History BlackAndGrayMorality / Film

* ''Film/ThereWillBeBlood'': One major character is a malicious oilman who hates everyone except himself, and sometimes even himself. The other is a swindling preacher who shows little to no concern for human life unless there are financial gains to be had. The only two morally upright characters only serve as temporary [[MoralityPets]].

** ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' (though it may seem downplayed, dealing with [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets Nazis]] [[ThoseWackyNazis and whatnot]]). Nevertheless, the title characters do have their moments of excessive violence, perpetrating what would amount to war crimes against their enemies. The fact that many German soldiers themselves have a few VillainsOutShopping and PetTheDog moments in the mix doesn't help matters either.

** ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'' is full of this, which is pretty much inevitable when your hero is UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev. The main villain is [[StateSec NKVD]] head Lavrenity Beria, a grotesque rapist, and murderer, while Khrushchev is merely an unprincipled politician.

* A number of comedies in the late [[TheSeventies '70s]] and early [[TheEighties '80s]] (e.g., ''Film/AnimalHouse,'' ''Film/{{Caddyshack}},'' ''Film/{{Stripes}}'') centered on a group of rakish loser protagonists aligned against cleaner-cut but authoritarian antagonists. The tagline for ''Caddyshack,'' for example, was "[[SlobsVersusSnobs The Snobs Against the Slobs]]." While the viewer will almost certainly find himself rooting for the losers, these are not people you would trust around your kids.

* Just about everyone in ''Film/TheBigShort'' qualifies. While the big banks are undeniably the villains of the movie by fraudulently selling risky [=CDOs=] as secure investments, the protagonists are motivated simply to make money by betting against the banks' greed and stupidity.
--> '''Jared Vennett''': I never said I was the hero of this story.

---> '''Ben Rickert''': Do you realize what you've done? You've bet against the American economy.

---> '''Mark Baum:''' That doesn't make us wrong.
---> '''S&P Officer:''' No, it just makes you a hypocrite.

* ''Film/CityOfGod''. While narrator Rocket opted to stay out of the slum crime scene, most of the characters are criminals - some by choice, others because the mean ones forcing them to PayEvilUntoEvil. The police are mostly absent and often corrupt.
* ''Film/{{Constantine}}'': AntiHero John Constantine, of the eponymous film (and the [[ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}} comic]] that inspired it), is a foul-mouthed, [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal]] sonuvabitch. And he's one of the good guys. Not that [[FallenAngel Gabriel]] was [[HolierThanThou much better]].

* ''Film/DenOfThieves'': The cops flout the law when the have to, and the crooks don't kill civilians, but they still mass-murder cops.
* ''Film/{{District 9}}''. You know it's bad when the "hero" of the film is a barely competent, racist, and selfish ObstructiveBureaucrat. The one white spot in the film is the alien Christopher, if [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/ his blog]] is anything to go by. You have to hand it to a guy who's been horribly oppressed by us for twenty years, yet ''still'' has some [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=383 faith]] [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=390 in]] [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=401 humanity]]. He ascends in the scale by pulling a HeelFaceTurn. Meanwhile, Wikus is up against once he's forced to take refuge with the Prawns ([[MegaCorp MNU]] -- from which he left -- and the Nigerian drug dealers) is worse.

* ''Film/TheElementOfCrime''. A more than questionable AntiHero pursuing a [[SerialKiller child killer]], (un)assisted by [[BadCopIncompetentCop the worst police force ever]] in the [[CrapsackWorld crumbling ruins of dirt poor]] [[WretchedHive and morally corrupt]] [[AfterTheEnd post World War II Germany]]? If this isn't it, then?

* ''Film/{{Escape 2000}}'': the heroes are a pack of gang members and hoodlums, whose efforts to keep the Bronx safe from drug dealing and petty crime only come out looking heroic because the bad guys are [[KillItWithFire killing people with flamethrowers]] more or less indiscriminately.

* ''Film/WhatEverHappenedToBabyJane'' looks like a straight case of black-and-white, with [[WhiteDwarfStarlet bitter, angry former child star]] Jane Hudson intimidating her more popular, crippled sister and feeding her rats for dinner... until the end, where it is revealed that [[spoiler:the accident which crippled Blanche was caused by Blanche herself as she was trying to kill ''Jane'', and not by Jane in a drunken bender.]] Notably, [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience Jane, the "villain", is blonde, and Blanche, whose name means "white", has black hair.]]

