I considered Solo; when we first meet Han he’s 100% anti-hero (who shoots first!) but by the end of the film has completely converted to straight hero, choosing his friends and the Rebellion over his own self-interest and stays solidly there the rest of the trilogy. Interesting that in The Force Awakens he and Chewie seem to be back to their roguish ways, but again he goes right back to hero mode when needed.
Tried to make a case for Ben Solo. He goes from pure villain willing to kill his own father to rising up against and killing Snoke to ultimately joining Rey against Palpatine, and his backstory and confrontation with Luke adds to his character. But to build that case requires one to revisit The Rise of Skywalker, and no-one should be subjected to that.
How about the Wild Bunch? Criminals all, but they go out in a blaze of glory taking down people even worse (by their standards) in defense of one of their own.
I think probably and I rather like the film doesn’t tell us outright. But those were some unusually well-informed outlaws. How the hell would they have found out exactly how Favor got that money?
Came down 30 minutes after the end of the film, killed Mendez and Billy with help from Mrs. Favor, then killed Mrs. Favor as excess baggage and rode off with the money.
Or decided the odds sucked and just took off. Whichever .
For yet another Newman, and a couple anti-heroes who are much more on the ‘bad guy’ side of things, how about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? As train robbers (and I don’t think the ‘Robin Hood’ style of robbers) they are clearly ‘bad guys’ by any definition.
And yet, they were so friendly and nice about their robbing! Very personable chaps. I don’t think they ever killed anybody (in the movie, at least) and the one admitted at one point to not even knowing how to fire a gun.
More from the book (and for that matter, movies), Long John Silver.
And perhaps Clint Eastwood again, in The Outlaw Josie Wales
And here’s one for consideration: “Q” from the Star Trek franchise; could easily be seen as a villain, but in most cases what he does is for the most part ends up benefiting the ‘heros’ in the long run.
Killed somebody, I assume from context? I remember a lot of the movie, at least many individual scenes, but it’s been a looong time since my last viewing.
Not in modern cinema, but that was not always the case. There was a time when it was assumed that a hero would be law abiding, unambiguously “good guy”: a brave handsome defender of the weak and enemy to the villain. The term anti-hero was coined to describe a hero who was still doing heroic things was just less unambiguously “lawful good”, I believe. It’s just become such a trope now that it’s norm for your hero to be somewhat anti-heroic.
I just thought of a great anti-hero from classic literature: John Milton’s version of Lucifer in Paradise Lost.
Scene: Lucifer and his rebelling angels have just lost the war against God and were thrown into the fiery black pits of hell. The other fallen angels are despairing, but ol’ Nick rallies them:
His utmost power with adverse power oppos’d In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav’n, And shook his throne. What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield: And what is else not to be overcome? That Glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me.
If not exactly an anti-hero, he was at least a damn fine motivational speaker.
If memory serves, he says he’d never shot anybody before, not that he didn’t know how to handle a gun, and yes, they immediately shoot some guys.
Although you could make the case that that is the only heroic thing they do, in that they recover the mine’s money and avenge their boss, the colorful Strother Martin. (I don’t recall if there’s any indication they actually return the money).
They certainly shot plenty of Bolivian soldiers in the final scenes.
Well, if memory serves me in that particular scene (which it may not) I remember the scene being something like: the one guy (don’t remember which was Butch or Sundance) says he’s not good with guns, and the other guy says “just aim for his middle, and you’ll probably hit something”.
I’ll disagree on Riddick - he’s a sociopathic hero at best, but more likely a villain protagonist.
In Pitch Black (we won’t talk about any of the sequels for the moment), he is actively evil, but fascinated with the captain. Doesn’t mean he isn’t interesting, and that Johns isn’t a shit, but all but one of the overtly heroic characters end up poorly.
Stana Katic calls Emily Byrne (Absentia) an anti-hero, and who am I to disagree with her?
The major villains in Babylon 5 are all anti-heroes, at least for some part of the story. There are even some entire races that are anti-heroes (so to speak).
But it goes back to long before there were cameras. Captain Nemo. Timon of Athens and King Leontes of Sicilia. Sir Balin the Savage. Cleon of Thebes (Antigone). Achilles of the Myrmidons.
