Jerkass Woobie / Film

Examples of Jerkass Woobie in Film.

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Actors Playing Characters

• A good chunk of characters played by Emily Blunt qualify as this:
  • Sunshine Cleaning - Norah is constantly drunk or high and is a complete slacker, frequently snapping at her more perfect older sister. But when you learn that her mother committed suicide and that she may be a closeted lesbian, it's impossible not to feel for her.
  • The Jane Austen Book Club - Prudie is a pompous jerk who is rude to a few people. But she has a troubled marriage, feels like she's wasted her life and has a complicated relationship with her mother. Her mother dies shortly after Prudie orders her out of her house.
  • The Devil Wears Prada - Emily is rude and snitty to everyone, but is under constant pressure as Miranda's assistant and is aware that she could be fired and replaced at any moment. She does get a few Pet the Dog moments involving Andy.
  • Looper - Sara was previously a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who foisted her son onto her sister so she could continue her partying ways. Now the sister is dead and Sara is desperately trying to atone. She deserves every bit of indifference Sid gives her, but you can't help but feel sorry for her.
  • Edge of Tomorrow - Rita is cold and aloof, with a reputation as 'The Full Metal Bitch'. But then you learn that she got her reputation as the fearsome Action Girl from having to relive the same day over and over again - including the death of a lover she couldn't save.
  • The Huntsman: Winter's War - Freya leans more towards Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds as she's the film's initial antagonist. But then you learn just how much of a pawn she was by Ravenna - who murdered Freya's baby, made her think it was her lover, and thus turned her into an evil sorceress who kidnapped children and raised them as soldiers. Freya pulls a Heel–Face Turn and dies saving Eric and Sara.
  • Her film debut My Summer of Love plays with this. Tamsin is a disturbed girl with a dark sense of humour, but she has a troubled home life and claims her sister died of anorexia. These turn out to be lies but it's left open how genuine Tamsin's issues are.
  • The Girl on the Train - Rachel is a complete mess who harrasses her ex-husband and his new wife constantly. It's not surprising when she is thought a suspect in Megan's murder. But she's an alcoholic because her marriage collapsed after she found out she was barren, and her husband had an affair. She becomes a full-on Woobie when it's discovered that she's the victim of some very cruel Gaslighting.
  • Even in My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) - Tempest Shadow may be the villain, but her backstory is that her horn got broken when she was attacked by an Ursa Minor. Her friends abandoned her for being a freak, and she grew up alone. Her motivation is to get her horn restored so she can be accepted. After Twilight shows her some kindness, she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to earn her redemption.

Franchise Wide

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Loki is very much this trope, both in Thor and in The Avengers. On the Jerkass side, he kills an awful lot of people, to the point that even Thor seems to consider him to be this trope. However, you can't help but feel sorry for him when it's revealed that he's actually an adopted Frost Giant and it's revealed that his main motivation is to prove to his (adoptive) father that he is a worthy son. This also overlaps with Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
  • Thor: The Dark World brutally plays up his Woobie side for a while with his reaction to Frigga's death. When he gets the news, he turns away from the messenger and seems to go into quiet contemplation, and suddenly radiates a kinetic blast that knocks down the chair and table in his cell. When Thor arrives to break him out of jail, he initially appears with his usual Smug Snake bitterness, and when Thor demands he stops, Loki's illusion pings away to reveal the truth: a physically and emotionally exhausted young man slumped against the wall in a disheveled mess, with his cell looking like a twister blew through, indicating that there was far more to his tantrum than what we were shown. Just to hammer the point home, one of the first things he asks Thor after the reveal is "Did she suffer?".
• Raoul Silva from Skyfall. Sold out by M, tortured for five months, and tried to commit suicide via cyanide capsule only to end up horribly disfigured. His only goal now is destroy M and die with her.
  • GoldenEye implies this is true of Bond himself. For instance, the reason he sleeps around so much is actually that he's desperate for companionship due to the number of friends and allies he loses on his missions.
    • The Daniel Craig version of James Bond is pretty much a Byronic Hero who is orphaned at an early age, generally looks unhappy even when he smiles, has a grim outlook on his job and still regrets losing his loved ones and allies, especially Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale (2006), René Mathis in Quantum of Solace and M in Skyfall. On top of this, his adoptive father was killed off by his own foster brother Franz Oberhauser, just because Bond got more endearment than him, and is bent on making Bond's life miserable in any way possible.

