Magnificent Bastard / Film O To S

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O - P

• Old: The unnamed Big Bad is a pharmaceutical executive posing as the manager of a high-class island resort. Years earlier, his team of researchers discovered a beach surrounded by mysterious rocks that produced radiation which accelerated the cell life cycle thousands of times over. Realizing that this could be used to run ultra-rapid studies on cures for notorious diseases, he founded his sham hotel to lure people to the island, with any guests with chronic illnesses sent to the beach for the drug tests, with the unfortunate side effect that the radiation causes them to literally age to death. His studies have likely killed hundreds, but he takes no pride in that fact, believing that his victims should be honored as martyrs to scientific breakthroughs that could save untold millions.
• Once Upon a Time in China II: Nap-lan is a military officer hunting down members of a revolutionary sect that seek to replace the dynasty with a republic. Gaining a respect for Wong Fei-hung in a sparring match, Nap-lan later fakes an attack by the fanatic White Lotus cultists to give himself an excuse to search the British consulate for rebels, murdering the consul when he sees through the ruse. Infiltrating the White Lotus to engage Fei-hung, Nap-lan even succeeds in eliminating his friend before attempting to stea a book of revolutionary names to clandestinely eliminate them.
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico: Sheldon Jeffrey Sands is a brilliant CIA agent out to "keep the balance" in Mexico. Locating El Mariachi, Sands presses him into service by luring one informant into trusting him and paying him off, showcasing his philosophies on victory by rigging a bullfight in favor of the bull so he may collect on the match. Intending on the rogue general Marquez killing the good president before having El kill Marquez, Sands finds himself betrayed and tortured by drug lord Barillo, only to get loose and eliminate the sadistic Agent Ajedrez with a trap despite his new disability.
• Once Upon a Time in the West: Cheyenne is a bandito framed for a massacre he didn't commit by the outlaw Frank and his employer Mr. Morton as part of a scheme to seize Sweetwater Ranch. Cheyenne refuses to play the part of pawn, gunning down a bevy of cops who attempt to stop him and subsequently walking into the movie by intimidating a man into shooting off his handcuffs. Ruthless but with a soft spot for women, proudly naming his prostitute mother the finest woman who ever lived, Cheyenne dedicates himself to protecting Sweetwater's legal owner Jill McBain. Cheyenne nimbly outwits a group of Morton's men on a train, shoots an aggressor dead through a trick gun obscured in his shoe, and teams up with the enigmatic Harmonica to outbid Frank and Morton's corrupt auction for Sweetwater. Cheyenne is mortally wounded in the end but does so having outwitted and totally defeated Morton, living long enough to ensure his remaining men beginning to make Sweetwater a reality and only requesting Harmonica not look when he dies.
• Only God Forgives: Lieutenant Chang is a vigilante cop who views himself as God cleansing an unjust world. Brought into conflict with the criminal Thompson family after setting up the killing of the older son, Billy, Chang also maims the father of the prostitute Billy raped and killed for allowing his teenage daughter into sex work. When Billy's mother Crystal arrives, Chang effortlessly evades her attempt to assassinate him and tortures his way through her minions, even beating down her other sympathetic son Julian to discover her whereabouts. Hunting Crystal to her hotel, Chang executes the evil woman while his influence on Julian leads to him sparing Chang's own family, ending the work victorious and positioned to continue purging the underworld.
• Orca: The Killer Whale: After his mate and unborn calf are killed in a botched capture attempt, the orca seeks revenge on the man responsible, Captain Nolan. To draw him back into the water for a confrontation, he first deposits his mate's corpse on a beach near Nolan's hometown, then gets the other townsfolk to pressure Nolan by attacking the town's livelihood, boats and infrastructure. Finally getting the response he wants when he bites off the leg of Annie, one of Nolan's crew, the orca leads Nolan and his companions in a pursuit north towards icy waters, taking opportunities to whittle down the party chasing him. Sinking Nolan's boat with an iceberg to force him to confront him on foot, the orca breaks off an ice floe to isolate Nolan, then knocks him into the water and throws him to his death with his tail. His revenge complete, the orca spares Nolan's sole surviving companion, Rachel Bedford, and leaves her to be rescued by a helicopter while he swims away under the ice.
• The Other Guys: Roger Wesley is a badass Australian mercenary and the Big Bad of the film. Hired by Lendl Global to save face after an inept investment banker, David Ershon, loses them millions of dollars, Wesley orchestrates a complex jewelry store heist as a distraction for his team to alter records and hide Lendl's loss, before being sent to force Ershon into reacquiring the lost money. Though Ershon is arrested by Detectives Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz, Wesley quickly accosts the duo to take Ershon back, later claiming to have misinterpreted them as abductors and settling Ershon's permit violations to stave off police attention. Later, when Ershon's attorney learns of his illegal activities, Wesley gets him drunk and forces him onto a ledge so his inevitable fatal fall will look like a self-inflicted accident. Wesley repeatedly humiliates Gamble and Hoitz's investigation of the conspiracy throughout the film, and when the duo pretend to take Ershon hostage so that he can't steal from the NYPD, Wesley nonchalantly shoots and incapacitates all three of them, intent on selling Ershon off to disgruntled investors after the scheme is complete in order to pragmatically earn some extra cash.
• The Outfit: Leonard Burling, the seemingly humble tailor of L. Burling Bespoke, was once a violent gangster who retired from crime to take care of his family, only to witness them getting burned alive once his past caught up to him. Moving to Chicago and starting his own tailor shop, Leonard allows the Boyle crime family to drop off dirty money, but when the Boyles and LaFontaines start shaking up the neighborhood, Leonard plans to do something about it. Spending months plotting their downfall, Leonard creates makeshift letters from the Outfit to scare the Boyles into giving up an incriminating tape. Manipulating the Boyles into betraying each other, while even getting the family head Roy to walk into a deadly trap to save his secretary Mable, Burling makes a deal with the LaFontaines to hand them the tape in return for a ton of money, only to give them a fake tape and hand over the money to Mable so that she can live out her dreams. Burning down his shop while ensuring both crime families will go down, Leonard casually walks out of the incinerating building with plans to start his life over again.
• Oz the Great and Powerful: Oscar Diggs, aka "The Great and Powerful Oz", was a magician and con artist at a travelling circus before being transported to the World of Oz. There, he learns that he is destined to save the land and become their new king, after the previous one was killed. While initially in it for the wealth and power, he proves himself to be empathetic and good at heart when he saves Finley from a lion and repairs China Girl's legs with glue. Upon learning that Evanora killed the king and framed Glinda for it, he comes up with the plan to defeat her and the forces of Emerald City, deciding that illusion is the best approach. He tricks Evanora into sending her flying baboon army over the poppy fields, causing them to sleep, and fakes his death so that he can "reincarnate" into his "true form": a giant head in the sky that shoots fireworks from his mouth. After the witch is defeated, he provides his allies with gifts and uses a mini projection system to watch over the people of Oz while they believe that he is dead.
• Paddington 2: Phoenix Buchanan is a hammy, flamboyant and egotistical former actor who now secretly works as a thief. Using his charm and intelligence, Phoenix manages to fool the people of Windsor Gardens and got Paddington falsely arrested for stealing a pop-up book from Mr. Gruber's antique store. Phoenix is then seen scoping around London looking for parts of a code to reveal deceased circus' performers treasure. At the end of the film, when he is arrested, Phoenix is gleefully seen spreading his love for theatre with his cellmates as they all perform a number.
• Panic Room: Burnham is a private security expert who joins a small group of robbers to pay for the legal costs incurred by his custody dispute with his ex-wife. When the new residents hole themselves up in the panic room, Burnham leads a cat and mouse game against them, frequently proving himself more resourceful and strategic than his fellow criminals in outsmarting Meg and Sarah, while also figuring out that the ringleader Junior tried to screw him over and threatening retribution. Burnham eventually devises a Disguised Hostage Gambit to allow the robbers access to the room, also medicating Sarah when she almost goes into a diabetes-induced coma. Burnham almost escapes with millions of dollars in bearer bonds when his conscience makes him go back to save the Altman family from his crazed partner Raoul.
• Pan's Labyrinth: The Faun is a Trickster Mentor to Ofelia, the reincarnation of Princess Moanna of the Underworld, who seeks to return her to her royal roots. Giving her a series of tasks, all of which put her in danger, The Faun gives her the final task to see if she would give her brother's blood. With Ofelia choosing to put her brother over her, resulting in her death, she passes the Secret Test of Character, with the Faun congratulating her as she takes her rightful place as princess of the underworld.
• Parker: Parker is a Gentleman Thief who has pulled many successful heists. The start of the film has him leading a robbery at the Ohio State Fair under the disguise of a priest, successfully stealing over a million dollars. When Parker's cohorts betray and nearly kill him for his cut of the heist money, upon being sent to the hospital by a family of farmers, Parker chokes out the nurse and takes his uniform and ambulance truck. Tracking down his cohorts to Palm Beach, Florida, Parker poses as a rich Texas oil baron under the alias of Daniel Parmitt looking for an extravagant house. Breaking into his cohorts house, he plants two extra guns hidden in it, as well as sabotages the firing pins on the remaining ones, allowing him to easily kill them and take their loot, splitting it with Leslie, as well as the family of farmers who saved his life at the start of the film.
• The Peacemaker: Dušan Gavrić, a "human man" who eschews the usual stereotypes of the Middle Eastern Terrorists in the action genre, is a Serb who lost his entire family to the Yugoslav Wars and turns to extremism to make his pain known. Disillusioned by the fragmentation of his people and proudly affirming himself as "a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim," Gavrić condemns the West for supplying the weapons with which the wars were fought and the continued dehumanization of his people. Gavrić orchestrates a complex scheme to procure a nuke with General Aleksandr Kodoroff as his disposable courier. Gavrić exploits the fact he looks so inconspicuous to walk straight onto the UN headquarters in New York and plant the nuke in a backpack, and dies defiant to his murderers with his bomb intercepted mere seconds before the bomb can go off.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, became disillusioned with the gods following the death of his friend, Thalia, and them abandoning their children. Luke steals Zeus' lighting bolt and frames the son of Poseidon, Percy Jackson, to start a war between the gods. Befriending Percy when he arrives at Camp Half-blood, Luke tricks him into delivering the bolt to Hades by hiding it in the shield that he gives him. Though seemingly defeated, Luke returns and plans to use the Golden Fleece to raise Kronos from the dead. Using a spy to poison Thalia's tree, and putting the camp in danger, Luke kidnaps Grover and chases the heroes through the Sea of Monsters, at one point seemingly killing Percy's half brother Tyson, eventually managing to use the Fleece to raise Kronos. Always having a quip at hand, and constantly keeping Percy on the defensive, Luke proves to be as smart as his book counterpart.
• A Perfect Murder: Steven Taylor schemes to murder his wife and get off completely scot-free as both revenge for her cheating on him, and to gain access to her trust fund worth millions. Upon discovering his wife Emily's infidelity, Steven blackmails and bribes her lover David into assisting him in killing her before creating multiple alibis for himself on the night his brilliant plan goes into motion. When David bungles the otherwise airtight plan by hiring a petty crook to kill Emily, Steven quickly and cleverly stays on top of the situation, manipulating both Emily and the police into suspecting it was a mere robbery gone wrong, and, even as David reveals he has proof of Steven's plans so as to blackmail him into paying David, Steven seemingly gives in only to murder David and get away with all of his money. Steven planned several contingencies on the chance his scheme went awry, rarely loses his cool, and even when Emily discovers the truth of his plans, it's solely because she got suspicious and guessed the combination to his safe where he had temporarily stored David's blackmail proof until he could destroy it.
• The Perfect Host: Warwick Wilson is a charmingly cultured psychotic whose rampant delusional illness does nothing to detract from his hilarity and cunning. Immediately deducing that the criminal John, a supposed friend-of-a-friend, is actually a crook on the run, Warwick lures him inside his home and drugs him, subjecting John to a night of insane torment and terror as part of Warwick's "dinner party." Dancing the night away while convincing nosy neighbors that a drugged John is just a drunk cosplayer, Warwick agrees to let John go after he wins a chess match, only to bait John into attacking him and getting trapped once more. Living an entirely different life and attitude as a police lieutenant, Warwick uses his status to cover up his various crimes, extorts John's stolen bank fortune from him before letting him flee the country, and then ends the film preparing to host another "dinner party", his target this time a suspicious cop who Warwick shows little concern over silencing.
• The Perfection: Charlotte Willmore is a former rape victim of Anton of Bachoff Academy, who, realizing her new lover Lizzie suffers from his brainwashing, tricks her into severing her own hand, thus destroying her cello talent and forcing Lizzie to realize Anton cares nothing for her when he deserts her. Scheming to have Lizzie "capture" her for Anton, they deceive him and poison and kill his allies to corner him. As Anton can only sit crippled and mutilated, Charlotte and Lizzie triumphantly play the cello as one.
