Psychopathic Manchild / Live-Action Films

Psychopathic Manchildren in live action movies.

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• Johnny Truelove of Alpha Dog is an impulsive, shortsighted, criminally dumb wannabe gangster trying to project a "tough guy" image. He kidnaps Zach on a whim, threatens people wherever he goes, and doesn't realize how many witnesses he creates because of his own poor planning. He doesn't even keep tabs on the murder he orders while going out with his girlfriend and having fun, and rejects the option his father offers to release Zach and spend minimal jail time even though he has no other plan himself. He remains elusive for so long only because of blind luck.
• Middle-Eye in Apocalypto. For all his sadism and warrior skills, he has a tendency to revert to childlike behavior. He screams at getting bitten by a woman defending herself, greedily takes a keepsake from a fallen comrade ("He would have wanted ME to have it!"), throws what's essentially a temper tantrum when forbidden from killing the hero, and becomes meek and tongue-tied after trying leader Zero Wolf's patience. Somehow it doesn't make him any less scary.
• Agent Lynch from The A-Team acts like a 16-year-old with daddy's credit card and car keys. He leers at his assistant, constantly brags about how much cooler his job is than his opposite number's, and displays childlike glee at all the cool toys he gets and stuff he gets to do.
• Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers trilogy is depicted as a short-tempered man with aspirations for world domination...which is undermined by his love for Cartoonish Supervillainy done purely For the Evulz as well as a penchant for picayune insults and temper tantrums.
• Most of the villains in the Batman Film Series.
  • It's almost obligatory to depict the Joker this way, but Batman (1989) takes it a step further by showing him as the apparently sane (but still very, very evil) Jack Napier prior to his transformation. In between the vicious murders he committed as Napier and then continues to commit as the clown he becomes, the Joker "punches out" two television sets with an Extendo Boxing Glove, blows into a birthday-party noisemaker, obsessively cuts up photographs to make collages of them, hosts a parade with giant cartoon-character balloons, makes funny sound effects with his mouth, and sends the woman he's stalking a note written in crayon.
  • In Batman Returns, the Penguin spends a good deal of screentime wearing only a onesie-like garment stained with his own spittle and slobber. Furthermore, he rides around in a giant toy rubber-duck vehicle and amuses himself with an umbrella (among his collection of genuinely deadly ones) hung with little plastic animals reminiscent of a mobile found in a baby's crib ("Shit! Picked the cute one!"). He is quite sane and intelligent man who simply has not been able to grow up because of his daddy issues.
  • Also from Returns, Selina Kyle/Catwoman has traits of this even before she turns into the titular woman. Her transformation scene shows that she lives in an apartment that is filled with things more indicative of a girl's room — numerous stuffed animals, a miniature dollhouse and a crudely-designed neon sign that reads "Hello There" (later vandalized as "Hell Here" to symbolize her spiral into villainy). The film also suggests that Selina lives under the shadow of her mother, who is constantly calling to check up on her. When she's dropped out of an office window by Shreck, the resulting recovery and Sanity Slippage causes her to trash her apartment in a rage, destroying the "innocent" symbols and items before she creates her cat suit. While vandalizing — and ultimately blowing up — a department store owned by the man who attempted to murder her, Catwoman takes some time out from her mischief to girlishly "skip rope" with her trademark bullwhip.
  • In Batman Forever, Edward Nygma/the Riddler's entire descent into villainy is motivated by one simple thing: Bruce Wayne said "no" to his invention. During the climax, he and Two-Face play a game of Battleship using real torpedoes, with the Batboat (piloted by Robin) as the target and goes so far as to childishly call Batman "Fatman" during his Sadistic Choice.
• The Batman (2022): The movie's Darker and Edgier Riddler hasn't picked up any emotional maturity in the adaptation process. In this version, he's a Loony Fan of Batman, and when his idol rejects him to his face in Arkham, Eddie throws a full-bore tantrum that the scene isn't playing out like his fantasies, in which he lets slip that there's another stage to his Evil Plan. When Batman tries to get more detail, he opts to just hammily sing Ave Maria to drown him out. He also seems a lot more childish and vulnerable when the Joker starts reaching out to him after Batman thwarts the final stage.
• Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Most of the time, she just acts like an oversexualized Fake Cutie, but she has precious little self-control and no scruples to speak of and is quite capable of murder.
• The Big Lebowski.
  • Walter Sobchak has shades of this, throwing violent tantrums on a regular basis; at one point, while bowling, he pulls a gun on someone for refusing to admit he went an inch over the line while rolling, and, later, when he can't get the kid he thinks stole the ransom money(which he insisted he and the Dude keep for themselves)to talk, he goes out and smashes what he thinks is the kid's car(turns out it's the neighbor's).
  • While not as violent as Walter, the title character may qualify as well; he's also prone to (even more childish) tantrums, he has a former-porn-star trophy wife young enough to be his granddaughter, and he insists he got his wealth through hard work and determination, when, in fact, it's actually his daughter's. He even decides to use his wife's apparent kidnapping to steal a million dollars.
  • The Nihilists turn out to be this way, once they realize there's no million dollar ransom for them. Even Walter calls them out on this.
• Billy Madison: Eric increasingly reveals himself to be a selfish and petty man, blackmailing Principal Anderson into lying that Billy bribed him to pass and throwing a violent, gun-toting tantrum when he loses the decathalon.
• Black Christmas (1974): There's a strange childlike quality to Billy's madness. He sings lullabies to "Agnes", presumably his baby sister, and throws an angry tantrum for no reason at one point.
