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Total Nerd

Hollywood loves a good redemption story, which is why there are a lot of movie heroes who&nbsp;start their respective films&nbsp;as no-good villains. Watching a good guy be good is fine, but watching a bad guy put aside his criminal nature for the common good of those around him is something special. Luke Skywalker is boring;&nbsp;it&#39;s Han that audiences really like (even though Han&#39;s villainy can&#39;t hold a candle to what the heroes on this list got up to in their past lives).&nbsp;

There is&nbsp;nothing moviegoers like more than a good twist. Make a hero bad, make a villain good - who cares, just defy expectations in some way. Giving a hero a complicated and dark past is a great way to add some nuance to an otherwise black and white film. Sure, the hero is doing good now - but what did they get up to before the cameras were rolling?&nbsp;

12 Movie Heroes Who Started Out As Bad People

Fictional Character

Jake Williams

Entertainment

Characters going undercover is one of the best ways&nbsp;to heap a whole lot of tension onto a movie. These undercover characters aren&#39;t just getting closer to the bad guys;&nbsp;they tend to make actual bonds with people they grow to really care for, which are eventually ruined after those characters realize the protagonist in question was lying about everything. These films have a sense of dread that slowly builds throughout the runtime, as the audience knows the cover is going to be blown eventually.&nbsp;

The best of these films use the undercover character as a way to show both sides of&nbsp;the&nbsp;story. Maybe the bad guys aren&#39;t so bad. Maybe they have reasons for what they&#39;re doing. Or&nbsp;maybe the bad guys are absolutely horrific and every second the main character spends undercover is terrifying.

Vote up the characters who pulled off their undercover alias the best.

16 Characters Who Go Undercover And Put Their Lives On The Line

General

Lists that rank the best and worst film series, sequels, prequels, threequels, and other ways movie studios chew up and regurgitate good ideas to squeeze out every last dignity-free penny.

Super-Franchise Me

Controversy

A movie becoming too big of a hit can be a double-edged sword for the creatives involved. Don&#39;t believe that? Ask George Lucas how he feels about the Star Wars fandom. The fact of the matter is that in the years between movie releases, fans&#39; love for the product hardens, and it becomes harder and harder for them to accept sequels that do things a little differently than the original film they love. This is why some of the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/divisive-love-it-or-hate-it-sci-fi-movies/tyler-mitchell" target="_blank">most polarizing movies</a> are sequels to universally beloved films.

Sequels can be polarizing for completely opposite reasons. With some sequels, it&#39;s because the creative risks they take are too big. Some are polarizing because the original film performed so well, the company that owns the IP decides to get too overly involved&nbsp;and the end product feels corporate. But&nbsp;whatever reason it is, these massive franchises have giant, extremely passionate fan bases&nbsp;who can only agree on the fact that they love arguing on the internet.

13 Love-Em-Or-Hate-Em Franchise Movies That Split The Fanbase Down The Middle

Film

13 Divisive Franchise Movies Audiences Either Love Or Hate

Looking for movies and TV shows that are rated T for Teen? These lists feature  great movies and TV programs about teens, enjoyed by people of all ages.

Rated T for Teen

Teenagers may think they're adults, but the truth is, no one of any age should be forced to endure the extremely high stakes of some so-called teen movies. The biggest problem&nbsp;a person should worry about from 13-19 is who they want to take to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-high-school-movie-from-year-you-graduated/mike-mcgranaghan">their senior prom</a>.But, on the flip side, maybe these high-stakes teen movies serve to help re-center real-life teenagers and make them think, "Wow, at least my life isn't that bad." Like, for instance, how the pain of a breakup can seem like the biggest deal in one's life... until they're sent on a ridiculously harrowing adventure across Chicago while babysitting three kids.Vote up the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-teen-movies-of-all-time/ranker-film?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best teen movies</a> where the stakes got alarmingly high.

