No matter how much things change, one thing movie-goers can always rely on is the vengeance movie. You know the formula well: someone is wronged, usually in irreparable ways, and in retaliation, they seek revenge against the perpetrators by pretty much any means necessary. In these movies, vengeance is a form of justice. The legal system won’t or can’t help, so someone else must step up and do the dirty work — and someone does. In most revenge movies, that someone has a skill-set that makes it possible for them to take justice into their own hands. So they use everything they have, along with a single-minded focus, to get the vengeance they crave.
These movies are understandably cathartic for audiences. We’ve all suffered through slights and sins we wish we could get justice for. And we all have loved ones we’d die to protect. Although most of us don’t have either the temperament nor the ability to take revenge in the over-the-top ways many a vengeance-seeking protagonist does, watching these films can be the next best thing. They speak to us on an emotionally satisfying primal level. That’s why vengeance movies remain popular year after year. Of the unending options out there, here are some of the most satisfying — but proceed with caution, there are spoilers ahead.
15 BATMAN RETURNS
Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is the gold-standard for live-action incarnations of the character. Pfeiffer is endlessly watchable in the role. And of course, one of the reasons is the thing motivating her Catwoman is sweet, sweet revenge. When the movie starts, Selina Kyle is a pushover who is unceremoniously fired from her job in the worst possible way when she discovers her boss Max Shreck’s immoral dealings.
After being reincarnated as the much more assertive Catwoman, her desire for vengeance is what keeps her going. She goes after Shreck with everything she has and even manages to have some fun in the process. She may have gone bad, but she was pushed into it.
14 MEMENTO
Before he directed The Dark Knight Trilogy, Memento put Christopher Nolan on the map. This twisty, head trip of a film stars Guy Pearce as Leonard, a man unable to form new memories after an attack that also left his wife dead. The one thing Leonard remembers is that he’s seeking vengeance for what happened. While he managed to dispatch one attacker, the other got away
The authorities don’t believe his account of the incident and won't help, so despite his impairment, Leonard takes matters into his own hands. He uses a complex system of tattoos and Polaroid photos to reconstruct the knowledge he needs to meet his goal. Whether he remembers or not, Leonard gets his man —more than once.
13 MAD MAX
In a dystopian near future, Max Rockatansky, an Australian highway patrol officer, goes rogue after a biker gang burns his partner and takes out his wife and young son. He becomes the Mad Max of the title, a one-man vengeance machine.
Max methodically goes after the members of the gang and does away with them one after another until only one remains, Johnny the Boy, the protégé of one of the gang’s leaders. Max finds Johnny stealing from a dead driver so Max handcuffs his ankle to the vehicle and sets up a make-shift time-delay fuse. He leaves Johnny with a hacksaw and a choice, a brutal demonstration of how far Max has fallen.
12 ROAD TO PERDITION
In the Sam Mendes-directed Road to Perdition, adapted from the graphic novel of the same name, Tom Hanks stars as the most decent mob enforcer ever; a prepubescent, pre-Teen Wolf, pre-The CW’s Superman Tyler Hoechlin is his son. The two go on the run after half of their family is cruelly dispatched.
Hanks’ Michael Sullivan spends the rest of the movie figuring out how to get justice for his wife and younger son. When the moment of vengeance finally happens, it’s brutal and merciless. But it’s also Hanks, so the act comes across as strangely gentle, even though it leads to the demise of pretty much anyone who’s even somewhat involved.
11 THE PUNISHER
The vengeance tale of Marvel Comics’ Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, is perhaps one of the best known in pop culture. Recently, Castle starred in his own Netflix-Marvel series but before that he was featured in three different live-action film adaptations and was played by three different actors: Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane, and Ray Stevenson.
Regardless of where he appears, several things are always part of Castle’s story: he loses his family and becomes a vigilante who will take out anyone and everyone involved. This leads him to an unending supply of unscrupulous gangsters and a never-ending mission to ruthlessly remove evil from the world.
10 UNFORGIVEN
In 1992 Clint Eastwood returned to the Western genre -- the one he’s most associated with -- to make Unforgiven, a story about aging, heroism, and, of course, vengeance. Eastwood’s character William Munny isn’t the vengeful one, however, at least not at first. Instead, it’s the working girls at the town brothel who don’t feel justice is served when two cowboys attack one of their own.
Retired outlaw Munny recruits his friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and they decide to utilize their skills one last time to help the girls out. The town sheriff doesn’t appreciate their interference, though, and after he takes out Logan, Munny returns to get some revenge of his own.
9 SIN CITY
Adapted from Frank Miller’s comics, the visually compelling, extremely stylized Sin City incorporates four stories of corruption and crime, including a story of vengeance. When Marv (Mickey Rourke) wakes to find his lover has had her life extinguished in the night, he vows revenge. He works through several informants, which finally leads him to the culprits.
