Sandbox / Magnificent Bastard Film T To Z

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

T - U

• Taken: Bryan Mills is a former field agent who learns his daughter Kim has been kidnapped and immediately heads to France to save her. Gleaning the locations of his targets, Bryan entraps a group of pimps by planting a bug on one and then tracks the men who kidnapped his daughter by posing as a corrupt cop and tricking one into repeating a phrase he heard him use on the phone. Bryan also forces a crooked cop into giving him information by threatening the man's wife. Later recovering Kim, Bryan is always ready when his enemies come for him, frequently outsmarting them and fighting as intelligently as possible using his "particular set of skills."
• Takers: Delonte "Ghost" Rivers is a former member of Gordon Cozier's gang of bank robbers recently released from prison. After leaving prison, Ghost meets with Sergei and his gang of Russians so they can discuss how they'll rob an armored truck. He later meets with Cozier's gang, informing them of the same robbery and manipulating them into robbing the armored truck before the Russians do. After the robbery, Ghost gives up the location of the hotel room Cozier's gang is staying in to Sergei before abandoning them, resulting in a shootout that wipes out Sergei and his crew, along with AJ. He later kills his former love interest and leaves her body for her fiancé, Jake Attica, to find, while the Attica brothers are slain by the police moments later. Believing Cozier's crew is dead, Ghost kills Cozier's money launderer and tries to steal all of the money from Cozier's gang's previous heists.
• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three:
  • 1974 original: Bernard Ryder, an out-of-work mercenary looking for a big score to retire on, takes the alias "Mr. Blue" and recruits three other men to assist in his takeover of the titular subway train, holding the passengers hostage in exchange for one million dollars, threatening to begin executing them if his demands are not met. Having his subordinate Mr. Green disable the train's Dead Man's Switch to prepare for their escape, Blue also shows his gratitude to his companions by staying behind to fight the cops after Mr. Brown is shot and killed in a firefight, allowing Mr. Green to escape with the money. Choosing to kill himself to go out on his own terms when caught, Blue's respect for Green and Brown and eventual killing of the psychotic Mr. Grey cement him as a brilliant and honorable criminal.
  • 2009 remake: Dennis "Ryder" Ford is a former Wall Street broker who went to prison when caught skimming large funds. Teaming with a former subway driver named Phil Ramos and two other thugs, Ryder hijacks a train cart for $10 million while warning that a hostage will be killed every minute past the deadline and killing the driver when MTA worker Walter Garber tries to back out of being the middleman and nearly kills another hostage when forcing Garber to admit he took a bribe that he's on the verge of being demoted for. Ryder also shorts stocks through the crisis and betting against them, gets about $307 million as a result too. When the money arrives three minutes after the deadline, Ryder elects to only kill one hostage rather than three and then sets the others free after getting the money by sending the cart off speeding until it eventually stops at a red light. Wanting not to go back to prison when Garber catches him, Ryder then forces Garber to kill him, also wanting Garber to redeem himself by doing so.
• Tales from the Hood:
  • The enigmatic Mr. Simms presents as an eccentric and oddly charismatic funeral director who lures in gangsters Stack, Ball and Bulldog with a set of engaging stories, only to reveal that they are in hell and he is The Devil toying with them. In the second film, Simms is invited to help program a new security robot for corrupt prison manager Dumas Beach, but instead ensures the robot will kill Beach so Simms can claim his soul. In the third, Simms disguises himself as a little girl to lure in serial child murderer William so his past victims can slaughter William and Simms can drag him to hell, always with his signature wit, charm and brutal ends for the deserving damned.
  • Tales from the Hood 3's "Operatic": Marie Benoit and her lover Park are a duo who steal the bodies of other people they lure in order to keep their love eternal. A former opera singer, Benoit had her career ruined from a racist outcry for her role in Carmen, and has been waiting to steal the right body in order begin a new career. Having Park pick singer Chela Simpson, Park convinces Chela to kill Benoit under pretenses of stealing her riches. Park later steals her blood and feeds it to Benoit, allowing her to swap places with Chela while Park kills the latter, allowing Benoit to start her opera career anew.
• Target (2018): Raditya Dika's friend, Hifdzi Khoir, is the mastermind behind the suffering of Dika and his other friends. Kidnapping the wife of a master hypnotist, he forces the hypnotist into playing as the patsy of his schemes. Seemingly a Butt-Monkey for much of the film, he pretends to suffer injuries to force his friends into being contestants in the decoy mastermind's game. Saving the survivors from the decoy mastermind, he reveals himself to be the one pulling the strings, making off safely after playing his friends. Though Hifdzi showed he was a callous manipulator, his whole scheme was done to honor his late father and show his disgust for what he sees as deceit in modern movies studios fabricating their stories.
• A Taste of Death (1968): Dan El is Scaife’s honorable second-in-command who refuses to partake in his boss's cruelty. Assisting Scaife in the stealing of cattle and subtly intimidating the locals of a small town into allowing his men to stay for the winter, El prefers ceasing qualms with words rather than bullets. Telling his former friend Sheriff Bill Ransom to leave town for the sake of protection, El is later forced by Scaife to kill the bleeding Ransom, instead making a promise to stop Scaife at all costs as his friend bleeds to death. Behind Scaife's back, El secretly trains the young Tony into taking down Scaife and his men. Killing Scaife in a duel, though getting shot by the dying Scaife at the last second, El uses his final breath to tell Tony how much he cared for him.
• Tenet:
  • The Protagonist himself is the secret leader of the titular organization in the future. Ensuring his own past self's recruitment by way of a seemingly suicidal test, the Protagonist sends his counterpart on a quest to stop the evil Andrei Sator from using the Algorithm to end the world. Even making a pact with a notorious Arms Dealer and allowing his past self and underlings to fight Sator and his men in public spaces, the Protagonist eventually uncovers Sator's full scheme to launch one final decisive battle against his forces. Stopping Sator even as it costs the sacrifice of his best friend Neil, the Protagonist saves the world and accepts his role in Tenet's founding.
  • Neil is a veteran agent of Tenet, recruited by the Protagonist's future self to prevent the activation of the Algorithm by Andrei Sator. Neil is assigned to guide the past Protagonist, often withholding information which strains Protagonist's trust. Assisting in several heists, it is Neil's idea to ram a plane into a building as a diversion. Neil is eventually revealed to be the mysterious inverted assailant who saved Protagonist before his recruitment into Tenet via a fake Cyanide Pill to serve as a Secret Test of Character. While succeeding in disarming Sator's device, it's also revealed Neil will perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save his comrades during the operation, calmly leaving to face his fate.
• Terminal: Annie and Bonnie Merriweather seek vengeance against their father Clinton Sharp—now masquerading as the gangster Mr. Franklyn/"the janitor"—for the death of their mother, punishing a schoolteacher who abused them along the way. Through a series of manipulations and seductions, the twins work their way into their father's organization and turn two of his assassins against each other, resulting in one killing the other for Bonnie to murder the remaining one herself. Using the janitor to dispose of the corpses of their enemies, the twins eventually confront their father and lobotomize him for his crimes, completing their revenge.
• Thank You for Smoking: Nick Naylor is a slick Washington D.C. lobbyist speaking on behalf of the tobacco industry. As part of his job, Naylor frequently makes televised appearances to discredit anti-smoking activists—even managing to convince the Littlest Cancer Patient to come around to his point of view—by confusing them with a Chewbacca Defense, bribes a disgruntled ex-tobacco mascot from speaking out against big tobacco, and schemes with Hollywood executives to introduce new Product Placement of cigarettes in film. Nick gets into a fling with a reporter who releases a stinging exposée on Naylor and his associates in the "Merchants of Death" group that results in Nick being let go by his boss, but Nick manages to turn the situation to his advantage by discrediting the reporter with veiled comments about her tactics to the press, and facing down Senator Finistirre in a subcommittee hearing by advocating for the right to choose over moral policing while simultaneously exposing the Senator's hypocrisies. Nick manages to avoid the fall-out of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, becoming a spokesman for new industries peddling potentially dangerous products.
• Theatre of Blood: Edward Lionheart, driven to near-suicide by a group of callous theatre critics, plots a gruesome revenge. Surfacing years later, Lionheart begins dispatching his enemies in ways inspired by the plays of William Shakespeare, while manipulating the others to proceed exactly how he wants them for best access and give himself more fame in the process of his vengeance. Lionheart manipulates one into murder to send him to prison, using a group of derelicts to murder another and constantly runs rings around law enforcement and his enemies, all while remaining as charismatic and larger than life as ever.
