Only Sane Man / Live-Action Films

"Let me ask you something, Doc. Does thinking you're the last sane person on the face of the Earth make you crazy? 'Cause if it does, maybe I am."

— Detective Del Spooner, I, Robot

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• 6 Underground: Seven, who objects to a lot of One's orders and protocols as being unnecessary and dangerous. Justified as Seven's former Delta Force, whereas the rest of the team, excepting Two who's CIA, are civilians or criminals.
• Alan is this in American Dreamer, due to "Rebecca's" antics even getting the police to believe her over him.
• Lt. CDR. Charlie Madison (James Garner) in The Americanization of Emily.
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: His fondness for odd colognes aside, Brian Fantana is clearly the sanest of the Channel Four News Team.
• Chef in Apocalypse Now was described by Captain Willard as being "wrapped too tight for Vietnam; probably wrapped too tight for New Orleans."
• Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), with Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, the token Only Sane Man surrounded by his rather... quirky family. Insanity can be contagious, if only because we as humans derive our idea what is sane from the people around us.
  • Unusual in that it is one of the very few examples in which the rest of the characters are, in fact, completely mad, and not just irrational, carried away, or mind controlled.
• A few characters in the Austin Powers film series take turns passing the Sanity Ball around; Scott Evil and Number Two are usually the Only Sane Men among the card-carrying, trope-following villains, while the heroes have no specific character designated as sane (although Basil Exposition seems to fit the bill).
• Agent Coulson in The Avengers. Fury is busy trying to control and lead the Avengers around by their noses, Steve is blindly obedient to Fury for the first half of the movie and wrapped up in fighting with Tony and Thor, Natasha is openly disdainful of and uncommunicative with the rest of the group (and also blindly obedient to SHIELD), Thor is preoccupied with Loki and being a Fish out of Water, Tony is flippant, abrasive, and always at SHIELD's throat, Bruce is paranoid and suspicious of everyone, Clint is a brainwashed minion, and everyone is constantly bickering. In the end, Coulson is the only one who has it together enough to think ahead and head off Loki's escape attempt with a special BFG cannibalized from Asgardian tech, and understand that the Avengers need something in common to fight for before they can be of use. His subsequent murder, which was partly the Avengers' fault (as they were too busy arguing to catch the ambush Loki's minions launched on the Helicarrier before it happened), causes everyone to go into Let's Get Dangerous! mode pretty quickly, and Steve takes over the Only Sane Man position.
• Alfred in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, who struggles to convince Bruce that Superman is not their enemy and that Bruce's anger, and obsession with bringing the Man of Steel down, (aside from being suicidal) is turning Bruce bitter and cruel. Eventually, Bruce realises Alfred was right all along, and begins to change his ways.
• Parodied/subverted in The Big Lebowski: one scene has Walter shouting "Has the whole world GONE CRAZY?!" while doing probably the craziest thing in the whole movie.
  • Arguably, the sanest person in the whole film is the Dude himself. And he's pretty much perpetually stoned.
• Black Lightning (2009): One of Kuptsov's scientists begs to stop the drilling, only to be taken away by the black suits. The rest don't pay attention to him.
• Lily from Black Swan is promiscuous and does drugs, but she's the most stable character in the film, and notes none of the other characters should be acting the way they do. Nina is a mentally unstable perfectionist, obsessed with becoming both the White and Black Swans. Erica is her Stage Mom but also a Mood-Swinger who loses her temper every time Nina tries to break her control. Thomas is a Prima Donna Director who, when not being creepy towards the dancers, often goes into hyper critical tirades about their work. Beth is the former prima, who attempts suicide after being forced into retirement, and is even more mentally unstable than Nina is.
• Bloodthirsty: Charlie repeatedly urges Grey to leave Vaughn's house, not only before they go but after things start to go wrong after they arrived. Grey ignores this.
• The Bridge on the River Kwai ends with Major Clipton looking around at the carnage and destruction surrounding him, and declaring, "Madness! Madness!"
