Heel Realizations in Live-Action Films.
- In 12 Angry Men, when Juror #3, in the middle of explaining his 'Guilty' vote, sees the picture of his son in his wallet and tears it up ... and figures out why he really was voting the way he was.
- In American Beauty, the protagonist spends the majority of the movie fantasizing about his daughter's sexually experienced teenage friend and starts working out to impress her. In the end, he realizes all her talk was just that. She was a virgin, and not personally ready for that kind of relationship.
- Jesse James has several moments where he realizes this in between his bouts of being Axe-Crazy in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Most notably, at one point in a fit of paranoia that someone from his gang is informing on him, Jesse begins purging those who participated in his last heist. When he goes to the house of one gang member and finds the man not home, he begins beating on the man's young son, who is maybe 13 or 14 years old. In the middle of the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, James abruptly stops, gets a hold of himself, and seems horrified by his actions. He later vocalizes this as well."No. I haven't been acting correctly. I can't hardly recognize myself sometimes when I'm greased. I go on journeys out of my body and look at my red hands and my mean face and I wonder about that man who's gone so wrong."
- In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Bruce Wayne has let his fear of Superman's power, anger over the death and destruction during Superman's fight with Zod, and the cynicism that he's developed over twenty years of fighting crime in Gotham turn him cruel and vicious, to the point where he plans to kill the Man of Steel, justifying it to himself that it's Necessarily Evil for the survival of the human race. When he's actually got Superman down and prepares for the killing blow, he discovers that Clark is fighting because Lex Luthor is holding Clark's mother, Martha Kent, hostage and he's actually in Gotham against his will, to save his mother's life. Bruce suddenly realizes just how much they have in common (he, too, being driven by love of his parents), throws away the spear and agrees to team up with Clark to stop Lex.
- Bjarnfredarson is all about this finally happening to the titular character, who failed to realize this over three whole series of comedy.
- Blind Horizon: "Frank" (actually Ryan) realizes near the end that he's one of three hitmen who had been hired to kill the President. This unnerves him so much he considers suicide before pulling a Heel–Face Turn, killing the string-puller and his fellow shooter to save the President before getting out of town.
- The Bourne Identity: When Jason Bourne pieces together the memories of his last mission, where he was supposed to assassinate Wombosi, he remembers that Wombosi's children were with him. Realizing he'd have to murder them, too, which was something he wasn't willing to do, Bourne tried to bail before Wombosi's bodyguards shot him, sending him into the ocean, losing memories of his life as a Treadstone agent afterwards.
- A meta example: during production of the 1976 version of Carrie, Nancy Allen and John Travolta didn't realize just how villainous Chris and Billy really were until they actually saw the film. They thought they were the comic relief while filming. Piper Laurie had the same surprise. She thought they were making a comedy and thats how she played it.
- The Count of Monte Cristo (2002): For the better part of Act 2, Dantes is salty towards Mercedes for marrying Fernand only a month after his imprisonment. But then he spots the impromptu wedding ring Mercedes fashioned and realizes he may have been harsh to assume she'd ever love anyone but him, even after his supposed death. He also learns she only married Fernand as she'd been pregnant from Dantes, and wanted to avoid the life of an unwed mother, which was very hard then.
- The Craft: Legacy: Near the end, Frankie, Lourdes and Tabby realize how their spell brainwashing Timmy wasn't that much different from what they bound Lily for.
- Crimson Tide: The expression on Captain Ramsey's face when the EAM is read looks like this.
- Cruel and Unusual: Edgar realizes after living through Maylon and her son's memories that he really was an abusive asshole to them. It spurs him to make up for this.
- In Cube Zero, Wynn slowly begins to realize that the Cube masters are putting innocent people in the Cube who fall afoul of the state instead of death row inmates. After being forced to carry out his orders to kill one of his former colleagues he turns on them and tries to help the Cube prisoners.
- In The Devil's Carnival, when John cries out "he shouldn't have been born!" he suddenly comes to realize how toxic his grief actually is.
