These 7 movie villains can blame bad luck for their downfall

In movies, it’s not always the good guy’s bravery that brings the bad guy to their knees, but sometimes just good old-fashioned bad luck. Think about having spent years hatching an evil plan, only to have it all go astray because of one faulty step, a chance meeting, or a random turn of fate. In the world of cinema, some of the most infamous characters didn’t just fall because the good guys were better, but because destiny had a wicked sense of humor.

Sometimes a movie villain’s greatest enemy isn’t a caped vigilante for justice, but bad timing, coincidence, and plain misfortune. As Hans Gruber plummeted from Nakatomi Plaza, one can’t help but wonder: what if that Rolex hadn’t been unclasped? What if John Wick had never crossed paths with Iosef Tarasov? What if Dennis Nedry’s getaway plan in Jurassic Park wasn’t foiled by a blinding rainstorm and a very cranky Dilophosaurus? In the grand game of villains versus heroes in movies, these 7 bad guys weren’t just outwitted; instead, they became victims of rotten, cosmic bad luck. Let us explore their stories and see how destiny had the deciding laugh.

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Thanos in the 2019 movie: Avengers: Endgame

Thanos is one of action movies’ most frightening villains. However, it's hard to deny that his defeat in Avengers: Endgame was a cosmic series of bad luck for the infamous purple genocidal maniac. After having wiped out half the universe with a snap of his Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos truly believed he had completed his destiny, and even went as far as destroying the Infinity Stones to ensure no one could undo his "perfectly balanced" plan. But in the movie, destiny had other plans.

When a past version of Thanos from the past stumbles upon the Avengers' time heist and enters the battlefield, he unknowingly walks straight into his own doom. In spite of his insurmountable strength and unshaken determination, Thanos is eventually destroyed by a moment that hinged on a thin chance. Tony Stark snatches the Infinity Stones from him in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it maneuver, and Thanos is left stunned as Tony snaps his fingers and utters the iconic, “I am Iron Man.” Sealing the Titan's fate as well as his own.

Bad luck? Absolutely. The man calculated everything, except for the tiniest variable of the stolen Gauntlet at the last second. As we are oh so aware of the multiverse of madness in the Marvel universe, it's not far-fetched to presume that perhaps in another universe, Thanos wins. But here in Earth-616? Luck didn't favour him.

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Scar in the 1994 movie: The Lion King

The green-eyed Scar is the textbook definition of a scheming villain, and perhaps the worst uncle in Disney history. He sees Simba as an opportunity for him to gain power and meticulously plots the death of his brother Mufasa and manipulates the young cub into exile. For most of the movie, Scar has everything under control, even delivering the chilling line, “Long live the king,” before sending Mufasa plummeting to his death.

However, Scar’s downfall is less about his missteps and more about a brutal stroke of bad luck. When Simba returns, Scar’s house of lies begins to crumble, not because Simba was particularly strategic, but because Scar let one little detail slip, and unknowingly admitted to knowing about Mufasa’s final moment, something only the murderer could have known. Scar fights back with tooth and claw, but fate’s final act is cruel. His former allies and 'friends', the hyenas, overhear Scar shifting the blame onto them. Betrayed and enraged, they turn on him. His fate? Devoured by the very animals he once commanded.

If Scar didn't talk about Mufasa's death to anyone, had the hyenas been out of earshot, maybe, just maybe, he could have clawed his way out of his demise. But the wheel of fortune spins for no one, and Scar, by the end of the movie, got exactly what he deserved.

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Percy Wetmore in the 1999 movie: The Green Mile

Percy Wetmore isn’t a grandiose big bad like Thanos or Scar, just a small, petty man. However, the movie "The Green Mile" shows us that sometimes bad fortune isn’t just reserved for those trying to take over thousands, but also lurks in wait for the ones who play cruel games on the powerless. Percy, a sadistic prison guard, takes pleasure in tormenting death row inmates. His worst act? Deliberately sabotaging an execution by not wetting the sponge, causing Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), who's a mentally challenged inmate, to suffer an excruciating death in the electric chair.

Percy’s downfall is dripping in poetic irony and bad luck. He torments the gentle giant John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), but little does he know that it'll be his last act of villainy, as Coffey, blessed (or cursed) with supernatural powers, bestows on Percy a fitting karmic payback, transferring the horrific illness he absorbed from Melinda Moores into him. Percy experiences an erratic psychotic break and ends up shooting Wild Bill Wharton in his manic frenzy, which leads him to be admitted to a mental institution, specifically Briar Ridge. The bad luck here is that Percy’s punishment wasn’t part of anyone’s grand plan, and he just happened to mess with the one person on earth who could break his mind.

Percy walks, zombie-like, straight into an asylum, his mind shattered. His irrational brutality finally sealed his own fate. We could say Coffey gave Percy exactly what he deserved, but luck (or divine intervention) played a cruel, coincidental hand.