14 Teen Movies Where The Stakes Get WAY Too Serious

Villains

Some of the best heroes come from the worst places. It seems as if growing up with an awful mother can do one of two things to a person. If years of trauma and abuse doesn&#39;t make a person as awful as their mother, sometimes it turns them into an incredibly kind person who wants nothing more than to be a beacon of the sort of love they never received as a child.&nbsp;

Just like all superheroes are orphans, all princesses come from households with evil stepmoms. Who knows where this trope came from, but in the world of Disney, if a young girl can survive her adolescence with an evil stepmother, she&#39;s rewarded by marrying a prince.&nbsp;

12 Movie Heroes With Evil Moms

Lists about the most memorable fictional characters in film, TV, and literature that will stick in our minds forever.

Characters We'll Never Forget

Sometimes the best heroes come from the worst places. Nothing creates drama quite like a story&#39;s hero discovering that their one true villain is secretly their father. Suddenly, with one small reveal, loyalties never previously questioned are tested and strained.&nbsp;

You either grow up to become your parents, or you grow up to become the complete opposite in retaliation for&nbsp;a harsh upbringing. Sometimes an abused person continues that cycle of abuse, but sometimes they internalize that hardship and realize that the last thing they ever want to do is cause similar harm to another person. Luke Skywalker, Hellboy, and many others may only have their incredible powers because they were passed down by evildoers, but that doesn&#39;t mean they can&#39;t turn around and use those powers for good.&nbsp;

12 Movie Heroes With Evil Dads

Looking at the plans & plots of bad guys & gals.

Dastardly Deeds

One of the great joys of watching a movie is finding oneself genuinely surprised by a clever twist. Sometimes twists are plot-related, but they almost always work better when they&#39;re character-centric. An always-shocking twist is when a character an audience thinks it knows&nbsp;turns out to be a completely different person.

Sometimes <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/characters-with-heel-turns-in-movies/ezra-hendren" target="_blank">heroes slowly become villains</a>, but it&#39;s an even better twist if the hero - or even a side character - was a villain the whole time. There are dozens of reasons why a villain may need to go into hiding to facilitate such a twist. Maybe the hero is too strong to face head-on, or maybe the villain needs to destabilize an entire galaxy before they&#39;re ready to strike. Whatever the reason, going after an audience&#39;s primal fear that the ones they know are secretly out to get them is an easy cheat to generate&nbsp;some great drama.

Vote up the villains who pulled off the best secret identities.

16 Movie Villains Who Use A Secret Identity To Hide In Plain Sight

Some characters exist so they can learn, grow, and change; others exist so they can die, which helps other characters learn, grow, and change. In real life, every person is the main character of their own story, and no one loses their life simply to facilitate change in another person. Stories are a different world, though; a story about grief needs something to grieve about.&nbsp;

While this trope isn&#39;t inherently bad, it seems to disproportionately affect female characters. In fact, female characters dying for the sake of male character arcs led famed comic writer Gail Simone to coin the term &quot;fridging,&quot; specifically in reference to the brutal death of Kyle Raynor&#39;s girlfriend (he&#39;s a Green Lantern) and how he found her stuffed in a fridge.

Vote up the best characters who really never had a chance.

12 Doomed Movie Characters Who Only Exist To Give The Main Character An Arc

The &quot;damsel in distress&quot; is one of Hollywood&#39;s most long-standing cliches - but let&#39;s not forget about &quot;dudes in distress.&quot; Sometimes they need rescuing, too, and it&#39;s those very damsels - more than capable of fending for themselves -&nbsp;who often do the rescuing, giving their action-movie heroes a hand when the situation calls for it. After all, not every man is a crazy powerful action hero, and female characters certainly aren&#39;t&nbsp;so powerless that they simply need to&nbsp;sit back and wait for someone to save them.&nbsp;

Whether they&#39;re the star of the film or a side character helping out the male star, capable female action heroes are here to stay. At the end of the day, no matter who&#39;s rescuing whom, all characters can unite&nbsp;in a common goal of kicking action movie villain tail.

Remember to vote up your favorite moments when women rescued men from certain doom.