• Chucky the Killer Doll from Child's Play. He is a jerkass to everyone and takes sadistic pleasure in killing anyone no matter how insignificant they were towards him, especially with a knife. Fittingly enough he is trapped in a doll body resembling a juvenile boy. The only thing that can take his mind off killing is his girlfriend Tiffany, but the problem is she's hardly any less Ax-Crazy than he is, and she can't really control him when he gets the desire to kill.
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has Baron Bomburst, who spends his time playing with toys, imprisons people for decades until they invent whatever he wants, hires a child-finder to jail all the actual children and has the mannerisms and speech patterns of a grade schooler. Most of his actions seem to be aimed at getting whatever he wants, even if he has to kidnap people from foreign countries to get it. Even the squabbling with his wife (and attempts on her life) are done in the most immature way possible.
• Chronicle: What Andrew Detmer becomes by the end. In his ending rampage, he is essentially throwing a super powered temper tantrum.
• Lil' Zé from City of God was an Enfant Terrible who became one of these as he grew older. Despite being reasonably intelligent, he was The Sociopath and genuinely didn't know how to express himself in ways other than anger and violence. At his Best Friend Benny's going away party, his awkwardness at being outside his element and grief at losing his friend turns into violent tantrums that result in Benny's Accidental Murder.
• The 1963 film Cleopatra portrayed Octavian (the future Augustus Caesar) as one of these. The historical community was Not Amused.
• Lucille Sharpe from Crimson Peak is a dangerous and intelligent antagonist but in some situations, especially in the climax, she behaves more like a child in a full grown woman's body. She's prone to fits of jealousy, impatient, likes to sing her childhood lullaby frequently and by the end, she kills her brother and lover Thomas when she finds out he's genuinely in love with Edith. When she kills him, her crying isn't that dissimilar to that of an upset child.
• Skank in The Crow (1994). He's a rapist, a murderer, and a car thief. He also frequently acts like a brain-dead hillbilly and is treated as a Butt-Monkey mascot for the rest of the gang, and he cries like a little boy whenever he's in danger. He eventually becomes so cowardly and pathetic that he essentially turns into an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, and the film has to flash back briefly to Skank's rape of Eric Draven's girlfriend in order to justify Eric's killing of him.
• The title character of Danny the Dog, having been raised with little human contact outside of his loan shark boss, is very immature and naive despite being a very brutal fighter. Under the tutelage of Sam and Victoria, he slowly learns to overcome his conditioning.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Harley Quinn, very much so. Shades of this were already present in Suicide Squad (2016), but this is especially pronounced in Birds of Prey (2020). While she is capable of being mature and is rather intelligent, her general demeanor is of someone about as young as Cassandra (which might be why they hit it off so well). She loves glitter, eats sugary cereals regularly, and once got emotional about losing a bacon-and-egg sandwich.^note To be fair about that last point, she did spend about all the money she had left on it. Doesn't really make her over-the-top response seem any more mature, though. She just so happens to be a criminal who is willing to lash out violently at anyone who makes her angry.
  • Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is presented as an extremely childish, yet powerful evil genius.
  • Roman Sionis/Black Mask from Birds of Prey (2020), despite being a wealthy crime boss, very much comes across as a toddler on a power trip. He has no empathy for others, childishly says "ew" every time he sees something distasteful, eagerly shows off his personal gallery to Black Canary like a 5-year-old showing off his toys, and throws violent temper-tantrums every time things don't go exactly his way. (It doesn't take a lot to make him angry.) He also publicly humiliates (at best), or brutally tortures and murders (at worst) anyone who displeases him.
  • SHAZAM! (2019): For decades, Thaddeus Sivana has been chasing a dream he had when he was a child, and when he finally finds it, he uses the power to brutally murder his brother and father who always looked down on him. After that, his goal turns out to be nothing but taking over the world in a childish attempt to prove that he is better than everyone always thought. This makes him a Foil to Billy, an actual child, who despite a number of missteps learns not to hold onto old grudges or lord his powers over people.
  • Suicide Squad (2016): It's subtle, but Enchantress' plan basically amounts to "cause The End of the World as We Know It because everyone's stopped paying attention to me".
  • The Suicide Squad: King Shark is a big, clumsy, childish guy who wants to have friends and eats a lot of people as whole.
• Jack Dante in Death Machine. Everyone at the corporation he works for is scared to death of him, and for good reason. He’s brilliant with technology of all sorts, the deadlier the better, he wears a black leather trench coat that conceals eight handguns, five knives, a random assortment of other weapons, and a rubber chicken, he has no qualms about conducting painful and deadly experiments on human beings, and wants to watch the world devolve into chaos. He’s also a sex-obsessed stalker with zero interest in consent or personal space. Oh, and he has the aesthetic taste of an edgy teenager who’s listened to one too many metal albums, a creepy desire to play out some Freudian mother-child dynamic with the company’s female CEO, an extensive collection of porn, action figures and prank supplies, and a tendency to whine and throw violent tantrums when things don't go his way.
• D.E.B.S.: Downplayed with Bobby Matthews. Despite being a young adult, and an government agent at that, Bobby maintains this Jerk Jock image and attitude, even when he's on duty. Throughout his appearances, Bobby acts like an immature Fratbro, and also plans/attempts to preassure Amy into dating him again, and tries to kill Lucy out of spite for her and Amy's relationship.
• Deranged: Due to his sheltered upbringing by a domineering mother, Ezra affects a creepily childlike disposition.
• Dogma:
  • Loki, who likes to kill people for sinning (just ask the Mooby the Golden Calf executives) and persuaded a nun to become an atheist for shits and giggles; when he isn't going around killing, he's content to smoke weed and chat in a friendly manner. Since Angels apparently don't have a conscience and he used to be the Angel of Death, before resigning when he got pissed, there may be a reason to this.
