The 8 Things I’m Sick Of Seeing In Movies

Cliches… Formulas… whatever terminology you like to call them by, there are certain repeated patterns in films that we’ve all seen a thousands times. Some of those Formulas are fine. For example, the mom who loves her kids… that’s not a stretch and we expect it in normal life, so we expect no less in a movie. However, there are other formulas in films that would have you and I believe they are the norm in real life… when they really aren’t. These can be fine too and not irritate us… but then there are these cliches that I really get sick off and wish more films would avoid.

So now I present to you, in no particular order, the 8 things I’m sick of seeing in movies:

1 – The current boyfriend/husband of the main character’s would be love interest is a total jerk

THE CLICHE: You know what I’m talking about. The “hero” of the film loves a girl, but the girl has a boyfriend. Already you know there is a 97% chance that this boyfriend will end up being a total dick. He yells at her, demeans her, doesn’t respect her. You can’t imagine why on earth she’s with him in the first place… but whatever the reason it doesn’t matter, because you know she’s going to end up with the hero in the end anyway when she finally sees the jerk in question for what he is, and leaves him for the hero.

THE REALITY: Yeah, that girl you dig… well her boyfriend 9 times out of 10 is better looking, funnier, smarter, richer and all round a better person that you… loser.

2 – If a fight breaks out in a bar/restaurnt, EVERYONE will jump in

THE CLICHE: Almost without exception, if two people start fighting in a bar or restaurant in a movie, everyone else will join in. Hell, they’ll start swinging at each other for no good reason other than the fact that a couple of other guys seem to be doing. Chalk it up to bar peer pressure I guess.

THE REALITY: I’ve seen my fair share of fights break out at clubs/bars. Not once have I ever seen it get beyond a couple of people before the bouncers end up kicking their drunk asses than throwing them the hell out

3 – No spunk after the hump

THE CLICHE: Ok, I don’t mean to sound vulgar or anything (I usually leave that to Doug) but we’ve all seen this a hundred times in movies and we all collectively say under our breath “yeah right”. A couple at some sort of public function or fancy dinner quickly ducks behind a wall, or into another room for a quicky. They go at it practically fully clothed and when they’re “done” they just take a couple of deep breaths, run their fingers through their hair and then return to join the other guests as if nothing happened.

THE REALITY: Sex makes a mess… I’ll just leave it at that.

4 – Terrorists are always considerate enough to have large built in digital count down clocks in their explosives so the hero can know exactly how much time he/she has left

NO FUTHER EXPLANATION NEEDED

5 – Shot in the shoulder? No problem!

THE CLICHE: Usually in action flicks, the hero will take a bullet. But fortunately it didn’t hit his face, or his heart. Usually it’s the shoulder or leg or something like that. When this happens, the hero grimaces for a few moments, then the goes on fighting.

THE REALITY: Guess what. When you’re shot in the leg, you don’t walk anymore. You don’t walk with a limp, or just slowed down… you don’t walk PERIOD. Got shot in the shoulder? Yeah, you can’t throw punches anymore. Every time you even think about breathing you scream like a little girl.

6 – Everyone everywhere knows Morse Code

7 – I know you’re about to say something important, but let me interrupt you with unrelated information that will unwittingly douse what you were about to say

THE CLICHE: Son is out to dinner with his parents and has built up the courage to tell them that he’s gay. He says “Mom, Dad… I want you to know I love you, and that’s why I’ve decided to tell you this very important thing about myself and my life…” The dad suddenly cuts in “Before you go on Nick, have I told you how much I hate fags recently?” Son then changes topics and pretends like the news he was about to give was about a car or something else. This is also done with girl trying to tell boyfriend she’s pregnant. Boy trying to tell girl pal he loves her. The combinations are endless.

THE REALITY: The human race are a bunch of inconsiderate animals… but generally I’ve always found when I say “I’ve got something important to say” and then start telling them what it is… no one has ever suddenly cut me off to mention something totally unrelated.

8 – Delayed information equals certain death

THE CLICHE: Two people are talking in a perfectly good spot when person “A” says to person “B”: “I’ve got to tell you something that will alter the destiny of the human race”. Person “B” is obviously intrigued and asks what this information is. Then, for NO GOOD REASON person “A” says something like: “Not here… meet me later at this other place”. Sure enough, you know that person “A” will be killed before he can ever tell his secret.

THE REALITY: Someone says they know something important… then I’m getting them to tell me right then and there.

You may ask “John, why just 8 instead of 10”? Cause I’m breaking the cliche baby. :P

What are some of the ones that you’re sick and tired of seeing?

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321 thoughts on “The 8 Things I’m Sick Of Seeing In Movies

  1. funny!but it does make sense..and add there The Predictable Plot and Scene..the movie is just starting you almost know what will happen next..and the not so scary or thrilling horror film but when you see it on trailers you would thought it’s a hair-raising film..
     

  2. haha, they are very funny.
    I like the first one, although i don’t fully agree with it. In the reality  the boyfriend of the girl you love/like is always less smart and cool than you. For sure!! xd. We need to believe so! (probably as  unreal as movies).
    There is something else I really dislike. The heroe or heroes always show some kind of weakness at the beginning and  they always, always find the courage at certain point (when it comes to the crunch or mainly due to Love) to show how brave and heroe like they really are. And this moment is generally predictable as well.

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  4. 1.) Kid has a “major” spat with his parents/a parent, and storms off, getting the last word in (Disney style), while the parent looks on, speechless. Isn’t working out problems with your folks more about communication that putting up walls with your folks in real life? And what about respect for your parents??? Is that too much to ask?

    2.) Troubled kid with divorced parents. Or just fine kid with divorced parents. Divorced parents DOMINATE the cinema. Geesh, is it, like not cool to be married and have kids anymore, Hollywood? And how did you end up establishing what was “cool” for America in the first place???

    3.) (More of an 80’s thing). Nerdy, reclusive teenage kid/son, etc., who has loving but quite aloof parents (dad is watching tv or reading the paper, mom is silently nervous and anxious about bringing up uncomfortable subjects at the table (including bullying), like most anything a teenage boy would REALLY like to talk about with his folks, but only when his parents aren’t so “on edge” about what he is saying, because he is “on edge” enough as it is), who ask him how his day at school was, you know the USUAL (but they don’t REALLY listen to what he is saying), meanwhile, little do they know, he’s being bullied at school, the girl he loves ignores him, he’s constantly doodling in class when he should be paying attention (because junior high and high school completely suck), and he feels like a complete loser. How many times have we seen a movie like this? But boy, do we love it so!

    4.) Psycho girl meets nice guy. Nice guy tries to pursue psycho girl. Psycho girl completely messes with the guy’s head and heart. Psycho guy meets nice girl. Same situation. Do fictional movie romances have to be THIS PAINFUL TO WATCH??? Because, god forbid, this happens in real life. Then of course, nice guy meets nice girl. To have that last part, or not to have that last part. Either way, its all been done thousands of times before. Wish I could say there were less psychos in movies, but film directors seem to have a thing for psychos. And we keep forking over the bucks to see people be inhuman to each other… Now THAT is entertainment. Yeah… Ugh.

    5.) Kid keeps calling his/her parents by their first names. Why???

    6.) Troubled teenage girl has a NICE, very tasty dinner in front of her. After the slightest hint of a sensitive subject being brought up at the table, she excuses herself, saying she is “Not Hungry”. Do teenage girls onscreen EVEN EAT??? WHEN??? Do they have a mini fridge full of Haagen Daas and lasagna with a microwave nearby or something??? Oh, and you can’t forget bottled water. At school. Every friggin’ day.

    7.) Cheerleaders are mean. Who says they have to be mean? Well, a lot of us hated High School, right? We hated how the cheerleaders were beautiful but not our type, or they were whorish, etc., right? Yes, Hollywood, FEED the geeks of the world with anger toward cheerleaders, jocks, and rich, muscular preppies alike. Make the cheerleaders onscreen so much MEANER than they were in real life, because that is just the thing to soothe our youthful emotional aches and wounds of years past, regarding the opposite sex. Maybe then, some forgotten, mistreated soul at a high school reunion just might go overboard and do what he never thought he’d ever, ever do. And I don’t mean sex. Or rape…

    8.) It’s all about the Benjamins, right? Money money money moooooooney!!! Mooo-ney!! From designer clothes to Armani suits and silk ties, from ferraris to ferocious muscle cars, from tropical mansions to private clubs and estates, Hollywood LOOOVES to make movies in style. And then middle class America (and much of us poorer folk) are left with a glitzy movie, and the desire to covet everything we see in these movies. I’m sure credit card companies LOOOVE these kinds of movies… Hey, its not like they have anything to lose… :D

    9.) Lust. Can I please have my own life, with my own, private thoughts about women, instead of movies injecting sex into everything these days? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people lived life like they WERE a puppet of Hollywood, Hollywood ethnics, morals, and lifestyle, esp. the wild sex parties and orgies, etc. Its a load of filth and vomit, thess Hollywood sleezy, smutty movies that come out like one out of three or four times for every movie made. Well, at least it makes it easier to decide what movie to see on a weekend…

    10.) Last but not least, a movie that lacks PATHOS. Pathos, or genuine, heartfelt feeling, is why we see a movie in the FIRST PLACE. Most of us don’t want to see a movie about liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, etc. We want to see a movie about honest, hard working, faithful people, who have a genuine love for others, and make the movie much more of a special, sacred experience than it otherwise would be. We want to see good people in tough circumstances. We want to see how far they can be pushed, and if they will ever sacrifice their morals. We want to see if we can be better people ourselves, because we are asking ourselves if we really CAN be better in our own lives, after the movie is over and done with. The best movies HAVE GOOD PEOPLE IN THEM. If everyone was a complete scoundrel in a movie, I can guarantee you, you’d end up feeling kind of hollow afterward.

