How to spot a surprise villain in TV and movies

• While older movies tended to be very clear about who the villain was supposed to be, many newer movies and TV shows do the complete opposite.They hide the villain among the good guys and wait until just the right moment for the big reveal.
• The most recent and most popular example of someone being "evil all along" - or a villain hiding in plain sight - is from "WandaVision." The twist villain wasn't revealed until late in the season, but there were numerous little signs that this person was someone to watch out for.
• We spoke with Jonathan Kuntz, a film history professor at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television to find out how to identify a surprise villain in TV shows and movies by looking at some classic examples.

Spoiler warning for the following TV shows and movies: "WandaVision," "Reservoir Dogs," "Frozen," "Psycho," "Stage Fright," "Incredibles 2," "The Usual Suspects," "Monsters, Inc.," "L.A. Confidential," "Watchmen," "Alien," "Get Out," "Saw," "Gone Girl," "Toy Story 3," "Westworld," "Hot Fuzz," "Strangers on a Train," and "Unbreakable."

Following is a transcript of the video:

Narrator: Back in 1903's "The Great Train Robbery," you could easily spot the bad guy. He's the one wearing a black hat. But modern filmmakers have made it more difficult to identify mystery villains, dropping small clues throughout the story for viewers to piece together before the big reveal. The most recent example of this is Marvel's "WandaVision."

♪ It's been Agatha all along ♪

We probably should've figured out this twist as soon as Agnes walked through the front door. But identifying a surprise villain requires knowing exactly where to look and when to listen.

Keyser Söze: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Narrator: Warning, spoilers ahead. In "WandaVision," Agnes is immediately established as the overly friendly neighbor, so we should be suspicious of her right away. Because the first thing to think about when searching for a villain is to focus on anyone who seems like they are definitely not the bad guy. They might even be portrayed as a victim. These characters are often too nice, like Agnes, or too weak, like Mr. Orange, who's bleeding to death early on in "Reservoir Dogs." In the most drastic case, the villain is even presumed dead.

Jonathan Kuntz: I think the trick to portraying villains has to be that you've gotta change up things as often as possible.

Narrator: That's Jonathan Kuntz, a professor of American film history at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

Kuntz: Your audiences are pretty villain-literate at this time. They've seen a lot of movies, and they know a lot of the tricks that people can pull. And they're going to be pretty alert.

Narrator: For example, Alfred Hitchcock is famous for crafting his villains as charismatic, seemingly good, regular people.

Kuntz: A lot of times he creates connections between his villains and his heroes, so sometimes it's kind of difficult to tell them apart.

Narrator: And you see this trend over and over again in Hollywood. Is the suspect wearing a white hat, like the sheriff in "Hot Fuzz" or William in "Westworld"? Then they're probably going to be wearing a black hat by the end of the story. Or take a look at Ozymandias in "Watchmen" and Captain Dudley Liam Smith in "L.A. Confidential." Both are authority figures who we're supposed to trust. These are the types of characters who often turn out to be the villain. It's become a tale as old as time in Disney and Pixar too. There's the nice old teddy bear, Lotso, in "Toy Story 3," who --

Rex: Smells like strawberries!

Narrator: And Anna's seemingly perfect prince boyfriend, Hans, in "Frozen." This technique of subverting traditional villains only works, however, if you have a red herring villain. Because there still needs to be plenty of conflict up until the big reveal. Take Hayward in "WandaVision." While he's definitely a villain, all our attention is focused on the bad things he's done and is doing to Wanda, directing our attention away from the clues that would lead us to suspect Agnes of anything treacherous. But you'll notice that lying to the audience is a definite no-no, as Hitchcock learned in the film "Stage Fright." This 1950 movie opened with a false flashback by the twist villain, and audiences were famously frustrated because it felt like Hitchcock lied to them. So now filmmakers rely on the art of omission. They're not lying, but they're not telling the whole truth either. You see this with "WandaVision" during the catchy "Agatha All Along" reveal. Here we learn that specific key scenes were framed to avoid showing what Agnes was doing at the time, purposefully leaving her out of the shot. So the second thing to look out for is how a show is framed or how a scene is edited. In this scene in "Psycho," when Marion meets Norman Bates, the camera is positioned behind Norman to emphasize him as a threat.

Kuntz: Sometimes we see angles of him where he's not simply a nice, skinny, friendly guy, but he seems a little bit more looming and menacing.

Narrator: And in "The Usual Suspects," when Keyser Söze is mentioned in the hospital --

Keyser Söze! [machine beeping] Keyser Söze!

Narrator: The camera immediately cuts to a shot of Verbal. They're literally telling us who his true identity is twice. These little winks to the viewer are only there if you look for them, especially since viewers don't normally think about what's happening off camera. But as we see in "WandaVision," what characters are doing off to the side does matter. Take this scene, where Agnes is the only one who finds Wanda's dog, Sparky. Later we learn she didn't just find him, she actually killed him.

