There’s something about a good revenge flick. It taps into that primal, slightly shameful part of our brains that loves watching someone who’s been wronged finally, finally get their own back. Whether it’s a grief-stricken dad plowing through a drug cartel with a snowplow or three teenage girls dismantling the ego of a high school heartthrob, revenge on screen is one of the most reliable pleasures cinema has to offer.
What Is Revenge?
Revenge is the act of “getting even” with someone who we feel has wronged us in some way — an impulse as old as storytelling itself. You’ll find it in Greek tragedies, Jacobean plays, spaghetti Westerns and straight-to-streaming thrillers, because it never really goes out of style. It’s the emotional engine that lets audiences cheer for characters doing genuinely terrible things, because deep down we’ve all imagined ourselves in the same position. Who hasn’t fantasised about getting one over on the person who wronged them?
Rather than going the easy route and stuffing this list with every Batman or Rambo film ever made (we see you, John J.), we’ve gone for a mix of action, comedy, horror and thriller picks. That way you get a bit of variety for your next movie night — something for the friend who wants catharsis, something for the friend who wants to laugh, and something for the friend who just wants to watch Keanu Reeves beat up a room full of Russian mobsters.
Let’s get stuck in.
1. Cold Pursuit (2019)
Directed by Hans Petter Moland, Cold Pursuit stars Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, John Doman and Laura Dern. It was released in 2019.
When snowplow driver Nels Coxman’s son dies from a forced heroin overdose, Nels soon learns he was murdered by a Denver drug cartel. Exacting vigilante justice with his wits, brute force and a sawn-off rifle, Nels decides to take on the cartel as a one-man justice machine.
What makes Cold Pursuit stand out from the usual Liam-Neeson-has-a-particular-set-of-skills formula is that it’s actually really funny, in a pitch-black Scandinavian sort of way. That’s because it’s an English-language remake of Moland’s own 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance, and it keeps a lot of that original’s deadpan humour intact. Every time somebody dies, the film cuts to a title card with their name and religious symbol — it’s bleakly hilarious. A true revenge flick with a wicked sense of humour.
2. Gone Girl (2014)
Written by Gillian Flynn and directed by David Fincher, Gone Girl stars Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry and Carrie Coon. It was released in 2014.
Gone Girl centres on a husband and wife where the wife disappears without a trace and the whole community (including the media) suspects foul play at the hands of the husband. The film then pivots to reveal that the wife isn’t actually dead — and that the husband is far from the “good guy” we were introduced to at the start.
Rosamund Pike’s Amy Dunne is one of the great modern antiheroines, and her “Cool Girl” monologue alone is worth the price of admission. And thanks to the score from Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and his writing partner Atticus Ross, there’s an eeriness to Gone Girl that only a score this good could deliver. If you want a revenge story where the revenge isn’t loud and bloody but instead cold, meticulous and psychologically devastating, this is your film.
3. I Am Wrath (2016)
Directed by Chuck Russell, I Am Wrath stars John Travolta, Christopher Meloni, Sam Trammell, Amanda Schull, Patrick St. Esprit, Rebecca De Mornay and Luis Da Silva. It was released in 2016.
I Am Wrath focuses on Travolta’s character Stanley Hill, whose wife is stabbed to death in front of him. When he identifies the killer in a lineup and the corrupt cops let the guy walk, Stanley turns into a one-man wrecking crew determined to get justice for his wife himself.
This is a straight-up meat-and-potatoes revenge movie. It isn’t reinventing the wheel and it knows it — but what it does have going for it is a gleefully committed Travolta (complete with an infamous hairpiece) and Christopher Meloni as his shady best friend who may or may not know more than he’s letting on. As far as movies about revenge go, this one doesn’t let up once it gets going.
4. Peppermint (2018)
Directed by Pierre Morel, Peppermint is a vigilante action movie starring Jennifer Garner, John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., Juan Pablo Raba and Tyson Ritter. It was released in 2018.
Peppermint is probably the closest a movie can get to being The Punisher without actually being The Punisher or remotely linked to Marvel Studios. The story focuses on Riley North, a suburban mum whose husband and daughter are gunned down by a cartel in front of her. When the justice system predictably fails her, she disappears for five years, comes back absolutely shredded, and sets about murdering her way up the cartel chain of command.
Jennifer Garner was born to do this kind of role — anyone who watched Alias back in the day already knew she could sell a brutal fight scene — and Pierre Morel directed the original Taken, so you’re in capable hands when it comes to the action. Turn your brain off, turn the volume up.
5. The Equalizer (2014)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo. It was released in 2014.
The Equalizer focuses on Robert McCall, a former U.S. Marine turned DIA intelligence officer who has tried to leave his violent past behind and now works quietly at a Home Depot-style hardware store. When he strikes up a platonic friendship with a teenage girl being pimped out by the Russian mob, and they put her in the hospital, Robert decides it’s time to come out of retirement.