  • Azrael is highly intelligent and powerful, but his plan amounts wiping out all of existence because he didn't get his way. Serendipity even calls him a child.
    Serendipity: [after hearing the plan] Still thinking about yourself, you fucking child!
• A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!: the Big Bad, Hugh J. Magnate, ultimately turns out to be one once he gains access to Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof's magic. This is foreshadowed by the fact his evil lair is designed more like a playland. He says that this came from the fact his father never let him have a real childhood.
• Five Nights at Freddy's (2023): Steve Raglan a.k.a. William Afton. Beneath the mask of a reasonable-but-stern career counselor is a sadistic murderer who preys on children for his own amusement, gets disturbingly excited at the prospect of "fun" (i.e., killing innocents), and is prone to violent outbursts when things aren't working out for him. His scathing rant towards the animatronics when they break free of his influence is highly reminiscent of a schoolyard bully ridiculing their victims.
• The movie Game Over has one, in the form of a supercomputer named Drexel, which threatens to destroy the world unless someone plays video games with it. To add to the effect, Drexel is voiced by a child actor.
• Gary from The Gamers films is not a villain, but he falls into this territory during his Sanity Slippage at GenCon in The Gamers: Hands of Fate. Most geeks can sympathize with the pain of becoming emotionally invested in a show that gets Cut Short. But is repeatedly physically assaulting the costumed mascot of the series that you blame for your favorite show's cancellation really the behavior of a sane adult? (It's also worth noting that Ninja Dragon Riders, the late, lamented series in question, appears to have been intended for the Shōnen Demographic, so for additional Psychopathic Manchild points, Gary's being driven to violence by his emotional overinvestment in a program intended for 12-year-olds.)
• The Big Bad of Godzilla: Final Wars, the Xillien Commander, bears the resemblance of a Japanese adult man but he throws childish tantrums whenever Godzilla defeats if not utterly obliterates a monster he was controlling.
• In Godzilla: King of the Monsters — the one where King Ghidorah plays Multiple Head Case straight — Ghidorah's left head (Kevin) appears to be this, with shades of Cute and Psycho. It shows childish curiosity and needs correction from the center head; though it's still very nonchalant about joining the other heads in blasting whatever's in their way to atoms, and it actually seems to enjoy Life Draining Godzilla more than the other two heads. Probably its best display is when Ghidorah kills a bunch of humans using all three heads' Gravity Beams... and then Kevin gets distracted enthusiastically licking their ashy corpses, like a kid at the supermarket who's gotten their hands on a tasty chocolate before their mum has paid for it.
• GoodFellas:
  • Downplayed with Henry Hill, but definitely there. Henry's motivation for becoming a gangster is to live in riches, earn respect, and do whatever the hell he wants without getting punished for it, deriding people who work for a living as "schnooks". When he has to go into witness protection, the only thing he's sad about is losing his money and status.
  • Tommy DeVito, definitely. In addition to being prone to violent tantrums, Tommy possesses a highly impulsive personality which often leads him to make rash judgments with little forethought of the consequences. In short, he behaves less like a grown adult and more like an angry, narcissistic teenager. And the cruel treatment of Spider is more childish sadism than actual anger.
• The Great Dictator's Adenoid Hynkel is this trope, as evidenced by how he interacts with his "globe".
• The Green Mile:
  • William "Wild Bill" Wharton displays shades, at least in the film. Despite being on death row, his antics seem more childish and goofy than anything else, sometimes being played for laughs, until it's revealed he raped and murdered two little girls while working as a farmhand, a crime for which John Coffey takes the blame.
  • Coffey himself is viewed this way in-universe, at least by the attorney who prosecuted him. When the main character stops by the attorney's house to protest Coffey's innocence, the attorney tells him about a dog he once owned who would bite people and then act sorry afterward, implying that John Coffey is much the same way.
  • Percy Wetmore himself is this. He is basically an out-of-sorts brat in the body of a death row guard, and any time he is told off for his idiotic behavior, he whines to his uncle, the governor. His horrible treatment of Delacroix — smashing his fingers, letting him fry horribly in the electric chair by not wetting his sponge — comes across as bullying rather than discipline.
• Grindhouse:
  • In Don't!, one of the joke movie trailers, Nick Frost has a cameo as a cannibalistic man-baby locked in the basement of the house. Part of the central joke of the trailer is that everything happens too quickly to get a sense of what kind of horror movie it is, so it's hard to say much more about his character.
  • Stuntman Mike in Death Proof, one of the actual films featured in Grindhouse. He puts on a suave act, but at his core he's a vindictive juvenile who gets off on doing cruel things to people. His demeanor in the last act, when he comes across some women who fight back, is that of a kid whose prank has backfired on him.
• Jason Voorhees, of the Friday the 13th films, is a mentally handicapped undead creature who kills because he thinks his mother's ghost is commanding him to do it.
• Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise loves to provoke his victims, tormenting them with merciless stalking games and obviously taking joy in their terror — just like a cruel child bullying others. Justified since he's been institutionalized since he was six, so he obviously didn't mature properly. He's even more of a Psychopathic Manchild in the 2007 remake.
• From The Hangover and its sequels, there's Leslie Chow. His Establishing Character Moment was when he attacked the Wolfpack while completely naked. He also whines childishly when threatened and makes snarky comments while backstabbing the Wolfpack.
• Harry Potter:
  • The various film adaptation portrayals of Bellatrix Lestrange depicts her as having shades of this. Shortly after murdering Sirius Black, as well as during her re-encounter with Harry at the burrow, she goads Harry about her direct involvement in Sirius Black's death by singing "I killed Sirius Black!" repeatedly in a similar manner to a playground taunt by preschoolers.
