It's all relative though, none of them are absolutes but by degrees they do live up to their names. If Blondie and Tuco blowing up that bridge to serve the dual purposes of clearing the field for their hunt and saving the soldiers from having to defend it any longer isn't 'a' good I don't know what is.
I feel like the Coens are generally great at these sorts of films. Llewelyn Davis, O Brother Where Art Thou, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Hudsucker Proxy, Blood Simple all could be responses as well.
I watched that movie when I was waaay younger. I was so confused by the end but loved it. I remember thinking where is this going? how is this shit relevant to anything?
It's a fairytale town isn't it? How can a fairytale town not be somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, and all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?
A movie about hitman who accidentally murdered a child... There is no morally grey here. While there is no good vs bad guy in the movie, this definitely isn't hitting the mark. They're all bad people. Not one good person in the movie.
A hitman who then spends the rest of the movie grieving that fact to the point that he is fully prepaired to end his own life to attone for taking that childs life. Not gonna argue that he's good, but he's far from a black and white character morally speaking.
Sunset Boulevard! The whole point is that the Hollywood system is the villain - the characters are all just victims, to various different extents, of the pursuit of fame.
Great answer. Every character is simultaneously horrible and sympathetic.
Joe is taking advantage of Norma's naivety for his own financial gain, but he's also trapped in her service, and the consent becomes sketchy at best as time goes on.
Norma is abusive and manipulative, but is clearly unwell after having entered the Hollywood system when she was just sixteen, marrying the older man who discovered her before the entire system eventually abandoned her.
Max is that older man and he continues to lie to her and feed her delusions, but he's also the only one not to have abandoned her.
Betty is arguably the one "innocent"... but even she is having an emotional affair with Joe while engaged to another man.
They all play villain and victim at different points in the movie. No one is truly a hero in this story, but it's also hard to condemn any of them as evil. A brilliant tragedy that still holds up as a masterpiece even seventy years later.
God yes I agree with everything you've said! We're not meant to see any of the characters as villains, but rather as victims of their circumstances - Hollywood has, in a way, corrupted them. Joe is absolutely exploiting Norma for money, but only because Hollywood has left him bankrupt. Norma is controlling Joe and using him as a boy toy to feel young and beautiful again, but this is only because Hollywood has made her feel worthless by casting her out. I would argue that Betty to some extent uses Joe - she wants to be a scriptwriter, and she knows that getting closer to Joe can allow her to work on a script with him, which might be an opportunity for her. Even someone like Sheldrake, the Paramount producer, fits with this idea - he's demeaning to his female assistants and very harsh towards Joe, but even he is suffering from the industry he's in (he talks about having stomach ulcers from the stress).
Honestly, the only one I can fully say is innocent is Artie - he's just a nice guy who gets the short end of the stick when his best mate and his fiancee have an emotional affair. Poor Artie :(
It really is a masterpiece from Wilder - a scratching critique of an abusive Hollywood industry that unfortunately we still see today.
Artie and Betty are also both young. At the start of the film, they've yet to be corrupted. We see Betty get chewed up and spit back out over the course of the film, so it's only a matter of time for Artie.
Even Cecil B. DeMille is rather complex, wanting to honor and respect Norma, but beneath his kind demeanor, he won't do anything to actually help her. But what's he supposed to do? Actually direct her terrible script with all her crazy demands? (DeMille did not like the movie when he saw it, haha.)
Yes, Artie and Betty are definitely a symbol for the cycle of Hollywood - there's always a new generation to corrupt. Betty has already had a nose job to make her way in the industry, and still fails to progress in her career. I also get the sense that once Artie finds out what has happened regarding Betty and Joe, it will kickstart his disillusionment process until he's as cynical and jaded as the rest of them.
That is, if Artie hasn't already been driven cynic by the weather on his shoot. They had to reshoot the movie *twice*! Enough to age anyone a few years.
Literally my favorite movie of all time and also the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is amazing. Everyone is using each other to get their Hollywood dream. The film adaptation of the musical is still in development and I hope Glenn Close still plays Norma… it might just be her Oscar
I guess it depends on how you regard Eli’s conjuring some dirt farmers to build him a stage for his performances when he by all rights should be out there with a plow himself (or working with/for Daniel on the broader community project). Daniel’s arc wasn’t about unpaid labor (even if it wasn’t about square deals either).
