You Killed My Father / Live-Action Films

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• Averted in 28 Days Later. Hannah's recently Infected (as in, within seconds of contact) father is shot to death in front of her by a group of rescuing soldiers. She's naturally horrified and grieving, but not vengeful. When she thinks that Jim is uh, biting her would-be foster mom, though, she tries to bash his skull in.
• Aquaman (2018): David Kane/Black Manta wants revenge on Arthur Curry/Aquaman for leaving his father Jesse Kane to die, ignoring the fact that Aquaman did that because Jesse tried to shoot him in the back after Aquaman spared him once.
• Assassin's Creed (2016): Young Callum walks in to see his mother killed by his Assassin father, and has wanted to kill him since. Even when given the chance by Alan, Callum spares him now that he knows the bigger picture.
• In Avatar, Neytiri's father is killed in the attack on Hometree. Sure enough, she gets her revenge using her father's own bow.
• In the Dystopian "Biffverse" timeline of Back to the Future Part II, Biff Tannen murders George McFly, presumably to widow Lorraine and get revenge for the humiliation in high school. He tells Marty this, but Marty doesn't take revenge directly; instead, he repairs the timeline so Biff will be a loser (and George McFly still alive) again.
• In Batman (1989), Jack Napier, the man who becomes the Joker, is the man who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents. (Dick Grayson, before he was written out of the movie, was supposed to also have his parents killed by the Joker.)
• In the movie Batman Begins, Bruce (before deciding to become Batman) attempts to murder Joe Chill, the mugger that killed his parents, but Joe is murdered on the orders of Carmine Falcone, against whom he is testifying, before Bruce gets the chance to kill Joe himself.
• In Batman Forever, Robin's entire family was murdered by Two-Face, which prompts the young sidekick into a life of crime-fighting. A major plot is his need to overcome personal revenge, though.
• Lisa from The Big Cube blames her stepmother Adriana for the death of her father in a boating accident, as her father died trying to protect Adriana. She and Johnny record tapes to play during Adriana's involuntary acid trips, which include Lisa saying, "You killed my father!"
• In The California Kid, Michael drives into Clarksberg to avenge the death of his brother Don, who was run off the road by Sheriff Roy.
• Charlie's Angels (2000): The driving motivation of the Big Bad is that he believes that Charlie left his father to die.
• In Clegg, the killer's motivation turns to be avenging his father by murdering the men who framed him and sent him to prison, where he died.
• Cataleya Restrepo of Colombiana wants to avenge the death of her parents, who were murdered by rivals.
• Conan the Barbarian (1982):
  • The title character out for revenge on Thulsa Doom for... well, let's just let him say it, shall we?
    Conan: You killed my mother... you killed my father, YOU KILLED MY PEOPLE! You took my father's sword!
• Conan the Barbarian (2011): Conan seeks revenge against Khalar Zym for causing his father's death. Before this he also had killed several of Khalad's minions who'd aided him in this for revenge as well.
• Tweaked in Daredevil (2003):
  • It was actually Bullseye who killed Elektra's father, but she thinks that it was Daredevil. Therefore, she goes on an angry rampage against Daredevil, which doesn't end well when she figures out who he really is...
  • Played straight, however, with Daredevil himself and the Kingpin, who killed Matt a.k.a. Daredevil's father.
• In The Dead Lands, a rival Maori faction kills most of protagonist Hongi's tribe, including his father. He resolves to travel to the barren Deadlands in search for a legendary warrior so he can have his revenge.
• Death Note (2017): Light's second victim with the Death Note is the criminal who ran over his mother and got away with it.
• Escape 2000 (best known for being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000) has the hero's parents killed by Mooks working for the Big Bad. His quest for vengeance leads him to a certain uproarious gang leader.
• In The Fall, Roy invokes this trope for some of the main characters in regards to the villain of his story to Alexandria, Governor Odious. The Black Bandit lost his brother and father. The Indian's wife was forced to commit suicide. Otta Benga's brother died from slavery.