[Agnes cackling]

Narrator: Which brings us to the third giveaway to look out for, the "kick the dog" moment. Obvious villains will have their kick the dog moment out in the open. [balloon pops] But with surprise villains, it might be happening when and where we aren't looking. In "The Usual Suspects," Verbal is the one who shoots Saul in the forehead, which surprises everyone else since Verbal is portrayed as the weakest of the bunch. In "Psycho," it's even more subtle, swapping out a dog for taxidermied birds on the walls at the Bates Motel. Particularly this owl, positioned like it's about to pounce on its victim, sitting across from Norman. These moments hint at a villain's lack of empathy -- and in this case, even at Norman's dead, preserved mother later in the movie. In "WandaVision," there are also multiple visual clues like this placed throughout the season to hint at Agnes' true identity, Agatha. To piece the puzzle together, you have to pay close attention to the mise-en-scène, or everything in the frame. The props, the background clues, and even the costume design. Agnes is always wearing some combination of purple and green, colors that have been used to code villains throughout comic-book history. Heroes, on the other hand, usually wear red and blue. Agnes always wears the same brooch with her outfits, which eagle-eyed fans might recognize as the same one Agatha wears in the comics. Sometimes the costume Easter eggs are even more in your face. She dresses as a literal witch on Halloween. Backgrounds are also telling, especially any items purposely visible just beyond the character. "Reservoir Dogs" is famous for its many orange-colored Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the film, hinting at Mr. Orange as the rat. Often the Easter eggs appear as art on the wall. In "Get Out," this image in Chris' apartment symbolizes Rose and her family's true intent with Chris. And this painting in "Psycho" is called "Susanna and the Elders." It shows a woman bathing who is attacked by a group of men, directly foreshadowing the infamous shower scene. And Easter eggs can also be props. In "Alien," Ash is shown drinking milk -- a drink of choice for many villains, and one that also foreshadows his milky white android blood. There are also some props in "The Usual Suspects" that hint that Keyser Söze is Verbal. When he tries to light a cigarette with his good arm, he knocks the lighter to the ground. He also gets the same gold lighter back from the police when he leaves the interrogation. If you look carefully at this scene, Verbal accidentally uses his weak arm to push back on the cop. It seems like he certainly notices his mistake, but did you? Timing like this is everything. Every time Agnes appears on screen she is there for a good reason, because there are no coincidences in screenwriting. When Wanda stumbles upon the helicopter drone, Agnes appears in the street.

Agnes: Look, it's the star of the show!

Narrator: And she distracts Vision while Wanda is talking to Geraldine inside the house. Surprise villains also don't make decisions unless they somehow further their agenda or hide their identity, like Ash in "Alien." Ash doesn't care about the crew -- his orders are just to bring the alien back alive. So he is the one who suggests they investigate the mysterious transmission. He ignores warnings from Ripley and eventually lets the infected Kane into the hatch even though it's dangerous. And in "Get Out," Rose is the one who suggests she and Chris go for a walk.

Rose: We're gonna go on a walk.

Narrator: Conveniently right as her father is about to start the bingo auction to see who will get to buy Chris' body. But identifying a villain isn't just about what you see. Sometimes it's about what you hear as well. Agnes certainly reveals a lot when she speaks.

Dottie: The devil's in the details, Bev.

Agnes: That's not the only place he is.

Kuntz: Ultimately, if you decode what she's saying, you can see a lot of witchlike comments in her seemingly ordinary sentences.

Wanda: I'm Wanda.

Agnes: Wanda. Charmed. I actually did bite a kid once.

Narrator: Dialogue cues are a big villain telltale. Even Shakespeare's villains would say they were outright evil.

Iago: How am I then then a villain?

Narrator: In "Unbreakable," the main villain, Elijah, accidentally gives himself away when he says that villains are typically drawn with disproportionately large heads. If you look at his reflection in the glass, his own head is distorted to look much bigger than normal. It's even more telling when characters who are typically silent speak up. In the opening scene of "Reservoir Dogs," all of the characters are chatty except one: Mr. Orange. But when he does say something, he's ratting on Mr. Pink for not paying his tip.

Joe Cabot: Who didn't throw in?

Mr. Orange: Mr. Pink.

Cabot: Mr. Pink?

Narrator: Our first major clue that he is the rat. In more subtle cases, music can also be used, like in "Get Out." Listen to the song when Rose is buying pastries and heading over to Chris' apartment.

♪ But stay woke ♪ ♪ Stay woke, stay woke ♪

Narrator: The lyrics literally warn you that she is out to get him.

♪ They gon' find you ♪ ♪ They gon' find you ♪ ♪ Gon' catch you sleepin' ♪ ♪ Gon' catch you sleepin' ♪

Narrator: But you don't always need a song lyric to spell it out for you. Sometimes you just need to break down a character's name.

Man: Keyser Söze!

Narrator: In "WandaVision," Agnes is actually a portmanteau of her real name, Agatha Harkness. In "Incredibles 2," the surprise villain is Winston Deavor's sister, Evelyn. Once you say her full name out loud, Evelyn Deavor, you realize it wasn't much of a surprise at all. And "The Usual Suspects" wouldn't have had much of a twist ending if you actually translated the name of the villain. "Keyser Söze" is derived from the Turkish phrase "söze boğmak," meaning "to drown in words." Kevin Spacey's character's name is Verbal. And early on in the film, he plainly tells us

Verbal: People say I talk too much.

Yeah, I was just gonna tell you to shut up.

Narrator: But knowing what to look for in a surprise villain can also ruin a TV show or movie. And switching black and white hats can only be used so much.

Kuntz: In each decade, it seems, the filmmakers kind of have to up the ante a little bit.

Narrator: "WandaVision" certainly plays with all these traditional surprise-villain tropes. But Agatha's twist is more than just a classic evil reveal. Even though Wanda created the show, Agatha was the one directing it since the beginning. You have to come up with something new that no one's ever seen before, a twist that no one's ever seen before.

Agnes: And I killed Sparky too. [Agnes cackles]