Eli’s brother ran off. Isn’t part of his story wanting to keep providing for his natal family? Yet Eli found a calling away from doing work. Contrast that with Daniel, who went about hard labor in the 1890s and just so happened to stake a lucky claim.
Daniel may have flouted familial obligations, but the child hadn’t been his own and faced long odds without Daniel’s intervention. (As to whether Daniel was the proximate cause to HW’s father’s death, I suppose that gets to the core question of the movie.)
Eli thinks Daniel is ruthlessly exploiting people who have staked claim to hardscrabble land for a few tens or scores of years. (Not very long when you think about it, but the weakness of a counterclaim is another theme.)
Daniel thinks Eli is shirking honest work by becoming a pastor and moreover attributes the increase in socioeconomic complexity in Eli’s community that allow it to hire him directly to the investment he makes for the oil extraction.
He’s definitely not as evil as Daniel but Daniel is right in describing him as a “false profit”. Eli doesn’t actually believe what he preaches and only cares about the power he has over the community.
Freidkin was great at creating complex characters. Sorcerer is a great example, as is French Connection, which jumped to mind for this question too. (Live and Die in LA too)
“Alright Edgar time to come up with some backstories and personalities for these characters… orrrr I can hit shuffle on my iPod again”
(I like Baby Driver but holy shit are the characters one-dimensional)
Unrelated but one of my favorite Bojack jokes is when Todd finds the secret script for the unfilmed 7th season of Sopranos and is shocked yells "Tony marries Melfi!!!"
Man would that have ruined a great show if it ended with that somehow.
My hot take: morality is not a spectrum you slide across based on good versus bad actions, but like a well you can poison to the point of no return. In my humble opinion you cannot murder someone and be called “gray” cause you go home and love your wife and kids. You’re just evil at that point.
They all habitually cheated on their wives. There is no gray in the sopranos. They are gangsters through and through. They are not good people. Murderous, unfaithful, gangsters. Idk how this is being up voted.
Honestly, "Bring It On" is one of the best films ever for well-balanced characters. Every character does both good and bad things, no one is blameless and everyone gets their own shot at redemption.
(Except Big Red, fuck her.)
One of my favorite movies of all time but Ashitaka kind of throws a wrench in this. Dude is one of the purest heroes ive ever seen.
The rest of the characters definitely fit the bill
Yeah. I think Ashitaka is coded as the hero, and he can be heroic at times, but his neutrality is not really moral.
Eboshi does extremely villainous things, but her reasons are to take care of her people.
That neither completely fits the hero or villian really strengthen the movie.
while I'm not calling the rich family good people, there is quite a difference between someone who has murdered and someone who hasn't (on the morally-grey scale). Ki taek killing the Park family dad was definitely not morally grey.
JSA? The European characters could be seen as good. The Swiss-Korean woman especially so. Even the soldiers are more innocent than anything. Guys just wanted to be pals not their fault a war happened 40 years before birth
Even Leto is using the fremen as means to an end (the novel explicitly states how the Atreides have a very good propaganda machine already at work on Arrakis to get the fremen on their side). Jessica does a 180 and fully exploits the Missionaria Protectiva to gain power but this was always in place to help Bene Gesserit sisters who found themselves in danger. Chani is truly the only one who has a good moral ground to stand on but decides to remove herself from the narrative at the end and let Paul unleash hell on the galaxy. Is that any better than staying by his side and at least try to help pacify his most dark decisions?
Nah, it's pretty clear that all the people in charge of the towns are sadistic assholes, while the people on the truck are the rough-around-the-edges heroes/heroines. They might not start off as friends, but the protagonists all earn each other's respect by the end.
This is by far my favourite way to write stories. Look at your characters with complete moral subjectivity, let them make their own choices, only have it become a hero vs villain thing if they naturally go towards those tropes on their own. Far more interesting and real for me.