• Phone Booth: The unnamed caller is a vigilante sniper who targets Asshole Victims, tormenting them to force them to become honest lest he kill them. Targeting Stuart "Stu" Shepard for cheating on his wife, the caller makes him play a series of psychological games to break him into becoming honest. Killing a pimp who tries to get Stu out of the phone booth, the caller is forcing him to stay inside and leaves a handgun atop its roof, leading to Stu being incriminated for the murder. Forcing Stu to confess to his wife when she arrives on the scene, the caller kills a Pizza Delivery guy to frame him for his crimes, leaving while promising Stu he will return if he goes back to his callous ways.
• Plan 9 from Outer Space: The Ruler is the dignified and enigmatic leader of the aliens, who wishes to prevent mankind from destroying the universe. When attempts to negotiate with Earth fail, the Ruler endorses Plan 9, having his subordinate Eros bring several humans back from the dead and dispose of any witnesses. As a show of power, he has Eros send one of the dead recruits to attack a house, then hit him with a beam that will vaporize him, planning to use this distraction to raise an army of the dead to march on Earth's capitals. Always keeping his cool, the Ruler is quick to adapt to setbacks, and correctly anticipates that Plan 9 will fail due to Eros's incompetence. Taking command of Eros's other ships and keeping them in reserve to ensure minimal losses, the Ruler ends the film still at large and able to proceed with his plans.
• Point Break (1991): Bodhi is the zen sage surfer who, along with three of his friends, form the bank-robbing "Ex-Presidents". Thanks to sticking to a minute-and-a-half time frame, in three years they've successfully pulled off 27 robberies without getting caught and pull off three more successfully as well. Bodhi takes in undercover FBI rookie Johnny Utah and helps him connect to surfing on a spiritual level and when realizing Johnny's onto him, Bodhi destroys the first getaway car and a gas station to cover his tracks and escapes Johnny in an extended and harrowing foot chase. Bodhi then has Johnny's new love and Bodhi's ex Tyler Endicott taken hostage to force Johnny's help in committing a final robbery that goes bad, resulting in Bodhi killing a cop. Bodhi escapes from his getaway plane with Johnny in pursuit and escapes after having Tyler released. Bodhi then evades Johnny until Australia and convinces him to let him ride the monster swell, both knowing full well it will likely cost him his life.
• Polar: Duncan Vizla is "The Black Kaiser", one of the world's deadliest assassins, is about to retire at age 50. With Mr. Blut plotting to kill Vizla for his pension, Vizla anticipates Blut's traps and counters them to killing off Blut's assassins. When Blut captures Vizla and Camille and tortures the Vizla for three days, Vizla exploits Blut's torture sessions to find a way to escape, before setting up his own ambush to kill off most of Blut's men and using his mere presence to scare off the remainder of Blut's forces before effortlessly dispatching Blut and rescuing Camille. When it's revealed that Vizla had killed Camille's family, Vizla accepts his fate as Camille tries to kill him, only for her to find herself unable to do so and instead works with him to find out who ordered Vizla to kill Camille's family.
• The Power of the Dog: Peter Gordon, the seemingly effeminate and mild-mannered son of Rose Gordon, reveals himself to be much more unscrupulous and cunning. Seeing Phil Burbank's emotional abuse drive his mother to alcoholism, Peter plots to kill Phil by manipulating Phil into trusting him. Getting close to Phil, Peter finds the opportunity to give Phil cow hide infected with Anthrax by saying he can use it to make Peter's lasso. When Phil contracts Anthrax from the hide and dies, Peter smiles at his results, satisfied that Rose and her husband are living happier lives free from Phil's influence while no one ever figures out that he killed Phil.
• The Prestige:
  • Robert Angier aka Lord Caldlow is a genius magician who becomes consumed with revenge after the accidental death of his wife. Blaming fellow magician Alfred Borden for his wife's demise, Angier goes about sabotaging various aspects of Borden's career and life, culminating in an attempt to steal his secrets by burying his assistant alive. After discovering the cloning properties of Nikolai Tesla's machine, Angier uses it to put on perhaps the greatest magic trick the world has ever seen, staging each show so that one of his clones ends up in a drowning trap, knowing that at some point, Borden will stumble on the trap out of curiosity, which will enable Angier the perfect opportunity to frame him. Faking his own death and framing Borden for it, Angier leaves Borden to hang for his "crime", stopping by one final time before his death to reveal the full extent of Angier's manipulations, and even proclaiming he's taking Borden's daughter under his own wing.
  • The Borden twins are a pair of brilliant magicians defined by their uncompromising dedication to their craft. The twins spend their entire adult lives posing as a single man, "Alfred Borden", fooling everyone, including one brother's wife and daughter, the other brother's girlfriend and their arch rival Robert Angier, who is an expert illusionist in his own right. They sustain the act through elaborate disguises and careful attention to detail, with one brother voluntarily having two of his own fingers cut off to match the other when he has the same fingers shot off by Angier. They remain one step ahead of Angier for the majority of their rivalry, hijacking one of his shows mid-performance to prove their superior skill to the audience, and sending him on a wild goose chase by arranging for him to steal and decode a decoy notebook supposedly containing all of their secrets. When Angier frames one brother for his murder, he calmly accepts his execution by hanging while the other manages to kill Angier and end their rivalry.
  • John Cutter is a former magician and Robert Angier's ingenieur, who works behind the scenes to make him a success. A witty and charismatic man, Cutter assists Angier's schemes against rival magician Borden, calling in favors with managers to put Angier in the spotlight, helping him plan illusions to one-up Borden, and building many of the devices Angier uses. As the magicians' feud escalates, Cutter proves to be adept at analyzing Borden's moves, even kidnapping Borden's assistant to coerce him into revealing his secrets. At the same time, he has a clear sense of honor, as when he learns Angier has set up Borden to be wrongly executed and taken his daughter into his custody, Cutter is disgusted by how far he's gone and helps the surviving Borden twin, subtly allowing Borden to kill Angier in revenge and ensuring that the girl is returned to her father.
• Primal Fear: Aaron Stampler is an orphaned altar boy who was forced into performing sexual acts on camera by Archbishop Richard Rushman. Brutally murdering Rushman for his abuse—and apparently murdering Rushman's likely accomplice Linda too, Aaron then conceives of faking a multiple personality disorder to cast doubt on his own guilt. In doing so, Aaron acts like his regular self is a timid and stuttering kid while his more aggressive personality "Roy" is the strong defensive one who committed the murder to protect him—with Aaron supposedly not remembering any of this due to blackouts. Fooling both his own defense attorney Martin Vail and psychiatrist Dr. Molly Arrington, Aaron then stages a mental break in court by means of Roy attacking prosecutor Janet Venable and the judge finds he's not fit to stand trial as a result. Purposely letting the truth slip to Vail, Aaron then tries to graciously get a horrified Vail to share in his victory with him.
• The Prisoner of Zenda: Rupert of Hentzau is the bold subordinate of Prince Michael and the chief enforcer of the prince's attempt to assume the throne of Zenda from Rudolf V. Assisting Michael in drugging Rudolf to miss the coronation, Rupert centers in on Rudolf's replacement Rudolf Rassendyll, luring him into a trap while also attempting to seduce Michael's mistress Antoinette. Conducting himself with dramatic style and cheerfully amoral, Rupert even manages to elude capture to live to trouble Ruritania anew, charming the audience in both the 1937 and 1952 films without the sexual perversions of his literary original.
• Promising Young Woman: Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas was a star medical school student who dropped out after the rape and later suicide of her best friend Nina Fisher by the popular Al Monroe. While brilliantly plotting her own revenge, Cassie also moonlights pretending to be in a drunken stupor to terrify would-be rapists to spare other women Nina's fate. Utterly ruthless in her methods, Cassie meticulously uncovers the details she needs to bring Nina's case to light, swaying Nina's corrupt but repentant lawyer and even frightening the school's dean and a former student by making the former think her daughter had been kidnapped and the latter that she had been sexually assaulted. Coercing a cowardly bystander of the rape into giving up the location of Al's bachelor party, Cassie dies confronting Al but leaves clues for the police to out the whole crowd, ending the film seeing all of them arrested or with their lives destroyed.
• Prom Night (1980): Alex Hammond witnessed his sister Robin's death by the hands of her classmates and sought to avenge her. Calling her killers to frighten them, Alex spends most of the day gathering up supplies and gets the school bully suspended for harassing his other sister Kim. During the prom, Alex puts himself in a position to keep tabs on everyone before stalking the school corridors and grounds, killing the perpetrators one-by-one. When he kills the wrong person while trying to kill the last one, Alex moves quickly to strike again and nearly kills his target before receiving fatal injuries, then reveals his victims' crime before dying. Alex Hammond proves to be one of the most intelligent and compelling Serial Killers in the Slasher Movie genre.
• The Prophecy:
  • Archangel Gabriel, Big Bad of the first two films and redeemed mentor of the third, is a ruthless angel furious at being cast aside by God in favor of humanity. Leading his forces in a rebellion to a full stalemate against the loyalist angels, Gabriel hunts down an evil soul on earth, knowing that it will turn the tide with its knowledge of war and treachery. Gabriel hunts down the soul after killing his brother Simon for hiding it, playing on his enemies' fears and insecurities before returning after his seeming death at the hand of Lucifer. Almost taking the world and Eden, Gabriel is punished by being turned into a human. After years with time to reflect and repent, Gabriel mentors the young Nephilim Danyael to guide him to stop the angel of Genocide Pyriel and end the war at last, ultimate achieving his redemption and being welcomed home by his Father.
  • Lucifer, the first angel once loved above all others. Gleefully reveling in his malice, Lucifer knows that if Gabriel wins his war in heaven, he will only create another hell and Lucifer cannot allow this. Revealing himself to the heroes, Lucifer give them advice to guide them against Gabriel from the shadows so subtly that Gabriel has no idea of his former brothers involvement. Lucifer reveals the insecurities at the heart of every Angel so Thomas Dagget might be able to shake Gabriel's conviction, ultimately killing Gabriel before demanding Thomas and his friend Katherine "come home" with him. Upon the refusal, Lucifer handles it with good humor, departing to his unchallenged dominion over hell.
• The Protégé (2021):
  • Moody Dutton is an avuncular master assassin who has made it his mission in life to rid the world of people worse than he is. Thirty years ago, he accepted a job to kill a band of marauding guerrillas in Vietnam, only to find them already killed by a little girl they were abusing. Adopting her and naming her Anna, Moody smuggled her to his London base, killing four border guards to get her out of the country, and trained her in the ways of killing. Investigating the son of a previous target, fugitive war criminal Edward Hayes, Moody's friends and associates are massacred by mysterious gunman, and Moody fakes his own death by dressing a dead henchman in his own clothes and destroying his face and hands with a shotgun. Revealing himself alive to join his daughter's crusade of revenge, Moody discovers that his assailants' paymaster is a still living Hayes, and ends his life with a literal bang by detonating a bomb to take his old foe with him.
  • Anna Dutton, every bit her father's daughter, is the film's eponymous protagonist. Eagerly joining her father's war on the scum of the Earth, Anna performs deeds such as wiping out the deadliest mob family in Romania singlehandedly while gaining barely a scuff in return. After Hayes' attack on Moody, she intimidates Hayes' henchman Dosorio Vohl into giving her information by breaking into his car while he's driving, and strikes up a flirtatious rivalry with another key henchman, Michael Rembrandt. Surviving gunshots, a near-drowning, and an onslaught of henchmen over the course of her adventure, she successfully distracts Rembrandt at a party thrown by Hayes to get Moody close enough to kill him, and ultimately rejects Rembrandt's tempting offer to run away together in favor of settling things the old-fashioned way.
  • Michael Rembrandt is one of Edward Hayes' three Co-Dragons, and by far the most affable and competent of the trio. While his associates Ram and Duquet provide the brute strength, Michael bills himself as an "after-the-facts man," cleaning up any and all evidence of his boss's crimes. Introducing himself to Anna by reciting an obscure Edgar Allan Poe poem from memory, the two engage in a game of cat and mouse throughout the movie, which figuratively and literally climaxes in a sexual encounter in Duquet's bed with his corpse in the next room after Anna kills him. After Ram tries to have him eliminated for falling In Love with the Mark, Michael easily fends off numerous much younger henchmen with a colorful variety of Improvised Weapons. Though he sincerely desires leaving the criminal life with Anna, in the end neither one can give up their respective principles, and their final meeting is as enemies.
• Public Enemies: John Dillinger pulls off heist after heist on guarded banks while leading his gang, never losing his gentlemanly exterior and refusal to rob civilians that makes him a folk hero to many. Upon being arrested thanks to a fire at his hotel, Dillinger carves a wooden pistol and uses it to take the guards hostage, bluffing his way to freedom where he resumes his usual activities and remains one step ahead of the law the whole way through. Dillinger at one point even strolls into a police station wearing a disguise just to ask the cops the score to a baseball game out of sheer audacity, repeatedly showing that as one man against the federal government, he usually has the advantage.
