In The Boss Baby, this is what Tim fears becoming following the arrival of the Boss Baby; it's what the Boss Baby fears babies will become to puppies if Francis E. Francis's plan succeeds. In the end, Tim's act of kindness in inviting the Boss Baby back into his family inspires the Boss Baby to do something that ratchets love for both babies and puppies, as well as several other things, up to 999% before quitting Baby Corp and allowing himself to be born as a normal baby so that he can join Tim's family.
Cinderella: Cinderella is a very early example as the original story dates back hundreds of years. And Cinderella more or less is the poster child for this. As her stepmother treats her like shit and uses her as her personal slave, while her two daughters are spoiled brats who get everything they want.
Encanto: Two examples across generations, though it's also ruthlessly deconstructed, in that the favoritism (between neglecting certain members and imposing increasingly high expectations on others) is shown to have been gradually suffocating the family to the point it began to drain the magic they possess.
Bruno is this is to Alma who favors her daughters Pepa and Julieta. This is because Bruno's gift was getting visions of the future, and due to Alma's harsh expectations and perfectionist attitude, he could only see the worst possibilities. It got to the point he was effectively driven from the family, and they refused to talk about him for years.
There's also the protagonist Mirabel, who was the only member of the family not to receive a magical gift. As a result, many members of the family distanced themselves from her, to the point she would be denied (sometimes by her own choice) the chance to even involve herself in family events.
Nuka from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. The scrawny, barely a mane growing lion voiced by Andy Dick. Little cub Kovu gets picked over him to take on Scar's heritage note Kovu not even having been sired by Scar, though it's implied Nuka is, being the son of Zira, who was apparently one of Scar's mates. Later canon seems to contradict this, though, so it’s uncertain. and gets treated unfairly by the lionesses. This makes his death even more tragic, when he chases Simba up a dam, proclaiming he's doing it for his mother, and that this'd be his moment of glory, with a mad driven look in his eyes. Just before the footing gives away from underneath him, and he ends up crushed by a bunch of logs. His mother for the first time in the movie shows she actually does care and frantically tries to dig him out. He ends with a whimper. "Sorry... I tried..." A deleted storyboard set continues with Nuka saying "I got your attention now..." and then expiring.
It's implied that Scar was this to Mufasa growing up. Considering that according to The Lion King: Six New Adventures his original name was "Taka", which means "trash" in Swahili, and his brother's name means "king", it's not hard to tell who was their favourite.
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea has Ursula's sister Morgana, who at one point yells "It was always 'Ursula this' and 'Ursula that' and 'Why can't you be more like your sister URSULA?'!" And when she achieves virtually complete control over the oceans, she howls at the skies, "SEE THAT, MA?! WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE NOW?!" Freud would have a field day.
Live-Action
The killer in Angst claims he was the least loved child by his family, with his sister receiving far more kindness and warmth.
Preston from Blank Check is this to his father, who favors his older brothers for going into business for themselves. Preston is twelve.
Cassanova Was A Woman: Miriam, one of Cassanova's sisters, complains loudly after being last to learn that Cassanova is dating a woman that no one ever tells her anything because she's the "weird" one among them. Their sister Evette fires back that they don't tell her things because of her poor reactions, as she has an emotional freak out because of the news.
Cloud Atlas: Robert Frobisher is this to his parents, who much prefer his older brother who died in World War I. Frobisher isn't too fond of his Mater and Pater either.
In Crooked House, Aristide passed over his eldest son Philip and gave control of his business empire to his younger son Roger, despite Roger being totally unsuited for the position.
The mother in Crossroads quite blatantly tells her high school graduate daughter, whom she abandoned years earlier, that she was a mistake and that she never wanted to have her. She is remarried and has two sons.
Crush (2022): AJ feels like this to Gabby, though we don't see their parents interacting with them to judge that dynamic for ourselves. Regardless, Gabby is definitely the more popular and outgoing twin, and the one Paige has a crush on for years before really noticing AJ.
Dear Zindagi: Kaira's family openly prefers Kiddo over her for being a good kid who did well in school and now has "proper" professional opportunities ahead of him, while she has a more complicated relationship with them and an unstable creative job. After a Calling the Old Man Out though, they make an effort to reconcile with Kaira.
Doing Time on Maple Drive: Tim Carter (Jim Carrey in an early dramatic role!) is this due to his failure to work out at military school, and has taken to drinking as a result of his parents' callousness.