!! Animation

!! Live-Action
* Almost ''anything'' made by Creator/QuentinTarantino at least when it doesn't shift into EvilVersusEvil.
** Because most of the characters are merely amoral in ''Film/PulpFiction'', the only time this seems to kick in is when Butch (a boxer running for his life) and Marsellus (the gangster who wants him killed) end up in a pawnshop... and the owner locks them in his basement, calls his partner to rape one, and it's heavily implied both would be beaten and\or killed if Butch didn't manage to break free. Although Marsellus himself could also be seen as a shade of black, since he ''is'' an unrelenting crime boss whose only redeeming quality is (grudgingly) sparing someone who saved his ass. (literally) His wife is also pretty nice, if a bit of a sociopath.
** ''Film/DjangoUnchained'' has an ice-cold former slave with the singular goal of rescuing his wife and getting revenge pitted against a highly sadistic slaver and his loyal colleagues. Dr. Schultz is the closest thing to ALighterShadeOfGray, but he is also a ruthless bounty hunter willing to do whatever it takes to get the bounty -- and [[spoiler:gets killed at about the two-thirds point of the film, though not before killing said slaver in vengeance for another slave who got ripped apart by dogs on the slaver's order]].
** ''Film/ReservoirDogs'' is another example, with the exception of [[spoiler: Orange]] everyone of importance is a criminal, but Mr. White and Mr. Pink draw distinctions between themselves (who try to avoid killing people if at all possible, but will if they must) and Mr. Blonde (who goes on a senseless killing spree during the heist).
** ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' (though it may seem downplayed, dealing with [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets Nazis]] [[ThoseWackyNazis and whatnot]]). Nevertheless, the title characters do have their moments of excessive violence, perpetrating what would amount to war crimes against their enemies. The fact that many German soldiers themselves have a few VillainsOutShopping and PetTheDog moments in the mix doesn't help matters either.
** ''Film/TheHatefulEight'' features ruthless bounty hunters as the protagonists, one of whom claims [[spoiler:to have raped another character's son, though it's implied that he's just claiming that to provoke said other character into drawing first so he can claim self-defence. It's still treated as a MoralEventHorizon]]. The villains are even more ruthless criminals who [[spoiler:slaughter the entire workforce and guests of Minnie's Haberdashery in an attempt to free the sister of the gang leader]]. The only unambiguously good characters in the film [[spoiler:died before the first act; their deaths are depicted in the fifth act]].
* ''Film/KillingZoe'' takes place in a world best described as [[Creator/QuentinTarantino Tarantino]] meets Creator/BretEastonEllis. From the co-writer of ''Film/PulpFiction'' and director of ''Film/TheRulesOfAttraction''.
* ''Film/CityOfGod''. While narrator Rocket opted to stay out of the slum crime scene, most of the characters are criminals - some by choice, others because the mean ones forced them to PayEvilUntoEvil. The police is mostly absent and often corrupt.
* ''Film/TheProposition'' -- The protagonist is a notorious criminal who is forced to kill his psychopathic older brother in order to save his innocent, mentally handicapped younger brother. The younger brother is a rapist. The cops are thugs stuffed into uniforms. And the governor's a SmugSnake KnightTemplar. However, the captain and his foolish, but innocent wife are probably the closest things to "white" in the movie. And the ending is [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]], which is as cheery as you're going to get with a screenplay by Nick Cave.
* ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' presents the conflict between the human Federation and the [[BugWar Arachnids]] as BlackAndWhiteMorality. Except the film has the tone of an in-universe propaganda flick and it's quite clear who the real monsters are; the Bugs are certainly bad, but the Federation is ''worse''.
* ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'': Riddick is a mass murderer with a knife fetish, but his opponents are nihilistic necrophiliacs that want to convert and then [[OmnicidalManiac murder the entire universe]], child-killing junkie cowards with a badge, sadistic mercenaries who massacre entire panets to [[HumanResources harvest the people as cyborgs]] and slaves, and bounty hunters who [[AndIMustScream turn people into living statues]] for their own artistic amusement. Riddick doesn't want to save the universe, he just wants to kill the guys that killed the people he had claim on.

