Hang Em High (1968) Dirty Harry (1971) Anything with Clint Eastwood. Robocop (1987) Since there are so many examples in this movie type we could probably sub-divide between Personal Revenge and Avenging Angles (doing it on behalf of someone else), and authority figures (e.g. cops struggling with staying the right side of the law) and non-authority figures (civilians turning vigilantes).

A sub-sub genre: Personal Revenge and Avenging Angel. Totally agree, Michael.

Payback (1999) The El Mariachi trilogy. Oldboy (2003)

Yep. Good ones. I think revenge stories go way back to this: Fairness. Remember when we were kids, how often we'd say, "That's not fair!" So someone does something really awful to a character. It's not only tragic, it also violates that fundamental sense of fairness.