10 Movies Where You Want The Villain To Win

Falling Down is a pinnacle work in a long line of “regular dude implodes due to the injustices of modern society” flicks. Following Michael Douglas as William Foster, who mentally snaps in a hot L.A. traffic jam, we follow his increasingly violent odyssey across a boiling hot Los Angeles to reunite with his wife and daughter.

Falling Down cleverly frames Foster as an everyman hero for much of the film; a man of principle and courage rallying against evils of contemporary civilization. Be it standing up to gang violence, decrying the treatment of poor people or even violently protesting the bureaucracy of fast food menus, Foster feels like a living embodiment of karmic justice.

As the day wears on and Foster becomes increasingly more violent we do begin to doubt him. It’s not until the reveal that his “wife” is actually his ex-wife who has a restraining order against him and Foster lost his job months ago that we realise our “hero” actually snapped a long time ago.

With the police now aware of his antics and hotly pursuing him, there’s really only one way this ends for the character. Whilst he is justly vilified by the film’s conclusion it’s hard not to feel an iota of sympathy for a man whose life fell apart so completely in a matter of weeks. If anything, we wanted Foster to survive just so he could receive the help he so clearly needed. His final realisation that he's actually the bad guy in all this? Tragic stuff.