• Ted in Burn After Reading. A former man of the cloth, he now works at the Hardbodies gym. He is practically the only normal character in the entire film, which is filled with delusional characters who are mostly Too Dumb to Live. Ted nurses an unrequited crush on his colleague Linda, and she is blissfully oblivious to his quiet affection. At the end of the film, it's revealed that Ted was shot and killed. With a hatchet.
  • The CIA director as well.
• Francis, in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is the only person who realizes that the incredibly sketchy Dr. Caligari and his Brainwashed and Crazy servant Cesare are murderous psychopaths. Subverted when Francis is revealed to be insane and the whole movie was the babbling of a Talkative Loon. It turns out that Dr. Caligari is the only sane man, except his name isn't actually Caligari. At least, if you consider the bookends to be canon — many do not, given that they weren't part of the artist's original vision, but were added via executive meddling. The suits thought that the films central message of "sleepwalking obedience to authority can result in Bad Things happening" was too reactionary and controversial, and insisted on the bookend scenes to tone it down/subvert it. The movie was made 1930's Germany — how could unquestioning obedience possibly lead to anything bad?
• Tracy Beaker and her group of friends in Children's Party at the Palace. This could tie in to the fact that they're not one of the "strangely-dressed people" at Buckingham Palace like the newscasters have talked about. Tracy has even said that everyone was "acting like they're in a sugar rush".
• An incredibly depressing one in HBO's Conspiracy (2001), which is a dramatization of the real life Wannsee Conference where the details of the Final Solution are worked out and the various relevant individuals notified, comes in the form of Dr. Kritzinger. He tries to make a moral stand while everyone else is concerned with bureaucracy or power-play, but he's shot down and eventually goes along with it after realizing the futility of objecting. It is summed up by this exchange at the end of the film:

  Kritzinger: It is night in Moscow already. Soon it will be dark here. Do you think any of us will live to see the daytime?
  General Hoffmann: Come spring we will be on the move again. Keep your spirits up.

• In Dagon the only sane man is the town drunk. Uh-oh...
• Todd in Dead Birds. While he initially shares this with William — who acts as somewhat of a Reasonable Authority Figure at first — and possibly Sam, he is the least susceptible to blind materialism once he realizes why they were brought to the house in the first place.
• Downfall: Albert Speer is one of the few people who realizes the war is lost and refuses to carry out Hitler's order, and forgoes suicide, believing Germany can still have a future. In Real Life, he was indeed considered to be one of the most grounded Nazi leaders, successfully covering up the fact that he oversaw a vast slave system for decades. He did so while cynically portraying himself as unaware of the scope of Nazi crimes, and played the part of the repentant fascist.
• Group Captain Mandrake in Dr. Strangelove.
  • Merkin Muffley is this in the War Room.
• In Enchanted, when the Refugee from TV Land starts singing in the middle of Central Park, a Crowd Song breaks out around her. Defrosting Ice King Robert, the one being sung to, is the only one who wonders how that is even possible.
  Robert: He knows the song too? I've never heard this song before! What the hell is it?!
• Marge from Fargo is a classic example, as she's by far the least dysfunctional character in the whole film, and the most moral to boot.
• Gen. Longstreet is portrayed this way among the Confederates in the Ted Turner film Gettysburg. Except for the unfortunate John Bell Hood, no one else seems to be bothered by Lee's suicidal battle plans, or else they're too caught up in redeeming their names to care.
  Robert E. Lee: If he is there tomorrow, I shall attack him.
  Longstreet: If he is there tomorrow, it is because he wants you to attack him.
• The first mate in Ghost Ship. After Santos is killed and they're stranded on the Graza, Greer is the only one to really show concern that the ship might be haunted, and that they should forget the gold, forget salvaging the ship, and get off immediately. However, Greer himself is subsequently lured to his death by Francesca. He didn't fall for greed or wrath, so they got him with lust instead.
• Go: Claire is a grounded character who is bothered by the zany plot and repeatedly protests about her acquaintances making her an accessory to crimes rather than just going along with their schemes.
• Agatha in The Grand Budapest Hotel points out some of the more absurd elements of the film that every other character takes completely seriously.
