Pet The Dog / Live-Action Films

Pet the Dog in Films.

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• In Adam & Paul, the titular addled addicts will commit all sorts of cruel and immoral acts for a heroin fix, but they're at least kind to Janine's infant son.
• A Is For Acid: This film featured mass murderer John Haigh adopting a dog, taking good care of it, and breaking down in tears when it finally died. The reason the dog needed adopting in the first place was that he killed its owners and dumped them in a vat of acid to cover it up, but there you go.
• Alice in Wonderland (2010): While the Red Queen is more than ready to cut the heads off of anyone who crosses her and uses cute animals for furniture, she still has a vulnerable moment in which she confides to the Jack of Hearts that she wonders whether it is indeed better to be feared than loved and tells him that she's happy that he at least cares for her (the fact that he doesn't makes him quite the bastard). She later is more than happy to befriend the very tall Alice and keep her as a "favorite" (granted, she doesn't know it's Alice, but she does feel sorry when the girl says she was kicked out of her home town for being too large).
• Apocalypse Now:
  • The rogue officer explains to the person sent to deal with him that, despite hacking the arms off innocent children, the Viet Cong were decent family men at home and therefore not evil.
  • There's also a literal example earlier on in the film when a few of Willard's men open fire on a boat of civilians believed to be running supplies for the NVA. It turns out that they were innocent but they do happen to find an adorable puppy that Lance proceeds to stroke and take with him.
• Army of Thieves: Inspector Delacroix mostly averts the "sympathetic" part of the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist character archetype, but he shows some sympathy for Sebastien upon realizing he's an Ascended Fanboy of the safe maker Wagner and not a professional criminal. In the climax, he lets Sebastien escape. While this is partially due to his Mexican Standoff with Gwendoline, he doesn't try to cordon off the area to trap Sebastien once Gwendoline surrenders, and pretends he never saw him.
• As Good as It Gets: The film features, in quick succession, a character getting both Kick the Dog and Pet the Dog moments that involve a literal dog. (The Kick the Dog scene is more for laughs, though.)
• The Beast of Yucca Flats: After the Beast's rampage, when he dies, his final act is to Pet The Bunny. This wasn't even in the script: during filming, a desert rabbit came up to Tor Johnson and he just started petting it. Leaving it in was perhaps Coleman Francis' greatest cinematic achievement.
• Beetlejuice: In the very first scene, Adam is established as a decent person in an unusual way. A large spider is crawling around his model construction of the local town, so what does Adam do? He gently picks up the spider, remarks on its unusual size, and releases it outside.
• American Gangster: Frank Lucas is a ruthless African-American mobster who has no qualms about setting people on fire, shooting someone in the head, in broad daylight, on a public street, or flooding the neighborhood with heroin that leaves mothers too wasted to even take care of their children. Yet, he is a family man who cares for the poor and uses his personal wealth to bring both his family and his city up out of despair, and when caught, he (arguably) goes way overboard in bringing both mobsters and corrupt policemen to justice. One scene in particular - Lucas handing out turkeys to impoverished Harlem families - is a perfect example of this trope.
• Downplayed in Angst. The killer spares the family's dachshund and even allows it to stay in the car with him, but otherwise just completely disregards it, and if anything, was only taking it like a trophy.
• Brubaker:
  • Trustee Caldwell is a prison rapist who beats and tortures people for infractions of the rules or for being potential informants, but he also has a pet cat that he treats well.
  • Prison clerk Purcell is a duplicitous crook who acts as The Mole for Brubaker's enemies, but he remains polite and respectful to Brubaker rather than gloating after he's fired, partially due to the actions of Purcell and his friends, and promises to forward Brubaker's magazines to his new job.
• The Cabin in the Woods: Subverted. Hadley, one of the engineers behind the massacre at the cabin, remarks that he's actually rooting for Dana to make it out alive ... only to lose all interest in her struggle with a zombie when he sees some party guests bringing tequila into the room.
• Casino: Joe Pesci's Nicky Santoro is a vice-toting individual with a terrifying Hair-Trigger Temper, but after a night of crime and general violence, he always comes back home to make his son breakfast.
• Child's Play: As Ax-Crazy as she is, Tiffany seems to love Chucky in her own crazy way and genuinely seems to care about their child later on, even before learning that he/she is their kid. When she dies, she even warns him/her to not make the same mistakes she and Chucky did.
• In the film based on A Civil Action Jerome Facher, a lawyer representing a corporation in a wrongful death case, succeeds in having the case dismissed on a technicality, which drives the lawyer of the wronged parties to bankruptcy. Before that he had repeatedly tried to persuade him to drop or settle the case against his client, warning him that there was not enough evidence to support it and that he knew that the other law firm did not have the money to face a long trial.
• A Clockwork Orange: The only living thing that Alex shows any concern for is his pet boa constrictor, Basil. When Alex comes home after after serving two years in prison, he's upset to learn that Basil died during this time, supposedly from an accident.
