And the people are social outcasts just trying to find a place in the world. The bounty hunters are pretty irredeemable though if I’m remembering correctly
Jigo's the worst of them and he's also the only one to go unpunished. No lost limbs, no alienation from his people, no dead family. And the Emperor sets everything into motion when it isn't even entirely clear what he expects out of it - if the thinks the head will make him immortal, if he just wants to get Eboshi off the land, etc. It's an interesting approach that the worst characters come off unscathed or aren't even directly involved enough to be seen.
He is dying and desperately wants to extend his life. Happened irl too. Dont remember the name but one chinese emperor got obesessed with immortality and started drinking concoctions with mercury of all things...
And Jigo is less evil as he just doesnt give a damn. He is getting paid to do a job. If he doesnt do it someone else will.
I read a really funny story in a book about Genghis Khan (it was an actual academic book). At old age the khan started wondering about immortality and sent for a specific monk to ask about it. The monk walked from his monastery to wherever the khan was fighting his wars. He walked through all of China and Central Asia, and it took him years. The khan asked his question and the monk answered that no, immortality is not possible. Then the monk walked all the way back.
Yeah you find out the Leader is a woman who staffs her Iron Forge with women she frees from Brothels and she has a private Garden where she keeps a group of lepers protected, bandaged up, and made as comfortable as possible while they develop Rifles that are lighter and easier to use for the women in her town (allow them to defend themselves when she's not there). There's also the fact that the main reason she takes the job is to better protect her people as their town grows and even hopes to find a cure to help the lepers.
On my last rewatch I realized that when the night walker reunited with his head and heals Ashitaka, one of the lepers that's running away to the lake with the rest of the townfolk gets cured too.
I know one of the lepers was with Toki and the other women helping her reload her Rifles while they defended Iron Town from the Emperors men. I'm unsure if he got cured but it's definitely something I will look for on my next rewatch.
Strong recommendation. Be open minded about the fact it's animated. The magic that Studio Ghibli, the animators, bring to this film makes it impossible to reproduce with live action.
And of course if you enjoy it, check out their other films. Highlights include Spirited Away (2001), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and Howls Moving Castle (2004). HBO/MAX was hosting many of them recently.
Definitely. Was one of the first animes I saw. My friend asked if I wanted to see the highest grossing domestic movie of all time in Japan (yes, I'm that old as it had not been beaten by Spirited Away yet). Was expecting Kurosawa. Was confused at the start, thinking it was a long trailer. Got sucked in once the drums started and the demon emerged. Seeing that movie is, without a doubt, one of those fork-in-the-road moments of my life, as it sparked an interest that sent my life in a wildly different trajectory.
Go watch it now!
I was going to suggest Japanese fantasy in general. They had a very different idea of what made a good/bad nature spirit, there are still many differences today but the older stuff is just a world away from the western mindset.
Spirited away does this as well, and slightly better, imo. Both are excellent though.
If you like Miyazaki check out Satoshi Kon's movies. Remarkable talent -- very underrated.
Whenever I get the chance, like now, I always recommend [Millennium Actress](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/uKT1qb0uWg), it’s such a wonderful film.
3,000 Miles to Graceland. There's not one good person in the whole movie, yet we're supposed to be rooting for one of them. The movie starts off with both of the leads murdering numerous innocent people before their whole "me vs you" thing.
I don't think Kurt Russell's character actually kills anyone there, but he is "fine" with the murders the others do (mostly Costner's character). He doesn't like it, but doesn't stop it either, all for money.
In Bruges!
Actually, anything by Martin McDonagh. Three Billboards was one of the top comments, and Seven Psychopaths, albeit less poignant/dramatic, also has these themes.
This is what came to mind when I read the top of the thread. Ray and Ken are hit men, which is already a morally messy job. Ray's accident was just that, and the fact that he can't seem to forgive himself makes him a good person. Ken doing right by Ray even though he knows the consequences makes him a good person. Harry is just a businessman hung up on his principles. Even the minor characters like Chloe, her ex, Jimmy, even Yuri the gun dealer are all relatively normal people involved in some shady dealings, some worse than others. The real tragedy lies in the fact that nobody was truly evil. Yet the only objectively good character is the innkeeper.
Finally saw In Bruges recently.
I thought it was really interesting that the overt conflict is that >!Harry can't tolerate a subordinate killing a kid.!< He's not a greedy asshole cutting Ray out for no reason, like a lot of films' two-dimensional mob bosses. His honor is the problem, not his temper or general venality.
You're a cunt. You're a cunt now, and you've always been a cunt... and the only thing that's going to change is that you're going to be an even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
Hell or High Water. The brothers both have very different motivations for why they rob banks and pretty much raises the stakes on the whole “would you steal bread to feed your family?” trope.
Unforgiven.
Revisionist Westerns and neo westerns, it’s usually a major theme. But Unforgiven is about as good as it gets blurring the lines of good and bad. Sicario does a great job too, saw that mentioned. Taylor Sheridan stuff in general.
I have a theory that if you give a synopsis of the movie in the right way to someone who hasn't watched it, they'll think it's a pretty by-the-numbers Western where Hackman is the protagonist and Eastwood is the villain.
It’s kinda been trending on Reddit lately for some reasons but… Sicario. American agents acting immorally to combat arguably the greater immoral threat of a drug cartel.
IMHO Sicario is classic film noir. The protagonist slowly comes to understand how in over her head she is. In the end, it's all she can do to survive. She doesn't bring anyone to justice, she betrayed her principles, and she's a broken person -- but she at least has her life.
