Relatable villains have, for a long time now, been all the rage. As audiences have refused to settle for the Manichean dichotomy of "good" and "evil," movie villains have become much more rich, well-rounded characters. The result is not that all villains are worth championing – plenty are still evil for the sake of – but that many villains are, above all else, interesting.

From avenging personal betrayals to serving as salient social critiques, the “bad guys” in fan-favorite movies, comics, and video games are sometimes in the right – or, at the very least, on to something that adds depth beyond merely enacting villainy. But, despite their methods, many villains have been known to be right from time to time.

Updated October 26th, 2023 by Jordan Iacobucci: While there are some villains that audiences love to hate, there are others who actually may not have been considered villains at all had their methods been somewhat different. While audiences typically disagree with a film's antagonist on some level, there are some who actually raise terrific points when it comes to their motivation. Although the way that these characters go about accomplishing their goals may be unsavory, it would be difficult to deny that their ultimate goals weren't always as bad as they might have initially seemed.

25 Thanos Actually Wanted To Save The Universe

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The MCU Held Thanos Back From His Ultimate Accomplishment In The Comics

Thanos, portrayed by Josh Brolin, was the ultimate villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Infinity Saga. Over the course of several years, the Mad Titan sought to collect all six Infinity Stones, which would allow him to end overpopulation. The only problem, of course, was that this plan involved him wiping out half of all life in the galaxy.

It wasn't long after his battle with Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Infinity War that viewers began to wonder if Thanos was right all along. While his methods were brutal, he ultimately wanted to save the universe. Moreover, given the prominent theory that Thanos was actually trying to protect the universe from the Celestials, it is difficult to call the character a true villain.

24 Walter And Maia Simmons Were Right To Build Mechagodzilla

While Godzilla vs. Kong focuses on the battle between the two eponymous Titans, the film also introduces two human villains in Walter and Maia Simmons, portrayed by Demián Bichir and Eiza González, respectively. The father-daughter duo conspires to build their own mechanical Titan, Mechagodzilla, which would serve as mankind's protector against the ever-growing threat of Titans like Godzilla and King Kong.

Godzilla is an overpowered Titan capable of leveling every city in the world. Since his debut, the "King of the Monsters" and his fellow Titans have caused unparalleled destruction, leaving humans defenseless against such large foes. With more and more Titans appearing, humans having their own Mechagodzilla is actually a pretty good idea.

23 Starro Was The Victim In The Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad follows the eponymous team of reformed villains and antiheroes as they infiltrate the island nation of Corto Maltese on a secret mission that even they don't fully understand. Eventually, it is revealed that Starro, an alien being with the power to control minds, is being held captive there. When released, Starro goes on a bloody rampage that ends in his own death.

While Starro left unparalleled destruction in his wake, he is actually the victim of The Suicide Squad. The alien never asked to be captured and held captive on Earth, nor did he ever pose a threat to the planet prior to his incarceration. Instead, he was plucked from his joyful life of floating through space and looking at the stars, forced to endure inhumane experiments, and eventually killed.

22 Darth Maul Nearly Saved The Galaxy From Palpatine

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 7 (2020)

Darth Maul has always been perceived as a villain following his debut in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. However, the seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars muddied the waters of the character's morality as he manipulated events in order to gain an audience with the former Jedi Ahsoka Tano.

In the show's final arc, Maul, voiced by Sam Witwer, reveals that he has had a vision of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side and the subsequent rise of the Emperor. He attempts to convince Ahsoka to join him and stop his vision from occurring, but she doesn't believe him. Had she listened, Ahsoka and Maul may have been able to save the galaxy from Palpatine's plot.

21 Chuck McGill Was Absolutely Correct About His Brother

Michael McKean plays Chuck McGill, Jimmy McGill's older brother in the Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul. An accomplished lawyer with his own firm, Chuck is portrayed as a pompous and overbearing brother who doesn't want Jimmy to succeed in his own legal career. On several occasions, Chuck purposefully sabotages Jimmy to keep him from becoming a successful lawyer.

While audiences are meant to root for Jimmy, Chuck's reasons for sabotaging his brother are actually quite fair. Knowing Jimmy's proclivity to con innocent people, Chuck knows that his brother will eventually use his position as a lawyer for selfish gain. And, given the events of Breaking Bad, Chuck was absolutely right.

20 Killmonger Was Right About Wakanda's Isolationism

Marvel's Next King of Wakanda is Already the New Black Panther

Part of what made Black Panther such a huge hit, and an absolute shoo-in for the Popular Film Oscar, was the absolutely riveting performance from Michael B. Jordan as the film’s antagonist, Killmonger. Denied his birthright and rejected by his isolated kingdom, Killmonger felt it was wrong that such an advanced civilization hid away while inhuman acts of cruelty existed in the world, and promoted an idea of an armed Pan-African uprising.