• Crash: This film is heavily devoted to showing jerks petting the dog.
  • One that stands out in particular is near the very end of the movie, when a carjacker who had been preaching racial pride, intolerance and selfishness throughout the film finds himself in possession of a van filled with smuggled Asian slaves. When he's offered a good deal of money for them, he instead takes them to L.A.'s Chinatown and frees them, giving one of them forty dollars to buy them some food.
  • Another notable one is when the Middle Eastern shopkeeper blames a locksmith for his shop being broken into and robbed (the locksmith was not at fault, but the shopkeeper was paranoid from racial persecution). When the shopkeeper goes to confront the locksmith, he holds the locksmith at gunpoint and accidentally pulls the trigger just as the locksmith's young daughter runs between her father and the gun, which horrifies him. When she isn't hurt at all, he sees it as a sign from God, decides that the girl was sent to show him to get his life back on track, and gives the gun to his daughter. His daughter actually loaded the gun with blanks, but he never realizes this.
• In Deadpool 2, The Juggernaut helps Russel with his revenge scheme when he could have easily abandoned him after Russel helps him escape. They're also seen chatting amicably, with Juggernaut telling him a bit about himself.
• Demolition Man:
  • Despite having nothing but contempt for Spartan, Chief Earle does thank him for his (albeit sarcastic) agreement with a plan Earle cooked up.
  • A scene in the novel sees part of the reason Phoenix didn't kill Bob was due to taking pity on Bob after learning that Cocteau had him castrated.
• The Departed: Near the end, Colin Sullivan attempts to pet a neighbor's dog in the hallway of his apartment building, but the dog shies away.
• Diamonds Are Forever: Played with. After Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd kill the teacher and dump her into the canal, Mr. Kidd takes some pictures out of rather morbid respect (she had wanted pictures of the canal for her students). Mr. Wint comments on it.
  Mr. Wint: How kind of you, Mr. Kidd. The children will be so thrilled.
• In Dick Tracy's Dilemma, Psycho for Hire The Claw has a soft spot for stray cats: taking them in and caring for them.
• Dogville: At the end, after Grace has her mob associates kill every man, woman and child in town, she specifically tells them not to kill a dog.
• Downfall (2004) features the last days of Adolf Hitler's bunker. While not denying his fundamental insanity and monstrosity, it not only features him petting his dog but also showing other moments of (relative) humanity. This might count as a subversion, as they go more towards why people followed him despite the fact that he actually was a monster — not to mention his statement that he prefers his dog over many people can be interpreted a lot more darkly given what he was infamous for.
• Dudley Do-Right: Parodied and Subverted in the Live-Action Adaptation. Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina) is basking in his victory and declares drinks (at the bar he now owns) are on the house, before remarking to his henchman:
  "On second thought, drinks are only half off." (pause) "On second thought, double the price of everything."
• Duel: the villainous truck driver rescues a broken down school bus between attempts to kill the man who dared to pass him on the road. It seems there's some very laser guided road rage at work.
• Literally, with Brett's affection for his dog in Eden Lake. It's after Steve kills her that Brett's intent turns murderous.
• Equilibrium: Preston does his Heel–Face Turn from Villain Protagonist to hero when he rescues an adorable puppy dog from execution by the cold-blooded enforcers of his dystopic government.
• Escape to Witch Mountain:
  • Mr. Deranian is an Amoral Attorney who rarely does better then display some Pragmatic Villainy, but when a truck crashes into his car in his first scene, Deranian immediately races to see if his chauffeur is all right.
  • The first sign that Jason is more than a Grumpy Old Man is when he pets Winky the cat and promises to give him some canned tuna.
• Face/Off, there's Castor Troy tying his dead brother's shoes; and to a lesser extent, beating up a boyfriend who attempts to rape Archer's daughter, then gifting her a butterfly knife and teaching her a technique to make sure the wound doesn't close after stabbing someone, so that she can defend herself if any guy tries that with her again.
• In the Fantozzi movies, the Galactic Mega Director: he's a Corrupt Corporate Executive, the horrid antics of the other bosses can only happen because he lets them happen, but after Fantozzi quits the company in a moment of romantic stupidity he rehires him (as a lightning rod).
• The Fastest Gun Alive:
  • Harold lets some women lower their arms during a bank robbery when one of them says she's getting tired of holding her hands in the air.
  • Harold is interested and encouraging when he talks to a boy with a toy gun. Although he still uses the boy as a hostage, he keeps Swope from killing the kid's father. Swope comments that Harold doesn't hurt dogs or kids in general.
• 15 Minutes: In one of the deleted scenes, the main bad guy Emil Slovak is shown helping an old lady across the street.
• The Fly II: (the sequel to the Cronenberg movie starring Jeff Goldblum), the mutated insectoid protagonist happens to pet a golden retriever in the lab shortly before going on a revenge spree against the apparent bad guys of the film, making us (ostensibly) root for the monster in the film, for once.