A-D

• In A Man Called Otto, Tom Hanks plays the titular character who is a grumpy old man who suffers from a tragic past of his wife being disabled and their baby being killed in a bus crash. He now is irritable towards others and is resentful but it is only because he wants peace and others don't recgonize it.
• Ray Finkle/Lois Einhorn from the first Ace Ventura is a football player that just for missing a decisive field goal at the Super Bowl, became a pariah in his hometown, with his parents bullied until his mom went insane and his father paranoid enough to receive visitors at gunpoint. Finkle himself saw the ruin of his career and his sanity, leading to his commitment to a mental institution. This makes him Unintentionally Sympathetic - but not too much, he's still on a murderous rampage wanting to exact revenge against someone who isn't exactly guilty (Finkle blames Dan Marino for the missed kick based on how he placed the ball).
• Sean in Alaska. Sure, he’s an insufferable asshole, but consider that he’s had to deal with the recent death of his mother, and he is having to adjust to a new home while he is still in mourning, it’s hardly inexplicable.
• The Red Queen from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). Yes, she's (basically) the Ax-Crazy Queen of Hearts. And yes, she's quite evil, what with razing the countryside, unleashing multiple Eldritch Abominations, abusing the Talking Animals, and killing the King. Yet she's also desperately lonely, has an inferiority complex with her sister, and knows that she's only safe as long as people are too afraid to revolt. Also, she does NOT have a Villainous Breakdown after her defeat and punishment (despite her Psychopathic Manchild tendencies), merely making a TRULY heartbreaking face when she realizes that she'll effectively die alone. Hell, she only descends into hysterics post-defeat when the Knave tries to kill her. Given that this is IMMEDIATELY AFTER she just said "At least we have each other", the audience is right there with her.
• Mary Mason aka "Bloody Mary" from American Mary. Mary is a former med student who, as a result of becoming desperate for money, performs graphic Body Horror modifications to underground clients. Though, can you blame her? After getting raped, she got pushed over the edge and slowly becomes more dark and twisted.
• Henry VIII as portrayed in Anne of the Thousand Days. He'll do anything for a male heir, no matter how unethical, unlawful, unpopular, or uncomfortable for himself, but all he gets for many years are daughters and stillborn sons. Small wonder that after the fourth failure, he shouts, "I am accursed!" His ex-wife, as badly as he treated her, pities him.
  • Anne herself spends most of the time as just a Woobie, but she does insist on the execution of every cleric who doesn't recognize her marriage.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus, a Jerkass and Insufferable Genius, with an Annoying Laugh to boot. Once he gets around to writing the Requiem Mass, though, he starts breaking down physically and mentally, and you can't help but feel sorry him.
• The title character in 1981's Arthur (1981) is a downplayed example. He's a devil-may-care millionaire alcoholic playboy nonetheless prone to self-pity regarding his loneliness, desperate to avoid taking on adult responsibilities, and annoying to most of the people around him because of his constant joke-cracking. But beyond the fact that he is a Lonely Rich Kid, he has a generous heart capable of great love, he jokes to make people happy, and he really is funny — it's just that most of the people around him are terminally humorless. In-universe Hobson, his valet and the one person in his immediate circle who truly loves him, sees him as this and goes on to help Arthur find true love — and a little maturity — with a working-class woman who appreciates his good qualities.
• Beetlejuice:
  • Charles and Delia are neurotic, profit-minded and not very respectful toward the home the Maitlands care so much about. Still, Lydia resents them more than they seem to deserve, they have no perspective to understand how their actions are affecting the Maitlands, and Delia is failing to make a career as a sculptor despite her talent, something her own agent cruelly rubs in.
  • Miss Argentina is a rude Obstructive Bureaucrat who committed suicide just because she came in second during a beauty contest, but her misery about being stuck working as a civil servant in an Ironic Hell for all of eternity is a bit pitiable.
• The titular character in Bram Stoker's Dracula, in a departure from the original novel. This Dracula is portrayed more as a Tragic Villain with a serious Rage Against the Heavens, while not going so far as to dilute his menace.
• At first, John Bender from The Breakfast Club comes off like a punk with no reason behind his behavior, but it's later revealed that he has a very bad home life stemming from his father's abuse. He doesn't really change by the end of the movie, but the viewer's perception of him is softened considerably.
• Buffalo '66: played to the hilt with Billy Brown. He's a total jerk, braggard, liar, and kidnapper, but only because he's led such a humiliating and pathetic life, in part due to his absentee parents.
• Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. While it's left ambiguous if the worst of his actions actually happened, he was still a harsh perfectionist who was borderline abusive to the crew for the slightest infractions. However, this stems from his CPTSD from his parents' divorce, his childhood poverty, and trauma from his service, which led him to place his entire self-worth on his rank in the Navy. It's also implied he gave Maryk, Keith, and Keefer numerous chances to shape up even when they proved insubordinate, and he at least respected Maryk prior to the mutiny. It's impossible to feel bad for him during his climactic breakdown on the stand even if it's a consequence of his own actions, as he realizes he's destroyed his career.
• Luke from Cherrybomb (2009). While he undeniably behaves like a Jerk on several occasions, he does have a huge Freudian Excuse - he suffers appalling abuse and neglect at the hands of his family - and is clearly very emotionally vulnerable. The fact that he's tall, dark, and Bishōnen (i.e. the fact that he's played by Robert Sheehan) probably doesn't hurt either.
• Cinderella (2015): In many ways, its interpretation of Lady Tremaine is exactly the criticism people often give the original premise of Cinderella; someone who was initially idealistic gradually broken into cynicism. Many points of the movie are dedicated to showing just how damaged she is, and how much she hates Cinderella for remaining optimistic and cheerful despite suffering her own tragedies. At the very end, her cruel actions are justly retributed upon, but it's hard to not pity her bad luck.
• Citizen Kane: Charles Foster Kane is probably the ur-example in the film medium. He's an arrogant and callous man who believes in nothing but himself, but in the end it turns out all he really wanted in life was to be loved. His tragedy was that his own abrasive personality (along with his relentless Control Freak tendencies) ended up alienating everyone in his life who did love him, until he was a bitter old recluse living out his last days in a magnificent barren mansion.
• Cries and Whispers: Karin is a pretty nasty character filled with hatred and prone to lashing out in rage at everyone around her, and is eager to fire the maid Anna with minimum compensation and little regard to her future. However, she has some pitiable circumstances, being trapped in a loveless marriage to a horrible, cold and unempathetic man much older than herself, which leads to her committing Self-Harm. Her youngest sister is manipulative and insincere towards her and Karin knows this, but still falls for her tricks because she is more desperate for affection than she cares to admit. Karin is also shown to regret some of her biggest Jerkass moments and trying to make up for them, though she keeps making the same mistakes.
• Crimson Peak: Thomas and Lucille Sharpe were both abused by their parents, separated for a long time, are desperate to restore their family fortune and by the end, they both become spirits, with Lucille left behind to haunt Allerdale Hall while Thomas moves on. On the other hand, they're both money grubbing Serial Killers of rich women and Lucille herself being an incestuous Domestic Abuser to Thomas.
• Deep Blue Sea: Susan has watched Alzheimer's ravage her father, is forced to destroy the medical research she's devoted her life to, and has a couple of extremely terrifying run-ins with the sharks, the last of which she doesn't escape. However, she loses some sympathy for disregarding safety protocols while experimenting on the sharks (making her partially responsible for their rampage) and taking a while to show remorse.
• District 9: Wikus van de Merwe is a (fantastical) racist Obstructive Bureaucrat who enjoys working for a corporation that evicts aliens from their homes. However, in the course of the film, he gets contaminated by harmful fluid, is nearly vivisected, becomes a fugitive from his employers and criminals, is separated from his wife, who believes that he cheated on her with a prawn (as the aliens are called), and eventually turns into a prawn whose only form of contact with his wife is via sending her "flowers" made out of scrap, just as he did as a human. In addition to this, he redeems himself over the course of the film, helping the aliens and even risking his life for them.
• Dog Eat Dog: Mad Dog is a deranged killer who murdered his own family, but he's a surprisingly pitiful figure. He's a friendly and dorky fellow who just wants to be accepted and is horrified by his own actions and lack of impulse control.
• Dreamgirls: Effie White started out as pushy, rude, selfish, and self-centered, but when she loses her man to her beautiful friend while she's pregnant with his baby (then he marries her eventually), and kicks her out of the group, its not hard to feel sorry for her. She then goes through Character Development.

