In the past, the pictures weren't the only thing about movies that were in black and white. The morality in fictional media also had to be simple to catch on. For every piece of media that aimed to be more complex, there were plenty more about good, white-hatted cowboys dueling with bad, black-hatted ones.
But over time, they got blended into varying shades of gray. There would be villains who were nice to a person’s face, while vile behind doors. Then there were heroes who were gruff, selfish, or even borderline jerks themselves. Like these classic movie examples.
8 James Bond
As a secret agent, James Bond gets the job done, foiling one supervillain’s evil machinations or another. But as a person, Bond has problems. He’s had different levels of empathy depending on the actor playing him. Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan’s Bond occasionally showed some sympathy, and George Lazenby’s Bond was the first to get his heart broken for a change.
While Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig were much more on edge, being as likely to threaten friendlies and neutral parties as enemy agents. However, across every actor, Bond’s universal traits of selfishness, smugness, loving & leaving women, and drinking like a fish come through clearly. He may have saved the world multiple times, though as a person he's quite terrible.
7 The Man With No Name
Despite being the ‘Good’ in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Man With No Name's role as a 'good guy' is more of a matter of perspective. As ‘Joe’ in A Fistful of Dollars, he doesn’t care about the two smuggling families he’s caught between beyond how much cash he can get out of them. Then as ‘Manco’ in For a Few Dollars More, he turns on his bank-robbing crew mid-heist and lies to their boss.
Finally, as ‘Blondie’ in TGTBTU, he’s just one of three mercs after a hidden stash of Confederate gold and threatens Tuco (‘The Ugly’) just for kicks. But he’s squeaky clean compared to his rivals, who tend to be murderers, thieves, and traitors thriving from the suffering of others. So, he’s ‘good’ by that metric. Just not nice.
6 "Sanjuro Kuwabatake"
Clint Eastwood’s ‘The Man With No Name’ is a classic antihero, though he was essentially an Italian-American take on the pseudonymous 'Sanjuro Kuwabatake' from Akira Kurosawa’s Yōjimbō, which was itself the forebear for A Fistful of Dollars. Like his cowboy counterpart, he gets involved in a fight between two worse people to see what he can earn from it.
He curries favor with one by killing three men in front of them, before playing him off the other, freeing the innocent as the gang lords kill each other. He does bring peace to the town as a result, but he gives the undertaker a backlog of bodies to work through as a result. The film even ends with him telling one of the inhabitants that the town's going to be much more peaceful from now on, which is one way to describe the deaths of tens of people.
5 Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The real-life Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid were ruthless criminals, and so were their fictional screen versions! The film just softens them a touch by having them portrayed by charismatic actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford, giving them funny lines here and there, and some sympathetic moments.
Still, they’re both doomed by their own inability to tame themselves. They can’t help but keep fighting, robbing, and killing. If they could stop and become civilians, they might’ve gotten away with their shenanigans at some point. Instead, their bad habits lead them to Bolivia and to their end. It was just in their nature.
4 Snake Plissken
The idea behind Escape from New York’s protagonist was to prove that, despite the adage, men CAN be an island. Plissken is a loner that isn’t interested in building connections with others. He’s cynical, harsh, and doesn’t care about humanity. It made his life of crime easier until he got caught. Still, he holds some values even after everything he's been through.
He saves the US President from the prison city of Manhattan because he's forced to via a bomb planted in his head. However, he appreciates the help he gets from the allies he makes while there. When the President shrugs off the effort both they and Snake made to free him, he swaps out his critical data tape that would grant the world access to nuclear fusion with a musical one. In his eyes, corrupt men shouldn't get credit for saving a world they don't appreciate. The best they deserve is "Bandstand Boogie."
3 Max Rockatansky
Max was a good guy at first, or at least as good as someone could be in the world post-apocalypse. He spent much of the first Mad Max film fearing he’ll become as cold and ruthless as the people he goes after as a patrol officer. But once his wife and infant son are killed, he dives right into brutality, killing off those responsible one by one, leaving one to either cut off a limb with a saw or get blown up.
It's how he became the ruthless ‘Mad Max’ of legend, wandering the wasteland and getting caught up in one situation or another. Whatever humanity he had left got lost at that moment, or so he thought. He still helps those downtrodden by gangs, be they the War Boys or Auntie Entity, so there’s still some good in him. Just don’t expect him to help out of charity.
2 Captain Jack Sparrow
Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Jack Sparrow is many things but being ‘nice’ is debatable. He has a sense of ethics that separates him from his old first mate Barbossa or the monstrous Davy Jones. However, they’re not enough to keep him out of trouble or to keep sailing the seven seas in search of plunder, rum, women, rum, adventure, and rum. He likes booze a lot too.
He’s a funny character, someone who looks like they’d be fun to go on a night’s drinking. But if they did, chances are they’d end up penniless in an alleyway or press-ganged on someone’s ship. All with a hangover from hell, and some ‘unwelcome gifts’ that might make being an undead pirate seem bearable by comparison.
1 Lisbeth Salander
This list has been nearly all men, so let’s work with a female antihero for a change. Designed as a grownup version of popular Swedish child hero Pippi Longstocking, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander has issues. The people around her call her sick, insane, and even a psychopath as she doesn’t care for people and particularly enjoys torturing some men. Then again, the men she goes after for retribution tend to be abusers of all varieties.
She is paranoid and has trouble relating to other people, but she still has empathy for others and a moral code. It’s what drives her to help Mikael Blomkvist across his cases with her hacking skills, and why she gives abusers a taste of their own medicine. So, she isn’t strictly ‘nice’, but she’s on the side of good…for the most part.