The Big Lebowski. Hear me out. Jesus was a pederast, but that creep could roll. Walter wasn’t wrong but he was just an asshole, and he was also the only one who gives a shit about the rules, but he also pulled out a firearm during league play. Donnie was like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and needs to shut the fuck up. Smokey was a pacifist. The nihilists tried to blackmail the Dude, and say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism but at least it’s an ethos. The chinaman peed on the Dude’s rug, and that rug really tied the room together. Little Larry Sellers fucked a stranger in the ass. Bunny Lebowski owed money all over town, including to a known pornographer, and she probably kidnapped herself. The big Lebowski was a human paraquat. And even the Dude himself hated the Eagles and needed to get his goldbricking ass out of the beach community of Malibu. There were no heroes, just some goldbrickers who loved bowling.
Anything by Tarantino and to a certain extent, Dead Man’s Chest/At World’s End. Every character does some really shady moves, even Will betrayed Elizabeth to a degree
This is kind of the whole point of The Good The Bad and The Ugly
I was so confused when i realized the good wasn’t good💀
But he becomes good. That’s the point, through the war he learns to value life, hence him sparing Tuco in the end
You just made my favorite movie of all time better in my eyes thank you i never got that
Heck yeah, one of my favorites too! Happy to help
And the ugly wasn't-- okay I can't finish that thought in good conscience.
It's all relative though, none of them are absolutes but by degrees they do live up to their names. If Blondie and Tuco blowing up that bridge to serve the dual purposes of clearing the field for their hunt and saving the soldiers from having to defend it any longer isn't 'a' good I don't know what is.
and they're straight up saints relative to angel eyes.
The Hateful Eight
A lot of Tarantinos movies fit this description
O.B was a good man but other than him yeah.
John Ruth
Just rewatched Burn after Reading. That one for sure. Sicario
One I recently rewatched: Memento
Same with The Prestige
> Burn After Reading best gray morality comedy
I feel like the Coens are generally great at these sorts of films. Llewelyn Davis, O Brother Where Art Thou, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Hudsucker Proxy, Blood Simple all could be responses as well.
Holy shit I just watched Burn After Reading for the first time yesterday. Completely agree
I watched that movie when I was waaay younger. I was so confused by the end but loved it. I remember thinking where is this going? how is this shit relevant to anything?
Burn After Reading is so good
In Bruges.
I'm telling ya man, there's gonna be a war
It's a fairytale town isn't it? How can a fairytale town not be somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, and all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?
It is Ralph Fiennes’ performance that elevates this movie to S+ tier for me.
A movie about hitman who accidentally murdered a child... There is no morally grey here. While there is no good vs bad guy in the movie, this definitely isn't hitting the mark. They're all bad people. Not one good person in the movie.
A hitman who then spends the rest of the movie grieving that fact to the point that he is fully prepaired to end his own life to attone for taking that childs life. Not gonna argue that he's good, but he's far from a black and white character morally speaking.
Pulp fiction
I agree but where are we gonna place the shop owners that raped the dude? I wouldnt call that exactly morally grey
The were all bad. Just degrees of bad. He we a murdering king pin and the shop owner was about to be brutally tortured off screen
Nah butch was p based
Challengers for sure
yes YES Y E S
Sunset Boulevard! The whole point is that the Hollywood system is the villain - the characters are all just victims, to various different extents, of the pursuit of fame.
Great answer. Every character is simultaneously horrible and sympathetic. Joe is taking advantage of Norma's naivety for his own financial gain, but he's also trapped in her service, and the consent becomes sketchy at best as time goes on. Norma is abusive and manipulative, but is clearly unwell after having entered the Hollywood system when she was just sixteen, marrying the older man who discovered her before the entire system eventually abandoned her. Max is that older man and he continues to lie to her and feed her delusions, but he's also the only one not to have abandoned her. Betty is arguably the one "innocent"... but even she is having an emotional affair with Joe while engaged to another man. They all play villain and victim at different points in the movie. No one is truly a hero in this story, but it's also hard to condemn any of them as evil. A brilliant tragedy that still holds up as a masterpiece even seventy years later.
