Movies where the bad guys win?

[dalovindj]

I hate how so many movies introduce you to these really cool bad guys, and then inevitably to teach a lesson the bad guy has to die or lose. I love movies where they actually get away with the crime, like "Quick Change" starring Bill Murray.

Got any?

DaLovin'Dj

[Chez Guevara]

Consider Alien.

What, exactly, did the alien do that was so bad? It was snatched from its nest, it killed only in self-defence but finished up floating around in Space with only a harpoon for company.

Totally unjust.

[astorian]

There are dozens, maybe hundreds. Like...

1) "Chinatown"

2) "The Wicker Man"

3) "The Vanishing" (Dutch version- the American version had a contemptibly happy ending.)

4) "The Omen" and "Damien: The Omen II" (Damien gets his in "The Omen 3," however")

5) "The Last Seduction"

6) "Body Heat" (Well... ONE of the killers goes to prison, and one gets away scot-free.)

7) "Hannibal" and "The Silence of the Lambs" (Hannibal Lecter kills a host of people, and gets away.)

8) "Fallen" (despite Denzel's best effort, the demon survives and will kill lagain)

And of course, MOST latter-day horror movies allow the bad guy to come out on top at the end. Jason Voorhees and Freddie Krueger and Michael Myers and Leatherface and the Tall Man are ALWAYS still breathing/twitching at the end. Hey, there'd be no profitable sequels if the bad guy ever REALLY lost.

[LC Strawhouse]

A Shock to the System with Michael Caine - an overlooked black-comedy gem. Caine plays a businessman who
goes postal after being passed over for promotion.

Best line:

Detective: "He was your superior, wasn't he?"
Caine: "No. He was my boss."

[Atreyu]

I think it goes without saying that this thread could contain plenty of spoilers. Therefore, I'll preface this post by saying that this post contains spoiler material.

I recall Keyser Soze successfully slipping away from the arm of the law at the end of The Usual Suspects.

At the end of Fight Club, Tyler Durden succeeds in his plan of blowing all up all those buildings housing the credit card companies.

[Sealemon88]

For some reason, the first movie I thought of was Kingpin.

[bafaa]

First one I thought of was Unforgiven. By his own admission William Munny was a killer of women and children.

[Geek Mecha]

Se7en-- Everything happens exactly as John Doe plans.

The Last Broadcast-- The murderer gets away with the killings.

[obfusciatrist]

In a way, Swimming with Sharks.

[minty green]

A Clockwork Orange

[lucie]

Brazil

[Kaitlyn]

The Godfather
The Last Seduction

[elfkin477]

Storm of the Century.

[Kaitlyn]

The Conversation
Blow Up
Blow Out
Arlington Road
No Way Out
Invasion of the Body Snatchers The remake; in the original, there is still some hope.

astorian, I think in most of the cases you list, the villain dies at the end of each movie, only to be resurrected at the beginning of the next one. But of course, this makes the villain the star of the series, which is pretty much the same thing.

One of the things I like about "The Outer Limits" is the way that the bad guys usually win. The good guys winning is unusual.

We need movies in which the bad guys win occasionally to add to the suspense of those movies in which they don't.

[Purd Werfect]

Colossus - The Forbin Project Scared the poo out of me as a wee lad. Just cheesy now.

[Legomancer]

Originally posted by lucie
Brazil

Only if you miss or disagree with the point of the movie. I don't want to say much more without a spoiler warning, but Sam wins in the only way he can.

[Ferggie]

The Phantom Menace

Just enough attention is paid to Darth Maul to get you anticipating that he'll be around at least for Episode 2. But it doesn't work out that way. Maybe Darth Maul wasn't willing to be in a movie called Attack of the Clones.

[Ferggie]

Oops, sorry...darn, misread the OP and posted too quick. Was posting a movie that demonstrated the senseless distruction of a perfectly good villain.

[darian00]

Event Horizon
In the Mouth of Madness


man, I wish I could remember more...

[Chocobo]

The Empire Strikes Back...even though (most) everything turns out all right in RotJ.

I love The Outer Limits for the very reason that the bad guy wins most of the time (or they at least have the plot twist at the very end). It always makes you think, unlike shows/movies that have a feel good ending.

[Fern Forest]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
it's been awhile since I've seen it and I was quite young. So I'm right, aren't I?

[Mockingbird]

Well, in every Disney animated movie, the patriarchy wins.

Or is that not what you meant?

[Fern Forest]

I never saw this movie but didn't they also all die at the end of The Blair Witch Project

[Typo Negative]

Originally posted by Number Six
[BArlington Road[/b]

Oh, that was one creeeepy movie.

The Bad Guys win in Swordfish, The Talented Mr. Ripley and of course the classic and misunderstood In the company of Men.

[Monkey Chews]

Escape from the Planet of the Apes

And things don't turn out so well for the good guys in Beneath the Planet of the Apes either.

[ryoushi]

Would 12 Monkeys count?

[Chas.E]

Shouldn't this thread have a spoiler warning on it, or is it obvious that were discussing film endings?