* ''Film/{{Payback}}'' is all about an AntiVillain getting revenge on even worse people for setting him up. The cinematography emphasizes dark colors, cloudy skies, etc.
* The ''Film/JamesBond'' movies ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'' and ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' explore this, with Mathis even giving a short speech about heroes and villains being indistinguishable in far too many cases, and many bits of the latter shed light on the extents to which governments and agencies have to go to in order to ensure their continued survival. Still, [[BigBad Le Chiffre]], [[DiabolicalMastermind Greene]] and [[NebulousEvilOrganisation Quantum]] are all evil, no doubt about it. In fact, the more recent ''James Bond'' films have [[WhyWereBummedCommunismFell taken this]] direction, what with nebulous groups wanting to fill the EvilPowerVacuum left behind by the crumbling Soviet Union. Bond even questions his own morality at times, which isn't pretty as while he's licensed to kill, the people he murders are hard-core sociopaths.

* [[AntiHero John Constantine]], of the [[Film/{{Constantine}} eponymous film]] (and the [[ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}} comic]] that inspired it), is a foul-mouthed, [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal]] sonuvabitch. And he's one of the good guys. [[spoiler:Not that [[FallenAngel Gabriel]] was [[HolierThanThou much better]].]]
%%* ''Film/{{District 9}}''. You know it's bad when the "hero" of the film is a barely competent, racist, and selfish ObstructiveBureaucrat. The one white spot in the film is the alien Christopher, if [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/ his blog]] is anything to go by. You have to hand it to a guy who's been horribly oppressed by us for twenty years, yet ''still'' has some [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=383 faith]] [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=390 in]] [[http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=401 humanity]]
%%** No, ''District 9'' is an example of HeelFaceTurn (aka, redemption of the sinner), not of grey morality. It was quite clear that the character was unsympathetic at the beginning; he changed.
%%** But everyone Wikus is up against once he's forced to take refuge with the Prawns ([[MegaCorp MNU]] - from which he left - and the Nigerian drug-dealers) is worse.
* A number of comedies in the late '70s/early '80s (e.g., ''Film/AnimalHouse,'' ''Film/{{Caddyshack}},'' ''Film/{{Stripes}}'') centered on a group of rakish loser protagonists aligned against cleaner-cut but authoritarian antagonists. The tagline for ''Caddyshack,'' for example, was "[[SlobsVersusSnobs The Snobs Against the Slobs]]." While the viewer will almost certainly find himself rooting for the losers, these are not people you would trust around your kids.

* In ''Film/CaptainBerlin - Savior of the World'' the titular hero foils a bank robber and knocks him unconscious but he is unable to return the money to the bank as his life of heroism leaves him no chances to earn money and afford more than the most basic food and shelter
** This can also be taken as a commentary on the state of Berlin and german society as during the production of the movie Germany struggled economically and was parted into west and east, so while Captain Berlin knows what is the right thing to do he still had to take care of himself as to not let society fall down further the rabbit hole of chaos and villainy

