Yes, I’ve liked a villain more than the hero. His name is Cobb. And he’s the most terrifying PREDATORS I’ve ever watched — because he doesn’t look like one.

Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Who and why?

I have watched Christopher Nolan’s Following more times than I’m comfortable admitting. 

He is one of the most vicious villains I’ve encountered in a film, precisely because he doesn’t look like one. 

• He’s calm, articulate, observant and seemingly intelligent. 
• His philosophy about burglary almost sounds reasonable. And then you realise what he’s actually doing. 
• He’s studying people, using them, positioning them and eventually destroying one person while making another look guilty.

That’s what makes Cobb so frightening to me. What he gets people to do.

The Movie — Following

Following is Christopher Nolan’s 1998 black-and-white neo-noir and his first feature film. The story follows Bill, a young writer who begins following strangers through London for material. One of them is Cobb, a burglar who takes Bill under his wing and gradually pulls him into his world. 

The film is only 69 minutes long and was made on a tiny budget, with much of it shot over weekends while Nolan and his collaborators worked around their day jobs.

It’s an early Nolan film, but the ideas are already there: perception, control, identity and people trying to understand a situation that isn’t what they think it is. Cobb talks about burglary as though it’s a way of understanding people. That’s why Bill listens.

The First Time I Watched Cobb, I Liked Him

That’s the uncomfortable part. Cobb is confident without being loud. He seems experienced without constantly proving it. He notices things. He explains things. He gives Bill his attention. Most importantly, he makes Bill feel as though he’s being let into something other people don’t understand. 

Bill doesn’t feel threatened. He feels chosen. Cobb never has to announce himself as dangerous because nothing about the beginning of their relationship feels dangerous.

How Cobb Actually Works

Once you stop looking at the individual incidents, Cobb’s method is remarkably simple: credibility → trust → access → information → boundary testing → use. He presents himself as someone worth listening to. That creates trust. Trust gives him access to someone’s private world. Access gives him information. Information tells him what matters to the person and where they are vulnerable. Then come the small boundary crossings: a request that feels slightly uncomfortable, an intrusion that seems minor, a decision that’s easier to justify because everything before it seemed harmless.

There is no giant moment where the victim suddenly thinks, I’m being manipulated. The line keeps moving. Cobb also understands that information is leverage. He studies homes because people’s private spaces reveal things about them. In ordinary life, the equivalent might be an insecurity, relationship problem, secret, ambition or fear. Knowing those things isn’t the problem. What matters is whether someone uses them to understand you or to influence you.

One of the clearest places to see that difference is what happens after you say no. A reasonable person can be disappointed and still respect your decision. A controlling person may turn your boundary into a problem with you: 

“After everything I’ve done for you?” 

“Why are you being difficult?” 

“You clearly don’t trust me.” 

“You’re overreacting.” 

The conversation stops being about the request and becomes about your right to refuse it. One incident proves little. A repeated pattern is what matters.

What the Cobb Pattern Looks Like in Real Life

A person doesn’t need to be a criminal to use this kind of behaviour. They could be a colleague, friend, partner, mentor or acquaintance. Look for a combination of these:

• They build credibility quickly and seem unusually perceptive or helpful.
• They create a sense of special trust, making you feel understood, chosen or indebted.
• Personal information starts flowing faster than usual, giving them knowledge about your vulnerabilities.
• Small boundary violations become normal, with each one making the next easier.
• Their approval starts influencing your decisions, even when you don’t consciously intend it.
• You change your behaviour to manage their reactions, rather than simply making your own choices.

No single behaviour proves someone is dangerous. The pattern matters. A useful question is: “What is happening to my freedom around this person?” If you’re regularly second-guessing yourself, hiding ordinary decisions, apologising for normal boundaries or withdrawing from people you trust, the relationship deserves a closer look.

Then He Uses People as Pieces

This is where Cobb’s manipulation becomes something much darker. The Blonde isn’t simply a romantic complication. Her relationship with Bill helps deepen his involvement and place him in circumstances that later work against him. Then she is killed. Bill’s genuine feelings become part of the evidence against him.

That’s Cobb’s particular kind of cruelty. He doesn’t just arrange events. He arranges how those events will be interpreted. People become useful because of the role they can play. Once that role is finished, so are they.

The Perfect Frame

By the end, Bill is sitting across from a detective. He didn’t commit the murder, but almost everything points toward him. His connection to the victim is real. His presence around her is real. His involvement in the burglaries is real. His movements can be traced. His emotional investment gives him what looks like a motive.

Cobb is nowhere in the frame. That’s the brilliance of it. He has constructed circumstances in which Bill’s own actions become evidence against him. Only then does the full design become clear: what Bill thought were separate decisions were pieces of a sequence Cobb had been shaping from the beginning.

At the End of the Film, There’s One Last Trick

There’s a quiet twist in the title: Following. 

It refers to Bill following strangers through London, but it also describes us. 

We follow Cobb. We listen to him. We accept his explanations. We stay with him because we want to understand what happens next. By the time the trap becomes visible, it’s already closed.

Cobb knew Bill would follow. And, in a strange way, he knew we would too.

Watch Following Twice

Following is only 69 minutes.

The first time, watch it as a crime story.

The second time, watch Cobb. Watch what he notices, what he learns, what he leaves behind and how the pieces begin to connect. 

The first time, watch what he does. 

The second time, watch how he gets everyone else to help him do it.

Still here? Good. That means Cobb got you.

Sixty-nine minutes. Black and white. Shot on weekends for £6,000. Start tonight.

▶  Watch the Trailer  — Following (1998) Official Trailer — YouTube

🎬  Watch the Full Movie  — Followihttps://youtu.be/cudWmHk1_iw?si=5RAeSZZT-qDE3xl0ng (1998) Full Movie — YouTube

YouTube availability may vary by region. The film is also on Amazon Prime Video.

Your Turn

Who is the movie villain you’ve liked more than the hero — and what was it about them that got under your skin?

— Odin