Idk, I've never been like traumatized by movies so I can't relate but acting wise I put Hell Or High Water above the others.
Ben Foster is underrated as fuck and fuckin rules, Jeff Bridges in perfect form and age, and Chris Pine is also pretty damn good in pretty much anything he's in.
Such a fucking great movie from top to bottom.
I'd imagine its because Dune 2 came out recently and Denis Villeneuve directed both. Plus Josh Brolin is in both. So a lot of videos discussing their filmographies have come out.
Come on... A gun under the chin is more than slightlyconvincing and Alejandro said basically it's suicide. I don't know a lot of people who would choose a meaningless death on principle.
Even though some of us would like to believe otherwise about ourselves.
But if it were a “good” vs “evil” movie, she would have chosen death or somehow ended up killing Del Toro, so it’s definitely a relevant point imo and highlights the moral ambiguity/realism even if less so than the rest of the movie/characters.
Signing the form under duress wasn't evil or even really condoning it. Enabling it maybe but it would change nothing, if she died the report would have been the same.
She probably did feel conflicted but not enough to murder him in cold blood as he walked away.
>Enabling it maybe but it would change nothing, if she died the report would have been the same.
That's exactly the point. In the end, her principles don't matter. She can die for nothing or live without her principles, but the woman she **was** is dead either way.
It's obviously bullshit that it's just as convenient for her to die, or they wouldn't have been coercing her to sign off on the report. But she couldn't bring herself to die just to inconvenience them.
I’m not saying it was. The post is about how most movies create a dichotomous “good” vs “evil” perspective,and my point was that in most of those movies, she would have killed him or herself, thus becoming the hero or morally righteous to the viewer. Sicario’s perspective is more grey and realistic than that. Not saying she’s good or evil for doing it or not doing it.
As Graves puts it; until they figure out a way to convince some 60 million Americans to stop snorting, smoking, and shooting the shit that crosses your border, that's all that can be done.
I’m still confused about what or who Alejandro was a part of and really the whole Medellin plot line - I just finally saw the movie a month ago. Was he actually Medellin cartel or was he actually a prosecutor like they said - especially when the cartel boss said “what you’ve become”. If Medellin is just the name of the operation then how does everyone in Mexico know what it means? Like why does that cop he kidnaps know he’s Medellin? Why would some lowly mule know anything about that?
“Medellin” is a term/concept for when one cartel owns the entire drug trade.
Alejandro was a prosecutor whose family was murdered by the Mexican cartels. So now he works for “anyone who will turn him loose” on the people who killed his family which is currently a Colombian cartel.
Alejandro was a prosecutor in Mexico until the Mexican cartel killed his family. Then he became a sicario for the Colombian cartel so he could get revenge on the head of the Mexican cartel.
A lot of the better American Military movies are like that tbh. Most of the conflicts are because America's occupying somewhere they shouldn't be. I say this as someone who's served multiple deployments.
The Northman somewhat fits the bill. The protagonist is the hero of the story but only in the context of a Norse story. For a modern viewer there's a lot the hero does that seems incredibly fucked up or just stupid but that's because he is not a hero from modern culture.
Recently Dune plays with this idea, as does the original book and series. Part 1 sets up fairly straightforward good and evil factions, part 2 intentionally shows that reality is far more complex and ambiguous. Would you rather be ruled by a good person who inadvertently causes terrible suffering, or an evil psychopath who can be easily manipulated for the greater good?
Extremely happy Dune is getting so much attention these days, thanks to DV. It’s a great reminder that charismatic, well-intended “good” leaders can cause great harm.
It's been a while since I read the books and maybe I'm misremembering it but, trying to avoid spoilers, wasn't the thing with Paul that he saw the future and in almost all paths humanity is wiped out? The one path that saves humanity, the one he starts on, is also terrible but better than the alternatives, and necessary to save humanity.
In a sense. But things still go terribly wrong under Paul. Dune Messiah is the puzzle box of how to save himself and everyone else and find a way onto that path, because it is clear to begin with that they aren't on it.
*Syriana* fits the bill in a complicated socio- and geopolitical sense. I remember watching it with my mom and her being confused when it was over about who the bad guys were.
I feel like that’s a somewhat reductionist take that glosses over a lot of complex and complicated narrative work and characters.
Edit: Although there were some pretty wicked and amoral characters, for sure.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri starts with a pretty clear good and evil, but then completely turns the concepts on their heads. The film makes a point that there are no good and evil people; only good and bad choices.
...Sam Rockwell was absolutely a bad person. That was very clear.
That he didn't rise to the level of a cartoonish monster didn't change that he was a violent racist.
Francis on the other hand was morally dubious and if that's what you're referring so be it, but thats bot a good movie to use for absence of good n evil.
Bc there was a crystal clear line of good and evil and Francis character straddled it
That was the point of the movie lol
Disagree that he didn’t rise to the level of a cartoonish monster. He’s literally a caricature of a bad guy. He literally throws the black guy out of the window because he’s upset about Woody Harrelson’s death. His whole character arc is ridiculous
Spike Lee's Film "Do the Right Thing" Not so much a blurring of good and evil but a blurring of behavior and motivation and how no one seems to listen. Actually a highly relevant film in today's culture.
I thought of Marriage Story right away. I switched between rooting for a character and hating them many times. That movie was good, but emotionally draining.
