10 Sci-Fi Movie Villains Who Actually Won

9. Dr. Ellie Staple - Glass

The Box Frank Langella
Universal

M. Night Shyamalan's polarising capper to the Unbreakable trilogy concludes with the revelation that psychiatrist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) isn't quite who she appears to be.

Staple is presented to us and the film's super-powered main characters as a doctor who deals with deluded patients that believe they're superheroes, but at the end of the movie, Shyamalan drops one of his famously divisive plot twists.

It's then revealed that Staple is far more than that - she's also part of a shadowy secret organisation which has been covering up the existence of superhumans for literally thousands of years, killing them off in order to preserve the global order.

Staple's plan culminates in all three superhuman leads - David Dunn (Bruce Willis), Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) - being killed.

And even though the footage of David and Crumb fighting is ultimately released online at the end, is the world en masse really going to believe what they're seeing?

We live in a reality where fantastical footage can be faked by anyone with a phone and Adobe After Effects, so it isn't easy to believe there's anything conclusive here.

More to the point, Staple and her organisation achieved their objective of taking out three of the most prominent "supers" the world has presumably ever seen, and even if Staple herself were rumbled, it's highly unlikely that the outfit as a whole would be exposed.

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Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.