Everyone Has Standards / Live-Action Films

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Characters with standards in live-action films.

• All About My Mother: Agrado, a kinky and eccentric transsexual prostitute, nevertheless is very critical of Nina's drug habit, telling her she is wasting herself away.
• American Dreamz: After Sally and Martin end up having sex, he asks her if she doesn't feel dirty (as she's cheating on her boyfriend William with him). When she nonchalantly says no, Martin, who up until then was shown to be quite a jerk, gives a pause as if saying "...Wow."
• American Fiction: Sintara Golden may have become successful by writing urban fiction that taps into negative stereotypes about black people, but even she finds "Fuck" to be a soulless story full of Uncle Tomfoolery pandering.
• Animal House: Bluto and D-Day wanted to haze Flounder by handing him a handgun and telling him to shoot Neidermeyer's horse but they did not actually wanted to kill the horse so they loaded the gun with blanks. Flounder also refused to hurt the horse so he shot towards the ceiling. When the detonation shocked the horse into having a heart attack, the three of them are horrified.
• Austin Powers: Promiscuous as he may be, Austin will not have sex with anyone who is drunk.
• Beetlejuice (1988): The titular Beetlejuice may be a vile (though lovable) ghost who willing to do just about anything to return to the world of the living, who acts like a used car salesman of sorts to try and scam others into deals so he can get what he wants. This includes forcing a little girl to marry him and, as revealed in the sequel, being a graverobber before death, a man who once married a dog, and a ghost who spent the last two decades pining for said little girl and stalking her out of now-genuine affection. That said he always, always, keeps his deals: he might twist his words, he might not tell you everything, he might take advantage of others' desperation, but if he agrees to do something for you in exchange for something from you, the Ghost With The Most will deliver.
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead: Hank is the epitome of a spineless wimp, but he refuses to let Andy kill Chris, especially when he hears her baby crying.
• The Big Lebowski: Walter has a notorious Hair-Trigger Temper and is almost always ready to get into a heated argument with anyone about anything at the drop of a hat. However, even he doesn't care about the Jesus's opinions enough to argue with him, instead restricting himself to making casual snide comments behind his back.
• Big Stan: Before he met the Master, Stan was at his lowest and most desperate where he was willing to become a hardcore racist Nazi if it meant not being raped. Even at his lowest point, Stan firmly draws the line at killing an inmate after an ex-con advises him that is the only way to not get raped at all in prison. Even with the Nazi idea, Stan was clearly uncomfortable with being a racist and does not approve of the racism the Nazis displayed when they tried to have him join their gang after he beat up Big Raymond. Stan was willing to help the Warden in exchange for a lower sentence but when his idea involved potentially killing inmates, Stan immediately backs out of the plan and tries to stop the Warden.
• Blue Bayou: Ace might be a terrible father who tries to keep in contact with his daughter through all the wrong ways, but he is disgusted by how his partner Denny assaulted Antonio to make him miss his hearing and get deported. Ace arrests him and turns up to Antonio's deportation, not to harass anyone but to say goodbye to his daughter.
• Bombshell (2019): When Ailes is caught dead to rights with his philandering, his boss, Rupert Murdoch, is prepared to get him to resign with a large severance. By contrast, Murdoch's sons, who obviously despise Ailes, would have loved to flat-out fire him for cause and say so to his face.
• The Cable Guy:
  • Chip is not all there in the head (and in a very worrying fashion, too), but he does not thinks highly of Stan Sweet murdering his brother.
  Chip: [sees news footage of Sweet's trial, dead serious] I hope they fry this bastard.
  • When Chip takes Robin to the satellite dish and gives her his speech about the future of television, she has a look on her face that says "Maybe Steven was right about this guy..."
• Cadillac Man: Larry may have taken a whole dealership hostage, and is insanely jealous of his girlfriend Donna (which is what led him to take the dealership hostage in the first place), but when a hostage tries to bribe Larry to let him go, Larry refuses because he doesn't extort people.
• Cape Fear (1991): Defence attorney Samuel Bowden deliberately torpedoed his defence case for psychotic rapist Max Cady by burying a file that detailed the teenage victim's sexual promiscuity, which would have gotten Cady a lighter sentence or acquittal had it come to light. While doing so is a violation of US law, he was so disgusted by Cady that he could not in good conscience humiliate a rape victim just so that a monstrous and unapologetic rapist could dodge prison.
• Carrie (1976):
  • Carrie's classmates and teachers either bullied her or ignored her plight, but almost all of them appear horrified by the pig-blood prank. Tragically, Carrie was too traumatized to register this.