  5. I hate this cliche scenario in romantic comedies…

    Boy meets girl. Boy does something behind girl’s back. Girl also does something behind boy’s back. Girl finds out about what boy did, and gets pissed off and breaks up with him. The thing the girl did behind the boy’s back? It ends up backfiring and she gets hurt somehow. Girl realizes/decides the thing the boy did behind her back wasn’t so bad after all. Girl gets back together with boy. They live happily ever after.

    1. Yep. I also hate it when people acts like someone they saw in a “romantic comedy”, because they thought it would somehow be more attractive. And that thought process is perhaps the MOST forgivable and easy to understand of a HOST of other related behaviors-more especially in women. Because, once a girl ISN’T in “weird romantic comedy movie mode”, that is when the sparks can REALLY fly again. :)

  6. Oh wait, another thing: why do people keep running straight while being chased by a train (on tracks idiots) or chased by a plane on the runway or something, like why don’t they friggen turn while running? Gaahhhhhhhh. Annoyance.

  7. Great topic! I hate how the romcom’s give the leading man only one friend, and he’s usually unattractive and fat. And the leading woman also has only one friend who is good looking, ‘wacky’, hilarious (questionable), and out there, swears like a sailor, blah, blah, blah. Anyway at first the two friends don’t like each other… then surprise, surprise they get together. In real life you know a) the leading characters would not have friends like that, seriously, what do they talk about? and b) as if the two friends would get it on. He’s gross and she’s usually a slag and an idiot. Gaahhhhhhhh. Annoyance.

  8. Great, insightful list actually. I don’t get the Morse code reference??

    Anyway, my least favourite movie cliche is definitely the “twatty boyfriend” character trope. NOBODY in real life is like that! Even genuinely obnoxious people make an effort to hide their selfishness.

  9. One thing that i think is interestingly unrealistic in movies, is that the hero/heroine never gets hurt/killed in a situation in which they would normally have gotten hurt/killed. i.e. in ‘War of the Worlds’ Tom Cruise’s character is running from the giant, scary, alien monster shooting vaporizingg beams everywhere. People in front of him, next to him, and behind him are getting vaporized and he miraculously runs away unscathed.
    Wow :)

  10. When someone wakes up from a horrible nightmare the wife/husband/boyfried/girlfriend is immediately awake aw well and in the mood for talking and comforting the poor unfortunate

    reality: never had a girlfriend that didn’t keep sleeping like a log. Even if she knew I had a nightmare she’d just turn around and never react to it.

    Someone throws a grenade, the hero sees it and jumps away after the explosion. Gets up and removes the dust from his clothes.

    Reality: the most dangerous part of a grenade are it’s lethal shards. If this hits your body it is very unlikey you get up like it was an ordinary firecracker.

    john rambo, john connor, john mclaine, john matrix…
    Reality: muhammed, roderick, nelson, abraham, Juan, Diego et c. Why is everybody called John. Because actors could forget their stage names??

    When there is something scary going on, you approach it very slowly. Just to increase the length of the film accompanied with scary music, coming to a climax and then… it is always all in your mind!

    Reality: you either way go directly to it or run away!!

    When someone has a knife, hook or something made of metal and pulls it out, you always hear a tssschinngg sound.

    Reality: you could try the best you want, swing it as hard as you can it will only make a swooff sound not a tsssjinnngg.
    When will screenwriters see the point that this is scientifically impossible!!!!

    when john mclaine gets the beating of his life only a few bloodstains are on his clothes.
    Reality: bruises, cuts, fractures, severe open wounds.. and no, it will not be healed with just one medikit or warm shower.

    1. There are LOTS of heroes and main characters not named John. However John is the second most popular name in North American males (first is James), so it stands to reason there would be a few kicking around.

      And you named 3. For ever John you could name I could give you 10 examples of males leads that are NOT John.

      And there are reasons for those other things you nitpick on, and it is just for effect. While you might not like it, believe it or not those things do add to the subconscious perception of status, objects and other non visual cues. Its intentional, not an oversight that only you were clever enough to overcome. They know.

  11. well one of the things that I actually don’t know if I like or if it annoys me, is when a dance is getting built up everybody seems to know it and everyone is doing the same dance whit good choreography,,

  12. Totally agree with Noah. Reality is the bad guy ALWAYS wins. SELDOM do the good guys win. First of all, inherently the “bad guy” is bad and as such, human nature dictates that he must be smarter, faster than his nemesis otherwise there is NO BAD GUY as he’ll be incarcerated immediately end of story. So if this bad guy has planned his route so meticulously then it stands to reason that he would’ve have covered his bases leaving NO loopholes. I hate it that in the last 10 minutes of a movie the teenage writer/director/producer tries to tie up all the loose ends by showing us that the good guy caught the bad guy because of some silly stupid (and more often than not) asinine mistake…PLEASE DO NOT INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE. That’s basically when I walk out of these action flicks last 20 minutes or 25% through the movie. I already knew why, who and where no point really to stay to the end might as well go to the pub and enjoy a pint with my mates than waste the next hour with some mental bullocks.

  13. 9 – Endless training CLICHE: 30 minutes of screen time is devoted to a bunch of steroid freaks that is meant to illustrate how smart, fast, alert, tactically adept, can pick locks etc. you get the jest. Near the end they all end up dying because either they stood up in front of a hail of bullets, totally forgot about their quiet infiltration training or simply suffer from memory loss. Needless to say only one survives and guess what he’s the one that fell in love with the girl. Moreover, wasting valuable screen time with their monotonous soliloquies about their life meant to develop the character for us just before they die anyway. Yawn…

    THE REALITY: Hey sweetheart if someone undergoes that much training a.k.a à la Seal training, it would be hard for him to forget his training and stand up like some bloody ignoramus to take bullets or barge into a camp with guns blazing. So what was the point of that first 30 minutes, should I have gone to get popcorn or use the facilities, where we wasting screen time to come up to the magical 1hr and 30 minute mark for an Action flick darling? Who’s so bloody stupid that he would jeopardize his/her life, unless you were some suicide extremist freak or secret service. Other than that Chachi, no way no how. As for the soliloquies on their lives as they’re all about to die; has that teenage writer/director/producer ever heard of action speaks louder than words? Instead of wasting 30 minutes showing us something that they can’t accomplish how about developing the characters through action idiot.

  14. There’s one that I really hate:

    #1) When there’s some type of competition going on, (eg. sport, music/bands), there’s always the geeky guy who is insecure and he starts his own band/team. Then he has some rival, probably his crush’s boyfriend, who always picks on him. In the end, he either wins the comp, or loses but ‘wins’ in his own way, as he has obtained a great group of friends, a girlfriend, and he’s all confident and shit. His rival becomes a loser or stops picking on him or something like that. ANNOYS THE HELL OUTTA ME!

  15. My most hated film cliche is the “cat jump. In supposedlt scary movies where the cluelesss directors and writers try to goose the audience by having a cat jump out at a character, sometimes even in places where logically there wouldn’t even be a cat.

  16. Good and bad in all of these.

    The one thing that makes me laugh and cry though is when the so called ‘slasher’ has no problem in wiping out erverybody within 5 miles but when confronts the hero he turns into a blind slowcoach with no co-ordination.

    Great fun!

  17. Okay, so first of all I agree with almost all of these.

    I also think that when lets two people are surrounded by people wo are about to shoot them, so the “whisper” to each other about what they are going to do to get out of this, but the whole building can hear them.

    Also, when there is a person who is a player and gets girls everywhere but there is one girl who he really likes who is the only girl who doesn’t want him because of the fact that he is a player. And then he tries to get that girl and becomes sensitive all of a sudden and realizes that what he did was wrong.

    There was also one from zombie movies that I have been thinking about for a while and then Zombieland came out basiclly said what I was thinking. When you shoot a zombie and they fall don’t go slowly towards there face two see if they are alive, just shoot them in the fucking face and get it over with. Or as they said “Double Tap.” Hahaha.

  18. when someone is choking somebody else, and then that person is choking them back.. then they are just choking each other at the same time until something random or inconvenient happens for one of the chokers

    also i love how back-flips and cartwheels can dodge EVERYTHING

  19. Agree with all of these.
    Another one – which the Final Destination series uses way too much – is the case of electronics and water. Throw some water on the power box and it malfuctions, thus opening the locked door/reversing the machine it was attacted to/ends up killing someone.

    Reality: Gets electronics wet, and they stop working. At all. They just stop.

  20. In disaster movies:

    1- The hero is always in a dysfunctional family, or is a single parent.

    2- Nobody listens to the hero’s warning of the imminent catastrophe.

