Times where someone demands others kneel before them in Live-Action Films.
- From the 300 film, best illustrated by Xerxes' speech to Ephialtes. Note that Ephialtes wanted revenge on Leonidas, who had — justifiably — not allowed the physically unable hunchback to become a Spartan, and so the former gladly bowed down to Xerxes the first chance he got.Xerxes: Cruel Leonidas... required you to stand. I ask ONLY... that you KNEEL!
- Leonidas does kneel in the end; only so that he can get one last shot at Xerxes. He doesn't kill him, but he does make him bleed.
- Anazapta (aka Black Plague). Lady Matilda goes to beg the local bishop for more time to pay her debts. After she kneels to kiss his ring finger, the bishop establishes his creepy credentials by insisting she remain kneeling while he talks about how beautiful she was when she was that high looking up at him, and even more so now that she's older.
- Cleopatra featured a scene like this between the fair lady of the title and her future boy toy Mark Antony.Marcus Antonius: You dare ask a representative of the Roman—
Cleopatra VII: I asked it of Julius Caesar. I demand it of you. - In The Chronicles of Riddick, the Necromongers demand this of the people of New Mecca. They refuse, but then Lord Marshal rips a guy's soul out, terrifying them into kneeling. Despite this display of power, Riddick answers, "I bow to no man." Riddick is later forced to kneel when a magnetic device pins him to the floor. In the Director's Cut, at one point Riddick falls to his knees in exhaustion, and Lord Vaako remarks, "So, you can kneel!"
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has a rare heroic example. Li Mubai is trying everything he can to get Jen to agree to be his student and stop her from more or less being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Finally, he seems to be getting through to her and she says she'll agree if he can take the sword away from her in 3 moves. He does it in 1.Li Mubai: Bow to your teacher!
Jen: Never! (jumps off waterfall) - The Dark Side of the Moon (1990): The devil gives all his victims the option to kneel before him before murdering them. Of course, since he's driven by Pride.
- Inverted in Eastern Promises. Examining the corpse of a Mafiya soldier, a police inspector notes some of his extensive tattoos; "Stars on his knees means he kneels before no man."
- In Gladiator, Commodus offers Maximus the chance at first, but once turned down, Commodus just orders Maximus and his family's execution.
- Gods of Egypt: During the coronation of Horus, Set enacts a coup d'etat by murdering his brother and seizing the throne. He demands that the other gods, and everybody present, bow before him. They promptly do.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) has a variant when King Ghidorah, handily defeats Rodan and more narrowly puts Godzilla himself down for the count. Rodan, who fights for the strongest side, has no problem bowing to him. At the end of the movie, when Godzilla returns and incinerates Ghidorah, reclaiming his title as King of the Monsters, Rodan and a few other kaiju appear and bow to him.
- In Invitation to a Gunfighter, Cultured Badass gunfighter Jules forces Morally Bankrupt Banker Sam Brewster to kneel in the dirt in front of a burro and confess his sins (of being a thief, a hypocrite, etc.) in front of the entire town.
- James Bond:
- The first thing psychopathic assassin Red Grant does to James Bond when he captures him in From Russia with Love:Grant: All right, now get up on your knees. Put your hands in your pockets. Keep them there.
Bond: Red wine with fish. That should have told me something.
Grant: You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees. How does it feel, old man?
[...]
Grant: The first one won't kill you. Not the second. Not even the third. Not till you crawl over here and you kiss my foot. - In Never Say Never Again, Fatima Blush has a twist on it, demanding Bond write that she was the best lay he ever had — before she shoots him in the groin.Blush: Now write this. The greatest rapture of my life was afforded to me on a boat off Nassau by Fatima Blush.
- It happens in the book version of ''The Man with the Golden Gun" — or at least, it's a crime Bond charges Scaramanga with having committed in the past.
- The first thing psychopathic assassin Red Grant does to James Bond when he captures him in From Russia with Love:
- In The King and I, Yul Brynner famously declares "Your head must never be higher than mine!" forcing Anna to the floor in her attempt to comply.
- In The Last Dragon, Sho-Nuff tells Leroy to bend down and kiss his Converses. Leroy, being a Martial Pacifist, doesn't mind complying if it means preventing violence. Sho-Nuff then proceeds to kick Leroy in the face.
- Shouted by Jay
after cold-cocking a guard with a baseball bat in Mallrats. - Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In The Avengers (2012), Loki demands this of a crowd in Stuttgart, Germany, and the scared crowd obliges, except for one elderly man who tells Loki that "there are always men like you", and he would rather hold his head high and remain Defiant to the End than kneel before one. Loki moves to kill him before Captain America swoops in in the nick of time to save him and the crowd. During the subsequent fight in Stuttgart, he even attempts to forcefully make Captain America bow before him. Cap instead gives him a kick to the face.
- Thor: Ragnarok. Once Hela returns, she wastes no time in demanding others to kneel before their queen. This is Played for Laughs when she finds the armies of Asgard don't know who she is, and therefore have no reason to kneel, and it increasingly annoys her.
- Masters of the Universe: "Now. You. Will. KNEEL!"
- Played for Laughs in Mister Roberts when the crew realize the precious palm tree of the tyrannical Captain Morton has vanished—Mr Roberts having thrown it overboard—they all kneel before the empty pot and pretend to worship it.
