Big Brother Instinct / Film

---

• In Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, after Simon nearly drowns in a toilet after some bullies gave him a swirly, Alvin is ready to go get revenge, but Simon tells him that violence will not solve anything. It isn't until they see the same bullies picking on Theodore that they both attack the bullies like rabid animals.
• Bit: Laurel's brother Mark is (rightly) worried about her new friends (little does he know how bad things are). It's also indicated he was very protective of her and supportive during her gender transition.
• Aussie horror flick Black Water is actually rather sweet in spots due to it's use of this trope. Initially, we have both Grace and her boyfriend Adam towards Grace's shyer, more panicked sister Lee. However, Lee turns out to have a Little Sister Instinct herself. You see it emerging slowly throughout the film, but once Grace is injured, Lee is willing to face down crocodiles if it means she can get her sister out of there and to a hospital. Turns out she's just much braver for her sister's sake than she is for her own.
• The Blind Side: With only a split second to act, Michael instinctively saves adoptive little brother SJ from being seriously injured or killed during their car accident. He also will not tolerate anyone saying something derogatory about his adoptive little sister, Collins.
• Bones (2001): Patrick refuses to let his younger sister Tia accompany him during the climax due to how dangerous it is. In a deleted scene, he and Bill also race to help Tia when she's in danger from a fire Jimmy set, and don't get mad when she thinks that she set it by mistake.
• The Boogeyman (2023): Sadie is very concerned to protect Sawyer, her little sister. It's what convinces her to fight the Boogeyman, despite her great fear of it and the danger.
• Frankie in the French comedy The Brain (1969) is so protective of his sister Sofia that he will shoot anyone who dares even set eyes on her. Unfortunately for him, Sofia is The Tease and doesn't care what he thinks of her.
• A very dark version in Cafe Setareh: Khosro hates his sister's abusive husband so much that he picks a fight with him and unintentionally kills him, which directly and indirectly leads to all of the characters' lives falling apart.
• Cut to the Chase: Max's instant reaction after learning his sister Izzy's gone missing is to find her at all costs, with his first stop being an abusive ex-boyfriend. It's shown he'd beaten up the guy in the past for hitting her, and he does so again thinking he's involved with her disappearance. When he's told that she's been killed, he vows revenge on whoever did it or helped at once. She's alive though, and he saves her.
• Becca from The Descent is very caring and protective towards her sweet little sister Sam, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the less-experienced caving group. Also, it's fairly subtle, but Beth displays Big Sister Instincts towards anyone in the group who needs it — she's constantly looking after the emotionally fragile (due to the death of her husband and child) Sarah, she gives her jacket to Holly after she breaks her leg and helps her stand and walk (along with Sam, The Medic) and she goes back to help Juno in the crawler fight, even though she doesn't like Juno much.
• In Doom, the Staff Sergeant John "Reaper" Grimm fiercely protects his sister Samantha from a group of mutant monsters.
• The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec: The whole movie revolves about Adèle's quest to cure her sister, who got injured during a friendly (albeit competitive) tennis match between sisters.
• Freaky: Millie's older sister Char is a police officer who always looks out for her.
• Freshman Year: Marcella's brother is initially very hostile to CJ after he gets her pregnant, thinking he'd just used her for sex, but relents after seeing that isn't so.
• The titular character of Ginger Snaps is an interesting example. Her protectiveness towards her younger sister is essentially, a snarky sense of humour aside, her only redeeming quality, but even this is rather twisted. They have a suicide pact ("Out by sixteen or dead on the scene"), and as her lycanthropy worsens, she starts killing people if she thinks they even looked at Brigitte the wrong way. She's enjoying killing more and more, so this trope becomes more of an excuse in the end. However, Sam could be seen to have a genuinely altruistic Big Brother Instinct towards Brigitte, as he gives her an awful lot of help, carrying a fair amount of risk, with no benefit whatsoever to himself. However, some people interpret it as him having a romantic interest in her.
• The Godfather
  • Sonny Corleone launches into one of the most epic No Holds Barred Beatdowns in film history against his brother-in-law after he finds his sister with a black eye. The enemy family Barzini later uses this instinct against Sonny by paying Carlo to deliver a savage beating to his wife in order to easily set up an ambush for Sonny.
  • In a rare male on male example, Sonny earlier is adamant on Michael's safety when planning the hit on Sollozzo, warning he doesn't want his brother coming out of the restroom with "just his dick in his hands".
