Villains in Movies

[The_Mark]

While we're on the subject, are there any serious films (not in the comedy stylings of Austin Powers) where the bad guy actually wins?

I like depressing films like that.

Don't know why, it's an odd fascination i have with everything going terribly wrong.

OldBoy is your pick, then. It's an astonishing movie. I won't describe the events at all beyond the premise: Oh Dae-Su has been released after 15 years of imprisonment and is determined to dish out some serious revenge, telling you more would spoil things, and boy, would I want to - I won't even tell whether or not the good/bad guy wins

[Geoffrey S]

Bah, The Departed. I seriously can't stand that movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/]OldBoy is your pick, then. It's an astonishing movie. I won't describe the events at all beyond the premise: Oh Dae-Su has been released after 15 years of imprisonment and is determined to dish out some serious revenge, telling you more would spoil things, and boy, would I want to - I won't even tell whether or not the good/bad guy wins

Oh, it's great. Most surprising in many ways.

[Pannonian]

"The Departed"

The bad guy doesn't win but neither does the good guy. I won't give anything else away. Go out and watch it. It's a great movie.

Or the original, "Infernal Affairs", where the bad guy does win.

[Beefy187]

I can think of several animes...

Other then that all I can think of is "Heroes season 2" and all "24" until Jack Baur pwns them all..

[Lemur]

I'm gonna list a movie, but it's currently in theaters, so don't clicky unless you (a) don't mind spoilage, or (b) aren't planning on going to the movies in the next couple of months.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

No Country for Old Men

[Ronin]

Well, things going wrong and the bad guy winning are two different things. There are plenty of movies that have "unhappy" endings, but there's no bad guy winning in them. Examples (spoilered because knowing a film will have an unhappy ending can be a spoiler by itself):

Movies with an unhappy ending:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Deer Hunter
Requiem for a Dream
Leaving Las Vegas
Brazil
Aguirre: The Wrath of God
Memento
12 Monkeys
Easy Rider
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Dr. Strangelove (comedy, including the ending, but also very political and frickin' brilliant on all levels)
Barry Lyndon (depending on what you think of the main character)
Paths of Glory
A Clockwork Orange (yes, Kubrick disliked Hollywood endings)

Movies where a bad guy actually wins:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Angel Heart
The Omen
Rosemary's Baby (yay for the Satan hat trick!)
Silence of the Lambs (kind of)
Hannibal (also kind of)
Primal Fear (Brilliant ending!)
Fallen
1984
The Thing
Arlington Road
Every single Cube movie

I don´t really agree with the classification you wrote about "The Thing"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the end the viewer is not sure if any of the last 2 survivors is infected, so there is no way to know if the bad guy won or not...for all we know 2 perfectly inocent people just freeze to death at the end...a dark ending for sure...but we can´t be sure if the thing survived or not.

[Ronin]

Se7en... the bad guy wins because he gets the outcome that he desired,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

he dies at the hands of Wrath.

Swordfish... they aren't the bad guys. Don't you know that the guys who waterboard, use extraordinary rendition and imprison without charge are the good guys.
Devils Advocate... the bad guy actually loses.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

He's trying to get a child out of the deal and his lead donor blows his brains out, why at that point he didn't collect the testes and do a bit of IVF... see that's the problem with fundamentalists they deny themselves all sorts of technologies because if god had meant them to have wings they would fly.

how could I forget that detail about swordfish

as for the Devils Advocate...i must disagree

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the ending shows that despite the fact that he blew his brains out and foiled the devils plan the devil just pushed time back and is gonna have another crack at him....this time using another tactic "Vanity, definitely my favorite sin."

I guess the ending is like this, the devil didn´t get his way that time but he can´t be defeated, the game just continues on....so maybe we can call it a draw.

[TinCow]

I don´t really agree with the classification you wrote about "The Thing"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the end the viewer is not sure if any of the last 2 survivors is infected, so there is no way to know if the bad guy won or not...for all we know 2 perfectly inocent people just freeze to death at the end...a dark ending for sure...but we can´t be sure if the thing survived or not.

Perhaps, but as you said we're not sure. At best it's a question of whether it's just an 'unhappy ending' or whether the bad guy wins. Certainly no roses in sight.

[Ronin]

Perhaps, but as you said we're not sure. At best it's a question of whether it's just an 'unhappy ending' or whether the bad guy wins. Certainly no roses in sight.

no...the bad guy never wins because

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The things objective is to get out of the antartic, that´s why the infected doctor was trying to build a spaceship, so either 2 innocent people die or one innocent people dies preventing the thing from escaping and taking over the rest of the world

it is certainly a bleak ending in any case.

[TinCow]

Alright, you've convinced me. I'll move it to the 'unhappy' section.

[econ21]

Pan's Labyrinth is another one where the bad guys win, even if their representative on site is killed. We all know what happened to the anti-Franco rebels.

That was about the only weak point in an otherwise brilliant film. Why did they respresent the anti-Franco rebels winning? Given the history, the oppressive Phalangist control during most of the film and the shocking ending, the rebels destroying the deathstar aspect seemed discordant. Maybe the director was going for discordant in general? (the mix of realism and fantasy, of children's fairy tale and adult themes etc were all discordant and compelling for that reason.) Maybe the rebels' "victory" was supposed to complement a more upbeat fantastical reading of the core ending? But I found both the rebels' victory and the possible upbeat reading of the end both offered cold comfort - definitely one for TinCow's "unhappy" section.

[Ramses II CP]

Heavy Pan's Labyrinth spoilers:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I took the PL ending as another example of the layers within layers approach to the movie. On the surface the rebels have a momentary fairy tale ending, having beaten back the offensive that was chasing them, but, as with the child, you have to remember they had already surrendered the goals of the revolution and the idea of victory and were only trying to escape into France. All of their dreams were already dead when the movie started, all that was left was to run away and tell each other, and the newborn, stale lies to try to deny their defeat.

I took Ofelia's story the same way, such that while she could trick, tease, and struggle to escape, she could not truly fight and in the end any thought of having a life, of victory, was simply a fantasy. All little girls want to be secret fairy princesses, but in the end they all die.

IIRC del Toro called his movie 'profane,' and that's a pretty good description of what I saw as the core idea of the film, which could be simply put as 'Nobody gets out alive, but if you want to buy yourself some more time you're going to get blood on your hands. All else is fantasy.'

So IMHO you can't really say the rebels 'won' in the movie, just that a few of them did get out, for the moment, with their lives and their lies. Of course with any complicated, murky film there's going to be an element of the reviewer in the review, so take my interpretation with that in mind.

[Caeser The III]

yes! i hate this, i mean sometimes you want the villian to win!

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

The Usual Suspects. Great movie.

Pan's Labyrint, spanish fantasy-movie that's simply incredible.

Ditto!
.

[Fragony]

Another one for Mikeus, 'Zwartboek', dutch ww2 movie. It isn't really that the bad guy wins but it's deliciously cynical. It helps that one of the most charming creatures on god's earth is playing in it.