• Pulp Fiction:
  • Jules Winnfield is one half of the Bantering Baddie Buddies with his partner Vincent Vega, and easily the smarter compared to his slack-jawed partner. Jules is an audacious, foul-mouthed, Bible-quoting hitman who demonstrates his tendency to take control over any situation he's in by tormenting and blowing away a group of wannabe criminals who attempted to rip his boss Marsellus Wallace off. After a near-death encounter, Jules has a Heel Realization and tries to back out of the mob business for good, only to be held up by a robber couple in a restaurant. Utterly retaining his cool when faced with two guns in his face, Jules effortlessly flips the advantage back to himself by tricking and disarming one of the robbers, and uses his masterful control of the situation to give the two robbers a second chance, much in the same way Jules is finally affording an escape from the criminal underworld to himself.
  • Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe is Marcellus Wallace's top cleaner. Coming in to clean the body and blood in Jules' car after Vincent gets Marvin killed, with only little time left before Jimmie's wife gets home, The Wolf gets to quick work, coming up with a relatively simple yet effective plan to clean the worst of the body before covering up the seating so they look possible before hiding the body in the truck, and manages to get the car out with time to spare. A professional who doesn't take any disrespect and can call the bluff of anyone who questions him, The Wolfe lives up to his reputation, all the while keeping a sophisticated and cordial disposition throughout the situation.
• The Punisher movies:
  • The Punisher (2004): Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, is an ex-cop who, after his family is killed by the Saint family and their henchman Quentin Glass, embarks on a brutal quest to punish them. Castle kidnaps the Saint’s abused lackey Mickey Duka, pretends to torture him in order to get information on the Saints, and convinces him to help in his plan to take them down. Frank then dismantles the Saint's criminal operation by destroying two shipments of money belonging to their associates, causing the associates to cut off ties with the Saints. When the family's patriarch Howard sends assassins after him, Castle outmaneuvers and kills them. With Mickey's help Frank frames Glass for having an affair with Howard's wife Livia, causing Howard to murder them both. Frank then ambushes and dispatches the last of the Saints, showing Howard that the affair was fake in order to break his spirit before killing him. While stoic and distant, Frank shows his warmer side in his treatment of his neighbors whom he gives the Saint's money to before becoming a vigilante.
  • Punisher: War Zone: Frank Castle, The Punisher himself, was a former Force Recon Marine Instructor who lost his family to a mob war. Dedicating his life to wiping out every crime family he can get his hands on, especially ones who manage to escape justice, Frank starts the movie eliminating the heads of the Cesare crime family by staging a blackout during a dinner party, then using a chandelier to wipe out oncoming mooks. Planning to retire after accidentally killing an undercover FBI Agent named Nick, even leaving behind his savings to Nick’s family, Frank promises to rid the city of the rising gangster Jigsaw as his final job. After Jigsaw kidnaps Nick’s family and his friend Microchip, Frank fights his way through Jigsaw’s entire army to save them, eventually saving Nick’s daughter at the cost of Microchip’s life. With Jigsaw soon finished, Frank goes back on his word and returns to his life of vigilantism to protect those who need saving the most.
• The Purge franchise:
  • Anarchy: Sgt. Leo Barnes is a vengeful Purger out to avenge the death of his son. Armed to the teeth and always ready for a fight, Leo shows his compassionate side when he rescues Eva and Cali from mercenaries. He agrees to protect them in exchange for a car, only to discover there is no car right before they're all kidnapped by wealthy socialites. Fighting his way out almost singlehandedly, Leo continues his quest for vengeance, even holding his target's wife at gunpoint, only to ultimately spare his target's life. Years later, serving as the head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, he uses his preparation and quick thinking to ensure they both survive the night, including escaping her house through a secret trap door, luring two Neo-Nazis to their death via their own tracker and ultimately saving the Senator from a kidnapping, leading to the abolishment of the Purge.
  • The First Purge: Dmitri Cimber is a crime lord who runs his Staten Island empire with an iron fist. When his attempt at staying home for the night of the Purge is interrupted by two assassins, Dmitri fights them off to learn who sent them. When he learns it was one of his own men, Dmitri executes everyone involved before coming into conflict with the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA). Upon learning that the NFFA intend to kill as many people as they can in the Purge, Dmitri arms his gang and takes the fight to them, taking out legions of their soldiers despite being outgunned. Even when his gang is killed and he's left alone, he simply takes on everyone himself with a variety of tactics, managing to defeat all of the mercy sent to destroy his community before the night is over. After surviving the night, Dmitri founds the Anti-Purge Resistance, ensuring the fight continues for the next two decades.

Q - R

• Quick Change: Grimm is a disgruntled city planner who decides to rob a bank while dressed as a clown to finance a new life somewhere else. Grimm, his girlfriend Phyllis, and his best friend Loomis escape the bank disguised as released hostages and take off for the airport while manipulating the cops into thinking that the clown's still holed up in the bank. When their getaway is derailed through unlucky circumstances, Grimm displays a knack for bluffing his way out of various jams as the trio race to catch a later flight which Grimm booked as a backup plan. Throughout everything, Grimm is protective of his partners, considerate towards average citizens when he thinks they deserve it, and warily respectful of the abilities of his pursuer.
• The Raid duology:
  • Rama is a rookie cop participating in the raid on Tama Riyadi to bring his criminal brother Andi home. Upon being trapped, Rama comes up with skilled strategies to hold off the horde of criminals, and allow for himself and other cops to escape before rescuing Andi from Tama's tortures. When Andi is murdered by the crime lord Bejo, Rama goes undercover in the Bangun crime outfit, endearing himself to Bangun's son Uco to steadily gain evidence to bring down the criminals and the corrupt police comissioner Reza. Ultimately choosing his morals, Rama dismantles the entire crime family after Bejo and Uco's coup with his superior fighting skills and brilliant tactical mind, being the last man standing and evidently refusing an offer to join the Goto family in the end to return to his wife and daughter.
  • Bunawar is the superior to Rama in the police force and one of the few honest police officials around. Still a ruthless man, Bunawar executes the captive, corrupt Wahyo and gives Rama an ultimatum to infiltrate the Bangun crime family. Sending many moles undercover, Bunawar keeps them unaware of one another after one of them apparently went rogue and caused the deaths of ten good cops. Bunawar uses Rama to find information, intending on getting him close enough to bring down the corrupt police chief Reza and despite his chary attitude towards his moles' safety, Bunawar does not hesitate to put himself at risk to rush to assist Rama at the climax as the Bangun family falls.
• Rambo: John James Rambo himself is an unstoppable, ever-adapting One-Man Army who has become an iconic, ruthless symbol of action cinema. Traumatized and trained to be a killer by his time in the Vietnam War, Rambo's first outing sees him mistreated and abused by a small-town police force, driving him into a PTSD-sparked war against them. Rambo utterly dismantles the town's infrastructure and outsmarts the National Guard, only beaten when he willingly stands down. Building off of this impressive introduction, Rambo goes on to save multiple POWs from a Vietnamese war camp; lead a rebellion in Afghanistan against horrid Soviet invaders; and rescue a group of missionaries from war criminals in Burma, all with his trademark quick-thinking guerilla tactics. After decades of settling down and taking the young Gabriela Beltran as his surrogate daughter, Rambo tears a warpath to find her when she is kidnapped and killed by Human Traffickers, whom Rambo proceeds to viciously wipe out by luring them to his booby-trapped, war-ready ranch. Rambo is capable of withstanding brutal torture, pragmatically weaponizes anything he can get his hands on, and always comes out on top in his missions to destroy monsters that hurt others.
• Ran: Lady Kaede is the true villain of the film. Desiring revenge against Hidetora and the Ichimonji clan for slaughtering her family years ago, Kaede convinces her husband, Hidetora's eldest son Taro, to usurp his father and war against his brother Jiro. Upon Taro's death, she effortlessly seduces Jiro, convinces him to kill his wife and then manipulates him into disastrous strategies that bring the Ichimonji to ruin. When Jiro's general Kurogane confronts her when the battle is lost, Kaede calmly admits to everything, showing absolutely no fear of dying with her ultimate goals achieved.
• Ready or Not (2019): Mr. Le Bail is the rarely-seen, supernatural benefactor of the Le Domas clan, having manipulated their ancestor into a Faustian deal that involves the Le Domas family playing a game in Le Bail's name every time a new family member is added to their ranks in exchange for wealth and prosperity for them all. Le Bail randomly chooses the game "Hide and Seek" every few years, a game that involves the Le Domas clan hunting down the newest member of their family and sacrificing them to Le Bail, under threat of all the Le Domases being wiped out if they fail or refuse to play. When the latest sacrifice, Grace, fights back and survives the time limit of the game, Le Bail follows through on his terms and massacres the hateable Le Domas's while ironically playing their own Hide and Seek music back on them, before materializing before Grace to show genuine respect at her outwitting his pawns and surviving the night.
• Red (2010):
  • Both films:
    • Frank Moses is a former CIA black ops agent, considered one of the most deadly, efficient, successful operatives the agency ever had. When he comes under attack in his retirement, Frank expertly kills off the wetwork team sent to eliminate him and tracks down his old allies to discover the truth behind RED agents being targeted. Simultaneously saving the life of and romancing Sarah, Frank infiltrates the CIA itself to trace all roads back to the Vice President, staging a daring kidnapping of the VP that exposes the assassination plot. Frank later works with his team to evade capture when they are implicated in the location of the Nightshade bomb, and he not only breaks into the Kremlin, but also one of MI6's most secure facilities. Though betrayed and left for dead by the clever Edward Bailey, Frank ultimately outwits Bailey and kills the madman with his own bomb, saving London and leaving his team able to embark on another adventure.
    • Marvin Boggs is a highly-skilled, paranoid killer who is often proven completely right in his conspiracy theories. Having disappeared off the grid and avoided government detection for years, Marvin comes out of hiding to help Frank uncover the assassination plot of RED agents. Marvin routinely exposes government agents trying to track or spy on the team, and uses his seemingly-unstable methods to routinely help Frank's team pull off difficult maneuvers. In just one notable instance, he deduces a helicopter to be following Frank, discovers a seeming civilian to be a spy, and causes a missile to explode back on its launcher with a single bullet. Faking his death when he is falsely implicated in the Nightshade plot, Marvin extorts information out of a military officer and saves Frank from police custody, working with his best friend to take down Edward Bailey and save the world.
    • Victoria Wilton is an expert sniper who has refused to retire, instead hiring herself out as a contract killer. When she is approached by Frank, Victoria agrees to an alliance for old times' sake, staking out and gunning down multiple federal agents to cover Frank's infiltration and escape from a secure location. Victoria uses her looks, hidden weapons, and a gigantic artillery gun to wreak havoc at the Vice President's gala to help Frank kidnap him, exposing the corrupt VP and saving fellow RED agents. Continuing her successful career as an assassin, Victoria pretends to accept a contract on Frank simply to help him fake his death and avoid pursuers when he is framed. Victoria's firearm expertise and tactical advice proves invaluable as Frank infiltrates the Iranian embassy, and her efforts help to stop Nightshade from killing millions.
    • Ivan Simanov is a jovial ex-FSB agent who yearns for the thrill of the old days. Agreeing to help Frank infiltrate the CIA in exchange for a favor, Ivan later swoops in and saves Frank's team from gunfire. He plays a part in the raid of the Vice President's gala by bombing a limo, and once the VP's corruption is exposed, Ivan gets Frank to carry out the favor he owes. When Frank and his team begin investigating Nightshade, Ivan helps smuggle them into Russia and break into the Kremlin, then works with Victoria to save Frank from government-sanctioned execution. Ivan does all of it for fun and the love of Victoria, and sends Frank on his way with valuable intel that helps stop Bailey's scheme.
  • RED 2:
    • Edward Bailey himself is a brilliant scientist who created the Nightshade bomb in the Cold War, only to be locked up by MI6 when he tried to detonate it in Russia. After his wife and son die, implied to be due to MI6, Bailey plots revenge for decades and kicks the sequel off by stealing a guard's phone and using it to leak a document that frames Frank's team as knowing Nightshade's hidden location. Bailey uses this document and other breadcrumbs to lure Frank into breaking him out of imprisonment, pretending to be completely off his rocker as he helps Frank break into the Kremlin and find where Bailey hid Nightshade: right under Russia's nose in the heart of the Kremlin. Then betraying Frank to the CIA, Bailey uses hidden nerve gas to kill his CIA handlers and reveal his true intention to set off Nightshade in London as revenge for his family's death. Even when he's outwitted by Frank and about to die, Bailey just chuckles that he "didn't see that one coming."
    • Han Cho Bai is the "best contract killer in the world", a former Korean counterintelligence agent who now hires himself out for his services. In his introduction, Han meets with a client who wants to hire him to kill a target, only for Han to reveal the target already paid him to assassinate the client, who Han stealthily kills with nothing but a folded slip of paper. Dispatched to kill Frank and his team, Han hunts them across the globe and uses everything from ambushes to a minigun to nearly kill Frank time and time again. Even when handcuffed to a freezer door, Han easily beats down an entire squad of police to continue his pursuit of Frank. Despite their rivalry, Han puts aside the contract for Frank to team with him in stopping Bailey's scheme, with Han personally working with Victoria to take down several enemy vehicles with style.