* ''Film/InTheLoop'' is ostensibly about the backroom sausage-making behind a war in [[strike:Iraq]] an unnamed Middle Eastern country, though the real focus is on [[ClusterFBomb epic]] [[CountryMatters language]]. Proponents of the war are depicted as clueless, cavalier bureaucrats with zero appreciation of the consequences of what they are doing. Meanwhile the opponents are shameless weasels, mostly interested in milking it for political favors.
* By the same director, ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'' is full of this, which is pretty much inevitable when your hero is UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev. The main villain is [[StateSec NKVD]] head Lavrenity Beria, a grotesque rapist and murderer, while Khrushchev is merely an unprincipled politician.
* Most Creator/GuyRitchie crime films, especially as even the main characters/protagonists tend to also be crooks, usually matched up against other, worse ones. Not counting the mandatory {{Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain}}s, lets look at some characters from several of Ritchie's works:
** ''Film/LockStockAndTwoSmokingBarrels''. The main characters are a group of street hustlers, con men, and gamblers. There are two groups of least sympathetic characters: the underworld bosses that cheat them in a card game, and whose entire purpose for this is to get the father of the character that they cheated to sell his pub so they can buy it cheap, and a group of brutal crooks who steal from, torment, and shoot the pot head marijuana growers who trust them.
** ''Film/RockNRolla''. The most sympathetic characters are Archy, Johnny Quid and the Wild Bunch. Archy is TheDragon for an underworld boss who kills or beats people without hesitation. Johnny is a drug addled rock star who routinely steals from people, (and threatens them with a knife if they protest) hands out {{No Holds Barred Beatdown}}s to bouncers who try to stop from getting into clubs, (and keeps going long after they have stopped being able to resist) and constantly physically and verbally abuses the people around him. The Wild Bunch are a trio of career criminals. The least sympathetic character is Lenny, (Archy's boss and Johnny's step-father) an arrogant man, abusive father, PoliticallyIncorrectVillain, a crime boss who lowers victims into water to drown/be eaten alive by voracious crayfish, rips off the people who make deals with him so that he can get them in his debt, and has secretly [[spoiler:given testimony that has put most of his men and partners into jail at one time or another in order to save himself from prosecution]].
** ''Film/{{Snatch}}''. The most sympathetic characters are Turkish, Tommy, and the [[UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers Irish Traveller]] clan. Turkish and Tommy are shady characters in the London underworld who run unlicensed boxing matches, gambling houses, etc. Turkish in particular is a rather cutting DeadpanSnarker. The Travellers participate in the sale of fake gold and jewels, rip off their business partners in transactions, then intimidate them with force, and at one point consider killing Tommy over a misunderstanding. The least sympathetic character is [[LondonGangster Brick Top]], who [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness routinely kills off his mooks]], brutalizes dogs and puts them into lethal dogfights, kills people and feeds them to pigs to dispose of the bodies, sets fire to the caravan of one of the travellers (burning her alive), and threatens to wipe out the rest of the clan if they don't cooperate with him. Mickey, though, seems to be portrayed as a [[ALighterShadeOfGrey lighter shade of grey]].
** ''Film/TheGentlemen''. The most sympathetic characters are Mickey, a marijuana kingpin who [[EvenEvilHasStandards refuses to sell more dangerous drugs]] and [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely loves his wife]] but is nonetheless a criminal willing to use violence, his [[TheDragon Dragon]] Raymond, and Coach, who tries to help young people out of their life of crime but has no problem committing serious crimes himself to help them. The least sympathetic characters are Dry Eye, a psychotic traitorous [[spoiler:rapist]] piece of shit, Fletcher, a slimy amoral journalist who's willing to sell out anyone if he thinks he can get something out of it, and [[spoiler:Matthew, who tries to instigate a MobWar just so he can buy Mickey's marijuana empire on the cheap]].
* ''Film/TheEliteSquad'' has BOPE, a special forces team which employs cruelty in both [[TrainingFromHell training]] and [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique the police work]], against drug dealers that [[KillItWithFire burn people alive]]. The villains of the sequel also count: murderous corrupt cops, aiding and aided by corrupt politicians.
* ''Film/TheElementOfCrime''. A more than questionable AntiHero pursuing a [[SerialKiller child killer]], (un)assisted by [[BadCopIncompetentCop the worst police force ever]] in the [[CrapsackWorld crumbling ruins of dirt poor]] [[WretchedHive and morally corrupt]] [[AfterTheEnd post World War II Germany]]? If this isn't it, then?
* The {{Villain Protagonist}}s in ''Film/TheFinal'' are a group of [[TeensAreMonsters teen]] [[LonersAreFreaks outcasts]] who [[ColdBloodedTorture torture]] and [[BeautyToBeast mutilate]] their school's [[AlphaBitch popular]] [[JerkJock kids]] as revenge for a lifetime of humiliation. As one can figure from the last sentence, neither side in the situation is all that nice. The only real "good" guy is Kurtis -- and that's pushing it, seeing as how he [[spoiler:kills Andy in cold blood]].

* ''Franchise/StarWars Episode III: Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' alludes to Black and Gray by hinting that the Jedi Order were on the brink of falling to the Dark Side as they tried to take over the Coruscant court for themselves even though their intention was to eradicate the Sith Lords from ruling the galaxy.