  • Arguably Barty Crouch too. It's implied that he became a Death Eater to get his father's attention.
• Lila, Eddie's insane new wife in The Heartbreak Kid (2007). This is best captured in her reaction when she gets a horrific sunburn and Eddie points out that she should've worn sunscreen: "Whose side are you on, mine or the ozone's? Choose one!"
• Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus has a very childish mindset, but her idea of "play" likely involves death and, at one point, possibly torture.
• The towering 'trolley boy' Michael "Lurch" Armstrong in Hot Fuzz. According to Danny, he's a product of incest and has the mind of a child. When the members of the NWA are booked at the end of the movie, he's bawling like an infant.
• Rex Hansen from Horrible Bosses 2 acts like a spoiled child with daddy issues. He also has a sadistic sense of humor and like to troll with people just to laugh at their faces. He even killed his own father and laughed about it like it's a childish game.
• The main villain of The House by the Cemetery is hinted to be one, as he is constantly crying like a little child. The film even closes by a quote by Lucio Fulci that says "No one will ever know whether the children are monsters or the monsters are children".
• Baby Firefly from the House of 1000 Corpses films. She cuts the heads off of dolls and nails them to the wall, has a childish high-pitched voice and giggle, and recited the Rabbit Hutch rhyme while murdering a woman that she put in a rabbit suit.
• Hudson Hawk:
  • Butterfinger, the Dumb Muscle of the group of rogue CIA agents. At one point, when the other agents are complaining about how long Hawk is taking with his love interest, Butterfinger asks, "You want me to rape 'em?" There's a long, uncomfortable silence, and then one of the other agents hands Butterfinger a book to distract him. It's Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham, which Butterfinger seems to struggle with.
  • Also, the Big Bad Duumvirate, Darwin and Minerva Mayflower. Darwin giggles like a child when he does evil things, and Minerva says "Thou shalt not share" when they eventually betray the CIA agents.
• Zigesfeld in If Looks Could Kill displays multiple signs of mental retardation, including a childlike dependence on the film's female villain. When she strokes his mechanical hand in one scene to calm him down, he grins like a little boy. Of course, all of this gives his one and only line in the movie ("Shut up, you whiny bitch!", delivered to the understandably panicked and babbling French teacher after having hijacked the bus that she and her students were on) a totally different dimension than it might otherwise have had.
• The Leprechaun from the Leprechaun franchise. He kills many people for petty reasons such as making fun of his diminutive size or his mother, but mostly because he's after his pot of gold that gets stolen very often by humans.
• Thomas from Let Me In qualifies for this. He is the caretaker of the vampire Abby, and has been with her for a long time. When Owen gets attention from Abby, he becomes extremely jealous. He also leaves a misspelled message for Abby in childlike scrawl when he was arrested by the police. The film suggests that he has been together with Abby since childhood, who is herself on the mental and physical level of a 12-year-old girl. If she was the only person he was in contact with in this long period of time, then it is justified that he could not have matured much mentally. However, Thomas has a very mature moment at the beginning of the film. When he fails to get food for Abby (which means he kills and bleeds humans to bring Abby their blood), he says he doesn't know if he wants to be caught because of the many murders.
• Kim Jong-un as portrayed in The Interview. He is so volatile and insecure that he flies off the handle and tries to nuke the whole world just to demonstrate his worth as a leader. After Dave manipulates him into crying on camera, he shoots him in anger. Thankfully, Dave was wearing a bulletproof vest.
• James Bond:
  • Octopussy: Soviet General Orlov is a high-ranking general, but the way he hurls rude insults and sulks back to his seat after being criticized for his power-hungry plans to invade Europe is very similar to an immature child being told no.
  • Max Zorin from A View to a Kill is an extremely impulsive and mentally unstable brute, stemming from the fact that he's the end result of a Nazi eugenics program — while the surviving babies were intelligent, they grew up to become psychopathic. General Gogol criticizing Zorin over (seemingly) killing Bond almost plays like a parent scolding a young child.
  • The Living Daylights: Brad Whitaker laughs like a child while fighting with Bond and gets giddy when he plays War Gaming dioramas. The actor portraying Whitaker called his character a delusional nut with a Napoleon complex who fancied himself a military leader.
  • GoldenEye: Psycho Lesbian Xenia Onatopp is a female example of this. Her sadomasochistic sexual proclivities, coupled with her overall lack of conscience and murderous glee in killing innocents, would seem to qualify her as an insane psychopath.
  • Raoul Silva from Skyfall has an almost gleeful childlike attitude when it comes to what he does. It's best exemplified at the end when he realizes M is slowly bleeding to death, he devolves into a whimpering, scared little boy and proceeds to lovingly embrace her while begging her forgiveness.
  • The Big Bad Duumvirate in Spectre both have childish traits to go along with their villainy:
    • Franz Oberhauser/Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a very powerful kingpin who created a behind-the-scenes shadow criminal empire and seeks to gain control of the world's major intelligence agencies via his accomplice Max Denbigh, yet his motive for villainy stems from Bond supposedly receiving more affection as his foster brother, and still remains an immature Big Brother Bully who sadistically toys around with Bond when they're reacquainted. Bond's comment on whether he "knows any other bird calls" besides those of cuckoos shows that he's still not out of this mindset.
    • Max Denbigh also counts — despite putting up a front of professionalism, his response to criticism is to hurl juvenile insults at anyone dares question his brilliance. When he's revealed to be Blofeld's stooge, he shows just how unhinged he really is.
