Good didn't prevail over evil in these sci-fi flicks. For more awesome content, check out: whatculture.com/ Follow us on Facebook at: / whatculture Catch us on Twitter: / whatculture
You seem to be forgetting the actual ending of Glass, which undoes her efforts by having the children of the heroes leak footage; proving to the world that superheroes exist. So the bad guy loses just as much as the heroes do.
I'd see it as Ozzy knew they were 'hacking' into his computer, and released the data. Ozzy then waited until the craft arrived, waited for them to get clear (so the news alerts would not be heard), and then set off his plan. Ozzy still cared for his friends, and wanted to talk to them to explain his actions.
Except that Manhattan implies that Ozymandias' victory is temporary at best (Nothing ends Adrian, nothing ever ends) and the final scene is Rorschach's notebook about to get published.
As others have pointed out, the villain in Glass lost, because the secret got out. Glass only counts as the villains winning if you consider the supereroes' deaths to be the end.
@@BrianHartman yes, but his death was part of his plan all along. A true mastermind who was willing to sacrifice any piece on the board in order to win.
But the point of the video is that Dr Stemple and the Overseers are the real villains and they won. But they didn't win. It's not the point of the video that Glass and by extension super-powered beings of the future of all ilk won.
It's a very basic movie in terms of plot, but the cast and performances, particularly Denzel makes it a very memorable movie, even genuinely creepy in places
Yes, the last moments with Veronica Cartwright give me chills to this day. The special effects in that movie are amazing. Every actor was flawless. Such an amazing remake.
Not only did he win, he got the heroes to go along with him by convincing them it was for the best, that if they did come forward all the deaths would be pointless. The only hiccup I suppose would be the journal
He sort of won...but to be honest, he was doing it to save the world. Veidt wasn't trying to break into Ft. Knox, or ransom nuke warheads for money. He was trying to protect the world the only way known to fascist heroes of an epic superhero story meant to subvert superhero stories.
@@winternow2242 in comic prequel few years ago it was even revel dr Manhattan literally check countless possible timelines to stop the nuclear Armageddon and couldn’t find any and told it to ozymanueods what implied to start the idea for the plan
I never really considered OCP to be villainous. They represent technology and capitalist business. Both bad and good things happen because of them due to their dominant and inescapable presence in society.
Emphasis on "memorable". Saw this movie when I was 14. Didn't sleep for 3 nights afterwards. And whenever I see even the slightest bit of Body Snatchers, I switch channels, close the web site (I was VERY close to immediately stopping this video the second I saw that Body Snatchers is #10 on the list; I changed to another tab instead for the duration...), throw away the magazine etc. I'm extremely traumatized by this movie.😱 Traumatized to the point where it's difficult to watch other movies with Donald Sutherland, as I always expect him to point and shriek.
Here's one you forgot. The original ending to Little Shop of Horrors. I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen it but I'll just say that test audiences hated it so much that they had to make that "feel good" second ending and that ending is what they used for the theatrical release.
it's here on youtube, just look it up and you'll find the entire original ending. It's not all perfectly edited, but it's all in one piece. I agree with the test audiences though, that ending would have ruined the movie for me.
@@TheTurkaderr The musical version of Little Shop of Horrors was based on the stage play, which has the "villain winning", which is an expansion of the 1960 version's ending.
You must be talking about the film version of the musical. The original "Little Shop" by Roger Corman would be eligible for this list, as the plant won. The stage version was the same. Only the film musical changed it.
Neither the original nor the remakes of Body Snatchers used Jack Finney's original ending, which was that the invaders decided that the humans were too horrid, evil, brutish,, violent and fanatically dangerous to be suitable hosts. The entire Homo sapiens species was abandoned to its fate at the end of the book. Santa Mira just returned to being a boring, tiny West Coast town, full of citizens who were all too human. The bad guys won in the original story. Homo sapiens.
Meh..if you try to enslave and steal the bodies of other sentient beings, you're definitely the villains in my book. "Our hosts are too horrid, not nice enough for us amazing bodysnatchers" is hilariously hypocritical, and that ending, as described, sounds like incredibly stupid, pseudo-edgy drivel, so it's great that the adaptations ignored it.
@@FrakkinToasterLuvva Doesn't work that way. The original story was about an alien invasion. The first movie adaptation was about communism. The 1982 movie's subtext was about the gradual, creeping corruption of capitalism. The movies imposed subtexts on a straightforward B-movie alien invasion story. And Jack Finney was telling us that people were grotesque, naturally prone to the most dreadful behaviour. That was HIS subtext. Humans suck.
Same, it's more about how our environment affects our views of the world. Megamind isn't the villain, his attempts to fit in just cause others to see him as such. It wasn't even subtle, the fact a Alien baby crashed into a prison and was raised by prisoners and treated as a prisoner from birth reflects this message.