- In Dogma, Loki has a moment like this when he hears Bartleby claim that God unfairly favors humans over angels and that therefore they are entitled to kill a bunch of them if that means they get to return to Heaven."My God. I've heard a rant like this before... You sound like the Morning Star... You sound like Lucifer, man! You've fucking lost it! You are not talking about going home, Bartleby, you are talking fucking war on God! Well, fuck that! I've seen what happens to the proud when they try to take on the throne... I'm going back to Wisconsin."
- Bartleby gets one too, though it's late enough that it's a case of Redemption Equals Death. He comes face to face with God for the first time in a thousand years and breaks down in tears, apologizing repeatedly. He then thanks God when He/She kills him.
- In The Elephant Man, Dr. Treves is shaken by the Head Nurse's observation that the arrangement he set up for John Merrick, which include receiving respectable callers, means he is still being treated as a freak on display, albeit in a high-class cushy style."Why did I do it? Am I a good man or a bad man?"
- Falling Down combines this with a Take That, Audience!. William "D-Fens" Foster starts out seeming like a put-upon The Everyman whose rage-induced stunts provide some satisfying wish-fulfillment for the audience. Then things get more morally ambiguous as we learn more about who this guy really is, and as his stunts get more reckless and terroristic. When he's finally confronted by Detective Martin Prendergast he realizes, with genuine bewilderment, that he has somehow become "the bad guy," and the viewer is invited to question their own identification with him up to that point. Some viewers decide that they see nothing problematic about their identification with D-Fens and/or see the reveal of his mental instability as a Debate and Switch.Foster: I'm the bad guy?Prendergast: Yeah.Foster: How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to.
- First Girl I Loved: Cliff later realizes he'd forced Anne to have sex with him, and relates the story (without actually saying he did this) to the school counselor. Following this, he starts trying to stand up for Anne somewhat after he'd sabotaged her relationship with Sasha out of homophobia and jealousy.
- Subverted in the Bill Paxton film Frailty: Fenton's father locks him in a cellar with minimal food and water until the boy comes to the realization that the family is destined to be God's warriors on earth, killing demons. Fenton later does have an epiphany... that he is one of the demons. He summarily kills his father with his own ax and instructs his brother Adam to bury him in the same rose garden all of the other demons were buried in when the time comes for him to be killed.
- Cass has one of these at the end of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Given that the Gamers and Dead Gentlemen, in general, are known for broad farce, pulling off such a vulnerable moment without Mood Whiplash is actually a small triumph.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019):
- The Well-Intentioned Extremist eco-terrorist Emma Russell, who released Ghidorah and was aiming to release all the dormant Titans so they could create Utopia Justifies the Means whilst culling humanity and renewing the ecosphere; hits a Heel Realization when Ghidorah usurps Godzilla as the reigning alpha and, instead of merely culling humanity whilst restoring the natural balance, leads the Titans towards actively exterminating man and nature alike and threatening to cause an extinction event even more rapid than what Global Warming was already creating. It helps that Emma received a mouthful from all the Monarch brass plus her ex-husband and eventually even her own daughter for messing with forces she didn't truly understand and letting her grief over Andrew's death drive her to commit such despicable acts in his name, and that it becomes clear once she tries to reason with the Dragon-in-Chief Alan Jonah that Jonah is a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist and the one who really holds command over their group.
- While Madison technically isn't a heel, she begins to doubt her mother after Emma forces her to potentially leave her father for dead (as described in the novelization), and Emma and Jonah stop Madison from trying to use the ORCA to save Mark from Ghidorah. Madison later tries to talk her mom out of releasing Rodan before people find shelter but ultimately fails. Once she witnesses the global devastation being unleashed by Ghidorah controlling the other Titans, this is the final straw which makes Madison realize she's on the wrong side.
- In Good Burger, Dexter takes advantage of Ed's naivety to cheat him out of most of his bonus money in order to pay back a debt faster. After he begins to become good friends with Ed and his Satellite Love Interest chews him out for his scam, he gives the money back.
- Happy Death Day has this with the protagonist Tree, who is a mean Alpha Bitch like most of her sorority sisters that shuts out her father and Really Gets Around, exactly the kind of promiscuous girl who gets killed early in a Slasher Movie. And she does — over and over and over. Several loops into it gives Tree the perspective about how awful she is, despondent because she and her now-deceased mother shared the same birthday and realizing that her mother would be very disappointed in the kind of person she had become. With some pep talk from her Love Interest Carter, she becomes a better person in subsequent loops.