  • Michael gets his turn when he has Carlo whacked in the finale, avenging his older brother and ending his younger sister's torment. Subverted when Michael has Fredo assassinated for working against family interests.
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II: Rodan acts this way towards BabyGodzilla in the film because the Godzillasaurus egg was lain in a Rodan's nest as a nest parasite, leading Rodan to see the dinosaur as his little brother, fighting to protect him from Godzilla (although Godzilla in turn just wants to adopt the baby) and later battling Mechagodzilla to rescue him from the humans that captured him. Rodan ends up being mortally wounded by Mechagodzilla, but gives his life energy to a crippled Godzilla, empowering him with enough strength to destroy Mechagodzilla and reclaim BabyGodzilla.
• In ''Good Will Hunting, Sean tells Will how he used to provoke his abusive father so he would target him instead of Sean's little brother and their mother.
• A somewhat disturbing and sweet take on Michael and Laurie in Halloween (2007). It's shown very clearly in the beginning that Michael loved his baby sister. Even though he murdered just about everyone in the family, he left her alive. This also applies after he breaks out of the mental institute and seeks her out. Unfortunately, when he does meet up with her, he's practically a mute and he's killed all of her friends.
• The central theme of Hocus Pocus revolves around brothers who would do anything to protect their younger siblings. In Thackery's backstory, he followed Emily into the forest and attempted to save his sister from the Sanderson sisters (to no avail, unfortunately). Hundreds of years later, he forms a sibling-like bond with Dani. He comforts her when she's sad and is successful in preventing Winnifred from forcing her to drink the potion that killed Emily. Dani's actual big brother Max displays the same feelings for her and protects her from the sisters multiple times, even being willing to sacrifice himself in order to protect her.
• Luigi from Holiday on the Buses doesn't take kindly to blokes who try to ruin his sister Maria's reputation. Stan ends up finding this out the hard way when Luigi roughs him up in the kitchen, while Blakey gets threatened for spreading rumours.
• The Hollow Child: Samantha sees her younger foster sister Olivia as more annoying than anything else initially. Once she disappears in the woods then returns in a form Sam recognizes as not really her, she sets out to get her back. No adults will believe and aid Sam, so it's left to her. Sam greatly risks her own life doing this, but saves Olivia in the end, with the film closing on her saying she'll always be there to protect her. Sam had lost her own biological sister earlier, with obvious guilt over not being able to help, so this serves as a way that she makes up for it.
• House of Wax (2005): Nick possesses the instinct quite strongly, which makes his behavior towards his younger sister, Carly, look filled with Incest Subtext.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen is deeply devoted to her beloved sister Prim, and she volunteers to take her place in the Hunger Games after Prim's name is called. This is essentially a death sentence and she's fully aware of it. When she's in the arena, she forms an attachment to Rue and becomes her steadfast ally. She's entirely heartbroken when Rue is killed, singing to her as she dies and burying her in flowers, which in Panem is akin to flipping the bird against the Capitol, who only see the tributes as mere entertainment props.
  • And that's without mentioning what she does when Prim is killed in the final book. Despite not trusting President Snow at all (he DID raze her entire district to the ground), she makes damn sure that whoever ordered the bomb that killed Prim would pay the price. Bye, President Coin.
• The Iron Claw: After he says his dream is to own a ranch that houses all his younger brothers and their families, Pam pegs Kevin as a natural eldest son who wants to take care of everybody. ^note He has to clarify he's only the second eldest, as his older brother died when they were children. Indeed, throughout the film Kevin is able to intuit when things are going south for his brothers and tries to advise them against certain choices, only to be devastated when they all die young anyway.
• I Shot Jesse James provides a villainous example in Frank James, the older brother of Jesse James. While he was just as ruthless as Jesse, it's clear from everybody's interactions that Frank always looked out for Jesse ever since they were kids. In fact, it was his inability to prevent Jesse's death that fuels his mission of revenge against Robert Ford.
• Jason's Lyric: Jason spends his youth looking out for his troubled younger brother, Joshua (despite he's aware that Joshua is taking the advantage of his good heart). When he knew Joshua would always need him, he almost gives up his chance to be with Lyric. But, Jason eventually gives up on Joshua when found out the latter has become insufferable and almost endangering his girlfriend's life that he chooses to walk away from him and moves on with her.
• A consistent theme in Jeepers Creepers. In the first film, Trish tries her damnedest to convince the Creeper to take her instead of Darry. It doesn't work. And in the second film, Jack Jr. tries to chase down the Creeper when it takes his little brother and then joins their father in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Billy's death.