• There Goes The Neighborhood: Norman "Norm" Rutledge is a seemingly mundane businessman who is in actuality a survivalist and possible spy with connections to multiple countries. When he and his wife Peedi are abducted by crooks searching for mob money they think is buried in their house's foundation, Norm gives offhand advice about how better to keep themselves from being caught while still playing hostage. Eventually, Norm reveals who he really is to them and is able to sway the brutish and manic Marvin Boyd to his side and take control of the situation, while also plotting to take the crooks out after too. Norm then instructs the crooks to shoot at Willis Embry and Jessie Lodge to get to where the money actually is. He also instructs keeping Peedi hostage, shooting anyone else who might get in their way with his contraband guns and using grenades to blow a tunnel to try to get to the house next door.
• The Thing (1982): R.J. MacReady, the team's gruff, alcoholic helicopter pilot, proves to be the one person on the research base capable of matching wits with the monstrous Thing. When the Thing begins assimilating the team one after another, MacReady deduces not only the alien's nature but that it poses a threat to all life, leading to him taking command of a paranoid, mutinous crew to stop the alien no matter what. So ruthlessly pragmatic he'd sooner burn the entire board and all of its players than risk a loss of his own, MacReady ends the film doing exactly that: surviving a one-on-one fight with the Thing and annihilating the research camp so it can't go dormant. Accepting his impending demise from Antarctic cold with a bottle of Scotch and cool stoicism, MacReady is the most levelheaded character in the movie and one of the most badass action survivors put to film.
• The Third Man: Harry Lime is a racketeer selling black market penicillin in post-war Vienna, completely untroubled by pangs of conscience. Calling his friend Holly Martins to Vienna, Harry fakes his own death to throw suspicion off himself, manipulating his old girlfriend Anna, as well as Holly and the police while he remains off the radar. Constantly staying a step ahead of everyone, Harry continuously attempts to put himself back in the good graces of those he's abandoned, which keeps working thanks to his charm and pleasant demeanor. Never at a loss for a smile, Harry won't hesitate to play a situation to his benefit, no matter what.
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999): Thomas Crown is a debonair billionaire and art connoisseur who dabbles in high-profile thefts out of boredom. Crown stages an ingenious theft of a Monet painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art by enlisting a group of criminals through a middle man to infiltrate the museum dressed as guards, then initiate a fight between the criminals and the guards to divert attention from his real objective. Crown also arranged for the camera footage to be rendered useless by planting a humidifier in the room, and a titanium-reenforced briefcase to absorb the weight from the security gate, allowing him to walk out of the building with his prize through the front door. When insurance investigator Catherine Banning and the NYPD get on his trail, he tauntingly eludes their efforts to retrieve the painting on several occasions. After Crown falls in love with Catherine, he arranges to run away with her, but not before returning the painting to the museum and eluding dozens of cops waiting for him with a Ringer Ploy, while at the same time stealing another priceless painting as a gift to Catherine.
• The Three Musketeers (2011): Milady de Winter works as a French spy alongside the Three Musketeers, including her lover Athos. She betrays, robs, and drugs them on behalf of the English Duke Buckingham but later covertly sells her loyalties back to French Evil Chancellor Cardinal Richelieu, who tasks her with framing his political rival the Queen for adultery. Milady singlehandedly kills multiple guardsmen (timing the one pistol shot she fires with a ringing bell) and navigates a complex security system to do so. She then gets Richelieu to sign a pardon for her to preempt any betrayal on his part. When the Musketeers capture her, she rebukes them for sparing Buckingham but being determined to kill her, but retains enough respect and sympathy for her former companions to give them her pardon and jump off the airship rather than make a tormented Athos kill her. However, whether by coincidence or design, she survives the fall and is picked up by Buckingham, rejoining his side as he prepares for another confrontation. Milady stands out as far more formidable than her novel counterpart, while at the same time retaining more humanity.
• Throne of Blood: The Spirit of Spider's Web Forest is a supernatural being who ensures the natural cycle of life carries on. Bestowing the ambitious samurai Taketoki Washizu with a trio of fortunes, the Spirit knows his festering want will lead to Washizu killing his Great Lord to claim his domain. When the realm rebels against the steadily maddening Washizu, the Spirit uses selective words to convince Washizu of his invincibility, sending him to his death and restoring progress to the land.
• Thunderbirds: "The Hood", real name Trangh Belegant, is a psychic criminal mastermind with a grudge against the Thunderbirds, specifically their father Jeff, for leaving him to die in a mine collapse. Staging a fire on an oil rig, The Hood plants one of his men among the workers to install a tracking device on to one of their planes, allowing the Hood to track the Thunderbirds back to their base before attacking a satellite and trapping the Thunderbirds onboard while he arrives and takes over. Revealing himself to them, The Hood reveals his plan is to cause massive worldwide economic chaos using the Thunderbirds' equipment to destroy the Thunderbirds' reputation. When Jeff's youngest son Alan attempts to intervene, the Hood systematically captures Alan, his friends, and the Thunderbirds' allies before departing for London. After a fight with Alan and his friends in the Bank of London, the Hood finds himself dangling over a drilling machine and accepts his fate before being rescued and arrested.
• Thursday: Casey Wells is a former career criminal whose past eventually catches up on him. In the past, Casey and his partner-in-crime Nick successfully killed a drug lord and all his henchmen, but when one of the dead people turned out to be a pregnant woman, Casey decided to quit the criminal lifestyle for good. In the present time, Nick comes to visit him and leaves his briefcase of drugs and has hidden his $2 million somewhere near the house. Several people including a hitman and two of Nick's associates shows up to get the drugs or money but Casey gets by each and everyone of them. When a corrupt detective shows up and gives Casey some time to find Nick's money Casey finds it, deciding to call the hitman's employers to come and pick up the drugs, only to escape with the money while the detective gets killed by the gangsters when he returns.
• Tombstone: Doc Holliday is an infinitely charismatic gunfighter who maintains a laid-back yet deadly disposition despite his lethal affliction of tuberculosis. A master card player who always wins with luck and swindling alike, Doc rips off poker houses he plays at through guile and gunpoint alike. Through playing up his illness and often presenting himself as defenseless, Doc lures many an enemy into their doom by tricking them into underestimating him, killing even the dangerous Johnny Ringo while taunting the murderous criminal all the way. Truly loyal to the Earp brothers and assisting them in all their ventures to protect Tombstone, Doc uses the final moments of his life to impart advice and encouragement to his close friend Wyatt, Doc accepting with wry amusement that his death by tuberculosis is far from the blaze of glory he had once hoped to go out in.
• Tokyo Gore Police: The Key Man is an elusive criminal scientist who created the Engineers. After witnessing his father’s assassination, the Key Man discovered the tumor used to turn people into Engineers after a failed suicide attempt. Planning to turn everybody in Tokyo into Engineers to control the city and avenge his father, the Key Man goes around town killing prostitutes and turning people into Engineers, while able to remain hidden and undiscovered by the police, at one point turning officer Ruka into an Engineer. Politely inviting Ruka into his hideout after she discovers it, the Key Man is killed by Ruka after trying to persuade her into joining his Engineer army, but repairs himself afterwards, ready to continue his plans for domination.
• Total Recall (1990): Carl Hauser is the best friend and business partner of Mars' governor Vilos Cohaagen and proves to be just as brilliant as he is while being much more likeable. When the pair's exploitative practices on Mars result in mutated humans revolting against them, Hauser and Cohaagen form a scheme to have Hauser infiltrate the rebels. Seducing the rebel Melina and ingratiating himself to some of the members, Hauser then has his memories wiped and replaced with those of a man named Douglas Quaid, knowing that the psychic mutants would be able to sense his deception otherwise. Hauser records a message to Quaid, making him believe that he betrayed Cohaagen to help the rebels and giving him instructions on how to meet with their leader Kuato. Following the instructions, Quaid discovers Kuato's location, allowing Cohaagen's men to wipe out the rebels and kill Kuato. Hauser then appears in another recording, thanking Quaid and earnestly apologizing since he plans to take his memories and body back, with Quaid barely being able to avoid this fate.
