Yandere/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"And don't you think I understand what you're doing? You're trying to move him into the country... and you're keeping him away from me. And you're playing happy family. Aren't you? [begins to slice her own leg with a butcher knife] You wouldn't understand that because you're so... so selfish. He told me about you. He told me about you. He was very honest. If you weren't so stupid, you'd know that. But you're so stupid. You're so stupid... you're a stupid, selfish bitch!"
Alex Forrest, Fatal Attraction, to Beth Gallagher.

  • To start with, an incredibly tame example, bordering on too tame for this trope. Lina Lamont from Singin in The Rain gets Kathy Seldon fired from her job as a dancer after Kathy embarrased her at a party. However, it's implied that Lina's real reason for getting Kathy fired was because Don was looking for her. If this film weren't a comedy, Lina would certainly have gone further.
  • This is the whole plot of Misery. Kathy Bates won a very well-awarded Oscar for his portrayal of an obsessed fan of a male writer.
  • If Yuno Gasai is the poster child of yanderes in anime and manga, Lola from The Loved Ones is the poster child of yanderes in live action. She's yandere in Nightmare Fuel levels
  • Mark Wahlberg's character David McCall in the 1996 movie Fear.
  • In The Crush, Adrian loves Nick so much she's willing to kill his girlfriend and her own friend to get him. Luckily, she doesn't succeed.
  • Male example-Dr. Frank N Furter. Sure, he flirts with nearly everyone in the film. But, if he sees Rocky with ANYONE else besides him, he goes into a jealous rage. Janet Weiss (SLUT!) had to learn this the hard way.
  • Debbie in the movie Devil In The Flesh and it's sequel Devil In The Flesh 2.
  • Gloria in the 2005 film Wedding Crashers. "We're going to be together forever..."
  • Samantha James in the movie Just Friends.
  • Little Esther Coleman, the Russian Orphan, loves her new Daddy very VERY much.
  • Bobby (played by Fred Savage) in the TV movie No One Would Tell.
    • Many, many "evil men" in these Lifetime Movies are portrayed as evil Yanderes who ruin the lives of the "poor little women" because they won't "submit" to their cocks EVER. Remember, ladies, you should never ever trust anyone with a penis if you live in a Lifetime-like environment!
    • And if the Yandere is a female, she's either the Psycho Ex-Girlfriend who Wants Her Man Back NOW, or the angry Woman Scorned who wants to steal the male lead from under the female lead's nose and won't take no for an answer. Sandy Burrow (Joely Fisher) from Seduction in a Small Town is a great example of a Lifetime-like Yandere: when she throws herself at local Hot Dad Paul Jenks (Dennis Weaver) and is rebuffed because he's Happily Married to Hot Mom Sarah (Melissa Gilbert), among other things, she gets so pissed that she falsely accuses them both of being horrible Abusive Parents to their two kids and gets them thrown in jail. Twice.
  • Cal Hockley in the 1997 movie Titanic. He became increasingly possessive and violent towards his fiance Rose, and jealous of Jack, when Jack and Rose started spending a lot of time together. He had Lovejoy, his right hand man, outright stalk Rose to keep an eye on her and make sure she was not with Jack. He even framed Jack with robbery and made it so that he would be locked up in the ship's lower deck, knowing full well that the ship was sinking, and when that didn't work, tried to kill both Jack and Rose out of anger. (Though a deleted scene showed that he had Lovejoy go after Jack, wanting to have him kill Jack in his place.) Despite all that, he tried to find Rose later on, when they were both on one of the rescue ships, hoping to apologize, still wanting to marry her.
  • Eve Harrington from All About Eve pretends to be like this. She's the sweetest, humblest, most helpful young woman you'll ever meet, and above all else, wants to work entirely for and with Margo and model her life on Margo's, as closely as she can manage. Heaven help anyone who stands in the way of these things.
  • Glenn Close as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. The main character's fling with her was supposed to be a one-night stand, but Alex simply would not let go, and the further he tried to distance himself from her, the crazier she got until she eventually went off the deep end. Her most infamous act gave rise to the slang term "bunny-boiler" to refer to yandere-types in the West. Glenn Close as the Yandere was one of the reasons that Fatal Attraction was popular in Japan.
  • Before Fatal Attraction stole its iconic status, Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me was the reference movie for this trope. Eastwood's first directorial effort has him stalked by an obsessive fan. Who can frighten even Dirty Harry and The Man With No Name? Why, it's Jessica Walter (before she played the rich, alcoholic harpy Lucille on Arrested Development), a veteran TV actress normally so square you would expect her to wear a shoulder strap purse and sensible skirt in the shower or on the moon. The psychotically jealous Evelyn Draper was the performance of a lifetime for her, leading a generation to get creeped out whenever they heard the classic Erroll Garner tune on the radio.
  • In the 2007 film adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Mrs. Nellie Lovett spends the movie jumping between swooning over her beloved "Mr. T" and gladly butchering his victims to make pie. This is consistent with her behavior in the stage musical. The yandere-ness, on the other hand, comes in with her treatment of Lucy Barker, a.k.a. the Beggar Woman, and the way that she led Sweeney to believe that she was dead so that she could have him for herself.
  • In Audition, the male lead holds an audition for a girlfriend/wife under the guise of an audition for a movie, only to have the girl he picks be Asami... a very, very creepy yandere. One scene involves the girl putting needles in the victim's eyes, all the while making an almost cutesy sound while gently (agonizingly) taping them in. In short, she tortures him for misleading her into believing he would love only her, not for the fake movie audition. Very, very creepy.
  • Madison Bell of Swimfan, a Fatal Attraction story set in high school in the modern day.
  • The aptly-titled film Obsessed centers around this trope.
    • The main plot of another film titled Obsessed is Tyrese's main character in a Psychotic Love Triangle with the woman he had an affair with and his wife. Now while this may sound totally hot to some many others would be praying for the sweet release of death from this scenario.
  • "Big Brother Ma" from the 2008 Chinese film Butterfly Lovers. At first you think he's just going to be the Unlucky Childhood Friend of the tale. And then the plot ensues...
  • Debbie Jellinsky from Addams Family Values, who earned the nickname "Black Widow" for murdering husbands who were too busy to give her the love she needed (it doesn't help that she, being a materialistic woman, likes to marry men who have a lot of money, who usually have to work around the clock).