Lawnmower Man was derivative of Flowers For Algernon. 1984 is a better candidate for the number 1 spot because it becomes clear during the novel and the film that the cabal that actually controls Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia intends to keep humanity in a constant state of conflict and oppression forever. Demon Seed (1977) is sadly missing from this list.
Related to "The Box" #1 I am being honest, I would 100% NEVER push the button if it was given to me. I refuse to get rich off of other people's life I think this was actually originally on either "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits".
Gosh, d'ya s'pose... just spitballing here... that maybe, possibly The Box is a metaphor for unltd laissez-faire capitalism? Nah, that's just crazy talk. Obviously.
Angel Heart - Louis Cyphre pulls the rug out from under Harry Angel as the ultimate winner in this bleak (yet amazing) offering from the 80's. And KEYSER SÖZE from The Usual Suspects🙂.
10. The Pod People (Invasion of The Body Snatchers, 1978) 9. Dr. Ellie Staple (Glass)* 8. Arlington Stewart (The Box) 7. David (Alien: Covenant) 6. The Stepford Men's Association (The Stepford Wives, original release) 5. Stem (Upgrade) 4. Megamind (Megamind)** 3. The Government (Brazil, from director Terry Gilliam) 2. Big Brother (1984) 1. Jobe Smith (The Lawnmower Man) *this choice ignores the final scene of Glass where the surviving family members and the surviving victim of James McAvoy's character broadcast the secret to the world, leaving the audience to wonder what happened next (kinda like at the end of the Charlie Sheen movie The Arrival) **the storyline shifts where the previous villain becomes a hero, albeit just cleaning up the mess he made when he created Titan
The bad guy did win.... but it was Mr. Glass.... from the train wreck that found The Overseer & had a hand in creating The Horde his plan was to prove that these ppl existed & in turn becoming a supervillan himself. His plan in the end worked when the video got out. Mr. Glass won.
Steven King's Storm of the century - The demon walks the guys son past him at the end of the movie just to show hes won him over completely at end. He won that. Sometimes its nice to have them win.
But did he really ? I always thought the guy was just in town at the same time as Mr. whatever his name was and he happened to pass them on the street by accident. Because he calls out his son's name and the son hisses at him, so it's not like they were expecting him.
@@TheTurkaderr Ive always viewed it as Legion making good on his word as he would know where the guy was. A final twist of the knive on his memories of the town and his life as it were. Makes for a good ending to wrap it up as it is not like most modern stories / movies. But yes it was always a good one.
Well, his plan hinged on him being killed by "Wrath", thus completing his masterpiece. So, in the end, Doe won, and Mills lost absolutely everything. Chilling!
Alien Covenant is a typical example of a filmmaker SO USED to be told he created something (while The SCREENWRITER actually did) that he wanted to take back the control of the franchise after (sometime rightly so) disagreeing with the direction it took. Scott released the extended cut of Alien because he didn't like the Queen/Hive explanation from Cameron's Aliens and did THIS explanation of the Xenomorph's création despite the fact it contradicted their presence in the AvP movies...
What makes me really upset about Alien: Covenant is that it gives the Xenomorph origins a direct link to humanity, despite everything that was implied in Alien and even (to an extent) Prometheus. It’s the *Alien* franchise; they’re supposed to be Alien, completely otherworldly and mysterious! It just sucks out a huge chunk of the scare factor, IMO
@@davisphillips993 Yup, its another "humanity is its own downfall" movie, which is all the rage these days - gotta hate ourselves. It ruined the franchise for me.
If you ask me, “Alien” is one of those franchises that needs a high-quality reboot/sequel to erase the ones after “Aliens” (and before “Alien”), similar to “Halloween” 2018
I'd argue that in Brazil, Sam actually won, in that he escaped, (albeit into a catatonic state), where they couldn't get to him. They could not convince him, now, that they were right because he was beyond their reach. Unlike Winston Smith in 1984, where Big Brother won by convincing him that they were right.
@@ChanningKing button, button. It's actually viewable online. There werent many episodes of 80s TZ that i thought were memorable, but this was brilliantly unforgettable.
I don't think Ava is really a villian. She was trying to escape: 1. A man who gave her consciousness and was imprisoning her when she wanted to be free. 2. A man who didn't want to free her because she had consciousness, was imprisoned, and wanted to be free , but instead freed her because she was a "damsel", he was a "knight", and he might get the girl in the end. She didn't have any options. It was very much a commentary about patriarchy as much as it was a commentary about tech.
off the top of my head movies where the villains came out on top in the end. A Scanner Darkly (New-Path) Repo: The Genetic Opera (GeneCo) Repomen (The Union) Transcendence (Dr. Will Caster) Secret Window (Mort Rainey) American Psycho (Patrick Bateman)
Usual Suspects Last Seduction Under Suspicion (1992) No Way Out (basically every thriller where the main character is the villain; there are probably others I'm forgettingl) Of course, the list is much longer if you include franchise films. Prequels naturally tend to have villains winning (Star Wars, for instance), but there's also Avengers: Civil War (Zemo achieves his goal- at least for the time being) Naturally, prequel
Bateman is trapped at the end. It's heavily implied that his elders knew everything, cleaned up after him, and will never let him break out of the box they've put him in. He goes on killing, but he doesn't win.