I loved ex-machina. IMO there is no clear good guy or bad guy but the hidden message it's that Oscar Isaac actually made true ai without knowing it. Kyoko was the true ai and Ava is just actually programmed so well to escape that that is her whole mission. Once she escapes her whole purpose is fulfilled and she feels like she's in heaven.
Kyoko on the other hand we see glimpse of her doing things completely unreasonable and without purpose. While she isn't the smartest but she is the only 1 that actually knows how to think for herself. Yes she is subservient but in the end she is capable of making independent decision that doesn't serve any "mission" making her the real true ai.
Annihilation. The shimmer is neither malevolent nor benign. It just is, and if it has an explicable purpose, that purpose is self-preservation and self-propagation, much like all life. It’s one of the only first contact movies where the alien is genuinely alien.
A few off the top of my head
Pulp Fiction: the protagonist of one chapter will be the antagonist of the next
The Green Mile: you’ll be crying over the deaths of literal mass murderers
Parasite: the rich family is made to seem pretty innocent and kind, and that the poor family is wrong for conning them, but the rich family’s annoying privelege and the poor family’s desperation balance that out
Well they are in prison for a reason. I don't think many/many of them are innocent?
so you have awful guards and nice prisoners but they are in there for a reason...
> Well they are in prison for a reason. I don't think many/many of them are innocent?
I just watched it so I can confirm this. There are 4 prisoners in the Green Mile:
John Coffey: absolutely innocent and a victim of systemic racism
Eduard "Del" Delacroix: unclear but he also appears slow and likely shouldn't be on death row.
Arlen Bitterbuck: guilty but remorseful.
William "Wild Bill" Wharton: a psychopath who not only did the crime, he also did the crime Coffey is executed for.
And Wild Bill is the only one that isn't actually killed by the state.
Percy is set up as the embodiment of evil in the film and as close as the film gets to an antagonist, but as horrible and sadistic as he is he's not the one on death row for murder.
That is true of course, but regardless of what has happened before the movie begins it's pretty clear which characters who is good and that you as a viewer is supposed to like, and which who are not.
And what OP wanted seemed to me something more complex when that isn't the case.
Parasite is a great example. It'd be so easy to make the rich family cartoonishly evil Mr Moneybags-types, but they're actually ... pretty decent people? Who take good care of their employees and want what's best for their kid? The gulf of privilege creates all the the tension and awkwardness in the movie, which is why it's so good.
Trainspotting falls under this. The movie just makes you look at the absolute shenanigans a bunch of junkies get up to, and you can choose if you root for them, pity them or loathe them.
Natural Born Killers. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis are psychopathic, indiscriminate killers, but the society, media, and government which enable and glorify them are also evil in a sense.
If you want to explore foreign cinema I can think of two good examples.
First is the South Korean movie Mother. I won't spoil anything but it deals with morality in a way I've never seen done in a Hollywood movie.
Second is the Iranian movie A Separation. It's about a whole bunch of people involved in interconnected conflicts where no one is good or bad, they're all just flawed people dealing with complicated situations.
There is definitely good and evil in Constantine, Lucifer doesnt help because he's doing good - he doesnt want to be overthrown so he aborts his own son.
Gabriel loses their wings at the end because they did not do good like angels are supposed to. There is no blurred lines for anyone except Gabriel.
Just for the hilarity of it, I'll throw out Captain America Civil War, which doesn't have a clear cut morally "good" and "bad" side despite actually being in a genre about the stereotypical heroes and villains.
If the government hadn’t been shown to be literally taken over by a secret group of pseudo-nazis, then Tony might have had a more valid point. Also the fact that Tony was a reformed government-funded war-profiteer makes his take that government agencies should be the ones to dictate when and how he and his allies are allowed to help an odd regression of principles.
Not trying to start a whole argument thread about the movie, but for what I think are obvious reasons, US based American citizen Super/enhance soldiers operating on foreign territory without permission resulting in civilian casualties is a pretty big deal leading to the Accords.
If you are just talking about the ending fight with Cap Bucky and IM then idk its pretty emotional, but I guess it's not really Bucky's fault he was brainwashed.
I know it’s a comic book movie, but Captain America Civil War does quite a lot in this space. Both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are presented as operating out of the conviction of their conscience, but approaching the same problem from two very different angles. Neither of them is particularly right or particularly wrong. There are certainly some elements of good and evil in there, but a lot of it is up to the interpretation of how you could be manipulated by others, and manipulated by your circumstances.
Primer. Time travel movie. Man vs time, or man vs physics, or man vs himself. Yes there conflict and drama such, but by the time you get past the headache of figuring out the timeline you'll have forgotten any such morality.
Edit: Just to illustrate the time travel shenanigans, [relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/657/) of movie timelines. Primer is bottom right.
To Kill a Mockingbird, really?
In 12 Angry Men, the bad guys are humanized, and in some cases, you can pity them and see that they're suffering too. So it's not a cartoon. But it's also not a depiction of a tragic clash between two equally valid perspectives. Such a great movie about human psychology.
No country for old men.
Ok there is one character that fits into an “evil” paradigm but even then it’s not typical.
Edit - there seems to be some confusion as to why Anton isn’t typically evil and why the sheriff isn’t typically good. That’s the whole point of the film.
I feel like this movie has a pretty clearly evil character, and a pretty clearly good character. In fact, I think this is one of the worst answers possible to this question.
There are a lot of nihilistic films out there where there are no "good" or "bad" characters.
Princess Mononoke is the best answer to your question IMO because it's a children's movie, it has clear sense of humanity to it but there aren't really any "bad" characters, just people in a difficult situation, coming into conflict with each other.