E-H

• William "D-Fens" Foster in Falling Down. A divorced husband and a violent, anti-heroic Vigilante Man who took his anger out on every frustration he came across, but whose main motivation was to see his daughter.
• Tyler Durden from Fight Club. He is only a split personality of the narrator and is literally the personified composite of his rage and melancholy; he hates himself, hence his pontificating about self-destruction and hitting bottom. And the narrator, the very person who created him, kills him at the end of the film. However, he is also a nihilistic sociopath.
• Milton Dammers from The Frighteners. Dammers is a deranged and very unstable FBI agent that is obsessed with arresting Frank Bannister for a crime that he is innocent of. But, there's more to him than that. Dammers' work as undercover agent among cultists caused him to sustain multiple massive mutilations and drove him to the brink of insanity. In the extended version, it's also revealed he had been a victim of Charles Manson and his "Family" in 1969
• In The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, Cass the Rules Lawyer clearly has some control issues. To make matters worse, he appears to have invited his ex Joanna to the gaming group in hopes of getting a second chance with her, only for her to hook up with Lodge, basically right in front of him.
• As much as we all laugh at his suffering at the beginning, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez is very easy to sympathise with, especially after the fight with his brother. He's a thief, a rapist, a cad, a scoundrel. He's loud, rude, vengeful, mean and selfish. However, he's also personable and the most likable character in the entire movie, and we end up feeling kind of bad for him during the movie's second half, where he's first rejected by his brother whom he loves, then later beaten senseless by Corporal Wallace and finally almost hanged for the third time, by which point the viewer really has started to worry about him. He has the broadest emotional range of all the characters and has a cheerul and welcoming demeanor. Furthermore, the audience identifies with his more endearing character flaws, such as his short temper and almost as short attention span. In short, it's somewhat ironic that the most sympathetic and likable character is the one who's most morally ambiguous.
• God's Not Dead: Professor Radisson is not only a Jerkass who forces his atheist beliefs on his students, but also patronizes his girlfriend for her Christian beliefs as well. Even despite all of this, it's not hard to feel sorry for him when you realize the reason for him being so against Christianity is because he lost his mother to cancer when he was only twelve years old. He was hopeless to save her, despite them both praying to God. It's clear that even though it happened years ago, he clearly hasn't gotten the help he needed. He starts slipping into Unintentionally Sympathetic territory when the Designated Hero of the story, Josh, exploits his trauma for winning a debate. He later realizes the error of his ways, and tries to apologize to his girlfriend. However, he's killed off before any Character Development.