What makes The Equalizer sing is Denzel. He plays McCall with this quiet, almost meditative stillness — the man times his every action, literally — right up until he’s calmly dismantling a room full of gangsters with a corkscrew and a nail gun. When you’re looking for movies about revenge that also exact justice for the little guy, you can’t go further than Denzel Washington’s portrayal here. Pure charisma in a hardware-store apron.
6. The Man From Nowhere (2010)
Directed by Lee Jeong-beom, The Man From Nowhere stars Won Bin and Kim Sae-ron. It was released in 2010.
The Man From Nowhere is about a mysterious pawn shop owner who embarks on a bloody, murderous revenge-fuelled rampage when the only person who seems to understand him — a young neighbour girl — is kidnapped by an organ-harvesting drug ring.
If you’ve somehow never dipped your toe into the world of Korean revenge cinema, this is a phenomenal place to start. It sits comfortably alongside Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance as one of the defining Korean revenge films of the 21st century. Won Bin is magnetic in the lead role, and the close-quarters knife fight in the film’s final act is genuinely one of the best action sequences of the last 20 years. Subtitles never hurt anyone. Watch this film.
7. John Tucker Must Die (2006)
Written by Jeff Lowell and directed by Betty Thomas, John Tucker Must Die stars Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, Penn Badgley and Jenny McCarthy. It was released in 2006.
John Tucker Must Die is a teen comedy in which three very different high school girls — a cheerleader, a brainiac and a vegan activist — discover that basketball star John Tucker has been secretly dating all three of them at once. Rather than getting mad, they team up with a new girl in town to get very, very even.
Hell hath no fury like three teenagers scorned, and this one is a forever-rewatch for a reason. It’s mean in that affectionate 2000s teen-comedy way, the fashion choices are a time capsule, and it proves once and for all that revenge doesn’t have to involve a single bullet to be deeply satisfying.
8. John Wick (2014)
While we’re talking about Johns, let’s talk about the most infamous one of all. (Sorry, John the Baptist fans — you miss out.)
Written by Derek Kolstad and directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick stars Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo and Willem Dafoe. It was released in 2014.
John Wick is about a legendary hitman who is forced out of retirement when the son of a Russian mob boss and his goons break into his home, steal his car and kill his puppy — a puppy that was the final gift to him from his now-deceased wife. What follows is one of the purest, most focused cinematic revenge campaigns ever put to film.
John Wick basically rebooted the American action movie single-handedly. Stahelski came from a stunt background and it shows in every frame — the fight choreography is clean, the camera actually lets you see the action, and the whole underground assassin mythology (the Continental, the gold coins, the High Table) turned into one of the most rewatchable franchises going. It’s a film about a man and his grief and a dog, and honestly? Valid. Completely valid.
9. Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
Written by Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai and directed by Jeff Kanew, Revenge of the Nerds stars Robert Carradine, Anthony Edwards, Ted McGinley and Bernie Casey. It was released in 1984.
Revenge of the Nerds is about exactly what the title says. It follows a group of nerds who plot to get revenge on the ongoing harassment they suffer at Adams College from the jock fraternity, the Alpha Betas, and its sister sorority, Pi Delta Pi.
A word of warning: this is a very 1984 film, and a couple of its plot points absolutely would not fly today (fair warning on the panty raid and the scene in the moon-bounce, which is… yeah). That said, as a snapshot of a particular era of the underdog-comedy genre, Revenge of the Nerds is still a fun watch — and if you were ever bullied for being different, there’s a very specific catharsis in watching the nerds win in the end. Just maybe read the Wikipedia plot summary first so you know what you’re getting into.
10. Payback (1999)
Written and directed by Brian Helgeland, Payback stars Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello and David Paymer. It was released in 1999.
Payback is about Porter, a career thief who gets shot and double-crossed for his $70,000 cut of a heist by his own partner and his junkie wife. The movie opens with Porter getting the bullets pulled out of his back, after which he decides to track down every single person responsible for betraying him. Friends and foes alike. He just wants his $70,000 back. That’s it. That’s the whole film.
Payback is actually an adaptation of The Hunter by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake’s pen name), the same Parker novel that inspired John Boorman’s 1967 classic Point Blank. There’s a director’s cut floating around called Payback: Straight Up that strips out a lot of the studio-mandated softening and reveals the nastier noir film Helgeland originally wanted to make. Both versions are worth your time.
11. Darkman (1990)
Directed by Sam Raimi, Darkman is a superhero horror action movie starring Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels and Larry Drake. It was released in 1990.
Darkman focuses on scientist Peyton Westlake, who is attacked and left horrifically disfigured by the mob. After an experimental treatment goes sideways, he’s left with super-human-like abilities and zero pain receptors. Donning the moniker Darkman, Westlake sets out to get revenge on mob boss Robert Durant — and rid the city of crime in the process.