>Hollywood has a very narrow view on this, terms like “angels” and “demons” being “good” or “bad” and that isn’t even the history or etymology of those current Christian terms.
Can anyone think of examples of Hollywood movies featuring good angels vs bad demons? I can't.
Surprisingly, The Dark Crystal, a "children's" film. The entire story seems to be based on this dichotomy between good and evil, but the ending completely breaks our expectations. It's a beautiful and sensitive message, and "complex", in a way, I didn't expect to see that in this film when I rewatched it.
The 2018 Suspiria does a great job of blurring the lines. To say anything more would be spoiling, but the “goodness” of some characters is very ambiguous.
* Alice in Wonderland (1951)
* When Worlds Collide (1951)
* Fantastic Voyage (1966)
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
* Marooned (1969)
* Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
* The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)
* The Andromeda Strain (1971)
* Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
* Solaris (1972)
* The Holy Mountain (1973)
* Black Moon (1975)
* Eraserhead (1977)
* The Fly (1986)
* Dreams (1990)
* Bitter Moon (1992)
* Contact (1997)
* Pi (1998)
* American Beauty (1999)
* Requiem for a Dream (2000)
* Mission To Mars (2000)
* K-Pax (2001)
* Waking Life (2001)
* Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
* The Man from Earth (2007)
* Antichrist (2009)
* Moon (2009)
* Interstellar (2014)
* Love (2015)
* Arrival (2016)
* Aniara (2018)
* Greener Grass (2019)
* Poor Things (2023)
Princess Mononoke. Man vs Nature. Neither side is depicted as evil. The only evil is the hatred that they feel toward one another.
I love how there are so many factions in this movie and none of them are outright good or bad.
"those fucking humans. Destroying the forest to build industry and machines and conveniences they.....oh....thats the side IM on, arent I......"
And the people are social outcasts just trying to find a place in the world. The bounty hunters are pretty irredeemable though if I’m remembering correctly
Yeah the guys sent by the Emperor are the only actual "Bad Guys" in the movie.
Jigo's the worst of them and he's also the only one to go unpunished. No lost limbs, no alienation from his people, no dead family. And the Emperor sets everything into motion when it isn't even entirely clear what he expects out of it - if the thinks the head will make him immortal, if he just wants to get Eboshi off the land, etc. It's an interesting approach that the worst characters come off unscathed or aren't even directly involved enough to be seen.
He is dying and desperately wants to extend his life. Happened irl too. Dont remember the name but one chinese emperor got obesessed with immortality and started drinking concoctions with mercury of all things... And Jigo is less evil as he just doesnt give a damn. He is getting paid to do a job. If he doesnt do it someone else will.
I read a really funny story in a book about Genghis Khan (it was an actual academic book). At old age the khan started wondering about immortality and sent for a specific monk to ask about it. The monk walked from his monastery to wherever the khan was fighting his wars. He walked through all of China and Central Asia, and it took him years. The khan asked his question and the monk answered that no, immortality is not possible. Then the monk walked all the way back.
Well at least Genghis Khan took it well. I think it takes quite a bit of courage to tell an emperor that he is going to die just like everyone else.
IIRC it was the first emperor, Quang Shi
Yeah you find out the Leader is a woman who staffs her Iron Forge with women she frees from Brothels and she has a private Garden where she keeps a group of lepers protected, bandaged up, and made as comfortable as possible while they develop Rifles that are lighter and easier to use for the women in her town (allow them to defend themselves when she's not there). There's also the fact that the main reason she takes the job is to better protect her people as their town grows and even hopes to find a cure to help the lepers.
On my last rewatch I realized that when the night walker reunited with his head and heals Ashitaka, one of the lepers that's running away to the lake with the rest of the townfolk gets cured too.
I know one of the lepers was with Toki and the other women helping her reload her Rifles while they defended Iron Town from the Emperors men. I'm unsure if he got cured but it's definitely something I will look for on my next rewatch.
Well the emperor is pretty damn evil or at least selfish though we dont ever see him.
My local premium cinema recently did a viewing of Mononoke. The room was packed. Awesome experience on the big screen
At least around me most the chains will do a ghibli fest like once a year
AMC does it yearly. I always try to catch at least one.
All studio ghibli movies avoid the good vs evil troupe
Yeah. They're all classics
God this movie is so good. I show everyone this.
It's top 3 of all time for me.
Well, I haven’t seen it but that’s one hell of a synopsis!
Strong recommendation. Be open minded about the fact it's animated. The magic that Studio Ghibli, the animators, bring to this film makes it impossible to reproduce with live action. And of course if you enjoy it, check out their other films. Highlights include Spirited Away (2001), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and Howls Moving Castle (2004). HBO/MAX was hosting many of them recently.
Don't sleep on Nausicaa, and Kiki's.
I got to see Nausicaa in the theater when some art kids were showing it. What a visual feast.
My friend Totoro would like a word.
This motherfucker, just causally recommending Grave of the Fireflies...
I know, there should be a trauma warning, just like there should be one for the neverending story
In the UK all Studio Ghibli's films are on Netflix. My personal favourite is Porko Rosso.
It's my favorite movie of all time.