• Red Notice:
  • John Hartley is an FBI agent who finds himself stuck with Nolan Booth in an attempt to thwart master criminal the Bishop. A ruthless operator who stages a masterful breakout with Booth despite Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, Hartley is so good that Booth remarks Hartley could be a master thief of his own—which, in reality, Hartley is. His real identity being that of the second Bishop, John Hartley decided to become a conman as a way of upstaging his abusive father, becomes an Unholy Matrimony with Sarah Black, and spends the entire film manipulating Booth in order to use him to find the third Egg of Cleopatra, even staging a fake torture sequence to break Booth. Even when leaving Booth tied up to a tree, Hartley assures it's nothing personal and that he's come to sincerely respect Booth over their time together.
  • Nolan Booth is a thief after Cleopatra's eggs who collaborates with John Hartley to steal the second egg from Sotto Voce before Sarah Black can. After Booth breaks them out of prison with an improvised explosion and stolen keycard, they infiltrate a masquerade ball at Voce's mansion and break into his treasure room. When they are caught and interrogated, Booth lies to Voce and Black about the egg's location and tracks the third egg down in a Nazi bunker in Argentina. When Hartley and Black betray him and leave him to be arrested by Interpol, he accepts his defeat gracefully, escaping his prison transport afterwards. Months later, he leaks their bank account to Interpol, having all their assets frozen. Having tipped Interpol off on their location, Booth helps them escape in return for them joining him on a heist.
  • Sarah Black is known as "The bishop" and the only thief to constantly outdo Booth himself. A master of long cons, Sarah bests Booth and Hartley in combat, selling them out to an infamous Arms Dealer, only to later double-cross the dealer and torture Hartley till Booth gives up the location of Cleopatra's final egg. Seeing through Booth's lies and tracking them to South America and even when seemingly beaten, she reveals herself to be Hartley's lover, swindling the egg to sell. After Booth manages to freeze the accounts of Sarah and Hartley, he still saves and recruits them for his latest heist, knowing their skills are unparalleled.
• Reign of Fire: Denton Van Zan is a self-proclaimed Dragon Slayer, mobilizing his military group the Kentucky Irregulars in hunting and killing the beasts in an attempt to retake the Earth. Using creative technology and strategies to fight the powerful dragons, Van Zan even adapts to losing conditions with ease, appropriating Quinn Abercromby as a new tool when one of his men dies in combat. Van Zan, having deduced that if the sole male dragon, "the Bull", is killed it will lead to the dragons dying out, ends up devising a scheme to kill it after analyzing the Bull's flight patterns. Though Van Zan is killed, he goes out Defiant to the End trying to kill the Bull with an axe, and his tactical advice proves to save the day when Quinn continues Van Zan's plan, securing humanity's future free from dragons.
• Renfield: Bellafrancesa Lobo is the aging head of the powerful Lobo Crime Family, which have dominated New Orleans for years through fear and money, paying off the entire police department to keep her agents and her son, Teddy Lobo, out of prison. After Renfield kills several of her agents, Bellafrancesa tracks his last whereabouts down using satellite imagery and when she assumes Teddy Lobo was killed, sends her goons her band of corrupt cops after him and Officer Quincy. When she is met with Count Dracula by Teddy Lobo, she works with him to rule to rule the world together, having Quincy’s sister kidnapped and tortured so she can lead her and Renfield to their base before promptly separating the two. Sophisticated and ruthless in her goals, Bellafrancesa keeps her head high as she arrested, showing to be impressed with Officer Quincy’s efforts as she is lead away.
• Repo! The Genetic Opera:
  • "GraveRobber" is an eccentric criminal who primarily deals in the drug zydrate, which is extracted from corpses. Boldly and delightedly robbing a graveyard early in the film, GraveRobber deliberately alerts GeneCo police only to escape them, doing it twice over and evading them each time with ingenuity and improvisation, in addition to rescuing the young Shilo. Returning at the GeneCo fair, GraveRobber again saves Shilo, helping her escape before introducing her to his trade, which is so successful that one of his clients is Amber Sweet, daughter of the world-controlling businessman Rotti Largo. When the cops arrive, GraveRobber cleverly slips away with Shilo on the back of a disposal truck, before ensuring she gets home safe. Implied to still be supplying Amber once she takes control of GeneCo, GraveRobber ends the film completely successful, continuing his sordid work and having helped an innocent in the process.
  • Carmela "Amber Sweet" Largo is the only daughter of Rotti, an aspiring opera singer addicted to street Zydrate, surgery and her love-hate relationship with dealer GraveRobber. Upon her rejection by her father, Amber sheds her immaturity and shallowness, instead manipulating her brothers Luigi and Pavi into supporting her and taking over her father's company of GeneCo to lead it into a brand new era: her own.
• Reservoir Dogs: Detective Holdaway is the man responsible for giving Officer Freddy Newandyke a cover story to gain acceptance into mobster Joe Cabot's heist gang. His trickery allowing Freddy to join Joe's gang as "Mr. Orange", Holdaway's dramatic flair and masterful planning aid in the eradication of Joe's criminal outfit, even letting the gangsters operate and kill within their safehouse to lure out Joe.
• Rio Lobo:
  • Captain Pierre Cordona is a former gambler and officer in The American Civil War who plans a series of a map culet parole robberies to finance the confederacy with the Union's money. In the aftermath of audacious Train Job, Cordona captures his lead pursuer, Cord McNally, only for McNally to eventually turn the tables. Cordona takes his loss gracefully but refuses to make a deal that will earn his freedom at the cost of hurting his allies. After the war ends though he befriends his former captor and agrees to help the man against the traitors who enabled the robbery while also seeking to stop those same traitors from harming his friend and former subordinate Tuscarora Phillips. He also goes from a Chivalrous Pervert to a Ladykiller in Love after meeting a strong-willed woman who wants to help fight the villains. When he becomes a Distressed Dude and hostage, Cordona still puts up a good fight before being captured and instantly recognizes a signal to take advantage of a bold escape opportunity and rejoin the fight.
  • Sergeant Tuscarora Phillips is Cordona's Number Two and aides his boss in the most vital parts of the Train Job and the capture of McNally. He is in charge of guarding McNally during the hero's captivity and does so effectively. When McNally lures the confederate soldiers into a union camp, Tusk Aurora nearly escapes with a Reed snorkel and period after the war ends, he joins his commander in making peace with McNally and returns to his hometown of Rio Lobo, where he comes into conflict with a ruthless scandal Baron who turns out to be one of the men McNally is hunting. When Tusk Aurora is framed for rustling beaten and arrested, he avoids blowing the cover of a nearby McNally. Upon being rescued from jail, he immediately joins in the efforts to bring down the big bad, and comes up with a bold, spontaneous, and ultimately successful plan to ensure the survival of Cordona during the volatile prisoner exchange before joining the final gunfight.
  • Corporal Bide McCord is a Mook Lieutenant for Cordona and Phillips during the war. He listens to a railroad track to determine when a Union train is approaching and the Confederates need to get out of sight before helping rig an improvised anchor system for the runaway bagage car that Cordona is due to detach from the train engine. He loans Cordona an old bandage of his for a Wounded Gazelle Gambit and is the first man to become Properly Paranoid that McNally is manipulating his captors into a trap. He escapes the trap where Cordona and Phillips are captured but is also taken prisoner sometime afterward. He remains sunny and calm while talking with his former captors and joins Tuscarora in the life of a peaceful rancher. Although he is absent from most of the post-war action and intrigue, Bide gathers together a group of men to serve as The Cavalry, and also plans for a multi-pronged fight where some of his men attack the outlaws from different sides, turning an evenly matched shootout into a panicked rout where his side comes out ahead.
• Ripley's Game: Tom Ripley is a spectacularly charming con man and murderer. When his partner Reeves trying to screw him out of a black market deal, Ripley simply murders one of his opponents to show his seriousness and pays Reeves off a paltry sum compared to what Ripley goes on to deal in. Reeves returns years later to beg for help in assassinating a rival crime boss, so Ripley manipulates his innocent neighbor Jonathan into becoming the triggerman, paying the cancer-ridden man a small fortune to support his family. After Reeves tries to use Jonathan for further mischief, Ripley steps in and kills off multiple criminals to save Jonathan's life and earn him more cash, coming to value the man as a friend. Turning his entire home into a lethal trap that he lures further enemies to their demise in, Ripley saves Jonathan's wife from vengeful crooks, and when Jonathan sacrifices himself for Ripley, a genuinely-moved Ripley leaves all of Jonathan's cash with the man's family and departs in peace. Ripley ties up all loose strings and gets away scot-free, just in time for him to cheer his beloved wife on at her concert finale with a smile on his face.
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Caesar is the revolutionary ape behind the uprising of simians throughout the trilogy of films. Gifted with intelligence and sentience rivaling that of humans, Caesar grows discontent with the lot life has given his kind and orchestrates a mass breakout of apes across San Francisco, using the same chemical that granted him his own intellect on the hundreds of apes to lead them in outsmarting local military. Peacefully parting ways with his former owner and kick-starting an entire civilization of his own, Caesar fearlessly protects his people and stands up to any factions of humans that cross him, nonetheless making a pact with a group of people to help them save their lives in exchange for peace. When betrayed by his right-hand, Koba, Caesar survives the treachery and defeats his old partner in combat to retake his spot as leader of the apes. As war breaks out between apes and humans, Caesar leads successful campaigns to stave humans off, and, even after being captured and enslaved by the Colonel, Caesar concocts a brilliant escape scheme for himself and hundreds of his brothers, overthrowing the Colonel and using his final hours to lead all of apekind to safety and prosperity for years to come.
• Road to Perdition: Michael Sullivan is a hitman in service of John Rooney. One of the most feared in the business who maintains a love for his family, Sullivan is betrayed by his boss's son Connor who sets him up for death and murders his wife Annie and son Peter. Alongside his surviving child Michael Jr., Sullivan goes on the run and seeks to erode the Rooney relationship with the Capones by targeting mob banks and stealing their money. Staying ahead of the Capones and Rooney killers alike, Sullivan eventually targets John Rooney directly, knowing his death will revoke Connor's protection permanently.
• Robert Langdon film series:
  • The Da Vinci Code: Sir Leigh Teabing is a wealthy and brilliant British Historian whose desire is to find the Holy Grail to use to reveal the truth about Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene and expose the church's lies. To his ends, Teabing convinces Bishop Aringarosa and Warrior Monk Silas to join his cause, having the latter kill multiple members of the Priory of Sion and framing his friend Robert Langdon for the murders, forcing Langdon and Sophie Neveu to come to Teabing for help. Smuggling Robert and Sophie out of France an into London, Teabing frees Silas, having him hold Sophie hostage while having his servant Remy hold Robert at gunpoint, forcing Robert to hand over the cryptex containing the map of the Holy Grail's location to them. Teabing goes with Remy and Silas where he kills the former and sells the latter out to the police once they served their purpose to him. Teabing then reveals himself to Robert and Sophie where he forces the duo to solve the cryptex's puzzle and retrieve the map for him by holding them at gunpoint.
  • Angels & Demons: Patrick McKenna is the Camerlengo of the Vatican who plans to become Pope to renew the world's faith in Catholicism and discredit the works of science. To this end, McKenna murders Pope Pius XVI and hires an assassin to steal unstable anti-matter and kidnap four cardinals to brand and kill while making it appear as if The Illuminati has resurfaced and is committing these acts. McKenna then kills the assassin once he served his purpose and frames Ritcher for his crimes, manipulating the police into killing him. McKenna then takes the anti-matter and send it to the sky saving the people of the Vatican City and Rome and when the Vatican confronts McKenna, he kills himself, leading to the Vatican covering up his crimes so that the public won't loose their renewed faith, letting the world believe that McKenna died a hero for the Catholic Church.
  • Inferno (2016): Dr. Sienna Brooks was a highly-praised child prodigy and later became the girlfriend of college professor-turned-extremist Bertrand Zobrist. Believing in Zobrist's plan to unleash the "Inferno" virus designed to wipe out half of the world's population and thus, save humanity, Sienna picks up on seeing his plan through after he dies. Sienna arranges for Robert Langdon to be drugged and circumstances manipulated to believe he's in danger and that she's rescued him in order to gain his trust. She then continues to play his ally while he searches through clues left behind and saves him from the same "assassin" when actually sent to kill him for real later on. Upon discovering the location of the virus, Sienna abandons Langdon while thanking him for his part in the plan. Sienna then arranges to have the bag the virus is in set free through two explosive charges, kills Harry "The Provost" Sims when he tries to stop it and then kills herself to blow the charges, thus nearly guaranteeing the success of the plan.