15 Times Movie Heroines Rescued Dudes In Distress

Superheroes

Picking out the&nbsp;funniest superhero movies is a harder task than one might assume. While a good portion of superhero films of late have been brooding movies that explore what it means to be a god among men, films that understand the inherent comedy of a person fighting crime in colorful spandex have always abounded. From 1966&#39;s Batman to Thor: Ragnarok to Lego Batman making fun of 1966&#39;s Batman, plenty of superhero films are&nbsp;packed with more laughs than punches.&nbsp;

After a string of self-serious superhero films in&nbsp;the early 2000s, adding some levity back to the world of heroes is what made the MCU such a success. Iron Man fighting crooks with a wink and a nod went a long way toward&nbsp;building one of the most successful franchises ever. And that&#39;s before a talking raccoon even showed up.

14 Superhero Movies That Are Actually Great Comedies

Parody movies and comedies at large are often seen as being a lower tier of art than their dramatic counterparts. But&nbsp;this bias hasn&#39;t stopped&nbsp;hundreds of prestigious actors over the years from appearing in the silliest of parodies. The best actors know they need to give their all to any role,&nbsp;regardless of whether it&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/surprisingly-good-kids-movie-performances/orrin-grey" target="_blank">in a children&#39;s film</a>, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/overqualified-nerd-franchise-icons/jake-williams" target="_blank">a nerdy blockbuster</a>, or a completely ridiculous satire.&nbsp;

Why would a prestigious dramatic actor star in a parody film? Well, there are a lot of reasons. For some actors, their days as Hollywood hot commodities are over, and they&#39;re&nbsp;looking to cash in a paycheck making fun of the characters they used to play.&nbsp;For others, it&#39;s a rare chance to cut loose. In some cases, directors of parodies don&#39;t want comedy actors in their comedies, so they cast dramatic actors in the role so they can play it straight, thus adding to the overall humor.

The Most Overqualified Performances In Parody Movies

Actor

Looking closer at the actors who have played cold-blooded bad guys—and totally nailed it.

Playing the Villain

The only thing better than landing one role in a major Hollywood production is landing two. It may seem odd, at first thought, that someone could or would play two roles in the same movie, but it <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-double-role-movies/mike-mcgranaghan" target="_blank">actually happens pretty frequently</a>. The phenomenon&nbsp;is especially common in comedies, where leading character actors fresh off Saturday Night Live tenures are anxious to show off their various silly voices on the big screen.&nbsp;

Sometimes actors will play their own twin, other times actors will play multiple small roles, yet at other times&nbsp;an actor will hog all the screen time and play the film&#39;s protagonist and antagonist simultaneously. While pulling off double duty to this degree takes a lot of work and talent, actors like Mike Myers and Kristen Wiig have performed this stunt to great effect.

Vote up your favorite examples of actors pulling double duty.

12 Times An Actor Played The Hero And The Villain In The Same Movie

The DC movies are a mixed bag in terms of film quality, but certainly not in terms of the quality of actors cast to bring these legendary roles to life. One thing the Superman films of the &#39;70s and &#39;80s, the Batman films of the &#39;90s, and the DCEU films of today all have in common is the tremendous talent level of the actors hired in both lead and supporting roles.&nbsp;

The DC films have an interesting knack for hiring&nbsp;acclaimed actors to bring to life small supporting roles. (For that matter, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/overqualified-mcu-movie-performances/tyler-mitchell" target="_blank">so does Marvel</a>.)&nbsp;This may sound surprising at first, but there are several&nbsp;reasons for it. For one thing, Warner Bros. has deep pockets and only wants to hire the best talent for its tentpole franchises. For another, many of the DC characters have been around since the &#39;30s and &#39;40s, meaning that basically&nbsp;every actor that&#39;s ever been in a DC film grew up loving these characters in one way or another. This results in the interesting phenomenon of DC films having some of the biggest actors in the world in some of the smallest parts in their movies.

Vote up the best DC performances from the most overqualified actors.