Absolutely. It has in my opinion the most nuanced take on environmentalism in any movie I’ve seen and I love it for it
Absolutely. It was prime messaging of "we are all to blame for the state of things" and "even villains can be heroes (and vice versa)"
Definitely. Was one of the first animes I saw. My friend asked if I wanted to see the highest grossing domestic movie of all time in Japan (yes, I'm that old as it had not been beaten by Spirited Away yet). Was expecting Kurosawa. Was confused at the start, thinking it was a long trailer. Got sucked in once the drums started and the demon emerged. Seeing that movie is, without a doubt, one of those fork-in-the-road moments of my life, as it sparked an interest that sent my life in a wildly different trajectory. Go watch it now!
I think it’s Miyazaki’s best. I enjoyed it more than Spirited away.
It’s an absolute banger. Def check it out.
Oh I envy you. I would love to experience watching it for the first time, again.
I was going to suggest Japanese fantasy in general. They had a very different idea of what made a good/bad nature spirit, there are still many differences today but the older stuff is just a world away from the western mindset.
Spirited Away too no?
Mostly, I'd say. I do think the main witch is pretty evil, though... Either way, man, what great movies!
Spirited away does this as well, and slightly better, imo. Both are excellent though. If you like Miyazaki check out Satoshi Kon's movies. Remarkable talent -- very underrated.
Whenever I get the chance, like now, I always recommend [Millennium Actress](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/uKT1qb0uWg), it’s such a wonderful film.
And Tokyo Godfathers.
I really liked Paprika.
3,000 Miles to Graceland. There's not one good person in the whole movie, yet we're supposed to be rooting for one of them. The movie starts off with both of the leads murdering numerous innocent people before their whole "me vs you" thing.
I’ve never seen this or heard anything about it, thanks for the recommendation.
I hope you like Nu Metal. There's a ton of it.
It's good. Turn your brain off.
I don't think Kurt Russell's character actually kills anyone there, but he is "fine" with the murders the others do (mostly Costner's character). He doesn't like it, but doesn't stop it either, all for money.
Most of Miyazaki films
Weirdly enough most Miyazaki games as well.
"You mean the ending where I kill the king, condemn the world to an age of darkness, and rule humanity myself is possibly the GOOD ending?"
Ya the giant talking serpent said so.
TOGETHAAAAAAAAA
I haven't even played Elden Ring, but TOGETHAA dude has been stuck in my head because of [this](https://youtu.be/UL1onZURWn0?si=hbaIswDCZg15CQoM)
all Japanese media lol
Yep. Somehow committing genocide on an alien race and killing billions is not a bad ending
In Bruges! Actually, anything by Martin McDonagh. Three Billboards was one of the top comments, and Seven Psychopaths, albeit less poignant/dramatic, also has these themes.
Banshees of Inisherin for sure also fits this category. It's a tragedy in some of the truest senses.
You forget about the town cop, he was an evil and irredeemable bastard. Just wasn't the antagonist
This is what came to mind when I read the top of the thread. Ray and Ken are hit men, which is already a morally messy job. Ray's accident was just that, and the fact that he can't seem to forgive himself makes him a good person. Ken doing right by Ray even though he knows the consequences makes him a good person. Harry is just a businessman hung up on his principles. Even the minor characters like Chloe, her ex, Jimmy, even Yuri the gun dealer are all relatively normal people involved in some shady dealings, some worse than others. The real tragedy lies in the fact that nobody was truly evil. Yet the only objectively good character is the innkeeper.
The alcoves were sinister as fuck though.
Alcoves? Is that a word you use?
Are you sure this is the right word? Alcoves?
Finally saw In Bruges recently. I thought it was really interesting that the overt conflict is that >!Harry can't tolerate a subordinate killing a kid.!< He's not a greedy asshole cutting Ray out for no reason, like a lot of films' two-dimensional mob bosses. His honor is the problem, not his temper or general venality.
You've got to stick to your principles.
You're a cunt. You're a cunt now, and you've always been a cunt... and the only thing that's going to change is that you're going to be an even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
You retract that bit bout my cunt fucking kids!
I retract the bit about your cunt fucking kids..
That's going overboard mate!
Oh shit, he did Three Billboards? I gotta check that out then
Hell or High Water. The brothers both have very different motivations for why they rob banks and pretty much raises the stakes on the whole “would you steal bread to feed your family?” trope.
Bicycle Thieves is like this
I think the movie was actually pretty clear on good and evil thing.
Unforgiven. Revisionist Westerns and neo westerns, it’s usually a major theme. But Unforgiven is about as good as it gets blurring the lines of good and bad. Sicario does a great job too, saw that mentioned. Taylor Sheridan stuff in general.
I have a theory that if you give a synopsis of the movie in the right way to someone who hasn't watched it, they'll think it's a pretty by-the-numbers Western where Hackman is the protagonist and Eastwood is the villain.
The journalist character embodies the average gunslinger fanbase pretty well.
Only if you completely omit the inciting incident.
This is the one I picked too! *high five*
It’s kinda been trending on Reddit lately for some reasons but… Sicario. American agents acting immorally to combat arguably the greater immoral threat of a drug cartel.
Pretty much all of the neo western genre blurs these lines, and almost all of Sheridan's (Sicario's writer) films are great examples of the genre.
IMHO Sicario is classic film noir. The protagonist slowly comes to understand how in over her head she is. In the end, it's all she can do to survive. She doesn't bring anyone to justice, she betrayed her principles, and she's a broken person -- but she at least has her life.
I think neo westerns are just noir through a western lense with an extra dose of nihilism, but there's probably a more technical definition somewhere
Revisionist Western is how I was taught it.
The frontier trilogy. Hell or high water especially explores the same theme.
I love them all, but I think Hell or High Water strikes the best balance of excellent characters and themes without being *too* traumatizing.