• Robin and the 7 Hoods: Marian is the daughter of murdered mob boss Big Jim, who had her raised in a safe boarding school environment. Marian's first act after mourning her father is to offer his friend and subordinate Robbo $50,000 to kill Jim's murderer. After someone else kills the murderer, she assumes Robbo did it and pays him the $50,000, even after he denies responsibility and rejects her plan to take over the city's organized crime. When Robin is arrested, she takes over his charitable organization and makes it a counterfeiting front until Robbo puts a stop to this, then rapidly makes a series of alliances to take out Robbo and set herself up with a powerful and discreet crook. Whenever one of her partners dies or abandons her, she wastes no time in setting up another alliance before Robbo expects it, and eventually she brings down her old counterfeiting operation and frames Robbo for this crimes, ending the movie rich, respected, powerful, and with all of her enemies defeated.
• The Rock:
  • Captain John Patrick Mason is a former British special operative jailed for stealing and hiding an American microfilm. The only man to escape from Alcatraz, Mason is summoned when the rogue General Francis X. Hummel loads his VX gas missiles on the prison island. Easily outwitting the smug FBI Director offering a fake pardon, Mason nearly abandons San Francisco to Hummel's forces, only relenting when hero Stanley Goodspeed appeals to Mason's love for his own estranged daughter. Bonding with Goodspeed as they defeat the marines, their newfound friendship leads Goodspeed to lie about Mason's death to the FBI, allowing him to escape after telling Goodspeed the microfilm's location.
  • Brigadier General Francis X. "Frank" Hummel vows to force the American government to pay the uncompensated families of his fallen men, who died on covert missions. Stealing canisters of VX gas and threatening to fire upon San Francisco lest his demands be met, Hummel takes up his base of operations in Alcatraz prison. Strategically plotting against the minds of the Pentagon, Hummel utterly outplays but laments at seeing most of the invading Navy SEAL team massacred. Matching wits with heroes Mason and Goodspeed, Hummel only relents when he finds himself unable to murder innocent civilians and gracefully calls off his plan, trying to promise his men their safety as they withdraw and only getting killed due to two rogue, careless henchmen, giving the heroes the location of the final missile as he dies.
• The Rocketeer: Neville Sinclair masquerades as a Hollywood star while secretly harboring a scheme to steal a rocket pack to help the Nazi government Take Over the World. Hiring a squad of gangsters to assist him, Sinclair also pursues charming Jenny Blake, girlfriend of Cliff Secord aka the Rocketeer and moves quickly to follow leads, allowing Sinclair to capture Jenny and force Cliff into meeting him to trade the rocket for her. When his American cohorts turn on him for his exposed affiliations, Sinclair uses a battalion of German soldiers and nearly escapes via zeppelin, only stopped by Cliff's quick thinking.
• RocknRolla: Archy is the cunning right hand man to Lenny Cole, surpassing his boss in intelligence, honor and coolness throughout the film. A major proponent in Lenny's everyday dealings, Archy uses his criminal connections to track down targets, intimidates and charms enemy and ally alike to pay their dues, and takes down dangerous assassins all by his lonesome. Already disturbed and off-put by his boss's abusive, psychopathic behavior, Archy finally has enough when he learns Lenny is a police informant who sells out his own kind, leading Archy to betray and murder Lenny to assume control over his organization and take the man's adult son as his new protege.
• RRR (2022): Alluri Sitarama Raju is an ambitious police officer secretly building a rebellion against the British Raj. Moved by his father's Heroic Sacrifice during a battle against British forces, Raju aims to supply his village so they may start an uprising. To accomplish this, Raju joins the Indian Imperial Police in Delhi, rising the ranks over 15 years, hoping to be promoted to a position where he can smuggle weapons out of police inventory and to his village. He finds this opportunity in Komaran Bheem and arrests him during Bheem's attempt to break into state administrator Scott Buxton's mansion and rescue Malli, a village girl Buxton kidnapped. After giving Bheem a public flogging that incites a riot amongst a crowd of Indian onlookers, Raju becomes guilt-ridden and devises an escape plan for Bheem and Malli under the guise of a secret execution. While Buxton deduces Raju's plot and arrests him, Bheem and Malli manage to successfully escape, returning to rescue Raju and together fighting off the British forces sent after them and personally take the fight to Buxton, executing the administrator and stealing a cache of weapons to send to Raju's village.
• Run All Night: Jimmy Conlon is a former enforcer for mob boss Shawn Maguire, nicknamed "The Gravedigger" for his ability to leave his crimes cold cases, even killing a cousin who became a liability to Shawn. When his estranged son Michael witnesses a shooting by Shawn's son Danny, Jimmy kills Danny to protect Michael and goes on the run with his son, killing cops who attempt to frame Michael and evading teams of gunmen employed by Shawn. Realizing that Shawn would not rest until Michael is dead, Jimmy personally decimates Shawn's entire crime ring. When he is mortally wounded by psychopathic gunman Andrew Price, Jimmy kills Price to save Michael, leaving behind a list of every person he killed to give their families closure and earning his son's forgiveness.
• Rush Hour
  • 2: Ricky Tan is a leader within the Chinese Triads and a former partner to Lee's murdered father, who found out Tan was a Dirty Cop before he was murdered by an unknown party. Tan tells Lee he is losing a civil war within the Triads and asks him for protection and help, but is killed before Lee's eyes. Tan then turns up alive and well in America; he faked his death in order to go into hiding, flee Hong Kong authorities, and become the secret backer of an international smuggling operation. Through his accomplices Steven Reign and Hu Li, Tan has counterfeited $100 million US in extremely convincing fake bills, and will launder them through a Las Vegas casino, proudly proclaiming it is a business "where people hand [him] money, and [he] gives them back absolutely nothing." In every interaction with Lee, Tan presents himself as an Affably Evil mobster, one minute claiming he tried to "help" Lee's father give him a better life, and the next coldly telling Lee how weak and pathetic he was before Tan shot him.
  • 3: Kenji is Lee's adoptive brother and the leader of the Triads, having convinced Geneviève to become Shy Shen despite knowing that this would lead to her death. When Geneviève allies with Ambassador Han to reveal the names of the Triad heads, Kenji teams up with the corrupt Varden Reynard and personally snipes Han before he can reveal Shy Shen to the World Criminal Court, while having his men steal a letter Han sent to his Soo-Yung. Offering Lee and Carter a legit chance to walk away, Kenji engenders a situation to almost kill Lee and Carter by convincing them to save Geneviève, with the three barely surviving. Kidnapping Soo-Yung to force Lee to bring Geneviève to him, before forcing Lee to sword fight him all over the Eiffel Tower under threat of dropping Soo-Yung to her death. One of the few in the series to match Lee's skills and getting under his skin like no one else, Kenji ultimately proves to still love his brother, even sacrificing his life to save Lee from falling to his death.

S

• Sabotage (2014): John "Breacher" Wharton is the leader of a DEA raid squad who desires revenge on cartel hitman Brujo for the murder of his family. To this end, Breacher masterminds a scheme to raid a drug lord's safe house, stealing $10 million of his money, only to find the stolen money gone. In truth, Breacher had taken the money for himself to be used to bribe the Mexican police for Brujo's location. With his crew getting murdered one by one for the stolen money, Breacher is able to track down the killers and take off with the money, escaping police custody in the process. With his plan ultimately paying off, Breacher finds himself mortally wounded after a bar shootout, using his last moments to drink and smoke his final cigar.
• Sacrifice (2020): Renate Nygard is the affable police constable in the isolated Norwegian village who is the secret leader of the cult of the Slumbering God. Upon the return of Isaac Pickman with his pregnant wife Emma to the village, Renate tricks him into believing he is special in the cult and that he must sacrifice Emma's unborn child. After luring both into her trap, Renate has Isaac sacrificed to the Slumbering God instead and cheerfully informs Emma that she'll grow to get used the village and its mysterious deity.
• The Sacrifice Game: "Clara", a seemingly-innocent girl, is implied to be the demon Ciroc, trapped in the halls of Blackvale's School for Girls. Desiring freedom, Clara tricked Maisie into finding the dark spellbook to send her on a murder spree before luring her back to Blackvale. Clara then ensures she gains the necessary sacrifices before she reveals herself and entraps the group to force them into death or suicide for the final components of the unbinding ritual and also subtly trying to ensure her only friend Samantha's survival.
• Salt: Evelyn Salt was a KGB spy who infiltrated the CIA before genuinely defecting to America after marrying Mike Krause after when he rescued her. Exposed by her former handler, Vasilyevich Orlov, he also takes her husband hostage to force her to assassinate the Russian President, Boris Matveyev. Salt infiltrates the funeral he was attending and injects Matveyev with spider venom, making it seem like he died. When Orlov executes Mike in front of Salt, she reins in her emotion long enough to fool Orlov into still believing she's loyal before killing him in his cell. She then heads to the White House to kill Orlov's last spy, before convincing Darryl Peabody to free her so that she can kill off any remaining Russian sleeper agent as revenge for killing her husband.
• Le Samouraï: The well-dressed, soft-spoken Jef Costello is a hitman of few words who always leaves an alibi for his hits, letting another lover of his girlfriend identify him while the man thinks he is getting him for the murder of a nightclub owner when in truth he is giving Jef an airtight alibi. Upon being betrayed by his superiors, Jef eliminates them until the only loose end s a kindly nightclub singer who once helped him. Jef confronts her, seemingly getting sloppy which allows the police to follow him, shooting when he brandishes his gun. It is then revealed there are no bullets in the gun, Jef choosing his own end to remain true to his code.
• SAS: Rise of the Black Swan: Grace Lewis is a member of the Black Swans who partakes in wiping out settlements in Georgia to make room for a new pipeline. When their contractor, George Clements, raids their home and kills her father, Grace escapes and hijacks a train holding everyone hostage and demanding 500 million pounds from Clements. Grace also plants Declan Smith as a mole within the SAS to remain one step ahead of Clements, eventually forcing Clements to hand over the money when she reveals her plan to blow up the tunnel making her it clear that he'll die in the explosion. She later lets her hostages go after she receives her ransom money, but has them wear hoods to distract the authorities while she escapes through a pipeline before blowing up the tunnel, killing Clements and his forces before revealing Clements and Britgaz's corruption to the public. Grace is only stopped by Tom Buckingham where she accepts her defeat, merely commenting that she and Tom are not so different.
• Saw:
  • John Kramer aka the Jigsaw Killer was a law-abiding civil engineer before losing his unborn son, becoming estranged from his wife, and being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in quick succession. Jigsaw uses his skills and intellect to become a prolific Serial Killer, designing elaborate death traps and picking his victims on the basis of their perceived lack of gratitude for the blessing of life. Fostering multiple protegés, only some of whom are even aware of each other, Jigsaw blackmails a hospital orderly to impersonate him to allay suspicion, manages to escape from police custody by manipulating the lead detective responsible for capturing him, uses his more devoted followers as back-up insurance against those who do not follow his teachings properly, and is responsible for schemes planned so far in advance that he continues to effect events even a decade after his death.
  • Saw and Saw 3D: Dr. Lawrence Gordon is introduced as a trap victim before becoming John Kramer's most valuable asset and ally. After sawing off his own foot and shooting his fellow victim Adam to save his family, Lawrence is rescued by John and indoctrinated into the Jigsaw ideology. For years, Lawrence uses his medical expertise to facilitate John's traps, such as surgically planting a key behind Michael Marks' eye, sewing shut the mouth and eyes of Art Blank and Trevor, and suggesting Lynn Denlon's skills to keep John alive for Jeff Denlon's game. Staying so hidden that even Jigsaw's other apprentices don't know he's involved, Lawrence continues following John's orders after his death, sending a letter to Mark Hoffman to scare him and following his orders to avenge Jill following her death; to do so, Lawrence recruits Brad and Ryan, kidnaps Hoffman before he can escape, and locks him in the same bathroom he was tested in with no way to escape, ending the series as the only one involved in the Jigsaw killings still alive.
  • Jigsaw: Logan Nelson is revealed to be the first apprentice of John "Jigsaw" Kramer, having been one of the people selected for one of Jigsaw's first games for accidentally mislabeling his X-ray. Saved by Jigsaw from death when he realized that Logan didn't deserve to die over an honest mistake, Logan assisted Jigsaw in his games, even helping build the infamous Reverse-Bear Trap. Ten years after Jigsaw's death, Logan proves himself to be a worthy successor to his mentor by successfully framing the corrupt Detective Halloran as the new Jigsaw killer; orchestrating a reenactment of the game he was chosen for, using criminals let off by Halloran; planting evidence against Halloran in his house; and finally trapping and killing Halloran himself, but not before getting him to confess to being responsible for the loss of innocent lives, including Logan's wife.
  • Spiral (2021): William "Schenk", real name Emmerson, is revealed as the brains behind a recent string of murders. Witnessing the death of his father when he was a boy, William dons the mask of the "Spiral Killer", having been inspired by Jigsaw's methods yet nevertheless considering them lacking. Seeking to reform the police force as a whole, Schenk exclusively targets dirty cops and places them in traps resulting in their demise should they fail to heed his instructions. After faking his death, he offers Zeke the chance to become his apprentice out of gratitude for him testifying against his father's murderer. He then smoothly incriminates Zeke's father as an active shooter and puppeteers him so the SWAT team would be compelled to shoot him. He skillfully flees the scene during the onslaught of chaos giving Zeke a playful shush before presumably continuing his crusade.