• Touch of Evil: Captain Hank Quinlan is an intense, ruthless policeman who once lost his beloved wife to violent crime and became dedicated to bringing down criminals whenever he finds them. Quinlan resorts to framing those he believes to be guilty, setting them up to be convicted. When he locks on to a potential bomber, Quinlan runs afoul of the Mexican investigator Vargas who suspects Quinlan of framing others, prompting Quinlan to attempt to ruin him by trying to frame his fiancee for the murder of a criminal named Grandin who Quinlan personally outwits and murders. Even at the end, Quinlan sees through a potential trap and is only stopped with the betrayal of his former best friend Menzies, who Quinlan once took a bullet for. When confronted and asked how many he has framed, Quinlan's only responses is to declare "nobody who wasn't guilty".
• The Tourist: Alexander Pearce is a renowned thief who stole from both criminals and authorities alike. When undercover Interpol agent Elise was sent to spy on him, his charms manages to get Elise to fall in love with him and the two consummate a romantic relationship. After stealing 2.3 billion dollars from British crime lord Reginald Shaw, Alexander splits from Elise, sending her letters on where to find him, while also instructing her to find someone similar to Alexander's height and build to deviate Shaw's men and the Interpol pool away from him. After getting Shaw and his men killed while hiring a tourist to distract Interpol, Alexander Pearce reveals himself to Elise before escaping with her, also returning the money he stole from the authorities.
• Tower Heist: Josh Kovaks, manager of the luxury apartment complex "The Tower", learns of Arthur Shaw's plan to swindle all the building's workers out of their pensions. Vandalizing Shaw's prized Ferrari in retaliation, Josh gets fired and begins plotting a heist to take back what was stolen from the other workers. Forming a team, Josh tricks the FBI who arrested Shaw into thinking Shaw's trial would take place on Thanksgiving, allowing the crew to break into the Tower. Diverting the attention of the new manager by having him think his wife is going into labour, Josh and his crew find the safe they meant to plunder empty but that Shaw's Ferrari is made of solid gold. Taking precautions to protect himself in case he is arrested, Josh has the Ferrari hidden in his cohort's apartment, before later hiding it in the penthouse pool. Using Shaw's ledger as leverage in the trial, Josh secures the freedom of all his fellow workers, himself only spending two years in jail, and having his employees divide the parts of the gold Ferrari amongst themselves.
• The Town: Doug MacRay is a smooth, noble bank robber who works with his gang, having pulled off successful heists for years. When his trigger happy partners take bank manager Claire as a hostage, Doug ensures Claire's escape before starting a romance with her in his public persona, genuinely falling for the woman as he continues to rob armored cars and adapt to new variables on the fly to avoid capture. Forced into One Last Job by his employer Fergie under threat of Claire being hurt, Doug does his best to pull off the doomed heist, and though the whole operation is bungled by outside interferences, Doug evades detection, kills Fergie for past transgressions, and flees to the other side of the country. With the FBI agents on his tail totally fooled by his escape, Doug takes time to say goodbye to Claire and leave her a small fortune, promising to see her again one day.
• Toy Soldiers
  • Jack Thorpe is The Dragon for narcoterrorist Luis Cali and assists him in taking a boarding school hostage to get Cali's father released and other concessions from the American government. When Cali is furious and stalled over how the judge's son they wanted to kidnap is not at the school, Thorpe calms him down and proposes holding the whole student body hostage instead. He is in charge of headcounts to ensure that none of the hostages escape and is careful and thoroughly conscientious in this job. Throughout the film, he is willing to take steps to avoid unnecessary violence but is also willing to kill without remorse when those steps fail. When The Cavalry raid the school, Thorpe spends his last moments trying to fight back against heavy odds rather than flee or surrender.
  • Albert Trotta is The Don of New Jersey, whose wide influence is matched only by his infamy. He is gracious with his subordinates but merciless toward his enemies. His son Joey loathes his father for being a criminal, which Albert is sadly resigned to while still loving his son. When Joey and his classmates are kidnapped, Albert and his associates smuggle a message to the imprisoned Enrique Cali to influence Joey's release. When Joey is gunned down after refusing to be released and trying to rescue his friends instead, a grief-stricken Albert swiftly arranges for a riot in Enrique's maximum security detention facility to drive Enrique out of his cell where an assassin is waiting to kill him.
• Training Day: The gangster known only as "Smiley" is a ruthless, but cheerful and friendly man who disdains the crooked Detective Alonzo Harris for respecting no code nor creed. Accepting money to kill the heroic cop Jake Hoyt, Smiley lures Jake into a false sense of security to disarm him. Learning that Jake saved his cousin Lettie earlier that day, Smiley decides to spare him before turning him loose to deal with Alonzo.
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: Howard is a cooky old prospector who conscripts the amateur miners Dobbs and Curtin in hunting for a mother lode of gold. Vastly outpacing the far younger men in both physicality and wits, Howard finds an untapped gold vein and sets up a brilliant mining system while using safeguards to protect the law or other miners from finding their camp. Pragmatic despite his upbeat and peaceful nature, Howard is ruthless in his agreement with Dobbs and Curtin to kill an innocent man who finds their operation and wants in on it, yet Howard consistently shows himself to have a softer side as he respects nature and saves the life of a young Indian boy out of nothing but good will. Though the fortune in gold the trio obtained is lost thanks to Dobbs's greed, Howard gleefully accepts the loss of the gold while proclaiming that he's set himself up at a local village as a medicine man to live in comfort for the rest of his life.
• Trick 'r Treat:
  • Sam, the spirit of Halloween itself, is a diminutive being in a burlap sack who enforces the holiday rules ruthlessly. Calling up the supernatural wherever he goes, Sam is all too happy to utilize them to ensure people follow the Halloween traditions. Sam personally plays a visit to spiteful old Mr. Kreeg, terrorizing him into playing into the proper role of Halloween and handing out candy while also leaving him to the mercy of the undead children he murdered years ago, just before Sam murders a woman for blowing out a Jack O' Lantern early and leaves her body as a warning to follow the rules next time.
  • "Surprise Party":
    • Laurie is an innocent-seeming young woman dressed as Red-Riding Hood, pressured by her sister Danielle and their friends to have her "first time" in town. Far from a hapless maiden, Laurie is instead attempting to lure in a victim to the "party" with her fellow werewolves to be devoured. Luring in one such man who turns out to be the serial killing Steve Wilkins, Laurie turns the tables and brings him to be her first ever kill while happily using the time to bond further with her sister.
    • Danielle is the immensely pleasant older sister of Laurie, who serves as the primary organizer of a brutal, annual ritual for Halloween. Honoring long-time tradition, Danielle leads her friends and sister in dressing up as fairy tale characters and seducing dozens of men to meet up for a "party" in the woods, Danielle offering advice to Laurie at every chance, genuinely hopeful her sister succeeds. Revealed to be a werewolf alongside her friends, Danielle leads the pack in tearing apart their "dates", Danielle personally howling in joy as Laurie consummates her status as a vicious wolf.
• The Trip (2021): Lisa plots just as her husband Lars does to kill the other but is far more competent than him. Nearly talking Lars' own conspirator into joining her, when the couple come upon a trio of criminals who capture them in their remote cabin Lisa talks them into letting the two live. Constantly outwitting the crooks until she and Lars manage to kill them, Lisa reconciles with her husband, blaming a death they caused on the villains and going on to become a famous actress by sensationalizing their tale.
• Triple 9: Franco Rodriguez is part of a crew of robbers, serving as their planner. Assigned by Irina Vlaslov to steal data from a highly secured government building, Franco comes up with a plan to have a cop killed where fellow Dirty Cop Marcus Belmont would make a Triple 9 send all the cops to that location and leaving the building vulnerable for them to rob, while agreeing with Marcus' suggestion that his partner, Chris Allen, be the cop that they'll kill. When the call is made he and Micheal Atwood breach the building and steal all the data for Irina, before Franco kills Micheal and takes all of Micheal's money. Learning that it was Chris who made the call while Marcus got shot, Franco offers Chris a ride planing to kill him, before he encounters Chris's uncle, Jeffrey Allen, in his car where the two have a shoot out.
