10 Great Movies Where The Villain Kills The Hero

4. Gran Torino

For a while, Gran Torino's dramatic climax looks to be heading towards something akin to a traditional ballet of vengeance. When Clint Eastwood's veteran goes to confront the neighbourhood gang for shooting his young reformed friend and raping his sister, you could imagine it going the way of Taken.

But Eastwood's Walt has something more devastating planned, provoking the gang and pretending to pull a gun so they shoot him in full view of lots of witnesses. He chooses to lay down his life - which it's implied is coming to an end through ill-health - to end the gang's terrorism of the community.

His death basically joins the pantheon of heroic sacrifices, as he provokes a crime stopping his young friend from losing himself to a life of crime. There is some victory in that trade of a life for a life, and Walt seems to pay back what he owed for killing a surrendering soldier at war, which had haunted him for life.