• Scanners: Darryl Revok is a powerful and dangerous scanner who seeks revenge on the society that created him, in particular his creator and father, Dr. Paul Ruth. Revok infiltrates a meeting at the weapons company ConSec to embarrass them publicly and eliminate the only other scanner still working for them, using his psychic powers to wipe out the security detail detaining him and escape. Together with his ally, ConSec security head Braedon Keller, Revok usurps control over the company's subsidiary Biocarbon Amalgamate to have them produce Ephemerol in huge quantities. Revok plans to create a whole new generation of scanners by prescribing the mutative drug to pregnant women and recruit them as his foot soldiers. Meanwhile, Revok actively seeks out his long-lost brother, Cameron Vale, so they can rule their new scanner empire together.
• Scarface (1932): Guino "Little Boy" Rinaldo is Tony Camonte's right-hand and triggerman in his rise to power. A quick-thinking, coin-flipping and classic gangster who hides guns in useful places to avoid police trouble and remains resolute even when being interrogated, Guino assists Tony in striking major blows against the Irish mob—even personally assassinating crime lord O'Hara—and later fires the bullet that murders Johnny Lovo and secures Tony as the city's new boss. Guino is a pivotal part of keeping Tony in check and taking down threats to their empire, so when Tony murders Guino for marrying Tony's sister Cesca, it leads to Tony's immediate downfall. Guino treats even his death at Tony's hands with nothing but a stoic look and a flip of his coin, and Cesca later mocks Tony over how undignified and pathetic he is at the prospect of dying compared to Guino.
• Scarface (1983):
  • Alejandro Sosa is a powerful Bolivian drug lord who proves to be the undoing of Tony Montana. Devising a clever cocaine transportation scheme that will cut out the middleman Columbians in his dealings with Frank Lopez, Sosa exposes Omar Suarez as a possible mole and executes him, earning Tony's respect and alliance. After Tony supplants Lopez as the premiere Miami crime boss, Sosa forms a successful business with Tony to distribute his drugs, and later dispatches Tony to help his men assassinate a troublesome activist damaging Sosa's reputation. Even though Tony foils the assassination due to his morals, Sosa gets the last laugh as he pays Tony back by wiping out his entire organization, Tony himself shot dead on Sosa's orders while Sosa continues his own operations.
  • The Skull is Alejandro Sosa’s quiet and successful assassin, introduced luring Omar Suarez into a helicopter before beating and hanging him for being a presumed informant. During the massive shootout at Antonio Montana’s mansion at the end of the film, The Skull easily slips in undetected, murdering Nick The Pig up close without him realizing, before he sneaks up to Tony’s room. Without a second to lose, The Skull murders Tony with a shot to the back without being alerted, killing Tony successfully and quietly descending down the stairs.
• The Scarlet Empress: Catherine the Great herself, born Princess Sophia, is married to the cruel, idiot, deformed Peter of Russia. Eventually building her own power base, Catherine begins to sway the guards to her side and seduces one to bear a child to solidify her claim on the throne without needing to bother with Peter, knowing Peter's aunt is so desperate for a male heir and fear of embarrassment will handle paternity questions. Upon Elizabeth's death, Catherine launches a coup against Peter before he can kill her first, having him murdered to become the undisputed Empress of all Russia.
• Schindler's List: Oskar Schindler himself is a war profiteer who initially seeks to use the German occupation of Poland to swindle and enrich himself. With his incredible charisma and black market contacts, Schindler makes himself a good friend to the SS officers running Poland before blackmailing the disposed Jews to provide the skills and capital to set up his own factory and using them as slave labor. Despite being a Nazi Party member, Schindler finds himself appalled by the genocide being carried out against the Jews, doing what little he can to help people and nearly succesffully manipulates Plaszow camp Kommandant Amon Goeth to resist his murderous urges. Throughout the war, Schindler always plans on going home a wealthy man and leaving his workers to their fate, before finally deciding to give up his fortune and save 1,200 Jews by moving these "essential workers" to a second factory because he accepts that would be the human thing to do.
• Scream: The imagined version of William "Billy" Loomis is introduced as the darkly charismatic manifestation of his daughter Samantha "Sam" Carpenter's inner darkness. To protect Sam and her half-sister Tara, Billy sways Sam to tell Tara the truth and trust no one else, also demanding she hunt down and murder the Ghostface killers. Heeding Billy's advice, Sam frees a captive Tara to subdue the one half of the Ghostface duo and later Billy draws Sam's attention to a hidden blade to murder the other one. Proud of Sam for surviving, Billy stays by her side to watch over her next outing with Ghostface.
• Scrooge (1970):
  • Jacob Marley, in contrast to his passive and self-loathing original literary incarnation, is here reinvented as a gleefully active participant in the Three Ghosts' psychodrama for Scrooge. Not content with simply delivering the Ghosts' message to Scrooge, Marley additionally opts to drag him kicking and screaming into the sky to see the damned souls, of which he will become one if he isn't quick to mend his ways. Marley later reappears at the end of the film in Scrooge's final vision of himself in Hell, and takes a great deal of pleasure in taunting Scrooge over his failures on Earth. He takes his crestfallen partner on a tour of the inferno and informs him that he has been selected as personal clerk to Satan himself, then watches as Scrooge is bound to the point of immobility with a massive chain. At the end of the vision, Marley refuses to help Scrooge even when he begs for it, and it's this that finally scares Scrooge straight once and for all.
  • The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is, like Marley, interpreted as a far more active player than in the book. Appearing to Scrooge as the last of his guides as usual, the Ghost first takes Scrooge to his own funeral, which features all of his debtors all of his debtors celebrating his death in song form, something Scrooge even joins in with, completely misunderstanding the situation. After showing Scrooge the grieving Cratchits, the Ghost finally takes Scrooge to his own freshly-dug grave, and not satisfied with that, proceeds to physically throw him into it, dropping him to the bowels of Hell.
• Scrooged: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is, as ever, a mysterious and terrifying phantom who appears to scare Frank Cross into setting his life straight. The Ghost shows Frank the miserable lives his friends will lead if he continues his current path, and then shows him his own cremation. To truly send the message through, the Ghost makes Frank experience his own cremation, scaring him enough with the flames of damnation to finally perform a full Heel–Face Turn.
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil: Eve is one of the two henchmen sent by Mr. Sutherland to retrieve a valuable coin from Mr. Scotto. Finding him in Dave Lyons and Wally Kerew's concession shop, Eve shoots him, taking his briefcase and leaving Dave and Wally to be framed as the murderers. Unable to find the coin in the briefcase, she and her partner Kirgo guess that Dave and Wally have it and disguise themselves as their lawyers to bail them out. Dave and Wally escape the police station but are caught by them outside, as Eve takes the coin and leaves Kirgo to kill them before they escape using a car and are chased by the pair. Eve and Kirgo stay at a resort where Dave and Wally steal the coin, but Eve and Kirgo then kidnap Wally's sister Adele and take her to Sutherland's estate. Dave and Wally free her, but are captured by Eve and Kirgo respectively, and when Eve goes to Sutherland's studio and finds that Kirgo has been killed by him, Eve manages to kill Sutherland first, as she now plans to escape with the coin using Sutherland's helicopter and leave Dave and Wally to be framed by the police again, coming very close to victory.
• Serenity: The Operative is an intelligent, honorable, and particularly efficient agent of the Alliance, and perhaps the greatest threat the Serenity has ever faced. Dispatched to deal with the exceptionally dangerous River Tam. He begins tracking her via initiating a subliminial Trigger Phrase and tracking Captain Mal Reynolds and his ship. Luring Mal into a trap, The Operative outwits him via wearing body armor, only to barely lose him. Hoping to lure out the Serenity, he orders attacks on any ports that once harbored Mal's ship and crew. He then lures Mal into a trap via their ally Mr. Universe, and confronts him on the planet Miranda, calling off his army when his defeat is assured and parting on civil terms. Returning in Serenity: Leaves on the Wind, the Operative joins in an Enemy Mine with Mal to free River's fellow test subjects. When accosted by Zoe, who desires to kill him, he states that he believes she is in the right to, before stating he will defend himself.
• The Serpent and the Rainbow: Louis Mozart is a Haitian chemist who sells a rare paralyzing agent that makes victims seem dead for days as their Buried Alive while still conscious. Mozart can expertly make the real chemical but often sells actual poison (which is cheaper and easier to make) in its place, killing the victim quickly and painlessly while the customer is none the wiser. When Dennis Alan picks up on his con game, Mozart engages in a Battle of Wits with him, but is impressed at being repeatedly bested and makes Alan a real sample of the substance, while believing that Alana intends to use it to kill afeared and hated Secret Police leader. When he learns that Alan really wants to use the chemical as a safer form of anesthetic, Mozart is amused at the idea of becoming famous for doing something good and helps Alan smuggle the potion past the Secret Police without even demanding his full original payment. When he's facing execution because of this, Mozart tries to bluff his way out of trouble, but does so without losing his composure and dignity.
• The Seventh Seal: Death is the elegant, grim personification of death who neither knows nor cares what awaits beyond the material world. Allowing the knight Antonius Block, in his crisis of faith, to hold a chess game with the reaper, Death proves a cagey and manipulative opponent who heads off Block's every attempt to stay him. Leading the cast members to their deaths and even tricking Block as a priest in confession to discover his strategy, Death is ultimately triumphant but allows Block a final meal with his wife before coming for them both and leading away his victims in a Danse Macabre.
• Sexy Beast: Teddy Bass is a charming criminal who masterminds the plot to rip off the Imperial Emblatt safety deposit vault. Seducing the chairman of the vault, Harry, Teddy uses a "tour" of the vault to map its layout, then hatches a scheme to rob the place. He gathers a group of crooks and sneaks into the sauna next door, using diving equipment and waterproof drills to tunnel through the sauna's pool directly into the vault wall, flooding the vault and enabling Teddy's men to dive inside and rob it. Teddy then murders Harry to eliminate all connections he has to the vault, and deduces that his right-hand man, Don, was killed by Gal. After humiliating and scaring Gal, Teddy reveals he didn't care much for Don, and lets Gal leave the city in peace.
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The mysterious, money loving, Future Villain Band (FVB) are the secret masterminds behind the events of the plot. Taking advantage of the Lonely Hearts Club Band's absence from Heartland, FVB has Mean Mr. Mustard steal Sgt. Pepper's magic instruments and distribute them among their associates. With the instruments in hand, FVB begins enacting a plan to Take Over the World. Having Dr. Maxwell perform procedures to turn rich elderly people young and healthy, FVB then sends the patients to Father Sun to be brainwashed into an army for the band. When confronted by the Lonely Hearts Club Band, FVB, revealed to be played by Aerosmith, perform an epic version of "Come Together" while poised to conquer the world with their newly completed army.
• Shadow Zone: The Undead Express (1996): Valentine is the charming leader of the subterranean vampires. Having been forcibly turned and confined underground, Valentine has killed and turned many others. Growing weary of his undead existence, Valentine takes the chance to befriend and manipulate teenage hero Zack, bonding with the boy and seeing the outside world again. Having Zack's friends kidnapped to lure Zack into freeing the vampires, Valentine reveals his true scheme was to die and to take the ravenous, murderous undead coven with him by purposefully sending them into sunlight, dying in complete peace by the end.
• Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005): Yakushiji Tenzen is an Iga shinobi who takes part in the deadly match of Koga against Iga by using his immortality to his benefit. First taking a deathblow from Koga ninja Hyoma, Tenzen strategically revives to kill Hyoma by surprise, a regular practice with his immortality. Tenzen proceeds to enact his own plans, betraying the location of the ninja villages to the Shogunate so the shinobi can die in a final blaze of glory, before securing his own much-longed for death at the lips of the poisonous kunoichi Kagero.
• Shoot 'Em Up: Mr. Smith is a mysterious drifter and possible military veteran with a keen sense of karmic justice. Witnessing a heavily pregnant woman in labor escaping from a hitman sent by Mr. Hertz, he saves her by impaling the hitman with a carrot and fends off additional assassins while helping the woman give birth. When the mother is killed in the process, he takes the baby with him and leaves it in a park, hoping for someone to adopt it. When a passerby looking at the baby is shot by Hertz, Smith realizes that the hitmen are also after the baby, takes it back, and with the help of prostitute Donna Quintano, decides to investigate why they're after it, fending off Hertz's goons the whole time. He learns that the baby was bred to be one of three bone marrow donors for Senator Rutledge, who needs them to treat his cancer so he can run for president, and the attempts on its life were part of a conspiracy by gun mogul Hammerson and Hertz to prevent Rutledge from becoming president and enacting more stringent gun control laws. Smith then tells Donna to leave town with the baby and requests a private meeting with Rutledge on his private jet, where he figures out that Rutledge made a deal with Hammerson and Hertz for a bone donor in exchange for looser future gun laws. He holds Rutledge hostage and shoots him in the head, hoping that the news of his assassination would trigger public outrage and immense support for his gun control proposals, and escapes the crashing jet. While he gets captured by Hertz and Hammerson afterwards and is tortured for the location of the baby, he breaks free and kills both of them in return. Smith tips off the FBI to the location of Rutledge's body and reunites with Donna and the baby at a diner, where he foils a robbery despite having his hands broken by Hertz.