The Most Overqualified Performances In DC Movies

1990s

Thanks to Thanos in&nbsp;Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, no modern moviegoer is unfamiliar with the idea of a villain who&nbsp;uses evil to&nbsp;achieve a peaceful end. However, that idea certainly didn&#39;t start with the MCU. Stories for children typically feature a totally evil villain facing off against a pure and good hero, but&nbsp;good cinema has always reflected the real world and showcased morally gray characters who aren&#39;t always fully good or evil.&nbsp;

The &#39;90s have become famous for being a bit of an edgy decade. There was the rise of the anti-hero, but alongside that was the less publicized rise of the anti-villain. These characters committed reprehensible and appalling acts in service of an ultimately good and noble end goal.

Vote up the villains who, whatever their evil means, ultimately had their hearts in the right place.

12 Evil Villains From '90s Movies Who Were Just Trying To Make The World A Better Place

12 '90s Movie Villains Who Were Just Trying To Make The World A Better Place

Lists for every cinephile and "movie guy" on your virtual trivia team.

Film Buff Stuff

By its nature, dying is pretty memorable. It&#39;s the loss of one&#39;s life. The ultimate end. After a lifetime spent conversing, it&#39;s important to get one&#39;s final words in this mortal realm correct before taking one&#39;s exit. And, no one understands that better than movie characters; after all, their final words will be immortalized on screen forever.

Final words are a gift to writers everywhere. They&#39;re a chance to get especially poignant&nbsp;or really comment on the psyches of the character, or on&nbsp;what really matters to human beings in the end. Great final lines not only inform the viewer of the character&nbsp;but on the human condition itself. Also, sometimes they&#39;re pretty funny. So, either way, win-win.

Remember to vote up your favorites.

Dying Words In Movies That Are Burned Into Our Memory

Comedy

Some of the most underrated spoof movies are still more <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-to-watch-while-drinking/anncasano?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">fun to watch</a> than the genres they parodied. Comedy doesn&#39;t always get the credit it deserves, so spoofs that should&nbsp;be all-time classics are occasionally discarded or even lost to time.

Parody is inherently an artistic format&nbsp;that exists to critique. Parodies poke fun at a subject as a means to promote deeper thinking and analysis. Like all comedy and critique, the parody film&#39;s very nature lends itself to be viewed as a&nbsp;temporary, or of the moment, creation. That&#39;s too bad, though, because there have been great spoofs over the years that deserve to be remembered and rewatched with the same fervor as any other film - especially within the genres they so successfully skewer.

Vote up your favorite movies that made an entire genre their object of (affectionate) scorn.

14 Underrated Parody Movies That Rip A Whole Genre To Shreds

Lists about the robots, androids, cyborgs, and artificial intelligence that will soon rise up against humanity and take charge of the universe. Will you welcome them?

Our Robot Overlords

Robots & AI

Artificial intelligence movies have become a fixture in the sci-fi genre over&nbsp;the past few decades. As technology becomes more prevalent in modern life, so too does the fear that said technology will become sentient and wipe out the human race.&nbsp;

These movies may be inspired by the same fears, but they manifest on&nbsp;screen in a wide variety of ways. Some AI movies feature killer robots, while others feature curious ones. Some robots want equal rights with humans, while&nbsp;others believe the only way forward is to completely eliminate human life. This diversity across the genre points to the simple truth that a lot of movies about this subject have been made - which means, by default, a sizable number of AI films have been completely underrated. To rectify that, here&#39;s a brief look at the AI characters featured in underrated robot classics.

Remember to vote up your favorites.

12 Underrated Movies Where Machines Become Sentient

Sequels

Revisiting a franchise after many years - even decades - have passed&nbsp;can be a scary thing. Sequels are hard enough already, let alone situations in which years separate the first film's magic from the next installments. It's hard for studio executives, as well, as they have to decide whether or not there's still interest in a property that hasn't been touched in years. Yet, even with all the obstacles, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/actors-talk-about-reuniting-in-sequels/anncasano">sometimes it works out</a>.&nbsp;There are examples throughout cinematic history of filmmakers&nbsp;revisiting&nbsp;a franchise decades later and the resulting film being just as good as the original. Sometimes the original writer, director, or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/heroes-who-became-mentors-in-sequels/mike-mcgranaghan">actors return</a> and bring with them the same chemistry they had the first time around. Other times a fan of the original gets a chance to breathe new life into the franchise with their own installment. Now, it's time to decide which franchise revisits did it best.