  • Despite not liking her at all, even Chris is horrified when Carrie kills Miss Collins.
• In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka is mostly apathetic to the danger the bratty kids put themselves in, with any warnings he gives being more about not damaging the factory. But he does come off as much more concerned for Violet when she ignores his warnings about the three-course gum.
  Violet: It's amazing! Tomato soup, I can feel it running down my throat!
  Mr. Wonka: Yeah! Spit it out!
• In The Chronicles of Riddick, while main character Richard B. Riddick is a notorious escaped convict and murderer, he has been noted to have a soft spot for children, and despite his reputation it is worth noting that everyone he has killed in the series was at least actively trying to capture if not outright kill him before he attacked them.
• Il commissario Lo Gatto:
  • Natale Lo Gatto is oogling at a girl who's showering at the beach while interrogating her to get infos, only to become shocked and disgusted by the view when the latter tells him she's almost 14 years old.
  • Even if Gridelli doesn't mind having casual sex, he refuses to have sex until exhaustion after the female german tourist asks him to do it for a third time.
• A Cure for Wellness: Even though Lockhart was a self-righteous prick, he was shocked and horrified when he saw orderlies ruthlessly punch the old man when he woke up screaming, was similarly horrified when he saw the caretaker dumping the body to the eels where it can be eaten, and he even rescues Hannah from the clutches of the truly unthinkable evils he uncovers.
• Curly Sue: Bill scams people for a living but disapproves of stealing money and forbids Sue from doing so.
• Date Night: Played for Laughs. Everybody else in the cast is some degree of jerk, crooked and even murderous, and they are all disgusted about the thing the Fosters did that led them to become embroiled in the plot (they pretended to be the Tripplehorns - the couple holding the MacGuffin - and stole their reservations to a fancy restaurant).
• Dave Made a Maze: Harry quickly exposes himself as a pretentious asshole who completely shrugs off the deaths of his friends in favor of milking more drama out of the survivors for his documentary. However, the Cardboard Brynn genuinely rattles him and he spends his "interview" with her trying to figure out if she's really Brynn and if she can be saved.
• The Death of Stalin: The Soviet leadership are selfish, backstabbing tools who care only about securing their positions, but they’re all absolutely revolted by Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Secret Police and a serial rapist/pedophile who goes out of his way to have people he doesn't like (even for something as petty as stuttering when he asks their name and rank) and their families tortured and murdered. Unsurprisingly, they kill him the second they get the chance, and it’s probably the only point in the movie where they’re all actually united in intent.
• Death of a Unicorn: Ridley makes no secret of the fact that she views the Leopolds as a bunch of privileged oligarchs, but she doesn't want them to die. She tries to warn them against exploiting the unicorn and advises them on what to do to be spared the wrath of its parents. Their refusal to listen gets them all killed.
• Demolition Man: John Spartan is a cop who is infamous for his use of excessive force. However, he draws the line at using that excessive force on petty criminals.
• The Devil Wears Prada: Andy had done a lot for the sake of her job that she didn't want to including miss her boyfriend's birthday and go to Paris instead of Emily, but Miranda's sacrifice of Nigel's dream job with James Holt near the end of the film to keep Jacqueline Follet from replacing her as editor-in-chief was the point she finally had enough of Miranda and left Runway despite not having worked there a full year.
• Diary of a Mad Black Woman: Implied. When Charles and Helen maid Christina first appear in the movie, she informed Helen that all her old clothes had been replaced with new ones, and Christina seemed to be happy for Helen, saying that she wished her husband had done that for her. But it was revealed that Charles planned to kick Helen out of their house and have his mistress, Brenda, move in with their two children. And because Helen signed a prenup, Charles wouldn’t have to support her. Later in the film, when Charles was shot and Brenda abandoned him, and took his money and the children with her, Charles still mistreated Helen, and she decided to have revenge on him. When Helen is eating dinner in front of Charles and he’s calling out for Christina, Helen reveals that Christina left with all the other staff because Brenda took his money, so there was nothing to pay them, so they took their things and some of his things and just left. Considering how Christina got along with Helen in her first appearance with her, with it implied that Helen was kind to the staff. It’s implied that Christina and the rest of the staff were disgusted with Charles for kicking out Helen and replacing her with his mistress Brenda, but they only stayed because he was paying them. But when Charles was shot and had no money to pay them, they decided to abandon him because they were only loyal to him because of his money and were disgusted with the way he treated Helen.