• A little brother example in Jumanji with Peter. He shows signs of being protective of Judy after their parents died. In the novelization, Peter actually attacked a classmate who called Judy a liar regarding what had happened to their parents (the classmate was the son of the realtor who sold them their house and knows the real story because of their aunt).
• Linda in Knives Out is this to Walt, her baby brother. She becomes infuriated when the police imply that he was involved with their father's death. She also refuses to say anything negative about Walt regarding his place in their father's business when the police try to probe for more information.
• Labyrinth promotes big sister instinct. The entire movie revolves around Sarah trying to rescue her baby half-brother from the Jareth. The manga sequel has more of this than the film, though.
• Like Normal People: Bobby defends his mentally disabled brother Roger from bullies as a child, and supports him in his fight to get married as an adult.
• The Lord of the Rings
  • Éomer to Éowyn in The Two Towers. He was furious that Wormtongue was following his sister. For that matter, Éowyn didn't want Wormtongue anywhere near her, either.
    • In the extended edition of The Return of the King, there's also a scene where Éomer finds an unconscious Éowyn after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. He holds her and howls in grief, before getting her medical attention.
    • Further explained in the book; when he found her and up until her body was brought to the city gates, he and everyone else thought she was dead. As soon as they realized she wasn't, they brought her immediately to get medical attention.
  • Boromir to Faramir as well, in a more uncommon male-male example. Boromir is quick to defend and praise Faramir in the face of their father's scorn and dismissal of his younger son.
  • Boromir and Aragorn are this to the Hobbits. Boromir and Aragorn are the ones to teach them sword work and keep them safe during the heavier battles, even carrying them during the snowstorm. Aragorn took on an entire army of Orcs to ensure that Frodo will be able to get away safely and Boromir gave his life to protect Merry and Pippin from the same army.
• M3GAN: Not biologically, but M3GAN is built to be a loving and protective sister figure to Cady. Gemma even remarks in the trailer that M3GAN is starting to feel like family herself. But with her prime directive of "protect Cady from physical and emotional harm", she devolves into a Knight Templar Big Sister when she kills a bully.
• In The Mask of Zorro, a soldier backhands Alejandro and his older brother Joaquin immediately puts a gun to the soldier's head.
  Joaquin: Touch my brother again and I'll kill you.
• Natural Born Killers: In a cut flashback scene, Tim Mulberry finds the Knoxes holding knives and standing over his bound and gagged younger sister, and proceeds to kick Mickey four times in the head Bruce Lee style. Mickey shrugs it off, kills Tim and makes his sister the witness to that massacre.
• Oldboy (2003): Dae-su assumes that this is Woo-jin's view of Soo-ah, not realizing that they are in an incestous relationship until much later.
• Other Voices: Jeff, Anna's brother, goes after her husband, Phil, when she suspects him of cheating on her, even chasing him in the subway.
• Ouija: Laine to her rebellious younger sister, Sarah, who is a bit annoying. Since their mother's death, she has practically taken the role of mother, be it forbidding Sarah to come out late at night, or stopping an unknown man from taking her to a date. Then the two become the only survivors of the curse and Laine's Big Sister Instinct comes to its fullest when she prevents the Eldritch Abomination from strangling her sister by inviting her for a game of Ouija.
• The Perfect Weapon (1991): During a flashback to Jeff's youth, a football player named Erickson continuously attempted to provoke Jeff into a fight, but Jeff refused and walked away. The tipping point was when Erickson slapped his little brother...
• A fairly central motif throughout The Proposition. Charlie's motivation throughout the entire film is to protect his younger brother, Mikey. To do this, he may need to kill his older brother. The oldest brother, Arthur, wants nothing more than to protect both of his younger brothers.
  • Averted, though, in the Spiritual Sequel, Lawless. After Jack gets brutally beaten by a Corrupt Cop, his older brothers basically tell him that he has to learn to fight his own battles.
• Ready or Not : Daniel Le Domas shows this with his younger brother Alex. The film opens with them as kids, and Daniel hides the scared Alex in a closet so he doesn't have to take part in (or witness) their family kill Aunt Helene's new husband. It continues into adulthood, showing that the brothers are closer to each other than the rest of the family. Daniel eventually dies protecting his brother's fiancé, Grace from being sacrificed by the family like their Aunt's late husband.
• In The Search, Steve, an Army engineer in occupied Germany after World War II, takes in a frightened, starving, mute refugee boy.