• Hang 'Em High: The vigilantes, save for Miller (who is secretly an outlaw himself). They hung an innocent man without giving him a chance to prove his case. Still, they are previously law-abiding men with roots in the community who had logical reasons to believe he'd murdered two of their neighbors and that the law was spread too thin to punish him. Five of the nine (Jenkins, Tommy, Matt Stone, Charlie Blackfoot, and Maddow) feel remorse for nearly killing an innocent man. They find themselves being hunted down by him, forcing them to choose between becoming outright outlaws by making another attempt on Cooper's life or losing their livelihoods by submitting to arrest or fleeing the territory.
• Amber Von Tussle from the 2007 adaption of Hairspray. She may be a bratty Alpha Bitch, but at the end of the movie, she loses her crown to a child and her boyfriend. She also falls from a set hard enough to hurt her ankle. She then talks coyly with a black dancer, implying a Heel–Face Turn.
• Joe Dick in Hard Core Logo. He can be amazingly self-centered, he's an unrepentant liar, and he gets his closest friends caught up in his self-sabotaging antics, but he obviously cares so much in his own screwed-up way that you wind up feeling sorry for him. Especially considering that he shoots himself.
• The titular character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is this in spades. He/She gets a botched sex change operation in order to obtain a Citizenship Marriage out of East Germany and, upon arriving in America, has to work as a prostitute to survive. She is also a snappy, bad-tempered diva who treats her band members like absolute shit - esspecially Yitzhak - which delves into outright psychological abuse at time.
• Harry from the first two Home Alone films and the hotel concierge from the second film. Harry is a hot-tempered burglar who tries to bite off Kevin's fingers in the first film and tries to shoot Kevin in Central Park in the second film but considering all the sadistic and nasty things Kevin does to him(and Marv), especially in the second film, few people wouldn't feel sorry for him. The concierge in the second film, meanwhile, is a little overeager to bust Kevin for "credit-card fraud" and is an all-around smarmy jerk but watching him get outsmarted and humiliated by Kevin, and later slapped in the face by Kevin's mother, makes him pitiable.
• Hugo: The Station Inspector. His leg was crippled in World War I, and beneath his stern, relentless persona is a lonely man who is harsh on orphans because it reminds him of the pain of being one himself.

I-K

• Inception: Mal. Yes, she ruined Cobb's life by framing him for her suicide, but this was only because she had spent so much time in the dream world that she was unable to distinguish what was a dream and what was reality. This led to her killing herself, convinced that she would wake up in reality. In the end, all she wanted was to go someplace where she could be happy forever.
• Henry Bowers in It (2017). In contrast to his original incarnation and the version from It (1990), this Henry, while still a thoroughly nasty human being, is also allowed to have a few shreds of humanity, such as giving Bill a "pass" from bullying because of his brother going missing and breaking down over his father's relentless abuse in a deleted scene. His older self from It: Chapter Two no longer qualifies, due to having been Driven to Madness to the point where any trace of goodness (and sanity) in him is gone.
• The Journey of Natty Gann: The gang of delinquents whom Natty briefly falls in with are all struggling to survive during the Great Depression when they have even fewer resources and opportunities than most people and lack the optimism Natty's upcoming family reunion gives her, as they indicate that they had pretty troubled home lives. That being said, they are also unrepentant thieves who abandon Natty while fleeing from a policeman.
• Kick-Ass:
  • Big Daddy/Damon McCready, also lean towards Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds territory.
  • Red-Mist to a lesser extent. He's much more sympathetic in the movie in comparison to the comic.
    • This will evidently continue in the sequel, as Red-Mist as Motherfucker's more violent acts are going to be removed, particularly the rape, to which Christopher Mintz-Plasse flat-out said "Thank God." He's still pretty evil in the sequel though as he murders Dave's father, kills Colonel Stars And Stripes, and attempts to rape Night Bitch (and when that fails, he puts her in the hospital).
• The Kid (2000): Russ, the film's protagonist. He grew up to be a huge cynical scumbag but had a horrible childhood with an abusive father, a mother dying from cancer, and a friend who ditched him to be with a Gang of Bullies.

