No Sympathy in Live-Action Films.
- In Because I Said So, the girl accidentally broke a glass that the Romantic False Lead owned (and was his grandmother's as he related after the fact), who immediately insulted her, and gave her a cold shoulder despite her extremely sincere and distressed apologies, including offers to buy a replacement.
- As an Establishing Character Moment, Blackadder Back and Forth reveals that Blackadder once told his friends he was dying of kidney failure, so Darling gave him one, only for Blackadder to reveal it was a joke and the kidney being thrown away. Everyone else at the table bursts into laughter at the recollection.
- In The Color of Money, Eddie teaches Vincent not to show any sympathy for the marks they hustle. When Vincent throws a pool game against a man with a tracheotomy, Eddie sets up a pool hall brawl to teach him a lesson.
- Criminal (an English-language remake of Nine Queens) has John C. Reilly's con-artist character Richard established as much less sympathetic than Diego Luna's con-artist character Rodrigo.Richard: I don't feel anything for them, okay, they're marks. And some of them are dumber than fuckin' pets.
- In the Disney movie, Go Figure, the heroine is chewed out as a failure by her skating coach for not showing up to practice. The coach never gave her a chance to explain that the Alpha Bitch locked her in a supply closet, despite the fact that she was covered in purple paint and had apparently been through something.
- A Good Woman is Hard to Find: Sarah's mother acts annoyed by her still mourning her husband, saying she had a whole future ahead before the two got married (he wasn't a good match in her view). Naturally, this makes Sarah angry. Later on though she apologizes for this, implying she'd been jealous as Sarah is the only person she'd ever really loved.
- In the Lifetime Movie Home By Christmas, the main character is evicted from her apartment immediately after being mugged, robbed of her savings and hospitalized.
- In Home Alone, Kate, the mother, initially acts rather ignorant towards Kevin's problems, namely how Buzz had provoked Kevin into attacking him by eating the pizza that Kevin had wanted. She didn't defend him when her brother in law called Kevin a "little jerk" and Jeff called Kevin "a disease" and then refusing his apology when she sends him to bed. She has a Jerkass Realization when she realizes that she left Kevin at home.
- Late Phases: Officer Lang does not show any inclination to investigate things and compares the constant fatal "animal attacks" to an Act of God without a hint of shame.
- In The Other Guys, Detectives Hoitz and Gamble try to talk some sense into a suicidal jumper through an ice cream truck microphone, and Hoitz has this to say to the guy:Hoitz: Listen. We all know you're a scumbag, and nobody cares about you.
- Rush (2013) has Scuderia Ferrari, which team is considered early on as purely business-minded. The employers' reaction to Niki Lauda's near-fatal accident is promptly hiring another driver to take up his spot. Lauda is not pleased by this.Clay Regazzoni: "'The Ferrari family'. 'Our good friend Clay Regazzoni'. You are family and friend to the Commendatore as long as you win. The minute you don't... ciao-ciao"
- In Sense and Sensibility, Fanny complains that Marianne and Margaret Dashwood have been cold to her after she swooped in and took over the house (her husband, their half-brother, inherited it). Her brother Edward tries to point out that they've just lost their father and their lives have changed forever, but she just says that's no excuse.
- Subverted at the end of Seven Psychopaths, when the protagonist gets a phone call from one of the titular psychopaths threatening to kill him, because he forgot to insert a specific line into his script that the character had asked him to. The protagonist, still broken from the events of the film, responds with a resigned acceptance of his fate. Despite the caller being the kind of person you absolutely would expect to behave like this, he instead recognizes from the protagonist's tone that he's been through hell and takes it back.
- Spider-Man Trilogy:
- The biggest part of Mary Jane's scrappydom in the movies is her behavior in Spider-Man 2. Even though Mary Jane does not know at this point that Peter is Spider-Man, you'd think most people would understand that a full-time college student who struggles to avoid falling back on rent for his studio apartment might not have as much free time as a retiree (Aunt May), a jobless loser (MJ's dad) or a wealthy heir (Harry) would to go and see her play, and yet she treats him very coldly and cruelly based on this fact alone and refuses to hear his legitimate reason for missing it (the usher refused to admit him, to say nothing of the fact that his motorscooter was destroyed in an accident that wasn't his fault, as he was dealing with two crooks being chased by police). Yeah, yeah, he promised her he'd see it, but you know what? Sometimes circumstances prevent people from keeping their promises, and grown-ups are expected to understand that.
- It gets even worse in Spider-Man 3, where she accuses Peter of this because he's happy that for the first time his life doesn't completely suck while she has to put up with getting a bad review and has to get another job.
- No one in Stick It seems to care why the main character ducked out of the Worlds Competition a few years prior, only that her team lost, even people who weren't remotely involved in the competition. She ducked out because moments before her routine, she learned her mother was having an affair with her coach and caused her parents to get a divorce.
- In The Time Traveler's Wife (2009), Clare chews Henry out for disappearing for about two weeks. Almost the entire plot is how Henry time travels involuntarily and frequently, and she is aware of this. And he has to go apologize afterwards.
- The World of Kanako: Kanako does not care when Ogata commits suicide, seemingly not caring for the weak. The same goes with the narrator who is manipulated into a fate even worse.