This one is pure Sam Raimi — the same gleeful mix of slapstick, horror and melodrama that he brought to the Evil Dead films and later to Spider-Man. Liam Neeson is all bug-eyed intensity under the bandages, Danny Elfman’s score absolutely rips, and the whole thing feels like a deranged love letter to the pulp superheroes of the ‘30s and ‘40s. A criminally underrated revenge/superhero hybrid.
12. The Other Woman (2014)
Directed by Nick Cassavetes, The Other Woman is a romantic comedy starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Kinney and Don Johnson. It was released in 2014.
The Other Woman is about three women — a slick Manhattan lawyer, a suburban wife and a twenty-something knockout — who discover they’re all involved with the same slimy husband and decide to join forces to make his life a living, situational-comedy-shaped hell.
Think of it as the breezy, Hamptons-in-summer cousin of the 1996 classic The First Wives Club. It’s a comfort-food revenge movie: the fashion is ridiculous, Leslie Mann is at her frazzled comedic best, and there’s a genuinely cathartic pleasure in watching three women who, by all narrative logic, should hate each other decide to team up instead. Sometimes revenge is just laxatives in a smoothie and hormones in the toothpaste, and that’s okay.
13. The Northman (2022)
Directed by Robert Eggers, The Northman is a historical action film rooted in Viking mythology. It stars Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Gustav Lindh, Ethan Hawke, Björk and Willem Dafoe. It was released in 2022.
The Northman is about a Viking prince, Amleth, whose father is killed by his uncle, and who spends the rest of his life training himself into a human weapon so he can eventually come back and exact revenge on the people who betrayed his family.
If that plot sounds familiar, it should — this is the same Scandinavian legend that Shakespeare pilfered for Hamlet. Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) brings his usual obsessive historical accuracy to the material, but this time he’s working at a much bigger scale, with genuine blockbuster action sequences alongside the mud, chanting, fire rituals and visions of valkyries. Skarsgård looks like he’s been carved out of the side of a fjord. This is revenge as sacred duty, and it absolutely goes hard.
14. Kate (2021)
Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Kate is an action-thriller movie starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson and Jun Kunimura. It was released in 2021.
Kate is about a cold-blooded assassin who takes on a contract against a high-ranking yakuza boss, only to be poisoned during the job with a lethal dose of polonium. She’s got less than a day to live, so she decides to spend her final 24 hours tearing through Tokyo to find out who set her up — with a teenage yakuza heiress reluctantly along for the ride.
Kate sits in that well-trodden neon-Tokyo-action-movie lane alongside things like Lucy and the aforementioned The Man From Nowhere, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead is so good in the lead that it earns its place. She’s been quietly racking up a hell of an action résumé (Birds of Prey, Gemini Man), and this is basically her audition reel for a full action-star run. The Tokyo cinematography is gorgeous, the fight scenes are brutal, and the race-against-the-clock framing gives the whole thing a pulse that a lot of streaming action movies don’t have.
15. Unhinged (2020)
Directed by Derrick Borte, Unhinged is an action thriller starring Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson and Austin P. McKenzie. It was released in 2020.
Unhinged is about a young single mum, Rachel, who honks at a guy at a green light during a very bad morning — only to discover that the guy (played by a terrifyingly puffy Russell Crowe) is having an infinitely worse life than she is, and has decided she’s going to pay for every wrong ever done to him.
It’s a nasty little thriller — a much leaner, more mean-spirited cousin of movies like Duel and Falling Down — and Crowe is genuinely unnerving as a man who has completely run out of road (literally and figuratively). At a tight 90 minutes, Unhinged is the exact kind of simple, escalating, clench-your-jaw thriller that Hollywood doesn’t make enough of anymore. A revenge movie from the perspective of the guy you should absolutely never cross.
Other Movies About Revenge
Fifteen is nowhere near enough to cover the genre, so here’s a bonus list of revenge flicks worth adding to your watchlist:
- 57 Seconds
- The Equalizer 2
- American Assassin
- Mandy
- Death Wish
- War
- The Revenant
- Carrie
- Valentine
- Face/Off
- Django Unchained
- Friday the 13th
- The Fog
- Sleepy Hollow
- Bad Reputation
- Kill Bill
- The Punisher
- The Toxic Avenger
- Fantasy Island
- Inglourious Basterds
- V for Vendetta
- Dead Man Down
- Revenge
Between Kill Bill, Mandy and Inglourious Basterds alone, you could probably host a revenge-movie weekend and never run out of catharsis.
What Did You Think of These Revenge Movies?
Have you seen any of these movies about revenge? Did we miss your favourite? Are you team quiet, methodical payback (Gone Girl) or team full-body bloodbath (John Wick)?
Let us know on social media.