• Die Hard 1:
  • Ellis is perfectly willing to sell McClane out to Hans (though it's because he thinks McClane is putting him and all the other hostages at risk) but he lies to Hans that McClane is an old friend of his and doesn't reveal Holly is McClane's wife. Of course, Hans still kills him.
  • Subverted with Dick Thornburg. The first thing he does when he sees cops being massacred by Hans' goons is to belt out a horrified Big "OMG!". The second thing he does is ask his cameraman if he got that.
• DISCO (2017): It is established by Rudy that people go to disco dance clubs to have fun and that no one can really dance. Later, Travis is drunkenly dancing so badly that everyone boos him off of the dance floor.
• The Distinguished Gentleman: A professional Con Man gets himself elected to Congress and discovers that he's small potatoes compared to the corruption that goes on in the Capitol. He then dedicates himself to exposing them.
• Down Periscope: Brad Stepanek is a hard-core rebel and makes clear a few times that he will do anything to get kicked out of the submarine he was assigned to for some war games and out of the Navy before he starts to grow attached to the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits he's serving with, but when at one point the sub is corraled by that of the opposing force and all that would have taken for them to be discovered is, say, someone starting to yell, Stepanek doesn't does anything. When Captain Dodge points this out, Stepanek answers that he wants to only screw up his career and if the Stingray was taken out of the war game, then the careers of everybody else on the ship (which are already on thin ice as it is, which is why they were assigned to it) would have been screwed, and he wasn't going to do that.
• Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story: The gym bullies confronted Bruce in numbers and weren't afraid to intimidate him verbally and physically. The African American bully went from cocky to visibly uncomfortable when the lead bully began making racist remarks at Bruce while the other Caucasian bullies continued to remain cocky and confrontational.
• Duplicity: Garsik's men may be corporate spies, but they let Ray leave unharmed after firing him for stealing.
• Eli: The breaking point between Eli's parents is that Paul is willing to kill him if the therapy doesn't work, while Rose is not.
• Elysium: The film's entire plot is triggered because the government of the titular space station, even if a mouthpiece of a living symbol of "White Flight Syndrome" taken up to eleven, still is humane enough to be utterly disgusted with the idea of killing illegal immigrants that try to approach the station willy-nilly or have such a horrifying criminal as Kruger working for them, which puts them all into conflict with Homeland Security leader Delacourt, who is willing to do all of that and a hell of a lot more for the sake of "I Did What I Had to Do".
• The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain: Morgan is a shifty, self-serving operator who quickly finds ways to make money out of the situation, not to mention the promiscuity that gave him his title of "the Goat". However, his sense of Welsh pride is as sincere as anyone's; he refuses to take any bets less than 1,000 feet and he proposes the idea of raising the mountain's height.
• The Expendables don't hesitate to slaughter dozens of enemies or blow something up just to leave their mark, but when Gunnar tries to hang a captured pirate just because, as he puts it, "It's good to hang pirates." they step in to stop him.
• Find a Place to Die: At the start of the film, Joe Collins is scraping a living by selling weapons from a cache he has hidden. He is not happy when he learns Gomez has been on-selling the weapons to Chato.
  Joe Collins: Listen, Gomez. Selling guns to outlaws is one thing, but selling 'em to a killer of women and children is something else.
• Freddy Got Fingered: Downplayed given the nature of this film, but when Jim repeatedly insults Betty over being in a wheelchair, Gord lashes out at him physically.
• Frost/Nixon: When Richard Nixon suggests sending people to spy on Frost in his hotel, Jack Brennan reacts with a look of concern and Stunned Silence.
• Full Metal Jacket: Pyle's breakdown is limited only to Hartman and himself. Other than briefly pointing his rifle in Joker's general direction, which is hinted to be more to keep Joker away, it's never hinted that he intends to harm any of the other recruits.
• Gandhi: While most British colonial officials aren't exactly paragons of tolerance, they were horrified by Dyer's brutality toward Indian protestors. This is Truth in Television; even Winston Churchill and H.H. Asquith, staunch defenders of British imperialism, were utterly disgusted by the massacre.
• God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness: Adam is horrified when he learns that a brick he threw in Dave's church busted a pipe and caused a gas explosion that resulted in Jude's death. Adam was vandalizing a church just because of pent up anger over Keaton breaking up with him, but he didn't want to cause destruction of that level, and he certainly didn't want anyone to die.