• Shot Caller: Jacob "Money" Harlon was once a Family Man with a promising career who is incarcerated after killing his best friend in a drunk driving accident. Joining the Aryan Brotherhood for protection, Jacob spends a decade climbing the ranks of the organization. Their leader, the Beast, orders Jake to oversee a major weapons deal with the Sonora Cartel once he's out of prison by threatening his family. Jacob stays several steps ahead of the authorities attempting to track him down and exposes, then kills, a police informant. Jacob sabotages the deal on his own accord in order to be sent back to prison to confront and replace the Beast. Jacob does not share the racist ideology of his fellow gang members, instead being driven by a desire to protect himself and his loved ones.
• Shredder Orpheus: Hades and Persephone rule the Underworld and co-manage the Euthanasia Broadcast Network, which uses soothing speeches, meditation, and songs to sedate and kill the living. When Orpheus enters the network seeking his wife Eurydice, Persephone helps him get on-air and asks her husband for leniency. Hades agrees and, after regaining broadcast control from Orpheus's hard rock music, turns his quest into a ratings stunt. Orpheus fails the challenge by turning too soon and losing Eurydice, and a year later, Persephone is dissatisfied with the latter's performance and lures Orpheus back to the network via a paranormal skateboard. Hades offers Orpheus a rigged second chance to win Eurydice back after stating the life-threatening risk involved, and he and Persephone gloat over Orpheus's subsequent death and reunion with Eurydice, who has given the performance of a lifetime.
• Sicario:
  • Matt Graver is a mysterious, laid-back CIA "spook" who deals in combatting terrorism and the Mexican cartels through any means necessary. As seen in the first film, Graver brings FBI Agent Kate Macer into his squad, claiming to need her expertise but truthfully just using her as a liason to allow himself to operate on American soil, later having her life threatened to get her to sign the proper papers saying that everything he did was on the up-and-up. Graver works with Alejandro Gillick in tearing apart the Alarcón cartel, claiming that it is for moral reason when in reality, Graver just wants Alarcon eliminated so his competition can take over and perhaps be easier to talk peace with. In the sequel, Graver concocts a brilliant scheme to kickstart a war between two cartels, failing only due to corrupt police, and, going up against his superiors and calling them out for their cowardice, Graver ends up massacring an entire cartel gang to rescue the endangered Isabel Reyes to honor the seemingly-dead Alejandro. Despite his initial friendly, seemingly care-free attitude, Graver is a stone cold bastard who engages in both physical and psychological torture, murder, and illegal operations abounding to secure his goals, accomplishing nearly all through a combination of manipulation and strategic genius.
  • Alejandro Gillick is a Sicario defined by tragedy and hatred, using his skills and connections to Graver to satiate his cold-blooded desire for revenge. Once a criminal lawyer, Alejandro's family was slaughtered by Fausto Alarcón, resulting in Alejandro becoming a gun-for-hire to seek vengeance, exhibiting remarkable skills in torture and murder that help his and Graver's schemes come to fruition. Hunting down Alarcón and killing his entire security force through pragmatic tricks and stealth, Alejandro calls out Alarcón for spending his nights eating dinner with his family, even while other families are killed on the drug lord's orders. Alejandro executes Alarcón's entire family in front of him before killing the man himself to seal his revenge. Capable of forming attachments to others despite his villainy, Alejandro considers Graver a friend of sorts, and grows to care for Kate Macer in the first film and Isabel Reyes in the second, at first showing a willingness to kill either one but ultimately sparing them, even putting his life on the line to rescue Isabel from death—getting himself shot in the face in the process, an event which doesn't even hinder Alejandro from killing a cartel group who threatens him.
• Side Effects: Dr. Jonathan Banks would grow to become ruthless and calculating during his pursuit of revenge against Emily Taylor and Dr. Victoria Siebert after they ruined his life. To confirm that Emily was indeed faking psychiatric disorders when she killed her husband, Banks tricks Emily into injecting herself with salt water on the pretense that it is a truth serum that would make her drowsy. Banks suspicions are confirmed when Emily feigns drowsiness and he then threatens her with electric shock treatment. Emily would confess that she plotted with Siebert to kill her husband while under Ablixa and use the drug's negative publicity to manipulate stock prices, where Banks then has Emily turn on Siebert before recommitting Emily to the psychiatric ward, while also regaining both his family and reputation.
• Silent Hill: Alessa Gillespie is a formidable Reality Warper, who has turned Silent Hill into her own nightmarish dimension. Once an abused girl who was burned alive by "the Brethren", Alessa pulls them into the Otherworld, creating monsters to hunt and kill them. Splitting her soul into another half, "Sharon", Alessa lures her to Silent Hill and leaves clues for her adoptive mother, heroine Rose De Silva to follow. Once Rose pieces together her story, Alessa appears to her, and convinces her to ally with her, then with Rose's help enters the church, brutally killing her tormentors, before merging her soul with Sharon's. Alessa then leaves Silent Hill with Rose, trapping her in the Otherworld with her, content that she again has a mother who loves her. Through it all, Alessa is always in control, maintaining an affable, dark charisma, and ends the film with all her goals accomplished.
• The Silent Partner: Miles Cullen is a clever bank teller who discovers a note stating the writer's intention to rob his bank and expertly deduces the identity of the would-be thief as Harry Reikle. Using the opportunity to take the money himself, Miles utterly outplays Reikle by coming up with different hiding places for the cash while seeing Reikle only get a small portion of it and eventually masterminding his rival's arrest. Confronting Reikle when he gets out of jail, Miles tricks him into meeting at the bank, allegedly to give Reikle the money, only to then trick Reikle once more, planning to move far away with his loot.
• Sleepy Hollow (1999): The Headless Horseman was a Hessian mercenary fighting in the American Revolutionary War, and was infamous for filing his teeth to points in order to terrify his enemies as he rode across the battlefield chopping off heads. After being run down and killed in the woods on the outskirts of Sleepy Hollow, Mary Van Tassel uses his skull to command him to rise from the grave to kill their enemies. After killing multiple townsfolk with ruthless efficiency, the Horseman's skull is returned to him by Ichabod Crane, breaking his master's control over him. The restored Horseman spares Ichabod and his friends and instead claims his former master as his final victim, returning to Hell with a triumphant cry.
• Slow West: Payne, the Bounty Hunter and leader of the tracking party hunting the fugitive girl Rose and her father, is a surprisingly pleasant man who uses the trail of hero Jay to track his quarry to her farmstead. Happily accepting Jay as a guest for the evening, Payne is even revealed to have taken in two children with his gang when the two were orphaned. Immediately setting up an advancing siege, Payne is able to kill most of the defenders while using a fire as cover to advance and corner Rose herself.
• Small Soldiers: Major Chip Hazard is a charismatic, hammy toy soldier brought to life by a rogue AI chip who seeks to destroy the Gorgonites. Chip is a master at laying traps in order to capture or defeat the enemy and use various tactics such as using Allen's crush as a hostage to draw out the Gorgonites. Improvising weapons to knock out any adults or building new soldiers using his ingenuity, Chip constantly keeps the heroes on their toes as he comes very close to beating them on multiple occasions. Chip also has empathy and genuine care for his men and swears revenge for their defeat, hijacking a new army to do just that. Finally, Chip lays siege to Alan's house using various tactics like cutting the power to ensure their opportunities to escape are curtailed and using loud music to avoid the neighbors hearing the siege and interfering.
• Snatch.: Mickey O'Neil is an Irish Traveller introduced scamming Tommy and knocking out his hired muscle. When Tommy and Turkish ask him to be a replacement boxer for "Brick Top" Pulford's fight, he agrees to their stipulation that he go down in the fourth round, only to bet on himself and knock out his opponent with one punch. When Brick Top demands he fight again and this time go down in the fourth round, Mickey refuses, which leads to Brick Top burning his mother alive. Mickey decides to fight and waits until the fourth round of his next fight to knock out his opponent. Having bet on himself again, and only waiting that long to let his allies get into position to massacre Brick Top's organization, Mickey shows that if someone metaphorically or literally knocks him down, he will get back up and knock them right out.
• Snow White: The Fairest of Them All: The Granter of Wishes is an ancient sorcerer imprisoned within ice who is accidentally freed by John, the father of Snow White, where a grateful Wish Granter offers to grant any of John's wishes. However when John wishes for the return of his late wife, his "queen", Wish Granter states he cannot resurrect the dead, but can give him a queen. Magically turning John into a king with his own kingdom, Wish Granter turns his sister Elspeth into a beautiful queen for John to marry. Elspeth however turns out to be a Vain Sorceress who attempts to murder Snow for overtaking her as Fairest of Them All, while enchanting or killing many others who get in her way. Seeing how vile his sister is, the Wish Granter strips Elspeth of her beauty as punishment, and then calmly departs leaving Elspeth to her fate of being killed by her now freed and vengeful victims.
• Space Sweepers: Jang Hyun-sook is The Captain of the sweeper ship the Victory. A former Child Prodigy forced into a life of piracy after an assassination attempt on the evil James Sullivan, Jang takes to cleverly winning cargo for her crew until they stumble upon the young matter manipulating girl Kang Kot-nim aka "Dorothy". Outwitting a space policeman to escape with the stowaway, Jang charmingly gathers the universe's sweepers in a plot to trick Sullivan into thinking he'll capture Dorothy, exposing his plans to eradicate the Earth before killing him and getting rewarded handsomely for her efforts.
• Space Squad:
  • Space Sheriff Gavan VS Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: Butterfly Ninja Benikiba is a former Space Sheriff who joined the Genmakuu. To sabotage the Galaxy Federal Police's operation to take out Hellvira, Benikiba killed Maki and assumed her identity to infiltrate them. After performing well in a simulation, Benikiba gets herself assigned to the task force targeting Hellvira, before betraying and incapacitating both her teammates, only being stopped when the Dekaranger girls arrive. Discovering Shelly has a high level of rurenamode, Benikiba exits from the scene to report her discovery to Mad Gallant, and assists him in his plan to harness her power for his ultimate weapon. Disturbed by Mad Gallant's sadistic beating of Shelly, Benikiba chooses to leave to report to Guru Fumein and survives the film, allowing her to go assist Coolgin in his operation.
  • Uchu Sentai Kyuranger VS Space Squad: Space Ninja Demost is a devious Genmakuu commander seeking to conquer the World of Kyuranger. Pretending to be a fellow ninja of Hammie's, Demost tricks her into stealing the Neo Kyutamas under the pretense they can save her master in order to frame her as having gone rogue, then uses the stolen Kyutamas to revive Mele, Juzo Fuwa, Basco ta Jolokia and Escape to be his henchmen. Killing and assuming the identity of presidential aide Kimiko Naruse, in her guise Demost subtly manipulates Tsurugi Ohtori into going after Hammie while at the same time disguising himself as Shou Ronpou and convincing Lucky to protect her, tricking the Kyurangers into in-fighing so they'll destroy each other. When his plans are exposed by the Space Squad, Demost faces both them and the Kyurangers in one last stand, refusing to go down without a fight.
• Speed Racer: Taejo Togokhan is a hotshot racer and the heir to Togokhan Motors out to help his family by any means necessary. Approaching Speed Racer and Racer X, Taejo promises to expose the crimes of Arnold Royalton and Cruncher Block if they prevent Royalton’s buyout of Togokhan Motors by winning the Casa Cristo race. When Block’s agents poison him and leave him unable to race, Taejo has Speed's girlfriend Trixie race in his place. Taejo then disguises himself as his sister Horuko and captures Block when he tries to kidnap him. After the group wins the Casa Cristo, Taejo reveals that he wanted to raise the stock of Togokhan Motors so Royalton would be forced to pay much more for it and leaves without helping Speed or X. When Speed enters the WRL Grand Prix, Taejo cheers him on and decides to testify against Royalton to put him away.
• Spider-Man 2: Dr. Otto Octavius is a brilliant, charming scientist defined by tragedy and obsession. An inspiration to young scientists with his work on nuclear fusion, Octavius' life is turned upside down when one of his experiments fails, leading to the death of his beloved wife Rosie and the fusing of his robotic, AI-controlled arms to his spine. Tempted by his arms into embracing his ego and desire to see the fusion experiment replicated, Octavius becomes "Doctor Octopus", supervillain extraordinaire, and pulls off a successful bank heist by using hostages to throw the police and Spider-Man off his tail. Needing more tritium to complete his experiment, Octavius strikes a deal with Harry Osborn for tritium in exchange for Spider-Man, who Octavius captures by kidnapping Mary Jane Watson to lure him out, then sabotaging a train so as to force Spider-Man to weaken himself saving the passengers. Octavius ultimately succeeds in his new fusion experiment, however realizes it's not worth it for the human lives it will cost, and works with Spider-Man to destroy the machine forever, sacrificing himself in the process with his final words being a refusal to die as a monster.
