8 Movie Villains Who Actually Had A Point

8 Movie Villains Who Actually Had A Point

A compassionate villain. It’s not as rare as you may think. Yes, there is nothing better than a movie villain with a passion to inflict as much damage as possible, even ones who do it with nothing but pure evil as their motivation. But when you get a villain, whose point is justifiable, it can turn them into a sympathetic character.

Some of the best movie villains had a point, it was in their execution that they lacked compassion. But in making their arguments, we often find ourselves agreeing with their reasoning. Here are eight movie villains that audiences can get behind.

8. Killmonger - Black Panther (2018)

Michael B. Jordan played Killmonger, the big bad, in the 2018 Marvel film, Black Panther. He squared off with Wakanda’s protector, T’Challa, for what seemed to be personal reasons. In part, they were (being an outcast from Wakanda), but a deeper look at his motivations shows that he wanted a better life for his people, and in his mind, to make this happen he would need to be the King of Wakanda. The devil was in the details.

7. Ra's al Ghul - Batman Begins (2005)

Liam Neeson jumped on board as Ra’s al Ghul in the 2005 Christopher Nolan film, Batman Begins. As the leader of the League of Shadows, Ra’s al Ghul had one goal in mind – the destruction of Gotham City. His reasoning behind the attempted destruction can be understood – he felt the city was well beyond saving and it needed a redo.

6. Ozymandias - Watchmen (2009)

For someone who holds the title of The Smartest Man in the World, Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) sure wasn’t smart enough to come up with a better way to stop in world’s spiral toward Armageddon. He went to the extreme when he staged a fake alien attack, but his notion that it was a necessary evil in order to prevent nuclear war was something we could understand.

5. The Joker - The Dark Knight (2008)

Heath Ledger pulled off something as the Joker in The Dark Knight that no one, other than perhaps himself and director Christopher Nolan, thought he could do. Turn the Joker into a thought-provoking character. True, Ledger’s Joker was batshit crazy, but there was a method to his chaotic madness as he tried to steer society toward revealing its true nature.

4. Magneto - X-Men (2000)

Ian McKellan portrayed Magneto in the 2000 film, X-Men. While he was considered to be the villain of the film, his reasoning for his actions is quite understandable. As a child, Magneto, then known as Erik Lehnsherr, was born into a Jewish family in Nazi, Germany. Seeing his parents lose their lives in the Auschwitz concentration camp caused his mutant powers to manifest. This, plus the discrimination he received as a mutant gave him all the reasoning he needed.

3. Thanos - Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

As our world continues to spin and spin, the idea of overpopulation is not one to take lightly. Thanos, the massive villain in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, took it to heart and while his methods lacked subtlety, his desire to create balance in all of the universe can be understood.

2. Jigsaw - Saw (2004)

You have to give Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) credit, he loves to make a point. Jigsaw is the infamous serial killer in the Saw franchise, whose motives for choosing victims were understandable once he shared them. His methods of making his victims learn to appreciate their lives were extreme and brutal, but sometimes things need to go to the extreme for a point to be made.

1. General Francis X. Hummel - The Rock (1996)

Anyone who has served in the military under extreme distress (and even those who haven’t seen action) will certainly look at General Hummel with a different opinion. Hummel, played here by Ed Harris, is hell-bent on bringing attention to the sacrifices of the fallen soldiers under his command. While the government drags its heels, Hummel decides to take matters into his own hands by threatening to launch missiles at San Francisco.