• In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), while Serizawa and those in Monarch have a worshipful attitude towards the Titans and disagree with the government's plan to kill the Titans while they are still sleeping, they feel that reintroducing the Titans to the modern world should be done very carefully and under strictly controlled measures to minimize the dangers to humanity. Which is why they were shocked and horrified when Dr Emma Russell, one of their own colleagues, deliberately awaken all the Titans at once to let them regain the Earth despite the billions of human lives that would be lost in the event.
• Hokum: Ohm almost contemptuously dismisses the idea of the supernatural and berates the hotel staff for annoying him (even burning Alby on the hand with a heated spoon at one point), as well as Jerry for being a stoner and a suspected murderer. Yet, he’s disgusted by the staff just shooting the goats living in the woods nearby instead of relocating them, and calls the hotel owner out for telling two children a local folk tale that’s clearly frightening them.
• The Holy Office: The priests leading the Inquisition scold the Principal of the Royal Audiencia for suggesting to exterminate the Jews by saying Jesus wants repentants and not dead people.
• In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, after Kevin befriends the Pigeon Lady and has an epiphany about the bad and selfish things he's done throughout the film, he evokes this when deciding to foil Marv and Harry's robbery of charity money meant for a children's hospital:
  Kevin: You can mess with a lot of things... but you can't mess with kids on Christmas.
• How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies: When Amah's older brother throws her out of the house with zero sympathy towards the fact his own sibling is slowly dying of cancer, M is silently seething in anger, and Amah's in-laws are frightened and disgusted their patriarch would do such a thing.
• I Shot Jesse James: Even though Jesse James was a notorious outlaw, most of the West thought it was low of Robert Ford to shoot him in the back in his own house and in front of his wife.
• Intermedio: Malik, Barbie, and Gen are fine with using weed but take some persuading to get into the idea of selling it (mainly just agreeing because the deal will take place in the tunnel where Gen and Malik's dads vanished years ago and Gen is obsessed with their fates). They also all balk when Wes suggests trading it for cocaine (although in Malik's case this is partially due to the lengthier prison sentence if caught) to the point where Wes does a Verbal Backspace to claim he was saying that to demonstrate the quality of the drugs rather than make a serious suggestion.
• Is God Is: Anaia is increasingly uncomfortable with Racine's brutality and horrified when she kills people for little reason.
• James Bond series:
  • Bond may be a secret agent with a license to kill and a Pragmatic Hero, but he will never kill innocent people to further his mission. Bond only kills people who he considers serious and professional threats — for example, he spares Kara in The Living Daylights when he realizes that she's just a cellist who doesn't even know how to hold a gun properly.
  • Bond is also a man with a taste for the finer things in life, but he's incorruptible. He never accepts bribes or expresses interest in making money at work or outside of it.
  • Played for laughs in Thunderball (1965). When Fiona Volpe fatally takes a bullet in the back meant for Bond, he sits her corpse down in a chair with some confused patrons and quips "Mind if my partner sits this one out? She's just dead!" Hilariously, as he walks away he has a look on his face that just screams "Why the hell did I just say that?"
  • For Your Eyes Only (1981) establishes that for as much as a womanizer Bond is throughout the series he won't go after anyone who's underage like Bibi, even if said girl is trying to chase him.
  • Octopussy: When Renegade Russian General Orlov explains his plans to use the Soviet army to conquer Western Europe to his bosses, the Politburo's reaction is one of horror. General Gogol, knowing what could happen should the Soviets invade NATO, even calls Orlov a nutcase, while another Politburo member warns Orlov that the military is strictly for defensive purposes, not for personal conquest.
  • The Living Daylights: KGB director Leonid Pushkin chews Big Bad Brad Whitaker for pretending to be a decorated general when he's just a petty arms dealer who was booted from West Point for cheating. Pushkin also despises him for having a collection of wax figures of infamous butchers such as Adolf Hitler, but what's even more disturbing about said statues is that these "surgeons" are sculpted to resemble Whitaker himself out of vanity.
  • GoldenEye: Valentin Zukovsky may be an ex-KGB agent turned Arms Dealer, but even he despises the Lienz Cossacks for aiding the Nazis during World War II. As far as he's concerned, they more than deserved their final, brutal fates. Similarly, while circumstances force him to do criminal business with Janus/ex-MI6 agent Alec Trevelyan, it’s still made clear Zukovsky despises the man for his heritage.
    • In a deleted scene, Zukovsky orders his men to forcibly boot a fast-talking Indian Arms Dealer from his club for trying to scam him with "counterfeit crap".