However, this is not before his parole officer is also taken out and he dispatches a priest and a gaggle of corrupt cops. Marv is captured and pays the ultimate price for his actions, but at least his lover’s sister is grateful for what he did to avenge her sister.
8 MACHETE
Danny Trejo has made his name playing gruff, tough, morally ambiguous characters. Yet his take on those characters is far from the one-dimensional baddies we usually see in movies. Trejo brings a certain scarred humanity to them, making him a compelling actor to watch. And that’s especially true of his portrayal of the vengeance-fueled Machete.
In Machete, Trejo is an ex-Federale who is double-crossed. So, he goes after the men that betrayed him with the help of some unexpected characters, like his priest brother (Cheech Marin). Fortunately, Machete’s righteous fury is matched by his skill with weapons. The bad guys don’t stand a chance.
7 V FOR VENDETTA
The Wachowskis's movies often incorporate a certain comic-book sensibility, so when they decided to adapt this Alan Moore graphic novel for the screen, it made perfect sense. In a future dystopian Britain, a man in a Guy Fawkes mask known only as V (Hugo Weaving) works to bring down the fascist, corrupt government.
During the film, we learn that V’s desire to take out the government is personal. He was experimented on, and played an instrumental, though unwilling role in helping those currently in charge create a virus that killed thousands of British citizens. Those people then used the ensuing chaos to gain power and install a police state. V isn’t only out for vengeance for himself but for all the British people.
6 GLADIATOR
“Are you not entertained?” When it comes to the multi-Oscar winning Gladiator, audiences were very entertained. Russell Crowe stars as Maximus, a former Roman general who loses it all when Emperor Marcus Aurelius is murdered by his son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). After Commodus seizes the throne, he condemns Maximus and his family to death because Maximus refuses to be loyal to the new Emperor.
Sometimes the road to vengeance is circuitous, and this is certainly true for Maximus. He escapes with his life after the demise of his wife, daughter, and Emperor, but is sold into slavery and becomes a gladiator. Eventually, he makes it to the Colosseum in Rome where he can finally get close to Commodus and get his revenge.
5 LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL
Léon: The Professional (Jean Reno) lives an isolated life, as many in his line of work do. After all, it’s hard to make friends when you may get paid to dispatch one of them later. Things change for Léon when he takes in 12-year-old Mathilda (a young Natalie Portman), who lost her entire family to corrupt DEA agents.
She may be young, but Mathilda isn’t too young to know she wants justice for her beloved little brother. She vows to avenge him and learns the tools of Léon’s trade so she can meet her objective. Of course, what she really needs is a professional, and Léon is there to help finish the job.
4 CARRIE
Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is supposed to be a figure of horror, but let’s face it, who can’t relate to feeling like an adolescent misfit? Besides, Carrie got an especially raw deal — she has an abusive zealot for a mother, plus she’s discovering she has telekinetic powers. How much more different from her classmates could she be?
As everyone knows, things come to a head for Carrie at the prom. At first all is well and it looks like she just might find acceptance from her peers after all. However, when the popular girl who was banned from the prom for bullying Carrie takes her vengeance by dousing her with pig’s blood, Carrie's vengeance knows no bounds. Suddenly no one’s safe from her wrath.
3 OLDBOY
Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy, adapted from the manga of the same name, is the second in a trilogy of vengeance films. In this one, Oh Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) is inexplicably held in a hotel room for 15 years. He doesn’t know who his captors are or why they're holding him — or why he’s finally released. What he does know is he wants revenge for all the time he lost.
With stunning action and surprising reveals, Oldboy is a vengeance story where Dae-su discovers he’s not the only one seeking revenge. The movie complicates the typical revenge formula by showing that maybe there aren’t any good guys or bad guys when it comes to vengeance, just different points of view.
2 JOHN WICK
John Wick holds a special place in the hearts of dog lovers everywhere. While traditionally the hero of a vengeance thriller is out to avenge the wrongs done to a human loved one, in John Wick, a nonhuman loved one is just as worthy — an impulse anyone who counts a dog as an important part of their family can relate to. In Wick’s (Keanu Reeves) case, gangsters murder his puppy, a gift from his deceased wife, and steal his car — slights that won’t go unpunished.
Wick has the skills to back up his vendetta, and both action and mayhem ensue as a whole crime syndicate becomes involved, leaving Wick with no choice but to take them all down.
1 KILL BILL, VOL. 1 & 2
When women are the vengeance seekers in movies, they often enlist help from others, or get their retribution all at once. This isn’t true in Kill Bill though. Across two films, The Bride (Uma Thurman) slowly and deliberately gets her revenge on all the people who were involved in attacking her wedding party and putting her in a coma.
Through most of the two movies, The Bride doesn’t even have a name, she’s just an avatar of vengeance. And despite spending the last four years comatose, her martial arts and other fighting skills are more than up to the challenge. The films are a ballet of aggression, a beautiful — and cathartic — thing to behold.