In the world of movies, most of the time there's a clear good guy and a clear bad guy. There's a protagonist who you want to see succeed. There's an antagonist who you want to see fail.
Often enough, it's abundantly quite clear who is who, and we generally feel compelled to root for the protagonist.
But there are some films that blur the line. Either the antagonist actually makes points that you agree with, or they're just so cool that it's hard to root against them.
5. Thor (2011)
Wait, hold on! I'm not saying I'm rooting against Thor. He's a very likable protagonist in all of the MCU movies.
But the problem is that Loki—his clearly evil brother—is just so likably awesome that I always find myself wanting to see Loki win his fights against Thor.
There's just something about the way Loki carries himself, the lines he's given, and the way he delivers them that makes him so fun to watch. Who do you root for? The line is blurry, but in the end, I stand with Loki!
4. Scarface (1983)
Make no bones about it: Tony Montana is Scarface's protagonist. But at the same time, he's far from a good person.
He's abusive to his significant other, willing to step on his best friend to get ahead, and, of course, he's perfectly content to kill anyone who's not on his side. Tony even calls himself "the bad guy" throughout the movie.
But anyone who's seen Scarface is more than willing to look past his flaws because of how awesome Tony Montana is.
His quips and one-liners are some of the most memorable in the storied history of crime movies. "Say hello to my little friend" is quoted just about everywhere. You can't but love him.
3. The Dark Knight (2008)
How could anyone ever root against Batman, one of the greatest superheroes in all of film and comic books?
Easy! Just put him up against one of the coolest villains in the Batman universe—The Joker—and have Heath Ledger put on one of the single greatest performances of his career (or anyone's career for that matter).
The way Ledger portrays the Joker, along with the way the character was written in this film, make it so you wouldn't be too disappointed if Batman were to lose this one.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a more despicable villain than Heath's Joker, and yet it's just so hard to want him to fail.
2. Don't Breathe (2016)
Don't Breathe is a movie about a group of kids who break into a blind man's home, and then proceed to get picked off one-by-one by said blind man.
The kids who break into the home are supposed to be the protagonists... but not only are they terrible for breaking into the poor old man's house, they're some of the most obnoxious characters you'll ever meet.
By the end, it's impossible to root for any of the punks to make it out of the house, and I found myself cheering every single time one of the would-be-robbers got what was coming to them.
I'm not sure if the intention of the film was to make us hate the protagonists, but that's definitely what happened.
1. The Devil's Rejects (2005)
The Devil's Rejects is actually the movie that gave me this article idea because it very clearly blurs the line between protagonist and antagonist.
The deranged serial killers are shown to be more like protagonists, while the police who are chasing after them are treated like antagonists. That's the opposite of usual Hollywood!
It becomes confusing when the killers are performing despicable acts all throughout the film, and the main cop character is written to be so unlikable that it's hard to root for him.
Ultimately, the bad guys—Captain Spaulding, Otis, and Baby—end up being such cool characters that you want them to make it out, even if they're deranged murderers.