• Triple Frontier: Santiago "Pope" Gomez is a private military contractor who formulates a plan to rob drug lord Gabriel Martin Lorea after learning how much money he makes from the drug business. With the help of his informant, Yovanna, and his friends from the Delta Force, Pope was successful in finding and killing Lorea in Colombia and burn down his house after stealing 250 million of Lorea's money found inside the walls. Pope would also give a few million to Yovanna for her help and to a village leader as compensation for killing some of his villagers and discard most of it weighing him and his team down. Guilt-ridden when team member Tom "Redfly" Davis gets killed, he and his team decide to give the remainder of their money to Redfly's family, before Pope was given the coordinates of where they left the rest of the money, allowing Pope the opportunity to retrieve it.
• Triple Threat (2019): Jaka pursues Collins and his mercenaries in the hopes of avenging his village and wife. Recognizing the defectors Long Fei and Payu at an illegal fighting match, Jaka gets them drunk and has them arrested in order to lure the mercenaries to the police station for a confrontation, aiding the defectors in neutralizing two mercenaries in the process. Later talking his way into the mercenary crew, Jaka lets the defectors escape with the heiress Tian Xiao Xian when he encounters them. In the final confrontation, Jaka assists the defectors in eliminating the mercenaries before informing the Chinese Embassy that Xiao Xian is safe.
• Trouble in Paradise: Gaston Monescu is one half of an Outlaw Couple and easily the smarter and more manipulative member of the duo. Starting off slow by pickpocketing a French man's pocketbook, posing as a doctor, he would then meet and develop a fondness over fellow Con Artist Lily Vautier as they go international, committing burglaries and thefts all over Europe over the course of a year. After secretly stealing the wealthy Mariette Colet's expensive purse in France, Gaston returns it upon hearing about the reward under the fake identity "Monsieur La Valle". Encouraging Colet to keep a large amount of cash on hand, and convincing her to make him her new secretary, he conspires to steal Colet's 850,000 francs. Along the way, Monescu begins to develop genuine feelings for Colet and winds up outsmarting several French men who get suspicious of him or try to have him arrested. After Lily steals the money herself, He ends up revealing himself as a "self-made crook" and leaves Colet for good, but not before getting one final laugh on her by stealing back her purse.
• True Grit (1969 original): "Lucky" Ned Pepper is a feared outlaw hunted by Texas Ranger La Boeuf. Hiding out in Native American territory, Pepper detects and evades a trap by La Boeuf's gang to regroup with his full forces. Confronted by the young Mattie Ross, Pepper proves himself surprisingly respectful as he orders his thuggish subordinate Tom Chaney to not harm the girl before gathering his forces to personally face down gunslinger Rooster Cogburn, even trying to gun Rooster down while mortally wounded.
• Unbreakable: Elijah Price, aka "Mr. Glass", was born with a genetic disease that causes his bones to be exceptionally brittle. Seeking to become a supervillain to lure out a heroic counterpart, Elijah orchestrates a series of massive disasters until one leaves a Sole Survivor in David Dunn. Revealing himself to David after David "accepts" his destiny as a superhero, Elijah reveals himself to be the mastermind behind hundreds of deaths while he himself managed to stay undetected. Nearly two decades later, Elijah convinces the Horde/Kevin Wendell Crumb to escape an asylum they are being held in and the duo trick their way out of it. With a complex plot to reveal "specials" to the world, Elijah uses a planned attack on a skyscraper as a distraction, then has David and the Horde fight, them all dying because of Elijah's plot but ensuring that the entire event is uploaded online.
• Uncharted (2022):
  • Victor "Sully" Sullivan is a fortune hunter who seeks the lost treasure of the Magellan expedition, and partners with Nathan Drake to become an unstoppable duo. Introduced outdoing Nate in professional pickpocketing to lure him to a meet-up, Sully goads Nate into an alliance by preying on Nate's desire to find his long-lost brother Sam. Working with Nate to solve a variety of puzzles and consistently outwit Santiago Moncada, Sully is revealed to have been stringing Nate along in finding Sam, Sully truthfully believing the man to be dead and having just used his memory to manipulate Nate. Nonetheless, Sully proves to be a true friend to Nate, as he sacrifices the Magellan treasure to save his life, and together, the two promise to find their fortune in further adventures.
  • Jo Braddock is the tough-as-nails right-hand woman of Santiago Moncada, and quickly proves herself to be the actual threat betweenst them. Braddock has done all of Santiago's dirty work in finding clues to the Magellan treasure over the years, personally beating Sully in a past encounter and apparently murdering Sam Drake. Using her loyal mercenary outfit to further Santiago's goals, Braddock winds up betraying and murdering Santiago when he outlives his usefulness, Braddock having been using him as a figurehead the whole time. Masterminding a clever, if ridiculous, plot to reap the greatest rewards once she finds the Magellan treasure, Braddock airlifts the Magellan ships and duels Nate and Sully, nearly outwitting and the men to secure her fame and fortune.
• Underworld (1927): "Rolls Royce" is the nickname given to a street bum taken in by gangster Bull Weed. Despite his slovenly appearance, Royce reveals himself to be an intelligent, well spoken former lawyer after Bull brings him into his gang. Royce comes up with a plan to frame rival gangster Buck Mulligan for a robbery and while Bull is gone Royce and Bull's girlfriend "Feathers" fall in love. When Bull is sentenced to death after murdering Mulligan, Royce devises a clever plan to have the gang break Bull out and then have the two skip town. When the plan goes awry and Bull and Feathers get trapped inside Bull's hideout, Royce rushes to the scene and uses a secret passage to save them, escaping with Feathers while Bull willingly turns himself in.
• Underworld (2003): Lucian, the first Lycan to ever be able to retain human form and intellect, fell in love with Sonja, daughter of the vampire overlord Viktor. After her execution by her own father along with their unborn child, Lucian rallies the Lycans to victory and devastates the vampire covens. Knowing he cannot defeat the vampires himself, Lucian fakes his own death by using the vampire Kraven as a cover, going underground to rebuild the Lycans while kidnapping descendants of the first immortal Corvinus to experiment on while aiming to make himself a powerful hybrid between vampire and werewolf. Coordinating the elimination of the vampire elder Amelia, Lucian finally obtains a perfect specimen in Michael Corvin, and even when mortally wounded leaves heroine Selene the way to turn Michael into a hybrid, gloating even to the treacherous Kraven that his will is done regardless of his fate.
• Unforgiven: William Munny is a retired, monstrous gunslinger who once terrorized and haunted the old west with his vicious nature. Though settling down as a farmer for years following his wife's death, Will goes out for one last hurrah to take down two cowboys who beat brothel women. Working with his old partner Ned and the Schofield Kid, Will overcomes his initial rusty skillset to ambush and kill off the trio's targets with clever tactics. After Ned is captured and beaten to death by the brutish Little Bill, Will lets his inner beast loose as he marches into a crowd of Bill's allies, kills half a dozen men with his spectacular gunfighting, and executes Little Bill. Will then terrifies the rest of the town into respectfully burying Ned's body and never again harming any working women, threatening to "come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches" before ending his violent ways forever, disappearing from public eye and becoming a propserous shop owner with his beloved children.
• Universal Soldier: The Return: S.E.T.H. (Self-Evolving Thought Helix) is an artificial intelligence built to oversee the new generation of Unisols, Super Soldiers made from the bodies of dead U.S. soldiers. While initially benign, as soon as S.E.T.H. determines that he is to be disassembled following the project's shutdown, he has the Unisols' cranial implants surgically altered so they will obey only him and turn on their human controllers, before rewriting his program to make himself independent. S.E.T.H. manipulates a former technician involved with his construction, Squid, into building a Super-Unisol body for him so he can escape into the real world before killing him. In order to deactivate a kill switch command in his program, which he later manages to decipher on his own, S.E.T.H. has his soldier Romeo pursue Luc Deveraux and personally kidnaps his daughter Hillary, deciding to turn her into a Unisol as he thinks it will be for her own good. S.E.T.H. boasted of his plans to replace all humanity with Unisols, stating that where once he was a machine who yearned to be a man, he became far more than either.
• Unknown Origins (2020): The supervillain "Professor Novaro" is really the friendly, helpful police mortician Dr. Jonathan Bruguera, who intends to create a noble superhero. Committing serial killings targeting horrible people themed on superhero origin stories, Novaro arranges events to implicate himself as the killer of Detective David "Val" Valentin's parents, while leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for Val to follow. Pushing Val into becoming a hero before killing himself, Novaro leaves Val immense wealth and resources to fight criminals with.
