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Films — Animated

  • Diane Foxington in The Bad Guys (2022) breaks into the S.U.C.M. prison and single-handedly takes down all the guards in order to free the innocent Bad Guys, whilst in her Crimson Paw outfit.
  • There is an extremely good reason the titular character of Killer Bean Forever has his nickname.
  • Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda has his own prison and is guarded by one thousand guards as well as being held completely immobilized. When he gets free of his shackles, he beats up all the guards in a matter of minutes. Granted, he finishes the job with some dynamite that sends a large number of them flying at once; it might have taken up to another minute or so otherwise.
  • In The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Linda Mitchell is typically a sweet, loving mother of two. But if you and your robotic army decide to threaten her children, God is the only one who could possibly save you. Just ask the PAL Max Primes.
  • In Mulan, the eponymous character singlehandedly defeats a majority of the Hun army and then, upon discovering that a few still survived, got their leader killed. With fireworks. As The Nostalgia Chick put it, Mulan is "the only Disney Princess with a body count. In the thousands."
  • In Turning Red, the red panda transformation allowed Sun Yee to be this, judging by her story as told by Ming and the ancient scroll.

Films — Live-Action

Creators:

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger in any of his 1980's (and some later) appearances. If he isn't slaughtering his way through the Hyborian Age as Conan the Barbarian (1982), he was mowing down endless waves of mooks in things like Commando (1985) and Eraser.
    • In Commando, Matrix kills 81 baddies. Including one incident of failed diplomacy, a guy whose neck he broke in public without anyone noticing, and the funny guy he said he'd kill last. He lied.
    • This, incidentally, makes the eponymous alien hunter in Predator that much more badass. Imagine Arnold concentrating his entire One Man Army power... on one guy. That's basically the third act of Predator.
  • Nearly any character being played by Steven Seagal, anyone? I don't think I even need to specify which film, do I? However, one notable example would definitely be On Deadly Ground (1994).

Movies:

  • In Apache, Massai wages a one man war against the US Cavalry, and seems to be winning.
  • Just like in the comics, Batman is one in pretty much every film he's been in. This is particularly showcased in the warehouse fight scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where Batman takes down over two dozen heavily armed Private Military Contractors by himself. Another example occurs when he fights the Red Triangle Gang in Batman Returns, when he inflicts no less than three No Holds Barred Beatdowns on them over the course of the film.
  • Code of Silence: Zigzagged. Norris' character is your standard "unstoppable man of destruction" in the climax, taking out the entire Colombian cartel by himself (no one is willing to help him after he makes himself a pariah within the police department), but when he barges into their Bad Guy Bar earlier in the film to fist fight the whole gang, numbers take their toll.
  • D-Day ends with a climatic shootout where the hero took on an army of mooks and wipes out everyone. It's a remake of the above-mentioned Commando (1985), by the way.
  • In Death Machines. the white Death Machine, after being captured by the police, proceeds to beat the ever-loving crap out of everybody in the station in order to escape.
  • In Death Ring, Matt Collins is a highly-trained former Green Beret lieutenant who is an expert in firearms, hand-to-hand combat and explosives. He left the army because he felt his training was making him into nothing but a killing machine. However, he then discovered that his skill set had no application in the civilian world. But it did make him the perfect quarry for those planning on Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
  • Deewaar: Vijay fearlessly faces down seven racketeers all by himself and emerges victorious.
  • The Deserter: According to General Miles, Captain Kaleb has killed more Apaches single-handed in the two years since he deserted than Colonel Brown's entire brigade.
  • Die Hard: Detective John McClane followed a similar path as Rambo. He doesn't do that bad in the first movie against Hans Gruber's terrorist gang, but he was shown to be quite out of his depths and got seriously injured throughout the night, relying mostly on luck and bravado. In later movies he becomes an indestructible badass who mows down mooks by the hundreds and wins a fight against a harrier jet.
  • In Dracula Untold, Vlad III Dracula destroys an army of a thousand men attacking his castle single-handedly after gaining vampire powers.