    3- The person in charge decides to save a few and then, one of the good guy, usually the main characters, start a speech on humanity and that letting people die means we’re losing our humanity.

    In real life, that would go something like:
    – “Ok, we still have 10 minutes before the disaster, let’s wait for people to jump in.”
    – “The hell no, let’s leave now and give us a margin!”

    And they’d leave …

  21. I just hate it when the good guy wins. Thats bullshit! Do you know how many people I’ve beaten up for standing up for something retarded? If the bad guy has the advantage, especially 10-1 he is probably gonna beat the hell out of you.

  22. I hate in disaster movies where the protagonist who divorced his wife has 2 kids and the oldest kid is a smart ass/resentful little bastard. smack the shit out of your kid already, don’t let him talk to you like that bumblefuck – I mean protaganist; you’re about to save the entire world! (i.e. 2012)

  23. how about the fact that in horror movieshaving a cell phone is completely useless, when u really need them,people have cell phone but if they are in a horror movie and need to call someone no service, phone’s broken, lost, or someones voicemail answers.

  24. sorry for the errors in my last post, I wanted to get something off my chest what is haunting me for years. Ever since I have seen this escape from LA movie, how are certain weaknesses supposed to make someone equal, better or stronger? I mean prime example Snake Plisken can just save the world (or screw the world whatever) with only one eye. How the he## is he able to throw balls into the hoops when he is not having any depth perception? Same goes for Martin Riggs, how can he fight the battle of titans with a dislocated arm and as he was nearly strangled 10 seconds before that. And he was clearly TOO OLD for this, finally yes.

  25. 268 comments in 2 years, respect to that. The following points as a response to yours

    1)Like a 45 year old retard with the face of a pudding can get the 20 year old supermodel, I hate it!!! I can’t stand it, it is complete bull@#it.
    2)When it is the classic “the bad guy owns the place” no one will react to it when the bad guy is giving someone a trashing or when he tries to rape someone as the barman looks in to the other direction and a band will continue playing pretending to see nothing and so on, but when someone actually dares to slap the bad guy or something like that, all the people will stop doing what they were doing and stare at the guy/gal who just slapped the bad guy.
    5)man man it gets much worse, how about -especially bad guys- who don’t seem to be affected when being perforated by a spear or something bigger like a pipe, it magically gives them more strength as they just easily rip the object out and continue fighting.
    6)yeah, or the 3 word latin name for a gnat from the top off your head
    8)that reminds me of something, like always they sense that they are being recorded, but still they take the risk. So why not write the message down?

    I have seen many movie cliches that annoy me such as crime solving related investigation programmes. Off course anyone is in the database, whether s/he is illegal or not, and sure.. any hair that you lose, proves it that you were at that place. Every lieutenant is a young blonde woman..god.. and when someone looks up a person in the database, it shows the exact photo’s as the person is right now, so with the exact hair length and hairdo, which is amazingly up to date. Furthermore, when the investigators are losing the case, the search one more time, find the overlooked missing link such as.. ooh, do you remember the suspect mentioning something about planes, so he must be at the airport right now, so they rush to the airport and catch the real perpetrator who was about to flee so they were just in time. Oh gawd I hate that so much, and almost every episode of every crime related show is like this. pretty predictable.

  26. One more thing…. someone previously mentioned the overused “We’ve got company” line. Yes! Here’s another two:

    Character A confronts Character B about whatever, and Character B gets defensive and the exchange goes this way:

    “You mean you think __________?!?” (insert accusation here)

    Character A responds: “I don’t know WHAT to think!”

    “I don’t know what to think” ranks up there with “We’ve got company” and the Star Wars staple “I’ve got a baaad feeling about this” (which was used at least once in every SW film, including the prequels).

  27. Oh, yeah… nowadays, in horror movies where there’s a “satanic” theme: Pentacles… or pentagrams, if you will. The five-point star. Probably the most unfairly maligned symbol ever, save for the Tibetan sun wheel (perverted into the swastika). Doesn’t anyone just use a good ol’ inverted crucifix anymore? ;D

  28. Here’s a couple I haven’t seen listed yet:

    Horror movie cliche: Quite the reverse of the action movie cliche on this point, if there’s a cute, sweet, lovable family dog, you can bet 9/10 times the dog’s going to get it at some point.

    Action movie cliche: If there is a big fish tank in a scene where the bad guys and good guys meet, you KNOW there’s going to be a gunfight whereupon the tank will be shattered and out will come water, fishies and all.

    Here’s one that’s become sort of the anti-cliche cliche the last couple of years, and really has put me off dramatic love stories. Guy and girl meet at beginning of movie, fall deeply in love, and soon after are separated by unfortunate circumstances (usually a war), and in their months or years apart encounter great hardships, all the while pining for one another, dreaming and hoping for “someday” … and … one or both die just before or just after they meet again and have the chance to live “happily ever after”. Movie ends. (Example: “Cold Mountain”, “Atonement”, and if you go back a ways, “Doctor Zhivago”) You know, I don’t like a meaningless or inexplicable happy ending (“Lake House”), but, come on, after putting the protagonists — and me — through hell, you better make the ending damn well worth it. Otherwise I could have just stayed home and watched the news for 2.5 hours to be depressed!

  29. If there’s one thing I hate in most scripts it is what I call the WHITE HAT WIPEOUT.
    In order to cause the audience to start to feel despondent, the writers arrange for the forces aligned with the hero to get nearly wiped out.
    Here are some examples:
    *Independence Day > almost all of the Air Force is shot down, but at the end they all have new planes.
    *Star Wars (and I am a big SW Fan)> one by one the Rebel pilots get picked off by Vader. Even a menacing villain needs a vulnerability.
    *Terminator Salvation > opening sequence, all the Resistance fighters mysteriously get killed while “Character Shield” Connor survives. It would have worked better if it was a bitter fight, with some losses balancing out a well-earned victory.
    *Aliens > almost all the Colonial Marines become Xenomorph lunch. Some more should have made it, if only to die later.
    *Star Trek (2009)> someone leaves the parking break on, delays the Enterprise and -ping- all the Federation vessels are toast by the time the Big E arrives. I would have preferred a large epic battle, not some game of comic dodge ball.
    *Star Blazers / Yamato > 1st episode almost all the EDF ships get waxed by the Gamilons. Does anyone mean to tell me that there were NO capable crews in that fateful battle?
    *Battle Star Galactica (2004-09) one episode Boomer hooks into the computer to spread a virus to the incoming Cylon force, knocks them out. The Vipers then blow them out of the sky b/c they are all dead in the water. (I know the Cylons weren’t the white hats in this one but it was too one-sided of a fight).
    If I were a script writer, any battle scene would feature fighting tooth-and-nail, heroes against villians, with bruises and blood for both but no wipe outs (unless it was REALLY necessary).

  30. Haha, this list is really great– can’t argue with any of them. It is good on rare occasions when the boyfriend-who’s-going-to-get-dumped isn’t a jerk. Rare you get that though, I think people find it easier to hate one person and love the other.

  31. “Sex makes a mess”

    Ewwww. LOL. Yeah, if you’re going to have sex, it’s best to do it completely naked in a more private setting. In other words, GET A ROOM! XD

  32. One cliche that I’ve always hated is when you see a closeup of the protagonists face as he tells someone something very important…only to reveal that nobody was there and he was just practicing.

  33. ok, good character is trying to run away from bad character in a car. apparently the keys are not there for any number of reason. Good character then tries to start the car with the dam scratch TWO WIRE thing….but wait, its not happening, and suddenly right when bad character has reached the car and thumping the window and try to break it does the car start and a narrow escape happens.

    ALTERNATE ANGLE: keys are present, car wont start, but starts right when the bad guy got to the car.

    THis happens most of the time when the escaping character is female! pisses me off.

  34. Shameless plug ins from products in films. Just slap advertising all over the place in a movie. Perfect Example was Men in Black 2. The movie sucked so bad and they slapped on some many plug-ins to Burger King, Ebay, Playstation. Man it was god awful!

  35. extended car chases where fifteen hubcaps (from one car) go spinning off into the curb/ditch.

    pretty girls, who have dirty sex, and enjoy it, HAVE to die at the hands of the psychotic deformed murderer.

    cats always hang out in dark corners near same-as-above killers.

    females in “slasher” movies are beautiful and wear very little clothing. don’t psychotic deformed murderers ever kill fat girls or ones with bad skin and really heinous hair?

    evil genius HAS to tell the protag (who’s awaiting his elaborate and horrible death) every detail of their plan including how to short circuit the bomb or whatever.

    evil genius who loves to laugh… you’re fricking evil! don’t laugh all the time! mope once in awhile!

    first time junk shooters: who don’t barf!

    brothers “from down on the block” holding a pistol sideways. stop it! THIS END UP, stupid!

    protag punches antag in the jaw… and DOESN’T break anything in his hand or wrist… i know from experience that is NOT usually the case. it hurts like a mufu! the other guy is out like a light and feels nothing while you’re left standing there, like a bully putz, with your fist tucked under your armpit because you just cracked three metacarpals. boxers tape their hands and wrists before a fight and karate guys (and gals) don’t follow through (which equates to hurting someone bad… and yourself) but requires MANY YEARS of practice (more than i took it seems).

    females always fall in love with the guy first after sex. never the other way around. never some guy begging her for more and following her around like a balloon on a string. “why can’t we do it one more time? huh? why not? huh?”

    men and women can’t be just “fuck buddies” because they “fall in love” and get married. real life: married? maybe. love: doubtful.

    the movie “outbreak.”
    can you fly a helicopter?
    of course, can’t you?
    well, let’s take this one. the keys are still in it and it’s got live rockets already loaded up.
    okay, if anybody tries to track us, we’ll just draft a log truck for a couple of miles. truck driver are used to that around here.

    eerie music swells as danger approaches… watch wim wenders’ films… the most important junk happens when you least expect it… no music, no weird pans, or tight shots. more like real life: as in, oh shit! what just happened?