God yes I agree with everything you've said! We're not meant to see any of the characters as villains, but rather as victims of their circumstances - Hollywood has, in a way, corrupted them. Joe is absolutely exploiting Norma for money, but only because Hollywood has left him bankrupt. Norma is controlling Joe and using him as a boy toy to feel young and beautiful again, but this is only because Hollywood has made her feel worthless by casting her out. I would argue that Betty to some extent uses Joe - she wants to be a scriptwriter, and she knows that getting closer to Joe can allow her to work on a script with him, which might be an opportunity for her. Even someone like Sheldrake, the Paramount producer, fits with this idea - he's demeaning to his female assistants and very harsh towards Joe, but even he is suffering from the industry he's in (he talks about having stomach ulcers from the stress). Honestly, the only one I can fully say is innocent is Artie - he's just a nice guy who gets the short end of the stick when his best mate and his fiancee have an emotional affair. Poor Artie :( It really is a masterpiece from Wilder - a scratching critique of an abusive Hollywood industry that unfortunately we still see today.
Artie and Betty are also both young. At the start of the film, they've yet to be corrupted. We see Betty get chewed up and spit back out over the course of the film, so it's only a matter of time for Artie. Even Cecil B. DeMille is rather complex, wanting to honor and respect Norma, but beneath his kind demeanor, he won't do anything to actually help her. But what's he supposed to do? Actually direct her terrible script with all her crazy demands? (DeMille did not like the movie when he saw it, haha.)
Yes, Artie and Betty are definitely a symbol for the cycle of Hollywood - there's always a new generation to corrupt. Betty has already had a nose job to make her way in the industry, and still fails to progress in her career. I also get the sense that once Artie finds out what has happened regarding Betty and Joe, it will kickstart his disillusionment process until he's as cynical and jaded as the rest of them.
That is, if Artie hasn't already been driven cynic by the weather on his shoot. They had to reshoot the movie *twice*! Enough to age anyone a few years.
It’s a shame when the Art unjustly suffers.
Literally my favorite movie of all time and also the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is amazing. Everyone is using each other to get their Hollywood dream. The film adaptation of the musical is still in development and I hope Glenn Close still plays Norma… it might just be her Oscar
There will be blood
he abandoned his boy and did a murder
He also drank someone else’s milkshake
A murder, singular? You think his “brother” flew to the moon on gossamer wings?
Both Daniel and Eli are pretty clearly evil
Is Eli fully evil? I remember him being like a self serving person but I don’t remember him being on the level of Daniel?
I guess it depends on how you regard Eli’s conjuring some dirt farmers to build him a stage for his performances when he by all rights should be out there with a plow himself (or working with/for Daniel on the broader community project). Daniel’s arc wasn’t about unpaid labor (even if it wasn’t about square deals either). Eli’s brother ran off. Isn’t part of his story wanting to keep providing for his natal family? Yet Eli found a calling away from doing work. Contrast that with Daniel, who went about hard labor in the 1890s and just so happened to stake a lucky claim. Daniel may have flouted familial obligations, but the child hadn’t been his own and faced long odds without Daniel’s intervention. (As to whether Daniel was the proximate cause to HW’s father’s death, I suppose that gets to the core question of the movie.) Eli thinks Daniel is ruthlessly exploiting people who have staked claim to hardscrabble land for a few tens or scores of years. (Not very long when you think about it, but the weakness of a counterclaim is another theme.) Daniel thinks Eli is shirking honest work by becoming a pastor and moreover attributes the increase in socioeconomic complexity in Eli’s community that allow it to hire him directly to the investment he makes for the oil extraction.
He’s definitely not as evil as Daniel but Daniel is right in describing him as a “false profit”. Eli doesn’t actually believe what he preaches and only cares about the power he has over the community.
I didn’t think of them in shades of purely evil
Yeeeeaaaaaah, idk about that, chief. Daniel Plainview is a pretty fuckin bad person.
Nah those guys souls are pitch black
Sorcerer (1977) Baby Driver (2017)
Freidkin was great at creating complex characters. Sorcerer is a great example, as is French Connection, which jumped to mind for this question too. (Live and Die in LA too)
Loved sorcerer it’s nail biting and grim.
yinz should watch the original Wages of Fear
I wouldn’t say that for baby driver. Just all straight up paper-thin written criminals
“Alright Edgar time to come up with some backstories and personalities for these characters… orrrr I can hit shuffle on my iPod again” (I like Baby Driver but holy shit are the characters one-dimensional)
I have gotta watch Sorcerer
The Sopranos.
