# Foreign Movies where Americans are the Bad Guys **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 15, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930 "2017-02-15T19:34:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930/1 "2017-02-15T19:34:26Z")
looking at the thread **Cultural Villains in non-Western Countries** ( [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=818891](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=818891) ) , it occurs to me that an interesting question to ask about is Foreign Movies where the Bad Guys are from the US (and in particular, where they’re representative of the US, not aberrant criminals). The **Café Society** thread seems a more natural home for this, so I put it here. It’s easy to find wartime flicks from the Germans or Japanese, or Cold War films from the Soviet Union that fit the bill. I’m more interested in more recent films, and from countries we wouldn’t think of an inimical to the US. IIRC, there was a German science fiction film with the US as the Bad Guys, but I can’t find it right now. Here’s a webpage to get this started: > **[10 Foreign Movies Where Americans are the Bad Guys](https://www.toptenz.net/10-foreign-movies-americans-bad-guys.php)** > > Though most Americans would probably prefer to think of themselves as heroes or, at the very least, a positive force in the world, much of the world has a negative views of the United States. As such, Americans have frequently been portrayed as... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930/2 "2017-02-15T20:43:21Z")
More here: > **[5 Modern Movies That Show What the Rest of the World Really Thinks of America](https://www.pajiba.com/seriously_random_lists/5-modern-movies-that-show-what-the-rest-of-the-world-really-thinks-of-america.php)** > > Thanks to some questionable foreign policy, America isn't exactly the most popular kid on the block these days. But just how bad is it? Well, if these five films, all released in the past twelve years, are any indication, we're... > **[Check Out These Significant and Impactful War Movies of the 2000s](https://www.liveabout.com/top-war-films-2010s-4021751)** > > This war movie roundup highlights the most important war movies released at the start of the new millennium -- ones that have made a big impact. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930/3 "2017-02-15T21:08:50Z")
This page, oddly enough, says that the Russians _didn’t_ use Americans as Bad Guys as much as the US used Russian Bad Guys: > **[The villain gap: Why Soviet movies rarely had American bad guys](https://www.avclub.com/the-villain-gap-why-soviet-movies-rarely-had-american-1798245725)** > > March 23, 1987: Hollywood in the twilight of the Cold War. Three weeks earlier, Ronald Reagan—who had headed the Screen Actor’s Guild in the heyday of anti-communist paranoia, and had been an FBI informant within the industry—goes on television to... Here, too: > **[Why didn't more Soviet movies have American villains? - Marginal REVOLUTION](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/04/why-didnt-more-soviet-movies-have-american-villains.html)** > > Plenty of American films had Soviet or Soviet-linked villains, but the opposite was not true.  Here is one excerpt from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: The Soviet and American mainstreams expressed themselves in radically different ways, with different... ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930/4 "2017-02-15T21:12:02Z")
The first one that comes to mind is [_Gwoemul_ / _The Host_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_%282006_film%29). ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-movies-where-americans-are-the-bad-guys/779930/5 "2017-02-15T21:26:45Z")
[Valley of the Wolves: Iraq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Wolves:_Iraq) starring the evil Billy Zane. I see this one is in the link above. Also GARY BUSEY. [Battle Royale II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale_II:_Requiem), in a very heavy-handed way (IIRC they avoid naming which country, but it’s obvious who they are implying…) _Grave of the Fireflies_ is really, really stretching it. And _Letters from Iwo Jima_ is mostly positive on both sides - I think there is one scene where US troops execute prisoners rather than watch over them, but on the whole the US isn’t portrayed negatively.