Some movie villains are evil and want to watch the world crumble around them. Other movie villains, however, might be misguided in their good intentions or have difficult pasts with nowhere to express their emotions.
When movie villains aren’t bad people, they end up as misunderstood characters who don’t get a chance to voice their side of the story. Their arcs can be tragic and sometimes, fans even end up rooting for them. Whether they made some mistakes in their past or they simply don’t know right from wrong, some movie villains are more misunderstood than others.
8 Amy Dunne Might Not Have Been The Real Villain (Gone Girl)
Gone Girl (2014) sparked a debate about who the true villain of the story is and if the main antagonist, Amy Dunne, was justified in her actions. In the David Fincher-directed thriller, adapted from Gillian Flynn's novel, Amy stages her own death and frames her husband, Nick Dunne.
While Gone Girl certainly paints Amy as a villain, it doesn’t make Nick out to be a hero. Nick is found to be cheating on Amy after forcing her to move house, and their marriage has been disintegrating for some time. While Amy may have gone to the extreme in trying to flee her husband’s affair and his temper, there was certainly justification for her wanting to leave Nick behind and start a new life.
7 The Kim Family Was Just Trying To Better Their Lives (Parasite)
Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, made waves upon its 2019 release as a commentary on the class system. Because the Kim family is struggling to make ends meet, they devise a plan to infiltrate the home of a rich family, the Parks, via various jobs. Things quickly go awry and Ki-jung Kim and the Park patriarch are killed. Soon after, Ki-jung's father goes into hiding.
While the Kim family infiltrated the Park's family home and caused two deaths, Parasite does an excellent job of exemplifying the divide between the two families. Even if the Kims put the work into moving up in the world through somewhat villainous methods, they don't come out on top. Parasite is a phenomenal commentary on the class divide.
6 Erik Killmonger Wanted To Help His Own People (Black Panther)
The main antagonist of the MCU’s Black Panther movie, Erik Killmonger, is King T’Challa’s estranged cousin. As a child, Killmonger's father was killed by his own brother. After serving in the U.S. military, Killmonger planned to avenge his father by taking over the world’s supply of vibranium to liberate those who have been historically oppressed.
Unfortunately, this meant stealing the vibranium and attempting to take over Wakanda from T’Challa. While Killmonger’s methods were villainous, his goal is one that many can empathize with. All he wanted to do was make a better life for Black communities and Killmonger was using what he knew from his time in the U.S. military to reach his goal.
5 Split Has A Complicated Villain With A Difficult Past (Split)
M. Night Shyamalan’s Split introduced viewers to the 23 alters of Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. One of his alters, Dennis, kidnaps three girls and holds them in a secret lair under the Philadelphia Zoo.
While some of Kevin’s alters have evil motives, many aren't evil. Kevin himself is revealed to have been a victim of childhood trauma. Some of his alters may have villainous intentions, but they ultimately exist due to Kevin’s troubled past.
4 Draco Malfoy Had No Choice In What He Became (Harry Potter)
Draco Malfoy is a staple in the Harry Potter franchise as a secondary antagonist to Harry Potter, but he is misunderstood. Having been born into a notorious Malfoy family, Draco was destined for the life he led, believing in the superiority of pure-bloods and eventually becoming a Death Eater like his father.
Draco was shown to be reluctant to join the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part II. This tells audiences that he might not be all bad, but rather just a product of his upbringing. He struggles with these obligations and is seen cracking under the pressure.
3 Carrie White Couldn't Take The Bullying (Carrie)
Adapted from Stephen King’s terrifying novel, Carrie (1976) sees a young, sheltered girl named Carrie White discover that she has telekinetic powers. She is relentlessly bullied and, after she is tricked into being named prom queen, has buckets of pig blood dumped on her. She begins to wreak havoc on her high school and her own home.
While she killed all but one person at her prom, and then her mother and herself, Carrie had been through an immense amount of suffering. It leads viewers to wonder who the real villain of Carrie was: Carrie White or her bullies?
2 Magneto Has Been Repeatedly Persecuted By Humans (X-Men)
One of the most famous and most powerful X-Men villains, Magneto has made a name for himself with the destruction he has caused in his run in the X-Men movies. While he has made it clear that he is a villain and his ways cannot be changed, his motivations stem from a difficult past.
Magneto, also known as Erik Lehnsherr in the X-Men movies, was interned in a concentration camp by Nazis during the Holocaust. He believed that mutants would eventually be persecuted by humans and wanted to prevent it. He also lost his wife and daughter to humans who were afraid of him, leading to some of the events of X-Men: Apocalypse. It’s no wonder that Magneto has reacted to humanity in villainous ways.
1 The Shark Chose The Wrong Place To Hunt (Jaws)
Steven Spielberg’s hit 1975 thriller, Jaws, saw a giant shark devouring any person in its path. At first glance, the shark is a clear-cut villain with no remorse and no motives beyond causing fear and terror.
The shark, however, is the most misunderstood of all movie villains to date.
Simply having swum to the wrong place, the shark was just searching for sustenance. This resulted in humans hunting it down and trying to kill it. Jaws also led to real-life sharks becoming one of the most misunderstood and feared creatures of all time due to the sheer terror that Spielberg was able to capture in this massive blockbuster.