Like the mention of Megamind being an "anti-villain". Far as anybody in Metrocity knows (besides Mm, Roxanne, Minion, and MM) Megamind finally murdered Metro Man and the whooole thing was broadcast live and likely recorded. "Yeah, he killed the city's hero and created a villain even worse than himself, but he stopped the problem he created so I guess he's not all that bad."
The Villian did not win in Glass. Although it initially looks like they have the three people closest to the atagonists/protagonist drop the fight video all over social media to encourage "supers" to reveal themselves (and countless do) or did you somehow miss this part?
Exactly. Their goal wasnt just to kill them, it was to convince even them that they’re powers aren’t real. Killing them was the last resort to suppress knowledge of their existence, and that was made pointless because of the leak. By their own standards and goals they lost
I don't agree with Megamind being on this list. I know you qualify it by saying he's an anti-villain, but the movie has a clear villain in Titan. Who doesn't win. You could argue Megamind won at the beginning of the movie when he was still considered a villain, but that was by accident. At no point does he honestly think he'll actually succeed in killing Metroman. Because he's not actually a villain, he just thinks of himself as one. He does the things he does because he thinks that's what's expected of him. Which, by the way, is mirrored by Metroman doing heroics because he thinks that's what he's 'supposed' to do. When Hal is introduced, he's a creepy 'nice guy' who is given incredible power and goes full tyrant from the first set back he faces. At the end of the movie he's de-powered and imprisoned, but the way they present his facial expression seems to imply he's not repentant and if he gets out he will absolutely seek revenge.
John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). It's stated that the alien entity WANTS to be frozen. It can survive the thawing out process, and with no loving witnesses around to warn other people about what had happened, it could make it to the main land. The final scene in the movie has MacReady and Childs sitting in the middle of a burned out Antarctic research station, "just waiting and see(ing) what happens", giving the monster exactly what it wanted. The Wickerman (1973). I don't really remember much about this movie, but I do remember that an inspector is sent to a quant village full of peculiar folk. After doing his job, he's somehow imprisoned in a giant wicker man, and set on fire.
what is not noticed very much is that the inspector is a mutant and that the extreme heat of the fire activates his latent mutant powers which he uses to exact brutal revenge on the village.
No mention of the Watchmen? Ozymandius killed 100s of millions, basically forced Dr. Manhattan to kill Rorschah in order to preserve his secret and to exile himself from the planet Earth, while still posing as a hero. The greater good debate is shaky at best in this instance.
@@jcarry5214 Diary without the owner - unlikely. Even in the real world we have plenty of examples when real evidence is dismissed in similar circumstances, even with the owner present, even testifying under oath. Accusing a legendary "hero" Ozymandius would be much harder than that. It would not go further than hearsay in the best case scenario.
@@iskinmind7020 Pretty good points. I just always assumed that its mere presence meant it could overcome normal universe roadblocks. It's comforting though, I did always hate that loose thread.
I adore that movie, it is an underrated gem. I think it is every bit as good as his other more well known movie, DONNIE DARKO. I need to read the short story it's based on, which was written by Ray Bradbury.
12 Monkeys has one of the best villain wins endings IMO. Bruce Willis shot by cops as the guy who ends the world gets on a plane. He sits next to a woman who in the future is the head scientist and asks her what she does for a living and she replies that she's in insurance.
This was the first movie that came to my mind. I'm surprised more people didn't mention it. Furthermore, it is on of the most clear villain wins compared to a lot of the others on this list.
While in the movie 1984 the government wins, in reality ((book) it is a short win because a historian is reading about poor Winston from the future where they are studying that terrible timeframe implying that it is no longer going on.
I hated the ending of Glass. They kept teasing a more interesting ending that never came and instead killed off all the characters we were there to see. I wouldn't mind seeing a modern remake of Lawnmower Man. A couple of rewrites and some updated effects and it has the potential to be a pretty cool film
Maybe the authors? ... at least they are villians in the minds of those who hate sad endings. 🤔 I see what you mean, though. Then again, I suppose that "The Universe" could be considered the villain for a tragedy. Admittedly, it would be a bit of a stretch.
Personally I definitely think this qualifies. The good guys absolutely did NOT win, lol. That ending is such a classic. Even Stephen King was VERY delighted with the change in the ending.