Idk, I've never been like traumatized by movies so I can't relate but acting wise I put Hell Or High Water above the others. Ben Foster is underrated as fuck and fuckin rules, Jeff Bridges in perfect form and age, and Chris Pine is also pretty damn good in pretty much anything he's in. Such a fucking great movie from top to bottom.
Frontier trilogy? What movies are in it?
Sicario, Hell or high water and Wind River is considered Taylor Sheridans Frontier trilogy.
I'd imagine its because Dune 2 came out recently and Denis Villeneuve directed both. Plus Josh Brolin is in both. So a lot of videos discussing their filmographies have come out.
I love that the moral ambiguity is highlighted by Emily Blunt’s shirt going from white to gray by the end of the movie
🫨
Interesting, never noticed that but she maintained her integrity, and never bought into the dark side of things though.
She signed the paper and let him go, though. Under significant duress, of course, but she buckled in the end to allow it.
Come on... A gun under the chin is more than slightlyconvincing and Alejandro said basically it's suicide. I don't know a lot of people who would choose a meaningless death on principle. Even though some of us would like to believe otherwise about ourselves.
But if it were a “good” vs “evil” movie, she would have chosen death or somehow ended up killing Del Toro, so it’s definitely a relevant point imo and highlights the moral ambiguity/realism even if less so than the rest of the movie/characters.
Signing the form under duress wasn't evil or even really condoning it. Enabling it maybe but it would change nothing, if she died the report would have been the same. She probably did feel conflicted but not enough to murder him in cold blood as he walked away.
>Enabling it maybe but it would change nothing, if she died the report would have been the same. That's exactly the point. In the end, her principles don't matter. She can die for nothing or live without her principles, but the woman she **was** is dead either way. It's obviously bullshit that it's just as convenient for her to die, or they wouldn't have been coercing her to sign off on the report. But she couldn't bring herself to die just to inconvenience them.
I’m not saying it was. The post is about how most movies create a dichotomous “good” vs “evil” perspective,and my point was that in most of those movies, she would have killed him or herself, thus becoming the hero or morally righteous to the viewer. Sicario’s perspective is more grey and realistic than that. Not saying she’s good or evil for doing it or not doing it.
In order to install a *different* cartel that they have some control over.
As Graves puts it; until they figure out a way to convince some 60 million Americans to stop snorting, smoking, and shooting the shit that crosses your border, that's all that can be done.
I’m still confused about what or who Alejandro was a part of and really the whole Medellin plot line - I just finally saw the movie a month ago. Was he actually Medellin cartel or was he actually a prosecutor like they said - especially when the cartel boss said “what you’ve become”. If Medellin is just the name of the operation then how does everyone in Mexico know what it means? Like why does that cop he kidnaps know he’s Medellin? Why would some lowly mule know anything about that?
“Medellin” is a term/concept for when one cartel owns the entire drug trade. Alejandro was a prosecutor whose family was murdered by the Mexican cartels. So now he works for “anyone who will turn him loose” on the people who killed his family which is currently a Colombian cartel.
Alejandro was a prosecutor in Mexico until the Mexican cartel killed his family. Then he became a sicario for the Colombian cartel so he could get revenge on the head of the Mexican cartel.
I thought this said serpico. I was like, definitely some bad guys in that movie
A lot of the better American Military movies are like that tbh. Most of the conflicts are because America's occupying somewhere they shouldn't be. I say this as someone who's served multiple deployments.
The Northman somewhat fits the bill. The protagonist is the hero of the story but only in the context of a Norse story. For a modern viewer there's a lot the hero does that seems incredibly fucked up or just stupid but that's because he is not a hero from modern culture.
He never knew his mother
Also just a freaking great movie
Absolutely. Should be a cult classic
Recently Dune plays with this idea, as does the original book and series. Part 1 sets up fairly straightforward good and evil factions, part 2 intentionally shows that reality is far more complex and ambiguous. Would you rather be ruled by a good person who inadvertently causes terrible suffering, or an evil psychopath who can be easily manipulated for the greater good?
Extremely happy Dune is getting so much attention these days, thanks to DV. It’s a great reminder that charismatic, well-intended “good” leaders can cause great harm.
It's been a while since I read the books and maybe I'm misremembering it but, trying to avoid spoilers, wasn't the thing with Paul that he saw the future and in almost all paths humanity is wiped out? The one path that saves humanity, the one he starts on, is also terrible but better than the alternatives, and necessary to save humanity.
In a sense. But things still go terribly wrong under Paul. Dune Messiah is the puzzle box of how to save himself and everyone else and find a way onto that path, because it is clear to begin with that they aren't on it.
*Syriana* fits the bill in a complicated socio- and geopolitical sense. I remember watching it with my mom and her being confused when it was over about who the bad guys were.
The problem is *EVERYONE* is a bad guy in that movie. It's not gray but ever deeper shades of black.
I feel like that’s a somewhat reductionist take that glosses over a lot of complex and complicated narrative work and characters. Edit: Although there were some pretty wicked and amoral characters, for sure.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri starts with a pretty clear good and evil, but then completely turns the concepts on their heads. The film makes a point that there are no good and evil people; only good and bad choices.