- Hostel Part II plays it both ways. Two brothers are in town to enjoy the "products" of the Murder, Inc.. One of them is looking forward to the main event, but gets cold feet after accidentally mutilating his victim instead of just scaring her. The other straps his victim back in after initially releasing her.
- The Hunger Games: Cato realizes before his death that he spent his entire life being bred to be a pawn in the Capitol's scheme and even if he wins he is just a source of entertainment. Unfortunately, he then decides that he can still get one last kill in, which sort of negates the sympathy the first part was trying to invoke.
- In Iron Man, Tony Stark has this after being kidnapped and forced to see the damage his weapons have caused and how indiscriminately they are handled by the people he had uncaringly sold them to all his life (causing hundreds of deaths in collateral damage and easily falling into the hands of terrorists to be used against innocent civilians and soldiers). He is so horrified that the first thing he does after escaping is to shut down the weapons division of his company and call out the military-industrial complex, and the second is to build Iron Man and become a superhero. It's highly possible that he first realized this when, while trying to survive the firefight prior to his capture, a missile lands by him and he sees what's written on it: Stark Enterprises.
- In Jaws, Mayor Vaughn spends the first two acts of the film downplaying the shark, hoping to prevent loss of tourist trade that closing the beaches would entail. After a very public and brutal attack that landed Brody's son in the hospital, Vaughn is practically catatonic, has difficulty looking Brody in the eye, mutters he tried to do the right thing, and his last line in the film is "Martin, my kids were on that beach too."
- The titular Judge Dredd has one regarding his Lawful Stupid Black-and-White Insanity outlook on life when he gets framed for murder and, en-route to prison, happens to sit beside Fergie. Fergie calls him out for wrongfully arresting him and giving him five years in prison for hiding inside a droid during a riot, and Dredd attempts to justify it only to have it thrown back in his face. The look on Dredd's face says it all.Fergie: Five years?! Just for saving my own ass?!
Dredd: The law doesn't make mistakes.
Fergie: Really? Then how do you explain what happened to you? You can't, can you? Great, Mr. "I am the law" can't! - In Jurassic Park, after Grant, Ellie and Hammond's grandchildren are "rescued" by Rexy, they race up to the jeep where Hammond is driving. After the death and destruction caused by everything and the harm he put his grandchildren through when Grant tells him that he's not endorsing his park, Hammond bitterly replies "...neither am I."
- Nicholas, in The Last King of Scotland, realizes only too late who he has been assisting for years, and in what.
- Jim Carrey has an excellent one in Liar Liar. Since he is magically compelled to tell the truth, what he thinks is a rant on his child-raising techniques opens with him saying "I'm a bad father!" His expression indicates that this is perhaps the first time he has admitted that to himself.
- A pretty funny example from Machete. One of the Mooks has an epiphany, telling his coworkers that "I've been watching the boss, and the boss is a real scumbag." That same Mook, when confronted by Machete shortly thereafter, promptly quits his job and gives Machete his gun.
- In Mean Girls, Cady's response when Janis points out that she's become just as bad as the Plastics is to cry.
- Undercover news reporter Babe Bennett has one in Mr. Deeds when she finds herself falling in love with Deeds after lying to him in order to gather information to slander him with.
- Most Likely to Murder (2018): Most of Billy's former classmates have realized what assholes they were in high school. They look down on Billy, the former popular kid, because he's the same jerk he always was. By the end of the movie, Billy realizes how awful he's been, especially to Lowell, whom he's hated since sixth grade for being "creepy" even though he hadn't done anything wrong.
- Julianne in My Best Friend's Wedding realizes after her attempts to sabotage her best friend Michael's engagement to another woman named Kimberly cause Kimberly to run off crying and many other people to chew her out for her selfish actions that she's not the quirky female romance lead who proves that the male lead should be with her instead of her romantic rival, but the villain who tries to get in between the happy couple. She apologizes to Kimberly and admits, "I'm the bad guy," then lets her tie the knot with Michael.
- My Dead Ex: Ben realizes he's done wrong by lying to Charley about having no leads on how to undo his curse, confessing it.