  • Spectre: Recurring minor villain Mr. White, who had done everything from killing people in front of Bond to showcase that QUANTUM (and thus SPECTRE) has moles literally everywhere (both by forcing Vesper Lynd to become one by kidnapping her lover and later by almost getting M killed by one which was one of her own bodyguards to cause enormous ecological damage in South America by helping finance Greene Planet and had always been smug about it finally has had enough which made him quit SPECTRE, fully knowing that it would mean that Blofeld would order him to be hunted down and killed because he can't stand behind sex trafficking.
• Jawbreaker:
  • Dane initially seems like a dumb Jerk Jock, fittingly as Courtney's prom date. But he is among the first to be disgusted with her when she's exposed. He even walks off the stage, showing her she's on her own.
  • Vylette becomes a very quick example when Courtney and Marcie get sick of her and expose her past as Fern, putting her back at the bottom of the food chain.
• Johnny Guitar: After the Posse captures Turkey and Vienna, Emma goads them into holding an immediate hanging rather than bringing them back for trial. While they do lynch Turkey, the all-male posse balks at the idea of hanging a woman, even after Emma offers $100 to whoever does the job. They tell her that if she wants to see Vienna hang, she will have to do the job her self. She does, but Vienna manages to escape.
• The primary antagonist of The Karate Kid, Johnny Lawrence, may not be an out-and-out villain but he's far from a good guy: he's aggressive and pushy towards a girl he has a crush on and he bullies Daniel mercilessly, even unto the point of causing him serious harm. Even so, when his sensei orders him to perform a very illegal and potentially crippling attack during a tournament, his facial expression and body language shift instantly to wide-eyed, shocked horror, and he is stricken speechless. Even when Kreese orders Bobby Brown to perform an illegal act and get disqualified, so Daniel will be too crippled to fight Johnny, the look Johnny gives Kreese is one of pure disgust.
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service, not all the celebrities, politicians and royalty approached by Valentine agree with his scheme for whatever reason. They end up locked up in his base for all their trouble. Though it also spares them from the chaos going on around the world as well as the explosive chips that were meant to save those who did buy into Valentine's plan.
• Kinsey: Kinsey, as a scientist and researcher, is supposed to be impartial and conduct his research without passing judgment onto his subjects. Since his area of expertise concerns sex and human sexuality, he's very open-minded and frank about both subjects. But when he interviews an Extreme Omnisexual whose sexual exploits include having had sex with family members, animals, and children, Kinsey is clearly disgusted, sternly explaining that sex requires both parties' explicit consent and that no one should get hurt.
• Knives Out: Richard is a giant anti-immigrant asshole, but he makes no apologies for his nephew Jacob, who is an ardent alt-right troll.
  Richard: Kid's a fucking Nazi.
• In Legally Blonde, Brooke disregards that her and Enrique are having an affair not based on her faithfulness but because no self-respecting Delta Nu girl would sleep with a man in a thong.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Most of the misery Max ends up enduring through the film lies in the fact that he's perfectly okay with getting involved in Auntie's power plays to get his stuff back, and is okay with fighting Blaster to the death because that's the deal he made (the fact that Blaster is trying to kill him definitely helps), but he throws the fight the very second he notices that Blaster is a man with Down Syndrome.
• Magnum Force: "Dirty" Harry Callahan may merrily tap-dance the line between being a Cowboy Cop and being a Rabid Cop, but he has always made sure to just shoot the crooks he hunts down and nobody else, and only when the crooks refuse to surrender in an armed confrontation. The titular Magnum Force (with their sociopathic lack of regard for collateral damage in their vigilantism, even killing fellow cops that get in the way) utterly disgust him.
• Meet the Parents (2000):
  • While Jack has all but delighted in giving Greg a hard time from the moment they met, he cannot abide by Denny's mean-spirited mockery of Greg's legal name. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it background moment, you can see Jack soberly gesturing to Denny that his joking isn't appropriate and he needs to stop. Despite being Greg's biggest critic, even Jack's one of the few who doesn't find it amusing.
  • In Meet the Fockers, Roz causes Greg much embarrassment when she talks about Greg's circumcision, and shows the Byrneses his saved foreskin. Even Bernie, who's notorious for being TMI and causing embarrassment by it, thinks that Roz is taking things too far.
• In Monster Trucks, Doctor Jim Dowd is quoted as having stretched the truth, falsified environmental protection reports, and lied to the media in the past in the name of ensuring profit for Terravex, but he explicitly rejects the idea of killing Creach’s species just to benefit the company, to the point that he betrays Terravex to help Trip and Meredith get Creach's family home.