In Ever After, Danielle gets the short end of the stick because she was the biological daughter of her deceased father. And before his death, it probably didn't help that he said "I love you" to Danielle and didn't say it to the stepmother, only increasing her jealousy of Danielle. Interestingly, the same thing happens to Jacqueline, who isn't as beautiful as her elder sister or as cruel and snobbish, being more down-to-earth and kinder.
Jacqueline lampshades her own status as the unfavorite of the stepsisters when she predicts that if Danielle wasn't around, she'd be the one treated as a servant. Sure enough, when Danielle falls ill, the stepmother orders Jacqueline to do her chores. Jacqueline is not pleased.
This was the root of the crossdressing habit of the main character of Glen or Glenda. Glen's parents had no love for him — his father expected him to take up sports so he could brag to his bar buddies about his son, and his mother rejected him for reminding her of her own father. When Glen noticed his sister got more affection from her mother, he decided to create a female alter ego to win back that love.
The Goonies. Played for laughs in how Mama favors Francis over Jake.
Jake: You always take his side, Mama. You always liked him better than me. Mama: (Smacks Jake) That's right!
Still Jake is not the real Unfavorite, as he's not chained in the basement like Sloth.
Kevin McCallister in Home Alone seems to be this, as most of his relatives either ignore him, bully him, or regularly accuse him of being a troublemaker. In the sequel, this is shown to be compounded by Buzz being a Manipulative Bastard as well as a bully.
In keeping with the Cain and Abel theme of Husk, Farmer Comstock definitely favours his son Alex over his other son Corey: in part due to Alex's willingness and talent in slaughtering animals, to drive the analogy home further. This favoritism eventually drives Corey into a jealous rage where he murders his brother and turns him into a scarecrow.
Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham actually manages to play this trope compassionately without vilifying the parents for it. This is arguably attributable to the fact that the Unfavorite in this case is mostly so by default, rather than actually being unloved or undervalued.
Albert in The King's Speech was this as a child, due to his stuttering. But this becomes subverted as when they became older, his older brother preferred a more carefree frivolous lifestyle while Albert was The Dutiful Son. His father George does approve of the adult Albert (though still frustrated by his speech impediment) and his last words were that Albert would be a better king than his brother, even though he didn't say it to Albert directly.
A League of Their Own provides the quote at the top. Kit's perception of being the unfavorite makes her very willing to apply for the all-women baseball league because, as she says, here 'she is nothing'. The only scene that shows this unfavoritism, though, is when her mother reprimands Kit for yelling (talking rather loudly) in the kitchen with Dottie, when her father's trying to listen to the radio in the living room. The rest of the movie focuses more on the relationship between the two sisters and Kit's inferiority complex compared to her older, prettier, happily married sister.
The Lord of the Rings, especially the third movie, hits this trope pretty hard for Faramir. It's text, not subtext, in his father's dialogue. While Faramir is a grown character and, logically, "should've gotten over it by now," Denethor's scathing treatment of him makes it almost impossible for anyone not to sympathize. This factor, combined with a couple of scenespresent in the Extended Editions, helps explain why Faramir initially decided to capture Frodo and the Ring, which is the opposite of how he behaves in the novels. It's also notable that the favorite, Boromir, actually admires and defends his younger brother, and is fed up with their father just as much as Faramir is.
In Madea's Family Reunion, Victoria Breaux favors and pampers her younger daughter, Lisa, and despises her older daughter, Vanessa. This is because Vanessa's father was a musician who dumped her and left her broke, while Lisa's father was a rich man who gave her a luxurious lifestyle. She even allowed her second husband to rape Vanessa to stop him from leaving her. However, the film makes it clear that Victoria's favoritism didn't do Lisa any favors; while Victoria favors her, she also controls her entire life, which has left Lisa unable to fight for herself, and has been stealing from her trust fund for years, leaving it virtually empty. She also pushed Lisa to marry Carlos, the very banker who's been helping her steal from the trust fund, because he's rich and he'd be able to keep them in luxury, despite the fact that he's horribly abusive. By the end of the film though, Lisa has broken free of her mother and dumped her fiancé while Vanessa and Victoria are implied to be on the path of fixing their relationship.