- A mild case with Jason in Mystery Team after Kelly chews him out for trash mouthing Charlie and Duncan.
- In Odd Squad: The Movie, Weird Tom is forced to realize that he's doing everything wrong when his methods cause a self-multiplying monster to run loose, which nearly causes a global-scale disaster.
- Edward in On Chesil Beach. Thirteen years after the events of his doomed honeymoon with Florence, Edward is working at a record shop when a young girl comes in asking for a Chuck Berry record. Edward realizes this girl is the daughter of Florence when she says something Florence used to say to him. It is a My God, What Have I Done? moment for Edward because he had broken off his marriage to Florence all those years ago due to her not being able to consummate their relationship; her having children negates his previous doubts about her.
- Robert Ryan has one of these surprisingly early on as the violent detective Jim Wilson, in Nicholas Ray's 1951 thriller On Dangerous Ground; the rest of the film is about his increasingly desperate attempt to pull off a genuine Heel–Face Turn. Amazingly, he succeeds.Jim Wilson: [just before he beats the hell out of a suspect] Why do you make me do it? You know you're gonna talk! I'm gonna make you talk! I always make you punks talk! Why do you do it? Why?
- James Norrington of the Pirates of the Caribbean series realized only too late in the third film what side he was on in allying himself with Beckett, and promptly sought to make amends.
- In Pixels, Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, tries to invoke this on his creation. It doesn't work.
- Bruno in Plan B, after spending most of the film trying to sabotage his ex Laura's new relationship with Pablo by getting Pablo to fall for him under false pretenses, realizes after Pablo becomes heartbroken and ends his friendship with him after learning the truth that his plan only ended up hurting and driving away someone he had grown to genuinely love. He candidly tells Laura that he can't be with her or anyone, period, and that "if I were [Pablo], I'd kick my ass".
- Promising Young Woman: Jordan, an attorney who got many accused rapists off, had an epiphany when he realized just how wrong this was and is now a guilty wreck.
- The final part of Pulp Fiction involves Jules explaining to a would-be diner robber that he has come to realize this, and he explains that before he had his epiphany, he would have gunned down the robbers without a moment's hesitation, but now he understands how bad a man he's been right before he lets the robbers go.
- The Revengers: When Benedict encounters his old friend Whit, who is now a Deputy U.S. Marshal, Whit is disgusted by what Benedict has become. When Benedict goes to shake Whit's hand, Whit refuses and rides off, saying that he doesn't shake hands with strangers. This rebuke causes Benedict to question for the first time what his Roaring Rampage of Revenge is turning him into.
- The Operative in Serenity (2005) has one of these once he realizes just what the supposed "utopia" that he has been committing horrible acts to create would actually look like.
- Two of the subplots of Short Cuts feature characters who behave abominably but are contrite when they see the pain their actions have caused.
- Gene Shephard gets fed up with the barking of the family dog, Suzy, and takes him away on his motorcycle and abandons him by the side of the road. But when he sees how upset his children are by the dog's disappearance, he goes out to retrieve him (which has the unfortunate side effect of upsetting the children who thought Suzy was a stray and "adopted" him).
- Andy Bitkower is so incensed by Howard Finnigan's impatient tone with him when he calls him over details of the very expensive custom birthday cake Howard's wife Ann has asked him to bake for their son's birthday that he begins leaving abusive messages on their answering machine. When the Finnigans show up at the bakery to berate Andy, revealing that Howard's impatience was caused by anxiety over Casey being in a coma (and ultimately dying) in hospital, he is immediately apologetic and offers them a sympathetic ear and free baked goods.
- In Shortcut to Happiness, Mike visits Stone to tell him something important, but never quite manages to get it out because they keep being interrupted by Stone's entourage. Thinking his friend needs money, Stone offers him cash. Mike get angry and storms out. It is only then that Stone puts the clues together and realizes that Mike was trying to tell him he was dying, and that he has just blown off his dying best friend in favour a photoshoot for Architectural Digest. It's further hammered home when Kee tells him "the light's gone" (referring to the photoshoot). Stone realizes that the light is gone from his life and he has become a horrible person. He starts trying to put things right before his 10 years are up and the Devil comes to collect on her deal.
