Moments where a character warns an individual that if they kill the murderer, they will be just like him/her in Live-Action Films.
- At the climax of Blindspotting, Collins holds the killer cop at gunpoint, struggling with whether to kill the man who shot an innocent and still haunts him. He ultimately tells the cop a version of this and walks out, unsatisfied.
- Star Wars:
- Return of the Jedi: Palpatine, unlike most examples, wants Luke to give in to his hatred when he tells him to kill Darth Vader. "Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side." As that taunt implies, it's specifically killing out of hatred that's at issue here (Luke himself has killed before, and while Jedi obviously prefer non-lethal solutions killing isn't forbidden to them); the dark side is addictive and if Luke had followed through on his rage, he might well have fallen under Palpatine's sway. But instead, Luke takes note of what he has just done (cut off his father's hand), looks down at his own robotic hand, and realizes that he is well on his way to doing just that. Then he throws away his lightsaber.Luke: Never. I'll never turn to the dark side.
- The Jedi example is mirrored by a scene in Revenge of the Sith: when Anakin has Count Dooku at his mercy, and once again, Palpatine is goading a Skywalker to "do it". Unlike Luke, Anakin fails the test, and he becomes Palpatine's new apprentice in the second half of the movie.
- Return of the Jedi: Palpatine, unlike most examples, wants Luke to give in to his hatred when he tells him to kill Darth Vader. "Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side." As that taunt implies, it's specifically killing out of hatred that's at issue here (Luke himself has killed before, and while Jedi obviously prefer non-lethal solutions killing isn't forbidden to them); the dark side is addictive and if Luke had followed through on his rage, he might well have fallen under Palpatine's sway. But instead, Luke takes note of what he has just done (cut off his father's hand), looks down at his own robotic hand, and realizes that he is well on his way to doing just that. Then he throws away his lightsaber.
- The final battle of Magnificent Warriors concludes with the Japanese forces occupying the rural town of Kaal defeated, with their leader, General Toga, being the invaders' Sole Survivor. One of the town soldiers who earlier on witnessed his mother being killed by General Toga tries to bayonet the general, but the heroine Ming stops him, name-dropping this trope and saying "they're better than the invaders".
- Subverted in Rush Hour 2. Lee has Ricky Tan, the Big Bad at gunpoint, when Ricky starts taunting him, and Lee's partner Carter tells him, "He's trying to trick you, don't go too far." That is until Ricky says Lee's father was "pathetic," at which point Carter changes his tune to "Shoot his ass!"
- Spectre: After the Final Battle, defeated Big Bad Franz Oberhauser/Ernst Stavro Blofeld attempts invoking this and the Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred! tropes on James Bond, wanting to see if he’ll take the bait and stoop to his level. Bond hesitates, but ultimately decides not to and instead has him arrested, feeling that it’s Not Worth Killing Blofeld in revenge and sink to his level, and murdering him would still not give him the satisfaction or bring him back the allies and friends he lost over the years. It also leaves Blofeld confused at Bond’s rationale to spare him despite being behind all the tragedies Bond suffered over the years.
- Rather bafflingly employed in the finale of Road House (1989): Patrick Swayze is unable to kill the evil crime lord, despite having killed his henchmen in hilariously violent ways (ripping out throats, etc.) just moments earlier. Then the townsfolk that the crime lord had previously bullied show up and blast him with shotguns anyway. ... Hooray?
- While it isn't a villain, this trope is basically what stops Sarah Connor from killing Miles Dyson in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. She sees in that moment that if he kills him, she'll be just like the other Terminator who tried to kill her to change the future. Indeed, up until the point where she's right up close to Miles with a gun to his head, Sarah is acting scarily like a Terminator herself during the scene, coldly and mechanically attempting to blow him away with a complete lack of emotion.
- Played straight in the finale of Prince Caspian. Caspian decides at the last moment not to kill Miraz in an arranged duel, even though he's fully prepared to hack-and-slash his way through Miraz's army a few moments later, had no trouble chopping up bad guys at the castle a few nights before, and could probably fill a book with unassailable reasons that necessitate Miraz's death.
- X-Men Film Series:
- Played dead straight in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, by Logan's squeeze Kayla, in regards to him killing off Sabretooth and/or Stryker. Two men, who have been rounding up mutants like cattle, are effectively above the law, and will most likely continue to hunt Logan down as long as he lives. All of which could be solved by a little extra stabbing...
- Played even straighter in X-Men: First Class, where Magneto kills Shaw and becomes the new face of mutant supremacism.
- Subverted to hell and gone in Deadpool (2016). Colossus begins to give Wade one of these speeches. Wade and Francis share a "this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard" look despite the fact that Colossus' speech is the only thing keeping the latter alive at the moment. Wade gets bored and shoots Francis in the head.
- Played dead straight in Deadpool 2, where this trope taking effect creates a serial killer and so preventing the initial killing of the villain becomes a major goal.