L-O

• It’s hard not to feel a little bit sorry for Masten Thrust in The Last Dinosaur, an old man who feels the world has left him behind, and the obsessive hunt for the titular dinosaur, a ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, is the only thing giving him any sense of purpose.
• Nicholas Garrigan in The Last King of Scotland is a conceited, ignorant and selfish individual, constantly chasing the skirts of married women. However, seeing him getting meathooks shoved through his chest and then suspended from the ceiling, does make one feel sorry for him.
• Let It Ride. Jay Trotter (played by Richard Dreyfuss) is practically the Trope Codifier. As the movie tagline states: "He drinks. He smokes. He gambles. He curses. He thinks about committing adultery. You'll love him." His best friend Loomey is even more of one.
• Mackenna's Gold: Hesh-Ke is an outlaw shunned by her people (her name means "murderer" in the Apache language). She abuses the gang's prisoner Inga even before Mackenna shows an interest in her, after which Hesh-Ke makes multiple attempts to kill Inga out of murderous jealousy. And yet, she isn't hard to pity. However, in the past, she and Mackenna were lovers and only fell out when he had her brother hanged, leaving Hesh-Ke understandably upset and implying that she wasn't always an outlaw. It's implied that her own tribe disfigured Hesh-Ke before exiling her, possibly due to her relationship with Mackenna. Hesh-Ke is treated poorly by Colorado's gang, with Colorado casually offering her to another gang member to stop him from raping Inga, to Hesh-Ke's visible discomfort. She has no visible way of escaping that life, and shows hints of being disturbed at the idea of growing old in it. Then, when Mackenna returns to her life and she shows signs of forgiving him, he displays no interest in her, but in the white woman Inga. Her continued interest in Mackenna (which displaces any Gold Fever she may have) is treated with derisive amusement by everyone. When it looks like Inga has been released and Hesh-Ke will have a chance to win back Mackenna, Inga immediately comes back. Finally, when Hesh-Ke is seemingly killed at the end, no one even seems to notice or care.
• General Zod from Man of Steel is a genocidal megalomaniac. But Micheal Shannon's performance, his character depth and his sorrowful tone of voice when his army is sent back to the Phantom Zone and his plans to create a new Krypton on Earth are ruined push him into this territory.
• Matinee: Andy loses some likability due to his enthusiasm for shooting frogs and jingoism, but the blatant way everyone treats him like The Friend Nobody Likes when he desperately wants to befriend them can feel pitiable.

• Not Okay: Done purposefully with Danni who is effectively made to be both unlikeable and at the same time pitiable to emphasize the problem with cancel culture. While her actions are absolutely deplorable, the backlash she receives ends up being disproportionate, varying from people accosting her in stores, sending death threats to her and her family, and posting her home address online and encouraging others to harass or even attack her. All the while she was a lonely and depressed young woman who went from being ignored to being the most hated person in America with people calling her worse than Hitler and all because she did something ridiculous and had the bad luck to get caught in a bigger lie she either wasn't able or willing to untangle herself from
• Lee Woo-jin in Oldboy (2003). Sure, he is the king of Disproportionate Retribution and a manipulative, sadistic, ruthless, evil man, but still, many viewers will say that his flashback to his sister's suicide is the most heartwrenching scene in the movie.