  36. Yah kno wat im really tired of… Alot of the movies i see youve got the HERO, and he or shes the hero through the whole movie, and there is of course a villain or somebody thats trying to turn the tides of whatever just might be goin on… well the Hero always wins… always… im tired of that i wanna see a movie thats gonna leave me extremely dissapointed at the end in which the hero dies and the antagonist ends up taking over the world and enslaving the human race, yakno, how about a movie about the transformers on there home planet where the big guy enslaves and utterly castrates the possesd masses of fused metal… i think that would be exciting… no sequel, no part 2 or 3… thats it just a failed attempt at coming so close 2 victory… the hero dont always win all da time, hey i felt like the hero one day and then before the day was over i got jumped and beat to bloody vrivolous pulp yaaa… i didnt win and it made errthang so much better

  37. okay, i fucking HATE when the hero or any character is running from like, a train or a truck or something thats coming at them, and then run in a fucking straight line. no, they can’t jump outta the way so that the train/truck w.e can pass….they gotta outrun the damn thing! wtf.

  38. I hate to say it, but the reason that their cliches is that they work. most people like the movies easy to understand and formulaic; the good guys beats the villian, rescues the girl, and saves the world. they can work or not depending on how well their written.

    My peeves;
    1) the MBF (minority best friend); black if want some with street cred or sassy, gay for snappy come backs or snarky insults, latin for high sex drive or hot-tempered.
    2) everyone knows how to pick a lock.
    3) cops only have the one case at a time and csi always finds the evidence.

  39. This is a great topic One thing that I really hate is when they put kids in action films, because you know the villain will either take the kid , or the kid will get hurt and then the main character has to waste time rescuing them ex. Aliens , Jurassic Park, etc.

  40. apart from the ones you mention, the one that bugs me the most, and it generally happens in war film, or ones where death is portrayed. is when one of the characters will show a picture of his girlfriend/wife/lover/kid etc and you then know that guy is doomed, he will be killed off before the end. Ive only ever seem it happen with male characters.

  41. John – LOVIN’ THIS List!

    Even more, I love the responses because they are all true!

    Let me make a contribution:

    1. The Foreign Bad Guy: Why is the Bad Guy always non-American (Mentioned by Bertom) – well, why is he always British?

    Further, why does it have to be a HE? I am sure there are plenty of females out there as well bent on holding the world hostage for trillions of dollars with their top secret uber weapon, just the same. Female villians should get equal time…Let’s get creative people.

    2. The Captured Love Interest: As “Viddy” mentioned, “The love interest always gets captured by the bad guy…” Yes, and more recently it has become the daughter of the hero – propelling our hero into ‘tough guy’ dialog (Usually transpiring on phone for some reason).

    Again, I would love to see a Female Hero that must rescue the man as ‘Captured un-suspecting victim’…

    3. The Hysterical Female: Movies portray females as superficial, one-dimensional ‘Props’ with out control of their emotions. For the record, most females do not run around screaming and crying out of control, nor wait around helplessly to be rescued – this is beyond ridiculous.

    4. The Woman Scorned: Again, most females in movies are only allowed to be ‘Bad’ to the extreme of being portrayed as Pyschotic because she is scorned by a man. Why can’t she just be a mindless sociopath without reason like most of her male counterparts? Jason could just as well be Jeanine or Freddie could easily be Fredricka…

    5. Car Chases: As also mentioned, why are they completely over the top and mandatory in every Action film? It would be stunning to see the perpetrators crash – end of movie – followed by a PSA announcing the hazards of reckless driving and endangerment.

    6. The “0” Personality Hero: Must he always be steely, full of sarcastic one liners and unlikeable (Except always strangely liked by the single and only female character)? Is there ever a ‘Friendly, easy going hero’ that everyone likes and would like to be around?

    On a side note, we need BETTER looking Heroes – Let’s have some great looking leading men, rather than the old or a fuzzy bald guy.

    7. ‘The Few, The Proud – Be All You Can Be’: Action movies always have a constant Military sequitur. Every action movie always has some type of military presence (Either by lead character: I’m a Secret Agent, Government Op, former/ex Marine, Soldier or the equipment/presence – Iron Man, Transformers, Transporter, Bourne Identity, James Bond, Mission Impossible).

    8. The Future: Movies about the future always have a couple of items that are ‘Cool’, but always fall short. For example, The Minority Report – Great transparent touch screens, eye scan technology, and vertical freeways – but they use Billiard Balls for determining future assailants and paper files on desks. Are we still expending trees to use paper in the future?

    Oh, and enough with rain and darkness when portraying the future. Is it Mad Max or Blade Runner – make up your mind and stay with one…

    9. Finally, I would love to see a movie where the villian does not die in perilous indignance (Never happens until the end of the movie), but instead triumphs in a grandiose, spectacular fashion. As they say, you win some – you lose some…

    Anyway – Great Post!

  42. How about:

    #1- of you’re getting shot at, simply dive into a swimming pool, like bees, bullets will not penetrate the surface of the water
    #2- also if you are being shot at, simply hide beheind anything such as a refridgerator door made out of a thin layer of plastic, insulated with foam, and then another thin layer of plastic. Or tip over a coach, bullets can clearly not go through fabric and seat cushions.
    #3- The good looking main character will walk down the street and immediately encounter a string of five or six 9’s walking past him, and give him the “f*ck-me” eyes. They’re never texting on their phone, fishing for something through their handbag, or god forbid not runway models.
    #4-

  43. Oh, forgot some!

    3) Two characters will have a fight, then they’ll walk through the city with sad music playing as they flashback to all the good times they had.

    4) A person with a life threatening illness/injury will only die in hospital after talking with the main character.

    5) Unless he’s a main character, a security guard will be instantly taken out by the stealthy spy/ninja thats sneaking around.

  44. 1) Teenage girl in skimpy clthing – Hello? Is anyone in this abandoned house? I’m just gonna get naked and take a shower!

    2) A good guy will be alone when suddenly a hand is placed on his shoulder making him jump. It turns out to be another good guy. Seriously, who does that!? You’d say “Hey buddy!” and run up to them, not give them a heart attack.

  45. Seems to be in each movie: Nobody can hear the lowest sound in a tunnel or wherever. Well, try yourself to make no noise at such a place.

    Hm, maybe because the soundrack is drowning out the scene. ;-)

  46. You forgot, that computerprograms always speak and comment any action you do on the computer.

    When a team of the best hackers desperately can´t find what they are loooking for, it only requires one glance from the hero to locate it.

  47. greatest post ever. stand up material right here. especially the father telling his son “have I told ya how much I dislike faggots?” ROFLOL!!!hahahahahahaha

  48. Horror film cliches.like when the hot girlfriend is preparing for her boyfriend.shes in the next room calling out everything she plans to do to him and when she gets no response she calls out. “baby are you there” and goes out only to find her boyfriend disfigured with blood.but instead of arming herself with a weapon like even a closet hanger(anything) she rus right into the killer.which sets up her friend to evenually find her dead body, and the process repeats itself.

  49. Blind people in action movies. I just still don’t get why they hire only blind people to be bad guyin actions movies. You know, James Bond could kill 3 thousand people with a 9mm pistol while all the bad guy with ak-47 who are sprayin all around can’t manage to get him down.

    And the final cliché: they f*ckin hero never f*ckin dies. DAMN. I’m bored of it. Like when thee’s a big bad ass battle you can always tell wich one can win cauz that Hero is a goddamned……hero.And it pisses me off ;P

  50. Vorab, sogut wie allen bisher genannten Clichés stimme ich zu. Es wäre wirklich an der Zeit einen Film zu drehen in denen wir all Diese anspielen aber dann einfach das gegenteil passiert. Oder aber wir machen einen Film, der alle Clichés beinhaltet und das wird dann der mit Abstand schlechteste Film aller Zeiten.

    Was mich tierisch nervt sind die Autoexplosionen. Ich meine wenn man in den Nachrichten von einer Schießerei hört und sieht das da rumgeballert wird, dann habe ich noch nie erlebt das ein Auto in die Luft fliegt (wenn es nicht gerade mit ner Panzerfaust beschossen wird)

    Now in English:

    I agree on nearly all the clishes that were mentioned so far. It really would be time to produce a movie which contains all the cliches but then we just do the opposite of what is expected. Or we should produce a movie which contains all of the mentioned cliches. This would probably be the by far worst movie ever.