• Frost/Nixon: Literal example: The defeated and broken ex-President pets a dachshund after admitting his guilt in the Watergate scandal. Nixon was the avowed master of dog-petting. (See the Real Life section for more.)
• Full Metal Jacket: Drill Instructor Hartman spends most of the first half of the film berating, beating and abusing the overweight and none-too-bright Recruit Pyle, but when he sees Pyle actually shape up and do well on the rifle range, he is genuinely pleased and even offers Pyle a compliment.
  • Additionally, Hartman promotes Joker to squad leader in response to Joker standing up to Hartman and not backing down when confronted by him, saying that Joker has guts for being able to do such a thing.
• The Godfather: There's an almost-literal example in the very first scene. The eponymous mafia overlord tenderly plays with a cat while hearing an assassination request. A Throw It In! by Marlon Brando, who made friends with that cat on the street and insisted they work it into the scene. It's the rare case where a Right-Hand Cat is actually used to humanize its master.
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
  • Clint Eastwood's character, despite being "the Good" did lots of morally ambiguous or out-right wrong things. However, we are shown a seconds-long scene of him petting a tiny kitten, and before the climax he is shown comforting a dying soldier, so he may be merely a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Another one is a scene after the two stay at the monastery. Tuco leaves after an intense argument over their chosen lives with his brother who became a monk. Tuco is visibly saddened, though upon seeing Blondie he praises his brother greatly and tells him what a great dinner he had. Blondie, being the smarter of the two, is not fooled but he plays the game saying something along the lines that there's nothing like a good smoke after a good meal and offering Tuco one of his trademark cigars. This to a man who wanted to walk him to death through the desert. Eastwood tried to do the same thing to him earlier in the movie for no reason. So its not like he didn't deserve it.
  • Even a complete sociopath like Angel Eyes can't help but feel sorry for a group of soldiers he passes by that aren't very well off; he bribes one soldier with alcohol for information about Bill Carson and lets him keep it. In a more subtle example, he pays a handicapped man at the second attempt to hang Tuco in coins for some information on Carson earlier in the film.
• The 1948 police thriller He Walked By Night presents a very literal example. Antagonist Roy is a cold thief and murderer who has shot two cops, but shows affection to his playful pet dog.
• Early on in Hellboy (2004), the title character saves a box full of kittens from a rampaging hellhound demon in another literal "Save the Cat" moment.
• In The Hobbit trilogy, the Elvenking Thranduil may be arrogant, greedy and bigot towards dwarves but he also brought food and supplies to help the people of Laketown after Smaug destroys their home. In the book, he offers to let Bilbo stay with the elves and men knowing that the dwarves (or at least Thorin) won't take kindly to Bilbo since Bilbo handed the Arkenstone to Thranduil and Bard.
• The Hole: Despite being portrayed as the Alpha Bitch, Frankie helps Liz fix her hair after the disaster with the peroxide, and is quite sweet about it. Of course, this is part of one of Liz's fabrications and probably never happened.
• Holidays: In Valentine's Day Maxine, who is bullied and teased by the other students, gets a Valentine from her coach when no one else gives her any (which only fuels her crush). Unfortunately, she decides to do something horrible for him in return...
• Hot Tub Time Machine: Blaine and his ski patrol buddies spend most of the film as complete jerkasses, but in the end they manage to redeem themselves somewhat by working quickly and professionally to save the Bellhop's arm.
• The Hunger Games: In return for Katniss giving Rue a decent burial, Thresh kills her attacker and spares her life, though he warns the offer is only good once.
• A small one in I Am Number Four: one of the alien villains is in the grocery store, buying about a dozen turkeys to feed his Pet Monstrosity. He passes a little boy who's staring at him; he waves, and the boy waves back.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Elsa, Indy's Bond Girl and the perfect embodiment of an Aryan antagonist, reveals herself to be a villain when she tricks Indy into giving up an important Plot Coupon. She's a Nazi, but she's also a dedicated scholar and archaeologist who earns our sympathy when she weeps at the sight of her countrymen burning books. Doesn't save her from a Karmic Death, mostly because of her greed making her Too Dumb to Live.
• Insomnia: Walter Finch is a cold-blooded murderer and a literal example who owns two labrador retrievers. When Detective Dormer tracks him down to his apartment Finch is forced to flee, but calls back to make a deal with Dormer and asks him to feed his dogs if he's there anyway.
• The Invisible: Half of the film is this. When we meet Annie Newton, she's an coldblooded thief and gang leader, which is all the protagonist Nick thought she was, especially after she beats the tar out of him and leaves him for dead. He is very disturbed when he sees how much she cares for her little brother.
  Nick: Stop acting like you're a person!
• The Jackie Robinson Story: The title character takes a cat away from some racists who are trying to intimidate him by mistreating the cat
• Jurassic World: Despite his villainy, Vic Hoskins has multiple moments. He has a literal one in his backstory where he rescued a wolf pup and did not put it down after it mauled his wife to protect him. When his boss Marsani dies, he has the decency to look sorrowful and calls it a tragedy. He also does not retaliate or sic his men on the hero Owen Grady when Owen punches him in the face. Hoskins is clearly horrified watching his men get torn apart by the raptors.