** When the bad guys are using MechaMooks and the ''good guys'' have an army of [[ChildSoldiers fourteen year old "generals" and ten year old cloned slave mooks]], both [[{{Tykebomb}} molded into warriors since infancy]], and discouraged from "attachments" to the people they're protecting, you know you're dealing with a mess.
** ''Film/RogueOne''. TheEmpire, totalitarian, ruthless and dictatorial, is still the worst side. But the RagtagBunchOfMisfits Rebel Alliance are shown to be an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores with some extremist sides, at least until the [[Film/ANewHope Battle of Yavin]] changed their fortunes. One of the main characters kills his informant, is given hidden instructions to kill the man his squad is supposed to rescue (he changes his mind... but the higher-ups still send an air strike upon the target), and later admits that everyone in the Alliance's hangar has commited some terrible things in their past.
** ''Film/{{Solo}}'': Most of the characters in the movie are some variety of criminal, with varying degrees of ruthlessness. Han, Chewie, Lando, and L3 are all [[LoveableRogue Lovable Rogues]], but none of them hesitate to sign up with seedy crime lords for their own purposes. Beckett and Qi'ra are backstabbing thieves with no allegiance to anyone but themselves, and Dryden is an unhinged criminal mastermind. The Empire are obviously still the bad guys, but even the ultimately noble Cloud-Riders are pretty ruthless in pursuit of their goals.
* ''Film/{{Narc}}'' follows the story of two detectives who are trying to solve the case of a cop who they believe is murdered in cold blood. Although some of the people they question and interrogate are bad people, the film often shows the corruption and willingness to break the rules of the two main characters.