- Silent Hill prominently features death by Heel Realization. The cultists who burned the film's main antagonist as a child can hole up in their church only until they realize, at least subconsciously, that what they did was wrong. They don't attempt to redeem themselves afterward, although it seems unlikely that they would have been given a chance to, seeing as how their victim is so far gone that she is literally incapable of anything but hate.
- Boxer in Southland Tales realizes in his last scene that he's a facet of the Antichrist. He doesn't really seem to take it all that badly, even though he knows it means he's about to be blown up by the true Messianic Archetype.
- Spider-Man 2: "I will not die a monster!", exclaimed Doc Ock after his realization. And he did not.
- Sybok from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is devastated when he finds out that "God" is actually a malevolent alien entity, making his hijacking of Captain Kirk's ship worthless and potentially fatal.
- Kirk himself gets one in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, realizing his hatred of Klingons made him the perfect person to pin the blame on Chancellor Gorkon's assassination.
- Star Wars: The audience has one of these in Attack of the Clones; there is a scene at the end where troop ships are taking off from Coruscant to fight in the Clone Wars — the music playing in the background is The Imperial March. The audience realizes that for the past hour or so, they've been Rooting for the Empire.
- Darth Vader seems to have one of these at the end of Revenge of the Sith, judging by his reaction after he learns that he killed Padmé. His initial reaction seems to have been combined with an ignored epiphany and/or despair event horizon, though, because by the time of The Empire Strikes Back, he's back to justifying his actions as being necessary to bring peace and order to the galaxy. It's only in Return of the Jedi that he is able to admit to his son that what he's doing is wrong.
- Kylo Ren seems to have one of these between the first and second sequel movies, because when Rey calls him a monster for killing his father, he agrees with her. He has also abandoned his belief in the dark side as a code of honor during the same time period, and tells Rey that he now sees that the Jedi and Sith are both flawed, although that doesn't prevent him from wanting to rule the galaxy, at least, not right away.
- He has a mostly silent one in The Rise of Skywalker that leads to his Heel–Face Turn, apologizing, in his own way, to the memory of his father, and doing his all to help Rey defeat Palpatine, eventually giving his life to save hers.
- It turns out Zangief from Street Fighter was loyal to Bison because he thought the guy was the hero!Zangief: Bison...?! He's a... bad guy?!
- Tamara: Tamara finally realizes she's become evil by reading Chloe's mind to find that Chloe's completely innocent, something she'd never even considered before.
- Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day attempts to prevent Judgment Day by assassinating the lead designer that will eventually create the terminators and Skynet. She nearly manages it, before she sees the man's wife and child shielding him with their bodies and realizes she was acting like a terminator herself and breaks down.
- In Tommy, Nora Walker gets extravagantly wasted and sings "Champagne", boasting about all the things she can afford now that Tommy is making millions on the pinball circuit... but then she actually watches Tommy, and is reminded that all her money comes from exploiting a son who is, as far as she knows, completely oblivious to the world around him because of her.
- Elijah Price at the end of the film Unbreakable. Unlike most examples, he is happy with the revelation since he finally had a purpose in life, and triumphant music plays in the background during this scene."In a comic, do you know who the arch-villain is going to be? He is the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they are friends like you and me. I should have known way back when. You know why David? Because of the kids! They called me Mr. Glass."
- Temir and Leo in When Darkness Falls, after murdering their sister Nina together with their whole family. After that, their other sister Leyla reports the crime to the police and the two brothers save Leyla before the family can kill her too.
- A minor one, but in X-Men: First Class, Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto), deflects a bullet... straight into his best friend's back, paralyzing him. His expression suddenly changes from rage and defiance to shock and horror as he realizes that maybe he's not doing the right thing. Like brutally killing a man that his aforementioned best friend was psychically linked to, therefore forcing him to feel the pain of his death, almost slaughtering thousands of (mostly) innocent humans, and setting off on a crusade to end humanity. However, moments later he pushes the blame onto Moira for firing the bullet, and by the sequel he's back to his crusade.
- X-Men: Apocalypse has Storm realizing that joining Apocalypse was wrong when he sees him strangle and nearly kill her heroine, Mystique. When the X-Men decide to strike Apocalypse with their powers, Storm is keen to go along.