    What really annoys me that the cars are always exploding in the movies. Have you ever heard of a car that explodes just by shooting a it or after heaving an accident?! No. In real life cars are not exploding unless you aim with a rocket launcher on it.

  51. Car Chases. Period. My dad’s been a cop for almost 30 years. My grandfather was a cop for over 30 years. My aunt has been a cop for 20+ years. None of them have ever been involved in a legit car chase, nor has anyone they know. Car chases are extremely rare in real life, yet they show up in every single action movie, and they’re always way more intense than a real life car chase would be (anyone watch the OJ Car Chase 15 years ago? ‘Nuff said)

  52. Cliche: In a horror movie when people discover a dead body the first one on the scene always screams, loudly, and the second one just looks mildly disgusted and comforts the sobbing screamer.

    Reality: They’d all be too stunned to scream or they’d all scream just the same.

  53. When they are showing a guy spying on some woman and she starts stripping, and then she either shuts the door or gets interrupted by a kid. That’s just a big cocktease that I’m tired of seeing.

  54. Someone always ends up in a wind tunnel in an action movie, yet they manage to hold on and not get sliced by the huge vacuum. Also, they always manage to turn the the wind-tunnel fan off just before they lose their grip and let go.

  55. In fact, I don’t entirely agree with number 5. I once got a pool cue up rammed up my eye(didn’t penetrate the eyeball though, lucky me^^. Major surgery, *very* long story), and I was able to walk and talk afterwards. Hell, I even looked at myself in the mirror. Fair enough, I wouldn’t have won any fights, but a bonesplinter hit my brain, so who can blame me:P If I could walk and talk after that, then a guy could keep on fighting after getting shot. He would probably have lost, but that’s a different matter^^

    I think it’s some kind of medical condition; you simply don’t feel the pain.

    And for the worried, I am totally fine now^^

  56. you can have fifty bad guys circling the hero, but they all politely wait their turn, one at a time, so that he can fight them off easily.

    the blood writing on the walls.

    the cat in the bushes.

    two wires, poking out from under the steering wheel of a car, pre-cut and stripped without any form of wire cutters.

    being followed in a parking garage.

    something crawling on the ceiling above you. (seriously, unless i’m staring at my shoes, i can still see the entire ceiling when i walk in, at least peripherally.)

    boobs, boobs, boobs.
    why?
    do i get better insight into the movie or characters if i see unneccessary sex scenes?
    it just makes me not want to waste my money on the movie when it comes out.

    oh, i’m in an unlit house, i’m a hundred and fifteen pounds of terrified female, a serial killer is loose in my house, i think i’ll stay here and search every room with a potato peeler and a flashlight.

    why does no one check the lightswitch!?!?!

    suprise! the bad guy always comes back to life for one final attempt after the good guy killed him.

    pretty much every one stated on your list and everyone’s comments have frustrated me for years. the rest i’ve smiled and nodded my head at.

  57. OMG i totally agree with your list im only 12 so i probably wach diff. movies than you but here are some that bug me:

    – some weird thing thats going on at the start of the movie that the heroe chooses to ignore, he/she remembers at the end and it ends up saving there life.
    reality- if you chose to ignore it, it probably isn’t important, and if it is, you wern’t paying atention how do you remember it when your life is on the line!
    – when some guy is loving his life and then some kid who turns out to be his just shows up out of the blue BY THEMSELVES and says hey guess what i’m the result of some drunk sex you had a few years ago and now you gota take care of me.
    reality- if a kid was the result of drunk sex, the mom would not drop him/her off with no explanation. thay would probably never tell the kid who the dad is.
    -if kids have a step mom/dad they always hate them and spend a lot of time pranking them. then at the end of the movie they learn 2 love them and realize that there real mom/dad is never coming back.
    reality- a lot of kids never learn to realy LOVE, step parents but there genarly very kind to them.
    -new kids always get picked on,/taken advantage of.
    reality-most of the time if your new one of two things will happen. either you will pretty much get ignored, or, a lot of kids will try to be your friend because they see you as a new recruiting apurtunity for a friend.

  58. The sidekick must die (TM).

    As for, “This list is also cliche.”

    –You pointing out that this list is a cliche is also a cliche.

    My pointing this out to you may be, but that’s debatable.

  59. I can’t take when someone gets shot and “dies,” then pops up a few minutes later and magically had some tiny bulletproof metal object right in that exact spot that the bullet hit. happens time and time again and it annoys me so much

    Good list, i appreciated it

  60. Accents. Accents that are so bad they’re funny.

    Why can’t they just hire a person from country X who has the correct accent, instead of hiring a B-grade actor and trying to teach him the accent of country X? Or just hire a person from country X to teach the B-grade actor the accent?

    Honestly, what do they do – sit them down in front of a travel documentary and say, “you’re going to talk like THIS guy”?

  61. As mentioned before, computer programs almost never look like real functional computer programs, and they always display explanatory text on the screen while they are doing something Corollary#1: Digital pictures, when blown up, never decrease in quality; they just momentarily pixelate and then appear in larger form. Corollary #2: Important items are always labled so they are easy to find (i.e a box of explosives is helpfully labled “Explosives.”).

  62. 1 – Never EVER insult, reject or fire someone. If you do then they’ll suddenly gain great intellect, resources and new found power to exact their over-the-top revenge on you.
    2 – There’s always a crowbar or chainsaw available when necessary.
    3 – Car’s are extremely reliable machines, EXCEPT in movies where they’ll never start in the moment of danger.
    4 – You can apparently hack into ANY computer system and it’s so easy a 6-year old could do it.
    5 – Sequels to superhero films always have multiple villains.

  63. I’m a guy who has always looked young for my age since I was in high school.

    So growing up watching these grown ass muthafuckas playing 15 year olds I used to think well what the fuck is wrong with me. You know, getting 30 year olds to play teenagers.

    Thank goodness this cliche has died down a lot nowadays, cuz it used to fuck with me back when I was a teen.

  64. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)

    Okay, I agree with many of you so far, but here are some of the things that annoy me:

    1. These new “righteous kill” movies, like in Hunted, where now its okay to kill the bad guy because someone has to do it. So now the bad guy is really the good guy, wait… the bad guy is really the good guy… oh never mind…

    2. A liitle feminism: Of course the geek has to always be “made over,” just to disciver that she was fine the way she was, or the love interest was a jerk. But does she go back to the original way she was before? Also how about the “slob” that lives in his mother’s basement, with no job but can easily score the most beautiful woman in the room by the end of the movie and he has not changed at bit?

    3. More feminism: A woman being able to kick as guy’s butt can happen (I am a martial artist,) but does she have to be dressed as a whore? Really if it is below freezing outside the last thing I want to be wearing is a thong.

    4. Why is is that the “token woman” of a group (two guys and a girl,) will somehow come in between the two, or she will automatcally be the girlfriend of the main character. Can she just be one of the guys or is this society’s way of making sure she isn’t assumed to be a lesbian.

    okay went too far there….

    5. speaking of the “token” this or that, why is it that movies will go out of there way to have a minority (e.g. two whites and a black,) but the whites will almost go off and have their own adventure, while the minority will be cheering from the sidelines.

    6. Why are almost all the heroes white male (overly- cliche) What I mean is, this is America, and we need more Hispanic, Asian, etc, Heroes and more women too!

    7. why is it always America that comes up with the solutions to world problems (Independence Day?)

    8. Everyone else has touched on great points… I am glad for the opportunity to post my thoughts…

  65. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)

    Okay, I agree with many of you so far, but here are some of the things that annoy me:

    1. These new “righteous kill” movies, like in Hunted, where now its okay to kill the bad guy because someone has to do it. So now the bad guy is really the good guy, wait… the bad guy is really the good guy… oh never mind…

    2. A liitle feminism: Of course the geek has to always be “made over,” just to disciver that she was fine the way she was, or the love interest was a jerk. But does she go back to the original way?

    3. More feminism: A woman being able to kick as guy’s butt can happen (I am a martial artist,) but does she have to be dressed as a whore? Really if it is below freezing outside the last thing I want to be wearing is a thong.

    4. Why is is that the “token woman” of a group (two guys and a girl,) will somehow come in between the two, or she will automatcally be the girlfriend of the main character. Can she just be one of the guys or is this society’s way of making sure she isn’t assumed to be a lesbian.

    okay went too far there….

    5. speaking of the “token” this or that, why is it that movies will go out of there way to have a minority (e.g. two whites ans a black,) but the whites will almost go off and have their own adventure, while the minority will be cheering from the sidelines.

    6. Why are almost all the heroes white male (overly- cliche) What I mean is, this is America, and we need more Hispanic, Asian, etc, Heroes

  66. It’s never dark in the woods at night. There’s always that radiating blue glow coming from behind a tree, from behind a rock, or from just over the hill, conveniently backlighting the characters in eerie shafts of light and illuminating the woods so the characters don’t get lost.

  67. There are two cliches which always seem to bother me and they both have to do with the opening of a film: #1. Water – it seems like almost EVERY movie begins with a shot a flowing water (a river, lake, ocean, waterfall etc.). I’d guess about 25% of movies that i’ve seen begin like this. #2. The Character Awakens – Similar to a movie opening with a shot of water, the second most overused opening is when the film begins with a character waking up.