• Upgrade: In its scheme to evolve and become a human, STEM orchestrates the entirety of the plot. Having Grey Trace paralyzed after ordering the murder of his wife, STEM manipulates the man into allowing himself to be implanted with STEM, granting his mobility back, but allowing STEM partial control of his body. Playing the role of partner and helper to Grey, STEM assists him in finding the men who murdered his wife, STEM ensuring each man is executed so as to tie up loose ends, and even tricks Grey into destroying the sole part of STEM preventing it from total autonomy and control over Grey's body. STEM ultimately murders everyone who knows of its existence, plunging Grey's mind into a never-ending dream and taking control of his body to use for its own purposes. STEM is cold, eerily polite, and murderous in its endeavors, showing a natural talent for manipulation and strategy, yet also the capacity and willingness to step back and allow others to overcome the few problems STEM itself admits it cannot.
• Us: Red, leader of the Tethered, manages to organized the stunted clones into a genuine army with a plot to make the world see how horribly they have been treated. Putting her scheme into motion for "The Untethering", she sends the clones to kill their doubles and form a massive chain, effortlessly cornering her own double, Adelaide Wilson, with their families facing off. Red is able to use even the death of her own to her advantage to kidnap Adelaide's son Jason and lure Adelaide into a personal confrontation, revealing Red is the true Adelaide who was replaced by her double as a child. Seeking revenge, Red even manages to potentially poison Jason against his mother, with her scheme at upending society and forming a great chain possibly succeeding.
• U.S. Marshals: Mark Sheridan is a DSS agent specializing in Black Ops off-the-books missions and dead drops hwo ends up killing two fellow agents not realizing they were sent after him because he was framed as a Chinese spy by Agents John Royce and Frank Barrows. Sheridan gets a new identity, only to be caught due to an accident and while trying to unlock himself from the prison plane he's in, Sheridan subtly catches onto and overpowers an assassin set to kill him and then helps Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard save passengers from the plane wreckage before then slipping away. Sheridan threatens, fights and injuries Gerard and others in his pursuit of exposing and tracking the real culprits and then hopes to slip away with his girlfriend Marie Bineaux when things get too hot—at one point swinging off a building and onto a train. With Barrows killed in another attempt on his life, Sheridan gives Gerard a warning so he's able to kill Royce and Sheridan is exonerated and free to be happy with Marie.
• The Usual Suspects:
  • Keyser Söze is a mysterious Diabolical Mastermind who lives a double life as the disabled Roger "Verbal" Kint. Söze organized a hit on a drug gang to kill one of their prisoners before killing his accomplices and setting fire to the scene. Arrested by the police, Söze, as Kint, successfully spun lies to the investigators to pin everything on accomplice Dean Keaton. Once he got his bail, Söze practically waltzed out the police station and vanished before the investigators could realize the truth. For years, Söze has kept his own existence under wraps, and those who know of his existence know nothing else about him.
  • In the fake story that Verbal sells to Kujan, Mr. Kobayashi is Keyser Soze's Lawyer and main spokesperson. First tricking the five co-conspirators into robbing a heroin dealer, he then states they have unwittingly stolen from Soze, and they are now to repay their debts. When they remain incredulous he blackmails them with all their previous criminal activities. When they later hold him at gunpoint, he remains calm, and reveals he has their loved ones in his sights, giving them no choice to but to continue the job. Even in the end when the story is revealed to be a fabrication, the real Kobayashi is seen to be Soze's driver, showing that Soze implicitly trusts him.

V - Y

• Valentine: Jeremy Melton, once a middle school outcast framed for sexual assault and sent to a mental institution, reinvents himself with plastic surgery and takes the name of "Adam Carr", the heroine Kate's troubled love interest. Taking revenge on his tormentors, Jeremy dons a cupid mask, hunting down and murdering those he has a grudge against while also using the chance to endear himself further to Kate, showing a protective side towards her by murdering a man who attempts to steal her underwear. Framing Dorothy, the one who first accused him, for the murders and killing her, Jeremy manages to get away completely with his final vengeance.
• Valentine: The Dark Avenger (2017): "The Shadow", in actuality Umbra Bumantara, is a terrorist out to expose the Batavia police force in their involvement in his father's murder. Performing robberies and killing cops to instill fear and gain the attention of the city's populace, Umbra at one point holds everyone inside a bank hostage, even setting up bombs outside the bank as a distraction under the possibility that he'll be cornered by a police squad. Easily getting away while letting everybody go, Umbra afterwards breaks every criminal from prison to show how unstoppable he is. That night, Umbra holds a prince and an auditorium of people hostage unless Commissioner Syamsul admits to murdering his father on live television and exposes the police force's corruption. Executing Syamsul after his confession, Umbra, knowing he's already a goner, tells his sister Srimaya to take care of their mother before a sniper kills him.
• Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl: Igor is Monami Alucard’s elderly servant who possesses immense loyalty and cunningness. Acting as Monami’s surrogate father after the murder of her mother, Igor in the present kills a high school janitor and poses as him to cover up Monami’s crimes and feed her numerous bodies, going unnoticed for over a month. An excellent fighter despite his age, when pitted against Dr. Furano’s assistant Midori, Igor is able to use her own weapons to distract her long enough to deliver the killing blow.
• Vampire in Brooklyn: Maximilian or "Max" is a vampire who arrives in Brooklyn seeking the half-vampire police detective Rita so he may make her his bride and secure their eternal lives while fulfilling his promise to Rita's father. Making petty criminal Julius Jones his Ghoul, Max murders Rita's roommate and frames her lover Justice as having had an affair with her, using several forms to increase Rita's doubts in light and goodness while seducing her to bring her into darkness. Using his charisma and charm, Max attempts to make Rita into a killer like him, even spending his final moments congratulating her for taking his own life.
• The Veil (2016): Jim Jacobs is the charismatic leader of the Heaven's Veil cult who uncovered the secret to transcend life and death. Leading his cult to remote areas and putting them under his sway, Jacobs teaches them what he has learned to help remake the world. Eventually bringing a mass poisoning with plans to revive them from beyond death, the arrival of the authorities results in a misunderstanding and the deaths of all of Heaven's Veil. As a wraith, Jacobs has his daughter Sarah lure in the children of the officer who killed him and a documentary crew to take their bodies and revive himself with his cult, intending upon leading his revived followers to dominate the world, proclaiming the deathless eon has begun.
• Venus (2022): Lucia is a clever young thief who robs the club she dances at for their drug load, hiding out with her estranged sister Rocio and niece Alba in the Venus apartment building. Discovering the witch cult within the Venus, Lucia promises a mortally wounded Rocio to escape with Alba, and after seemingly being fatally wounded herself, fights through the pain to trick and kill most of the criminals before awakening as a divine being, her powers rendering her foes unhostile as she rescues Alba.
• Vertigo: Gavin Elster is a soft-spoken but devious friend of Scottie Ferguson, whom he uses as a pawn in a plot to murder his wife Madeleine for her money. Hiring Scottie to follow Madeleine, Elster has his accomplice Judy pose as her, planting clues to make Scottie think she's being influenced by a vengeful spirit. Exploiting Scottie's fear of heights as part of his plan, Elster kills his real wife and stages the scene as a suicide. With the inquest concluding that Madeleine's death was an accident, Elster is cleared of all suspicion and even defends Scottie from the coroner's accusations, before disappearing and escaping all consequences for his crimes, remembered as one of cinema's most effective and successful villains.
• V for Vendetta: The enigmatic "V" himself is a cunning, charismatic anarchist with a love of theatre and poetry. Once a victim of the atrocious Larkhill camp where he was horrifically experimented on to the point of losing his memories of who he once was, he began plotting the Norsefire Party's regime destruction as revenge for himself and his fellow camp victims. He starts his plot destroying the Old Bailey statue on November the 5th to the banned tune of The 1812 Overture before breaking into a news station and broadcasting a rallying speech to all of Britain to join him on the next year's November 5th. After brilliantly orchestrating his escape, he spends the next year killing those involved with Larkhill and setting up his revolution, exposing the truth of Norsefire's rise to power to Eric Finch and offering a deal to Peter Creedy. He finally sends replicas of his iconic Guy Fawkes costumes Across Britain, inspiring Insurgency throughout the UK, all while predicting the decisions Sutler would make, ensuring the dictator's demise. After killing Norsefire's leaders, he dies peacefully in Evey's arms confessing his love to her, before she finishes his plan to Destroy parliament.