  • Like his comic book counterpart, Dredd's eponymous character qualifies. In spite of being teamed up with Anderson, Dredd does most of the killing, especially in the early parts of the film. Notably, Ma Ma breaks out three .50 calibre Gatling Guns to try and take him out once just throwing Mooks at him doesn't work. It still isn't enough. The only time Dredd has any difficulty is when he runs out of ammo fighting some corrupt judges, and even at that, he manages to take out two of them.
  • Cleric John Preston in Equilibrium has 118 confirmed kills in the movie. His record lies at 53 people in a single fight. And we don't know how many people he killed before the movie began.
  • Fantastic Beasts:
    • Gellert Grindelwald, being very nearly on par with Albus Dumbledore is literately a nigh-invincible magical combatant and wipes the floor with multiple foes repeatedly with ease. Without the Elder Wand, he is able to curb-stomp an entire squad of Aurors, and with it, he takes on an even higher amount of Aurors and kills almost all of them with ease. Notably, he takes on four exceptional wizards and witches with only little effort, killing one of them while the others barely escape, beating out his predecessor Lord Voldemort, who only ever fought 3 great fighters by himself and couldn't finish them off.
    • To a lesser extent, Newton Scamander himself. He repeatedly demonstrates that he didn't earn his title as the world's authority on magical creatures and also Dumbledore's favorite student just because he is good at handling beasts, but also because he is also a very' capable fighter in his own right, by taking down multiple enemies at once. Unarmed and with little help from his Swooping Evil, he uses his bare hands to quickly dispatch 3 executioners and then in a matter of moments, he defeats 3 Aurors in a magical duel. In the second film, he takes down several of Grindelwald's followers by himself just as Theseus and Tina can.
  • Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees is the most dangerous killer in any Slasher Movie ever, so he'd qualify. It's even more ridiculous if you counted outside material like comic books or video games, which would put his total body count at over 600.
  • Furie: Hai Phuong is just a single mother from a riverside town, but after criminals kidnap her daughter, this Mama Bear takes down the entire criminal enterprise herself with just her fists and her ruthlessness.
  • Half the reason Dom Cobb hires Eames for his team is because Eames is an expert forger who can take any form he wants in the dreamworlds. The other half is because Eames is an absolute badass who can hold off most of an army of militarized subconscious projections.
  • Most Kaiju can count as this easily, but Godzilla himself is the literal definition of one, being able to plow through the military forces of entire nations without so much as breaking a sweat. In the anime trilogy, however, Godzilla canonically kicked humanity's ass so badly they had to evacuate the entire planet. Godzilla: Final Wars proves not even other monsters are safe from him, as he mows down a total of 10 other Kaiju all on his own.
    • Gamera earns his title as the Guardian of the Universe, as unlike his rival Godzilla, he has never once relied on the aid of another Kaiju. He takes it to frightening extremes in Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys, as he single-handedly fights an offscreen war against the increasing Gyaos population. In the film's final moments, Gamera heads out into a blazing Kyoto in order to face an absolutely massive swarm of the things, while bleeding profusely and missing an arm. According to the director, Gamera still wins.
  • Spoofed with Topper Harley in Hot Shots! Part Deux, in which his kill count during the final battle is actually tallied on screen (it flashes "Bloodiest Movie Ever'' somewhere around 290). He's also a One Man Air Force in the first film.
  • Frederick Zoller from Inglourious Basterds killed around 300 soldiers with the aid of a good vantage point to pick them off with.
  • Jackie Chan also usually plays one of these as well. It's the reason people are hyped up about The Forbidden Kingdom, where he squares off against Jet Li. Also like Li, he has also played in a movie where there's two of him, though, true to his more wholesome image, it's a lot wackier.
  • Bond. James Bond. Who, on regular days, takes down entire private armies with either his PPK or judo.
  • Jet Li in many of his movies. He doesn't even need weapons, most of the time. Doubled in The One with two Jet Lis, each of whom is fully capable of taking on an army and winning thanks to the in-universe Conservation of Ninjutsu. Naturally, the final battle involves a good-vs-evil face-off between the two. Face with such awesomeness, even Jason Statham can't do much but stand back and watch.