- Subverted in Darkman's climax, when Darkman is holding the villain Strack by one leg over the building scaffolding.Strack: Go ahead, do it, do it, Westlake! But think of this: you let me die, and you become as bad as me—worse! Haha, you can’t. I know you too well. Dropping me—it’s not really an option for you. It’s not something you could live with;
[Darkman closes his eyes, lets him go]
Darkman: I’m learning to live with a lot of things. - Done mind-bogglingly badly in Cave Dwellers. As Ator is about to kill the villain, his old mentor declares that to kill him would be murder, which "puts us on the level of the barbarians!" (Tom Servo points out, "We are barbarians!") Ator drops his sword, turns around... and is only saved from a Back Stab by his Asian sidekick nailing the villain with a throwing knife.Joel: [as Ator] Then why the heck did I hang-glide in here, anyway? note
- Subverted in Train. When the head of the organ harvesters who've killed most of the protagonists is at the mercy of the Final Girl, she tries this.Dr. Velislava: You do this, you are exactly like us.
Alex: Maybe I am. [proceeds to beat Velislava up and then burn her to death] - Played straight in Mannequin 2: On the Move. The Prince has the Count by the throat, dangling over the edge of a hot-air balloon basket, high above the streets of Philadelphia. He decides that he can't kill the Evil Count. Of course, as soon as lets the Count back in the basket, the Count reminds us that he has no hesitations about killing others.
- At the end of The Saint (2017), Simon finally catches his parents' assassin but cannot go through with killing him and instead has him arrested.
- Batman Begins:
- Invoked in when Bruce Wayne (not yet Batman), refuses to kill a criminal as part of his training.Henri Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.
Bruce Wayne: That's why it's so important. It separates us from them. - During the climax of the film, after Batman defeats Ra's al Ghul, he doesn't kill him because that would give Ra's the final victory, but finds a loophole. Since they are on a train that's going to crash...Batman: I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.
- Invoked in when Bruce Wayne (not yet Batman), refuses to kill a criminal as part of his training.
- Both the film and book versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy have this regarding trying to use the Ring. Film Galadriel puts the most dramatic point on it. Unlike most of the characters who want to claim it, she's probably not deluding herself about her ability to do so, but it all still ends with Middle Earth under the rule of a "dark" overlord.
- Suspect Zero: The film's antagonist O'Ryan ultimately wishes to drive FBI Agent Mackelway to kill him, in an effort to force Mackelway down the path to taking over his mission as a Serial-Killer Killer.
- This trope is delivered word for word by Morgan Freeman's character in the end of Unleashed.
- Spoken almost word for word by the Love Interest to Latif in The Devil's Double.
- In the first Lethal Weapon movie, Riggs and Joshua fight on Murtaugh's front lawn. Just as Riggs has Joshua in a killing pose, he stops, saying Joshua isn't worth it. As two uniformed officers are taking Joshua into custody, he grabs a gun and starts taking aim at Riggs. Murtaugh and Riggs both open fire on him, justifiable defense.
- In Scanners II: The New Order, this seems to be the reason why David doesn't kill Forrester at the end and to make it clear to the public that scanners are not a threat to them.
- Played with in Best Seller, where the protagonist doesn't kill the Big Bad not to show he's better than him, but that he's better than the sociopathic hitman with whom he's teamed.
- Shere Khan from The Jungle Book (2016) exploits this by telling Mowgli to fight him with the torch he's carrying (like his father did) so he can be like man. Mowgli defies him by throwing the torch into the water behind him... but that's what Shere Khan wanted: to leave Mowgli with no weapons to fight with.
- In Mississippi Burning, Ward warns Anderson to not go after Clinton Pell who just beat the hell out of his wife for ratting out the location of the bodies.Ward: I'm telling you to stop. We're not killers. The difference between them and us.
- In Open Range, after the first half of the climax, Boss has to stop Charlie from executing a heavily injured henchmen in cold blood, saying that if he goes through with that, he's no better than the Professional Killer who murdered their friend at the beginning of the movie.
- Hannie Caulder: This is basically what Price implies when he warns Hannie that taking revenge will change her forever, and Hannie's reaction after he finishes the Clemens brothers implies that he was right.Thomas Price: Win or lose, you lose, Hannie Caulder.
- Acts of Vengeance (2017): Valera becomes convinced of this by reading Marcus Aurelius' advice that one should not become the same as the wrongdoer they seek justice against, sparing his wife and daughter's murderer for him to be convicted in court instead.
- In the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter from the Raimi-verse stops MCU Peter from murdering Green Goblin as revenge for killing Aunt May, as the Green Goblin's true plan was to corrupt Peter into being a vengeful person driven by hatred, as well as Raimi-verse Peter wanting to save Norman Osborn, who was unwittingly forced to take part in the Goblin persona.
- Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings: Kenia gets the others to spare the cannibals who they trapped in a cell by arguing this. They soon escape before killing her for her troubles, along with all the rest too later.