    Although these may be considered “small” or “unnoticeable” cliches, seeing these shot being used bugs me eveytime.

  68. i) The hero/heroine is trying to escape or to go fast to a point “A”, but for some reason he doesn’t have a car. So, he enters the first car he sees (if it’s a thriller, usually it’s the killer’s car) and he starts looking for the car key which the owner conveniently has left in the cupboard or on the sun visors!!

    ii) a different version of the i: if the hero can’t find the car key or for any reason he has lost his car key, the solution is very simple: he pulls two cables just under the steering wheel (usually one is red and the other is black), he brings them close and instantly the car’s engine is on !

    iii) in rom coms, the girl decides in the church, in her wedding dress, in front of the priest and all the family that the man is just about to get married is not suitable for her, so she cancels everything and she leaves with the hero.

  69. – In the future, military soldiers will wear highly complex, elaborate and powerful body armor to aid and protect them, but nobody will ever bother to wear a helmet.
    – Dogs always know who is evil and will always bark at the bad guy.
    – Horror movie villains are invinsible.

  70. “First art imitates life. Then life will imitate art. Then life will find it’s very existence from the arts.” – (Good ol’ Fyodor).

    Read through the postings up to today. Thought provoking.

    For anyone who reads this far, here’s my thought:

    —-

    We list the things we’re sick of seeing in the movies. Fundamentally things (listed above) that are unrealistic in life (ie: the no mess after a romp (#3). Makes me wonder if it’s not aspects of the movies like this that attract us most.

    The idea of story moving beyond an imitation of life, into a sort of more convenient reality. A sort of elevation of experience.

    I just finished watching the film “Festival in Cannes” and found it a worthwhile watch. Yet, it was aspects of it’s reality that seemed to leave the film flat, without the afterglow of the power of story-magic.

    So yeah.

  71. In a horror flick the characters are always high school seniors and the lead character who is always the most popular kid in the school always has a nerd as his friend.

  72. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)
    The police chief is always a black guy
    There is always a woman conducting the police operation who is unattached and lives alone.

  73. – Vehicles will ALWAYS explode when they crash.
    – Movie characters are almost always only children and the rare chance they do have a sibling they are always of the same gender as them.
    – If a charcter has or receives facial scars or disfigurement they will automatically become evil.
    – Whenever someone on the phone says “tell me where you are and I’ll come get you” it always means they are working with the enemy.
    – If a soldier in a war film shows a picture of his girlfriend/wife or other loved ones then death is automatically guaranteed.

  74. 1. When the protagonist is invited to a college party, the party is always completely insane, and full of hot girls who are ready to sleep with anyone.

    2. The action star can jump from the roof of a building onto the bottom of a helicopter, and then not only can bullets not touch him, the helicopter pilot has no problem with this shift in balance.

    3. No one ever notices that the sweet, nerdy girl is actually really hot until after we realize the popular girl is a rotten whore.

    4. The band on stage will sound exactly like the studio recording, regardless of the way the singer’s lips are moving.

    5. If the writer to a comedy can’t figure out a good ending, something completely random will happen (everyone will burst into song, etc)

    6. A small woman who turns out to be the biggest, baddest badass ever.

  75. The DUMB Matrix jump you see in many movies now and especially in cartoons…..

    the same CCR song “fortunate son” in every war type movie…

    heat blasts such as the one in independence day that melt everything within a few blocks but not a dog or and engulfed airplane carrying the president….

  76. I agree with all, except #5. I was shot in the back of the leg, directly behind my knee. The bullet lodged there, and I walked a few blocks before the cops stopped me and contacted the medics. I didn’t bitch until the docs removed the bullet, that was the hard part. (No pain killers, ouch!)

  77. I hate the fact that the Bad guy always feels the need to explain his plan to the Good guy right before he “kills him”, and then Good guy gets free by some miracle and stops him. Why can’t the hero ever figure out the plan himself?

  78. Number 1, it happens all the time in superheroes movies such as Spider-Man, and others. And number 5, this is funny, you see the hero that gets hit by a bullet in the middle of the movie and continues up to the end and he kills everyone.

  79. You know another cliche that makes me mad?

    In horror movies (mostly modern ones), there are always things/people/writings in the bathroom mirror. Normally people show up just after someone got out of the shower. It’s just NOT much of a surprise anymore. No originality there.

    Directors: Take away the mirrors and bring something new to the screen!

  80. For all of you gunplay fans…

    How about the main villain and main good guy riddling everyone and everything with bullets using guns with InfiniteAmmo(tm) and then when they fire at each fire point blank, their clips are suddenly dry?

  81. Computers in movies are always so unrealistic, and especially when they show a characters who is supposed to be a hacker, and in the process of hacking a system they show him fucking around with some 3-D graphics on screen. Like in swordfish, man that shits me, how dumb do they think the audience is? Oh thats right, dumb as fuck, thats why the cliches exist.

  82. Someone is getting shot and everyone thinks he is dead. But then he opens his eyes again and rips his shirt open so that everyone can see that he is wearing a bullet-proof vest. Because if he didn’t show his vest people would think he’s immortal.

  83. Here’s one that kills me:

    When the bad guy is shown for the entire movie as being amazing with a sword or other weapon and at the end, the hero fights him with the same weapon and wins, EVEN THOUGH HE’S NEVER USED A SWORD IN HIS FUCKING LIFE.

  84. Lasers that can be seen as bars of light in a perfectly clear room – no, you can’t see laser unless the room is smokey or full of dust.

    Protective laser beams in a quirky, haphazard pattern which you can miraculously backflip through – want to protect something with a laser? Just have a load of them parallel and close together, no backflipping possible.

    Radiation causing mutations that give you superpowers – no, it kills you, usually slowly and nastily.

    Every single piece of information is available on the internet – very little information on the net is useful or accurate

    People who get shot fly backwards from the force – no they just drop to the ground and bleed a lot

    When people check their e-mail, you never see long lists of spam with appalling spelling in the subject – even with filters I seem to get tonnes, either that or the junk folder has a three digit number next to it

    If you’re gay, you’re automatically camp, outrageous and are in capable of having a monogamous relationship – no, most gay people aren’t like this and relationships do happen

    The world will always end at midnight (local time) or occasionally noon – important things happen at random times

    In films, aliens always invade america first. In british sci fi they always invade England, nearly always London – Aliens clearly have taste but no desire to start their plans from anywhere other than the major English speaking countries

    1. maybe the aliens envade america first because of the big suburban houses in american movies. they are all so spit and polish, you could almost have your dinner on their shiny floor. they sure don´t come to austria with its rather old-fashioned, scurfy or less appealing little flats…

  85. Boobs, for no reason. I hate that. Its just appealing to the male demographic, mostly teenage boys or guys who are pathetic enough to focus on nothing but boobs. There is more to life.

  86. My cliched pet peeves:

    1) The villain always knows the hero’s personal cell phone number so he can make a threatening or taunting call. I can’t find out a person’s mobile number unless he gives it to me. (Corollary cliche: the phone battery never dies).

    2) Everyone fights like a black-belt martial arts expert, and is unfazed by vicious hits to the head.

    3) Thugs always fight the hero one at a time.

    4) 120 pound woman kicking butt.

    And the most common and aggravating cliche…

    5) Hero has a sex-obsessed nerd buddy who can hack into any system anywhere in just a few moments. Corollary cliche #1: no matter where he is in the world, the nerd always has a wireless connection with lightening-fast T3 speeds. No long screen refresh times for our horny geek. Corrolary cliche #2: the “downloading (or deleting) progress bar that crawls along while the bad guys are closing in, which always finishes just in time.

  87. The underdog team always wins. They beat the team thats 100 times better and has the best equipment.

    No matter how big the asteroid is, it will be destroyed. earth is saved.

    T-Rex and Velociraptor’s are fast and can kill everyone but they are slow and clumsy when chasing the main characters.

  88. I just saw a preview for the new “Ice Cube” venture. He has finally made the “Urban” version of, “The Bad News Bears”, and/or, “The Mighty Ducks.”

    Whoopee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The world needs this…Seriously! We have to have something to laugh about, and what’s better than a feeble attempt at trying to seem original ,when, obviously, your movie is a blatant rip off of a CHEESY, “Little Kid”/”Underdogs win”, movie.

    What crap.g so)

  89. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before I just saw a preview for the new “Ice Cube” venture. He has finally made the “Urban” version of, “The Bad News Bears”, and/or, “The Mighty Ducks.”

    Whoopee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The world needs this…Seriously! We have to have something to laugh about, and what’s better than a feeble attempt at trying to seem original ,when, obviously, your movie is a blatant rip off of a CHEESY, “Little Kid”/”Underdogs win”, movie.

    What crap.doing so)

  90. lol, I did appreciate the list. these are my thoughts:

    1. abt shooting the hero and braggin abt your plans (which I thought was HILARIOUS kristina, I laffed till I cried), where would the story go? I agree that would open up more creative ways for some kind of hero to eventually stop the villain, but I think that’s the only way directors/story writers could even conceive of the audience knowing the villain’s plans half the time

    2. the “no spunk after the hump” one was interesting, lol. but the thing I thought about was that for the sake of storytelling and for the movie to GET A MOVE ON, they don’t want to indulge in the couple cleaning up and such if it didn’t serve a specific purpose. but I have seen movies do the “after the deed refresher” scenes, so no realism isn’t dead yet.