Though his methods were excessive, taking innocent lives and guided more by fury than compassion, his announced motive not only resonated with audiences but ultimately T’Challa himself. In the end, T’Challa recognized the importance of reaching out to the world, and the African diaspora, though through diplomatic rather than militaristic means.

19 Doctor Doom Just Wanted His Mother Back

Part of Doctor Doom’s charm is that, as was the intention of creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, in all his villainy, there was always an air of righteousness and nobility. Audiences weren’t expected to believe that Doom was actually the tyrannical savior the world needed, but that Doom himself always viewed his attempts at world domination as altruism.

Undeniably, however, Doom was not only sympathetic but downright heroic in the oft-forgotten graphic novel, Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment. In the story, written by Roger Stern, with art by Mike Mignola, Mark Badger, and Jim Novak, readers follow Doom, who has teamed up with Doctor Strange, on a journey into hell itself to battle Mephisto for the soul of Doom’s dead mother. It's a potent motive for any character and one that immediately garners sympathy.

18 Roy Batty Was In Pain

The Oscar-winning sequel Blade Runner 2049 had many suggesting it equaled or even surpassed the original, but one element fell flat: Jared Leto’s mustache-twirling Niander Wallace couldn’t hold a candle to the original film’s antagonist, Roy Batty, portrayed by Rutger Hauer. Batty's terrific antagonism is a major reason that Blade Runner is considered to be one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time.

Batty is arguably the most relatable villain of contemporary science fiction. His plight is an analog to man’s own struggle with mortality, his destructive path to confront his creator and demand more time equal to humanity’s own struggles against the finality of death. In the end, Deckard can’t see Batty as an enemy, but as a sympathetic, sentient android, in pain, desperate to find some meaning in his unnecessarily brief existence.

17 Ozymandias United The World

Fans will often evoke Ozymandias’ “I did it thirty-five minutes ago” in any conversation about the ultimate villainous mic drops –and rightfully so. For all Ozymandias’ grandstanding and monologuing about uniting the world, he not only does it, but it works.

Ozymandias’ plan in the Watchmen series by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, Len Wein, and Barbara Kesel, involves faking an extraterrestrial attack on New York in order to unite the world against a perceived outside threat (unless you count the movie changing it to Doctor Manhattan, but the less said about that, the better), and judging from the epilogue he actually succeeds. While Ozymandias' methods were extreme, and more than a little cataclysmic, they served a purpose.

16 Syndrome Was Right About Superheroes

In The Incredibles, Syndrome, aka Buddy Pine, is a well-meaning person – at first. His ire stems from not being given the same opportunities as Mr. Incredible. Notably, Buddy doesn't have any powers, making it hard for him to provide the same heroic help as the head of the Incredible family.

Despite Buddy displaying an incredible deftness at inventing, his dreams are cut short. As a result, he turns to villainy. Ultimately, though, Syndrome is right: to allow such unchecked power to be wielded by only those genetically gifted with it is a quick path to chaos.

15 The Wicked Witch Of The West Avenged Her Sister's Death

An entire industry of prequels, ranging from hit Broadway musicals like Wicked to forgotten Sam Raimi movies like Oz, the Great and Powerful, have tried to give a sympathetic backstory to the green-skinned witch who scared terrified audiences everywhere in The Wizard of Oz.

But set aside all the extraneous info, and a key fact remains: Dorothy killed her sister by crushing her with a house. It's hard not to see why The Wicked Witch of the West was more than a little bit upset with Dorothy galavanting around the world of Oz.

14 The U.S. Government Needed To Control The Avengers

Team Iron Man vs. Team Cap: Which Civil War Side Was Actually Right?

In Captain America: Civil War, after a team of superhuman vigilantes – one of which is constantly sporting the American flag on his uniform – cause multiple international incidents of death and destruction, the US government intervenes and tells the Avengers they need to be regulated. Of course, there needs to be some oversight and accountability for their actions.

Captain America then declines because of what might be construed as his own sense of liberty. The MCU has demonstrated time and again that the Avengers are capable of mass destruction through their interpersonal conflicts, so oversight isn’t actually a bad idea, and the film never presents an argument as to why it would be.

13 Maximus Was Right To Hate The Inhuman Royal Family

After the credits roll, realizing that the villain was right all along can give the audience a new appreciation for the work they just witnessed. If they realize that the villain was right all along from the very start – the first episode of a new show – it's going to throw any investment in the heroes right out the window.

This was one of the many problems ABC’s failed Inhumans project faced when it was foisted upon audiences. The “villain” overthrew the current regime after not demonstrating superhuman abilities, being cast off into the lowest rung of an oppressive, bigoted caste system. He then sought to create a society of social and economic equality in its place. That’s the guy audiences were expected to root against.