17 Long-Anticipated Sequels That Were Totally Worth The Wait

Looking closer at action & adventures characters who only work out when the cameras are off.

Action Heroes & Villains

Action

The smartest action movie villains rival the intelligence of ne&#39;er-do-wells across all other genres. Villains in action movies are always up to something big, meaning it takes a lot of intelligence and planning to be a criminal on their level. These people aren&#39;t just mugging pedestrians -&nbsp;they&#39;re causing international incidents.&nbsp;

Whether they&#39;re masterminding a hostage situation in Nakatomi Plaza or going head to head with Sherlock Holmes, the average rom-com villain or sci-fi antagonist has nothing on them. Honestly, it&#39;s harder to be a really good villain than it is to be a hero, and these villains show their brains through each and every one of their highly planned extra-legal activities. Vote up the smartest baddies in the bunch.

The Smartest Villains In Action Movie History

The Smartest Villains In Action Movie HIstory

Lists of true accounts of real people who survived unfathomable situations and depictions of fights for survival in film, TV, video games, and other media.

Stayin' Alive

The Hunger Games is by far the most popular film in which characters fight to the death, but it&#39;s far from the only one (or the best). While Katniss Everdeen and co. helped to popularize this typically brutal subgenre of film, there are last-man-standing films going back for decades.&nbsp;

Last-man-standing movies typically involve&nbsp;a government (or other entity) forcing a group of people to fight to the bitter end. Only one person can win, and they&#39;re promised a life of riches and fame should they make it out. Normally these films are set in a dystopian future in which the state uses these games to alleviate the aggression of the bloodthirsty masses. And as those very masses, it is your job to vote on which of these movies make for the most diabolically enjoyable entertainment.

13 Underrated Movies Where People Have To Compete For Their Own Survival

13 Underrated Movies Where People Compete For Their Own Survival

There is no betrayal in cinematic history quite like&nbsp;R-rated movies with PG-13 sequels. An R isn&#39;t just a rating -&nbsp;it&#39;s a signifier of a particular type of movie. These films are gritty and unyielding in their devotion to the filmmaker&#39;s&nbsp;vision. Nothing was censored or removed from the script to garner the wider release and bigger box office numbers that a PG-13 rating would earn. Sadly, sometimes <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movie-franchise-worst-decisions/tyler-mitchell" target="_blank">greedy executives decide to cash in</a> on a franchise by watering down these R-rated movies with&nbsp;wimpy&nbsp;PG-13 sequels.&nbsp;

It&#39;s expected, but still sad, when a <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movies-that-failed-to-pass-the-torch/josh-plainse" target="_blank">sequel doesn&#39;t have the same magic as its predecessor</a>. Sometimes a director changes. Other times, an actor gets too big to return. Occasionally, a studio starts to meddle a bit too much because the movie was a big success, and now the sequel has a bigger budget. And, worst of all, sometimes this meddling means the franchise that gained mainstream attention because it was an R-rated gorefest will now be a PG-13 film that cuts away before the action really gets started.

Remember to vote up the worst offenders.

14 Times R-Rated Franchises Made PG-13 Sequels No One Asked For (Or Wanted)

R-Rated Franchises That Made PG-13 Sequels Nobody Asked For (Or Wanted)

Pop Culture

Legend of Korra might have been for audiences of all ages, but these memes definitely aren&#39;t.&nbsp;

20 'Legend Of Korra' Memes That People With A Dark Sense Of Humor Might Appreciate

'Legend Of Korra' Memes That People With A Dark Sense Of Humor Might Appreciate

Lists about films, TV series, novels & series, anime, and other media that explore imaginary universes and the characters and forces that live inside them.