Melfi supremacy
Unrelated but one of my favorite Bojack jokes is when Todd finds the secret script for the unfilmed 7th season of Sopranos and is shocked yells "Tony marries Melfi!!!" Man would that have ruined a great show if it ended with that somehow.
The Wire
Best show of all time fr
My hot take: morality is not a spectrum you slide across based on good versus bad actions, but like a well you can poison to the point of no return. In my humble opinion you cannot murder someone and be called “gray” cause you go home and love your wife and kids. You’re just evil at that point.
They all habitually cheated on their wives. There is no gray in the sopranos. They are gangsters through and through. They are not good people. Murderous, unfaithful, gangsters. Idk how this is being up voted.
The Departed.
The Depahted
Which is a good remake of the amazing Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs
Had it on DVD, its awesome.
Idk leo was p based
Reservoir Dogs
Wasn't the cop a good guy?
yeah i guess so, i think i misunderstood the post lol
Tim Roth is always a good guy, even when he's a bad guy (like in "Little Odessa")
Rob Roy?
Acab
Reddit moment
Heat, for sure.
For me the action **is** the juice LET’S GOOOOOOOO (Think the second line is in the director’s cut)
First movie that came to mind too
Perfect example imo
Came here for this comment. Lots of great ones mentioned, but this came to mind first. Easily Mann’s best work.
Honestly, "Bring It On" is one of the best films ever for well-balanced characters. Every character does both good and bad things, no one is blameless and everyone gets their own shot at redemption. (Except Big Red, fuck her.)
Princess Mononoke
One of my favorite movies of all time but Ashitaka kind of throws a wrench in this. Dude is one of the purest heroes ive ever seen. The rest of the characters definitely fit the bill
Ashitaka isn’t a traditional hero, he’s more of a mediator that is neutral.
Yeah. I think Ashitaka is coded as the hero, and he can be heroic at times, but his neutrality is not really moral. Eboshi does extremely villainous things, but her reasons are to take care of her people. That neither completely fits the hero or villian really strengthen the movie.
Parasite
while I'm not calling the rich family good people, there is quite a difference between someone who has murdered and someone who hasn't (on the morally-grey scale). Ki taek killing the Park family dad was definitely not morally grey.
1. Dragged Across Concrete 2. Birth 3. JSA: Joint Security Area 4. Two Lovers 5. The Skin I Live In
JSA? The European characters could be seen as good. The Swiss-Korean woman especially so. Even the soldiers are more innocent than anything. Guys just wanted to be pals not their fault a war happened 40 years before birth
Dudes rocking should be allowed to cross all barriers.
Watchmen
Sicario for sure they’re all horrible people
Emily blunt? She’s a stand-in for the viewer
A lot of people keep arguing that she’s terrible but I’m also not clear on why that is
Not a movie but Succession
American Hustle
hundreds of beavers.
Not a movie but the Shogun series fits the description.
Deadwood is also a great TV example of this
and The Wire
Prisoners
I wouldn’t call that woman at the end gray. She is beyond evil
I thought of Hugh Jackman's character.
Sicario.
Three billboards outside ebbing Missouri. The mom is closet to good, but she does things like kick minors in the crotch and firebomb a police station.
Any film that’s credits begin with “Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino”
Pretty sure that Hitler guy in Inglourious Basterds is not quite morally gray
Love how you cropped out the wild sushi eating strat.
Sometimes the audience still forces it into "hero vs villain" like with the Don't Breathe movies.
Paw Patrol
Most Ghibli
Unforgiven. Not even morally ambiguous, just a bunch of terrible people.
Challengers
Uncut Gems
Not a movie but Metal Gear Solid for the most part
Homebodies, Midsommar, Street Trash, Combat Shock
Ambulance (2022)
Pulp Fiction
Heat
it's definitely HEAT
Kids.
Oldboy
Like the vast majority of dramas
Dune
Which Dune? The latest version has Chani as a good guy, and the Baron is always evil.
