American Ultra: According to Lasseter, Mike is actually the best result the ULTRA program ever achieved. While every other subject inevitably failed (in some fashion), he succeeded.
Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. He has that aura around him that seems like he will come out of the war without a scratch. And he surfs! The Redux, however, subverts his aura of invincibility after the main characters steal his surfboard and he's reduced to sending out pre-taped messages begging for it back.
Austin Powers: Austin is described as "the ultimate gentleman spy. Irresistible to woman, deadly to his enemies, a legend in his own time."
The Avengers (1998): Mrs. Peel is perfect at whatever she does, from science to chess to swordplay, making Steed's character seem somewhat redundant.
Megan from Barely Lethal is the best teenage assassin in her Spy School, much to the chagrin of some of her peers.
Sam "Ace" Rothstein in Casino — one of the very first things you find out about him is he is a master gambler, who never loses a bet.
The above is also true to an extent with Zack Snyder's Justice League, minus "carrying entire buildings of civilians to safety", and Superman also leaves some room to Aquaman and Wonder Woman to rid Earth of Steppenwolf even though he's also perfectly capable of steamrolling him in this version. His frost breath necessitates even less effort than in the 2017 theatrical cut.
Drop Dead Gorgeous: Tammy Curry has a reputation for excelling at everything she does (track, soccer, and the gun club), is an early favorite to win the beauty pageant, and is one of the only girls who is looking beyond the pageant when she enters it, being intrigued by the scholarship offers.
Ash from the Evil Dead movies starts out as something of a nebbish, but by the last scene of the third film, has grown to become an Ace.
Ferris Bueller, frustratingly so (to many of the other characters as well as to some viewers). His defining character trait is that he gets away with everything.
Scarlett from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is so used to being one of the best that she takes any failure much harder than anyone else.
The Great Leslie from The Great Race is this, causing his less-than-perfect archrival to cry out, "Your hair is always perfect, your clothes are always white!" at him. Leslie is one-half parody of this trope. Since The Ace is already something of a parody, you're really getting 50% more bang for your buck here.
In The Guardian (2006) we have Jake Fischer, a champion swimmer who can outperform anyone else in the class, including the instructor, Senior Chief Randall, who held all the records before Fischer arrived.
Sarah Ashburn from The Heat, to the point where the other officers hate her for being so proud.
Metropolitan Police Constable (later Sandford police Sergeant) Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz could be a Deconstruction of an exceptionally competent and rigidly professional police officer. With how good and dedicated he is to his job, he has no room for any other part of his life. His improbably good abilities also get him shunted off to the country because he's making everyone else look bad. This backfires on the Met, because when they want him back he won't go.
Minnesota Fats from The Hustler (1961), unquestioningly recognized by everyone as the best pool player ever.
Harry Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life; Harry was pretty much The Ace at everything he did: star football player in high school, All-American in college, Phi Beta Kappa member, research engineer right of college and later, awarded the Medal of Honor (the highest military award there is) for his actions as a Naval aviator. Everything we are shown that his brother, George, wanted to do.
Elmont from Jack the Giant Slayer is the most brave and capable of the Guardians, and holds Jack in low esteem at first.
The version of James Bond played by Pierce Brosnan qualifies. He has a habit of upstaging people (but usually the villain) at whatever their skillset is. No matter what they can do or how long they've been doing it, Bond will do it better than them with no prep time or practice. At least when it comes to sword fighting, this trope even applies to Brosnan in Real Life, as Toby Stephensnote it's worth noting that Stephens is 16 years Brosnan's junior and has a more muscular build than his older co-star reveals in one of the bonus features on the Die Another Day Blu-Ray.
Stephens: I'm slightly cheesed off with Pierce, who hardly came in, has just picked [the sword fighting] up as we've gone along. I mean, he's brilliant, he's just gone on with it, while I've been practicing it for months!
John Tucker from John Tucker Must Die. He's awfully handsome, good at sports, rich, and loved by everyone, especially the girls. Even though he's a famous womanizer every single girl still want to be with him. He's so perfect that no attempt to destroy his popularity works and in the end he's still simply awesome.
John Wick: John is basically a Living Legend, everyone that knows him have nothing but respect and fear of him. In the sequel we see him doing one true job (killing a member of the High Table during a public event with a high security level) and only encounter problems after the target is dead.
Juan of the Dead: Preacher Jones, the English-speaking former aid-worker. He decapitates an entire horde of zombies by shooting a harpoon with a line attached and driving in circles. Later he announces that he will "kick arse for the Lord!" Too bad Lázaro accidentally shoots him in the chest with his speargun.
The diminutive, middle-aged Mr. Miyagi in the original Karate Kid series is an absolutely invincible karate master who never comes close to losing a single fight, in any of the four movies in which he appears, even when he's up against several strong young men who are themselves black belts. Any time someone threatens him, it's a given the character will get his butt whipped before you can say "Banzai!"
Eggsy from Kingsman: The Secret Service was more or less this (badass driver, pretty adept traceur, Royal Marine trainee and high IQ) to begin with and over the course of the movie becomes even more so in several ways. He even successfully impersonated a member of high society, which just three days before would have been, by his own admission, his biggest obstacle as a Kingsman.
The Knowledge: Ted passes the legendarily difficult exam that London taxi drivers have to take in a record thirteen and three-quarter months; many others take two years, or seven, or ten.
In the Leap! trilogy, Shane Turner is a master of parkour, the leader of the crew, and in Rise Of The Beast he is the most knowledgeable about scripture.