• Mother Mary: Despite her anger at Mary, Sam clearly doesn't want her to die, cautiously asking about it when Mary hints at possibly being suicidal, and helping exorcise the ghost that's destroying her from the inside out. She also refused to trash-talk Mary to the tabloids and is even hinted to have defended her to some extent, saying Mary "needed a break" following her disappearance from the public eye.
• Murder at 1600: Kyle is a self-centered domestic abuser, but seems to be genuinely unsettled by the murder of his one-night stand.
• Not Okay: When she realizes Harper knows the truth of her lies, Danni immediately tries to bribe her with everything from money to ensuring she gets a promotion. Harper cuts her off by making it clear that yes, she's jealous of Danni's attention and wants to get ahead, but the reason she's going to expose the truth isn't to boost her own name but because she's disgusted by Danni going around claiming to have been a victim of a terrorist attack where real people died just to be famous.
• Oddity: Yana, who is characterized as a kind of mean, shallow person, is nonetheless disgusted by Ted's lack of emotion or feeling toward the death of Darcy and Dani and ultimately leaves him.
• Orphan: As much of a dick John can be, he's absolutely horrified and disgusted when Esther tries to seduce him, which finally convinces him that Kate was right about her.
  Esther: (losing her patience) Stop talking to me like I'm a child!
  John: (disgusted) I'm calling Sister Judith tomorrow and we're going to have a conversation about your future in this house, because I can't do it! I can't do it anymore!
• Osmosis Jones
  • Frank may not be the best of fathers, but he does question if his brother Bob is going to be a good guardian for Shane, especially when he offhandedly claims he'll kick his niece out by the time she's 16.
  • Ironically, even Bob has better standards than Mayor Phlegmming when it comes to Frank's well-being. Bear in mind, this is the same guy who's idea of drinking fluids is "drowning a cold" with beer. But on their way to Buffalo, Bob notices Frank growing delirious and feverish. Through Frank, the Mayor tries to convince Bob he's just fine, only to find that Frank is too far gone to even speak. Bob immediately calls off their trip and takes his brother to the hospital.
  • The Police Chief has a look of surprise when Phlegmming relieves Ozzy of his badge.
• Over the Edge: Jerry Cole is a pretty self-absorbed businessman who cares more about money than about the kids in the town. However, after the kids cause a horrible riot during the parent teacher conference, Jerry tries to stop Doberman from arresting them, recognizing he's not the right person to deal with it, to no avail.
• Paddington (2014): Mr. Curry may not like Paddington but he won't see him taxidermied (he just thought Millicent would send him back to Peru).
• Colonel Tavington in The Patriot (2000) inspires this among his countrymen. Cornwallis can be called an honorable British General who respects both the laws of warfare and simply wants to reestablish British rule. He wants to maintain good if temporarily not peaceful relations with the colonials. However, he is still appalled at Tavington's brutal tactics and rightly faults him for the increasing resistance against the British from the American militia and even if he keeps Tavington around because circumstances force him to do so, he sheds no tears at seeing him get killed by Benjamin Martin. Also, one of Tavington's men complains that there's no honor in burning down a church full of civilians, and is clearly reluctant to follow his orders to do so.
• The Paperboy: Mrs. Rosemont is a vindictive old biddy, but she's right about Johnny being "bad news" and tells Melissa that even she thinks Johnny's mother went too far with how she disciplined her son.
• Penelope (2006):
  • Johnny was initially willing to help Lemon and Edward in their plan to capture a picture of Penelope and exploit her pig nose, but after only a few days of getting to know her, he is quick to try and back out of it.
  • Despite being an obsessive journalist who devoted his life to getting a photo of “the Pig-Faced Girl”, Lemon does not actually view Penelope as a monster, and even seems a bit offended when she snarks that he’ll be getting his “freak”. But the moment he obtains the pictures he’s been dying to get for the last 25 years, he starts to realize she may have had a point.
  • When Edward publicly states he believes Penelope belongs “in a cage”, even the reporters are stunned into silence for a moment. One of them audibly calls him a creep.
• In the Pirates of the Caribbean films, while Captain Jack Sparrow presents himself as a ruthless pirate, when faced with a choice, Jack has shown a strong reluctance to kill anyone who is not actively trying to kill him as Captain Jack Sparrow but just going after him because he's a pirate. His first duel with Will Turner only lasted so long because Will 'insisted' on the fight as Will was only fighting a pirate rather than out of a grudge against Jack, and Jack avoided killing any of the soldiers pursuing him during his escape from Buckingham Palace. On a more personal note, Jack has given up two different chances at prolonged (if not eternal) life in order to save his friend Will and his old lover Angelica from imminent death.
