10 Movies That Made You Sympathise With Terrible People

10. American History X

Being a neo-Nazi makes you a terrible person. The mindset of a racist is one that rejects empathy for anyone that isn’t your skin colour. So how do we start to sympathise with that type of person?

American History X tackles the question of what makes people racist. Derek (Edward Norton) starts the film as a vehement neo-Nazi. Derek's anger is wholly human, stemming from a deeply personal tragedy (his father being killed by a black gang) that he has never had closure on. But he realises, through becoming a victim of violence himself in prison, that his anger was misguided. Black people don’t cause violence, violent people cause violence.

Upon Derek's release from prison he is reformed and vows to change his brother Danny's (Edward Furlong) own racist views. We desperately want Derek to steer Danny away from the same fate as their father, and when he finds Danny’s murdered body and sobs, we have nothing but pity for a man whose life has been destroyed by a cycle of violence.

The stinger of course is that Derek was exposed to racism by his father as a child, long before he was murdered. It is the bleak reality that racism starts in the family home. His father’s racist rants planted the seeds that violence made grow.