History GreyAndGrayMorality / LiveActionFilms

''Series/AlRawabiSchoolForGirls'':

* Prevalent in ''Film/KingKong'' films, especially Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/KingKong2005 remake]]. Kong, an aggressive animal who kidnaps a human but wants to protect her as well, fights first a film crew -- greedy, but they don't initially want to hurt anyone and only capture him as a last resort, and later the army, who want only to defend their city.

* Creator/RobertAltman and Creator/DavidFincher films portray this trope is almost all their films.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** While the Clone Wars saw the Separatists being led by a bunch of {{corrupt corporate executive}}s and Sith Lords and a homicidal cyborg, a lot of the worlds joining them were only doing so to oppose what they with some justification saw as a corrupt Republic. To grey out the other side further, as Anakin Skywalker observed, even the Jedi Council was feeling compelled to move into a more pragmatic and less moral direction. Ultimately, though, Anakin's protestations about such morality when he has fallen to the DarkSide are ironically empty, as he has chosen to join with the altogether {{black|AndGrayMorality}} BigBad who was behind it all from the start and who makes him eat kittens. Still, it should be mentioned that the Separatists are still on the darker end. Yes, the Republic ended up becoming the Empire, but the conduct of clone troopers before Order 66 was much better than the droids. Also, contrast the Jedi Generals with General Grievous, and consider the fact that many Republic generals and statesmen later became rebels. Furthermore, that corruption in the Republic? It largely originated from those same {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s that led the Separatists. The Republic isn't perfect, but at least they don't have a reputation of wanton brutality.
** The trope is invoked in the opening of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', where the blurb briefly mentions that "there are heroes on both sides." In the films proper, however, [[InformedAttribute there aren't any good Separatists shown on-screen.]] The ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' series attempted to rectify this, by actually showcasing some of those heroic Separatists.
* In the 2007 Chinese film ''Film/TheWarlords'', the three main characters are all grey, and so are pretty much all the characters. There are no heroes or outright monsters. This is a film that challenges the viewer to decide which is the more moral choice. Sometimes the moral thing to do results in greater harm or loss of life than the socially reprehensible thing to do.
* Prevalent in ''Film/KingKong'' films, especially Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/KingKong2005 remake]]. Kong, an aggressive animal who kidnaps a human but wants to protect her as well, fights first a film crew -- greedy, but they don't initially want to hurt anyone and only capture him as a last resort, and later the army, who want only to defend their city.

* In ''Film/{{Election}}'', Tracy is a [[CuteAndPsycho sweet but borderline psychotic]] overachiever who [[spoiler:tears down Paul's posters in a fit of rage]], Paul is a well-intentioned but [[PopularIsDumb fairly clueless]] guy who's only running because he was told to by his teacher, Tammy is only in the race to get {{revenge}} against Paul and Lisa, and Mr. [=McAllister=] cheats on his wife and [[spoiler:rigs the ballots to deny Tracy the victory]]. None of them are particularly "good," but all of them have their reasons for behaving the way that they do. [[CharacterExaggeration The original novel is even grayer.]] Tracy's sociopathy and Paul's ditziness were greatly increased from their original characterizations, and Mr. [=McAllister=]'s buffoonishness was a detail Alexander Payne, who wrote and directed the film, invented from scratch, purely for the sake of [[SignatureStyle having a buffoonish protagonist]]. In the book, the characters feel more realistic and believable, making it that much easier for the reader to understand and side with them.
* ''Film/{{Inception}}'' is a curious example in that it has neither heroes nor villains. Fisher, despite inheriting a major corporation, is an innocent; Saito is a business rival of his; and Cobb and the team are only in it for themselves (Cobb in hopes of getting home to his family, Ariadne for thrills, the others for money). The antagonist, Mal, is, in the dreams, a manifestation of Cobb's self-destructive subconscious with [[TragicVillain no free will of her own]].
* In ''Film/AirAmerica'', there are definitely good guys and bad guys, but none of the good guys are pure white-hats, not even Billy Covington and Corinne Landreaux, who probably come closest, and none of the villains are pure black-hats, not even Major Lemond and General Soong. Yes, granted, Soong, Lemond, and Lemond's assistant Rob Diehl are drug runners, but there is no evidence that Lemond and Diehl are enriching themselves, and even Gene Ryack, who is more or less neutral for most of the film, points out that it is impossible to win a war in Southeast Asia without controlling the opiate trade, so Lemond and Diehl, and even Soong, are just doing what is necessary for the war effort. Ryack himself is a gun runner, and it is made clear that pretty much all the pilots are running illegal scams on the side. Corinne, again, might seem closest to being a pure white-hat, but she's dating Rob, one of the villains. Senator Davenport turns out to be a good guy at the end, but he's willing to look the other way at Gen. Soong's rather dodgy "recruitment" techniques. So all in all, no one in the film really seems all good or all evil.
* ''Film/BladeRunner'' was certainly an example of this. On one hand, you've got the murderous replicants who simply want to be human, and on the other you have the people who hunt them to keep the streets safe who aren't entirely saints themselves.

