7 Must-Watch Movies Where An Underdog Overthrows An Evil Regime
Let's root for the underdog in these stories of evil regimes and egomaniacal rulers.
Hollywood loves an underdog story, and that often translates into feel-good movies where unassuming good guys bring evil regimes to their knees.
Thankfully, the good guys don’t always have to do much. See, the thing about evil regimes is that they’re usually run by egomaniacal people with an Achilles heel: Greed. Still, it always feels great when the little guy or gal rises above their station and takes down the whole system. With that in mind, here are seven movies where the good character beats the evil leader in the end.
*spoiler alert!
The original Hunger Games trilogy
The evil leader: Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland)
The evil leader’s atrocities: Autocratic subjugation of his populace; smelling bad.
The leader’s final downfall: His own manipulative ways, which ultimately backfire. In attempting to convince Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) to kill his political rival, President Coin, Snow incites a rebellion that leaves him underfoot, literally.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The evil leaders: Saruman and Sauron (Christopher Lee and a giant eye, respectively)
The evil leaders’ atrocities: Saruman: Razing cities and villages; spreading conspiracy theories; contributing to climate change (a.k.a. burning Ents). Sauron: countless murders; sadistic despotism; gaslighting Celebrimbor for all of Season 2 of The Rings of Power.
The leaders’ final downfall: The little guys, literally. While Saruman is betrayed by his own unhappy employee, as dictators are wont to do, Sauron is defeated by two non-canonically gay hobbits.
Gladiator
The evil leader: Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix)
The evil leader’s atrocities: Persecution of political enemies; cheating in every game he plays; pathological disdain for the working class; demanding too many grapes.
The leader’s final downfall: His own arrogance. He challenges Maximus (Russel Crowe) to a duel and rigs it beforehand, but forgets that Maximus is a superior fighter. They both die, but Maximus wins. Before joining his family in the afterlife, Maximus calls for political reforms, the emancipation of all gladiators, and the reinstatement of an honorable senator. Now that’s how you do a revolution!
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The evil leader: The White Witch (Tilda Swinton)
The evil leader’s atrocities: Creating endless winter; fomenting fear with her Secret Police; censorship; banning Christmas.
The leader’s final downfall: Say it with me now … Her own hubris! Most dictators – even contemporary ones – fall by their own hand. Whether it happens today or tomorrow is immaterial. But only the White Witch did it with the help of a magical Lion Jesus.
The Last King of Scotland
The evil leader: Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker)
The evil leader’s atrocities: Genocide; mass deportations; crippling the Ugandan economy; not speaking at a reasonable volume at any time; damaging James McAvoy’s beautiful face.
The leader’s final downfall: His own grandiloquence. In a disingenuous ploy to create the utopian Uganda that he falsely promised his people, Amin attempts an invasion of Tanzania that necessitates his permanent exile. It doesn’t help that he abuses his right-hand man, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), throughout the movie, causing the latter to betray him.
The Death of Stalin
The evil leader: Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale)
The evil leader’s atrocities: SA; mass deportation; ethnic cleansing; acting so desperate all the time.
The leader’s final downfall: In a failed attempt to seize power after his boss Joseph Stalin’s death, Beria underestimates his political opponents and ultimately faces trial for his crimes. Accused of counter-revolutionary activities – as well as the aforementioned atrocities – Beria is summarily executed. In his final moments, he cries, falls to his knees, and begs for his life. Sad!
V for Vendetta
The evil leader: Adam Sutler (John Hurt)
The evil leader’s atrocities: Disguising genocide as moral righteousness; rewriting history in his own image; imprisoning and executing every minority you can think of; making London more depressing than it already is.
The leader’s final downfall: A revolution, obviously! V (Hugo Weaving) takes him on in a climactic fight. After the dictator’s right-hand man betrays him (I’m sensing a pattern), V dispatches with the latter man as well. Then the formerly fearsome military forces of London fall back as seemingly the entire city descends upon and destroys Parliament.