Loki performs a Face–Heel Turn because he believes that his father, Odin, has always favored his brother Thor. The actual reason Odin chose Thor to succeed the throne of Asgard is that Loki is adopted from the race of enemies. Therefore Loki would not be Odin's heir or wield Mjölnir, even though Odin hoped he would rule Jötunheim as an ally. Loki also didn't fit the ideals of Asgard and probably reminded Odin of Hela, his eldest child gone astray, so while Odin considered him his son, he found it hard to connect. In his madness, Loki views Odin's disapproval of the genocide he tried to commit in his name in Thor as the final confirmation that he will never be enough, and by allowing himself to fall into the abyss attempts suicide. In Thor: The Dark World, Odin tells Loki that his birthright was to die as a child, sentences him to life imprisonment for his crimes on Earth, and forbids him to see his mother Frigga ever again and even to attend her funeral. Loki escapes and places an Identity Amnesia spell on Odin, sending him to a retirement home on Earth. In Thor: Ragnarok, some of Odin's final words are expressing his love for both his sons. Loki struggles to hold back tears, and shortly before his own death in Avengers: Infinity War calls himself "Odinson" for the first time since Thor.
Thanos doesn’t even bother denying that he considers Nebula the worst of his adoptive children. All of his kids were subjected to Tough Love and Training from Hell, but Nebula got the worst of it by far, to the point it sometimes crossed into outright torture. Just for comparison, when Gamora turned against Thanos, Thanos all but forgave her and never stopped loving her. When Nebula did the same? The next onscreen interaction between them had Thanos horrifically torture her and then later hatefully spit that the only reason he didn’t kill her was that it would’ve been “a waste of parts”. In Avengers: Endgame, Thanos changes his attitude towards Nebula, explicitly regretting his treatment of her when she vouches for his honesty in front of the Avengers — before Thor cuts his head off. 2014 Thanos also treated 2014 Nebula better, stroking her head and actually becoming concerned when 2014 Nebula "disappears" before the Final Battle.
In Mystic Pizza, while Kat is looked on favorably because she's smart enough to go to Yale, and industrious enough that she's working several jobs in order to pay for it, her sister Daisy is seen as the screw-up and as a slut. Lampshaded by Daisy.
Kat's such a good girl. Where did we go wrong with Daisy?
Not Like Everyone Else: Brandi clearly is second fiddle to her brother with their dad at first. She complains how he often ignores her, along with her mom. He later apologizes and they become closer.
Much of the plot of Ordinary People revolves around Conrad (Timothy Hutton) being disfavored by his mother Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), who preferred his older brother, Buck.
In The Patsy, Pat is filled with unrequited love for her sister Grace's boyfriend Tony. Tony has no idea, and Grace for her part is also attracted to another man.
Persuasion (2022): In the opening sequence Elizabeth is shown to be Sir Walter's favorite daughter and a great beauty, and Mary made a good match for herself. Anne describes herself as "the middle child [and] the crack in his looking glass".
Tonny from Pusher 2 is this compared to his father's other son and his kid half-brother.
In Romeo Must Die, who's the unfavorite is very unclear. Po is the one who ended up going to America with their father Ch'u, while Han went to prison in order to help him escape. However, Ch'u has Po killed when he was about to compromise a major business deal. It's implied that Ch'u has always preferred Han, in spite of the fact that Han rejected him by becoming a police officer, and largely only cares for his brother.
Gordie in Stand by Me, whose parents never forgave him for being the one to survive instead of Dennis. However, a flashback indicates that even when his older brother was alive, his father took very little interest in him; said brother seems to have been the only one who ever really paid any attention to Gordie.
In Tower of Terror, Abigail feels this way toward her sister Sally, since everyone was going to something for her on Abigail's birthday. That thing was going to be Abigail's surprise birthday party.
As the movie Walk the Line showed, Johnny never could quite match up to his dutiful dead brother in his dad's eyes.
Spoofed in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, where Dewey Cox's father shouts "The wrong kid died!" even in completely inapplicable situations.
Welcome to the Dollhouse has Dawn. She's punished constantly by her parents, especially when younger sister Missy (the apple of their eye) constantly baits her.
In Willard, despite being the strongest of the rats, Ben can never get the same level of affection as Socrates. After he decides to stop taking it, Willard directly states, "I hate you."
Multi-generational one in The Wolverine. Shingen claims Ichiro never considered him a worthy son, instead favoring his granddaughter, Shingen's daughter Mariko. Whether he is telling the truth or not, however, is left up to the viewer. Given subsequent revelations about his father, he might also have simply been mistaken; Viper implies that Ichiro chose Mariko as his successor because she'd be easier to manipulate than Shingen.
present in the Extended Editions,