• In Fast X, Dante is after Dom, his friends and his family to get back at their involvement in the death of his father Hernán Reyes in Fast Five.
• In Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Maggie calls Freddy Krueger out on the fact that he killed his wife, her mother.
• Friday the 13th:
  • In Friday the 13th Part 2, Jason Voorhees kills the Final Girl of the first film, Alice, as revenge for her killing his mother Pamela (who was a psychotic, brutal murderess herself, mind you). And then he just keeps killing after that, believing that it's what his mother would have wanted.
  • Averted in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. For some reason, Roy Burns doesn't go after the person who killed his son. He goes after everyone else in the vicinity.
• In Fright Night (2011), Peter Vincent's parents were killed by the vampire Jerry Dandridge. However, it's subverted — Peter helps (or tries to), but it's Charley who ultimately stakes Jerry.
  Jerry: You have your mother's eyes... and your father's aim.
• The Funhouse Massacre: Sheriff Kate has history with Manual Dyer, having been a member of the flock he convinced to set himself on fire. Her mother was the person he burned in front of his flock first.
• Uttered by Johnny Blaze to Mephisto in Ghost Rider (2007).
• In The Godfather Part II, Vito's father, brother, and mother were murdered by a Sicilian mafia boss, Don Ciccio, when Vito was a child. Don Ciccio wanted to have Vito killed too, to avoid this trope. Vito escaped to the U.S., became an influential crime boss there, and eventually returned to Sicily to meet Don Ciccio.
  Don Ciccio: What was your father's name?
  Vito: Antonio Andolini.
  Don Ciccio: You'll have to speak up. I can't hear you.
  Vito: My father's name was Antonio Andolini... And This Is for... you! [stabs him]
• Green for Danger: Esther Sanson's motive for murdering Higgins. Higgins had been the leader of the rescue team who searched the ruins of her mother's bombed house for three days before giving up. The day after, her mother was found alive, but died shortly after, and Sanson blamed Higgins for her death.
• In Hooded Angels, Wes is searching for the people who killed his father during the Civil War, believing them to be band of renegade soldiers who fled after the murder. When he finally gets on the trail of the killers, he discovers that he was very wrong about their identity.
• The film version of Hellboy has Prof. Bruttenholm killed by Kroenen, causing HB to utter the magnificent line:
  Hellboy: You killed my father. Your ass is mine!
• Will from "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" finds out his brother committed suicide due to being raped. Will hunts down the man who raped him.
• Shosanna from Inglourious Basterds watches her family get murdered by Nazis as a child. As an adult running a cinema in France years later, she turns a screening attended by Nazis into a major bloodbath as payback by setting the entire theatre on fire.
• In The Italian Job (2003), Stella's main reason for joining the heist is because Steve killed her father on his last mission and nearly drowned the rest of the team while stealing their gold.
• James Bond:
  • Subverted by the eponymous character in Octopussy. Years ago, her father was wanted for treason against Great Britain, and Bond was tasked to bring him in. Instead of turning him in to the authorities, Bond allowed him to commit suicide. Now, Octopussy confronts the man who was responsible for her father's death... and thanks Bond for allowing her father to take his own life rather than face the disgrace of a military trial.
  • Played straight twice in No Time to Die:
    • In the prologue, a young Madeleine Swann watches in horror from behind a closet as her mother is killed by Big Bad Lyustifer Safin. Even years later, Madeleine still holds onto her mother's memory as she even cries when reminded of her death. This is also why she did her best to protect her own daughter from Safin.
    • Safin himself wanted to destroy SPECTRE because his parents were killed by Madeleine's father, Mr. White, under orders from Blofeld.
• In John Wick, the victim is John's puppy, but the effect is the same, particularly since the puppy was a last gift from John's dead wife.
• In Josie, Josie comes to Baymont to murder Hank, who was one of the men involved in her father's wrongful execution. And she's far from finished.
