What Is a Deuteragonist? Meaning and 10 Movie Examples

Dustin Hoffman won the Oscar for Best Actor for Rain Man. Thirteen years later, Denzel Washington won it for Training Day. Neither man played the hero of his film. Rain Man is Charlie Babbitt’s story, and Training Day belongs to the rookie cop, Jake Hoyt. Hoffman and Washington played the second most important character, the one the story can’t do without.

That character has a name: the deuteragonist. You’ve watched hundreds of them. Most audiences just never had a word for it.

What Is a Deuteragonist?

A deuteragonist is the character who matters most after the protagonist. They’re on screen almost as much as the hero, they want something of their own, and the story can’t reach its ending without them. Remove the deuteragonist and the plot falls apart.

The word comes from Greek theater. At first a tragedy had one actor and a chorus. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, Aeschylus added a second actor, and Sophocles added a third. The Greeks called them the protagonist, the deuteragonist and the tritagonist: the first, second and third actor. You say it doo-tuh-RAG-uh-nist.

A deuteragonist isn’t the same as a sidekick. A sidekick helps the hero and doesn’t change much. A deuteragonist has a journey of their own. They can also be a foil character, whose differences make the hero stand out, or even the antagonist, as long as they’re the second most important person in the story. Below them sits the tritagonist, and below that the rest of the secondary characters.

10 Deuteragonist Examples in Movies

These 10 deuteragonist examples count down from a one-eyed monster to a pair of outlaws. Every entry names the protagonist and the deuteragonist, what the second lead wants and how the film did.

10) Monsters, Inc. (2001)

The top scarer in Monstropolis finds a human child in the factory, and his best friend wants her gone.

Sulley, voiced by John Goodman, is the best scarer at Monsters, Inc. Then a little girl he names Boo follows him into the monster world, and he can’t bring himself to send her back. His best friend and scare assistant, Mike, voiced by Billy Crystal, just wants her gone before they both lose everything. When Sulley chooses Boo over their careers, Mike refuses to follow him, and Sulley goes back alone.

Mike wasn’t in the early drafts. The story team added him in 1998 because Sulley needed someone to talk to. He became the film’s heart: he comes back, buys Sulley the time he needs, and at the end rebuilds Boo’s door, piece by piece, for his friend. After two solo sessions, Crystal pushed to record with Goodman, which is rare in animation. Monsters, Inc. opened with $62.6 million, then a record for an animated film.

9) Men in Black (1997)

A New York cop is recruited into a secret agency that polices aliens on Earth, by a partner who’s quietly planning his exit.

Agent K, played by Tommy Lee Jones, recruits a hotshot NYPD officer, played by Will Smith, after he chases down a suspect who turns out not to be human. You see the agency through the rookie’s eyes. He gets the questions, the jokes and the new name, Agent J. K is the veteran with all the answers and no patience for the new guy’s questions.

Jones is billed first, but the story belongs to J. It’s only at the end that K’s own arc comes out. He hasn’t been training a partner. He’s been training his replacement. J erases K’s memory so he can retire, and the agent who had everything under control goes home. Men in Black opened with $51.1 million, the biggest Fourth of July opening at the time, and won the Oscar for Best Makeup.

8) Beauty and the Beast (1991)

A young woman takes her father’s place as a prisoner in an enchanted castle, and her captor has until the last petal falls to change.

Belle, voiced by Paige O’Hara, wants more than her small French town can give her. She trades places with her father as the Beast’s prisoner, and the film follows her choices: to stay, to leave and to come back. The Beast, voiced by Robby Benson, is a prince cursed for his cruelty. He has until the last petal falls from an enchanted rose to learn to love and be loved.

Here’s the twist. Lyricist Howard Ashman and writer Linda Woolverton felt it was really the Beast’s story. Producer Don Hahn called him “the guy trapped in the monkey suit who has to redeem himself.” He has the bigger change. But Belle makes the decisions that move the plot, which makes her the protagonist and him the deuteragonist. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture.

7) 48 Hrs. (1982)

A tough San Francisco cop springs a convict from prison for two days to help him catch a cop killer.

Jack Cates, played by Nick Nolte, is hunting the two men who killed his fellow officers. The only person who can lead him to them is Reggie Hammond, a convict with six months left on his sentence. Jack gets him out on a 48-hour pass. Reggie, played by Eddie Murphy, agrees to help, but he has his own plan: half a million dollars from an old robbery, still hidden in his Porsche.

It was Murphy’s first film, and he walked away with it. Murphy told Rolling Stone in 2011 that the film worked because he was the one making the story go forward. That’s what a strong deuteragonist does. At the end, Jack leaves the money in Reggie’s car. 48 Hrs. is often credited with launching the buddy cop genre, and Murphy earned a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year.

6) Training Day (2001)

A rookie cop gets one day to prove himself to a decorated narcotics detective, who turns out to be the most dangerous man in Los Angeles.

Jake Hoyt, played by Ethan Hawke, wants a place on Alonzo Harris’s narcotics squad. He has one day to earn it. Alonzo, played by Denzel Washington, forces him to smoke PCP at gunpoint, robs a drug dealer’s house and kills a man in front of him. By nightfall, Alonzo has paid a gang to kill Jake.

Alonzo is the clearest answer to a question people ask: can a deuteragonist be the villain? Yes. He’s the second most important character and the antagonist at once. The Academy saw the roles the way the screen time does. Washington won Best Actor, and Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Washington was the second Black actor to win Best Actor, after Sidney Poitier. You’ll find more of his work in our Denzel Washington movies guide.