• Kaamelott: Premier Volet: Despite oppressing the peasants of the kingdom of Logres in the name of The Usurper Lancelot, Horsa's lieutenant Wulfstan sounds apologetic for the Saxon raids having killed the wife of one of said peasants, Guéthenoc.
• Kill Bill: The Bride's Evil Mentor Pai Mei, is an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who puts the Bride in a Training from Hell is a racist and a sexist towards Caucasians, the Japanese, and women and being an arrogant Jerkass all around. However, there exists a shred of decency in him when he tosses the Bride's food away, he offers her his own bowl of rice. The Bride earned Pai Mei's respect enough to teach her the legendary Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which she uses to kill Bill.
  • The Bride herself gets a moment during the final battle with the Crazy 88. Basically, she cuts down a lot of guys in a darkened room and sees that her last opponent is just a whimpering high school boy when somebody offscreen flicks the lights on. She stops short of killing him, gives him an incredulous look, then grabs the kid by the collar and whoops his ass with the side of her katana (for "fucking around with Yakuzas") to send him packing. She not only spared his life but also probably saved it too.
• A Kitten For Hitler: Twistedly crossed with Kick the Dog, Hitler gets a kitten from a Jewish boy for Christmas, which he quickly comes to love. This does not stop him from having the boy skinned and turned into a lampshade.
• The Last Airbender: After Zuko is banished and is forced to live on the streets and fails to find a crew, he resorts to asking Azula to ask Ozai to give him a ship, noticing that Ozai would listen to her because she's his favorite child. Azula agrees, and gets Zuko the ship and crew he needed.
• The Last Circus: Francisco Franco has pity upon the protagonist Javier when he's forced by his kidnapper colonel Salcedo to act like a retriever dog (which consists in bringing the birds Salcedo guns down during a private hunting session to him with his teeth) and gently pats him on the face... which ironically causes a The Dog Bites Back moment when Javier voraciously bites the dictator's hand.
• Les Misérables (2012): Javert, when looking through the bodies of the revolutionaries, finds the corpse of Gavroche, the young boy who recognized him as a mole and almost got him killed. Javert takes off one of his medals and pins it on the body.
• Lethal Weapon: Riggs starts out as a borderline Ax-Crazy killing machine. Then, after slaughtering his way through the first two films, he refuses point blank to kill a guard dog in Lethal Weapon 3. Instead he makes friends with it (by sharing his dog biscuits), then steals it. He was already on his way to being a nicer guy, but this was the proof that he was now just a slightly wacky cop (with a two-digit body count).
• Local Hero: The rescued rabbit featured in this 1982 movie seemed to exist purely for this purpose.
• The Longest Day: Major Werner Pluskat has a pet German Shepherd that he's introduced playing with, and he's one of the two most sympathetic German officers in the film. (The other is Lt. Colonel "Pips" Priller, who earns his sympathetic status by being a Worthy Opponent and letting the German High Command know just how incompetent they are.)
• Made of Honor: Done several times over, to show that the protagonist isn't a total asshole. He even kisses the dog.
• Man on Fire: The Big Bad is a kidnapper who is shown covering and caressing his own children while negotiating the ransom of his victims.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man 2: Ivan Vanko's care for his burd.
  • Captain America: The First Avenger: The film manages to give The Red Skull such a moment with a self serving caveat. This is when The Skull is about to board his rocket chopper and tells Dr. Zola that the ride's only for himself. Instead of abandoning him to Captain America, the Skull gives Dr. Zola the keys to his Cool Car to make his own escape with instructions that it must be not be damaged in any way. This means that the Doctor will be delivering his car to the rendezvous point instead of being confiscated by the Allies.
  • Ant-Man: After getting released from prison, Scott Lang is quickly fired from Baskin-Robbins due to his criminal record (Baskin-Robbins always finds out). The manager, who's actually sympathetic towards him, offers to look the other way if he wants to help himself to a smoothie on his way out. Scott takes him up on that offer.
  • Captain America: Civil War: Zemo gets a few short scenes showing that he's Nice to the Hotel Staff and later sincerely apologizes to Black Panther for T'Chaka's death (although he makes clear that it doesn't mean he regrets what he's done).
  • Black Panther: Black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue seemingly gets one of these when he executes all but one of the security guards at the Museum of Great Britain, then tells the remaining guard he can go. Klaue then proceeds to immediately avert this trope by shooting the guard in the back of the head as he's running in order to spread out the crime scene and prevent the authorities from getting too suspicious.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: When Thanos first meets his soon to be minion/adopted daughter Gamora as a child, he takes a moment to comfort her... while his forces slaughter half the population of her planet. Then much later, just before he dies, he took a moment to thank his other daughter Nebula and admitted that perhaps he treated her too harshly after spending the most of his life calling her a waste of parts.
