The best revenge films

The world of John Wick has become overly complex and built upon extensive lore, but initially, it was just a story of a dude who wanted revenge for his dog. Wick is a retired assassin of the highest order, and he’s brought back into the world of violence purely out of revenge. The first film was almost operatic in its violence, giving Keanu Reeves another iconic film character.

Well, when part of your film is based on a historical event called the “Earp Vendetta Ride,” it’s going to get in the mix as a revenge film. Tombstone has become a beloved Western, owing largely to the performances of Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. There’s also the whole matter of the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” in this movie.

The Crow isn’t a great movie, but it is cultishly adored. As such, we wanted to give it some love. In the 1990s, perhaps no revenge-fueled character was more beloved than Eric Draven. After all, the dude came back from the dead to get revenge.

A lot of revenge movies are fully in support of the revenge being dished out. They are rollicking action flicks or gory splatterfests designed to entertain in their salaciousness. Blue Ruin is different. It’s a serious-minded film about revenge. It’s more realistic, more down to earth, and as interested in showing how a quest for revenge destroys the main character's life as it is in the actual revenge part.

Many a James Bond film is about revenge. Sometimes for Bond, but often for the villain. We’re going to represent them all with Skyfall . For starters, it is many people’s favorite Bond film. Secondly, Javier Bardem’s villainous Silva is as dedicated to revenge as anybody in the Bond universe.

Michael Caine has been in several revenge films. That includes Jaws: The Revenge, about…a shark wanting revenge. Get Carter is a classic British crime film, awash in ‘70s nihilism as Caine’s Carter seeks vengeance on many former criminal cohorts.

Hey, a revenge film that won Best Picture. Needless to say, Gladiator is a bit more elevated than some of the grislier revenge flicks. Russell Crowe starred in perhaps his indelible role as Maximus, whose life is destroyed by the villainous Emperor Commodus, leaving Maximus with nothing to strive for other than his revenge.

Can you take revenge on an animal? That’s one of the themes of Moby Dıck (not “be yourself,” as Homer Simpson once surmised), which is an iconic work of literature. There have been a couple of Moby Dıck films, but none are as good as Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. 

Zissou’s life is a bit of a mess, and he has to deal with meeting a man who is possibly his son, but he’s able to remain driven in his quest to kill the jaguar shark that killed his best friend, Esteban. Maybe with dynamite.

Steven Soderbergh made what was effectively his take on the British crime film with The Limey. Terence Stamp plays an English criminal who comes to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter. Interestingly, Soderbergh used scenes from the 1967 film Poor Cow to incorporate a younger Stamp into his film.

Obviously, there are two parts — or volumes, as it were — to Kill Bill. They are both about revenge. Tarantino got to riff on lots of his favorite things, including martial arts films, but the whole drive is right there in the title. The Bride wants to kill Bill, not to mention the rest of his assassination squad.

A lot of 1980s comedies, usually of the slob vs. snob variety, could be classified as revenge films. They typically don’t involve as much violence and gunfire. Also, most of them are terrible. It may have the word in the title, but we aren’t championing Revenge of the Nerds anytime soon. Real Genius is a campus comedy that becomes a revenge comedy down the stretch, but it also remains fun in part because neither the protagonists nor the antagonists are all that awful.

Robert Eggers makes historical dramas that also seem to take place completely out of time. They are distinct and weird and certainly make an impact. In some ways, The Northman is a Vikings film and decidedly a revenge film. And yet, it’s nothing like you would expect, even if you know Eggers’ work. That’s just how he does things.

If you squint, maybe Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven is a revenge film. Danny Ocean does have a bone to pick with Terry Benedict over his ex-wife, Tess, after all. That being said, Ocean’s Thirteen is more definitively a revenge movie. It’s the same premise, the Ocean’s crew robbing casinos, but this time with more revenge on the mind.

Walker doesn’t seem to want revenge, per se. He wants his $93,000 from a robbery. That’s it. However, to get it, he’s totally fine with getting some vengeance along the way. Walker isn’t driven by revenge. He’s too much of a professional. Lee Marvin’s indelible character might consider it a perk of the job, though.

Sure, Rocky Balboa ends the Cold War in Rocky IV . On top of that, he gets revenge. Ivan Drago kills Rocky’s foe-turned-friend-turned-trainer Apollo Creed in a fight, essentially spurring the Italian Stallion to take on the Soviet strongman in a boxing match.

Many Westerns are about revenge. Many revisionist Westerns are about the price of revenge. Unforgiven isn’t even Clint Eastwood’s first revenge-centric Western. It is his best, though, as it won Best Picture and helped give the subgenre of the revisionist Western a bit of a boost. The line “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it” kind of sums up that genre in a nutshell.

Wow, when you delve in, you realize how many revenge films Oscar voters enjoyed. Granted, The Sting is palatable as far as revenge films go. Our main characters get revenge through a con, not through violence. Also, they are played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. That helps keep things a little lighter, paving the way to a Best Picture win.

This isn’t the first take on Charles Portis’ novel, but it is the better take. The Coen Brothers knocked it out of the park with their version of True Grit. It adheres more closely to the novel than the one from the 1960s starring John Wayne, including allowing the main character to be a 14-year-old girl who wants revenge for her father’s murder, going as far as to hire a drunken, former Confederate soldier of a U.S. Marshal to get it. Somehow, it became the highest-grossing Coen Brothers film?

Musicals are also awash in revenge. Sweeney Todd is not your typical musical, which is probably why Tim Burton wanted to direct it. It definitely feels like the most Hot Topic-adjacent musical. Burton and Johnny Depp joined forces once again to tell the story of the “Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in another tale of the dangers of being obsessed with violent revenge— also, the dangers of not having health inspectors keeping an eye on food distributors.

In a way, Batman kind of wants revenge, but not on anybody directly. Blade is the comic book superhero who is the most directly revenge-focused. In the 1998 film adaptation of Blade , which predates the real rush on superhero films, Blade is a human-vampire hybrid dedicated to waging war on vampires after they killed his mother. Played by Wesley Snipes, Blade got three films to take revenge on vamps. Now, eventually, we will be seeing Mahershala Ali play the role in the MCU.