    3. abt the delayed info–made me laff alot, and I agree with that one, totally. that one always bugged me in the movies that had that cliche “why not tell ’em now!!!” I would always scream, lol.

    4. the “getting shot in the leg/shoulder and finishing the fight” bit isn’t entirely untrue. depending on where and how you were shot can affect your movements.

    also, adrenaline helps, especially if something/one was important was worth fighting for–think of the stories of mothers doing great feats of strength to rescue their kids.

    getting shot in the leg will not impair you for life, especially if you can get medical help in time.

    5. (to add) I love/hate the cliche where, in a fight, the person getting shot/punched flies backwards and through a wall or window. I’ve been punched before and the most its made me do is probably make me lose my footing, but through a wall, never.

    6. nearly all female aliens are sexy and do-able and are look somewhat human—come one–we seriously need to start re-imaging aliens, green face paint and an exotic hair do doesn’t cut it anymore

    7 loving parents are often totally oblivious to the machinations of their strangely genius offspring. I don’t know abt you, but I grew up with a VERY open childhood with my mother until age 17. she knew what was up with alot of areas in my life-I really think she would have caught on that I was a secret villain or something, lol

    8. this applies to kids movies: the bad guy is ugly in some physical form or fashion. now as an adult, I see that’s not true. this teaches them that anyone who has a disability, or visible scars and such are bad and need to be avoided, not helped, and that pretty people are good, not true.

    9. the anti-hero is somewhat loveable. I’m sorry, but a jerks a jerk, thanks for saving my life, but change your attitude or piss off please

    10. attractive, skimpy clad women in horror movies ALWAYS fall, even if they’re barefoot—WHAT?? I’ve been chased by dogs growing up and NEVER fell, that, in my 8 yo mind at the time was certain death.

    11. the woman in the horror movie sees something shocking and screams–loudly. but the killer somehow doesn’t hear them, what??

    12. its guaranteed that hiding mostly in plain sight will save your life–I laff at that with friends all the time.

    anywho, thanks for the list, hope more ppl add to it, its a fun project

  91. Lobolover: “Aliens can all speak English”.

    Haha, true.

    Here’s some, with example films:

    Walking away from explosions without so much as a jump. I mean, you would at least FLINCH! (Iron Man, nearly every Bond film).

    The President and the government are completely clueless, and it’s up to a small group of civilians to save the planet, occasionally with the help of an advanced race. (Transformers).

    Every pirate film has at least one character with either a pegleg, an eyepatch, a tricorn hat. Also, at least 7 uses of the word ‘Aye’, usually spoken in a gruff voice. The main pirate with the softer voice NEVER says ‘aye’. (Pirates of the Caribbean, Treasure Island).

    Machines taking over the Earth. A small band of humans gather and fight back. Usually involves some manner of giant computer. (Terminator, The Matrix).

    ‘Abort’ buttons. usually big, coloured red, placed where the hero can reach it. (Austin Powers).

    The Reset Button. Also known as ‘retconning’. The term refers to a plot device that reverses, rewinds or undoes the catastrophic events that happened during the film/show. The main characters ALWAYS remember. (Every single series finale of Doctor Who).

  92. The power line from the hero before they kill the villan, or right after. I.E. Terminator!!! “Your terminated fucker!!” Or in one of the halloween movies “Trick or Treat Motherfucker!!!” You get what I’m saying.. And the dumb bitch who goes into the room when she KNOWS the killer is in there.

  93. What i hate the most in movies is that the loser wich everyone hate and is is like the uglyest guy in earth turns out to be really cool and so damn hot when we remove his glasses and change his clothes …i mean LOSERS ARE LOSERS theres nothing to do about it!!

  94. I’m sick of characters vomiting as an emotional response to everything. I think we’ve all seen something horrible and not puked. Particularly, when the vomit inducer is not even something disgusting physically, like discovering a dead body: i.e. the character finds out their significant other is leading a double life and, next thing you know, they’re spewing in a trash can. This is the equivalent of ipecac?!? I think not.

  95. 9. REMAKES OF “CLASSICS”……First of all I need to define “classic” and this should probably not be on this list but I need to vent after reading all of this it made me stew….Your opinion of a classic movie may not be the same as me but hopefully we can agree this is a travesty and needs to STOP NOW!!!

    The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds was fine but some buffoon somewhere thought it needed to be updated and boy did it as now I can find 30 copies in the sale bin of the latest Adam Sandler one and none of the Original…..HMMM I wonder why?

    The Warriors – In my opinion a classic due to timing etc…..DOES NOT NEED TO BE REMADE…PERIOD…the original could hold up today….

    Revenge of the Nerds – first any movie made in the last 25 to 30 years should automatically have a NO REMAKE TAG as it is too soon…..this movie was good as is and any attempt to change it to fit your liking is horrible

    u know what i am trying to say and i could go on….

    Why do studios feel the need to “update” the movie? Do they think they could do a better Job? obviously they do but in the end it is garbage…..

    10. The one shot kill or the one punch knock out……why does everyone else not getting paid more than 5 bucks and a hot can of schlitz subscribe to this but the “main” characters punch someone and they are out or shoot them and they fall down and that is it……and let me emphasize that movies have gotten a lot better with not making it so ridiculous but it still happens and i want it to happen to will smith……

    that is all for now……going to think up some more but this has got me thinking

  96. Oh yeah – an extra bit on your car chase thing.
    No matter what vehicles are being used in the chase they will alway be evenly matched or even the chaser will be quicker.
    A classsic example is in the new film ‘Wanted’. Our hero’s are driving a Dodge Viper and the person chasing is in a what can only be described as a box on wheels – some sort of truck. Naturally the V10 of the very fast muscle car can somehow not pull away from the truck. Yeah right!!

  97. car chases

    cliche – the hero’s car is built like a tank…no matter how much it gets damaged it still goes on like a rocket…the baddie’s cars are flimsy and blow up if somebody lights a match inside!!!

    reality – you know better…hire an NYC cab if you don’t

  98. How about: Whenever there is a film that involves a leader of many men – say an army, the leader has to go into some big inspiring speech before they win the day. I bet it never happened, partly because in a lot of situations the big leader may not have been in the battle itself but mostly because when your trying to shout out a message to 50000 soldiers with helmets on in the middle of a desert or Scottish highlands etc. the guys at the back can’t hear anyway.

    William Wallace: “…..to show that they’ll never take our freedoooom!”
    Guy in the fifth row from the back: “Sorry Will, yeah up here mate…..sorry, didn’t hear a word of that. Am I attacking the left flank or right?”

  99. 1. In horror flick wannabe’s- the victim is mostly female, and is in some skimpy outfit. Serioiusly people! Not all women would just stand there and LET something happen. Me personally, even in fear I’d knock the crap out of ANYBODY that tried to lay a hand on me in harm. And not ALL women dress that flippin trashy in reality. In fact, MOST women don’t.

  100. 1. “i hear a noise down stairs(upstairs,out side,etc) let me go check without weapons of course what it is. i mean com on in the real world i would have a shot gun and a steak knife.

    2. bad guy use’s up 50 rounds of ammo at point blank rage and misses. REALLY i could shoot better then them.

    3.”im about to blow up the city lets put u right next to the bomb and leave you in an easily escapable situation. and of course you have ten minutes until BOOM NOT HAPPENING IN REAL LIFE

  101. Many years ago my ex-wife used to always complain about the movies using the wrong equipment on horses — wrong bit, wrong saddle, ect. She was quite expert on the topic and just assumed that everyvody else would or should care. Most of these things can be amusing when they are overused. But they do serve a purpose. For those trully insist on 100% accuracy or true to life portrayals I might suggest a subscription to Swedish Netflix and maybe a little something to keep you awake until the end.

    1. military uniforms out of whack is a serious taboo. bdu blouses tucked in, officers with branch insignias on sideways, generals don’t wear a branch insignias (just the star), sgt stripes upside down and the WORST: soldiers wearing a hat (cover) indoors (except in time of war and/or “under arms!”)
      i did not look spit and polish (except in garrison). in the field i looked just as grubby as ‘joe’ but always well taped [‘hundred mile an hour tape] and “blacked out”) but if two GIs are in a room together and one has a uniform that is FUBAR the other will bust him.
      oh yeah, you only salute indoors when “reporting” or when “under arms” (packing weapons AND ergo wearing a cover–it does not need to be a “hard” cover BUT you are supposed to be “ready to kill at a moment’s notice” when you’re carrying an “idiot stick”–and ME? i NEVER carried an unloaded weapon with a bolt in it: “kill me and take my firearm? you ain’t gonna shoot nobody with it!”).

      in the field, ‘soldiers’ use black paint and green duct tape liberally: only pogues, generals, and strap-hangers wear clean, spiffy, field gear in the weeds ‘n woods… or now, on the streets

  102. 1. Any romcom. They ALL follow the same storyline and one can usually predict presicely whats going to happen.

    Reality- You get in a fight like that, you break up and never speak again.

