10 Movies Where The Good Guy & Bad Guy BOTH Lose
When the hero and villain ruin each other's plans.
It's generally expected in movies that the climax will see the hero finally triumph over the villain, sending everyone home with the warm fuzzies, right?
But of course, it'd be mighty boring is all films aggressively followed that crowd-pleasing structure, and so it's refreshing when filmmakers decide to adventurously stray from it.
And so, as a sequel of-sorts to our recent article on movies where the hero and villain both win, we have the opposite - films where the good guy and bad guy both lose.
In these 10 movies, the hero and villain both ended up incurring such substantial losses - whether physical, tangible ones or emotional, spiritual ones - that it's impossible to say that either side emerged victorious.
Regardless of who lived and died, or who stayed out of jail and who didn't, the good and bad guys alike were handed some massive Ls at the end of these films, in many cases leaving the audience to ponder on the futility of the whole endeavour.
It doesn't always make for the most satisfying of endings, but when a smart filmmaker and great cast are involved, it can be wholly rewarding in its own right...
10. The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight ends with The Joker (Heath Ledger) being captured by Batman (Christian Bale) and failing in his plan to make two ferrys' worth of people blow each other up, seemingly confirming that Gotham's heart hasn't been entirely corrupted.
A loss for the Clown Prince of Crime and a big ol' W for the Caped Crusader, then? Not quite.
The film still concludes with Batman having watched The Joker kill Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), corrupt Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and in turn annihilate Batman's reputation by forcing him to take the blame for Dent's murders.
Oh, and The Joker even makes Batman break his no-kill policy, when he kills Dent during the movie's climax in order to save Jim Gordon's (Gary Oldman) son.
On one hand, The Joker didn't claim Gotham's soul, but he sure as hell left some major scars on its body, and on Batman himself. We can definitely call this one a draw.