  • John Carter from...well... John Carter. He takes down an entire army by himself and the bodies have to be pulled off of him.
  • John Wick wastes no time in showing that he has earned his status as The Dreaded. Over the course of four movies, he kills over 400 people single-handedly.
  • Hit Girl from Kick-Ass is a One Child Army. Usually she works with her dad, meaning the Trope doesn't technically fit, but in at least one scene, she mows down a small army of trained killers by herself to rescue him. Not bad for an 11-year old.
    • In the sequel, we have Mother Russia. In 5 minutes she kills 3 police officers with a 3rd-generation Glock 17 she took from a dead police officer, another 5 police officers with improvisation, then one with her machete, and finally, she kills another police officer by snapping his neck. There's a very good reason she's the highest paid of The Motherfucker's gang.
    Genghis Carnage: $50,000? She's worth it!
  • The Bride from Kill Bill single-handedly defeated the Crazy 88 gang. Of course, there aren't 88 of them. They thought the name sounded cool. Careful watching and counting brings the actual count to around 82. She did it using only two swords (picking up the second halfway through the fight) and a broken table leg. Conservation of Ninjutsu played a part here, but she still managed to take them out without serious injury until the Cute But Psycho girl showed up.
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service: Each of the Kingsmen is implied to be capable of pulling this off, due to the combination of their intensive combat training and numerous handy weaponry and devices. During the movie, the ones who showed it best were Galahad and Eggsy.
    • Galahad killed many of the church-goers under the Hate Plague.
    • Eggsy wiped out most of the mooks he came across at Valentine's lair until most of the remaining reserves cornered him, and even then he figured out a way to kill them all at one fell swoop.
  • Ogami Itto from the film Lone Wolf And Cub White Heaven In Hell, based on the manga of the same name, holds the record for the highest on-screen body count by a single character in a single film at 150!
  • The Lord of the Rings
    • While he often has friends or an army on his side, Aragorn certainly kills enough Orcs in battle to qualify, and was very much this trope for part of the battle of Amon Hen in the first film.
    • Aragorn has killed 60 enemies on-screen, but this also includes some Elite Mooks, and he certainly killed much more enemies during off-screen fighting scenes. Just remember the many war sequences. Gimli and Legolas aren't so bad either, as both claim to have killed each like 40 Uruks during the battle at Helms Deep.
    • Sauron was this back when he had a physical body, as with only a mace he single handedly turned the battle against the Last Alliance to his favor when he finally took to the field and casually sent dozens of Men and Elves flying with each swing of his weapon. He plausibly could have routed them and won on his own if not for Isildur cutting off his finger and the One Ring.
  • Man on Fire: A kidnapping ring, including corrupt Mexican police, run rough-shod over the citizens of Mexico City and defy all attempts to stop them. Thus, they are completely unprepared when John Creasy unleashes a One Man Curb-Stomp Battle on them and kills dozens of them in short order.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Each of The Avengers is one of these, but special mention goes to the Hulk, who is all but explicitly called one when Tony Stark and Loki are facing off.
      Loki: I have an army.
      Stark: We have a Hulk.
    • Due to being Overshadowed by Awesome, Captain America's status as this is given more screentime in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as he's shown taking down freighters full of pirates, entire squads of soldiers (including taking down Brock Rumlow, who himself is pretty badass), and even an attacking quinjet, and his martial arts skills combined with his enhanced abilities have been given more time to shine. The only person capable of taking him on is the eponymous Winter Soldier, who himself is shown taking down Fury's heavily armed SUV, firing killshots through walls, catching Cap's shield, and neutralizing the heroes' would-be air support before they can get off the ground.
    • In Guardians of the Galaxy, Yondu Udonta survives his M-ship smashing into the ground with little more than a few scratches and then takes down an entire Sakaaran platoon (and a necrocraft) in seconds with his controllable Trick Arrow. He's also leader of the Ravagers, a band of ruthless and amoral space-pirates who are feared by almost everyone in the galaxy. We get another dose of this in Vol. 2, only this time the victims are his own mutinous crew. Poor bastards never stood a chance...