• Greedy: Robin is the only one in the film who desires to walk away from the fortune when he sees how unscrupulous Danny has become, and warns him to just walk away.
  • Ed is just as greedy as his cousins, but he understands the damage competing for an old man's fortune has done to him and everyone else, and is able to find the words that makes the whole family almost walk away.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): It gets batted between Quill and Gamora as the need arises. Which tells you about the rest of them.
  • Quill is a Manchild who was raised by space pirates who constantly threatened to eat him, but is also the only one not suffering from a Hair-Trigger Temper, and realizes the Big Bad has to be stopped because otherwise he'll burn the galaxy to the ground.
  • Gamora was raised by Thanos, which leaves her aloof and bad-tempered, but she defects early on and tries to be the moral voice, as opposed to everyone else being motivated by greed, vengeance or whatever's driving Groot.
• Help!: Ahme is the only person with any lick of competence in the movie, and she seems rather exhausted by it.
• Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz, surrounded by a lazy police force who don't take any of his suspicions seriously.
  "Am I going completely mad?!!" [silence]
• The Hunt for Red October: Dr Petrov is vocally opposed to Cpt. Ramius taking possession of the launch key belonging to The Political Officer, rightly pointing out that the entire point of having two launch keys is to ensure that no one person can launch Red October's complement of strategic nukes. Of course, the other officers know something Dr. Petrov doesn't....
• Corporal Joe Bowers in the 2006 Mike Judge cult comedy Idiocracy, who having been stuck in suspended animation for over 500 years while humankind has grown progressively stupider and stupider, awakens as unquestionably the smartest man in the world. Alas, Joe's notably superior intelligence is often for vain when dealing with the dunces in this idiotic dystopia, which is played for laughs throughout various situations at Joe's expense. At one point, Joe asks members of the President's cabinet why plants are being watered with a Gatorade-type sports drink, Brawndo; their only response is to repeat Brawndo's advertising slogans over and over to him ad nauseam. Even when compared to his only other current-day contemporary, Rita (a former prostitute), Joe comes off as clearly more sensible (given that Rita is convinced her former pimp could travel through time to find her.)
  • The Stinger shows however, that she was Properly Paranoid.
• In I, Robot, when Doctor Calvin calls Detective Spooner insane after he shoots a (blank and mindless) robot in the face, he replies "Does thinking you're the last sane man in the world make you crazy? Because if it does, then maybe I am."
• Jaws: Matt Hooper tells Chief Brody that he will be "the only rational man left on [Amity] island" after Hooper leaves the next day to join a shark research vessel.
• Juice: Quincy.
• In Jurassic World, Owen Grady is this at several points. He thinks creating any type of super-hybrid is a really bad idea and stares at Hoskins like he's insane when the other man suggests using Velociraptors as field weapons. When the I. rex escapes, he immediately suggests evacuating the island and using every BFG they have against it.
  Claire: Corporate felt genetic modification would up the wow factor.
  Owen: They're dinosaurs. Wow enough.
• Kick-Ass:
  • Damon's old police partner, Marcus Williams qualifies as this. He's the only one to point out to Damon that his plan of he and Mindy dressing up in costumes and carrying out vigilante justice is insane.
  • Dave also has a moment of this, but doesn't give up being Kick-Ass though.
• In King of Hearts (1966) Private Charles Plumpick is literally the only sane man in the French town of Marville, due to it having been evacuated by the regular citizenry before being repopulated by escaped denizens of the local insane asylum.
• Merlin in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Especially after Harry's death. And upon finding out Arthur had compromised the Kingsmen by siding with Valentine, he's the only one trusted by Eggsy and the new Lancelot to help them stop the Hate Plague.
• In Long Drive Home, the radio DJ is the only character who isn't either a total Jerkass or creepy as hell, in spite of only his voice being heard throughout the entire film.
• A famous example is Zeppo Marx from the Marx Brothers films. In a group of comedians with defined by distinct comedic styles (The comedy of Groucho, Harpo and Chico came from wit, slapstick and double-entendres, respectively), Zeppo was defined only by his lack of a "quirk". His roles were the definition of a straight man. Margaret Beaumont's characters also tended to fill this role, mostly serving as someone for Groucho to talk to.
