'The shark from Jaws': 20+ Movie Villains We Realized Were Actually Correct

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JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
Oct 16, 2026 4:30 PM EDT

Sometimes getting older means sympathizing with the villain in the story. Why is that a near-universal experience of growing up?

If you're anything like me, movies are a huge part of your growing up experience. There are certain characters that lodged in my brain and spoke to me for a long time. Maybe I identified with them. Maybe I felt like I could learn something from them. Or maybe I just liked their outfits. Whatever it was, it's common for kids to identify with characters. Storytelling is a huge part of our lives as children, and it continues that way into adulthood. But our relationships with stories might change as we get older. As we live life and have more experience, we might start to see things in a different light. That's what this thread is all about. Reimagining our relationships with fictional characters. 

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  • A bust of Voldemort around other Harry Potter memorabilia
    via Abhinav Singh

    Featured likenesses do not identify those mentioned.

    A bust of Voldemort around other Harry Potter memorabilia 

  • What movie villain did you realize that you kind of agree with?

    MHJJ565 Shane Walsh from AMC Walking De d Not movie. TV Show but still. He was right in Season 2 about the zombie outbreak world and that Rick can't trust other humans because it's now the law of the jungle and all about doing what it takes to survive.
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  • Rick takes on Shane's idea in Season 4, 5 and 6. In season 9, he tells shane halliucation that Shane was right. I don't agree with how unhinged Shane became though but his debates with Dale... Shane is right. Dale isn't.
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  • TallEnoughJones The shark from Jaws. The ocean is his home. Those people were in his home uninvited. If anyone comes. in my home uninvited, I'm eating them.
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  • KitchenArmadillo eren from attack on titan (though a lot of the community dont view him as a villain). he was just becoming who he was meant to be, the path was already laid out for him, he saw the future he was going
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  • to make and was content with it. he never truly wanted to destroy all of humanity, he wanted to be stopped, but he also wanted his people to be free. thats all he ever wanted. freedom
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  • Villains are important. They not only serve a purpose in the story but also in culture at large. Villains are a great way to animate different points of view. Maybe they're at odds with those of the protagonist, but they have an internal logic. Villains teach us about what we fear and what we despise. They let us examine the dark underbellies of our world, pop the hood, and see what's going on in there. They're important to examine and understand. That's why villains are so often the most compelling characters in the story. At least they are to me. 

    I remember watching The Little Mermaid as a kid and being intrigued by Ursula. She had a booming voice and a bombastic personality. Whenever she was on screen, she was the most interesting character on screen. Sure, I understood that I was meant to be afraid of her, or to root against her, but I couldn't help but be fascinated by her nonetheless. We may all have different villains that we sympathize with, and those may change as we get older. 

    That's what this thread is all about. Sometimes you find yourself rooting for the bad guy. That doesn't mean you're a bad person; it means you're capable of seeing nuance. A lot of villains are just misunderstood. If the story were framed from their perspective, we might see things a lot differently. And as we grow up and gain more life experience, we might empathize with the bitter, crotchety characters we once used to spurn. Or maybe we see something for what it truly is, rather than what a larger fandom might want it to be. These are always fun ideas to examine, and it's exactly what we're here to do today. So keep scrolling to read through a list of villains that you might be reconsidering in your head. 

  • hotgarbagecomics The Mayor from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He just wanted to bring tourism to the island, man. And he knew the harsh truth no one was willing to say out loud... that sardines are super gross. G I love that movie
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  • scrollingaddiction Ultron. Was on the internet for 5 seconds and wanted to destroy humanity
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  • don_jeffe27 Todd and Margo in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
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  • Onions764 Daenerys Targaryen. Spent eight seasons rooting for her and then realized her entire arc made perfect sense. Watch enough people betray you, underestimate you and take everything from you and burning it all down starts to feel less like madness and more like a logical conclusion.
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  • Mother-Row-8885 Magneto. Obviously the methods are unhinged, but looking at human history and how minorities/outliers get treated when people feel threatened, his lack of faith in peaceful coexistence wasn't exactly unreasonable.
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  • A person in a villain costume holds a clapperboard in a forest
    via Royce Fonseca

    Recreated scenario included to enhance reader understanding.  


    A person in a villain costume holds a clapperboard in a forest 

  • AncientRoll7747 When The Matrix came out and the agent said that line about humans being a virus my mind was blown. Now that I'm a lot older and a lot more jaded I realize we're way worse than a virus
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  • fckcarrots Syndrome from The Incredibles "I'll give them heroics. I'll give them the most spectacular heroics anyone's ever seen! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super no one will be."
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  • Unit_79 Walter Peck from Ghostbusters. He was working for the good of the environment but his ego made him approach his job in a way.
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  • Eatmymuffinz Jean Girard in Talledega Nights. I really do love crepes. Ned's girlfriend in School of Rock. I'd be so annoyed if my best friend was crashing at my apartment all the time and not paying rent.
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  • Chuusem Law abiding citizen. Im not saying take revenge like he did. I just understand he has an angle after having to deal with our legal system. The quicker you realize its a legal system and not a justice system, the more things will make sense in every aspect.
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  • LadderEffective3458 I don't think Jafar from Aladdin was good guy, mind you, but he was absolutely right about the Sultan. That guy was a twit and truly bad for Agrabah.
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  • EddieDantes22 The Charles Lindbergh character from "Up" who became a worldwide laughingstock when he decided to prove the existence of a rare bird, devoted decades of his life to proving he was right, and had a kid and an old man totally screw him out of what would be an amazing "I told you so" moment.
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  • SpecialFlowerr I started watching The Devil Wears Prada and realized Miranda wasn't always wrong. Sometimes people just aren't ready for the standards they signed up for.
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  • RealKenny Almost all of the "new rich boyfriends". Specifically, Pierce Brosnan in Mrs. Doubtfire
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  • LuminousGrue The machines from The Matrix. For all we know humanity struck the first blow and started the war. Humans tried to wipe them out by going as far as permanently clouding the skies. In
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  • retaliation the machines could have exterminated humanity but chose not to - they never wanted to k I us. In fact they go to great lengths to keep the species alive. I know the film says they use people as batteries but the math on that just doesn't math, especially if they have "a form of fusion". That's like saying "my car is powered by this AA battery, oh and also a form of internal combustion".
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  • They even tried to make us a paradise but human beings are so f ed in the head we apparently need suffering or else we just di, so they gave us a recreation of the apex of human civilization - the 1990s. The machines fought a war for their very existence, which we started, and they won. Frankly putting us all in the Matrix was an act of mercy.
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  • Not-original ""Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?"
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  • GumbyJo "Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no d in good, but they will always need land, and they will pay through the nose to get it!" - Lex Luther
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