Taste of Cinema's list description: A good film cannot happen without a good hero. That much is clear to everyone. The fact that one cannot happen without a good villain as well seems to have been forgotten by many filmmakers throughout the decades and we have been left with a bunch of cardboard cutouts instead of real bad guys of flesh and blood, that we can actively recognize as real people.
Fortunately, however, the unsung heroes of cinema constantly went against the norms in order to create motion pictures that could be properly enjoyed, with actual human beings with their motives, needs and wishes on both sides of the story. We got baddies with a soft side, psychopaths with moral codes, serial killers with loving families...