  • Captain Marvel: Talos risks blowing his cover to pay his last respects to a fallen Skrull soldier. Of course, it's only a "pet the dog" moment until we learn he's not actually a bad guy.
  • Avengers: Endgame: When Thanos from the past gets a vision that his own daughter Nebula will eventually betray him in the future, rather than kill her right away as suggested by Ebony Maw, Thanos instead releases her from her chains and gave her a chance to prove her own loyalty. When she did by transporting him and his entire forces to the Prime timeline, Thanos sincerely complements her for her efforts in what is probably for the very first time that she served him.
• McLintock!: Bigoted Obstructive Bureaucrat Agard shows concern for Katherine and Dev during various brawls.
• Minis First Time: Mini from is about as close to soulless as it is possible to portray in film, but even she gets a little Pet the Dog moment: when some guy at school is teasing her friend Sprague, Mini defends her. Given the way in which she defends Sprague, and her overall character, it is possible that she only does it for her own amusement, and not out of any care she might have for another person.
• MonsterVerse:
  • Godzilla (2014): Despite their viciousness the Mutos have a surprisingly touching scene when they reunite in San Francisco, where the male Muto courts the female - using a live atomic bomb as a nuptial gift - and the two prepare to build a nest. This is arguably their entire raison d'etre. Godzilla himself has some of these. For instance, he goes out of his way to avoid deliberately killing humans, such as swimming underneath an aircraft carrier when he could just as easily go through it. While Godzilla does kill people, most notably during his arrival in Hawaii and the destruction of the Golden Gate bridge, it's never on purpose.
  • Kong: Skull Island: As demented and Ax-Crazy as Packard proves himself to be when he and his men are stranded on Skull Island, there is at least enough authenticity in his tight relationship with his men for him to give their dead a proper burial and to order Mills to make sure that a fallen soldier's belongings get back to said soldier's family; though it's not enough to prevent Packard from putting his still-living men's lives ahead of his insane and escalating obsession. Packard also has just enough reason, or isn't completley insane enough yet, that he doesn't object to Conrad and the civilians splitting away from Packard's squad to get to safety, even though one of those civilians is someone whom Word of St. Paul comments Packard would very much love to shoot himself without much provocation.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019):
    • Emma Russell in the beginning trying unsuccessfully to convince a fellow Monarch scientist to go and catch some Z's becomes this, once you know on the second viewing that Emma already knew Alan Jonah's lethal assault was coming. She was trying to invoke Serendipitous Survival on the scientist to save him from becoming an unnecessary casualty.
    • Alan Jonah is one of the vilest human antagonists the MonsterVerse has seen, but he has dog-petting moments of his own, and unlike Packard who on some level implicitly exploits his men's trust in him, Jonah tactically has nothing to gain toward his cause from his dog-petting, implying it's genuine. Firstly, he attempts to amuse Madison with a hand trick when he catches her staring at him uncomfortably, even though he makes it clear in later scenes that he doesn't give a damn if the girl dies because of actions she takes under her own initiative. Finally, when Emma demands that Jonah let her go so she can save her daughter amidst King Ghidorah's reign of terror, Jonah acquiesces once Emma says she won't outlive both her offspring (albeit only after Emma points a gun at Jonah, not that he appears particularly threatened).
  • Godzilla vs. Kong:
    • Despite all-round being a snooty, stuck-up Rich Bitch who won't hesitate to betray Team Kong and threaten their lives if they deviate from Apex's plan, Maia is the first person who runs to Jia's aid when the latter and Dr. Andrews almost drown during the naval battle.
    • Implied with Godzilla, who is a lot more anti-heroic and aggressive in this movie than he was in his last two MonsterVerse appearances, amidst his fight with Kong. After Godzilla completely savages Kong to the point of almost killing him, Godzilla doesn't kill the defeated primate when the latter still defiantly refuses to submit to Godzilla's authority – instead, Godzilla just leaves Kong lying where he is (albeit with mortal injuries) and re-focuses his attention on destroying Mechagodzilla.
• Munich: Has a literal example of this when the female assassin, after being shot, stumbles to the living room and give her cat one last pet before sitting down and being finished off.
• Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971): After escaping the angry mob, the murderer Marot drops a coin in the cup of a blind beggar he passes.
• My Letter To George: Despite being an abusive husband to Victoria and a self-destructive asshole in general, Oliver Thompson shows genuine sorrow when their baby is stillborn.
• Mystery Team: The primary role of Robert up until The Reveal, with him agreeing to take care of the children he had accidentally orphaned
• No Name on the Bullet: Fear of Gant does being out the uglier sides of Stricker and Reeger but both men have positive moments as well. Stricker promises Hastings that the town will support him (in a sincere, comforting way) after he agrees to try to run off Gant, while Reeger shows visible alarm and concern when he hears Anne's confrontation with Gant and hurries to find Luke and alert him.