* The hero of ''Film/TheChaser'' is a dirty detective-turned-pimp who's less than friendly towards his women. He comes out better compared to the film's villain, a sadistic and misogynistic serial killer.
* ''Film/{{Escape 2000}}'': the heroes are a pack of gang members and hoodlums, whose efforts to keep the Bronx safe for drug dealing and petty crime only come out looking heroic because the bad guys are [[KillItWithFire killing people with flamethrowers]] more or less indiscriminately.
* FilmNoir generally lives off of this type of morality. After all, it's not called "noir" for no reason.
* In ''Film/LordOfWar'', arms dealer Yuri Orlov himself is amoral and indifferent to the death he causes with his trade, but he is nowhere near as bad as his client Andre Baptiste, who is an insane dictator who murders people on a whim, allows his cannibalistic son free reign and engages in bloody civil wars. The staunchly [[HeroAntagonist heroic]] interpol agent Jack Valentine is pretty unambiguously good, so the movie doesn't necessarily imply that there is no white morality. It just suggests that the good guys [[CrapsackWorld aren't]] [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism very]] [[GoodIsImpotent effective]]. [[GoodIsNotNice Or affable,]] [[AffablyEvil comparatively.]]
* By the end of ''Film/ThePrestige'', both lead characters have innocent blood on their hands, whether due to obsession with revenge, or due to single-minded pursuit of their Greatest Magic Trick Ever.
* At the end of ''Film/SchindlersList'', Oskar Schindler reminds the people he saved (and us, the audience) that now that the war is over, he'll be a wanted criminal for profiteering from slave labor. Early in the movie, we see that he's not a particularly good man. But he's willing to bankrupt himself and risk his life to protect his laborers from murderers.
* ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'' has hints of this, as a result of its {{deconstruction}} of Westerns. (Especially how if a region were really as lawless as Western movies make out ''and'' had [[TheGunslinger untouchable Gunslingers]], those gunslingers would be free to do just about anything without having to answer to anyone.) The eponymous three characters are: an [[UnscrupulousHero antihero con artist]], a merciless ProfessionalKiller who is practically the personification of cold blooded ruthlessness, and an all-around cad, respectively. Its "good guy" is still fairly sympathetic though, mostly because of one or two PetTheDog moments sprinkled in a three hour movie. (That said, the cad is probably the most likable character in the film, in a LaughablyEvil sort of way.)
* ''Film/TheGodfather'' series is also a milder case, with the highly sympathetic Corleone family pitted against their rivals.
* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' (moreso in the sequels). [[TheHero Will]] and Elizabeth are slowly turned into lying, stealing, killing pirates (in a very loose sense of the word, as in people who merely live outside the established order) although all in the name of saving their skins from the undead and the corrupt. Jack Sparrow is a bullseye grey AntiHero who cares enough about freedom to free slaves (BackStory) and save his friends, but cares more about himself than anything. Just as grey is Norrington a man with a strict sense of honour but with some emotional flaws that lead him into wrong choices. But then there's Beckett, the epitome of repressive order and one of the few persons in the whole trilogy you can properly hate, who [[KickTheDog kicks various dogs]] and doesn't stop for two movies. [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides The fourth movie]] has Jack caught between various antagonistic groups in search for the Fountain of Youth, namely Jack's LaughablyEvil frenemy pirate Barbossa, the even more ruthless pirate Blackbeard and ChurchMilitant Spaniards bent on destroying the thing. [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales The fifth movie]] tries to finally return the white from the original movie with Will's son Henry and his love interest Carina.
* In ''Film/DraculaUntold'', Vlad makes a [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the Elder Vampire (who himself made a deal with a demon)]] for demonic power to save his people and and his gruesome past is told as having razed villages and impaled thousands in the past feeling nothing. He admits his monstrous past and is ashamed of it, but all of his evil deeds including becoming a vampire are to prevent something worse from happening. The Sultan Mehmet plans to conquer all of Europe, force religious conversion, and demands a thousand boys including Dracula's son so they can be turned into soldiers.
* The British in ''{{Film/Utu}}'' are the villains who started the war by massacring defenceless villagers, but the Maori rebels commit many atrocities of their own against the white {{Determined Homesteader}}s.
* ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'': Charlie B. Barkin is an AntiHero who starts out manipulative and gradually learns to mend his ways and ascend to Heaven, while Carface is unambiguously evil.
* ''{{WesternAnimation/Wizards}}'': Blackwolf is unambiguously evil, while his twin brother, Avatar, despite being the hero, is flawed.
* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'': The BigBad is a genocidal slaver who bathes in the blood of his opponents and [[spoiler: slaughtered an entire prison population just to cover his tracks]]. The "heroes" range from petty criminals to assassins, who are more interested in [[ItsAllAboutMe personal gain]] rather than saving the world. Even the Nova Corps are morally grey, due to their harsh treatment of prisoners. Yeah they become genuine heroes in the end, but their criminal tendencies still shine through. Eventually though, they do make the effort to move past it in the next installment.
--> '''Rocket''': Question: what if I see something that I wanna take and it belonged to someone else?
--> '''Rhomann''': You would be arrested.
--> '''Rocket''': But what if I want it more than the person who has it?
--> '''Rhomann''': It's still illegal.
--> '''Rocket''': That doesn't follow. No, I want it more, sir, you understand me? [''Gamora walks off with him''] I can't have a discussion with this gentleman?
--> '''Drax''': Say someone does something that irks me, and I decide to remove his spine.
--> '''Rhomann''': Th-that's actually murder, one of... the worst crimes of all. So, also illegal.
--> '''Drax''': ... Huh.
* The early comedies of Creator/AdamSandler tend to fall straight into this basket, since they pit a SociopathicHero (Sandler, of course) against cartoonishly evil villains. This is taken to extremes in ''Film/LittleNicky'', where Sandler plays ''the son of Satan''...and a good guy (his mother is literally an angel who passed on some latent powers to her son, and he has to defeat his unambiguously evil ''half''-brother). A notable exception is ''Film/TheWaterboy'': Bobby Boucher is (almost) [[TheFool too stupid to be anything other than innocent]], and none of the major characters are truly evil [[WorthyOpponent (it being a sports movie and all)]].
* Phil in ''Film/SavagesCrossing'' is a psychopathic serial killer, gambler and wife beater who wants to murder his wife and take her house. Sue hires a hitman to kill him and claim his life insurance.
* Just about everyone in ''Film/TheBigShort'' qualifies. While the big banks are undeniably the villains of the movie by fraudulently selling risky [=CDOs=] as secure investments, the protagonists are motivated simply to make money by betting against the banks' greed and stupidity.
--> '''Jared Vennett''': I never said I was the hero of this story.
** Ben Rickert calls out his teammates about it when the two start dancing over the deals they made.
---> '''Ben Rickert''': Do you realize what you've done? You've bet against the American economy.
** Explicitly stated by the S&P officer, who points out that the main reason Baum's group want them to rate the [=CDOs=] more accurately is because they stand to make a huge amount of money when the [=CDOs=] collapse.
---> '''Mark Baum:''' That doesn't make us wrong.
---> '''S&P Officer:''' No, it just makes you a hypocrite.