  • James Bond himself zig-zags between this and Manchild. He certainly displays the characteristics of a psychopath and those of a manchild, but he is by no means as irresponsible as the aforementioned villains.
• John Wick:
  • Iosef Tarasov from John Wick. Being the pampered son of a powerful mob boss, Iosef is arrogant, entitled, and has zero impulse control. He kicks off the plot when he kills John Wick's dog just because John wouldn't sell him his Mustang. When John finally corners him, his reaction is basically that of a schoolyard bully who accidentally picked on someone tougher.
  • Santino D'Antonio from John Wick: Chapter 2 is no better. Despite knowing of John's reputation once you double cross him, he still insists on collecting on a marker like a kid invoking a pinky promise, acting like an all-around spoiled brat once he gets his seat on the High Council. And when John comes to kill him, Santino hides in the Continental and has the nerve to childishly insult John before a bullet is put in his head.
• The King of Comedy: Rupert Pupkin is a socially awkward, marginally employed loner in his mid-30s who literally lives in his mother's basement, which he's converted into an imaginary sound stage where he can live out his fantasies of being a celebrity stand-up comedian. His psychopathy comes out when he resorts to kidnapping and extortion in order to make his fantasy of being a guest on a late night talk show real.
• Knives Out: According to the other Thrombeys, Hugh Ransom Drysdale really, really needs to grow up. He behaves like a spoiled, lazy teenager despite being well into his thirties. The "psychopathic" part comes to light when we find out that he tried to murder his own grandfather for cutting him out of the will.
• Near the end of The Last King of Scotland, Nicholas is captured by Idi Amin's men trying to flee the country, tortured and confronted by the dictator, leading to this little exchange:
  Idi Amin: I am the father of this nation, Nicholas. And you have most... grossly... offended your father.
  Nicholas: [battered and bloody] You are a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary.
• The Loved Ones: Besides being an incredibly entitled bitch (to say the very least), Lola has a ton of childish drawings in her scrapbook and acts overly giddy when she's torturing Brent.
• Mad Max:
  • Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome has the title character facing off against "Blaster" — the masked, hulking, none-too-bright bodyguard of Master, one of Bartertown's leaders — in the eponymous Thunderdome. Max outthinks Blaster, knocks off his mask, and is all set to kill him when he discovers that Blaster has Down Syndrome and is essentially a child in a giant's body. Max relents, but the people who hired him to kill Blaster aren't feeling quite so charitable...
  • In Mad Max: Fury Road, Nux is curiously innocent and non-malicious, even while he's killing loads of people. And Rictus, who is the big Dumb Muscle variety. Showing little independent thought, he seems only to want to please his father.
• Mars Attacks!: The Martians. They are all extremely intelligent and evil, but also act like bratty kids playing a real life shoot'em up video game. Ties in with their Laughably Evil nature.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Loki's motives initially center on gaining his father's approval, getting out of his big brother's shadow, or getting respect and adoration from everyone. In Thor, that first motive drives him to kill all the Frost Giants; in The Avengers (2012), the second and third drive him to rule Earth in part because he feels he is owed a throne. Plus, being the God of Mischief and all, he has a thing for pranks and tricks.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier has an unusual example in the titular Winter Soldier (actually Bucky Barnes); when not in "attack mode", he's disoriented and barely aware of his surroundings. When Steve tries to remind Bucky who he is in the final fight scene, he reacts with a very violent tantrum.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
    • Drax the Destroyer plays this for laughs: in addition to not understanding sarcasm, euphemisms, and nuances in speech (much like a child), he becomes absolutely giddy when he is surrounded by violence and mayhem, cackling like a kid in a candy store. This is at least partially because of alien cultural differences, although with him being the only representation of his species and the cast being a Dysfunction Junction, it's unknown to what extent.
    • Thanos does not think highly of Ronan the Accuser, saying he has the demeanor of a "pouty child", and Ronan even takes offense to it in a rather childish way. ("YOU CALL ME BOY!") Too bad he has also a hellish lust for revenge against an entire planet and kills people wherever he goes.
  • Ulysses Klaue. Not so much in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but definitely in Black Panther (2018), where he does everything he does with extremely childish glee.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Ultron is extremely petty and childish at times. He cuts off Klaue's left arm in a fit of rage when Klaue compares him to his creator Tony Stark, as if it were just an overreaction that could be forgiven, not realizing how traumatic his actions were. He gets upset when the Maximoff twins turn on him when they realize he's going to destroy the world. He later kidnaps Black Widow just to have someone with whom to share his thoughts. All of these traits can be explained by the fact that he Really Was Born Yesterday and took in a vast amount of information about the world extremely quickly without having the maturity or life experience to be able to temper conclusions that were understandable, but deeply flawed, but the fact that Vision takes a different route negates the effectiveness of this as a viable excuse. This trope can best be seen during the fight in Seoul. When he hears Captain America on the roof of the U-Gin truck carrying the Cradle, his first response is to yell, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" while shooting the back door off its hinges. Later, when he finally confronts Cap, the vibranium shield is lodged in his armor, and he exclaims, "STOP IT!" like a child being teased but up to extremes.
  • Darren Cross/Yellowjacket from Ant-Man's Mood-Swinger tendencies plus his desire for attention from Hank makes him come off as very childish most of the time — as well as petty, selfish and unstable.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Ego the Living Planet may be eons of years old, and may be wise, but he quickly devolves to this the instant he doesn't get his way, screaming and ranting. For a man with all the time in the world, he's impulsive, impatient, and desperate.
