10 Even More Movie Villains You Didn't Realise Actually Won

Perhaps the single most basic expectation most audiences have from movies is that the hero triumphs over the villain at the end. It doesn't always happen of course, but one of the core tenets of successful storytelling is that, more often than not, the hero succeeds in their quest eventually.

Sometimes the villain wins and the movie makes quite a show of it, but occasionally it happens a little more subtly than that, with viewers having to read between the lines to appreciate that the antagonist actually came out on top.

And so, as a threequel in our series of articles on the tantalising subject, here are another 10 movie villains you didn't realise actually won.

These antagonists may not have had everything go their way, but on the balance of circumstances they succeeded in their goals, got away with it, faced no real punishment, or even enriched themselves despite what that superficially "happy" ending might be trying to tell you.

These movies perhaps tried to angle things differently, by the villains were largely left cackling with glee off-screen as the end credits rolled...

Though Spider-Man: Far From Home ends with Spidey (Tom Holland) defeating Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), the movie elects not to mop up the army of disgruntled former Stark Industries employees who were helping Beck behind-the-scenes.

And chief among them is William Ginter Riva (Peter Billingsley), who first appeared in the original Iron Man and returns here to aid Mysterio in his vengeful superheroic masquerade.

After Mysterio dies at film's end, we catch one final glimpse of Riva as he backs up a copy of Mysterio's drone software and prepares to leak Spider-Man's identity to J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), and that's the last we've seen of him to date.

Before Riva disappeared into the ether, he created a massive problem for Peter Parker by exposing his identity, and though Parker eventually managed to resolve this by the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, having everyone forget who he is was certainly a less-than-ideal solution.

Unlike Beck, Riva not only survived but likely also maintained his anonymity and so was basically able to slink off into the night undetected, free to do... whatever the hell he wants.