When villains become heroes in the next movie, the change is not always a full redemption. Some make a lasting break with their past; others join former enemies because circumstances change, a worse threat appears, or self-interest points in the same direction. Jack Pooley’s WhatCulture list, published March 24, 2024, names these ten examples. Its selection and ordering are editorial, not a consensus ranking.
What counts as a villain-to-hero turn?
The label “villain” is broad here. Apollo Creed is chiefly Rocky’s sporting rival, while Hector Barbossa and Gunnar Jensen have loyalties that shift with circumstance. The useful distinction is whether a character changes their values, forms a temporary alliance, or simply ends up on the same side as the protagonists. These examples range from friendship and comic reform to reprogramming and morally fraught protection.
Ten sequel turns, from rivalries to uneasy alliances
1. Hector Barbossa — Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Barbossa begins as a scheming antagonist in The Curse of the Black Pearl. In Dead Man’s Chest, he helps the group pursue Jack Sparrow’s soul; in At World’s End, he works alongside Jack against shared enemies. But Barbossa’s allegiance remains fluid, and his own ambitions never disappear. This is a shifting alliance, not a permanent moral conversion.
2. Teddy Sanders — Bad Neighbours 2
In Bad Neighbours, Teddy leads a disruptive fraternity that clashes with the protagonists. The sequel changes the balance when a more chaotic sorority becomes a shared threat. Teddy’s turn toward helping his former adversaries is comic and relative: the new circumstances make cooperation useful, rather than proving that he has become a wholly different person.
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3. Apollo Creed — Rocky III
Apollo is Rocky’s boxing rival, not a straightforward villain. After Rocky defeats him in Rocky II, Apollo helps train him to face Clubber Lang in Rocky III. Their competitive relationship develops into friendship, making this one of the clearest antagonist-to-ally transitions on the list—but not a conventional redemption story.
4. Zed McGlunk — Police Academy 3: Back in Training
Zed first appears as leader of the Scullions in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment. He returns as a recruit in Police Academy 3, trading gang leadership for a place in the academy. The broad, comic tone makes the reversal deliberately outsized: the joke is in seeing a former troublemaker try to fit into the institution he once opposed.
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5. Mini-Me and Dr. Evil — Austin Powers in Goldmember
These are two separate turns. Mini-Me defects from Dr. Evil’s side after Dr. Evil favors Scott, then joins Austin. Dr. Evil’s own change of allegiance follows a different motivation: he discovers that Austin is his brother. The family revelation prompts cooperation, but it does not make Mini-Me’s defection and Dr. Evil’s change the same decision.
6. Leatherface — Texas Chainsaw 3D
Texas Chainsaw 3D makes the most extreme genre move on the list by repositioning Leatherface, a slasher-film killer, as an ally. The reversal is provocative rather than a clean moral redemption. It asks viewers to accept a radically changed role for a character associated with terror, without erasing what made him frightening in the first place.
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7. Norman Nordstrom — Don’t Breathe 2
The first Don’t Breathe reveals grave crimes by Norman. In the sequel, he becomes the protector of a young girl facing a worse adversary. That change makes him a morally compromised protector or antihero, not an uncomplicated hero: the new threat may give viewers a reason to root for him in the moment, but it does not undo his earlier wrongdoing. This is the most ethically contentious example in the list.
8. Gunnar Jensen — The Expendables 2
Gunnar betrays his team in the first Expendables film, then provides information that helps them. In The Expendables 2, he is back with the group against a new enemy. His arc is best read as a return to ally status after partial redemption, rather than a sudden first-time conversion from villain to hero.
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9. The T-800 — Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The T-800 becomes John Connor’s protector after being reprogrammed by the human resistance. The important qualification is that this is not the exact machine that pursued Sarah Connor in The Terminator: that original T-800 was destroyed. The sequel delivers a memorable franchise-level role reversal through a different machine of the same model.
10. Jin Shanzhao — Ip Man 2
Ip Man defeats and expels Jin in the first film. In Ip Man 2, Jin returns with his gang to help rescue Ip and his student from rival martial-arts students. The alliance is striking because the characters’ relationship began in conflict, though the change is tied to the immediate rescue rather than presented as a complete moral transformation.
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Why these turns work differently
Across the ten films, a sequel can make an old antagonist useful without making them virtuous. The mechanism matters: Apollo’s rivalry becomes friendship; Teddy and Barbossa respond to shared threats; Dr. Evil’s turn follows a family revelation; the T-800 is reprogrammed; and Gunnar returns after a partial break with his team. Leatherface and Norman push the idea further by asking viewers to accept a far more unsettling shift in sympathy.
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