• The titular race of the Predator franchise may be a bunch of ruthless killers who hunt humans for sport, but they also consider killing a defenseless opponent dishonorable and when challenged to fight their prey in one-on-one combat, they will fight (relatively) fair. Their standard of “threat” is incredibly high, as while the first Predator seen killed anyone who was just holding a gun, another refused to kill a pregnant woman actively fighting back (although it did render her unconscious to ensure she couldn't continue the fight).
• In Predators, the benevolent doctor and one of the few good people on the team is thoroughly disgusted by Stans's "rapin' bitches" comment. The doctor was later revealed to have probably been faking it, considering that he was a serial killer himself.
• Presence: When Tyler tells his family about how he participated in a prank that humiliated a girl at school, none of them are particularly enthused and even Rebecca says it sounded very mean, despite otherwise always giving her son the benefit of the doubt. Tyler himself at least seems to be less than pleased when Chloe confirms that the victim of the prank had a dirty selfie leaked online by one of his friends, right after he assured his family that he deleted the photo from his phone (and clearly assumed his school buddies did the same).
• Pretty Baby: One of the brothel's patrons openly derides the bidding war because he's discomfited by the notion of sex with a child. Antonio Fargas' character also looks tense throughout this scene.
• In The Producers (1967), Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom are scam artists who plan to defraud a very large amount of people, most of whom are retired old ladies. However, they have absolutely no fondness for Franz Liebkind, an out-and-out Nazi, and disavow his beliefs at several points—even tossing the armbands he gives them in the trash and giving them a Spiteful Spit. Considering they're both Ambiguously Jewish, their attitude isn't too surprising.
• Promising Young Woman:
  • Cassie gets her revenge paying evil unto evil, and it's never made 100% sure just how far she's willing to go in that regard. But it's clear that while she'll make Madison believe she's been raped and Dean Walker think her daughter is undergoing the very same thing, she never actually lets anyone suffer the same fate as Nina, only tricking them into thinking it is or did happen.
  • Even Alex and Ryan seem put off by Joe. When Cassie confronts Alex, using the name Nina Fischer, Alex thinks it's some sort of sick joke by Joe. Ryan also seems annoyed at a perverted remark that Joe makes at Alex's wedding.
• The Quiet Man: Michaleen may not particularly like Will Danaher, but when Danaher's toady tries to bet on Thornton during the donnybrook (after Danaher has already taken a beating), Michaleen basically spits in his face as he calls him a traitor.
• The Railway Children: The two men who arrive to arrest the children's father have a moment of this between themselves while they wait at the front door.
  First man: I hate doing a job like this.
  Second man: Especially at Christmas.
• While Sid from Raising the Wind is shifty and takes advantage of a drunken Mervyn to write a song for him, he still ensures that he gets his £50 that he owes him, even though Mervyn was passed out at the time, and he could've easily left without paying him for the tune.
• RoboCop 3 sees Sgt. Reed and the rest of the Metro West cops get fed up with OCP after Johnson and McDaggett order them to force people out of their homes, leading to a self-inflicted Insignia Rip-Off Ritual where they all drop their badges in front of Johnson and McDaggett as a middle finger to them and drive to Cadillac Heights to help the Rebels defend the area.
• The Rocketeer: Eddie Valentine may be a hard-as-nails gangster, but not even he, or his gang, wants to work for a Nazi spy.
  Sinclair: Come on, Eddie, I'm paying you well; Does it matter who I work for?
  Valentine: It matters to me! I may not make an honest buck, but I'm 100% American... And I don't work for no two-bit Nazi!
• In Roustabout, the other carnies are clearly disgusted when Charlie Rogers leaves Joe Lean to spend a night in jail over a missing wallet.
• In Saving Private Ryan, the German soldier who stabbed Mellish to death in the upstairs room steps out and finds Upham crying and sobbing on the stairs. He looks down at the sight, seems to piece together that he was there the whole time and thinks he's Not Worth Killing, and then just calmly walks past him and rejoins the battle.
• Saw:
  • Saw IV: Rigg may be heroic to a fault (which is exactly what he is being tested for), but when he sees footage of Ivan committing rape, he's all too happy to leave him to die.
  • Saw VI: All of the victims of the Shotgun Carousel are willing to do anything to convince William to spare them over their fellow victims. However, when it's Emily's turn and she points out that she has two young kids that need her, everyone goes completely silent, showing that, as much as they want to live, they know Emily is telling the truth and taking a mother away from her two young kids is something they can't argue for, even if it is at the cost of their own lives.