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Hans Gruber in the 1988 movie: Die Hard

Hans Gruber, the suavely dressed, ice-cold terrorist played to perfection by Alan Rickman, is one of action movies’ most adored villains. In the cult-classic movie, Die Hard, Hans's scheme is flawless on paper, which is to take hostages in Nakatomi Plaza, steal $640 million in bearer bonds, and vanish into the night.

However, bad luck has a habit of crashing the party. Enter John McClane (Bruce Willis), the gruff, duct tape enthusiast cop, who just happened to be visiting his estranged wife at the wrong (or right) time. Gruber is sharp, sophisticated, and always a step ahead, at least up until fate trips him up. After an epic game of cat-and-mouse, McClane finally outwits Hans in the film’s climactic moment. As Gruber clings to Holly Gennaro’s (Bonnie Bedelia) wrist, McClane unclasps her watch, sending Hans plummeting from the skyscraper.

Gruber’s horrified, slow-motion fall is one of the most iconic and cinematic shots in movie history, and was the result of a last-minute improvisation and, some would say, bad timing. Hans didn’t miscalculate his scheme; instead, it was a chain of random, unfortunate events that led to his downfall. A cop’s stubbornness, an unplanned guest at the party, and a loose wristwatch all snowballed into situations that ultimately led to Hans's downfall. McClane's memorable last words to Rickman, right before his fall, went down as the most iconic line in pop culture history, “Yippee-ki-yay…” (you know the rest).

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Biff Tannen in the 1985 movie: Back To the Future

Biff Tannen is the staple 1980s bully, the kind who leans into a punchline and a punch with the same brute force. In Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future, Biff isn’t just the local high school tormentor; he’s the embodiment of arrogance, greed, and cluelessness. But the kicker is that Biff’s fate isn’t entirely a result of his own incompetence, but bad luck, in the form of a time-traveling teenager, playing a cosmic joke on him.

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) accidentally travels back to 1955, Biff’s fate is sealed. Had Marty not intervened, Biff would have likely gone on to bully his way into a comfortable life, like we, the audience, know he does in the original premise of the movie. But kudos to the chaotic tornado of time paradoxes, skateboards, and a very persistent Doc Brown, Biff's life gets derailed in the most satisfying way. In a classic scene in the movie, Marty tricks Biff during the skateboard chase, resulting in Biff’s car barrelling into a manure truck. "I hate manure!" Biff yells, covered head-to-toe in the smelly remains of his own failure. That’s not just slapstick comedy; it’s cinematic karma with a tinge of cosmic misfortune.

And it doesn’t stop there. In the sequels, Biff gets close to winning by using the sports almanac, but time and again conspires against him. It’s as if the universe itself refuses to let Biff Tannen win. Time-travel was his big break, but it turned out to be his worst enemy. His crime? Being a jerk. His downfall? Very awful timing.

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Iosef Tarasov in the 2014 movie: John Wick

If there’s a poster child for terrible decisions mixed with bad timing, it is none other than Iosef Tarasov from John Wick (2014). Played by Alfie Allen, Iosef is not your typical power-hungry villain. No, Iosef is just a petulant brat who picked the wrong fight at the absolute wrong time.

Iosef’s big mistake? Stealing John Wick’s car and, in the ultimate act of cinematic stupidity, killing John’s puppy, a final gift from his late wife. If Iosef had robbed literally anyone else that day, he would have likely lived to tell the tale. However, fate, a cruel, unforgiving force, chose to align his path with that of a grieving assassin who just wanted to be left alone. Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), Iosef’s father and a Russian mob boss, sums it up perfectly when he says in exasperation, "It wasn’t just a car. It was John Wick’s car."

Iosef is a man who didn’t know the legend he had poked. The incredible thing about Iosef’s trajectory is that his death wasn’t related to criminal empires or power struggles, but pure, unfiltered bad fortune, with his ignorance and unnecessary cruelty leading to his downfall.

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Dennis Nedry in the 1993 movie: Jurassic Park

Dennis Nedry is the guy who thought he could outsmart a park full of dinosaurs. In Spielberg’s magnum opus, Jurassic Park, Nedry isn’t a villain in the traditional sense, but a greedy computer programmer who wanted a quick payday by smuggling dinosaur embryos. However, his plan was doomed not by the dinosaurs or even by the protagonists; instead, it was brought down by Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Played hilariously by Wayne Knight, Nedry is the architect of his own misfortune, but even then, the degree of bad luck he suffers is brutal. First, a torrential tropical storm blows in at the exact moment he decides to shut down the park’s security systems. Then his getaway plan is derailed when his jeep gets stuck. And finally, his fate is sealed when he’s blinded by venom and devoured by a Dilophosaurus. "Ah, ah, ah! You didn’t say the magic word," which is his own smug catchphrase, becomes the technological lock that no one else can break, leaving the park’s systems in chaos.

What’s almost Shakespearean about Nedry’s demise is that if any of the small things had gone his way, if the storm hadn’t hit, or if his jeep hadn’t slid off the path, or even if he’d just been able to see clearly, he might have gotten away with it. But alas, the gods of Jurassic Park had other plans. Nedry's greed, a series of unfortunate events, and some very bad weather ultimately led to his undoing.