• Kill Bill:
  • O-Ren witnessed her parents' murders at the hands of the Yakuza, and went on to assassinate their boss, accusing and mocking him as he expired. Unusual in that taking vengeance set her on the path to villainy, not heroism... and she didn't bother waiting to grow up first, but lured the pedophile into bed and slaughtered him while still a child herself.
  • The Bride tries to avoid this by not killing Vernita Green in front of her young daughter Nikki, but it's ultimately double subverted as the child witnesses the death anyway. The Bride appears genuinely regretful about this, and explains to the child that she will understand if Nikki wants to try to continue the Cycle of Revenge when she is old enough.
• Happens in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist with the Chosen One and Betty.
  Chosen One: You killed my family. And I don't like that kind of thing.
• Featured in the Hamlet section of Last Action Hero.
  "Claudius, you killed my father. Big mistake."
• In The Last Witch Hunter, the reason for 37th Dolan's turn to evil is that, unknowingly, Kaulder killed his parents, confident that they were witches who had kidnapped the Dolan.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man 2: The main reason Vanko has a beef with Stark — though technically, it's "your father had my father deported and left him to rot in Siberia." Being deported is what caused Vanko's father to develop a destructive drinking habit, which eventually killed him. However, unusually for this trope, his Dynamic Entry doesn't include the traditional "My Name Is Inigo Montoya. [Insert grievance here]" announcement, and he immediately starts using lethal attacks. Had they been successful, Tony would have died without having any idea who his killer was or why he killed him. This rather unconventional approach underlines Vanko's role as The Quiet One.
  • Thor: The Dark World: It's only because their mother Frigga was killed that Thor and Loki unite and hunt down Malekith and Kurse together with Jane Foster. Thor burns half of Malekith's face off directly after Frigga is killed, but it's Loki who destroys Kurse, who is the one who actually killed their mother. The most tragic part is, Loki has some responsibility in his mother's death, as he pointed Kurse in the right direction to Jane, whom Frigga was protecting.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron:
    • Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver hate Tony Stark because their parents were killed by bombs manufactured by Stark Industries and they spent two days staring at a defective Stark munition, wondering if it would explode before they were rescued. Oddly, while they tell this story to Ultron, Stark himself is never told why they hate him.
    • Also applicable to Vision when he puts a final end to Ultron, who'd damaged his sort-of-progenitor JARVIS beyond repair.
  • Captain America: Civil War:
    • Just as Tony and Steve appear to be reconciling at the end, it's revealed in a very graphic video that a brainwashed Bucky was responsible for Tony's parents' murders. Then it's also revealed that Steve had known about HYDRA's responsibility, at least, for two years and never told Tony, which the latter calls him out on. To the surprise of nobody, seeing his parents beaten and strangled to death while the physical murderer stands only feet away sends Tony into an explosive rage, him ignoring Steve's protests that Bucky wasn't in control.
      Steve: This isn't gonna change what happened.
      Tony: I don't care. He killed my mom.
    • T'Challa pursues Bucky for the Vienna terrorist attack that killed his father. After learning that Bucky was framed, he confronts Zemo, the real killer — and captures him to face justice rather than killing him in vengeance.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Peter is willing to join his father, Ego, and help him turn all planets in the galaxy into copies of himself. At least, he's willing until Ego admits that to keep himself from being distracted by his love for Peter's mother, he gave her a fatal brain tumor. Peter immediately shoots the absolute shit out of Ego's human body without a second of warning. The best part is that Peter was hypnotized and even willing to go along with his father's plan, but this revelation snaps Peter out of Ego's control — especially since Ego crushed his mother's Walkman, which drives the usually cheery Peter mad with rage.
  • Black Panther (2018):
    • Killmonger's primary motive for vengeance against the Wakandians is because T'Chaka killed his father.
    • W'Kabi is adamant about Klaue's death because his parents were killed during the bombings of Klaue's attack.
  • In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, after taking the heart-shaped herb and the mantle of Black Panther, Shuri leads Wakanda to war against the Talokans as revenge because Namor drowned her mother (and by extension, the only family member she had left), Ramonda. However, much like her brother T'Challa in Civil War, she eventually subverts this, sparing Namor and finally making a truce between their respective nations.