- Naturally, Monty Python have some fun with this in Monty Python's Life of Brian.Centurion: Oh, and throw him the floor again, sir?
Pilate: Oh yes, fwow him to the fwooah, please!
(Brian is already kneeling on the floor, so they pick him up and throw him back down again) - In MST3K The Movie, Dr. Forester forces Mike and the bots to bow down to him. When they try to bluff their way out, he cuts off the oxygen supply in the Satellite of Love so all have to bow to Dr. Forester to save Mike.
- The Pumaman:
- In Return to Oz, the Nome King is a bit too Affably Evil to demand this sort of thing from Dorothy, but he's more than happy to demand it of Mombi.The Nome King: Kneel.
(Mombi lowers herself to her knees)
The Nome King: Lower.
(Mombi lowers herself until she's practically lying on the floor)
The Nome King: LOWER!
(Mombi flinches as she tries and fails to lower herself further, while the Nome King bellows with laughter) - RRR: After Bheem is arrested and set up for a public flogging the Evil Colonialist Buxtons repeatedly express a desire to see him kneel to the British crown and are disappointed and enraged when he continues to find the willpower to keep his knees from touching the ground, even when they bust out a spiked whip.
- In Rurouni Kenshin, Kanryu Takeda threatens Kenshin and Sanosuke with a Gatling Gun and orders them to kneel before him or die. Sanosuke looks like he is about to comply, but instead throws an egg at Takeda's face, blinding him long enough for the two to get out of the line of fire.
- In The Sadist, Charlie holds Carl at gunpoint and forcing him to kneel in the dust at his feet: telling Carl that he can talk all he wants, but once he finishes his soda, he is going to shoot him in the head.
- In The Sicilian, before having them executed by his bandits, Salvatore Guiliano tells a group of Mafia bosses to "Kneel, and make your peace with God". Being 'men of honor', they just stare at him in silent contempt.
- Stargate: Continuum: Defied. Ba'al simply calls up the U.S. President to have a relatively civil discussion with him about an Earth-Go'uld alliance, instead of beaming directly into the Oval Office to demand the unconditional subjugation of mankind. Ba'al recognizes that the usual Goa'uld tactic is too melodramatic and ineffective.
- Star Wars:
- Palpatine wanted this from Luke, but it didn't work out so well.
- Jabba The Hutt also states that Han and Chewbacca have the option of pathetically begging for their lives should they choose to exercise it. Han tells Jabba off while Luke confidently gives the gangster one last chance to be bought off by letting them go. Less than 5 minutes later, Jabba learns the hard way that he should have listened.
- In Suicide Squad (2016), Enchantress promises to spare the lives of any of the Squad who kneels and swears loyalty to her. Harley Quinn pretends to comply in order to get close enough to pick up the sword Katana had dropped and slash Enchantress with it.
- Superman movies:
- General Zod of Superman II. Here's the clip.
- And here's the one where Zod finally succeeds into getting Superman to kneel before him. The latter is a play on this trope as Supes has secretly weakened Zod at that point.
- Zod also has the President kneel, with this classic exchange (playing with Answers to the Name of God):President: Oh, God...
Zod: (correcting) Zod.- Also subverted when Zod first bursts into the Oval Office and orders that the President submit. When one of the men present steps forward to do so, Zod comments that he did it too quickly to be the genuine article. The actual President then reveals himself:President: I will kneel to you if it will save lives.
Zod: It will. Starting with your own.
- Also subverted when Zod first bursts into the Oval Office and orders that the President submit. When one of the men present steps forward to do so, Zod comments that he did it too quickly to be the genuine article. The actual President then reveals himself:
- Man of Steel averts this; though General Zod is the primary antagonist, he never actually commands anyone to kneel before him. However, at one point, Superman is kneeling due to sheer fatigue on the platform of a building still under construction, as Zod hovers in front of him to gloat some more. Also reversed, as at another point Zod falls to his knees before Superman.
- Likewise in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman drops to his knees in despair when Lex Luthor reveals that he has Clark's mother hostage. Lex patronizingly strokes Superman's cheek just to show off the power he now has over the world's most powerful man.
- Luthor: And now God bends to my will.
- During the film, Bruce Wayne has a nightmare of a Bad Future where Superman has turned evil. The moment Superman arrives, the human soldiers in his service instantly kneel and bow their heads, showing he's become a god to some parts of humanity — something speculated about during the present day.
- General Zod of Superman II. Here's the clip.
- Defied in The Ten Commandments (1956), Ramses tells Moses to command the conquered Ethiopians to kneel before Pharaoh, but Moses tells him that he's brought the Ethiopians in friendship and tells Ramses to mind his own business."Command what you have conquered, my brother."
- Terror in a Texas Town: When Johnny Crale goes to murder Mirada, he attempts to make Mirada kneel and beg for his life. Mirada realizes that he is going to die regardless of whether he kneels or stands, and chooses to defy Crale and remain standing. Crale shoots him, but Mirada's actions drive him into a Villainous Breakdown, as he has never encountered someone who was not afraid to do.
- Watchmen. After Dr. Manhattan wins the Vietnam War within a week, some of the Vietcong forces ask to surrender to him in person and are shown prostrating themselves accordingly, a sign of how Dr. Manhattan has come to be regarded as a living god.