What's Your Fantasy?

Fantasy

What&#39;s more satisfying than fantasy movie villains who got what they deserved? Whenever a character spends the majority of a film&#39;s runtime ruining the lives of others, it&#39;s nice to see the tables finally turned. Fantasy villains tend to be especially egregious in the abuse they dole out to those around them, as they are often gifted with some sort of magical ability or unique power that allows them to lord over the common man. This makes it all the more satisfying when those common people rise up against their oppressor.&nbsp;

A villain&#39;s demise is even more fitting if their own methods are somehow used against them. If they have&nbsp;a specific way of tormenting or defeating their enemies, then the third act better have the hero (or, by accident, the villain themselves) inflicting them with that same cruel fate they forced upon others.

Vote up the fantasy villains that totally had it coming.

12 Villains In Fantasy Movies Who Got Exactly What They Deserved

Graveyard Shift

The casting of a movie can tell you a lot. You&#39;ve got your movie stars, your character actors, your bit players. The proof of each character&#39;s prominence is usually in the advertising, the posters, the credit listings. An A-lister&nbsp;stands out proudly in the center of the one-sheet&nbsp;poster;&nbsp;that movie star is - one can reasonably expect - going to be taking center stage in the movie itself, too. As a rule, movies generally follow through on that promise.

But then there are the movies that pull the rug out from under our&nbsp;expectations - the movies that dare to wipe out a major star in the first half, or the first few minutes, or even the opening scene. Movies in which&nbsp;the presumptive main character dies early aren&#39;t necessarily commonplace, but they happen plenty. The poster may give no indication of any resident A-lister&#39;s surprise demise, but that only adds to the shock value when it happens.

As a general rule, movies tend to follow through on the implicit promises of their casts - but sometimes they have a little fun playing with our expectations, whether it&#39;s establishing a major character who, it turns out, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movie-protagonists-who-arent-the-main-character/zack-howe" target="_blank">isn&#39;t really the hero at all</a>, or in cases like this, establishing a false protagonist whose quick demise shifts our collective attention to other characters.

Vote up the early departures that surprised you the most.

16 Movies That Killed Off A Major Star Shockingly Early

<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/why-spider-man-3-failed/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">Spider-Man 3</a>, Allegiant, and Solo are all prime examples of movies that ruined franchises. That may seem like a wild claim to make, but truly, all it takes is one massive box office bomb to terrify studio execs and shelve a franchise for good. On some occasions, a movie can perform well at the box office but receive such negative reviews that a studio becomes <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/movies-that-were-supposed-to-have-sequels/joedonley" target="_blank">too afraid to put out another installment</a>.&nbsp;

Often, the story is the same. A movie&nbsp;is&nbsp;made, and it&#39;s&nbsp;really&nbsp;good and pretty successful. A sequel is then made, and that one is even more successful. At that point, the studio gets involved because they have so much money on the line, and the sheer amount of meddling these suits do ends up creating a terrible movie and tanking the franchise as a whole.

Vote up the movies that were so disappointing, they put the kibosh on future installments.

12 Movies That Torpedoed Entire Franchises

Engaging storytelling is all about subverting expectations, and one of the most efficient ways for a director to do this is to cast&nbsp;an actor playing against type. If an actor is known for playing a villain, put them in your story early on, have them appear menacing, and then <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-tv-redeemed-villains/anncasano" target="_blank">flip the switch on the audience</a> like Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter films. Or&nbsp;take an actor known for their &quot;nice guy&quot; persona and use it against the audience in a big way.

Cinema history has given us plenty of great <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/actors-who-broke-type-casting/anncasano" target="_blank">casting against type</a> examples, from Anthony Perkins back in Psycho to Dick Van Dyke in Night at the Museum. It&#39;s always who you <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/villains-played-by-comedians/anncasano" target="_blank">least expect</a>, and these actors played roles that audiences never saw coming. Vote up your favorite &quot;nice guy&quot; characters who turned out to be not so nice after all.

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