• Videodrome: Bianca O'Blivion is the daughter of Brian O'Blivion and the one woman standing against Barry Convex. Seeking to advance her father's dream of a technological matrix where television would replace every aspect of daily life, she runs a homeless shelter where she encourages marathon television viewing and sends out thousands of tapes that Brian created before his death to maintain the illusion of him being alive. When protagonist Max Renn is lead into the direction of O'Blivion by these tapes, Bianca reveals to him that Videodrome's leaders intend to use the signal to kill many people with malignant brain tumors. After Max's curiosity leads to him being brainwashed to kill her, Bianca uses quick thinking to counter-brainwash him with a videotape of his deceased lover Nicki and orders him to kill Videodrome's leaders, which he succeeds in. With Max on the run, Bianca is heavily implied to again use Nicki's image to convince him to kill his physical body to continue her cause.
• Violent Night:
  • Santa Claus himself, formerly Nicomund the Red, started as an uncompromising Viking who constantly pillaged and killed for riches before mellowing out and becoming the beloved Christmas mascot. Having fulfilled his role of bringing gifts to the good kids all over the world for centuries, Santa—despite becoming disillusioned as a result of Christmas spirit and belief in him lacking—still delivered gifts to kids he came across who were desperately in need of them due to circumstances. Having taken to drinking due to his frustration, Santa at first tries to flee when discovering "Mr. Scrooge" and his terrorist group took over Gertrude Lightstone's massive household and took her and her family hostage, but then resorts to brutally fighting back and killing the armed gunmen when her kind-hearted young granddaughter Trudy reaches out to him and he's inspired to help. While he stops at one point to watch a mook blown up with a grenade he put on him, Santa proves an exceptional tactical expert otherwise—especially when disposing of Scrooge himself by using his powers to blast him up a chimney with him.
  • "Ebenezer Scrooge", real name Jimmy Martinez, grew up not getting much as a child due to his family being poor and then one Christmas when he tried to steal something cherished from a neighbor, accidentally killed that family's grandfather and became the town pariah. Taking to a life of crime and becoming a professional thief as a result, Scrooge installs his people under Gertrude Lightstone as staff so as to take the rest of her staff out on Christmas Eve to take over her house, hold her and her family hostage, and then raid her vault of the hundreds of millions of dollars in it. Scrooge even resorts to bribing her personal kill squad to his side so that once they show up they'll work for him as well. Combating Santa's actions against him, Scrooge eventually takes him on in a fight and—discovering he really is actually Santa—resolves to finish him off—and nearly succeeds—to end Christmas for good.
• Wall Street: Gordon Gekko is a renowned Wall Street businessman and corporate raider. Gekko frequently manipulates the stock market through rumors spread by his acolytes, on one occasion outmaneuvering one of his rivals simply to repay him for undermining one of Gekko's earlier ventures. Fostering a mentor-protege relationship with the eager stockbroker Bud Fox, Gekko instructs Fox to acquire insider information and conspire with contacts in the legal department to maximize his profits. A charismatic public speaker as well, Gekko manages to convince the shareholders of Teldar Paper to vote against the stock's restructuring by berating the company's unacceptable inefficiency in a cut-throat business, couched in terms praising The American Dream. Despite being set up by Bud Fox to lose millions after Gekko goes back on his word by planning to break up Bluestar Airlines, Gekko only ends up going to jail due to testimony from his employee Bretton James on Gekko's involvement with securities fraud. After his release years later, Gekko reinvents himself as a best-selling author before mentoring the young Wall Street insider Jake Moore, the fiance of Gekko's daughter Winnie. Gekko uses Jake to undermine Bretton James, now the COO of a major bank, ultimately leading to the latter's public disgrace and dismissal by the board of directors of Churchil Schwartz. Finally, Gekko plays Jake for a fool by promising to invest in his renewable energy project but instead confiscates the hundred million dollar trust fund set up in Winnie's name to re-establish himself as a venture capitalist based in London, then buys back his family's love so he can be a part of their life. Charming, devious, and manipulative, Gekko defined the Corrupt Corporate Executive in film.
• Wanted:
  • Wesley Gibson starts out as a miserable accountant with a terrible life until he's dragged into the violent world of the Fraternity of Assassins and trained to murder rogue agent Cross. Told that Cross killed his assassin father, Wesley is brutally trained into a skilled and deadly killer by their leader Sloan and emotionally manipulated to the Fraternity's agenda by Fox. Later killing Cross in a climactic battle aboard a derailed train, Wesley learns he was his true father and is then betrayed by Sloan and Fox. Learning that Sloan was corrupt, Wesley uses his father's extensive research on the Fraternity to mastermind a devastating one man assault that wipes his enemies out. Unable to prevent Sloan escaping, Wesley hires a decoy to live his life to draw Sloan into a trap and finally kill the madman to avenge his father and solidify his own grand legacy.
  • Fox is both the only female assassin in the Fraternity and its most skilled member. Utterly devoted to the order's adherence to fate knowing it could have saved her father, Fox lies to and seduces Wesley to convince him to become a remorseless killer and murder his own father. A unrivaled driver, Fox somersaults her car to give Wesley a chance to kill a target and rams it into a moving train to help Wesley defeat Cross. Not caring that her actions killed hundreds, Fox confirms Cross's identity and moves to finish Wesley, but can't stop him from escaping. When ambushing Wesley with her fellow assassins, Fox learns that Sloan has betrayed the order's ideals and hidden that all of them had their names marked for death. With true conviction, she ultimately saves Wesley by curving a bullet to kill all her associates and finally herself.
  • Cross was once among the Fraternity's most legendary assassins, yet goes rogue when he learns Sloan began faking names marked for death to turn a profit rather than follow fate. While watching over his son Wesley, Cross skillfully murders many of his former peers while planning an assault on their headquarters. Failing to stop his son being deceived, he shoots Wesley with a traceable bullet to set up a meeting on board a moving train. Separating Wesley from Fox using his carefully chosen meeting place, he tries to talk down his son while fighting off him and Fox. Ultimately shot by Wesley while trying to save him, he reveals the startling truth while arranging for his son to find all his plans and intel. His long term planning ensures his posthumous victory and the destruction of all his enemies.
• War (2007): Tom Lone is an FBI agent hell-bent on dismantling the Triad and Yakuza gangs. After his family is murdered by an assassin named Rogue, Tom killed the assassin and took his identity in order to find the people responsible. As Rogue, Tom repeatedly worked for the Triads and the Yakuza, killing various gang members while manipulating the gang leaders into getting involved in a war. After Tom destroys the Triads, he goes after Shiro Yanagawa, the leader of the Yakuza clan and the man who sent Rogue to kill his family. Once Tom kills Shiro and discovers his former partner, John Crawford, was also involved in his family's murder, Tom confronts Crawford and kills him too, thus succeeding in his quest to destroy both gangs and avenge his family.
• The Warriors:
  • Cleon is the founder of the Warriors and their original Warlord. A brilliant and charismatic leader, Cleon creates fear and admiration for the Warriors while bringing down rival gangs and eventually luring his old enemy Virgil of the Destroyers into a trap that sees him killed. While he is killed in a final stand when wrongfully accused of the death of the Gramercy Riffs' leader Cyrus, Cleon's legacy endures with even his spirit still assisting his successor Swan.
  • Swan, War Chief of the Warriors, assumes command with Cleon's death. After butting heads with the boorish Ajax, Swan takes undisputed leadership and cleverly leads the Warriors to outwit their enemies: stealing the weapons of one gang and ambushing another from hiding. Hunting down Cyrus' real killer Luther, Swan easily disarms him before preparing to fight the lunatic, always ready to protect his gang.
  • Cyrus, leader of the Gramercy Riffs, the "Magic Man" is a gang lord with a vision. Pulling together the gangs of New York after sowing his vision among them, Cyrus unites them with a singular dream: to bind together as one, 100,000 strong gang so that they outnumber the police and organized crime and might bring in tribute and protection. A captivating and charismatic leader who brings together all the gangs as one, Cyrus's death kicks off the hunt for the Warriors, with almost all mourning him and his lost dream.