First and foremost, Doctor Strange. Not only is he the (unofficial) Sorcerer Supreme of MCU Earth despite his relatively limited time training in the mystic arts, but he's the keeper of the Time Stone, gave Thanos more of a run for his money than basically any other hero in Avengers: Infinity War but he was the one to orchestrate the Mad Titan's demise by playing the mother of all Batman Gambits, even being the one to call in The Cavalry when all seemed lost. Finally, while he's not the strongest of all the heroes, he more than makes up for it with his genius, skill and sheer force of will (and even then films such as Spider-Man: No Way Home have shown he's only getting stronger and better as things progress).
Then there's Iron Man. Not only was he the one to start the MCU as we know it, but he's an experienced fighter, a second-to-none multitasker, an incredible Gadgeteer Genius with expertise in all sorts of scientific fields (built all his suits himself, including his first one which he built in a cave, with a box of scraps, was able to stabilise time travel in Avengers: Endgame and had a thorough grasp of Extremis and the biochemistry thereof despite it being thirteen years ago... and he was drunk... and sleeping with a sexy scientist.) Did we forget to mention he's also a billionaire, playboy and philanthropist?
Hawkeye. The only member of the core Avengers to not have any superpowers or enhancements whatsoever and is just a normal family man with a bow and arrow. Yet he's still considered one of Earth's mightiest just because he's that damn good.
Black Widow herself is considered the best of all the Black Widows (which is some pretty heavy competition) and was placed on the Avengers Initiative despite not having any real superpowers, but because she was the best damn spy, assassin, martial artist and intel collector in the business.
Lest we forget Captain America, the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan himself. A born leader and strategist with a Heroic Willpower and Nerves of Steel to make any man envious, one of if not the greatest martial artists on Earth and represents the peak physique (though in this version it's a bit more exaggerated) of humanity and the one to give a Rousing Speech that even Rocket Raccoon will take seriously. There's a reason he's a Living Legend who even Tony felt inferior to upon meeting him. If there was any doubt of his status, it's fully eradicated in Endgame, where he beats Thanos whilst wielding Mjolnir. He's the only human in the entire setting (so far) to have proven worthy of wielding the power of Thor.
Just as in the comics, Thor, Prince of Asgard, God of Thunder. It's telling that many of the Avengers rejoice when he joins the battlefield, while his enemies collectively shit themselves.
Jim Goose dominates the first half of the movie Mad Max. He has a great time even Just Before the Fall.
The Matrix: Neo. Morpheus might be the captain of the ship, but Neo is the star player.
Captain Amazing from Mystery Men is a subversion. He seems like The Ace for his first two scenes in the movie, then turns out to be a panicky, self-serving dolt.
In Our Man Flint, Derek Flint is a ludicrously competent Captain Ersatz of James Bond, with all of the latter's traits turned up to eleven. The Government tries to give him a code book? No need, he's designed a better one. They try to get him a plane? He'll fly his own, thanks anyway. Training? He's a master fencer, martial artist, and dancer. He can meditate so deeply that it passes for death, and wake up with no ill effects. He can speak Italian so fluently that it fools natives. He does complicated surgery with a letter opener. He can tell you what city a Bouillabaisse was made in just from tasting it once. The whole movie is like this. And somehow James Coburn makes it awesome instead of annoying.
Westley of The Princess Bride is a rare example of this character being the main protagonist. He establishes his Ace cred by beating a fencing master who's been perfecting his art for 20 years while he's only been studying for at most 5, beating a 500-pound giant in a contest of strength, and beating the cunning strategist Vizzini in a battle of wits. In fact, in the early days of this wiki The Westley was the name of this trope, but it was renamed when the wiki trended away from fictional Trope Namers.
Benny Rodriguez of The Sandlot is by far the best of the kids of the Sandlot at the game, is a great guy in general, and is so fast that he ends up "pickling" the Beast, a dog feared by pretty much the entire neighborhood's kids. In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, Benny goes on to become a professional baseball player for the Dodgers, where his speed has earned him the nickname "The Jet."
In the middle section of Sin City, the character of Miho is introduced. She's mysterious and silent, but soon proven to be extremely deadly and efficient in the art of combat. She's a prostitute on top of that, though her skills in that category are never revealed. Nevertheless, she is by far the deadliest of the girls of Old Town.
The Star Wars franchise has Obi-Wan Kenobi. There are many highly capable characters in the series, but most are weighed down by massive, plot-relevant personal flaws, and/or are specialized in one field. Not Kenobi. He's an Ideal Hero, An Officer And A Gentleman, Four-Star Badass, Magic Knight, Ace Pilot, expert diplomat, and a Master Swordsman who has probably the most impressive record as a One-Man Army and duelist in the canon, having bested every notable Sith-aligned warrior of his time (except for Sidious and Dooku), including his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. There are people better than him at certain things, but none who excel at so many fields simultaneously while still maintaining impeccable moral character.
Kurt Russel's character in Sky High (2005) comes across as this. Gwen seems to be this, too, before the reveal that she's the Big Bad.
Subverted in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. An overly heroic super messiah comes at the last minute, gives a rousing speech on how everyone should work together to win the game and singlehandedly bursts through the giant gates. He is instantly shot in the chest and loses all of his 99 lives. Made even funnier by the fact that he's played by Elijah Wood, and instead of having an actual name, he's simply known as "The Guy."
There's a reason You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Everyone is in awe of his skills, he wins a tug of war with six men casually, blocks bullets with his bare hands, and brings a cornerstore barbershop into a business that rivals a corporation with shear zeal and energy. He loses a bit of his mojo with the cultural dissonance when coming to America but quickly regains it.
