Fair warning: many of these occur at the end of a work, so spoilers may be unmarked. Tread carefully.
Last-Second Chances in Live-Action Films.
- Towards the end of Alice in Wonderland (2010), the White Queen offers one to the Red Queen.White Queen: Racie, we don't have to fight.
Red Queen: I know what you're doing. You think you can blink those pretty little eyes of yours, and I'll melt, just like mummy and daddy did.
White Queen: (Quietly) Please...
Red Queen: NO! It is MY crown! I AM THE ELDEST! - The Avengers: Loki attacks Manhattan with an alien army in order to take over humanity thinking it will stop war among them, with the Avengers trying to fight the army. Thor tries to approach his brother for a last time by making him aware of the destruction caused by the Chitauri army and fact that they are getting out of Loki's control. For a moment it seems as if Loki is considering it... but unfortunately it doesn't last.
- Occurs in Batman Returns, where Bruce gives Catwoman the offer to live happily ever after with him in his mansion. Her answer, she could never live with herself.
- The Equalizer: McCall always offers his adversaries a chance to simply give up and walk away before killing them. In the sequel, because Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, he states that he's not going to extend his customary offer to a group of wealthy rapists.
- The ending of Falling Down has Det. Martin Prendergast asking William "D-Fens" Foster to surrender so that he can still watch his little girl grow up. Foster refuses, insisting instead on a final shoot-out with Prendergast. It turns out to be Suicide by Cop since Foster only has a water pistol.
- At the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Dr. Elsa Schneider had a second chance when Indiana dove for her hands as she almost fell into an abyss. All she had to do was let him lift her up to safety; instead, she pried one of her hands free to reach the grail underneath her. As she stretched, the glove on her other hand came off slowly but surely, resulting in a fatal plunge.
- In the 2000 version of Jesus Christ Superstar, after a much more taunting version of the climactic song than usual, Jesus reaches out to Judas, who rejects him one last time. Once Jesus is back in the physical world, the demonic showgirls vanish, and the last we see of Judas is of him suffering in Hell.
- Jew Süss: Rise and Fall: Ferdinand Marian has just starred in the horrific anti-Semitic propaganda film Jew Suss despite being at least nominally anti-Nazi. Marian and his wife Anna go to the Venice Film Festival for the premiere. Anna tells Ferdinand that this is their chance to fly to Italian North Africa and from there to escape to America. Marian, who despite his better instincts is enjoying the praise and attention he's getting for the film, refuses. It's a bad mistake.
- Kill Bill: Before their fight begins, the Bride offers Gogo Yubari a chance to back off and go home (most likely because she is 17 at the very oldest), but it's laughingly denied.
- Kong: Skull Island: Before the Final Battle, when the Alpha Skullcrawler awakens and is barrelling towards the cast, James Conrad offers Preston Packard — the colonel who tragically went insane and has spent the latter half of the movie hypocritically endangering his own men and everyone else to satisfy his hate-boner to kill Kong — his hand so the colonel can flee with him and his mutineering men. Packard doesn't take it, staring blankly at the approaching Skullcrawler without responding to Conrad, and Conrad is forced to flee without him. To hammer home how irredeemable Packard is at this point, once Conrad is gone, Packard turns his attentions right back to trying to blow Kong to smithereens, ignoring the far more dangerous monster that he's just unleashed before the Final Battle.
- In the film version of David Brin's The Postman, the title character does this to General Bethlehem after defeating him. His reward? A predictable but failed attempt to stab him in the back.
- In Robot Jox, the two leading robot pilots, hero Achilles and villain Alexander, end up fighting it out hand to hand after they destroy each others' mecha. After a realization that they are both just soldiers for their corporate masters, Achilles offers Alexander a chance to end the fight in an honorable draw that would let them both survive. Unusually for this trope, Alexander accepts the offer, and the movie ends with the two saluting each other.
- Spider-Man 2 has a memorable scene where Dr. Octavius (AKA Doc Ock) takes the last-second chance, and dies saving the city from his own machinations.
- Star Trek
- Star Trek (2009): The villain is on the ropes and is especially spiteful in turning down his last-second chance. "I would rather suffer the end of Romulus a thousand times! I would rather die in agony than accept assistance from you!"
- In Search for Spock, Kirk tries to save the Klingon commander from falling into a lava field. Of course, Klingons being Klingons, the commander tries to drag Kirk down with him; and gets kicked off."I... have had... enough of... you!"
- Star Wars:
- Of course, the final scene in Return of the Jedi is an example of this in incredibly slow-motion, with Darth Vader refusing to save Luke several times before finally saving him, and as always, Redemption Equals Death.
- Offering a Last-Second Chance to potentially redeemable opponents is the Jedi's counter to the Sith's "Dun Moch".
- Han Solo offers Kylo Ren a second chance in The Force Awakens. Ren looks like he's about to accept - unfortunately, it's a case of One Dialogue, Two Conversations, and Ren stabs Han in the heart. In The Last Jedi, after he and Rey have to fight on the same side for awhile to survive, he also turns down a last second chance from her and instead tries to convince her to join him. He finally accepts her offer, but it takes three films for him to turn back to the light, and turning back has the same cost for him as it did for his grandfather.
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon has Optimus trying to awake some good in his old mentor Sentinel Prime but fails and ultimately forcing him to execute the latter. When Sam Witwicky was fighting Dylan Gloud in the final battle, he tried to reason with him but likewise, said person didn't listen.
- Taken 2: Bryan Mills tries to offer the Big Bad Murad a chance to walk away in exchange for leaving his family in peace. Murad blows it.