5) Midnight Run (1988)

A bounty hunter has five days to get a mob accountant from New York to Los Angeles, and his prisoner won’t stop talking.

Jack Walsh, played by Robert De Niro, is offered $100,000 to bring Jonathan Mardukas back to Los Angeles. Mardukas, played by Charles Grodin, is an accountant who embezzled $15 million from a mobster and gave it to charity. The mob wants him dead. The FBI wants him as a witness. When Mardukas fakes a panic attack on the plane, the two end up crossing the country by train, bus, car and freight train.

Mardukas needles Jack about everything, from what he eats to how he lives. Jack ignores him, then argues with him, then starts to listen. At the airport, Jack lets him go, because prison would get him killed. Mardukas gives Jack a money belt holding $300,000. The studio wanted a bigger star opposite De Niro, but director Martin Brest picked Grodin after his audition.

4) Green Book (2018)

A Bronx bouncer takes a job driving a famous pianist through the Deep South in 1962, with a guide that lists where a Black traveler can safely stay.

Tony Lip, played by Viggo Mortensen, needs work while his nightclub is closed for renovations. Don Shirley, played by Mahershala Ali, needs a driver who can handle trouble on an eight-week concert tour through the Midwest and Deep South. Tony gets The Negro Motorist Green Book and a turquoise 1962 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. Shirley gets a driver who talks nonstop and eats fried chicken with his hands.

Shirley admits his success has left him isolated, from white audiences and Black ones alike. Tony learns to see what Shirley faces every night, and Shirley helps Tony write letters home that move his wife. In the end Shirley shows up at Tony’s family Christmas. Ali won Best Supporting Actor, Mortensen was nominated for Best Actor, and the film won Best Picture.

3) Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

An ad executive just wants to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, and he’s stuck with the most talkative man in America.

Neal Page, played by Steve Martin, is trying to get home for Thanksgiving when his flight from New York is diverted to Wichita. Del Griffith, played by John Candy, is the friendly, endlessly chatty salesman who keeps ending up beside him. Their trip home takes a plane, a train, a bus, a truck and a rental car that catches fire. Neal loses his temper at Del more than once.

The film’s turn comes at the end. Neal leaves Del at a Chicago train station, then starts to put Del’s odd remarks together. He goes back and finds Del sitting alone. Del confesses he has no home. His wife, Marie, died eight years ago, and he’s lived on the road ever since. Neal brings him home for Thanksgiving. John Hughes’s first cut ran 3 hours and 45 minutes.

2) Rain Man (1988)

A selfish car dealer learns his father left $3 million to a brother he never knew he had.

Charlie Babbitt, played by Tom Cruise, is drowning in debt when his father dies. He gets a 1949 Buick Roadmaster and some rosebushes. The rest of the $3 million estate goes to a trust for Raymond, an autistic savant who lives in an institution. Charlie takes him, hoping to win half the money. Raymond won’t fly, so they drive from Cincinnati to Los Angeles.

Raymond barely changes. Charlie changes completely. He learns Raymond is the “Rain Man” he half remembered from childhood, the brother who once saved him from scalding bathwater. By the end, he turns down $250,000 to walk away from Raymond. Hoffman won Best Actor for the deuteragonist, Cruise wasn’t nominated, and Rain Man won Best Picture.

1) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Two outlaws rob one train too many, and the posse that comes after them won’t quit.

Butch, played by Paul Newman, is the talker and the planner, the leader of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Sundance, played by Robert Redford, is the quiet one and the best shot in the West. After one train robbery too many, a hired posse chases them across the country. They escape by jumping off a cliff into a river, then run to Bolivia with Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place.

Butch drives every scheme. Sundance is the one who makes the schemes possible, and the film can’t end without him. It ends with both of them running out into a hail of bullets, frozen in a single frame. William Goldman won the Oscar for his screenplay. Redford won the BAFTA for Best Actor, shared across this film and two others. He later named his Sundance resort after the role, and the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival grew out of it.

Every film on this list needed its second lead. Here’s how they did.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid turned a $6 million budget into more than $100 million, the biggest return here. Rain Man, Green Book and Beauty and the Beast all made more than 13 times their budgets. Training Day had the smallest return, a little over twice its budget.

Seven of the 10 films earned Oscar nominations, and three deuteragonists won acting Oscars. Hoffman and Washington won Best Actor for second leads. Ali won Best Supporting Actor, while the protagonist of his film, Mortensen, went home without one.

How to Write a Deuteragonist

A deuteragonist earns their place by changing the story. Here’s how to make yours count:

1. Give them their own want. Reggie wants his money. Mardukas wants to stay alive. K wants out. If your second lead only wants what the hero wants, they’re a sidekick.
2. Let them change the hero. Raymond barely changes in Rain Man, but Charlie becomes a different man. The deuteragonist is often how the protagonist’s character arc happens.
3. Make the story impossible without them. Try cutting your deuteragonist. If the plot still works, they aren’t one yet. Our screenwriting guide covers how to build a cast around your lead.

FAQs About the Deuteragonist

The Final Cut on the Deuteragonist

A deuteragonist is the second lead, the character the hero can’t finish the story without. They want something of their own, they change the protagonist, and sometimes they walk away with the film.

Who’s the second lead in the story you’re writing? And what do they want that your hero doesn’t?

For more on building a cast, see our guides to secondary characters, the foil character and the anti-villain.