The Film: Aliens (1986)

The Traitor: Carter Burke (Paul Reiser)

Who Do They Betray? Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the colonial marines sent to LV-426.

Okay, so Ripley and co had him fingered for a smooth-talking shyster almost from the start - after all, he works for The Company.

But none of them quite suspect his true motives - it was he who ordered the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship that housed the xenomorph eggs in the hopes that living specimens could be found.

Oh, and he wants to smuggle implanted aliens back within Ripley and colony survivor Newt (Carrie Henn).

His company overlords are in need of a bioweapon and the slavering, acid-drooling monstoids could be it. Shame no-one told the marines that...

Comeuppance? In a remarkable example of irony that even Alanis Morisette could appreciate, Burke ends up killed by the very creatures he set out to harvest.

Plus he's played by smug comic/thesp Reiser, so we're all glad he gets his.



The Film: LA Confidential (1997)

The Traitor: Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell)

Who Do They Betray? Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey)

But he was Babe's dad! How could kind farmer Hoggett shoot one of his own officers?

Yes, the sudden reveal of Cromwell's Captain Smith as a man cruel and cunning enough to shoot one of his own men when he gets too close to the truth is one of the more stunning reveals in Curtis Hanson's film.

That said, Smith isn't exactly a paragon of virtue - he encourages men like Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) to routinely break the law if it'll bring wrongdoers to justice.

Comeuppance? In the movie's big final shoot-out, he's gunned down by Exley.

What goes around, comes around, Dud...

Next: Benny & Fredo