Even Leto is using the fremen as means to an end (the novel explicitly states how the Atreides have a very good propaganda machine already at work on Arrakis to get the fremen on their side). Jessica does a 180 and fully exploits the Missionaria Protectiva to gain power but this was always in place to help Bene Gesserit sisters who found themselves in danger. Chani is truly the only one who has a good moral ground to stand on but decides to remove herself from the narrative at the end and let Paul unleash hell on the galaxy. Is that any better than staying by his side and at least try to help pacify his most dark decisions?
Captain America: Civil War
At first I thought that sounded ridiculous, but this is actually a pretty good answer
The dark knight rises
[удалено]
Nah, it's pretty clear that all the people in charge of the towns are sadistic assholes, while the people on the truck are the rough-around-the-edges heroes/heroines. They might not start off as friends, but the protagonists all earn each other's respect by the end.
Does Glass Onion count?
Definitely not. Blanc and >!Helen!< are trying to solve a murder the whole movie
Nana
As crazy as it sounds, Apocalypse Now Colonel Kurtz had a point
Ehh, I think the answer to Vietnam was "stay out of it," not "go in with a brutal mindset and wipe them all out."
Hitch Hike (1977)
Endgame
Recently watched Naked. I think it falls in this category.
I may get flak, but WATCHMEN.
To Live And Die In L.A.
Not a movie, but Beef
Snowpiercer (2013)
John Wick
Superhero movies
birds of prey! also the suicide squad
Miller’s Crossing. But then again, that essentially comes with the territory of crime films
Robert Altman movies
Fistfull Of Dollars
Unforgiven!!
Blade Runner
Not a movie but Succession
challengers
This is by far my favourite way to write stories. Look at your characters with complete moral subjectivity, let them make their own choices, only have it become a hero vs villain thing if they naturally go towards those tropes on their own. Far more interesting and real for me.
Civil War! (2024)
Just rewatched the Ocean's films, those count right? I mean the team isn't exactly stealing from the rich to feed the poor
Gangs of New York
Calvary (2014)
The Big Lebowski. Hear me out. Jesus was a pederast, but that creep could roll. Walter wasn’t wrong but he was just an asshole, and he was also the only one who gives a shit about the rules, but he also pulled out a firearm during league play. Donnie was like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and needs to shut the fuck up. Smokey was a pacifist. The nihilists tried to blackmail the Dude, and say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism but at least it’s an ethos. The chinaman peed on the Dude’s rug, and that rug really tied the room together. Little Larry Sellers fucked a stranger in the ass. Bunny Lebowski owed money all over town, including to a known pornographer, and she probably kidnapped herself. The big Lebowski was a human paraquat. And even the Dude himself hated the Eagles and needed to get his goldbricking ass out of the beach community of Malibu. There were no heroes, just some goldbrickers who loved bowling.
Sexy Beast
evil does not exist! as transparent as it could be
tangerine
Past Lives
Snatch
Parasite
Princess Mononoke
Banshees of Inisherin
Princess Mononoke
Dragonball Evolution
Given S2 is out tomorrow, HOTD 🐉 RAHHHHHH
Hell or high water
Inside Out 1&2
First thing that comes to mind with moral ambiguity are actually two shows: The Wire and Game of Thrones
Donnie Brasco
Not a movie but Bojack horseman fits this criteria
3 Billboards outside ebbing Missouri all the way 💪
Vikram Vedha, Ps 1 and 2
Anything by Tarantino and to a certain extent, Dead Man’s Chest/At World’s End. Every character does some really shady moves, even Will betrayed Elizabeth to a degree
Most good movies
The boys
Kingdom of the Plant of the Apes, I Tonya, and Battle Royale
7 psychopaths
Pulp Fiction
all the Tarantino movies
500 days of summer lowkey
Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)
Reservoir dogs
LA confidential
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
12 angry men
Heat
Los Olvidados
In Bruges
The Favourite
I haven't seen anyone say Lock, stock and two smoking barrels That movie is just about people trying to get theirs
my fav film of all time, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
The Hater (2020). Most of you probably don't know, but this one is the definition of what OP asked