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  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies

50 Worst Movie Betrayals

Features
By Joshua Winning published 6 November 2012

Watch your back… Spoilers ahead!

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Stalag 17 (1953)

The Betrayal: Price (Peter Graves) is a German spy in a POW camp who’s attempting to siphon information from his fellow prisoners. Until Sefton (William Holden) turns him in, that is.

Why It’s So Bad: Not only does Sefton expose Price as a fraud, he also dooms him to death in the most horrific way.

The Fallout: Price is hurled out into the camp’s yard, where soldiers pump him full of bullets.

Road To Perdition (2002)

The Betrayal: Mob enforcer Michael Sullivan, Sr. (Tom Hanks) is betrayed by his boss, John Rooney (Paul Newman), who kills Sullivan’s family when Sullivan’s son witnesses a murder.

Why It’s So Bad: Rooney has no qualms about murdering innocent women and children, no matter if they’re the family of an employee.

Now that’s cold.

The Fallout: Sullivan goes rogue. Awesome.

Article continues below
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Unfaithful (2002)

The Betrayal: Housewife Connie (Diane Lane) cheats on her husband with the dishy Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez).

Why It’s So Bad:
Sure, Connie learns a few new bedroom tricks, but it’s not long before husband Ed (Richard Gere) finds out and decides to kill the other man.

The Fallout: Jealous rage and a messy ending.

Casino (1995)

The Betrayal: Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) betrays buddy Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) by bedding his wife (Sharon Stone) and then plotting to murder him.

Why It’s So Bad: Stealing a man’s wife and plotting his murder?

What is this guy’s problem?

The Fallout: Nicky discovers what it’s like to be betrayed when his former associate Frankie Marino (Frank Vincent) is hired by Sam to kill him.

Infernal Affairs (2002)

The Betrayal: Both Chan Wing-yan (Tony Leung) and Lau Kin-ming (Andy Lau) betray different organisations – the first goes undercover as a crim, the latter goes undercover as a cop.

Why It’s So Bad: This can never work out, surely.

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Have neither of them seen Reservoir Dogs ?

The Fallout: Lots of shooting and Lau being arrested.

Fatal Attraction (1987)

The Betrayal: Married New Yorker Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) has a weekend fling with sultry editor Alex Forrest (Glenn Close).

But Alex wants it to last more than a weekend.

Why It’s So Bad: It all goes a bit wrong as Alex’s obsessive desire runs rampant, resulting in that infamous bunny boiling scene.

The Fallout: A very bloody bath.

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The Third Man (1949)

The Betrayal: The police think heartless crook Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is dead, right? Right.

Well, that’s until his supposed friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) tells the police that he’s alive – and then informs them of his whereabouts.

Why It’s So Bad: If you can’t count on your best friend to cover for you, what can you count on?

The Fallout: Martins ends up shooting Lime himself – then attending his second, authentic funeral.

Amadeus (1984)

The Betrayal: Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is so jealous of his gifted friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) that he plots to commission a composition from him, kill him and then pass it off as his own.

Why It’s So Bad: It’s just plain bad sportsmanship.

If you’re not a great composer, don’t be a composer. Not hard, is it?

The Fallout: The plan falls apart when Mozart is unable to finish his composition.

That’ll show you, Salieri.

The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)

The Betrayal: After successfully hunting for gold with his buddy Curtin (Tim Holt), Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) turns on his friend and kills him.

Why It’s So Bad: The only thing driving Dobbs is paranoia and greed – he needn’t have killed Curtin at all.

The Fallout: Dobbs is killed himself by bandits.

That’ll show him.

Oldboy (2003)

The Betrayal: Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and locked up for 15 years by Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae), who’s holding a very big grudge about a high school rumour perpetuated by Oh Dae-su years ago.

Why It’s So Bad: Lee’s plans involve a sickeningly perverted twist involving Oh Dae-su’s relationship with a young chef.

The Fallout: Pure tragedy in motion.

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Joshua Winning
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Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.  

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