    • Wanda Maximoff, especially after becoming the Scarlet Witch. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, she soloed every opposition she confronted with barely any effort.
  • The Matrix: The One Man Army versus spawn point of Agent Smiths. Place your bets.
    • Trinity performs fairly well in this role, too.
  • Oddly enough, invoked in My Name Is Nobody. Jack Beauregard is already a legendary gunslinger who has killed several enemies alone on several occasions. But the character calling himself Nobody, who idolizes Beauregard, wants him to become a real legend by single-handedly defeating the Wild Bunch, a gang 150 men strong. Which he eventually does — because he has a rifle, and they're carrying explosives in bags with shiny metal decorations perfect for targetting at a distance.
  • The Indian film Magadheera had it's most iconic scene being Kala Bhairava, the Great Warrior, accepting a challenge to fight a hundred enemies, and winning. At it's time of release it's one of the manliest moments ever in Indian cinema.
  • Raizo from Ninja Assassin kills more than 45 people on screen. Doesn't sound like much, compared to some other people on this page. Unless you consider that all of them were ninjas themselves. His kills include his former Master, who certainly had Charles Atlas Superpowers. Raizo also possesses magic regeneration abilities, to make things even more awesome.
  • Mike Banning as played by Gerard Butler in Olympus Has Fallen and it's sequel. In both films he mows down mook after mook without so much as breaking a sweat all to save America.
  • Fezzik from The Princess Bride is a downplayed version. He tells Westley that he normally fights entire gangs of people for jobs, and when Inigo and he are planning the castle siege, he puts his personal best as ten. It actually works against him in his fight with Westley, as he hasn't fought a single person in a long time. His partner Inigo is no slouch either, killing four men in about six seconds, which prompts his opponent to run away and set up an ambush.
  • The Punisher, as mentioned in the comics section, perfectly fits this trope, and in the movies, this is no different. Special mention must go to Punisher: War Zone, the third Punisher movie. Frank Castle kills over 70 baddies, using various guns, grenades, chairs, knifes, a metal pipe and his fists. On one occasion, he kills a bad guy with a single punch, literally punching straight through his face.
  • Rama in The Raid and it's sequel takes down hundreds of bad guys almost single-handedly. Mad Dog and The Assassin both count as well considering they give Rama more of a fight than everyone else together.
  • So far, Rambo has killed over 250 people, including background information given in First Blood. He does get a lot of help in Rambo III, and in Rambo: First Blood Part II, he starts out as a commando on a mission to shoot photographs, not the enemy, but he is abandoned by the Army once he starts killing Communists left and right.
  • Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu in separate scenes of the first part of John Woo's Red Cliff.
  • Return of the Scarecrow: In the film's climax, the people of the town form a mob intent on destroying the titular scarecrow. He kills them all without missing a beat.
  • Tik-Tok from Return to Oz is a literal example of this trope, even calling himself OZ's "army". This looks patently ridiculous at first glance, with him appearing to be a clumsy copper boiler with a head, two spindly arms and thick legs that make him slower than a glacier... and then you see him single-handedly wipe the floor with a large pack of wheelers who are pure terror until this point in the story. Then as the rest of the wheelers flee, he grabs one in a chokehold and mercilessly interrogates him.
  • Evelyn Salt, from the film Salt. A one-woman special forces unit, she is able to single-handedly take out squads of specially-trained security agents and other operatives hot on her tail, improvise a cannon of sorts from a fire extinguisher, cleaning chemicals and the leg of a table, jump off bridges and land on the roofs of trucks unscathed, and fashion darts from freshly-milked spider venom — amongst other things.
  • River Tam in Serenity. Also a classic example of Waif-Fu.
  • Mister. Smith. Confirmed kills: 141. Some with carrots. It gets even more awesome if you consider that he didn't even needed explosives or machine guns, only carrots, handguns and his improbable aiming skills. Considering we don't know anything about his past for sure, Smith might have racked up considerably more kills. Oh, and he was the unabomber.
