21 Movies Where Maybe the Villain Isn’t Really the Villain

They say there are two sides to every story, and that’s exponentially true for movies. There’s the hero’s side, the villain’s side, the woman they’re unwantedly fighting over’s side, the random bystander who might get thrown into a propeller’s side, etc. They’re all valid, although some are obviously more sympathetic than others. No one’s particularly interested in the villain’s side of Schindler’s List, for example.

Sometimes, though, if we just take a moment to look at things from the perspective of the so-called “villain,” you might start to wonder if they are one at all. Maybe they’re a bureaucrat just trying to do their extremely necessary job, another authority figure trying to save society from calamity at the hands of our thoughtless heroes, or a literal child who never considered the idea of sentient toys. Such heroes were all called out when user CynicalCosmologist asked r/AskReddit, “What movie is really sad when told from the ‘villain’s’ perspective?” and now we don’t know what words mean anymore.