• October Sky: A classic example: Homer Hickham's father stops yelling at his son briefly to go rescue his son's friend, who is being beaten by his drunken stepfather. After threatening him and sending him on his way, Hickham comes right back and continues to yell at Homer, proving that he is a good man.
• Oldboy (2003): Near the end, the villain Lee Woo-jin has a pet the dog moment for Oh Dae-su after he drives the man past his Despair Event Horizon. Woo-jin had a trap set up to destroy Dae-su and his lover completely, where he would reveal to both that they are father and daughter. After Dae-su's horrifying breakdown (during which Woo-jin laughs hysterically), he seems to pity him and calls his associate, telling him not to go through with the rest of the plan.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: A quick one for Davy Jones seeing incoming cannon fire, he throws himself on Mercer to protect him from the blast. The fact that he quickly remembers he hates the man and promptly chokes him to death just reinforces the fact that he would have protected any member of his crew in the same way.
• Pacific Rim: In the first battle, a tiny fishing boat is caught between an enormous Kaiju and a Humongous Mecha, both about to battle to the death. How do these bystanders know who to root for? The mecha reaches down and lifts the boat out of the way before fighting.
  • More literally, Chuck Hansen, a cantankerous hotheaded jerk of a Jaeger pilot with serious father-figure issues who plays rival to Raleigh and Mako, is humanized by his devotion and care for Max, his beloved bulldog.
• The Phantom of the Opera (1998): After killing a perverted manager chasing a child ballerina, the Phantom soothes the frightened girl, and tells her to go home, letting her leave unharmed.
• Philomena: One of the younger nuns obtains a photograph of Anthony and gives it to Philomena.
• Red Rock West: All three of the villains get at least one humanizing moment.
  • Dirty Cop Wayne vainly yells at Lyle not to shoot the deputy guarding him when Lyle is breaking Wayne out of custody. He also tells Lyle that they should just let Mike and Suzanne go now that he's been exposed and they can leave town with the money anyway.
  • After he nearly runs over Mike, Ax-Crazy hitman Lyle offers him a ride into town. They chat during the car ride, with Lyle offering condolences about how he got hurt in Lebanon and offering to buy him a drink and drive him back to his car.
  • When she has a gun on Michael, Manipulative Bitch Suzanne offers to let lhimjust jump out the door to the train instead of murdering him, saying she kind of likes him. However, he quickly overpowers her.
• Return to Oz: The Nome King actually comforts a crying Dorothy, and offers her a way to rescue the Scarecrow- which quickly transforms into a deathtrap as he transforms from an Elemental Embodiment to a particularly vile near-human. Whether or not the King's sympathy was ever genuine is up for debate. Further, after all the other members of Dorothy's group have entered the Death Trap and she's awaiting her turn, the Nome King even offers to send her back to Kansas, albeit without changing her friends back. This all might have more to do with the King being Affably Evil rather then genuine kindness on his part. Again, a matter of debate.
• RoboCop (1987):
  • The remorseless mobster Clarence Boddicker finds his assassination mark in the company of two hookers and deigns to shoo them away rather than killing them as witnesses.
  • Subverted when he stops Emil, another member of his gang, from killing Murphy, but only to give him a far more torturous death.
• The Room (2003): Johnny - gradually established an almost a Messianic Archetype of general niceness - famously stops to pet a small pug belonging o the owner of the flower shop, despite everyone in the scene seeming incredibly rushed.
  Hi, doggie.
• Scarface (1983): Tony Montana provides the most violent example of this trope ever by blowing the head off someone that deliberately tried to murder a mother and her children right before said person is about to push the button. This shows that Tony still has some good in him, though this act also causes the falling-out with Sosa which ultimately leads to Tony's death.
• Schindler's List: Nastily subverted. Amon Goeth seems intrigued by the concept of showing occasional mercy, and waves off a concentration camp inmate with "I pardon you." He then repeats the phrase to a mirror... which is followed by him sniping the "pardoned" man from his balcony. And again when he gently caresses his Jewish maid on whom he has a Villainous Crush, only to immediately begin beating her savagely. There's a reason this guy is considered a monster among monsters.
• Secret Beyond the Door...: Newly married Celia (Joan Bennet) is worried that her husband, Mark (Michael Redgrave), may have murdered his last wife, but cannot convince herself that he truly could be so evil; one of the little things that makes her question her suspicion is the sight of Mark bringing home an injured dog and bandaging its leg.
• The Secret Garden: A confrontation between Mary and Mrs. Medlock culminates in Medlock slapping Martha and threatening to fire her for letting Mary wander into Colin's room. This does not sit well with Colin. Not only does he visibly recoil with an expression of shock when Martha is slapped, he flat-out tells Mrs. Medlock that he will have her sent away if she dares dismiss the servant girl.
• Sense and Sensibility uses Margaret Dashwood, the youngest of the sisters, to this end. Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars because he manages to draw her out of hiding and befriends her, while Colonel Brandon answers her questions about his travels seriously rather than dismissing her as a child.