  • Star Trek
    • The newest starship Enterprise from Star Trek (2009) takes the concept of One Starship Armada to ridiculous extremes. Nero's ship the Narada wrecks an entire squadron of Klingons, a Starfleet armada, and finds spare time to blow up implode a planet. Guess which starship defeats it all by itself?? Seriously, it's as if any ship with the name Enterprise is made of badassinum alloy.
    • Star Trek Into Darkness.:
      • A much, much more straight and literal example comes in the form of John Harrison. The man is unbelievably badass: He takes on a whole squadron of Klingons single-handedly, doesn't even so much as budge when Kirk is attempting to beat the crap out of him, and survives his ship crashing head-first into San Francisco no worse for wear. When you get right down to it, it makes perfect sense considering he's Khan Noonien Singh. The title of One-Man Army is not only deserved, but practically lampshaded all throughout the film.
      • The Vengeance is designed to be the most advanced and powerful warship in known space. Given that it's referred to as Dreadnought-class, and the tendency of classes in this 'verse to be named after the lead ship, it's safe to assume that there is at least one other ship of that class.
  • Any and all Jedi in Star Wars tend to the One Man—or being—Army trope, though they really only achieve it if they're main characters—otherwise they tend to die.
    • Made more explicit in the Novelization of Revenge of the Sith, which describes Anakin Skywalker as "a brigade's worth of firepower in his own right," announces that two Jedi starfighters turning up to a space battle is enough to swing it to the Republic, and mentions an incident where Obi-Wan, when clone support was delayed, apparently killed every droid in the target area by himself.
    • Darth Vader, no contest. While he had fully established himself as this in legends, we finally saw him in his prime in Rogue One, where he effortlessly slaughtered his way through a group of rebels while they were shooting at him.
  • In Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch the One Woman Army is Baby Doll in the first "Dance" sequence in which she beats up a group of Samurai with guns. On her own. And those samurai are at least twice her size.
  • Bryan Mills, badass on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in Taken. He's not just a One Man Army, but a One Man Army that couldn't give less of a shit about what constitutes a fair fight. He has 32 confirmed kills, not counting the Mooks he just beats up. Don't know if the fire extinguisher incident is counted, though.
    • The sequel promises more of the same against the pissed-off extended family of some of the Mooks he slaughtered in the first one.
  • In Ten Dead Men, Ryan wages a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Hart's mob. While he mostly picks off his targets one by one, when he goes after the Projects Manager he storms a tower containing his rival Franklin Boulder and a dozen or more heavily armed Mooks. He takes them all out and continues after the Projects Manager. For once the mental toll is not ignored for, after he takes out the last target on hit list, Ryan kills himself.
  • Valdez is Coming: Tanner picked on the wrong man when he had his men beat the aging town constable and drive him into the desert to die a slow and painful. Valdez returns and starts using every trick he learned fighting the Apache under General Crook. By the time Tanner catches up with Valdez, Valdez has killed eleven of his hired guns without taking a scratch himself.
  • The trailer for Wonder Woman (2017)'s movie shows her standing up to an entire regiment of the German army, kicking some serious A.
  • In The World's End Andrew turns out to be surprisingly badass, felling waves of Blanks at one point without stopping for breath.
  • X-Men Film Series
    • Wolverine. He'll take down as many people as possible.
    • Victor Creed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is strong and sharp enough to take down whole squads.
  • Yakuza Apocalypse: At the start of the movie, we see how awesome Kamiura is as he slices up a building full of Yakuza with a katana.
  • Foes fallen from Zatoichi's sword cane are impossible to count. For comparison in Zatoichi. Darkness Is His Ally (1989), Ichi kills 103 of them.
  • Tallahassee from Zombieland. In the film's climax he bars himself in a circus stall surrounded by hundreds of zombies to distract them away from Columbus while he rescues the girls. Rather than ending as a Heroic Sacrifice, he kills all of the zombies without being scratched.


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