* The protagonist of ''Film/{{Stoker}}'' is creepy, passive-aggressive, [[EmotionlessGirl emotionless]], NightmareFetishist India Stoker. But she's surrounded by her LadyDrunk [[AbusiveParents abusive mom]], classmates that [[TeensAreMonsters sexually harass her]], and her murderous Uncle Charlie, [[spoiler:who [[CreepyUncle is trying to groom her to be with him]]]]. Compared to them, India ain't so bad. [[spoiler:At least until she becomes a murderer herself at the end.]]
* ''Film/DenOfThieves'': The cops flout the law when the have to, and the crooks don't kill civilians, but they still mass-murder cops.
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' is a straightforward tale of BlackAndWhiteMorality set during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (the MadScientist [[EvilerThanThou worse-than-a-Nazi]] Johann "Red Skull" Schmidt wants to TakeOverTheWorld with an ancient artifact and the CaptainPatriotic SuperSoldier of the Allies Steve "Captain America" Rogers stands up to him to see that doesn't happen). Its sequel ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' shifts the setting to TheNewTens and becomes this trope, with a constant overriding theme of "freedom vs. security". [[spoiler:The big twist of the movie is that, in actuality, a world of BlackAndWhiteMorality works better because then you know who the enemy actually is. Paranoia of a world gone mad has allowed Schmidt's old organization, HYDRA, to become a shadow organization that operates behind S.H.I.E.L.D. and triggered several major events in world history since the end of the war, with people voting against their own freedoms out of fear]].
* Oh, boy, ''Film/GodsNotDead''. These films have portrayed "atheists", or anyone who's not a Christian in general, as God-hating monsters who are hell-bent at destroying Christianity, [[{{Naytheist}} albeit such portrayal]] [[{{Demonization}} is inaccurate]]. However, the Christians aren't any better than the non-Christians, [[TheFundamentalist including Josh]], as they themselves have [[{{Hypocrite}} no qualms insulting those who don't believe in God]], [[MoralMyopia saying how inferior they are in terms of morality, among other things]].
* ''Film/TheSting'': The central conflict pits two con men against a mass murderer.
* ''Wheels of Fire'': After the apocalypse, a group known as The Ownership is willing to do unethical things in order to rebuild civilization. The Ownership's rivals are Scourge and his hordes of rapists and murderers.
* ''Film/MarsAttacks'': The Martians are some of the meanest and most evil aliens you will ever find in fiction, but many of the humans are assholes as well. There are a few good characters who you can root for.
* ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'': Scott Pilgrim is a selfish womanizing man child who leaves behind a string of failed relationships, but he also does genuinely love Ramona and wants to become a better person. His conflict with the women in his life can come off as GreyAndGrayMorality at times, especially with Envy. But at the end of the day, the The League of Evil Exes is a group of manipulative, controlling, violent, toxic jerks who want to posses Ramona more than they actually want to be in a relationship with her.
* ''Film/{{Exam}}'': Among the applicants, there is at least one willing to do ''anything'' - no matter how terrible - to get the job. The other applicants are at different points heroic and (depending on what is being threatened and who is on the receiving end) willing to just stand by and watch.
* While the four protagonists of ''Film/TheCraft'' are largely presented as sympathetic and their suffering is through no fault of their own, they end up doing some rather morally questionable or explicitly immoral things in their quest for empowerment and happiness. The antagonists of the movie tend to come off as worse for their unwarranted cruelty towards the girls, but even then the witches' vengeance against them is not always presented as justified and some of them express regret over the damage they cause (which sometimes backfires on them too). Notably, the FinalBoss ends up being Nancy, one of the [[BigBadSlippage main heroines]] who undergoes a FaceHeelTurn, and to defeat her [[ClassicalAntiHero Sarah]] must overcome her own flaws of self-doubt and learned helplessness.
* ''Film/{{Balibo}}'': The FRETILIN are willing to use torture against their enemies, but they're ultimately fairly heroic and are leagues better than the TNI, who make a policy of executing civilians on sight and are shown raping women during the invasion of Dili.
* ''Film/{{Django}}'': Django is willing to kill innocent soldiers to destroy the gangs he's after, but said gangs hunt people for sport and make them eat their own ears.
* ''Film/JugFace'': The Pit is an EldritchAbomination demanding HumanSacrifice, which its cultists gladly provide. Ada is the cult leader's daughter, who doesn't really mind the sacrifice until her face comes up, and is willing to make it look like the Pit wants somebody else to survive.
* ''Film/WarWitch'': Komona and Magician are children forced to kill soldiers and commit fraud to survive. Great Tiger and his militia are ruthless terrorists who conscript ChildSoldiers and commit war crimes daily. The government the rebels are fighting is uncharacterized