You forgot one Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious, The entire Star Wars series. he started as a senator worked up to having the whole galaxy turned into a fascistic Empire (episodes 1-3) then had the whole thing torn down partly because of his apparent demise (Episodes 4-6) Then his rise to power while slinking behind the scenes using proxy's to do his bidding, then in the climax he is struck down by his own daughter. Yes the light wins, but he is the eventual winner. The entire Skywalker line is dead and his daughter takes the name of Skywalker (Episodes 7-9). While he himself eventually lost, his blood outlived the Skywalker line. The bad guy actually won. BTW on Glass, it was Mr. glass that actually won, he was smart enough to get footage of the whole incident including all three of them being murdered and got it online. So while she won the day, Mr. glass won the war
A real cool villain winning story is the original version of lawnmower man. It's a short story I read a long time ago, has nothing to do with the movie and has stayed with me my entire life
I posit that The Joker won in The Dark Knight. He destroyed the mob, ended high level police corruption, destroyed the police's cooperation with Batman, ruined Batman psychologically.
I mean hitting Earth with an asteroid from the other side of the galaxy does seem to require a hell of a lot more work than just farting plasma on a rock.
@@Hartzilla2007 I guess the bugs were really into physics. They may have had a couple colony worlds closer to earth. Otherwise why would humans see them as a threat if they were indeed confined to the other side of the Galaxy?
Was looking for this comment, thank you! Seems like they endlessly over use The Thing (I don't mind, it's one of my favorite movies) and then they leave it off of the list where it is probably the most appropriate to have it on? Ugh! They need to do better, lol!
The ending is entirely too ambiguous for it to really fit here. Personally, for me, the ending only WORKS if they're both human but still can't really trust each other.
Hahaha, "The Box". I actually kind of like that film. They should have never pushed that button. And "Upgrade", that's a solid indy flick! Definitely worth checking out. Geez, "Brazil"... dang I haven't seen that in at least 10 years. I need to watch that again. For a 25 year old movie, I also kind of liked the first Lawnmower Man with Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan.
Am I missing something? What's so bad about having every phone on earth ring at the same time? I'm assuming that's just how he's letting the people know he achieved his goal, but what was the actual bad guy end game?
He killed a bunch of people and then escaped into cyber space. I can't remember if he had any sinister plan beyond that, but I would say that just the fact that he got away means that the bad guy won.
If he could make every single phone in the entire world ring at the same time that means he essentially has some, if not total, control of telecommunications networks. Now imagine if that actually happened in this day and age when literally just about EVERYTHING is connected to the internet…
Make a Random List better than this: 1. Ex Machina 2. Splice 3. Cabin in the Woods 4. Repo Men 5. Seven 6. The Usual Suspect 7. Identity 8. Arlington Road 9. Memento 10. No Country for Old Men
I feel like it’s kind of illegal to put 1984 and Brazil back to back let alone on the same list since they’re both based on the same book by George Orwell
John Doe in seven. How you missed that I don't know but that's really one of the best villains to win because at no point to the heroes of that movie ever have a say and what happens they never were ahead of him nothing ever happens to influence the outcomes that isn't at the exact orchestration of the villain
Nobody gets turned into anything in 'invasion of the body snatchers', they are replaced by a copy, the original person is killed in the process. So it's even bleaker than you thought.. being 'turned' suggests that you can turn back. No chance of that here.
Marco Inaros from The Expanse. He achieved Belter independence, damaged Earth, helped rogue Martians cripple Mars, and laid out a bright new future for the Belt as a third power. It just wasn't as a military power, and wasn't in full control of the new worlds. Camina Drummer also ended up in charge which would have annoyed him no end 😁
Star Wars Prequels - the Villains won that war, Jedi gone, Republic gone, Vader Rises, James Bond: no time to die - Bond died, evil one Infinity War - Thanos Snapped, even what happened in Endgame he still won
Not a movie, but The Federation from Blake's Seven. Four seasons of them fighting for freedom, only to have them crash and burn in the finale. Fantastic!
Resident Evil franchise. At least the first two (I saw 3 once and think I might have seen 4 but those ones are hazy in my memory) as Umbrella got away with all their crimes including nuking a city.
Pretty sure megamind is a transformation arch. Sure he was the villain but while he did what he did before titan in the end he realizes good is better and works to be a better person and in turn a hero...this video is more of the villain wins and evil wins...but adding in evil turns good is something of its own list...
repo man could be considered to be on this list. because it is revealed that the hero was imagining half the movie via a virtual reality/dream machine after being put into a coma by his former partner
The 60s and 70s seem to offer a lot. You have Demon Seed where an AI traps his creator's wife in her home and impregnates her. Colossus: The Forbin Project, and Soylent Green. I am sure you there are others as well. Silent Running might fit the bill as well as well as Brave New World.