• The McKenzie Break: Neuchel is the only prisoner who makes a signficant effort to abide by the Geneva Convention amidst the riots and escape plans that Schluter engineers. Due to this attitude and his suspected homosexuality, he's a Pariah Prisoner.
• Running Buffalo, along with the rest of the Comanche, in McLintock!. They're standing around most of the movie watching crazy white folk act up.
• Roslyn in The Misfits is the only character in the film with any common sense, while the men around her are either reckless fools or selfish jerks who want her for her body.
• Mom and Dad Save the World: Spengo's Number Two General Afir, who is even more put together than the two heroic "normal" protagonists, Dick and Marge, let alone a planet full of morons. He switches sides to help the heroes, but is found out and captured.
• Graham Chapman in two Monty Python movies, as King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Brian in Monty Python's Life of Brian (although Lancelot appears sane for most of the former, turning Ax-Crazy later on). As Arthur, it's best shown when he's fighting the Black Knight, as he eventually gets frustrated with the knight's stupidity and exclaims, "Look you stupid bastard! You've got no arms left!"
  • Ironic in that it was Chapman who frequently played the zaniest Cloudcuckoolanders in the series.
  • Chapman has also been cited as the funniest of the Pythons by the others, although hampered by alcoholism. He was certainly the edgiest: his writing contributions to the series are easily discernible by their being markedly more unpleasant, mean-spirited and of general poorer taste then the others (a notorious example being the undertaker sketch where Chapman's undertaker is suggesting they eat the corpse of Terry Jones' dead mother, "and if you feel guilty later we can dig a grave and you can throw up in it"). One theory as to why Series 4 was so much nastier than the first three is that John Cleese — Chapman's traditional writing partner and moderating influence — had left the group.
  • In the Death sketch in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, the Grim Reaper gets this role. He comes in to claim the souls of a bunch of people in a dinner party but it takes five minutes for them to understand that he's not there to reap the hedge, doesn't want wine and won't discuss philosophical topics with them.
• In Mortal Engines, when MEDUSA is revealed, Historian Pomeroy is the only one to react with horror while the rest of the citizens celebrate raucously.
• In Mystery Men, Roy "Mr. Furious" is often the Only Sane Man. Too bad he lives in a comic book world where the rules are different than Real Life.
  Mr. Furious: That's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
  Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
  Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
  Mr. Furious: [Long-suffering] He takes them off when he transforms.
  Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
• Duncan, sort of, in Mystery Team. Although still maintaining his childish personality, he is slowly revealed to be more and more normal than we are led to believe.
• Pete from Neighbors is the sole member of Delta Psi who actually has plans for life after college.
• Joanna in Office Space is the only character who doesn't have a character flaw, annoying trait, or who conducts morally questionable acts.
• Over the Edge: Julia, the community center supervisor, is the only adult in town who really sympathizes with the kids of New Grenada and tries to listen to their needs. Carl is this among his friends, trying to avoid engaging in delinquent behavior, until he gets fed up with his parents' behavior and runs away.
• Ed Du Bois is probably the only logical and sane character in Pain & Gain. All others do stupid errors, none moreso than our protagonists.
• In Passenger 57, Stuart Ramsey is the only person to point out what a suicidally dumb an idea it was to transport the world's most dangerous plane hijacker to prison onboard a plane.
• Planet of the Apes (1968). George Taylor has the only rational response to a world where apes rule over men.
  George Taylor: It's a madhouse! A madhouse!
• Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs. He's the only one who acts like a professional. Mr Orange is an undercover cop, Mr White gets too personally involved with Orange, Joe attempts to kill Mr. Orange because of "instinct", Mr Blonde is a complete psycho, Eddie is completely ignorant of Blonde's insanity, and Mr Blue and Mr Brown hardly appear. He's also the only one to survive.
• The Room:
  • Peter is the only one who appears to have a clue that, for example, playing football in tuxedos is a bad idea or that Lisa has some serious Lack of Empathy issues. He disappears halfway through the movie, since the actor had other commitments, with the unintentionally hilarious line, "That's it. I'm done."