P-R

• Pitch Perfect gives us Aubrey, the captain of the Barden Bellas acapella group. Throughout most of the movie, she is overly controlling of everything the group does, refuses to take anyone else's ideas into consideration, and is constantly at Becca's throat over her "alt-girl" appearance, criticisms of the group's (admittedly) boring and overdone performances, and her Ship Tease friendship with Jesse, a singer for their rival group. She even cruelly insults her best friend Chloe for wanting Becca back after her falling out with the group. It takes Becca apologizing and then starting to leave for Aubrey to admit that her obsession with perfection stems from her father, who demanded nothing less from her lest she be disowned.
  Aubrey: "I am my father's daughter. And he always said: 'If at first you don't succeed, pack your bags.'"
  • Becca is this as well. She is abrasive in her apathy towards her father's wishes and the affections of others, almost never tries to frame her misgivings about the group's performance diplomatically, and nearly ruins her friendship with Jesse simply because he tried to help her when she didn't want it; she yelled at him twice when she felt his assistance was only making things worse for her. It is revealed early on that her parents divorced, she implies in a conversation with Jesse that it was not an amicable separation, and explains to her dad that the experience soured her on forming meaningful relationships with anyone, even on maintaining her existing relationship with him.
  Becca: "Don't take it personal, I shut everyone out. It was just easier."
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Sure, Neil Page may be a bit standoffish, and even acts like a massive dick at times, including snapping at people with little provocation on their end, but considering the absolute hell he goes through to get home to his family in time for Thanksgiving (including nearly dying on multiple occasions), it's difficult to not feel sorry for him.
• The Quiet: Nina is quite cruel to Dot at first, resenting her for living there with her family, even though it's because Dot's dad just died and she's an orphan. However, it soon turns out that Nina's dad is molesting her, with her seeing no way out except murdering him, making her very sympathetic (including to Dot) and possibly also a source of her cruel behavior, letting it out on someone else.
• The Raven (1963): Dr. Bedlo has Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and is a pathetic Dirty Coward. Nonetheless, he does sound pitiful talking about his desire for respect, Awful Wedded Life, and certainty that the handsome Rexford cannot be his biological son. He also ends up being Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves and threatened with torture after betraying the heroes, and ends the movie trapped in the body of a bird despite pulling a Hazy-Feel Turn.
• Reap the Wild Wind:
  • Captain Jack Phillips has an ambitious streak and badmouths Steve more than Steve deserves. However, it's hard to deny that things just keep going wrong for him. He's unjustly blamed for wrecking his own ship, is harshly denied the opportunity to command the shipping line's first steamship, and demoted to second mate of an old wreck. His attempts to marry Loxi are repeatedly interrupted and just when his future looks secure, he's left thinking that he'll lose his career and his chance at a future with Loxi. This drives him to join forces with the wreckers and sink the ship he's spent the movie dreaming of commanding. He's immediately exposed put on trial, and forced to see that Loxi is disillusioned with him even before it turns out that her cousin died in the wreck. The Internal Reveal of Drusilla's death causes Jack to face the possibility of being executed, and also leaves him remorseful on a personal level. By the last few scenes, he's utterly aware of how far he's fallen, and has no hope that things will turn out better. The best ending he can get is a Redemption Equals Death fate.
  • Dan Cutler takes part in his brother's shady and destructive wrecking operations and shares a smile with him when they talk about having a witness killed. However, he's very affectionate toward his fiancée Drusilla, and when he finds out that the wreckers' actions killed Drusilla, his heartbreak, remorse, implied Death Seeker tendencies, and murder at the hands of his own brother turn him into a very tragic character.
  • Downplayed with Steve. He's a kind and honorable man for the most part, but his spanking of Loxi and sabotage of her and Jack's attempt to get Married at Sea cost him some likability. Still, it's easy to pity him when Loxi rejects his marriage proposal by saying she's been leading him on to help the man she really loves, then publicly humiliates him at a party. The way that people constantly accuse him of villainous actions while he's striving to do the right thing adds to how pitiable he can be.
  • Downplayed with Ivy. She has several passive Alpha Bitch moments toward Loxi, but her father is dying and the long-time acquaintance she's romantically interested in is ignoring her in favor of a girl he just met.

• Brigadier-General Francis Xavier Hummel in The Rock. He's a leader of the rogue Marines who steals the VX gas-armed rockets from one of the military bunkers. Not to mention taking a big group of tourists hostage on the Alcatraz Island and planning to kill the San Francisco's population unless the government pay up the ransom. Before his said terrorism plan, there was his deceased wife. As it turns out, his main motive is to give compensation to the deceased soldiers' military widows and orphans. He also regrets when his men kills the Navy SEALs in the shootout. Also, Hummel puts Stanley Goodspeed and John Patrick Mason in one of the prison cells, telling them that the guidance chips are to be returned or he will kill a hostage. The next day, when he launches one of the VX rockets, he diverts its course from San Francisco into the sea, making it a bluff. Pity that Cpt. Darrow and Frye weren't about to agree with Hummel aborting the mission, and they are actually in just for the money. Hummel gets involved in the Mexican Standoff, which results in Mjr. Tom Baxter shooting Sgt. Crisp and getting killed. Hummel himself was fatally wounded after killing Crisp. He tells Goodspeed about the remaining VX rockets before dying.