• Spirited (2022): Clint Briggs is the CEO of Briggs Media Group and specializes in spreading disinformation through social media. Introduced using his charm and knowledge of human nature to convince Christmas tree sellers to start a culture war, Briggs quickly proves himself to be the most difficult perp the ghosts have ever tried to redeem. Beginning the night by seducing the Ghost of Christmas Past, Clint almost manages to escape the haunt on multiple occasions, including by dragging the Ghost of Christmas Present to his level by encouraging him to curse out everyone in his Victorian memories. After taking control of the haunt to show Present that he clearly wants to retire and live a normal life, he supports Present in his new life even as the haunt continues. When he learns that his actions end with a child killing himself, Clint does everything he can to prevent it, then pushes Present out from in front of a bus to complete his redemption. After his death, Clint uses the same skills that made him a great businessman to become a better Ghost of Christmas Present, expanding the holiday roster and continuing the haunts anew.
• Spy Game: Nathan Muir is a brilliant CIA operative who doesn't shy away from using ruthless methods to get things done. His attitude leads to a falling-out between him and his idealistic protégé Tom Bishop. Years later, on the eve of Muir's retirement, Bishop is arrested trying to rescue his sweetheart Hadley from a prison in Su Chou where she was incarcerated via Muir's machinations. Muir quickly understands that his superiors plan to let Bishop be executed, and decides to atone for his quarrel with Bishop and imprisonment of Hadley by getting the two of them out. Using his personable demeanor and Sherlock Scan talent, Muir gathers the classified data on the SEAL unit stationed near Su Chou. He forges the CIA director's signature and writes an order for a rescue operation, paying for it with all of his savings. When the executives grow suspicious about his bank transfers, Muir explains the money is a payment for his retirement property. Bishop and Hadley are safely rescued, and Muir calmly leaves the CIA for good, with the executives only belatedly realizing what he has been up to in truth.
• Spy Kids:
  • First film: Alexander Minion is the affable, humorous mastermind of the "Spy Kids" plot, playing the part of a put-upon lackey to Fegan Floop to hide his truly brilliant colors. Capturing and mutating a variety of OSS secret agents to whittle down enemy opposition before creating an army of robotic doppelganger children, Minion builds Floop up as a figurehead to gain funding for his plans and keep suspicion off his double dealings. Minion uses his knowledge as a former OSS agent to capture even the skilled Cortez agents, deduces the location of the legendary Third Brain, then steals it from the Cortez kids to perfect his "Spy Kids", after which Minion betrays Floop and asserts himself as the film's true villain. Minion's resolve is so great that he faces capture and defeat with brevity, and allows himself to be monstrously mutated to continue his schemes. When beaten, Minion simply takes on a side gig as Floop's TV partner and becomes a close ally to the Cortez family, accepting his ultimate fate as a suitable living.
  • Game Over: "The Toymaker" real name Sebastian, is a former OSS agent, who went rogue one mission, where he was considered so dangerous that the OSS imprisoned him in Cyberspace. Plotting a way to escape, the Toymaker created a virtual reality video game named "Game Over" and released it to kids all over the world, where all the kids became hooked and their minds trapped in the game. Anticipating that the OSS would send agents in to shut the game down, Toymaker ended up capturing Carmen Cortez on Level 4. When Juni Cortez is sent into the game, he brings in Grandpa Valentin, the Toymaker's former partner who was crippled by him. Knowing Valentin was hunting him, Toymaker sees this as an opportunity to be freed. He subtly influences the game to guide Juni and the players to Level 5, including planting Demetra as "the Deceiver" and sending a powerup that restores Valentin's use of his legs. Just as predicted, Valentin releases the Toymaker where he then attacks the real world, but when Valentin forgives his old friend, Toymaker voluntarily pulls a Heel–Face Turn and is accepted by the heroes as family.
  • Armagedon: Rey "The King" Kingston is a brilliant tech mogul and the creator of the popular video game Hyskor, who is hellbent on reforming the world. Rey was the son of Vargos, a supervillain defeated by Terrence Tango and Nora Torrez. After Vargos’ death, Rey followed in his footsteps by becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist just like his father. In order to obtain the Armageddon Code, which will give him control over all the world’s technology, Rey sets a trap to find out which agent has the code so he can steal it, leading to him partially taking over the world. He locks people out of their homes and forces them to play his game and change for the better to gain access to the technology they use in their daily lives. Rey then captures Terrence and Nora and, learning that the code has been split and that their children have the other half, tricks Terrence into revealing the code’s secrets to him by using AR to impersonate Nora. When Toby and Patty try to recover the code, Rey devises a plan to have them successfully arm it for him instead. Defeated after coming within a hair’s breadth of victory, Rey sees the error of his ways and accepts the family’s decision to be made to play his own game from inside, thanking them for showing mercy and resolving to inspire the world to improve itself upon his escape.
• Starship Troopers 3: Marauder: Admiral Enolo Phid is the director of military intelligence at Terran Command, covering up the disappearance of Sky Marshal Omar Anoke with deepfake broadcasts and propaganda while suppressing any emergency signals from Anoke and the other survivors. Phid stages a bombing at a diplomatic conference to cover up Anoke's eventual death at the hands of the Bug-God Behemecoatyl, blaming several anti-war protestors for the act and having them executed. Convincing the competent General Dix Hauser to join her side with proof of Anoke's treachery, Phid deals a devastating blow to the Arachnids and maneuvers herself to become the new Sky Marshall and the head of a new Federation Church.
• The Sting: Henry Gondorff is a charming and sly Con Man who assembles a team of like-minded crooks to concoct the ultimate rip-off against mob boss Doyle Lonnegan. Claiming to be seeking revenge against Lonnegan but truthfully admitting he's primarily in it for the cash and thrills, Gondorff outdoes Lonnegan at cheating during a game of poker while putting on the appearance of an abrasive drunk to lower Lonnegan's guard. Gondorff then has his partner Johnny Hooker pretend to betray him and ally with Lonnegan, all so Hooker can feed Lonnegan false intel about a fictional horse race headquarters that results in Lonnegan placing a losing bet amounting to a fortune. Using his connections that extend even into law enforcement to further legitimize his scheme, Gondorff then fakes his own death and gets away scot-free with conning Lonnegan completely—with Lonnegan himself never even realizing he's been played.
• Stratton (2017):
  • The eponymous Sergeant John Stratton himself is a genius special operative. When his best friend is killed by terrorist Grigory Barovsky's men during a mission to recover the deadly Satan's Snow virus, Stratton takes to threatening another terrorist's son for Barovsky's whereabouts. Killing the man after the interrogation, Stratton sets out to expertly dismantle Barovsky's operation, easily outplaying his mole's setup before running down and killing Barovsky himself and saving London from Satan's Snow.
  • Aggy is Stratton's Love Interest and his team's capable driver. Helping him threaten a terrorist's son for intel on Barovsky, Aggy later helps Stratton locate Barovsky's hidden weapon with quick camera flashes on her phone to unveil it, helping stop the evil terrorist.
• Street Fighter: The charismatic, witty M. Bison clawed his way from a mere drug dealer and killer to rule Shadaloo via brilliance and skill. Attempting to conquer the world, Bison demands ransoms for hostages as a front for his real scheme of turning captives into new Super Soldiers, to wipe away all distinctions between mankind so the world may know peace under his fist. Bison intends to force nations to submit to him economically and utilize his own currency in place of theirs, while putting in a multitude of contingencies against the heroes when they come to stop him. With a respect towards Colonel Guile, his nemesis, Bison also enters into battle with a set number of advantages to empower himself, even as he savors the chance to engage and kill Guile in direct combat. Rarely taking anything personally, Bison brings a unique charm to his dark vision, convinced his rule is best for all humanity.
• Street Kings: Captain James Biggs is the scheming head of Internal Affairs in the Los Angeles Police Department who feels slighted by Captain Wander, his former partner, being promoted ahead of him. At the behest of the upper echelons of the police force, who worry that Wander has become too powerful, Biggs provides Detective Ludlow with clues about the corruption within his unit, calculating that he will do whatever it takes to dismantle it. At the end, with Ludlow as the Sole Survivor and many people having gotten caught in the crossfire, Biggs reveals the truth to Ludlow while admitting that he and the men he works for have some use for his ruthless Cowboy Cop tactics.
• Streets of Fire: Tom Cody returns to his hometown of Richmond after receiving word his ex-girlfriend Ellen Aim has been kidnapped by the vicious Bombers gang. Tom gets word that Ellen's manager, her boyfriend Billy Fish, is willing to hire anyone to find her, and Tom accepts the deal. Using the ex-soldier McCoy, Tom tracks down Ellen to where she is being held hostage and saves her with McCoy's help. As he escapes, Tom shoots up the motorcycle gang's gas pumps, not before Raven Shaddock, the Bombers' leader, spots him. Arriving back in Richmond, Tom is given the money Billy promised him but throws it back at Billy's face and is warned by the police that Raven is looking for him. Tom decides to skip town with Ellen and McCoy but decides at the last moment to head back to fight Raven, with Tom coming out as the victor, promising to return should Ellen ever find herself in trouble again.
• Sukiyaki Western Django: The Gunman is a roaming gunslinger looking for gold. Arriving into an unnamed town run by the rival Heikie and Genji clans, the Gunman chooses to instead side with retired assassin Ruriko and play both sides against each other. Tricking the Heikes into leaving town to attack the Genjis in order to save the poor Shizuka, he collaborates with Rukiro on her plan to summon the Heikes and the Genjis together with a chest containing gold in order to take them both out. Caught in a duel with Genji leader Yoshitsune, once the Gunman appears to be caught in a tight spot, he whips out a hidden derringer from his sleeve and kills him. Riding out of town with only a handful of the gold, he leaves it all to the young, mute Heihachi, leaving him with life advice so moving, the boy begins to talk again.
• Super 8: "Cooper", the alien, landed on Earth back in 1958 and was imprisoned and experimented on by the disgraceful Air Force Colonel Nelec. Thanks to Cooper making a Psychic Link to Dr. Thomas Woodward and showing him his thoughts and feelings, Cooper is able to get Woodward to finally break him out by crashing the train he's being transferred in in 1979. Hiding underground, Cooper begins abducting humans and animals for food—including young Alice Dainard—while stealing electronic materials for the machine that will reassemble his ship and eventually is able to kill Nelec and his men as well. Making a psychic connection with young Joe Lamb and learning there are other good people despite bad things happening, Cooper lets his remaining prisoners go while he reforms his ship successfully and departs from Earth as the astonished town watches.
• Superfly: Youngblood Priest is a respected drug kingpin looking for a way out of the game to lead a sensible life. Starting off talking down a gangster and his bodyguards without a single threat of violence, Priest's desire to leave the life of a drug criminal leads an out-of-control spiral of cons and betrayal. However, Priest, using his penchant for smooth-talking and analysis, manages to conduct a Batman Gambit that sees him eliminate Gonzales of a cartel, seamlessly plant his right-hand Eddie into the Snow Patrol, get the corrupt Detective Mason arrested she did his dirty work in gunning down the Snow Patrol, and leave the comfortably leave the country with his lover on a cruise all without scuffing his fabulous perm.
• Superman III: Lorelei Ambrosia presents herself as the unintelligent kept woman of Ross Webster but posses a calculating and insightful mind beneath her exterior. She reads philosophy books and throughly understands the working of a complex supercomputer. When Superman foils Ross's plan to corner the coffee market through unscrupulous means, Lorelei is the one to suggest that he get kryptonite to use against Superman before their next plan, which involves causing a devastating energy shortage. When the kryptonite only turns Superman amoral, Lorelei seduces him into doing their bidding, and seems to develop genuine feelings for him. She shows concern for both Superman and her Sit Com Arch Nemesis Vera when they are in danger in the climax. Throughout the movie, Lorelei acts as an essential part of Ross's schemes, and no one else but Superman even seems to realize it.
• Sushi Girl (2012): The eponymous sushi girl used to be a nameless young woman whose husband was brutally murdered by a gangster named Duke during a botched diamond robbery. The woman manages to abscond with their diamonds and uses her funds to plan an elaborate revenge for six years, setting up a reunion with Duke's gang and posing herself as a sushi girl to ensure she's right at the heart of the meeting. The sushi girl manages to play the entire gang against each other and have them wipe each other all out, before finally revealing to Duke that she paid off the chef to screw up the fugu to give her an avenue to paralyze, torture, and finally kill Duke for what he did to her husband.
• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: Lee Geum-ja once took the fall for murder for her older lover Mr. Baek, who threatened to murder her daughter if she refused. Geum-ja spends over a decade in prison, cultivating a reputation as a kind-hearted saint who does favors for everyone, even giving a kidney for a woman who needs an operation. Geum-ja also poisons the rapist prison bully, and upon being released sets about getting revenge on Baek. Calling on all her favors and finding her daughter, she manipulates Baek to his capture and discovers he is a serial child killer. To deal with him, she allows the parents of his victims to torture him to death, and insure equal complicity so that none of them will talk without implication themselves.