• In Shredder Orpheus, Persephone runs the EBN with her husband and is complicit in his soul-sucking broadcasts, but has a soft spot for Orpheus and true love, helping him get onstage and convincing Hades to let Orpheus and Eurydice go. Earlier, when Persephone asks Hades to have charity, she cites that he lets her go on summer vacations as an example.
• Silent Night (2012): After killing Reverend Madeley, Santa gives the donation money the corrupt preacher stole to an elderly parishioner. He also gives Tiffany's little sister a candy cane (albeit a bloody one).
• Sin Nombre: We see the protagonist bringing a child to be violently initiated into a local gang. So far he seems evil, but he soon pets the dog when he visits his girlfriend, with whom he appears to have a loving relationship.
• Sleepy Hollow (1999): The Horseman is shown to be very affectionate toward his steed. In the flashback that shows his origins, he is shown petting the horse as it lay dying from a gunshot wound, and toward the end the Horseman is happily reunited with it once he gets his head back and drags Lady Van Tassel down to hell with he and his horse.
• Snatch.: The ruthless gangster Bullet Tooth Tony, who has no problem whatsoever shooting, slicing or otherwise dishing out pain to human opponents, in one scene balks at Avi's suggestion to "open" the dog in order to obtain the massive diamond which said dog had swallowed.
• Snow White: A Tale of Terror: The wicked stepmother goes right ahead and murders her brother, leaves her stepdaughter lost in the woods while trying to magically kill her, poisons the entire castle and enslaves them magically, seduces her stepdaughter's fiance, and rapes and nearly murders her husband. During the big fight between her and the stepdaughter, she completely ignores her opponent when she hears her baby son crying, running to tend to him despite the fact that the stepdaughter is armed and more than ready to press any advantages. She was also a sympathetic character in the beginning of the movie, trying to reach out to her stepdaughter, who acts like a brat to her. It's only when she miscarries her own child that she snaps.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), the nicest thing Dr. Robotnik does throughout the course of the film is compliment the way Agent Stone makes lattes when the latter offers him one.
• The Sound of Music: Captain Von Trapp has many of these moments, but most notable is his sudden affection to his children when he returns home, finds his children singing, and suddenly sings with them, and then to them. The Von Trapp children react with shock and/or crying, and at the end of the song, they all embrace him. (Also a Pet the Dog moment for the actor, Christopher Plummer, who didn't like working with children, and distanced himself from them. Allegedly, the children's reactions were genuine when filming this scene, since it gave them the feeling that he actually liked them.)
• Spider-Man 3: The RiffTrax for the movie commented — "See, this just goes to show that Spidey cannot, and will not, kill this guy. I mean, imagine how different Star Wars would have been if the first scene had shown Darth Vader stroking a puppy."
• Star 80: The story of Paul Snider - murderer of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, and all-around malicious creep - is rendered all the more tragic and disturbing by a scene of genuine kindness in the middle of the film, where he shows Stratten's 12-year-old sister a great time at the county fair.
• Star Wars:
  • Return of the Jedi: After Luke kills the rancor (the murderous creature Jabba the Hutt tries to feed him to), its keeper emerges from the shadows, shouting in alarm, and begins sobbing when he sees that his pet is dead — giving a touch of humanity to one of Jabba's evil flunkies. The Expanded Universe later defined him as a Gentle Giant who hated Jabba for mistreating the rancor, and eventually gave him a happy ending after Jabba's death.
  • The Force Awakens: Kylo Ren's interactions with Rey are rife with this. After knocking her out and kidnapping her, he waits patiently — in the same room — for her to wake up, then announces that she is his "guest". He also reassures her that he has no idea where her friends are, gets intimately close to her, speaks softly in her ear and shows her his real face when she expresses her misgivings about being hunted by "a creature in a mask." Later, he willingly volunteers to become her teacher.
• The Stepfather: Literally. When the stepfather loses it at the end and prepares to kill his new family, he takes some time to hug the little dog that he bought for his stepdaughter before, as he just couldn't kill the thing. Earlier in the movie, he also fondly remembers a previous dog he had.
• Thanksgiving (2023): After John Carver murders Manny, the security guard who fled his post during the Black Friday stampede, he feeds and pets the guard's cat.
• Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead:
  • Bernard typically comes across as either creepy or pathetic, but tells Jimmy that he really would feel a sense of peace and leave Meg alone if he could just hear her say that she was happy with her new boyfriend. Unfortunately, his father didn't ask his opinion on that.
  • Mr. Shush rescues a man who's being beaten up in an alley by three other men, and this may be his motivation for it. No clear reason is given. He later also kills Pieces quickly, as he's requested, despite being instructed to kill him slowly.
  • Jimmy brutally beats up the man who'd raped and beaten Lucinda publicly for revenge. She's very impressed by this and asks him to father her child as a result.
• The Third Man: 'Baron' Kurtz pets a dog while trying to confuse Holly Martins.