  • Erik "Killmonger" Stevens in Black Panther (2018) has a very juvenile attitude about him, with little respect for authority, tradition, or others. Whenever he lashes out at people, he comes across as a bratty teenager who's willing to use violence to get whatever he wants. His ultimate plan to topple the established world order and make himself the ruler of a "Wakandan Empire" is also incredibly naïve, as it basically amounts to him arming disadvantaged black people around the world with highly advanced and dangerous Wakandan weapons and just expecting them to not only follow his orders without question, but also to win against much better trained and organized police forces and militaries. When T'Challa points out how shortsighted and self-destructive Erik's plan is, since waging war against the entire the world will bring ruin to Wakanda as well, Erik outright admits that he doesn't care — he just wants the rest of the world to feel the same pain he did while growing up as a poor and orphaned boy. This childish resentment is visualized when he meets the spirit of his father N'Jobu in the ancestral plane and N'Jobu laments what his son became due to his death: tellingly, Erik's soul in this scene appears as his child self, showing that deep down, he never grew beyond the trauma he experienced at that age.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home: While Quentin Beck comes across as a mature and sagely hero that could very well be the next Iron Man, when he takes off the metaphorical mask he is shown to be quite immature, often shouting and screaming when things don't go his way. Even his backstory just illustrates how petty he is; his hologram tech was given a silly name by Tony ("B.A.R.F.") and he was fired due to his mental instability, so he decides to stage monster attacks in various places so that he could show up and save the day, not caring how many innocent civilians get killed in the process. He is also pathologically incapable of recognizing fault or taking responsibility, and given his steady track record as an inveterate liar, it is quite likely that he is either lying about how Tony treated him or greatly whitewashing his own role in it, which would make him come off as even more of a spiteful, vindictive sociopath who never grew up.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Though he presents himself as a knowledgeable man of science, The High Evolutionary has the maturity of a misbehaving little child, quick to throw psychotic tantrums whenever he doesn't get what he wants and showing himself to be a petty and petulant man at heart. The way he throws Rocket around with his gravity powers while screaming like a maniac in their final confrontation is highly reminiscent of a child throwing a toy around in anger.
• The eponymous character of The Mask. By the Doctor's analysis, the mask actually makes to surface all the "inner child" from that person, so it fits for all characters ever wearing it.
• Murder Party: At least three of the murderous artists (Bill, Lexi and Macon) are quite immature. Especially Macon who always wants to feel that he has a powerful presence and acts over-the-top (even when it's impractical to do so) to get attention. The above mentioned belief about John Coffey? Well Macon embodies it perfectly, screaming like a maniac while attempting to murder Chris and then acting sorry afterwards. Though not as prominent as their three friends, Paul and Sky also show shades of this trope. Sky in her need for attention behaviour, childish mockery of Chris after he is kidnapped, and the fact that similarly to Bill, she was playing with a gameboy while waiting to murder someone. Despite being the most mature acting member of his group, Paul too has his moments, particularly during the extreme truth or dare scene, and his particularly silly last words:
  Paul: I'll bleed on your shoes. Your stupid, stupid shoes.
• In The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, we have Tanya Peters, the moll in a band of mercenary terrorists. She actively participates in the gang's crimes, and seems to know exactly what she's doing (and also that the gang's ultimate goal is to blow up a building full of hundreds of innocent people)... and then there are other times when she seems completely oblivious to the fact that she's surrounded by ruthless criminals — or that she is one herself — and comes across as more of a Brainless Beauty. Eventually, she has a Heel Realization and rats out her accomplices. This is all Played for Laughs.
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure:
  • Pee-wee Herman edges close to this trope in some parts, especially when he is shown becoming increasingly obsessed over the theft of his bicycle.
  • His Nemesis, Francis Buxton, is even worse. Even Pee-wee thinks he's ridiculous. Also, Pee-wee owns his own home while Francis still lives with his wealthy father.
• Norman Bates from Psycho has a gangly childishness, due to his mother's isolating and dominating him. It becomes more obvious when Lila Crane snoops through the Bates home and comes across Norman's room.
• Bill Williamson, the Villain Protagonist of Uwe Boll's Rampage film series, is a deranged lunatic who arbitrarily murders people with the excuse that he's fighting against political corruption and is shown to be rather childlike in some aspects. The biggest example is when Rampage: President Down at one point has him make a video where he gloats about assassinating the President of the United States in Mocking Sing-Song.
• Repo! The Genetic Opera's Luigi Largo is a rather brutal murderer, and most of the time seems like a functional adult, but a stern look from his father or a sharp word from Mag can turn him into a contrite toddler. He also throws temper tantrums that would be hilarious if he didn't have a knife in his hand while he had them. At the end of the film, after Rotti's death, he breaks down sobbing in the middle of menacing a crowd of people.
• During the duration of Rosemary's Baby, Rosemary gets surrounded by a lot of Nosy Neighbors whose behaviour gets progressively more uncomfortable and unnatural. Minnie's friend, Lara Louise in particular, demonstrates highly inappropriate behaviour considering both her age and the reveal they are all members of a Satanic coven with her even poking her tongue to Rosemary at one point.
• Saw:
  • Behind the intellect of John Kramer, the identity of the Jigsaw Killer, is simply a despairing man trying to provide meaning to his personal, uncalculated tragedies and lashing out because society's justice system didn't go his way. Most of his victims were connected to him on a personal level, as they were either responsible for his life going downhill or just didn't do what he wanted.^{For instance}Amanda Young instigated Cecil Adams to cause the miscarriage of John's ex-wife Jill Tuck, Mitch indirectly caused the death of John's nephew by knowingly selling him a faulty motorcycle, William Easton refused to give John insurance coverage for an experimental cancer therapy, and Logan Nelson accidentally prevented the treatment of John's cancer by mislabeling his x-ray. The latter case is the only one John comes to terms about. John even recycled Bobby the Puppet, a toy that was intended to be for his unborn son, to create another one (the iconic Billy the Puppet) as a tool for his torturous work.