• Star Wars: He's only the big brother by about six or seven minutes, tops, but Luke Skywalker definitely qualifies. He's all redeeming and peaceful and unflappable in the face of evil despite a million reasons not to be, but all bets are off when Darth Vader makes an impotent, hinted threat towards his sister. Suffice to say, he doesn't react well. Making Luke's case slightly unusual is that he doesn't actually know that he's the older of the two.
  • Han Solo to Luke Skywalker. Despite always calling him "kid" and having doubts about Luke's plans, Han becomes fond of Luke early on and often goes out of his way to protect or rescue him. In Empire Strikes Back, he risks his own life by going out into dangerously low temperatures to find Luke after he doesn't return to the rebel base. Appropriately enough, he ends up as Luke's brother-in-law.
• The Korean war film, Taegukgi revolves around the Lee brothers, Lee Jin-Tae and Lee Jin-Seok, a pair of siblings from South Korea drafted into the Korean War, where big brother Jin-tae - worried over Jin-Seok's ailing health - tries to get himself a promotion to becoming a sergeant so that Jin-Seok could be excused from the war and sent back home. And it all goes to hell near the end when Jin-Seok was seemingly killed in an artillery strike caused by the South Korean militia (during the Bodo League massacre) resulting in an enraged Jin-Tae defecting to the North. It ends with a massive Downer Ending when Jin-Tae realize his brother, Jin-Seok, is actually still alive, but they're now caught in the middle of a massive battle between the two Korean armies, resulting in Jin-Tae performing a Heroic Sacrifice for his brother to escape. Decades later, the elderly Jin-Seok returns to the site of battle with his granddaughter, only to be reunited with his brother's skeleton. Cue the waterworks.
• Peter Garret in Vertical Limit climbs up K2 to rescue his sister, Annie.
• Walkabout: The girl carries her kid brother to safety when their father starts shooting at them and later carries him several miles when he is too tired and thirsty to walk.
• A variant in Warriors of Virtue with Elysia for Ryan. She's initially seen on the good guys' side for a third of movie, but then it's revealed that she's a mole for Komodo. When Ryan is captured, she tries to make him understand her and dies because she prevented Komodo from killing him.
• West Side Story: Bernardo interferes in his sister Maria's budding romance with Tony. Double Subverted in that Tony is the only decent member of the Jets, genuinely in love with Maria and with good intentions... but then he ends up killing Bernardo in a fit of rage over the death of his friend.
• The White Balloon:
  • Razieh's big brother Ali frequently calls her troublesome, but contributes the most during their quest to get back her 500 toman bill. And the aforementioned bill is given to Razieh in the first place because Ali manages to convince their mother in lieu of buying him new shoes. Plus, when he fetches her after the bill is lost for the second time, there's no indication that their parents are responsible for tasking him, as he doesn't mention them; he could very well be genuinely worried that she doesn't return on time.
  • The army man, as well, who offers Razieh help because she reminds him of his two younger sisters back home.
• White Frog: Chaz once beat up a kid who peed on Nick's shoes in third grade.
• White Wolves II: She's implied to be the younger sister, but Cara (who has spent most of the movie being an occasionally whiny City Mouse) grabs a branch and charges to fight off a bear that is threatening her trapped sister even before their male companions can do anything. She's knocked unconscious for her trouble, but does succeed in driving the bear off and recovers.
• Big Sister Instinct is one of Ree's main motivations in Winter's Bone. She is shown to be constantly worrying about how she'll provide for her younger brother and sister if they lose their house.
• Trampled on in Wishmaster. As soon as the Djinn threatens Alexandra's sister, she states point blank that she'll kill him if he harms her. Amused, he shows her his true face to show how little threat she poses to him, and she can only respond with a terrified "oh my god".
• Zathura: Walter originally acts aloof and is somewhat a bully towards his younger brother, Danny, such that the astronaut whom they meet call him out on this. Then it's revealed that the astronaut is in fact Walter all grown up who angrily used his wishing star to wish that Danny would disappear, which he has thoroughly regretted because that means he is stuck in space forever. He then tries to atone for this by going to the past and influencing Walter to start treating Danny as more than a plaything. Once he learns about this, Walter softens and becomes genuinely caring to Danny.
  • Their older sister, Lisa, is this too, to a lesser extent. Contrasting with her aloofness and obliviousness to the situation, the bit where she's pulling Walter away to safety from the titular Zathura in exchange for getting sucked herself near the end of the film is kind of sweet.

---