• In The Mask of Zorro, the new Zorro, Alejandro Murrieta, has a vendetta against Sociopathic Soldier Captain Love (who is also The Dragon) because Love killed Alejandro's brother and put his head on display.
• Subverted in the Charles Bronson film The Mechanic (1972). Arthur Bishop (Bronson) is a Professional Killer for The Mafia who kills one of its important lieutenants by inducing a heart attack. That man's son, Steve, ends up being trained by Bishop as his protege. At the end of the movie, the sociopathic Steve poisons Bishop, who as he dies asks if this is revenge for his father. Steve replies casually: "Oh, you killed him? I thought he just died."
• Early in Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Dhyana's miner father is killed by Jared-Syn's son Baal in order to collect his soul. She accompanies Dogen on his quest to defeat Jared-Syn in order to get revenge.
• In Mystery Men, Tony P, The Dragon to Big Bad Casanova Frankenstein, killed The Bowler's father. Various villains are killed by various heroes, but she gets him. (More accurately, it's her dad who really gets him. From beyond the grave, as a skull in a bowling ball which acts like a homing missile. It's complicated.)

N-Z

• Basically the whole plot of the movie Nevada Smith, where the eponymous character systematically tries to find and kill the men who murdered his parents.
• Now You See Me: Dylan's main motivation, both for framing Thaddeus and for choosing all of the Four Horsemen's other targets. In order: Thaddeus exposed Lionel Shrike's magic act and humiliated him, causing him to attempt the trick that got him killed, the Credit Republic bank and Tressler's company refused to pay out the life insurance, and Elkhorn manufactured the safe used in the trick which, due to the intentionally inferior materials and construction, warped after sinking into the water, trapping Lionel inside.
• In The Phantom, The Dragon Quill is the man who killed the previous Phantom. He spends much of the movie disturbed by the discovery that the man he killed is apparently still in business. Kit explains the truth to him at the onset of their inevitable final duel.
• In The Place Beyond the Pines, Jason tries to kill Avery because he killed his father, but decides to spare his life afterwards.
• Subverted in the Prince Caspian Narnia movie. Caspian, when he learns that Miraz is responsible for killing his father, hunts him down for a dramatic interrogation scene — in the middle of a battle, no less. Later, he is given the chance to kill him by Peter for this exact reason. Naturally, he decides to be noble.
• The Princess Bride gives us a truly iconic example: "Hello! My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die." It actually becomes a deconstruction, as Inigo's obsession with avenging his father has stunted his basic knowledge in other areas, he is forced to become a goon for hire because his vendetta doesn't pay the bills, and he has no idea what to do with his life after he finally achieves his vengeance.
• Prom Night (1980): Alex Hammond is driven to kill because his sister's friends (and her current boyfriend), plus the resident Alpha Bitch, killed his other sister in a game gone wrong years ago.
• Averted in Push: Nick confronts Carver over his father's death, but in the end it's Kira that kills Carver.
• In Sam Raimi's western The Quick and the Dead, this is the heroine's primary motivation for entering the pistol-dueling competition organized by the villain. Subverted in that The Lady is the one who shot her father, though this was because the villain gave her 8-year-old self a Sadistic Choice between letting her father hang to death or trying to Shoot the Rope with a pistol. Barely able to lift the revolver, she puts a bullet in her own father's head.
• Red Sonja (1985): Sonja swears vengeance on Queen Gedren for murdering her whole family (along with ordering her to be raped) because Sonja rejected her advances and gave her a slight cut on the cheek.
• In the Icelandic historical film Revenge of the Barbarians, an Irish man is seeking the Vikings who murdered his father and pillaged his home village for revenge.
• A similar thing happens in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. "I shall not rest until my father's avenged!" (He has no such motivation in the legends.) "Recognize this? It belonged to your father. Appropriate, don't you think, that I use it to send you to meet him?" So, so dead.