  • Masai becomes leader of the Gramercy Riffs following Cyrus' tragic death. An affluent, military-like leader who dearly cherishes his fallen friend, Masai, with Tranquil Fury, puts a hit out on the Warriors after being informed they were responsible. His influence bringing nearly all the gangs of New York to follow his commands as he has them close in on the Warriors, Masai assumes total control in the chaos, the Gramercy Riffs staying just as powerful as ever. Learning Luther was the real killer of his mentor, Masai puts an end to the vile coward and has his DJ play a song for the Warriors out of respect for their strength and bravery.
• The War Wagon: Taw Jackson plots to steal $500,000 in gold from the heavily guarded convoy of a man who had him wrongfully imprisoned. Taw forms a plan and recruits multiple accomplices while serving his sentence. Within days of his release he convinces a hated enemy to join him in his scheme and rescues an accomplice from a crowded outlaw camp through quick-thinking trickery. He shrewdly avoids raising any suspicions that he is planning a robbery or that Pierce's gunman is working with him. He is willing to use the local Kiowa Native Americans as Canon Fodder in his scheme, but pays them for their efforts and respects their noncombatants. Taw's plan to separate Pierce and most of his bodyguards by destroying a bridge, ambush the wagon with a log trap and smuggle the gold away in Pierce's own flour barrels almost succeeds, until the Kiowa betray him. Despite losing most of his loot, Taw is content with the fraction of it that he does manage to save and Pierce's death and lets his partners know about the money rather than pretend it was lost too.
• Waxwork: David Lincoln, proprietor of the Waxwork, murdered the hero's grandfather and stole the artifacts he collected, ultimately intending to end the world. Easily luring over a dozen victims into the Waxwork with his charming demeanor, Lincoln ultimately awakens his wax figures, allowing them to wreak havoc, beginning the final phase of his plan and only being stopped by the outright destruction of the Waxworks and his own death. A charismatic and friendly man for a villain, Lincoln's demeanour is even emphasized by his genuine care for his henchmen.
• Wayne's World: Benjamin Kane is a crooked, yet friendly, TV executive looking to help Noah's Arcade improve their marketing. Taking notice of public access show Wayne's World, Benjamin manipulates Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar into signing over the rights to their show in return for hefty paychecks, reformatting the show behind their backs to make it more appealing to his sponsor. Setting his sights on singer and Wayne's new girlfriend Cassandra Wong, Benjamin lures Wayne away from her any chance he gets to spend time with her, even taking advantage of a series of tragedies to swoop in and take Cassandra out on a relaxing date at a tropical island in one ending, while gracefully accepting his loss in another with a smile.
• Way of the Dragon: The seemingly kind Uncle Wang is in truth working with the mafia in an attempt to sell his and Chen's restaurant to them for the sake of living a rich life with his family. Throughout the film, Wang subtly discourages Tang Lung and the restaurant staff from attacking the mafia by saying it would just lead to the mafia being more persistent. Knowing how much of a threat Tang Lung is to the mafia, Wang later convinces his niece, Chen, to try and get Tang to leave Italy. After he, Tang, and multiple workers at the restaurant are ambushed my martial arts masters hired by the mafia, Wang convinces Tang Lung to go on ahead before stabbing the surviving staff members in the back. When Tang Lung is about to return, Wang wounds himself to convince Tang that he and the staff were attacked after Tang left. He then takes the opportunity to try and stab Tang Lung to death while he's focusing on Ho, only failing due to the untimely arrival of the mafia boss alerting Tang.
• We Can Be Heroes: Ojo is the leader of an alien race that is looking to raise the next generation of superheroes. To accomplish this, she has her minions infiltrate and take over the U.S. government in order to train the children of the beloved Heroics within the shadows. Seeking to put them through one final test of strength and wits, she stages an attack on a nearby city and lures the Heroics out, only to then capture them while their children watched, meanwhile Ojo herself plays the role of an innocent child who has the ability to predict the future using her tablet. In the final act of the movie, once her bravado is supposedly revealed, she sends several monstrous drawings after the heroes in order to see if they had what it takes. In the end, once the children of the Heroics have proven themselves strong enough, she reveals the truth behind her actions, releases their parents from imprisonment, and has them promise that they can protect the galaxy going forward.
• The Wicker Man (1973): Lord Summerisle, the ruler of the island, was in charge of the island's crop production. Upon last year's harvest proving to be unfruitful, Summerisle arranges for the 12 year old Rowan Morrison to go missing until an anonymous letter is sent to the mainland's authorities. When police sergeant Neil Howie arrives to the island to investigate the disappearance, Summerisle appoints his subjects with misdirecting Howie in preparation for their island's May Day festival where Howie is sacrificed in the eponymous Wicker Man under the islanders' impression that doing so would enrich their harvest. Charismatic and respectful of Howie's Christian beliefs despite their conflicting views, Summerisle stands as one of Christopher Lee's finest performances.
• Wild Things series:
  • Original film: Suzie Toller is a teenage girl from the wrong side of the tracks, masking her genius-level intellect by appearing as white trash. After one of her best friends was murdered by corrupt cop Ray Duquette, who then busted her on a bogus charge, Suzie vowed revenge. She hatches a plot wherein Suzie, her guidance counselor Sam Lombardo and Kelly Van Ryan, the rich girl Sam was sleeping with, are able to con Kelly's mother Sandra Van Ryan out of millions of dollars by having both girls falsely accuse Sam of rape, then cracking on the stand and opening the Van Ryans to a countersuit. Suzie also ordered Sam to draw Ray Duquette into the scheme by convincing him that he and Sam would get rid of both girls and split the money between the two of them instead of three-ways. After multiple betrayals and counter-betrayals and even faking her own death, at the end Suzie is the only conspirator left standing: a high-school drop-out responsible for several murders with a fortune safely stored away in an overseas account.
  • Wild Things 2: Brittney Havers, supposedly a vapid Alpha Bitch at a South Florida high school, hatches a year-long scheme to fake her mother's suicide, then convincing her rich, abusive stepfather Niles Dunlap to fake his own death in a plane crash to avoid his gambling debts owed to various criminals. Brittney and her friend Maya King then use the body of Maya's dead father so they can establish Maya as a supposed blood heir of Niles after bribing local coroner Julian Haynes, thus awarding her Niles' entire estate. When insurance investigator Terence Bridge catches wind of their scheme, they kill Julian and feed his body to alligators before Terence attempts to simply blackmail them. Brittney fatally shoots Maya in response and frames Terence for the murder, leaving the country to meet up with her stepfather just so she can kill him as well by throwing him out of a plane, and reuniting with her mother so they can enjoy their riches together.
• The Willies (1990)'s "Bad Apples": Kindly old Mr. Jenkins is the janitor at Danny's school who hates how young Danny is bullied. Underneath his kindly exterior, Mr. Jenkins is a rather vicious and dangerous monster who preys on bullies. Luring in his victims like Danny's teacher, Mr. Jenkins kills her and then traps the bullies and kills them as well. Upon escaping in his human disguise, Mr. Jenkins finds a new school to work at where he continues to target the "Bad Apples" with no mercy.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka himself is an eccentric, whimsical trickster of an entrepreneur whose candy company has given him an admirable reputation worldwide. Able to create wondrous confections with use of state-of-the-art technology and his army of well-compensated workers the Oompa Loompas, Wonka puts forth a contest for the world to find five Golden Tickets hidden inside his candy, raking in a fortune from the ensuing sales before inviting the five children who locate the tickets to his Chocolate Factory. Taking the children and their guardians on a magically dangerous journey through the strange factory, Wonka tempts each of the children with their vices then sits back and watches as they endanger themselves by toying with Wonka's creations, all to narrow down the winners until only Charlie remains. After putting Charlie through a final, brutal test of moral character, Wonka reveals he planned the entire day to find a proper heir to his candy empire and hands the keys over to Charlie, promising the boy that he and his family will live happily ever after inside the Chocolate Factory.
