History ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight / LiveActionFilms

* Film/JamesBond: Bond always trusts his instincts, even if it sometimes means going against his hierarchy at [=MI6=].

** ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'': Bond is tasked to provide sniper cover to the defection of Georgi Koskov to the West in Bratislava. He spots a "sniper" (Kara Milovy) at a window and deliberately doesn't kill her, disobeying the orders of his superior Saunders. He saw all too well that she isn't trained to handle firearms and sparing her life allows him to later uncover the mystery behind Koskov.

* Film/JamesBond:

** ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'': Bond disobeys MI-6 orders to drop the mission around Dominic Greene, seduces their envoy Stawberry Fields, and [[RogueAgent escapes when they come to arrest him]] in order to ruin Greene's scheme.

** ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'': Ernst Stavro Blofeld can't be extradited due to Switzerland's neutrality, he's holding [[LoveInterest Tracy]] hostage and he's about to cause a global disaster, so Bond and [[NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters Union Corse leader Marc-Ange Draco]] mount a helicopter assault on [[SupervillainLair Piz Gloria]] with Draco's private army to free Tracy and rid the world of Blofeld's threat.

** ''Film/DieAnotherDay'': Bond is held in custody by MI-6 in Hong Kong after his return from captivity in North Korea. He escapes and continues his initial mission, that is finding terrorist Zao in Cuba. He later gets cleared by MI-6 and works for them again afterwards.
** ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'': Bond breaks into M's apartment and hacks her laptop to find the whereabouts of a certain Alex Dimitrios, who hires terrorists on behalf of Le Chiffre.

** ''Film/LicenceToKill'': Bond will stop at nothing in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against drug lord Franz Sahcnez to get justice for the Leiters, even if it means disobeying MI-6 orders and becoming a RogueAgent.

** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working with Bond against this guy to stop and expose the threat.
** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': At the end, the plane carrying Bond, Nomi and Q as well as the Royal Navy destroyer sent by M to destroy Safin's IslandBase before the mass-produced and deadly Hercules {{nanomachines}} are spread worldwide have no right to be in the skies and waters of the Kuril islands, and nearly cause a diplomatic crisis with Japan and Russia. M proceeds nonetheless and has the destroyer bombard the island to destroy any trace of Heracles [[spoiler:(and Bond willingly [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices]] [[TheHeroDies himself]] when the missiles hit)]], as it's better for the rest of the world that it doesn't know about the existence of Heracles.

* ''Film/DickTracy:'' When Tracy is framed for murder, his coworkers Pat and Sam are assigned to drive him to prison. Due to their belief in Tracy's innocence and awareness that crime is running wild without him, they arrange to make a stop to interrogate a high-ranking mobster on their way to the prison, giving Tracy an opportunity to clear his name.

'''Mayor:''' That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'', you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!

*** The Starks have a habit of stepping in where the military won't. Howard's son, [[IronMan Tony]] flies to Gulmira to handle the terrorists personally even though the US forces in the area hadn't been given the go ahead. A soldier monitoring the situation says they weren't given the go-ahead because the terrorists were using human shields. Iron Man is unimpressed by cowards who use human shields.

-->'''Sulu:''' The word, sir?\\

-->'''Picard:''' I am about to commit a direct violation of our orders. Any of you who wish to object should do so now; It will be noted in my log.\\

* ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''.
** Kirk and friends steal the ''Enterprise'' and defy Starfleet orders to not return to the Genesis planet in order to rescue Spock.

** Kirk's eventual "[[{{Unishment}} punishment]]" for this is to be demoted in rank to Captain - which is actually what he had wanted all along, and is Starfleet's way of rewarding him for what turned out to be heroic actions. As it turned out, they were glad to admit he was right.
* ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry''

* ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'':
** Captain Jean-Luc Picard disobeys the orders of Starfleet Command and goes to the front lines to engage the Borg.

** Which creates a sort-of CallBack to the previous entry, given that Data is an android who's only recently begun to seriously express emotions and is thus very similar to Spock, making both their contexts both unusual and poignant.
* ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'', the entire plot revolved around this trope so much that their rebelling against the rules is actually part of the title. The thing which sets the plot off is Data, who was assigned on what he thought was a survey mission, and attacked to keep the truth hidden when he discovered what was really going on. This damage [[HeroicSafeMode kicked him into a kind of basic mode of functioning]], probably designed to keep him from being used as a weapon, wherein his program directed him to do the right thing, regardless of whatever else was going on. Essentially, he was ''programmed'' with a ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight default mode.
* ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' starts with Kirk and crew violating the Prime Directive to save an alien tribe from a volcano (possibly, it's a little unclear if ''that'' was the big violation, or if letting the natives see the Enterprise during a rescue of Spock. Either way, writing a misleading report to cover it up afterwards wasn't Kirk's best decision). Subverted in that Kirk ends up [[TurnInYourBadge losing his command]] as a result. This is later inverted when Admiral Marcus gives Kirk the Enterprise back and orders him to fire a payload of advanced photon torpedoes from a distance at John Harrison, who was in hiding in Klingon Space([[spoiler: as part of Marcus' ploy to instigate a war between the Federation and the Klingons]]). After much soul-searching, Kirk decides "Screw the Admiral's questionable orders, I'm doing what's right" and informs his crew that they are going to arrest Harrison and bring him to Earth to stand trial.

* ''Film/DirtyHarry'' lives this trope. So do some other Creator/ClintEastwood characters.

** Steve leads a rogue mission to Belgium to destroy the German poison gas stockpiles in defiance of explicit orders not to do so from his commanding officers in London.

* ''Film/TheHungerGames'' have one rule: 24 kids fight each other to the death. [[spoiler: But the last two standing players Katniss and Peeta refuse to keep fighting and prefer to commit joint suicide instead.]]

* The ''Film/TheHungerGames'' have one rule: 24 kids fight each other to the death. [[spoiler: But the last two standing players Katniss and Peeta refuse to keep fighting and prefer to commit joint suicide instead.]]

-->'''Picard:''' What I am about to do is a direct violation of our orders. If anyone objects, please do so now. It will be noted in my log.\\

* ''Film/BatmanForever'': In the wake of Stickley's "apparent" suicide,[[labelnote:*]]where he was actually murdered by The Riddler[[/labelnote]] Bruce Wayne granted full death benefits to his family, even though suicide disqualified him from those benefits. [[GenreSavvy He likely knew something was fishy]].

* ''Film/CrimsonTide'' is all about this. Lt. Commander Hunter (played by DenzelWashington) actually commits mutiny and seizes control of the ''USS Alabama'' in the name of preventing nuclear war. Though Hunter insists throughout that it was ''not'' a mutiny, he did everything "by the book". It was the Captain who disobeyed proper procedure, by not holding the launch countdown pending retrieval of the message, and attempting to relieve Hunter for fulfilling his role, the very reason why there's two sets of keys. As far as Hunter sees it, his actions were all Lawful as well as Good.

* The contest to send an Amazon out into Man's World that's key to most versions of Franchise/WonderWoman's origin was AdapteOut of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' with Hippoltya instead deciding to ignore a crisis and telling Diana not to interfere, and Diana deciding to ignore said edict.

** In the Sequel, when the gang (including Heimdall) is planning the break out of Loki, they need to distract Odin, which amounts to treason. Cue Heimdall informing Odin of a plans of treason... starting with his own part in the affair... and then attacking Odin.