• Rob the Mob: The mafia is responsible for the death of Tommy's father, which is part of his motivation for stealing from them.
• Near the end of the climax of Rush Hour 2, Triad leader Ricky Tan taunts Lee by revealing that he killed his father whose dying wish was for Tan not to kill Lee. Lee ultimately avenges his father's death by kicking Tan out the window sending him crashing onto the roof of a car, killing him.
• At the end of The Saint (2017), Simon catches up to Xander, a mysterious man escaping from a house whom he had been chasing, and recognizes him through his unique tattoo as the masked assassin who killed his parents when he was a child. At first, Simon draws his gun at Xander and is about to shoot him to avenge his parents. However, he can't go through with it since he isn't an assassin and simply arrests him instead.
• In Saw VI, the main character William, an executive at an insurance company, was responsible for enforcing a corrupt policy and denied the application of a man named Harold, causing his death. At the end of his game, William meets the wife and son of said man, who had held an everlasting grudge on William for what he did, and they get the choice whether to let him live or die. The mother, Tara, can't bring herself to pulling the death lever. The son on the other hand...
  Brent: You killed my father, you motherfucker! (pulls lever to "DIE") Now you burn in hell!
• Showdown in Little Tokyo: Before Yoshida became a Yakuza boss, he was working as a lowly assassin for the gang when Kenner was growing up in Japan and murdered Kenner's parents in front of him before trying to kill the young boy. This makes the case exceptionally personal for Kenner, and he almost blows the bad guy's head off in front of his whole gang when he recognizes him when they meet again. His partner Murata agrees to help him complete his vendetta after Kenner explains it to him.
• Silver Lode: Ballard killed McCarty's brother during a poker game two years previously. Naturally, Ballard's and McCarty's accounts of how it all went down differ considerably.
• Six Reasons Why: After his father is assassinated by The Criminal, The Entrepreneur—accompanied by The Sherpa—follows him into The Badlands seeking vengeance.
• Sorceress: The twins Mara and Mira swore revenge on the evil sorcerer who killed their mother and foster father (but don't realize that he's actually their birth father). At the end, Mara succeeds in killing him.
• Spider-Man Trilogy: Harry is convinced that Spider-Man killed his father and out of vengeance vows to kill Spider-Man for his father's death, to the point where he becomes the late Green Goblin's successor and tries to kill Peter, whom he finds out is Spider-Man. In reality, Norman Osborn was never murdered but accidentally impaled himself with his own glider, and Harry's vendetta against Spider-Man is entirely pointless. Peter tries to explain this to him, but Harry won't hear it.
• Starship Troopers: Rico is about to resign from the Mobile Infantry (in fact, he's got his bags packed and is just on his way out) when news hit that Buenos Aires, where his parents lived, has been destroyed by a meteorite sent by the Bugs. He immediately joins back up so he can get revenge.
• Star Trek (2009):
  • Main villain Nero is responsible for the death of Jim Kirk's father, George Kirk, only minutes after Jim's birth. Ironically, revenge for his father's death is never a main motive in Kirk's defeat of Nero, and he even offers assistance and fair accommodations to the Romulan crew before the Narada gets sucked into a giant wormhole. However, when Nero venomously refuses any help, Kirk wastes no time opening fire to make sure the ship doesn't survive.
  • Played straight with Spock's mother, who is killed in Nero's attack on Vulcan.
  • Nero's whole motive for destroying anything related to the Federation in the Kelvin Timeline is because he believes that Spock, and the Federation for that matter, allowed Romulus to be obliterated by the supernova in the prime timeline, killing his wife and unborn child in the in the process and rendering the Romulan species endangered.
• Star Wars:
  • Famously subverted with Darth Vader's reveal: "No. I am your father." This was the original plot of Star Wars before The Empire Strikes Back, where Vader and Anakin Skywalker were indeed two separate people and the former killed the latter, and Anakin would guide his son as a spirit. After Vader defeats Luke on Bespin, Vader inquires what Kenobi told Luke about his father, and Luke says, "He told me enough. He told me you killed him." Then Vader delivers his famous Wham Line. And double subverted decades later, when the prequel trilogy reveals how Vader's misdeeds are responsible for Luke's mother's death.