  • Claudette, although an annoying, hypocritical bitch, is the only one who seems remotely aware of how little sense the plot makes. She comes off as a bit of an unintentional Audience Surrogate, often pointing out things the viewer is probably also wondering about, like asking "What are these characters doing here?" when she walks in on Mike and Michelle making out.
• Hogan in The Scribbler is a literal case. To take advantage of being the only guy in a psychiatric halfway house occupied by many women starved for sex, he happily feigns being mentally unstable; at one point, he considers faking multiple-personality disorder, asking his friend Suki (a legit Split Personality sufferer) for tips.
• Shaun of the Dead: Nobody, with the possible exception of Yvonne, begins as this — they can't even comprehend the idea that the dead are rising up and trying to eat them, and fall back on pretending there's nothing wrong. However, Shaun evolves into this when he finally decides to fight back. Of course, 'sane' is relative as his plan to hide in a pub gets most of them killed (the other survivors we see flee in the opposite direction and do much better).
• Shotgun Stories: Cleaman is far more reasonable and non-confrontational toward Son, Boy, and Kid than his three brothers are. He does hold Son at gunpoint in one scene, but only because Son did the same thing to him earlier, and he's still willing to hear Son out.
• Smith in Sleeping Dogs (1977) attempts to stay aloof as civil war breaks out, but is caught up with it despite his best efforts. He spends the rest of the film vainly trying to escape the madness, without success, until the end where he seems to bitterly accept his fate at which point he gets killed.
• Star Wars:
  • General Cassio Tagge at the Death Star military briefing, a pragmatist who's intelligent and self-aware enough to recognize the Rebel Alliance as the threat it is while the rest of Imperial high command is busy stroking themselves off over their might and prestige. He's a good example of how thankless a task being this type of character is; all of his very reasonable complaints are either duly ignored or met with extreme hostility, leading to the destruction of the Death Star and the beginning of the end for the Empire. In the aftermath, he manages to score a nice promotion for his foresight and intelligence... until he makes one big mistake, which the Emperor and Darth Vader use as an excuse to demote and execute him.
  • Star Wars: The Last Jedi has one for each side of the conflict:
    • Leia for the Resistance, being the only competent and well-liked Commander to survive the chaotic escape at the start. Holdo keeps the ship flying onwards and never tells the crew about Crait and the rest of the crew hate her for it, leading to head-butting and mutiny when Leia is in the medbay and unable to keep everyone together.
    • Captain Canady for the First Order. An experienced commander who served in the original Imperial Military, he lacks the egotism and general stupidity that runs rampant in the First Order's upper echelons. In the opening battle, he's the only commanding officer who recognizes the Resistance's obvious strategy (he even has to explain to his clueless lieutenant that the puny fighters shooting at them are trying to take out their anti-air cannons, not blow up the ship). His sanity almost manages to salvage a fight that General Hux screwed up from the get-go, but the incompetence of his bridge crew ruins it; Canady spends his final moments screaming at them to stop screwing around and shoot down the huge bomber that's about to kill them all. They don't.
  • Qui-Gon Jinn is the only Jedi by the time of The Phantom Menace to realize that the Jedi have lost their way, and he considers himself the best option to train Anakin Skywalker because of it, deferring that duty to Obi-Wan should anything happen to him. He was right—if he hadn't died in a Naboo power plant, the fate of the galaxy over the ensuing years might have been a lot different.
• For a villainous example, Deejay from Street Fighter is the only member of General M. Bison's forces who isn't a violent megalomaniac out to Take Over the World^note Of course!, deluded into thinking they're the good guys, a Mad Scientist, a sadistic mercenary, or a faceless Stormtrooper-esque soldier. He's just an ex-Microsoft employee who is paid ludicrous amounts of money to run all of Bison's computer systems and clearly only gives his boss's hammy ramblings lip-service:
  Deejay: [on Guile's death] That's great news, General! Congratulations!
  Bison: ON THE CONTRARY I MOURN!!!
  Deejay: Oh, okay.