Debbie : Sorry, Debbie, no Mercedes this year. We have to set an example. Oh yeah? Set THIS!

    • She also murdered her family via burning her house down for getting her the wrong Barbie doll. Of course, being The Addams Family, the whole thing is played for laughs.
  • The Flying Brick title character of My Super Ex-Girlfriend vows to destroy the protagonist's life after he breaks up with her. One memorable scene had her throw a shark into the bedroom of his new girlfriend after spending the night with her.
  • Harriet from So I Married an Axe Murderer, who becomes a bit unhinged after winning over Charlie.
    • In a subversion, this is because all of her previous husbands abandoned her and she's developed a complex -- or so she thinks. Turns out Harriet's sister was an insane Yandere for Harriet. She murdered Harriet's husbands and faked their deaths to keep Harriet to herself and nearly does the same to Charlie near the end.
  • Liz Dunn from the British movie The Hole, who locks herself, her best friend, the guy she fancies and his best friend in the titular bunker in order to get the guy to notice her. She won't stop even when the situation deteriorates.
  • Captain Leo becomes this towards the end of House of Flying Daggers, once it's clear that his Action Girlfriend Mei has fallen for his friend Jin.
  • The French film À la folie... pas du tout (released in English as He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not) is about a young woman who at first appears to be in a relationship with an emotionally distant doctor, until the second half, when it turs out that he didn't know her at all.
  • Inglourious Basterds: Fredrick towards Shosanna.
  • Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is sort of a Les Yay version of this towards Allie (Bridget Fonda) in Single White Female. She even kills Allie's boyfriend. After blowing him.
  • In Leave Her to Heaven Ellen is very much like this towards Richard.
  • In The Snake Pit, the insane asylum's head nurse is one of these, getting jealous because she believes the main character is competition for Dr. Kik's affections. It should be added that there's absolutely no good reason to believe that Dr. Kik feels anything more than what he ought to for her, especially given that his goal is to get her well enough to leave with her husband.
  • In the movie Rat Race Tracy goes into psycho mode when she finds her boyfriend cheating on her with his ex. Upon seeing him and his ex in a steamy pool in the backyard, she attempts to nose dive at them in her helicopter and in their haste to avoid it they break the pool and the water sends them crashing into the side of his house. After that, she proceeds to drop things, including a can of pink paint, onto his truck, and chase him down in the chopper, while using the landing skids to destroy his truck. After running him off the road, she steals the truck upon finding her helicopter's engine is shot. She then yells and punches him in the face, almost strangles him with the truck window, puts a bra in his mouth and throws him out of the already running truck.
  • In the French film Haute Tension, this trope is exemplified in the protagonist, Marie, who creates an alternate personality to brutally murder the family of her lesbian crush, Alex... simply so that she could have her all to herself.
  • The Other Mother in the film-adaptation of Coraline. So much...
  • Mal Cobb in Inception. While both alive and in her husband's subconcious. Although, she's in this state because her husband Mind Raped her into it, leaving us to wonder who the real yandere is here.
    • It's made explicit that the reason she's there is that Cobb can't let her go even though she's crazy, dead, and a serious danger to everyone, so this trope applies to both of them.
  • The Duke from the 2001 film version of Moulin Rouge:

Duke: Satine will be mine. It's not that I'm a jealous man! I JUST DON'T--LIKE--OTHER PEOPLE TOUCHING MY THINGS!!
(Beat)
Zidler: (Totally freaked out) I... understand... completely... Duke.

  • Princess Kaede in Ran behaves like a yandere in many ways, but it's all (or at least mostly) an act. That is, the part in which she is madly in love with Jiro. The part in which she orders all competition killed and wants to murder him is real however.
  • In Tormented we get a yandere ghost. Disturbingly, the movie seems to consider her actions, and her perception of events, as perfectly justified.
  • Anakin Skywalker lives this trope. He falls in love with exactly one girl in his whole life, and they go from "old crush" to "man and wife" in the course of a movie. Then he thinks she'll die in childbirth, so he Face Heel Turns to the dark side to prevent it...and then he kills her via Force Choke because he got it into his head that she betrayed him for Obi-Wan, who he saw as competition even though he really wasn't.
  • Jackie from The House of Yes is probably the only character on this page to combine the Yandere with incest.
  • The 2009 film Crush features a supernatural version of this trope. . . . in the last 12 minutes. One that can actually shoot Hadoukens. And she succeeds in the end.
  • The 2011 thriller The Roommate has one .

"I GOT RID OF EM ALL!!!! For you. . . ."

    • The writer of this film is currently writing another Yandere film, Crush.
  • Of all people, the Spirit of Christmas Present becomes a Yandere in Scrooged.
  • The Bishop of Aquila in Ladyhawke is a male example of this regarding his unrequited love toward Isabeau d'Anjou and the man SHE loves (and who loves her back), Etienne Navarre. He set a curse that rendered Isabeau a hawk during the day and Etienne a wolf at night, ensuring they could never be together as two humans for as long as they lived.
  • The Cable Guy
  • Uma Thurman in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
  • Christy Lee in The Social Network, to a lesser extent. Intentionally setting your boyfriend's bed on fire is normal, right?
  • The Lifetime Original Movie Homecoming is one, with a plot somewhat similar to Misery. One of the few instances where the film is built around the torturing of her "beloved's" romantic interests.
  • Jackson Rippner in Red Eye to Lisa. Confirmed by Word of God in the commentary, Rippner did develop feelings for Lisa over the eight weeks he had to watch her. Not healthy feelings, but feelings nevertheless.
  • In The Adventures Of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina the Mole King goes Ax Crazy when Thumbelina rejects him and chooses Tom instead.
  • In Villain, when the Villain Protagonist Shimizu's girlfriend stands him up to go off with another guy, Shimizu follows them and kills her.
  • Blue in Sucker Punch is a definitive male version of this trope: creepy, violent, possessive, moody, delusional, obsessive, creepy, mood swingy, twisted sense of ownership, disrespectful, and insane.
  • Lost Highway. Mr Eddy: Her name is Alice. I swear I love that girl to death. If I ever found out someone was making out with her. I'd take this - pulls out a pistol - and shove it so far up his ass it would come out his mouth. Then you know what I'd do? I'd blow his fuckin' brains out.
  • Chad from Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, for Allison.
  • Angelique in Dark Shadows. Dear God, Angelique. It's not enough to simply kill the parents of the man who spurned you, to really get his heart you apparently have to kill his girlfriend, turn him into a vampire so he can never die, then lock him in an iron box so that he's left to suffer for eternity, as well as curse his descendants.