  • Played straight in the the prequel trilogy, where Anakin Skywalker goes into a berserk murderous rage over the death of his mother Shmi on Tatooine and slaughters a whole village of Sandpeople who had abducted and tortured her. The incident paves the road to Anakin's eventual fall from grace as a Jedi and his transformation into the evil Darth Vader.
  • Also in the prequels, Mace Windu kills Jango Fett in front of his son Boba Fett. Lucas avoids this trope in that case, and Boba never seeks revenge... at least, not against Windu personally. Instead, he becomes one of the most feared Jedi hunters during the Dark Times. Of course, Windu is already dead by then.
• In the Street Fighter movie, Chun Li's motivation is that M. Bison, naturally, killed her father. Unfortunately for her, Bison doesn't remember any of it. He only remembers that it was Tuesday.
• Sunburn (1979): Thoren used to be a Nazi saboteur named Heinrich Stressman who killed a guard while escaping his American captors. Dobbs, one of the people blackmailing him about his past, is the son of the murdered guard.
• In The Sword and the Sorcerer, this is why Talon is out to kill Cromwell, and he isn't going to let Xusia do it first. Cromwell killed Talon's father Richard, who happened to be his arch-rival.
• Said word-for-word in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). Eric Sacks was the one who killed April's father.
• In Terror in a Texas Town, George Hanson arrives at his father's farm after twenty years at sea, only to learn that his father had been murdered two days before. Hanson sets out to learn the truth about his father's death and avenge him, and to secure his inheritance of the farm.
• Such a handy, well-worn device as this trope often gets inserted into things where it doesn't belong. The 1993 version of The Three Musketeers combines it with Death by Adaptation, as d'Artagnan's father is still alive in the book. Unusually for this trope, d'Artagnan does not set out with goal of avenging his father's murder, and in fact has no idea who killed him. Athos (and presumably Porthos, Aramis, and maybe the other Musketeers) knows, or at least suspects, who did it but never gets the chance to tell him. d'Artagnan himself learns in the final battle:
  Rochefort: How pathetic, killed by the same man that killed your father. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
  d'Artagnan: You killed my father?
  Rochefort: Oh yes, as I will kill you.
• The 1969 western True Grit (adapted from a novel) is about a 14-year old girl seeking revenge for her father. She gets to face the murderer and shoot him, but he survives, and the business is finished by her companions, who are much more badass. In the 2010 version, she does get to finish the business herself, although she still needs her companions for almost everything else.
• In Underworld U.S.A., fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin and his mother-figure Sandy see four hoods beat his father to death. He vows to avenge his father's death, becomes a criminal, and gets himself sent to prison so that he can get close to the one perpetrator he recognized when his father was being beaten. On his prison deathbed, Tolly manipulates the names of the other three killers from him, only to discover the three have risen to the top of the crime syndicate. This does not stop his quest for vengeance.
• The protagonist of Utu witnesses the killing of his tribe by an Evil Brit Colonel Kilgore and responds by starting a rebellion against the British.
• This is Vampirella's motive for wanting revenge on Vlad, who killed her father on Drakulon.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Well, it's actually his brother, but Eddie has held a huge grudge against Toons since his brother was killed by one. When he finally meets his brother's killer, revealed to be Judge Doom, who was a Toon disguised as a human all along, he feels avenged as Doom dissolves in his own Toon-melting acid.
• Wolves: The only person Cayden deliberately kills in cold blood is Wild Joe, moments after he finds out that Wild Joe killed his parents.
• X-Men: First Class gives us an example of someone avenging the death of their mother, when Erik/Magneto kills Schmitt/Shaw despite agreeing with his Mutant Supremacist ideals because Schmitt killed his mother in front of him as a child.
  "I want you to know I agree with everything you just said. We are the future. But, unfortunately... you killed my mother."

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