Monday.
• Magneto calls Wolverine on this (lampshading the obvious to fans) in X2: X-Men United...
  Magneto: Mystique has discovered plans of a base that Stryker's been operating out of for decades. Only we don't know where it is. We thought one of you might.
  Wolverine: The professor already tried [to look for hints about Stryker in my mind].
  Magneto (sighs): Once again, you think it's all about you.
  • It's also a callback to X-Men, when everyone is certain that Magneto is trying to kidnap Wolverine, only to discover that he's actually after Rogue
    Wolverine: What do you want with me?
    Magneto: You? My dear boy, whoever said anything about wanting you? (glance towards Rogue, cue Oh, Crap! expression from her and Wolverine)
  • Which is ironic, considering Magneto's ego and inability to believe that Mutants could possibly survive without him is something of a running theme through the first three movies.

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