  • There's also Xavier Chavez from Saw II. When he fails to reach his antidote in time after Amanda (whom he forced to do the dirty work for him) gives him the key, he starts sobbing and flipping out like a little kid. He also blames her for his own inability to get the key into the lock in time (even dropping it once), and moves threateningly to hurt her before Jonas stops him.
• Schindler's List: Amon Goeth has tantrums like a child, does things on a whim, and likes to break his toys. Unfortunately, in this case, his "toys" are people being starved and worked to death, who he kills on the merest whim (e.g., he wants to kill someone). Accent on the "merest" part.
  Goeth's Mistress: Amon, you're such a damn fucking child!
• Scream: Many Ghostfaces fit the bill quite well when their motives and identities are revealed:
  • Scream (1996): Billy Loomis is a whiny, immature mama's boy, and Stu Macher comes off as a crazy, sadistic kid. Notably, when the latter learns they've been exposed, his first thought is how angry his parents will be.
  • Scream 3: Roman Bridger orchestrated the death of his own mother because she didn't love him, refuses to take any responsibility for his actions and enjoys himself like a child in a toy store. Sidney even gives him an epic Shut Up, Hannibal!/"The Reason You Suck" Speech in the midst of his Motive Rant, declaring that any motive he may have is just an excuse to kill people For the Evulz and he should learn to just take responsibility for his life; in response, Roman suffers a Villainous Breakdown and essentially throws a high-octane temper tantrum.
  • Scream 4: Jill Roberts is arguably the worst of the bunch, instigating a massacre in Woodsboro purely to get, in her own words, 15 Minutes of Fame. That's a hopelessly banal and childish motivation for so much carnage.
  • Scream (2022): Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman are somehow even pettier than the last Ghostface, as they started a killing spree simply because they hated the Film Within a Film Stab 8 and wanted to bring the Stab series back to its roots since, in Richie's words, the best Stab movies are those Based on a True Story. Yes, really. The heroes are in disbelief that the killers decided to kill people for such a petty reason, and throughout the final fight, the killers start whining when the heroes fight back, believing that they are spoiling their movie. Richie's final thoughts are to ask what's going to happen to their ending before his throat is sliced by Sam.
• Jacob Goodnight (as played by pro wrestler Glen "Kane" Jacobs) in See No Evil. Like Jason and Leatherface, his madness resulted from childhood trauma.
• Olaf in The Sinful Dwarf is a particularly frightening and extreme example. He plays around with eerie wind-up toys and uses them to lure girls in to be used as sex slaves. Just watching Olaf can be nauseating.
• The Snowman (2017): This appears to be Harry Hole's opinion of the killer. This is best seen when he points out to Katrine that the killer's MO (building snowmen, cutting things into little pieces) are what a child does to establish order, and this is further supported by the killer's own notes, which are very childlike:
  Mister Police, come and look at the snowman I made you
• The Merrye siblings in Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told, who have a condition that causes them to revert intellectually until they have childlike minds in full-grown bodies. They have no problem with committing horrific crimes like killing deliverymen as part of their games, which demonstrates how fortunate it is that humans can be taught morality before they're big enough to do real damage.
• Shinzon of Remus from Star Trek: Nemesis. He initially justifies his actions by a desire to free his people, and then by a desire to unify Romulus and Remus, and then by a desire to remove the threat posed by the Federation...but by the end of the movie, it becomes pretty clear that all that he really cares about is proving his superiority to his "father" Captain Picard.
• Star Wars:
  • The Emperor in Return of the Jedi acts very giddy when he taunts Luke, trying to get Luke angry. And his torture of Luke is more childish sadism than actual anger.
  • The Heavy of The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren, appears quite intimidating at first, but it doesn't take long for him to show his true colors. Despite being a dangerous Dark Side Force-user, Ren is still very immature. He has an obsession with Darth Vader (his grandfather), suffers from serious daddy issues and throws literal temper tantrums whenever things don't go his way, trashing whatever machinery he can reach with his lightsaber. He might be in his late twenties, but it's fair to conclude that he never really grew up. That said, Ren's emotional inhibitions are somewhat justified, as he was targeted by Snoke, manipulated and lured away from his family in childhood. But again, he is extremely dangerous, even to the point of murdering Han Solo, his own father, just as he is on the verge of tears and Han is trying to comfort him, no less! Overall, he comes across as a genuinely dangerous yet somewhat pathetic wannabe dark lord when compared to the likes of Vader and Palpatine.
  • General Hux has shades of this as well, going into shouting tantrums when he doesn't get his way and being trivially easy to bait. It's played much more comedically than Kylo, since he's nowhere near as personally threatening. This is exaggerated in The Last Jedi to being so well known in-universe that nobody really takes him seriously.
• Strays (2023): Doug has no job, relies on his parents for financial support, and spends most of his time either masturbating like a horny teen or smoking pot. Not to mention his horrible, juvenile abuse of Reggie, going as far as sadistically attempting to kill him simply for being an annoyance.
• A Streetcar Named Desire: Stanley Kowalski, who acts like an ill-tempered, violent bully. The "clear the plate" scene is basically this. Stanley smashing his plate in response to Stella reprimanding him for his bad table manners is reminiscent of a child throwing his vegetables on the floor.
• Blue Jones from Sucker Punch outright tells the protagonist that he feels like a little boy sitting on the edge of a sandbox, watching everyone else play with his toys, just before he tries to rape her...