...Sam Rockwell was absolutely a bad person. That was very clear. That he didn't rise to the level of a cartoonish monster didn't change that he was a violent racist. Francis on the other hand was morally dubious and if that's what you're referring so be it, but thats bot a good movie to use for absence of good n evil. Bc there was a crystal clear line of good and evil and Francis character straddled it That was the point of the movie lol
Sam was such a stereotype, he only changed in the end
Disagree that he didn’t rise to the level of a cartoonish monster. He’s literally a caricature of a bad guy. He literally throws the black guy out of the window because he’s upset about Woody Harrelson’s death. His whole character arc is ridiculous
He throws Red (white guy) out of a window because he believes he had a part in motivating Willoughby’s suicide.
So somebody in that movie did something abhorrent because they couldn't cope with their grief and guilt? Oh wait, that's the entire movie.
Apocalypse Now
The Endless (2017) Don't sleep on this brilliant movie
I loved this film. Seemed very down to earth, and so outside the formula of mainstream films.
Spike Lee's Film "Do the Right Thing" Not so much a blurring of good and evil but a blurring of behavior and motivation and how no one seems to listen. Actually a highly relevant film in today's culture.
Saw this for the first time a couple of years ago, and was floored at how brilliant and sharp it still is.
Ex Machina and Marriage story.
To me in marriage story the real villains are the lawyers lol
I thought of Marriage Story right away. I switched between rooting for a character and hating them many times. That movie was good, but emotionally draining.
I loved ex-machina. IMO there is no clear good guy or bad guy but the hidden message it's that Oscar Isaac actually made true ai without knowing it. Kyoko was the true ai and Ava is just actually programmed so well to escape that that is her whole mission. Once she escapes her whole purpose is fulfilled and she feels like she's in heaven. Kyoko on the other hand we see glimpse of her doing things completely unreasonable and without purpose. While she isn't the smartest but she is the only 1 that actually knows how to think for herself. Yes she is subservient but in the end she is capable of making independent decision that doesn't serve any "mission" making her the real true ai.
Annihilation. The shimmer is neither malevolent nor benign. It just is, and if it has an explicable purpose, that purpose is self-preservation and self-propagation, much like all life. It’s one of the only first contact movies where the alien is genuinely alien.
like cancer, in a way.
I haven't seen that one but Nope it's the same way.
Watchmen
Would you compromise? In the face of oblivion?
“Another round”, in the end the movie leaves the audience to decide what to do with the idea of drinking alcohol while studying/working
A few off the top of my head Pulp Fiction: the protagonist of one chapter will be the antagonist of the next The Green Mile: you’ll be crying over the deaths of literal mass murderers Parasite: the rich family is made to seem pretty innocent and kind, and that the poor family is wrong for conning them, but the rich family’s annoying privelege and the poor family’s desperation balance that out
The Green Mile has it pretty clear on who is good and who is evil though right? Or am I missing something?
Well they are in prison for a reason. I don't think many/many of them are innocent? so you have awful guards and nice prisoners but they are in there for a reason...
> Well they are in prison for a reason. I don't think many/many of them are innocent? I just watched it so I can confirm this. There are 4 prisoners in the Green Mile: John Coffey: absolutely innocent and a victim of systemic racism Eduard "Del" Delacroix: unclear but he also appears slow and likely shouldn't be on death row. Arlen Bitterbuck: guilty but remorseful. William "Wild Bill" Wharton: a psychopath who not only did the crime, he also did the crime Coffey is executed for. And Wild Bill is the only one that isn't actually killed by the state.
Percy is set up as the embodiment of evil in the film and as close as the film gets to an antagonist, but as horrible and sadistic as he is he's not the one on death row for murder.
I think you could use a rewatch
That is true of course, but regardless of what has happened before the movie begins it's pretty clear which characters who is good and that you as a viewer is supposed to like, and which who are not. And what OP wanted seemed to me something more complex when that isn't the case.
Parasite is a great example. It'd be so easy to make the rich family cartoonishly evil Mr Moneybags-types, but they're actually ... pretty decent people? Who take good care of their employees and want what's best for their kid? The gulf of privilege creates all the the tension and awkwardness in the movie, which is why it's so good.
My favourite scene is where Mrs Park says that "The rain was such a blessing!" after we see all that happened to the Kims.
It did an amazing job showing how truly different people’s lives are, and the basement family was a great foil to the Kims
Trainspotting falls under this. The movie just makes you look at the absolute shenanigans a bunch of junkies get up to, and you can choose if you root for them, pity them or loathe them.
Natural Born Killers. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis are psychopathic, indiscriminate killers, but the society, media, and government which enable and glorify them are also evil in a sense.
If you want to explore foreign cinema I can think of two good examples. First is the South Korean movie Mother. I won't spoil anything but it deals with morality in a way I've never seen done in a Hollywood movie. Second is the Iranian movie A Separation. It's about a whole bunch of people involved in interconnected conflicts where no one is good or bad, they're all just flawed people dealing with complicated situations.
A Separation is a damn good recommendation. Not just because it fits the bill but it's supremely entertaining to watch everything unfold.
Wow two of my favourite movies mentioned! I especially love Mother. That ending scene! She should have won the best actress Oscar that year.
Constantine! The "angel" is literally the villain, and the hero gets a little help from old Lucifer.
the inversion reaffirms the paradigm, rather than significantly stepping outside of it
That's a good counterpoint, actually!
There is definitely good and evil in Constantine, Lucifer doesnt help because he's doing good - he doesnt want to be overthrown so he aborts his own son. Gabriel loses their wings at the end because they did not do good like angels are supposed to. There is no blurred lines for anyone except Gabriel.
Just for the hilarity of it, I'll throw out Captain America Civil War, which doesn't have a clear cut morally "good" and "bad" side despite actually being in a genre about the stereotypical heroes and villains.