• Scary Movie 1: While describing a party at Puff Daddy's place, Brenda admits she doesn't care that her friend Buffy is a hoe, but says that banging one of the back-up dancers is disgusting.
  Brenda: That shit is nasty. That's lower than the security guard. At least security can get you backstage!
• Séraphin: Heart of Stone: Even though Séraphin turned Donalda's life into a living hell, Alexis isn't willing to let him die inside his burning house at the end of the film and decides to Save the Villain (although it's all for naught as Séraphin dies anyway due to inhaling the smoke from the fire).
• In Snake Eyes, the protagonist Rick Santoro is a Dirty Cop who treats the Atlantic City underworld as his personal playground, routinely taking bribes, brutalizing suspects, and extorting money from criminals, all while reveling in his status of being untouchable because he's a cop. But he does have virtues, including loyalty to his friends, and he draws the line at anything that involves somebody getting killed or covering up for it. When the Secretary of Defense is assassinated at a boxing match Santoro is attending, he investigates it honestly and quick finds and begins unravelling a conspiracy. When The Conspiracy tries to buy him off, Santoro refuses, because it would mean having to stand aside while an innocent political whistleblower is murdered, and he refuses to be part of that. This newfound moral conviction holds up even when Santoro is beaten half to death while being interrogated by the conspirators.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik is such an awful person that the Pentagon generals are openly against assigning him to investigate the blackout, only doing so because he's the only person smart enough to do so. It's very telling that, despite Robotnik being a government agent, the Pentagon doesn't hesitate to abandon him and render him an Un-person when Sonic strands him in Mushroom World, nor do they plan on retaliating against Tom for his role in harming him. It might have something to do with the massive destruction in San Francisco that they did not authorize.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: John Connor is an impudent teenage hooligan who skips school and steals money from ATMs. He even thoroughly enjoys siccing a T-800 war machine on two adult men for insulting him after he dismissed them for trying to help him, but is horrified when the T-800 coldly attempts to outright kill them because of this and makes his line very clear: no killing.
• Thanksgiving:
  • Jessica made it clear that she did not like her stepmother Kathleen but she was as horrified as everyone else when the Carver serves her cooked corpse.
  • Also, while Jessica and friends didn't really like Evan, they were horrified when the Carver caved his skull in.
• Tommy Boy: Ray Zalinksy is a somewhat duplicitous businessman who has no problem with firing people for more money, but he draws the line at outright fraud. When Beverly is revealed to have been illegally married to Ben, and he finds out about Paul's history of fraud and deception, Zalinsky immediately has the latter arrested.
• Victoria & Abdul: Edward may have been against Victoria’s happiness but he still breaks down when his mother dies.
• Virus (1980): General Garland is an unhinged Warhawk, but he does have enough loyalty to not arm the automated missile system without the president's authorization, even when he could do so on his own. Unfortunately, despite his disgust for Garland, the dying president gives this authorization to humor Garland, incorrectly believing that there's no one else left alive on the planet.
• WarGames: One example of this is what leads to the plot's biggest problems: an analysis run on the personnel in charge of the nuclear silos of America reveals that 22% of said personnel are not open to unhesitatingly turn the key that would lead to a bunch of nuclear missiles to fly towards Russia and begin World War III (we see one of said personnel tests on the prologue, and the man who refused tried to call for further confirmation even when he had a gun pointed to his face by his executive officer). Such a huge percentage is deemed unacceptable and so the capacity to launch nukes is handed over to the WOPR supercomputer. You can guess how that turned out.
• White Hunter, Black Heart: Wilson may treat women and friends with casual cruelty, but he's outraged at the way the headwaiter at the restaurant he goes to treats the natives, even challenging him to a fight because of this.
• In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Private Detective Eddie Valant has more than enough reason to hate Toons. However, even he looks horrified when Judge Doom casually murders a Toon shoe.
• Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Even she cannot stand Veruca, even telling her off twice when she gets too annoying.
• "X" Marks the Spot: The Judge states that the Guardian Angel can go because anyone would be driven crazy by Joe's habits.
• You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah: Stacy's initial response to Lydia's betrayal is to add several embarrassing private video clips of Lydia to her bat mitzvah video. But after doing so, she decides this would be going too far and decides to just not send her the video at all. Unfortunately, her ignorant mother sends Lydia's mom the video when asked for it, resulting in Lydia being humiliated and Stacy horrified.