• Thirteen Days: Towards the end, John F. Kennedy is in a meeting with the military and is being urged to attack a SAM site that shot down one of their planes. Kennedy wants to wait and make sure it wasn't an accident. The Chiefs are about to protest, but Gen. Curtis LeMay , who up to that point had been the biggest General Ripper of the lot, sides with Kennedy. He has a practical reason for doing so, but it shows he's not so eager for Commie blood that he'll just rush into a fight.
• Through Black Spruce: Will first spares an old blind female black bear, then starts to feed her sympathetically. He respectfully covers her with a blanket and holds what seems like a mini funeral when she dies.
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A major Pet the Dog moment is actually pretty suspicious: a British secret agent, Jim Prideaux, is shot and captured by the Soviets, but after his interrogation he's sent home in one piece. This implies that The Mole had sympathies with Prideaux, and pulled strings to make sure he lived. It's no reflection on Prideaux's loyalty - the mole is Bill Haydon, who, despite his treachery, is extremely close to Prideaux and never intended for him to get captured.
• Tony Manero: A literal case, albeit with a cat. Villain Protagonist Raúl takes the time to gently move around a housecat and put out a nice meal for it... after a sudden, horrible murder.
• The Tribe: Repeatedly zigzagged with Sergey. He falls in love with Anya... but ends up impregnating her. He helps pay for the abortion... by robbing one of his teachers. He saves her from being sold as a sex slave... but also rapes her.
• Two Hands: Pando is a ruthless Affably Evil (emphasis on "Evil") crime boss who would have no qualms about murdering you if you cross him... but he very clearly loves his young son and is very close to him, in one scene watching Play School with him and complimenting the origami pterodactyl he made. A major theme in the movie is that even bad people have some good inside them and vice versa.
• Underworld U.S.A.: Gus, a ruthless enforcer who murders a little girl by running her over with his car in front of her mother, tells Tolly how much he enjoys acting as lifeguard at the swim meets for underprivileged kids.
• The Usual Suspects: Michael McManus pats an, understandably, concerned-looking canine as he makes his way through the drug runners' boat, cheerfully murdering the Hungarian smugglers in cold blood.
• Vantage Point: The main villain amasses a rather large list of crimes over the course of the few hours in which the movie takes place, including killing many civilians, is unable to run over a little girl, ultimately proving to be his undoing — his van crashes and he is caught.
• Vox Lux: She won't be winning "mother of the year" any time soon but Albertine is the only person the adult Celeste is ever genuinely nice to and tries to be a caring parent for despite her own issues and immaturity.
• Warcraft (2016): Big Bad Gul'dan of all creatures gets a moment. He helps deliver Draka's child, and when it's stillborn, he takes a life out of a nearby deer and infuses it into the kid to bring it back to life.
• A Wedding (1978): Dr. Meachum is a handsy, hard-drinking heroin peddler who has little patience for people who disagree with him and tacitly acknowledges that he's less moral than the average doctor, but he can be considerate toward others. He doesn't want Nettie's death to ruin her grandson's wedding. He isn't opposed to performing abortions but won't do it when it would endanger the mother's life. He also reminds Luigi that Nettie is dead and can't control his life anymore to defuse a fight between Luigi and his brother after Nettie forbid Luigi's brother from visiting.
• West Side Story (1961): A subtle example. During the Jets' opening dance-march through their territory, while making it very clear how they consider themselves the de facto owners of this chunk of the city, they pointedly walk around a little girl's chalk circle rather than interrupt her.
• Werewolves Within:
  • Despite having a profound dislike of Dr. Ellis, Parker still offers her a drink from his flask when she is shaken by the sight of a mangled body.
  • Jeanine breaks down and confesses her husband left her because she gained too much weight. Devon and Joaquim are quick to try and console her.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: At the beginning, Eddie Valiant hates toons with a passion, even assaulting a bar patron for suggesting that he is working for one. However, when he meets Betty Boop he is friendly with her, apparently considering her a friend from before he developed his Fantastic Racism. And of course, he later overcomes it entirely.
• X-Men Film Series
  • In X-Men: First Class, John McCone, the Jerkass CIA director, calling Stryker out on having the beach bombed even though Moira is on it, saying "We have an agent there! A good one!" It makes one wonder if his "The CIA is no place for a woman!" remark toward her later is just to cover that he really cares.
  • In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Richard Nixon's shown feeding his dogs biscuits. A better example is when Mystique saves his life from Magneto. It's implied he gave her a pardon and jailed Trask for trying to sell secrets to America's enemies.
• The Young Philadelphians: Played rather hilariously. Tony isn't a monster, but he's straying dangerously close to Amoral Attorney territory. When an elderly lady comes to his office wanting to write her chihuahua into her will, he seems disinterested and rather annoyed when the dog starts walking around on his desk...but when he makes a phone call and learns that she's ridiculously wealthy and influential, he immediately scoops up the dog and begins cuddling it. Made all the more delightful because it's Paul Newman.

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