• In the horror/sci-fi thriller Sunshine, Chris Evans' character Mace is the only guy who seems to have common sense and an idea of the bigger picture. Makes you wonder why he wasn't captain instead.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Leonardo's the first one to put his foot down when his brothers get too distracted, making sure they focus on what's important at the moment.
• Ben in Terror At Blood Fart Lake is the only character in his friend group who can plausibly claim a three-digit IQ and even asks aloud why he hangs out with the rest of the crew.
• Kevin in Time Bandits has a much more level head than the Bandits, who are Only in It for the Money and thus tend to blunder into trouble out of greed.
• Tropic Thunder:
  • Kevin Sandusky and to a lesser extent Alpa Chino spend much of the film trying to rein in their unhinged costars. Their success is limited.
    Kevin Sandusky: Tugg. Tugger. You're the last piece of the puzzle buddy. We need you! Your men need you. Are you with us?
    Tugg Speedman: [pause] I'm a rooster illusion.
    Kevin Sandusky: Fuck it. We'll deal with him later.
  • Kirk Lazarus has flashes of sanity, usually to contrast with Tugg. As a general rule within the film though, the sanest person in any room will be the one with the lowest status. (For instance, Kevin is most sane because he's the least famous actor.)
• Subverted by Truman in The Truman Show as he slowly figures out that he is living in an artificial world; of course, the other actors are already aware of it, so they try to disabuse him of the notion when he explains his concerns to those around him.
• Buck in Uncle Buck, especially during the second half.
• Vice: Colin Powell is the only one in the administration who is skeptical of invading Iraq, seeing the evidence as not reliable and the potential consequences being disastrous. It probably helped that he was the only one with military experience, as a former general, so he knew more than them just how bad this could go wrong.
• Laurie and her school newspaper staff in The Wave (1981), among the few students who are trying to stand up to the quasi-fascism sweeping their school.
• Played with in What About Bob? At first Dr. Marvin is the only one who sees anything wrong with Bob's obsessive, manipulative, stalker-ish behavior. Bob becomes better socialized and more acceptably-quirky over time. Dr. Marvin tries to kill him as revenge for earning his family's appreciation.
• Walter Greenbaum, Max's attorney in What's the Worst That Could Happen?. He spends the entirety of the movie attempting extract Max from holes that he insists on digging for himself. He repeatedly tells Max to give the ring back, as the longer he keeps it, the more money it winds up costing them. When Max refuses and insists on going down the path he is on, Walter quits, gets out of the car and walks away, never to be seen again
• Sgt. Howie in The Wicker Man (1973):
  "Is there anything we can do to help you, Sergeant?"
  "I doubt it. Seeing you're all raving mad."
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: When Augustus falls into the chocolate river and starts drowning, Charlie is the only one who thinks to use his large lollipop to pull the larger boy to shore. It doesn't work, but that is actually a legitimate way to save a drowning person.
• Peggy in The Woman is the only one who really criticizes her father Chris's idea of trying to "civilize" the feral woman he captured, what with her mom Belle being too henpecked to stand up to him, her brother Brian being too much like his dad, and her little sister Darlin' being too young and naive to know any better. She's also the only member of the family, other than Darlin' and their feral sister Socket, to survive to the end.
• The Woman in Red: At what turns out to be Teddy's birthday party, where Charlotte discovers Teddy had been lying to her, his friends make the save by telling him about Joey breaking down since Teddy is "the voice of reason."
• Part of Mugatu's Motive Rant / Villainous Breakdown in Zoolander is his claim that all of Derek's looks are identical. (See the quote on the works page.) This is enough to spur Derek into creating a new look that involves turning left instead of turning right, which has the power to stop a shuriken in mid-air and even Mugatu thinks that it's beautiful.
  • Even then, the new look is a mirror reflection of all his others.
• In the biopic Yves Saint Laurent, Yves's lover, business partner and Straight Gay Pierre serves as Yves's sanity anchor and the person who keeps him on track despite a sea of hard-partying, bohemian friends. The same dynamic is present in the rival biopic Saint Laurent, though it's not portrayed quite as positively.

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