* ''Film/WarWitch'': Komona and Magician are children forced to kill soldiers and commit fraud to survive. Great Tiger and his militia are ruthless terrorists who conscript Child Soldiers and commit war crimes daily. The government the rebels are fighting is uncharacterized

** ''Film/{{Snatch}}''. The most sympathetic characters are Turkish, Tommy, and the [[UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers Irish Traveller]] clan. Turkish and Tommy are shady characters in the London underworld who run unlicensed boxing matches, gambling houses, etc. Turkish in particular is a rather cutting DeadpanSnarker. The Travellers participate in the sale of fake gold and jewels, rip off their business partners in transactions, then intimidate them with force, and at one point consider killing Tommy over a misunderstanding. The least sympathetic character is [[LondonGangster Brick Top]], who [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness routinely kills off his mooks]], brutalizes dogs and puts them into lethal dogfights, kills people and feeds them to pigs to dispose of the bodies, sets fire to the caravan of one of the gypsies (burning her alive), and threatens to wipe out the rest of the clan if they don't cooperate with him. Mickey, though, seems to be portrayed as a [[ALighterShadeOfGrey lighter shade of grey]].

* ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'': Riddick is a mass murderer with a [[KnifeNut knife fetish]], but his opponents are nihilistic necrophiliacs that want to convert and then [[OmnicidalManiac murder the entire universe]], child-killing junkie cowards with a badge, sadistic mercenaries who massacre entire panets to [[HumanResources harvest the people as cyborgs]] and slaves, and bounty hunters who [[AndIMustScream turn people into living statues]] for their own artistic amusement. Riddick doesn't want to save the universe, he just wants to kill the guys that killed the people he had claim on.

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': The BigBad is a genocidal slaver who bathes in the blood of his opponents and [[spoiler: slaughtered an entire prison population just to cover his tracks]]. The "heroes" range from petty criminals to assassins, who are more interested in [[ItsAllAboutMe personal gain]] rather than saving the world. Even the Nova Corps are morally grey, due to their harsh treatment of prisoners. Yeah they become genuine heroes in the end, but their criminal tendencies still shine through. Eventually though, they do make the effort to move past it in the next installment.

--> '''Rocket''': That doesn't follow. No, I want it more, sir, you understand me? [Gamora walks off with him] I can't have a discussion with this gentleman?

--> '''Drax''': ...Huh.

* The ''Film/JamesBond'' movies ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'' and ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' explore this, with Mathis even giving a short speech about heroes and villains being indistinguishable in far too many cases, and many bits of the latter shed light on the extents to which governments and agencies have to go to in order to ensure their continued survival. Still, [[BigBad Le Chiffre]], [[DiabolicalMastermind Greene]] and [[NebulousEvilOrganisation Quantum]] are all evil, no doubt about it. In fact, the more recent ''James Bond'' films such as ''Film/GoldenEye'', ''Film/DieAnotherDay'', ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' and ''Film/{{Spectre}}'' have [[WhyWereBummedCommunismFell taken this]] direction, with nebulous groups wanting to fill the EvilPowerVacuum left behind by the crumbling Soviet Union, and Bond questioning his morality at times, which isn't pretty as while he's licensed to kill, the people he has to murder are hard-core sociopaths.

* The ''Film/BladeTrilogy'' and ''Film/{{Underworld}}'' franchises do this to get around the fact that vampires are {{Card Carrying Villain}}s in Western fiction.

* ''Film/TheProfessional''. It's a hitman who relucts about giving shelter to a girl (who is not ''that'' pure either) versus a drugged and corrupt policeman willing to kill anyone.