The most heinous film of this type I know is "Bad Men Sleep Well" (warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru) by Akira Kurosawa. I was mad at the world for a whole week after seeing that film.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Two really cool bad guys who die at the end.
By the way, dalovindj, "Quick Change" is on my list of favorite underated movies.

[bafaa]

Absolute Power
Entrapment
The Sting

By the way, have to disagree with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. They didn't win in the end so the movie doesn't fit into the OP criteria. Right?

[Ranchoth]

Well, if no one minds, I think I can add a couple of contenders...

Spoilers are, of course, below. Sorry.







Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes.

(The ending was a surprise, actually. One hopes a sequel-A GOOD one-will follow)


Max Dugan Returns

A Fish Called Wanda

(I think...I was still receiving mathematics lessons from a plush purple vampire when I saw those last two)

Dr. Strangelove

The Boys from Brazil

To Catch a Thief

(Sort of)


Then, of course, there are the movies where the villains lose, but take a lot of people with them. Gladiator, for example.


Of course, how good the endings of all of these movies are depends entirely on how cool one thinks the villains were. (Or the heroes weren't)
Alas, most of the times that a villain wins are in really depressing movies, and the villains in such are usually just really creepy.


Ranchoth

[Gozu Tashoya]

This movie just came out (8/31/01), so consider this a SPOILER!







Jeepers Creepers has the bad guy winning in the end.

[Gozu Tashoya]

Oh, and if you consider drugs "the bad guy," then you can count Requiem for a Dream as well.

And while we're at it, The Lawnmower Man, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist (sorta), Shakespeare in Love (sorta), Braveheart and The Messenger, depending on how you view martyrdom, and Memento (sorta).

[DocCathode]

Ahnuld plays the hero, Hansome Stranger. I can't
remember who plays Cactus Jack Slade, the villian. Slade wins, but knowing that doesn't take away any fun from the film. It's a parody in the spirit of Dudley DoRight(The original cartoon, not the bile live action film).

I'm surprised that Phantasm was compared to ElM Street, Friday The 13th, or Halloween. True the firts Phantasm is pretty standard horror fare. However, the series is low on gore and inteligently written. In Phantasm IV:Oblivion, the hero spends quite a while driving a stolen hearse. Suddenly a strange woman in dark glasses is sitting in the passenger seat. She doesn't turn into a latex monster or wait for the hero (and the audience) to drop their guard and then pounce. She doesn't even speak. She just sits there, looking at hero for a while. It's one of the most unnerving things I've seen in many years of watching horror films.
The protagonists of Phantasm also behave like real people and not cardboard cutouts or survivors of extreme neurosurgery. When they decide the town is unsafe, they run. Instead of wandering around stupidly waiting to get killed, everyone arms themself as much as possible as often as possible. Eventually, they do chase after the Tall Man, but only when it's clear that the world itself is at risk. SPOILER-
The Tall Man does win. In each film the country is emptier than before. More towns are deserted and more graveyards are empty. By no IV, the heroes may be the only people left in a dead world.


Cuckoo's Nest-Spoiler
McMurphy does win in a way. When Ratchet lobotomizes him, she is admitting that she can't beat him any other way. Compare it to one fighter shooting the other during a boxing match. True, he's knocked down his opponent. But he's also admitted that he could never outfight his opponent. McMurphy will not break. Ratchet tries everything including ECT. McMurphy still won't give in. Admitting that she can not change McMurphy's mind with threats, torture, hatred, or any of her other methods, she changes his mind with a scalpel.



















Dirty Rotten Scoundrels-Villains win in this one.
"We're goin' to Oklahoma! We're goin' to Oklahoma!"

[TheeGrumpy]

Clearly, there should have been some rules for this thread.

The definition of "bad guys win" means, to me, that the rooting interest of the film fails to achieve his/her objective. What doesn't this mean: that the anti-hero protagonist succeeds (Fight Club, for one), or that the heroic protagonists are killed, even while thwarting the bad guys (Escape from the POTA).

There is some subjectivity here, as "rooting interest" can vary. While Nostradamus was rooting for the alien in Alien, I wasn't. I was rooting for the Martians in Mars Attacks, yet I don't think of that as a movie where the bad guys (the humans) win, because the *movie* clearly wants the humans to be the good guys.

Also, as we can see, horror movies are a different animal. Part of their pattern is to let the protagonists die, or to allow the bad guy to survive in the sequel. This quality almost defines the genre, yet there is some flexibility here. A movie where the killer is destroyed (Alien) doesn't become less of a horror movie for its failure to conform to the genre convention. So horror films (such that they can be differentiated) should be treated separately.

And what about the original Night of the Living Dead? The ending implies that the ghouls are eventually destroyed, but the heroes we have rooted for are ultimately killed in one of the most downer endings ever filmed.

[astro]

Originally posted by Purd Werfect
Colossus - The Forbin Project Scared the poo out of me as a wee lad. Just cheesy now.