• Suicide Kings: One of the No Name Given kidnappers holds a gun to his partner's head, cocks the hammer, and begins to pull the trigger... because his partner changed the channel while he was watching a cartoon and wouldn't change it back. After he leaves, the partner checks the cylinder of his gun and finds that it was fully loaded.
• Superbad: Slater and Michaels are highly amoral and hedonistic police officers who play with their weapons and equipment like toys. They also enjoy quoting Star Wars together and engage in debauchery with local teenager Fogell.
• Titica, one of the main villain's henchmen from the Brazilian film Super Xuxa contra Baixo Astral steals a Xuxa doll that sat beside Xuxo as he and Morcegão kidnap him, and later on in the film he secretly plays with it.
• Tango's cellmate from Tango & Cash, his cell is filled with toys and he enjoys annoying Tango with them.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Tokka and Rahzar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. As David Warner's character puts it:
    "They're not stupid. They're infants. [Beat] Okay, they're stupid infants."
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: Commander Krang wants to Take Over the World like it's a child's toy and while betraying Shredder, he complains that he doesn't like "sharing" in the same manner as a childish tantrum.
• Ted: Donny is a creepy sociopath who is still obsessed with the eponymous talking teddy bear, even willing to torture or possibly kill him just to have him all to himself.
• Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a mentally-stunted tool of his family, who uses him to gather meat for their restaurant.
• The DVD commentary for Thir13en Ghosts provides backstory for the Black Zodiac. This trope is represented by The Dire Mother and The Great Child, the Mother being a little person in a travelling circus and the Child being the result of rape by the circus' Tall Man. He was extremely spoiled by his mother and appeared as a fat, hulking mentally handicapped brute of a man wearing diapers and a bib and carrying the axe with which he had killed his mother's murderers, though rather understandably so.
• This Is the End: Danny acts like a total brat when the others try to curb his reckless behavior, such as deliberately wasting half a jug of water after being told that he can only have one glass.
• Suzanne Stone of To Die For is an evil woman who seduces a (very dim) teenager to get him to kill her husband, and her intellect level is just barely above his, or above a child.
• Most of the boppers in The Warriors. They all have a Proud Warrior Race Guy code, but hang out in dilapidated amusement parks and playgrounds and fight over territory, and run scared from police, making them seem like unsupervised kids playing a violent game. Special mention goes to Luther, who robs a candy store, has temper issues, and gleefully admits that he murdered Cyrus and framed the Warriors for no real reason.
• Mr. Scrooge of Violent Night may be a fiendish mastermind that is able to predict every eventuality of a robbery of one of the richest families in the world (not including the real Santa Claus showing up out of pure instance), but deep down he's just a bitter child who ruined his own life because someone on Christmas after his father couldn't afford to celebrate it like he always did. He makes various Christmas puns and euphemisms throughout the operation, he makes everyone's codenames Christmas-themed and decides to kill Santa when he realizes he's the actual Santa Claus, wanting to destroy Christmas when the opportunity presents itself because of his own bad-life choices.
• A female example is Nora from We Are the Night. Of the four female vampires in the group, she is the only one who really enjoys being a vampire, while the other three have realistic reasons not to like their existence. At one point she even says jubilantly that as a vampire she can eat, fuck and coke so much without becoming fat, pregnant or dependent. She comes across as cute and happy most of the time, but also loves the bloodlust, to the point that she laughs when she kills a human. She stole a Lamborghini from the gangsters she'd killed and it never occurred to her that it would lead the police on her trail. At the beginning of the film, she kills all the passengers on a plane, and even the pilot, so the vampires have to crash the plane to cover up the murders.
  • In the film's book she has some adult moments, to the point that the protagonist Lena wonders whether Nora is not just playing the immature womanchild rather than actually being it. But at least Louise is convinced that Nora is really like that.
• The unnamed Doctor in The White Ribbon though a perfectly capable and articulate adult is also shown as a sociopath who hates his paramour because he blames her for not being attractive enough for him anymore and sexually abuses his daughter who reminds him of his late wife. The midwife tells him outright that she is sick of taking care of two children, her son and him.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
  • Judge Doom. While acting like a diabolical and evilly intelligent older man, in reality, he's still childish and loony like a great part of the toons, but it's Played for Horror in his case. He also shows immature sadism in beating Eddie before attempting to kill him.
  • Stupid of the Toon Patrol behaves and dresses like a young boy. He makes childish gestures while touching his teeth, constantly sticks his tongue out, wears a striped shirt and a pinwheel hat, and doesn't tie his shoes. This trope combined with his Dumb Muscle characteristic and Simpleton Voice implies Stupid might be mentally retarded, making him a justified example.
• The Wolf of Wall Street: In addition to being a heavily corrupt stockbroker with sociopathic qualities, Jordan also acts like a petty, immature Spoiled Brat who makes his outbursts of anger look like a tantrum. Naomi even called him an infant at one point and practically had to raise their daughter on her own because Jordan was an irresponsible prick.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • In X2: X-Men United, thanks to the brain surgery, Jason Stryker's both very easily manipulated and childishly devoted to his abusive father — to the point that when Magneto catches up with him, all he needs to do in order to change Jason's mind is have Mystique transform into Stryker and give him a new set of orders. For good measure, within his illusions, he usually depicts himself as a child.
  • Donald Pierce from Logan is a huge fan of Wolverine (having read the X-Men comics), and he glorifies his robotic hand as if he got a new toy for his birthday. He's also a murderous psychopath acting as a glorified bounty hunter to Transigen.
  • Wade Wilson in Deadpool (2016) is a rare protagonist example, due to his combination of immature goofiness, Comedic Sociopathy, and high body count. Colossus even describes him as a "heavily armed child".

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