12 Mr. Glass Proved His Point

M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable was a film wildly ahead of its time, receiving critical reappraisal in the wake of the surprise sequel, Split. Initially, after audiences unfairly expected the follow-up to Sixth Sense to have a “twist” equal to the former, the reveal that Mr. Glass had been the cause of the accident that revealed David Dunn’s powers was perceived as a “letdown.”

However, the decision not only created a fascinating dynamic of a hero born out of a villain’s need for an arch-enemy but also proved that Glass was right all along. He has had no qualms about being the worst person around in order to find an “unbreakable” man, and ultimately, he did. He was absolutely evil, but he also wasn’t wrong.

11 History Proves William Johnson Right

The Assassin’s Creed franchise takes a good deal of liberties with the historical figures it depicts in order to fit it all into their story of Assassins and Templars. But it also taught today’s generation about Revolutionary War figures before there were even hip-hop musicals about them.

The storyline involving William Johnson using smuggled goods to buy Iroquois land on behalf of the British government is heavily fictionalized, but his reasoning for doing so is scarily accurate. He claims in his dying moments that he undertook his plan in order to help the Native Americans, that under British protection, they’d be spared the invasive wrath of the colonists. His plan was flawed, but history has shown that his prediction was tragically sound.

10 Kaecilius Saw Through The Ancient One's Hypocrisy

Kaecilius isn’t one of the more memorable villains of the MCU, but one has to question whether he’s really a villain at all. He’s introduced to us as the one who betrayed the teachings of the Ancient One, who sought a dark power to achieve immortality.

Kaecilius, it is revealed, lost his wife and daughter, and looked to magic as a way to release the world from the inevitability of death, an idea the Ancient One rejected. When Kaecilius discovered that the Ancient One was using the same dark magic she’d dissuaded him from seeking to keep herself alive, he rightfully began to see all her teachings as built on hypocrisy. Perhaps turning to Dormammu was the wrong call, but Kaecilius was certainly right in feeling betrayed by the Ancient One and seeking immortality for all mankind.

9 Gorr, The God Butcher

10 Marvel Villains Who Should Be Heroes

There’s a lot to love from Jason Aaron’s run on Thor: God of Thunder, but the absolute highlight has to be Gorr the God Butcher. Comic fans had to root against him when he came to blows with our beloved Thor, but we can’t say he had the worst reasoning.

Son of a nameless father and born on a nameless world, Gorr led a life full of pain. Though taught to pray to the gods, he came to believe they did not exist when none of his prayers were answered. After their existence was proven to him, that gods did indeed rule over all worlds but spent their time carousing and drinking in their Elysian fields rather than looking after their flocks, Gorr swore to destroy all gods and free the world.

8 Koba Was Right About The Humans

Koba is the clear villain of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, hateful of humans where Caesar sees peace, and even framing humans for the death of Caesar and his family in order to escalate a conflict between man and ape. Nobody would argue Koba was right. That is, until the sequel.

Koba's actions were monstrous, but his motive for doing so was the idea that man and ape could not coexist and that war would soon break out. He wanted to have the ape forces prepared and preemptively strike before the army of man grew stronger, and even more, ape lives would be lost. To watch the follow-up, War for the Planet of the Apes, and see Caesar’s peace give way to violent war, audiences realize Koba’s predictions came true.

7 Magog Was Right To Kill The Joker

Magog is not only the villain of Kingdom Come, but has come to represent the perceived “evil” of 90s comics. He was even designed by Mark Waid and Alex Ross to be "everything we hate in modern superhero design.” His reckless violence and seemingly amoral actions drove Superman into self-imposed exile.

Magog spurred Superman's wrath by killing the Joker, who himself had recently killed Superman’s beloved Lois Lane and many other Daily Planet employees. Superman felt that no matter how much evil he caused, the Joker could still be redeemed, whereas Magog felt that, in the end, allowing the Joker to continue would only lead to greater loss of life. Looking at the Joker’s near-80-year history, Magog wasn’t wrong.

6 Enchantress Was A Victim In Suicide Squad

The plot of Suicide Squad can make it difficult to determine any character’s motive therein, including who was really “right” or “wrong” in any given scene. Such was the case with Cara Delevigne's June Moon, a.k.a. Enchantress.

The one thing we know for sure, though, is Enchantress is totally in the right here. First, poor June Moon gets possessed by a demonic spirit, and then Amanda Waller decides to manipulate that evil spirit by keeping her heart in a box and torturing it whenever Enchantress gets out of line. She may be an evil spirit, but she’s an evil spirit with a reason to be angry.