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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
I only watched the first couple seasons of The Boys (somehow less edgy than the comic book!)
But Huey slowly coming to the realization that sometimes the enemy can't be defeated through the system and sometimes there are controlled opposition on "your side" working to just hinder your movement and you really do gotta come out and kill people sometimes.
Now it's not him siding with the villains, so much as a liberal realizing the futility of non-violence and working within the system, and joining up with a guerilla terrorist group that eventually gets recruited by the CIA is surprisingly realistic for a superhero show made by Amazon.
There's a mecha movie with a surprisingly fun plot twist at the very end called Robot Jox. Both the villain and the hero are being screwed by their government sponsors, and ultimately...
spoiler
EDIT: I said "bad" but actually I enjoyed it.
I'd dispute the "bad movie" label on that one. Robot Jox is a definite B-movie, but actually a pretty good one.
I may edit that; I agree, it was a fun movie even if it wasn't a highbrow movie.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Joint Security Area both feature something kinda like this, but the "villain" is presented sympathetically from the start, and both sides develop instead of just having the antagonist change for the sake of the protagonist. Decision to Leave might be closer, but I get the feeling you're looking for a movie that might involve political conflict and that movie is focused on few interpersonal conflicts.
Yeah Avatar is an obvious example too, but the blue guys are sympathetic almost immediately.
That's just an antihero
Most antihero stories feature the antihero as the protagonist though, and they tend to be the lesser evil among many morally bad characters. I can't think of many examples of the antihero trope where they coexist with a "good" protagonist and the protagonist ends up siding with the antihero. Usually it's the complete opposite, something like RRR or the shounen cycle where an antihero character who starts off as a powerful villain becomes an ally to the unambiguously good protagonist when faced with a common enemy.
I hate to say it cause it is so mediocre but, Captain Marvel is exactly this idea
I'd say it's more of a "twist villain" rather than the hero being convinced the villains were right.
Kinda, but I mean if you did a story about say the Saint Patrick's battalion it would follow similar beats in that sense. Taken in by a faction, told these people are your enemies, realize they are actually the victims, switch sides. It is a distinction, but not a big one
The Watchmen. I'm thinking the books, but I guess there's a movie too.
I don't think you're supposed to conclude that Ozymandias is right.
Most of the heroes side with him, which I think was the question. In terms of what the reader is supposed to think, that's of course an opinion formed. For what it's worth, the author Alan Moore apparently hates Rorschach, the one hero who does not side with Ozymandias. Moore is an eccentric though.
I would contend you're supposed to dislike all of them, Rorschach is a moral absolutist who can't accept the other characters' tolerance of Veidt's plan but that is not a redeeming quality, he has violent fantasies of hurting people for petty crime.
Watchmen is a send up of Superheroes as an idea, Moore basically posits that real superheroes would be a horrendous disaster because they would all be bad.
You're right that the heroes agree. I guess I interpreted the OP as asking for an example of a correct villain in the sense that they correctly pursue a real good end against the hero, not "a guy who does 9/11 to a city and convinces a bunch of fascists that he was correct to do that. "
Suzaku's arc in Geass is kinda like this. Of course it's all insane but there's definitely an element of what you're talking about.
Yeah the guy goes through a very well written radicalization arc. Starts the show being an insufferable liberal, ends it supporting the revolution he fought against. Don't expect any kind of real leftist theory from this anime, but it at least wears genuine anti-imperialism on its sleeve.
Hero (2002), a Chinese movie about a guy who realizes that peasants are scum and need the iron fist of a just and kind ruler to keep them civilized. He initially planned on murdering the benevolent monarch because peasants are nothing more than barbaric, uneducated fools, but he shows that rare trait after so long of finally realizing that obviously a monarch would know better, and they basically work together to fight the system, but the monarch is forced, reluctantly and painfully, to give the idiot peasants what they want and have the guy executed.
been a while since I've seen it but I don't remember it being particularly anti-peasant? IIRC it was still pretty dubious politically but more about the hero becoming pragmatic that it was less important which warring state came out on top than it was to end the cycle of war.
Admittedly I'm being a little cheeky but honestly it was probably a movie that simply took pride in China's history and not intended to make any kind of elitist messaging.
Not a movie, but the first three books Glen Cook's The Black Company are basically this arc.
Never thought I'd see The Black Company referenced on this site. I don't have high hopes that we will, Cook is very old, but I'd love it if we get A Pitiless Rain someday as a capstone to the series. I mean, Soldiers Live is a pretty good capstone to the series, but now we've got Port of Shadows sitting there kind of awkwardly as the last Black Company book (I like Port, but it is an odd book and quite stylistically different from any other Company book, imo).