10 Best Movies Where the Bad Guys Win, According to Reddit

"How do you shoot the devil in the back?"

It's not uncommon for the villain to be the best part of a movie. Sometimes the bad guy is sympathetic, and the audience can't help but root for them. Other times, the villain is just so inherently, entertainingly evil we can't take our eyes off them. It's not surprising, therefore, that some of the most popular, memorable films are those where the bad guys win.

Redditor careater made a post on r/askreddit (a sub with over 40 million members) asking "What is a good 'the bad guy wins' movie?" The most upvoted responses ranged from sci-fi to classics, children's films to Westerns, demonstrating the enduring appeal of movie villains who come out on top.

Detective Hobbes (Denzel Washington) is investigating a serial killer whom he gradually comes to realize is supernatural – the fallen angel Azrael, who possesses people and uses them to commit murder. In the end, Hobbes sacrifices himself after becoming possessed by Azrael. But just when the viewer assumes the latter has been destroyed, a very cute and 100% demonically-possessed tabby cat pads past Hobbes’ body.

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Fallen received mostly negative reviews but has gone on to become a cult favorite. Redditors praised the final twist, with Catwoman1948 commenting "It will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! Not at all what we were expecting".

The titular supervillain in Megamind is depressed and lacking purpose after the apparent death of his nemesis, Metro Man. He creates a new adversary out of the latter's DNA – Titan (or Tighten, the new hero isn't good at spelling), who unfortunately becomes an even bigger villain than Megamind himself. To stop Tighten, Megamind must become a superhero.

While Megamind technically isn't a villain anymore by the end of the film, Redditors still applauded the supervillain's redemption arc story. Some compared it to Despicable Me, while NinjaOld8057 commented "Megamind did it better than Wreck-It Ralph, and I say that as a huge video game nerd."

This historical epic covers 30 years in the life of ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). The latter goes from silver miner to millionaire, committing murder and alienating family and friends along the way. There Will Be Blood ends with Plainview beating Reverend Eli Sunday – his long-time adversary – to death with a bowling pin.

Day-Lewis won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Plainview. Redditors debated whether the latter would get away with his impulsive, sloppy final murder, with Chaotickane pointing out "he's rich... no one knows about the murder except him and his butler... there's no way he's getting caught."

This clever meta horror-comedy begins like most slasher films – a group of young adults at a remote woodlands cabin for the weekend. But the group are manipulated into typical horror film tropes by a covet underground organization, that are storing all kind of classic movie monsters in their facility. When the monsters are released, all Hell quite literally breaks loose.

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The Cabin in the Woods is built on the premise the secret organization must hold human sacrifices to appease an unknown God. Redditor Initial_E astutely pointed out this 'God' is really us – the horror movie audience. "We are the actual bad guys...if what we expect to see doesn't happen, like a virgin sacrificial ritual, we will destroy the movie at the box office." So is it a good thing that the bad guys won in this case?

After a mugging leaves him paralyzed, Gray Trace agrees to an experimental computer chip – STEM – being implanted in his brain. Gray is able to walk again but slowly loses control of his body as STEM takes over. In the end, Gray believes he has beaten the AI villain, but in a twist, we see this is just a fantasy created by STEM – who is still very much in charge.

Upgrade was well received by critics, with an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Redditor Metasketch commented "Upgrade is what Venom could have been without the annoying wisecracking "bloodthirsty" cartoon character."

FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) meets with Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins), an imprisoned serial killer and cannibal. Lector gives Starling the psychological insights she needs to successfully catch Buffalo Bill, another serial killer the FBI is hunting. But Lector escapes (in one of cinema's most famous prison break scenes) and remains free at the end of the film. As a ​​​​now-deleted-Redditor put it, "Buffalo Bill is killed, but Lecter escapes to eat another day".

The Silence of the Lambs was enormously successful, winning five Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hannibal Lecter was named by the American Film Institute (AFI) as American cinema's greatest villain.

Se7en is a crime noir thriller about two detectives, Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt), chasing a serial killer who commits murders based on the seven deadly sins. The pair finally catch the murderer (Kevin Spacey) but learn he has one last nasty surprise – namely, a box that's strongly implied to contain the head of Mill's wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow).

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The brutal twist ending helped turn Se7en into an enduring classic. Multiple Redditors gleefully quoted Pitt's famous "What's in the box?!" line, with macka0072 adding "I loved the way this was done, it was in the background at first, and the audience realizes what's happening right as the characters do."

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back concludes with Han Solo frozen in carbonite, the Rebel Alliance with no base, Luke Skywalker with no right hand, and a shocking truth revealed about his parentage. It's a stark contrast to the jolly awards ceremony at the end of its predecessor, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.

The Empire Strikes Back is widely considered the best Star Wars film, not only for its iconic moments (the AT-ATs, Yoda, Cloud City lightsaber duel) but also for its darker, less black-and-white storyline. Redditor Kageout discussed the massive strategic loss of Hoth to the Rebel Alliance, and how even though Luke didn't join Vader the latter successfully "planted a seed in his mind about where his loyalties lie".

No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, follows the entwined stories of a hitman, a sheriff, and a Vietnam Vet in 1980s West Texas. Javier Bardem plays the psychopathic hitman, Anton Chigurh, who uses a coin toss to determine whether or not to kill his victims. By the end of the film he has killed the Vietnam Vet's wife, Carla Jean, and successfully recovered the millions of dollars at the center of the story.

Bardem won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, which Redditors widely praised. User celesticaxxz commented "The weirder the hair/wig the better the performance" while ThebirdGretel pointed out Chigurh doesn't completely walk away unscathed, commenting "Bad guy won, but still got hit by car."

Petty criminal Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint is one of two survivors of an underworld massacre. Agent Kujan interrogates Kint, who tells the story of how criminal mastermind Keyser Söze orchestrated everything. Kujan releases Kint, but in a final twist it's revealed Kint was actually Keyser Söze all along.

The Usual Suspects was a critical and box office success, and was ranked by the AFI as the 10th best mystery film of all time. Kevin Spacey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Kint, leading StormtrooperMJS to cynically (if aptly) observe "the bad guy really did win something".

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Louise is an Australian Xennial who grew up watching Star Wars on VHS, taped off the TV. She has previously written news articles, procedural guides, fan fiction, records of meetings, web content, erotic short stories, marketing copy, conference proceedings, and many (unfinished) first novel drafts. But most of all, Louise loves writing about movies and TV shows.