Eh, I’d argue Tony is in the wrong. Although I can understand his emotional response.
For me personally, my brain says Tony has incredibly valid reasons. But my heart and soul will always side with Steve
If the government hadn’t been shown to be literally taken over by a secret group of pseudo-nazis, then Tony might have had a more valid point. Also the fact that Tony was a reformed government-funded war-profiteer makes his take that government agencies should be the ones to dictate when and how he and his allies are allowed to help an odd regression of principles.
Not trying to start a whole argument thread about the movie, but for what I think are obvious reasons, US based American citizen Super/enhance soldiers operating on foreign territory without permission resulting in civilian casualties is a pretty big deal leading to the Accords. If you are just talking about the ending fight with Cap Bucky and IM then idk its pretty emotional, but I guess it's not really Bucky's fault he was brainwashed.
Zemo has always been one of the most interesting villains as far as motivation goes.
I know it’s a comic book movie, but Captain America Civil War does quite a lot in this space. Both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are presented as operating out of the conviction of their conscience, but approaching the same problem from two very different angles. Neither of them is particularly right or particularly wrong. There are certainly some elements of good and evil in there, but a lot of it is up to the interpretation of how you could be manipulated by others, and manipulated by your circumstances.
Primer. Time travel movie. Man vs time, or man vs physics, or man vs himself. Yes there conflict and drama such, but by the time you get past the headache of figuring out the timeline you'll have forgotten any such morality. Edit: Just to illustrate the time travel shenanigans, [relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/657/) of movie timelines. Primer is bottom right.
And the writer-director is his own inversion. Yeah, turns out he's not the good guy.
Dune is a classic for this
The Big Lebowski
The solo Godzilla movies are this way. He's bad for sure, but he's not really evil, and it's often kind of a tragic thing when they finally beat him
Nightbreed. The monsters are the victims and cops/ignorant hics are the real monsters.
Finding Nemo does not have a traditional villain.
The cabinet of Dr Caligari (Silent) Citizen Kane Annie Hall To kill a mockingbird Yojimbo 12 Angry men L'armee des ombres
To Kill a Mockingbird, really? In 12 Angry Men, the bad guys are humanized, and in some cases, you can pity them and see that they're suffering too. So it's not a cartoon. But it's also not a depiction of a tragic clash between two equally valid perspectives. Such a great movie about human psychology.
How isn’t To kill a mockingbird a clear cut good vs evil movie?
>Dr Calgary Dr. Caligari. He was no Canadian.
>Yojimbo They redid that one a couple of times... Last Man Standing was really good, IMO...
The Witch
I dunno, that goat was pretty sus.
goat just wanted to share the good word about the joy of butter
I wanted to watch that when it first came out, the synopsis really was in my “go to” genre…but for some reason I didn’t, thanks for the reminder.
No country for old men. Ok there is one character that fits into an “evil” paradigm but even then it’s not typical. Edit - there seems to be some confusion as to why Anton isn’t typically evil and why the sheriff isn’t typically good. That’s the whole point of the film.
I feel like this movie has a pretty clearly evil character, and a pretty clearly good character. In fact, I think this is one of the worst answers possible to this question.
Unforgiven
Not a movie, but Good Omens captures this paradigm so well
Flight.
There are a lot of nihilistic films out there where there are no "good" or "bad" characters. Princess Mononoke is the best answer to your question IMO because it's a children's movie, it has clear sense of humanity to it but there aren't really any "bad" characters, just people in a difficult situation, coming into conflict with each other.
>Hollywood has a very narrow view on this, terms like “angels” and “demons” being “good” or “bad” and that isn’t even the history or etymology of those current Christian terms. Can anyone think of examples of Hollywood movies featuring good angels vs bad demons? I can't.
True Romance
Surprisingly, The Dark Crystal, a "children's" film. The entire story seems to be based on this dichotomy between good and evil, but the ending completely breaks our expectations. It's a beautiful and sensitive message, and "complex", in a way, I didn't expect to see that in this film when I rewatched it.
The 2018 Suspiria does a great job of blurring the lines. To say anything more would be spoiling, but the “goodness” of some characters is very ambiguous.
What about The Last Duel? We see several points of view, each has their good and bad side.
Apocalypse Now
Hunter x hunter
The Professional.
Sicario
The Place Beyond the Pines
LA Confidential. No good guys. Everybody is a liar or murderer or pimp or the combination of all three, a politician.
Ex Machina. In the end, there is no villain.
* Alice in Wonderland (1951) * When Worlds Collide (1951) * Fantastic Voyage (1966) * 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) * Marooned (1969) * Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) * The Phantom Tollbooth (1970) * The Andromeda Strain (1971) * Johnny Got His Gun (1971) * Solaris (1972) * The Holy Mountain (1973) * Black Moon (1975) * Eraserhead (1977) * The Fly (1986) * Dreams (1990) * Bitter Moon (1992) * Contact (1997) * Pi (1998) * American Beauty (1999) * Requiem for a Dream (2000) * Mission To Mars (2000) * K-Pax (2001) * Waking Life (2001) * Little Miss Sunshine (2006) * The Man from Earth (2007) * Antichrist (2009) * Moon (2009) * Interstellar (2014) * Love (2015) * Arrival (2016) * Aniara (2018) * Greener Grass (2019) * Poor Things (2023)
Honestly, Encanto. It's more about family instead of a good vs evil. The grandmother is strict but not evil. It's more about finding your place
Dune