If you thought the movie was cheesy you should have read the follow up book by he original "The Forbin Project" author. A stinking pile of mucilagenous slug poo which includes the Mona Lisa being burned to satisy Colossus's curiosity to see if an art historian will dive into the fire to save it (he does and dies) and the ends with the words "The Martians are coming"! The Martians are coming!"

[Manach]

The Patriot, those darn Colonials beat the British Empire & King George.

[Space Otter]

How 'bout Nicholas Roeg's 'Don't Look Now', with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. What was the moral of that film, "Don't mess with the psycho dwarf?"

I especially like it because the movie is essentially about a guy who has psychic powers to see the future, but it doesn't do him any good! Hah. So much for psychics solving crimes and rescueing people.

[Otto]

Let's see...how about All About Eve? Eve Harrington is an evil bitch who gets what she wants in the end. Of course there is that epilogue with Phoebe, indicating that Eve may yet get hers.

There was an awful movie called The Legacy with Katharine Ross. It's been a while since I've seen it, but as I recall she ends up turning evil, meaning that the creepy old bad guy wins.

There's The Omen and Damien: Omen 2 where that ultimate bad guy, Satan, wins.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Frank has built and lost his creature (and his life). Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet. And on that note, the sort-of sequel Shock Treatment would fit that bill too. Brad and Janet and the judge and Betty all escape, but the rest of Denton are all the victims of the evil Farley Flavors.

[BobT]

Just a personal opinion, but I would say Ferris Bueller's Day Off falls into this category, but only because I would be the kind of person who would want to see Ferris beaten up.

And keeping with the Matthew Broderick theme, you could argue that the "villain" wins in Election

[detop]

How about Spartacus ? Sure his wife and son escape but everything else he has worked for his destroyed.

Or The Wild Bunch ?

Or even better, a Québec movie of the '70s, Réjeanne Padovani. The story line is : there's a party at a contractor's home with ties to the mob. Several political bigwigs are invited, the whole thing degenerates into an orgy. At one point during the proceedings, the contractor's estranged wife shows up (Réjeanne Padovani, the title character). She wants a divorce and asks for her fair share of the marriage or she'll spill the beans to the press. Her husband has her killed (with the politicians aware of the situation) and the body disposed of in a highway building project. The movie ends with the opening of the new highway built by the contractor.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

Originally posted by bafaa
Absolute Power
Entrapment
The Sting

By the way, have to disagree with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. They didn't win in the end so the movie doesn't fit into the OP criteria. Right?

My mistake. Butch and Sundance are the good guys, who don't win in the end. The bad guys are the Bolivian army, who do win in the end. Thread criteria satisfied, Universe again in balance.

Actually, as TheeGrumpy said above, the original rules were a little confusing. I withdraw my submission if it bothers you.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Originally posted by Purd Werfect
Colossus - The Forbin Project Scared the poo out of me as a wee lad. Just cheesy now.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK!

Colossus is a great flick. I just watched it again the other night (scifi's sofathon, great idea!) and sure, it's dated, but the movie itself is amazing. It can be difficult to ignore the teletypes and other things that were gee-whiz in 1960-whatever, but if you can, the core of the movie is tight, well directed and the ending is still genuinely creepy.

My computer when I worked at Goddard Space Flight Center was named colossus. Hardly anyone understood. Made me sad. But then, the computer I had before that I named ABBA.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Originally posted by astro

If you thought the movie was cheesy you should have read the follow up book by he original "The Forbin Project" author. A stinking pile of mucilagenous slug poo

Now this I agree with. The first book is terribly sexist but a fascinating read, as I recall (it's been many years). I was shocked at how really and truly awful the sequels were. You didn't mention: in the third book, the martians arrive, and they are... Phobos and Deimos. yes, the moons of Mars are actually aliens, and help the humans destroy Colossus. Golly.

[tracer]

The Bad Astronomer wrote:

My computer when I worked at Goddard Space Flight Center was named colossus.

What a coincidence! The computer used secretly by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during World War II was also named Colossus. They used it to break the later 12-wheel Enigma codes used by the German High Command. It actually pre-dated ENIAC!

[don't ask]

Originally posted by elfkin477
Storm of the Century.

[slight hijack]

Best laugh I've had in ages. I thought you meant The Perfect Storm, forgetting the Stephen King mini-series.

{/slight hijack]

The Italian Job.

[Ace_Face]

Off the top of my head...

The Mission
Woman in the Dunes (those villagers aren't very nice)
Waco: Rules of Engagement

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Ace_Face

Waco: Rules of Engagement

I think the OP was referring to fiction films. Without getting into who the good guys and bad guys are here (that belongs in great debates) I think it can be fairly said that nobody wins in this one.

[Ethilrist]

Dances with Wolves.
Little Big Man.
Castle Keep.
I'm guessing that Star Wars III isn't going to have a shiny-bright, happy ending...

[Legomancer]

If you think about it, look at the Phantom Menace. Hooray! Anakin survived! Now he can grow up to be Darth Vader and destroy Alderaan and kill Ben Kenobi and torture Han Solo! Hooray!

[Pammipoo]

Fast and the Furious At the end, the truck hijacker takes off with the cop's car, and leaves the cop standing in the street