S-U

• Vincent from St. Vincent (2014) behaves like a grouchy old drunk, but opens up to young Oliver, who eventually learns of the deteriorating elements in Vincent's life (his debt, addictions, post-war outlook, sick wife, etc.).
• Saving Private Ryan: Pvt. Mellish is incredibly rude to rest of the squad (especially Upham), but as a Jew he's the most personally affected by the war. In the establishing scene at Omaha beach, he's handed a Hitler Youth knife as a war trophy, to which he quips "and now it's a shabbat challah cutter, right?" and then breaks down into Manly Tears. He also gets possibly the cruellest death in the film, via being slowly stabbed to death while pinned to the floor helpless and pleading for his life.
• Alejandro Gillick from Sicario is not a nice man. Ruthless, devoid of emotion and depending on the viewer's perspective, jumps over the Moral Event Horizon when he murders Fausto Alarcon's family in cold blood before murdering Alarcon himself. But his backstory (He was a simple Lawyer before his wife was decapitated while his daughter was murdered by being thrown into a vat of acid) can make him come off as sympathetic. Even his theme implies this.
• Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai. He's a loud, boisterous, bumbling braggart who shamelessly makes a show of himself and yells at the weak and helpless, even though deep down inside, he's deeply empathetic to their plight. Also, his life is terrible. He was orphaned as an infant, has had to beg, borrow and steal to vaguely pass himself off as a samurai, which gets him no respect at all from the other samurai, he screws up constantly and feels terrible about it, and the whole time, he's either isolated from the group or completely alone. It's hard not to pity Kikuchiyo, really.
• Sin City: While Becky does betray her (sympathetic) friends in Old Town to ruthless gangsters, it generally isn't viewed as her crossing the Moral Event Horizon. Fans sometimes sympathize with her motivations of wanting a life outside of the sex trade, and feel that she was right to worry that the mob might have been able to kill her mother despite Gail's offer to protect her. It helps that she does seem somewhat remorseful while talking to a captured Gail. Having a chunk of her skin bitten out by a vengeful Gail and being abused and threatened by the mob also makes Becky somewhat pitiable.
• Harry Osborn from the Spider-Man Trilogy. Also, his father, Norman Osborn. Also, Peter Parker's pretty much always been The Woobie, but in the third movie, he becomes a bit of a Jerkass after gaining the Venom symbiote.
• Teddy Duchamp in Stand by Me is still the most unstable of Gordie's friends, but he also get part of his ear burned off by his own Shell-Shocked Veteran father, who he still respects in-spite of this and is shown to be outright suicidal, when he stands his ground infront of an oncoming train. Teddy has also had the less pleasant qualities of his craziness toned down compared to his book counterpart. He also doesn't get himself and some other buddies killed in a drunk driving crash later in life. Though, he does end up doing jail time later in life.
• Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He was a mass-murdering warlord at one point, but you can't help but feel bad for him as his happy life from the end of TOS' "Space Seed" had been ruined by the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI.
• The Strange Thing About the Johnsons: While nowhere near as sympathetic as her husband, Joan is aware of the sexual abuse Isaiah forces onto Sidney, but is desperately trying to preserve the image of the perfect family, even if it means not taking action. After losing her husband to the accident, Joan is forced to kill Isaiah when he tried to push her into the fireplace. She then burns Sidney's second memoir, keeping the family's dark secret to herself.
• Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success, largely because most people he meets seem to loathe him before he even gives them reason to (which, granted, he probably will). And because his boss, J.J. Hunsecker, is just so much worse.This is a major departure from the book, in which the inspector was a stone-cold, almost antagonist. It was surprising to see him become a relatable character in the adaptation.
• The three main characters of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. If it weren't for the Cycle of Revenge which started the events in the first place, they'll be very sympathetic characters.
  • Ryu, a deaf-mute aspiring artist who leave art school to take care of his ill sister, who badly needs a kidney transplant. He seeks help from the organ traffickers, out of desperation after he was fired from his job. However, they swindle him out of the money, leaving him unable to pay to the surgeon. With the help from his girlfriend, Cha Yeong-mi, he plans a kidnapping scheme. Unfortunately, kidnapping his boss' daughter would attract the attention of the police, so instead, they kidnap Yu-sun, the daughter of Ryu's boss' friend, Park Dong-jin. As things were to turn for the worse, Ryu's sister commits suicide after finding out about the scheme. In her letter, it asks Ryu to return the daughter safety to her father. Unfortunately, while Ryu was burying his sister at the river, Yu-sun accidentally falls into the river and drowns when Ryu was unable to hear her. Remorsefully, he places the little girl's dead body by the side of the river. Afterwards, he went on to get revenge on the organ dealers. His days doesn't turn out for the better, however, when while exploring Yeong-mi's apartment building, and getting into a lift; he founds his girlfriend's dead body in a stretcher. Consumed with grief, he swears vengeance on his girlfriend's killer as he holds his dead girlfriend's hand. He waited for several hours at Dong-jin's residence but to no avail. Ryu went back to his apartment, only to find that Dong-jin had managed to break into his house. In an attempt to sneak in through the door, he was knocked out unconscious by the booby trap on the door knob. He was binded by Dong-jin, then at a river where Yu-sun had drowned, have his Achilles tendons slashed, and drowns after a minute of trashing about.
  • Cha Yeong-mi, girlfriend of Ryu. She's a radical anarchist who suggests to her boyfriend about the kidnapping scheme. Her misery is specifically because of her cruel Electric Torture by Dong-jin. She apologizes about Yu-sun's death, then warns her torturer that she's part of a terrorist organization before she was killed.
  • President Park Dong-jin also counts. He was a divorced husband and a former boss of Ilishin Electronics. His daughter was kidnapped by Ryu and Yeong-mi, who asks for the ransom to be delivered. Even the director states that he was a victim of circumstances. Just when Yu-sun was about to be returned to her father, however, she drowned in the river when Ryu was unable to hear her cries for help. Dong-jin swears vengeance on the kidnappers at his daughter's funeral. After finding out about their identities, he starts by going to Yeong-mi's apartment and places her through an Electric Torture. But he also had to kill the delivery boy who deliver the noodles to Yeong-mi's house, the person whom the woman called earlier. He hears Yeong-mi's apology about Yu-sun's death, but ignored her warnings that she's part of a terrorist group, knowing of his identity, will kill him if she dies, so he kills her anyway. Later on, Dong-jin founds out Ryu's apartment and waits for his enemy to arrive back. After Ryu was knocked out unconscious by the booby trap, he brings Ryu to the riverbed where his daughter had drowned. Though he acknowledges that Ryu is a good man, he had no choice, so he drowns the kidnapper. Unfortunately, just as Dong-jin was burying Ryu's dismembered body parts at a desolate location, a group of men arrived to stab him fatally, with one of them placing a note on his chest to identify themselves as a terrorist group. It all turns out that they were the same people that Yeong-mi is talking about. The group then leaves Dong-jin dying beside his car. We've got a serious Downer Ending here.
• Kim Man-seob from A Taxi Driver is a cynical, shifty, taxi driver with a Hair-Trigger Temper, and a Dirty Coward who abandons the revolutionaries and the journalist more than once. However, he's a veteran from Saudi Arabia who spent all his earnings on hospital bills for his wife and daughter; his wife is dead, his daughter is home alone and he's thrown into a bloody revolution where his life is at stake. Despite all he does it's hard not to feel sorry for him.
• Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, though lower on the "jerkass" than most examples here. He was an unstable, bigoted Vigilante Man who wishes to cleanse the "fifth" in the streets. But his main problems was because he was suffering from severe insomnia and depression. Not to mention that as a taxi driver, he was forced to work in the dangerous streets containing pimps, addicts and thieves.
• Franklin Hardesty in the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Considered one of the most annoying horror movie characters of all time, but consider: 1. It's obvious he didn't want to come on this trip in the first place. 2. He seems to be developmentally challenged, but is smart enough to realize the only reason his sister and her friends dragged him along in the first place is a feeling of obligation, and he resents being seen as such.
• Ben from The Tiger Makes Out. He's a mean-tempered, antisocial know-it-all who looks down on everyone who passes him by as stupid and uncultured, and he's a sexual predator at worst. The thing is, however, his life is horrible. He has relentless bad luck. His neighbours and colleagues don't recognise him even though he's been seeing them for years, his landlord rips him off by having him pay the rent even though she sold the apartment three years before... nobody gives him a break!
• Titanic (1997): Caledon Hockley. Being a product of his times, he genuinely cannot understand how Rose could possibly be happy as the wife of a homeless man with no financial security. He is a classic Crazy Jealous Guy who treats Rose like a possession rather a person, though it should be noted that this is also a direct by-product of his upbringing and culture. Rose and Jack themselves, meanwhile, are clearly ahead of their time as far as their values go(this may explain why so many people view them as anachronistic characters). In short, he genuinely loves Rose but does not know how to show it properly, he loses her to another man, and then gets to New York thinking that she's dead.
• Louis Winthorpe in Trading Places. He was a snobby Blue Blood commodities broker who ends up being framed for embezzlement and drug dealing, gets incarcerated, loses his home and wealth, and gets shunned by all his friends and fiance, who's also led to think that he's been cheating on her. The shock of all this proves so much that he gets Driven to Suicide twice. He gets better after he learns that he went through all that because of a bet by his bosses of only one dollar, and he gets back at them magnificently.
• Tia Russell from Uncle Buck. She's extremely harsh and critical to everyone around her, especially her titular uncle, but is also extremely depressed, bordering on clinical.
• Reece the little brother in the Short Film Underwater. While he's pretty mean to his older brother Jack (who is The Woobie full on) and tells him he hates him, it's clear the kid's got problems. He's always in trouble at school, and his parents don't seem to get to the root of the problem and blatantly compare him to Jack. When the rest of the family finds Jack Driven to Suicide, he cries in his mother's arms. The parents might be neglectful too, but they are likewise devastated at finding their son's body.