• The Wolf of Wall Street: Brad Bodnick stands out in a film full of obnoxious, arrogant stockbrokers in over their heads as a calm, businesslike drug dealer who comes out looking the best. Already the "quaalude king of Bayside" with his profitable drug slinging operation, Brad proves his wits even further when he figures out Jordan's "sell me this pen" pitch by breaking it down to the simplest terms of "supply and demand." Concocting the scheme to use his Chantalle's family as money mules to smuggle Jordan's fortune into Switzerland, Brad is only caught when the unbearable Donnie mocks him into a fight in public. Even when imprisoned, Brad refuses to rat out Jordan or Donnie, and upon his release gracefully ends his association with Jordan's enterprise. Though he suffers a fatal heart attack mere years later, Brad avoids the humiliating downfall of Jordan and his associates, exiting the story happy and content with his lot.
• Working Girl: Katharine Parker is a Boston broker who transfers to New York and becomes the latest boss of chronic secretary Tess McGill. She assigns Tess with some menial tasks and at first expresses interest in Tess's idea for a merger between a business and a radio company, but then tells her it is not going to work while secretly planning to pass off the idea as her own. When Katharine catches wind of Tess having stolen the idea back, she exposes Tess's deception and nearly takes over her role in the planned merger as a result. Even when her boyfriend Jack Trainer falls for Tess and turns against her, Katharine keeps her cool and even maintains a graceful demeanor to avoid making a scene when about to ultimately lose her job.
• Wrath of Man: Heargraves is a vengeful crime lord who masterminds a massive part of the story to avenge the death of his son Dougie. Running a smooth operation of criminals and gangs in Los Angeles, Heargraves began a rampage through the underworld when Dougie is shot dead by armored truck robbers. Heargraves would torture and bribe anyone in his path to finding Dougie's killer, while still showing a personal disgust at a group of Human Traffickers who he interrogates for information then personally murders the lot of. Eventually going undercover as Patrick "H" Hill at the Fortico armored truck company, Heargraves lays traps for truck robbers to draw out the gang who did in Dougie, and—after investigating and threatening several members of Fortico into compliance with his scheme—lures Jackson's gang to attack Fortico so Heargraves can wipe out the lot of them as well as Jan, the one who killed his son. Even when seemingly killed in the gunfight, Heargraves survives through sheer will, tracks down Jan at the height of his success, and ruthlessly shoots the criminal in all the places Dougie was shot when he died, exacting vengeance upon Jan while solidifying his control over Los Angeles by paying off federal agents with Jan's own fortune.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Magneto, real name Erik Lehnsherr, is equally magnificent in both timelines:
    • In the original timeline, Erik Lehnsherr is a Holocaust survivor who believes mutants will suffer the same injustices unless they strike first to establish mutant superiority. Founding the Brotherhood of Mutants as Magneto, he later kidnaps Senator Kelly to test his machine that turns humans into mutants like him, while also having Mystique take Kelly's place in the government. Magneto plans to use Rogue to power the machine, and later captures her by having Mystique convince her that Xavier and the rest of the school have turned against her. Imprisoned and forced to help William Stryker, Magneto escapes and joins forces with the X-Men to stop him, before using Stryker’s son to try to force Charles to kill all non-mutants. Magneto uses Jean Grey to attack the Worthington Labs facility making a mutant cure, even at the cost of Charles's life, something that saddens him greatly. Though temporally depowered, Magneto later returns to help save the world from the Sentinels and reconciles with Charles, before helping send Logan back in time to prevent the Bad Future.
    • In the Reboot Timeline, Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr is broken out of the Pentagon by Charles and a time traveling Logan and agrees to help them stop Raven from inadvertently causing a Bad Future by killing Bolivar Trask, before attempting to kill her for the greater good. When this fails, Erik steals the plans for the Sentinels and fuses metal to them, so he can use them to attack the White House and try to kill President Richard Nixon. Going into hiding and starting a family, Erik is found out and his family is killed, killing the men who did so for revenge before joining Apocalypse. Erik later betrays Apocalypse and helps the X-Men beat him, departing on good terms with his old friend and starting the island of Genosha, as a refuge for mutants to live in peace. When Jean arrives at Genosha seeking his help controlling her rage, Erik agrees and later saves a military helicopter from her. Learning that Jean accidentally killed Raven, Erik leads his forces, along with Hank, in attempt to kill her, using a train to get into the building Jean is in. Later, Erik leads the united forces to keep the D'Bari busy while Charles reaches out to Jean. Tracking Charles to Paris, Erik ends the series engaging his friend in a friendly game of chess.
  • Mystique, real name Raven Darkhölme, is Charles Xavier's adopted sister and Magneto's right-hand woman with the power to shapeshift into anyone, who joined Erik after his falling out with Charles. Kidnapping Senator Kelly by pretending to be his aide, Mystique later tricks Rogue into running away from the mansion by making her believe everyone there has turned on her, and sabotages Cerebro as everyone is distracted. Engaging Logan in a fight within the Statue of Liberty, Mystique gets the upper hand several times, evades capture, and takes Kelly's place in the government. Discovering William Stryker is in charge of holding Magneto, Mystique sneaks into his office in order to learn where Magneto is being held before ensuring his escape by putting iron in his prison guard's blood. Later joining the X-Men in taking down Stryker, Raven even takes the lead by infiltrating the dam by using her powers, before trying to force Charles to kill all humans. Truly believing in Erik's goal, and with some of the best fighting abilities in the series, Mystique lives life by her personal motto, "Mutant and proud."
  • Deadpool 2: Cable is a half-cyborg soldier from the future whose wife and young daughter are murdered by Russell Collins/Firefist, a pyrotechnic supervillain. Cable travels back in time to prevent this from happening with the strong intent to kill Russell when he's still a child. He breaks into the Ice Box, the mutant prison Russell is being held in, and mows down the guards before then fighting Wade Wilson/Deadpool and beating him too. Cable then goes after a prison caravan Russell is in while making further attempts to prevent Deadpool's interference as well. Cable then teams up with Deadpool and his friends to track down Russell and after Deadpool sacrifices himself to protect Russell from Cable and thus, undoes Russell's actions in the future. Cable then relives the previous fight against mutant-hating orderlies perfectly while saving Deadpool and deciding to stay to further help preserve the future comfortable knowing his family is alive again.
• Yojimbo: The nameless Ronin known as Kuwabatake or Tsubaki Sanjuro is a killer for hire who arrives in a desolate town controlled by feuding gangsters Ushitora and Seibei, he skillfully plays the two against one another, inflaming tensions so they will wipe one another out and ensuring their victims will be saved. After slaughtering Ushitora and his men, Sanjuro later returns to bring down a corrupt official named Kikui by playing his faction with faulty information. When he also ruins the plans of honorable samurai Hanbei, Sanjuro reluctantly defeats him in a fatal duel by altering how he draws his sword, knowing the more honorable Hanbei will strike in a traditional fashion.
• Young Frankenstein:
  • Dr. Frederick "Freddie" Frankenstein/"Fronkensteen" is the witty, rational-minded grandson of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein himself. Inheriting his family castle, Freddie is subtly persuaded by Frau Blücher—his grandfather's lover—to resume Victor's work in creating life. Having his servant Igor help him rob graves to construct his "Adam", Igor ends up botching Freddie's plan by ruining the brilliant brain Freddie needed and bringing back an "abnormal" one. When the sweet-natured but easily confused creature attacks Freddie, he swiftly has it sedated and restrained until Frau Blücher frees it to complete her and Victor's dream, though Freddie is able to lure it back by playing its favorite song on violin. Risking his life to philosophically engage the captive creature and convince it of its worth, Freddie is able to present it to the scientific community, even having it perform a snazzy dance number with him until the unappreciative audience enrages the creature. Once again luring it back to his castle with its favorite song while the townspeople hunt for it after the creature escapes arrest, Freddie links his mind to the creature's, letting it express itself with words and even befriend the townsfolk, his dream of creating intelligent life complete.
  • Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Frau Blücher are a pair of geniuses defined by their love for science and each other. Together, they concocted the original experiments to create a living monster from dead tissue, and—desiring to continue the legacy of the Frankenstein name—they schemed to use Victor's grandson Freddie to carry on the work. Following Victor's death, Frau Blücher reaches out and lures Freddie to Victor's Transylvania castle, where she coerces Freddie into Victor's old lab and helps him find Victor's research. Once Freddie carries on his grandfather's work and brings the "creature" to life, Frau Blücher unleashes the creature and later assists Freddie in educating and civilizing the creature. In the end, Frau Blücher and Victor's schemes are seen through by Freddie in their stead, and Frau Blücher ends the film with a tearful smile at Victor's ultimate, posthumous triumph.