* Creator/RogerEbert panned ''Film/TheDyingGaul'' basically for having no redeeming character, but each character has their own highs (which are relatively middling) and lows (which get shockingly low). This was also Ebert's problem with ''Film/MouseHunt''. Essentially, the movie never really decides whose side we're supposed to be on. You can't fault the brothers, who are flat broke with sympathetic backstories, for wanting to get back on their feet. Nor can you blame the mouse for defending its home and its life. At the film's close however, it manages to subvert this by giving both sides a HappilyEverAfter. This trope is also true of the majority of the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' shorts which this movie borrows heavily from, so perhaps it was done on purpose.

* The fraternity from ''Film/{{Neighbors|2014}}'', especially Teddy, are depicted surprisingly sympathetically, while Mac and Kelly do some pretty dark things during the feud. Neither side comes across as fully bad nor fully good.
* In ''Film/ThankYouForSmoking'', the Merchants of Death, for the most part, are pretty unscrupulous, but while the actions of the MO+D Squad are questionable, they don't cross any serious lines. But their opposition, Senator Finistirre isn't above a bit of manipulation, either.
* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'':
** ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'': Yes, the apes have good reason for rebelling, [[HumansAreBastards Humans Being Bastards]] of course, but it's not like the experiments being conducted on them were for the fun of it.
** In ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', there's really barely a single wholly unsympathetic character in the entire film. Out of the film's main antagonists, Dreyfus is more misguided and ill-informed than malicious and Koba has a solid FreudianExcuse for hating the humans and fearing what they could do if given too much lenience. Even Carver, the {{Jerkass}} who accidentally kicks off the hostilities with his bad behaviour, is clearly acting more out of fear and misplaced blame towards the apes than malice or sadism.

* The Chinese Wuxia film ''Film/Hero2002'' has the tagline, "In any war, there are heroes on both sides." The conflict is ultimately revealed to be between two morally grey sides. On one side, there's an emperor who wants to unite the Chinese kingdoms into a single nation under his iron rule. On the other side are ruthless assassins who wish to preserve their local culture, but at the cost of perpetuating factionalized conflict. Ultimately [[spoiler:the film sides with the emperor, but only on the condition that he deserve his authority and rule a united China justly]].
* ''Film/OverTheEdge'': The kids of New Grenada are a collection of drug-abusing hoodlums. But they act out only because their parents are success-absorbed people who built a town with nothing for them to do. The parents in turn crackdown hard on their children, but only because they want peace, but their crackdowns only anger the kids even more.
* ''Film/EnemyAtTheGates'' is set in the battle for Stalingrad during the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Great Patriotic War]]. Both the Nazis and the Soviet authorities are depicted as brutal and poor, but ultimately the Russian main characters are just trying to protect/avenge their loved ones and survive the war even when they have to do bad things by their horrific circumstances, while German sniper Major König is presented as a duty-bound AffablyEvil AntiVillain with no real interest in Nazi ideology.
* ''Film/Parasite2019''. The Kims are a family of {{Social Climber}}s from a poor background doing morally questionable and downright criminal activities to run a con on the Parks, but they are still a loving family who just don't have many other opportunities in life, if any. The Parks are a family of {{Upper Class Twit}}s who are [[LackOfEmpathy oblivious and unempathic to the conditions of the lower classes]] but not actively malicious or out to hurt them - they are just a family (albeit a relatively fake and loveless one) living day by day. [[spoiler:And the caretaker Moon-gwang is just trying to save her husband who is hiding in the Parks' basement to avoid some loan sharks.]] Sure, the Kims are manipulative jerks, but the Parks are no better.
* ''Film/BigMiracle'': Unlike most other feel-good environmental dramas, there's no clear-cut heroes or villains. Every character wants to save the whales and tries to help, but for very different reasons, whether it be for good PR (the oil companies), to preserve their image (the Inupiat tribe), or to get a better position in their job (Adam and Jill). However, all of them are decent people despite their motives, and their efforts do help to rescue the whales. Even Rachel, who has no ulterior motive, is shown to be self-righteous, tactless to the point of being rude, and not the most pleasant person to be around.
* ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'': The antagonist, Norma Desmond, may be an unstable woman, but she is also a depressed recluse with suicidal tendencies and can't accept she is past her prime. The protagonist, Joe Gills, is a self-serving writer that tries to live off of her when haunted by debt and lack of work.
* ''Film/FirstBlood'': John Rambo is a complete mess who accidentally kills a guy, but overall reasonable and avoids killing anybody else no matter what they throw at him. Sheriff Will Teasle is a dick and arrests Rambo for no reason but genuinely cares about his department and town. The rest of the town are convinced they're hunting a homicidal maniac. Sam Trautman is trying to mediate between the two factions. The only truly bad person is Deputy Art Galt, who does some PoliceBrutality, but he dies early on.