V-X

• Valentine: Jeremy Melton is a ruthless Serial Killer in the present day, but one can feel sympathy for how he turned out, given that he was framed for sexual assault before he'd reached his teen years and his life essentially ruined. In his own words, what he suffered became too much for him to handle and the only recourse was taking revenge on the people who put him there. He also has a soft spot for his girlfriend Kate, who was kind to him even though she rejected him and was the only member of the Girl Posse who didn't corroborate the frame job, even taking time to murder a man who was stalking her.
• Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His brother's death is what turns him into an alcoholic like he was today.

• Gary and, to a lesser extent, Andy from The World's End. Gary's pretty selfish and only cares about completing the Golden Mile, but then you find out what his life has been like, and that the closest thing to a success he's had in his whole life was a failed attempt at a pub crawl. Andy is constantly serious, always talking down to people (especially Gary) and criticizing everything he does. But, when you find out why, you can understand why he's so cynical.
• X-Men: First Class:
  • Erik may be the Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain, but he really has gone through some terrible events in his life. It doesn't help that his argument against the humans holds some validity.
  • YMMV on whether or not he counts as a Jerkass or a Woobie, but Hank to a certain degree. He rejects Raven's true mutant form and decides to take the serum to fix himself. He not only transforms into a much more mutated form, but he also loses Raven to Magneto.

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