* ''Film/FirstBlood'': John Rambo is a complete mess who accidentally kills a guy, but overall reasonable and avoids killing anybody else no matter what they throw at him. Sheriff Will Teasle is kind of a dick but thinks he's hunting a madman. The rest of the PD are believe the same without the sickishness. Sam Trautman is trying to mediate between the two factions. The only truly bad person is Deputy Art Galt, who does some PoliceBrutality, but he dies early on.

* The Chinese Wuxia film ''Film/{{Hero}}'' has the tagline, "In any war, there are heroes on both sides." The conflict is ultimately revealed to be between two morally grey sides. On one side, there's an emperor who wants to unite the Chinese kingdoms into a single nation under his iron rule. On the other side are ruthless assassins who wish to preserve their local culture, but at the cost of perpetuating factionalized conflict. Ultimately [[spoiler:the film sides with the emperor, but only on the condition that he deserve his authority and rule a united China justly]].

** ''Film/{{Rise|OfThePlanetOfTheApes}}'': Yes, the apes have good reason for rebelling, [[HumansAreBastards Humans Being Bastards]] of course, but it's not like the experiments being conducted on them were for the fun of it.

* In ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', there's really barely a single wholly unsympathetic character in the entire film. Out of the film's main antagonists, Dreyfus is more misguided and ill-informed than malicious and Koba has a solid FreudianExcuse for hating the humans and fearing what they could do if given too much lenience. Even Carver, the {{Jerkass}} who accidentally kicks off the hostilities with his bad behaviour, is clearly acting more out of fear and misplaced blame towards the apes than malice or sadism. ''Film/{{Rise|OfThePlanetOfTheApes}}'' as well. Yes, the apes have good reason for rebelling, [[HumansAreBastards Humans Being Bastards]] of course, but it's not like the experiments being conducted on them were for the fun of it.

* Prevalent in ''Film/KingKong'' films, especially the Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/KingKong2005 remake]]. Kong, an aggressive animal who kidnaps a human but wants to protect her as well, fights first a film crew -- greedy, but they don't initially want to hurt anyone and only capture him as a last resort, and later the army, who want only to defend their city.

* The Chinese Wuxia film ''Film/{{Hero}}'' has the following tagline: "In any war there are heroes on both sides..." The movie takes place during the Chinese Warring States period, where the ruthless king of Qin attempts to forcefully unite all of China. Logically, he is attacked by assassins who want nothing more than to kill the king and stop his despotic rule. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, it is revealed the king of Qin wanted to unite the states to stop the war and suffering plaguing the people. TheHero, also one of the assassins, was close to killing him, but allows him to live to fulfill said goal. The king, bound by law, has to execute the protagonist to make an example of him, but does so reluctantly, as TheHero was one of the few persons who understood the king.]]

* Creator/RogerEbert panned The Dying Gaul basically for having no redeeming character, but each character has their own highs (which are relatively middling) and lows (which get shockingly low). This was also Ebert's problem with ''Film/MouseHunt''. Essentially, the movie never really decides whose side we're supposed to be on. You can't fault the brothers, who are flat broke with sympathetic backstories, for wanting to get back on their feet. Nor can you blame the mouse for defending its home and its life. At the film's close however, it manages to subvert this by giving both sides a HappilyEverAfter. This trope is also true of the majority of the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' shorts which this movie borrows heavily from, so perhaps it was done on purpose.

** Let's face it, when the bad guys are crooked bankers, {{Blood Knight}}s, and [[ReligionOfEvil Sith]] with a [[KillerRobot droid army]] and your "[[DesignatedHero heroes]]" are the ones with an army of [[{{Tykebomb}} teenaged Padawans trained from infancy]] leading armies of [[ChildSoldiers ten-year-old]] age-accelerated {{Artificial Human}}s trained from ''conception'', both with TrainingFromHell, the only place you will end up is here.

** The conflict in the Original Trilogy also qualifies, as later works are increasingly demonstrating. The Empire is a ruthless, often brutal, and fascistic government led by an evil Sith Lord... but it's also bringing law and order to many struggling parts of the galaxy, many Imperial soldiers and officers are just normal people [[ObliviouslyEvil who believe they're fighting destructive terrorists]], and the crippling bureaucratic red tape that plagued the Republic is being quickly phased out. And while the Rebel Alliance are fighting to restore democracy to the galaxy, an unsettling number of its members are actual terrorists or [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores criminals]] who are only working with the Alliance for [[NotInThisForYourRevolution personal gain]]. They're also very much [[PragmaticHero Pragmatic Heroes]] who are willing to resort to shifty methods in order to stay alive to fight another day. Plus, as ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' subtly points out, the vaunted democracy they're fighting to bring back [[DemocracyIsFlawed was hardly a utopia itself]] and their New Republic quickly picked up many of the same problems the old one had.

* RobertAltman and DavidFincher films portray this trope is almost all their films.