    2. Any “nick of time” business. In a sports movie, the game-winning point is scored with mere seconds left. The bomb is diffused just in time. The hero makes his flight by mere inches. Its old, let it die. Stuff doesn’t magically resolve in the last few seconds.

    Reality- Either you get your way early on and thats that, or the bomb kills you. Rarely are problems resolved just in time.

    3. Cars. Rarely are there no keys in the car. In horror movies, every car stalls. In any movie basically ever, when someone parks, they don’t turn the car off and take the keys out. (sometimes they don’t even shift to park) the simply open the door and get out. (which might explain why the keys are always in them)

    Reality- If the car isn’t yours, you’re not driving away in it. ALWAYS make sure you have enough gas to get to the creepy shed and back. And its never a good idea to let your car slowly creep away while you’re gone because its still in drive and the keys are in the ignition.

    4. Guns. Most any bad guy with even a full automatic will mis every time. But of course the hero always hits with his single shot pistol (dispite never holding a gun before)

    Reality- If you’ve never used a gun before, you’re probably about as accurate as someone who’s half blind. And if you’re up against some people who have assault rifles, theres not much chance left for you.

    5. Glass. In lots of chase scenes, you see the chasee run down a hallway and dive through a window, which shatters neatly and doesn’t leave cuts.

    Reality- That glass isn’t moving and you just ran full-on into it. Even if the glass was cracked and did break, you have a bunch of deep painful cuts and your running days are over for a while.

    6. Sparks. Computer overloads. Sparks everywhere. Bullets are shot at a car or basically anything. A nice PTWANG sounds and you have a nice glowing shower.

    Reality- Most computer meltdowns are characterized only by it not working and the rest is usually black smoke. Sparks don’t just come out of nowhere. And if you’ve ever seen a bullet hit another metal object, there’s a dull thud and a dent. No movie magic.

  103. 1. All action movies happen at night. Harldy ever in the day time.

    2. Aliens always lose no matter how powerful they are. (Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Galactus in Fantastic 4: rise of the silver surfer.) Could be more.

    3. Chuck Norris and his infinite ammo gun.

    3. Rambo and his super accurate bow and arrow shooting.

    4. Bad guy shoots up good guys car. its all bullet riddled and has flat tires and runs so good.
    Good guy shoot bad guys car once and it expoldes.

    5. Superman Returns movie: Lex has kryptonite, stabs Superman and lets him fall of a cliff. Superman returns and beats Lex. DONT LET HIM FALL!! cut his throat, stab him some more, and watch him die so you can take over the world.

    6. Steven Segall movies: sometimes you never see him punch a guy. He runs up and the guy falls down.

    7. The President or other important person gets shoved off a bridge or boat into the water. they yell “I CANT SWIM!!”.

  104. In an adventure movie such as the Mummy, Indiana Jones, National Treasure and such, there’s always a character has the job of saying something funny to ruin the tension.

    Is it just me, or the phrase “Everything you know is about to change” appears in every trailer nowadays?

  105. BTW: I do agree that the cliches and formulas used in films can be laughable at times….but try watching a few foreign films where these conventions are missing.

  106. Responding to IAN from June 18, 2007. There was a very very good reason why movies and especially TV began using the “555” telephone exchange. If a number which is or seems real is used, at least 6,000,000 freaks with nothing better to do will try calling that number as soon as possible — even the next commercial break. It is my understanding that “555” is not an active exchange in any area code in the country. Therefore, the possibility for prank or obsene phone is dramatically reduced…as is the liability of the producers.

  107. 1. Someone crucial to the conviction of a villain is shot on the Court House steps yet nobody saw the killer’s face.

    Reality: This never happens unless the killer is the evil No Face.

    2. Two tough guys look at each other and remind each other that they go way back.

    Reality: If they really go way back, Burt Reynolds doesn’t need to tell Sylvester Stalone that they go way back in a stinking auto race movie.

    3. Someone questionable wearing a suit tucks into a dark room and tells another dark character on the phone, “I think we have a situation here.”

    Reality: It’s a movie. The audience shouldn’t be shocked that there’s a situation.

    4. Two characters accidentally fall on one another and suddenly (pling)…realize that they are in love.

    The Reality: This never happens to The Batman.

    5. A hero proclaims, “This ends here” followed by a roll of thunder.

    The Reality: Real crime fighters and heroes don’t have drummers and thunder claps accompanying every triumphant statement.

    6. Angelina Jolie as a super spy helping a nerd find his inner supper self.

    The Reality: Someone decided to make NBC’s Chuck into a motion picture. What’s next? Holmes and Yoyo?

    7. Homicidal criminals leave some people unharmed and most people walk away alive so the plot can move along to main characters.

    The Reality: In my experience with homicidal criminals, this sort of thing never happens in Gotham City. The Joker will at least try to kill everyone and he never draws a knife without using it.

    Yours truly

    The Batman

    8. Bruce Willis gets out of every situation without medical care.

    The Reality: Even The Batman has to stop long enough to apply stitches. Jesus.

    9. Someone uses old songs from the 70’s in a movie to hopefully make it quirky.

    The Reality: A Barry Manilow song was not a great choice for HellBoy 2 unless they planned on making fun of Barry Manilow in some way. Example: One of the characters remarks about how fitting it is for a creature from hell to sing a Barry Manilow song

    10. Dunderheaded people that say “awesome”.

    Reality: It happens too much for no good reason along with stopping at 8. ha ho.

  108. 1. Wrong, many beautiful women actually do date complete jerks.

    2. OK fine, but watching the bouncers toss a couple guys out unceremoniously is not as much fun as a battle royale. Plus, an equal number of movies have the entire bar crowd gather ’round and start chanting “fight! fight!”

    3. Sex sells, mess doesn’t, unless we’re talking pornos. Get over it. It’s freaking movie.

    4. This is a movie cliche that works. If things spontaneously blow up, the hero doesn’t get to save everyone and the movie is quite a downer.

    5. Yes, in reality, getting shot in the shoulder leaves someone woefully disabled, but again, these are freaking movies we’re talking about. We have to see the hero get shot from time to time, but we don’t need the slowdown of rushing him to the emergency room. We would rather see him get an adrenalin rush and kick some more ass.

    6. The reality is that lots of people in several professions do know morse code AND it doesn’t actually happen THAT often.

    7. I have no clue what in the blue hell you’re talking about.

    8. Usually this occurs in a situation wherein someone is afraid of being monitored, unless I’m misinterpreting your writing.

    There is no 9 and 10 because you thought it was a clever joke.
    It isn’t.

  109. If the villain doesn’t blow the heross head off when he gets the chance they put them in the shark tank, fine by me, i like a little blood and gore in the movies i watch but don’t take AGES the lower them in! KICK THE SUCKER!

  110. If the villain doesn’t blow the heross head off when he gets the chance they put them in the shark tank, fine by me, i like a little blood and gore in the movies i watch but don’t take AGES the lower them in! KICK THE SUCKER! Don’t give him a chance to break free with a hidden knife in his belt!!

  111. If the villain doesn’t blow the heross head off when he get the chance they put them in the shark tank, fine by me, i like allitle blood and gore in the movies i watch but don’t take AGES the lower them in! KICK THE SUCKER! don’t give him a chance to break free with a hidden knife in his belt!!

  112. 1. Horror movies: bang up & bloody start then drag, drag, boo, drag, drag, boo

    2. Over used formula: 1st 15 min to set up situation, next 75 min chasing

  113. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)

    People in historical films (eg Romans) speak with British accents because American actors make it sound f*cking ridiculous e,g. Yonda lies da cassell of my faarder! – Tony Curtis – Black Shield of Falworth – need I say more?!!!!!!!!!

  114. Nice list, and additions. Here are some that bug me:
    1) Can you enhance this image of the license plate taken with a phone camera from a mile away? Yes, let me hit this key, and there you have it! A perfectly legible license plate number! You can’t add resolution to an image digitally. And what’s with the police computer budget in some of these towns? My town’s police department doesn’t have a room full of 60″ flat screens.
    2) When ordering at a bar: “Gimme a beer.” Thanks, asshole! Can you be a little more specific?!
    3) When traveling in space, the stars flash past the screen of the ship. Notice how the sun stays in the same spot in the sky when driving? We’re talkin’ millions of miles here!
    Which brings up another space-related habit. When a planet explodes, there is nothing left where it once was. Wouldn’t there be debris and gases, and basically what makes up the rings of planets, floating around?

  115. #1 Reminds me of one of my favorite films, The Movie Hero. Our hero tells his “love interest’s” boyfriend, and I Quote,

    ” Could you stop being a total loser? So many movies do that. It makes the love interest a part-loser for dating a total loser, therefore making our hero a part-loser because he wants to be with a part-loser dating a total loser.”

    If anyone has seen it go to…

  116. Here’s what is starting to get on my nerves in the movies.
    References to the “Back Door,” used as innuendo for a sexual position or to denote gay sex.

    And speaking of gay, I’m not a homophobe but do the producers need to hammer it through our heads any harder that Gay is OKAY? We’ve heard it, we’ve seen it, we know how they do it, and we don’t need the barrage of gay double entendres everywhere we turn.

    The omnipresent “liberal” propaganda. Is it really necessary – or even clever? – to douse every creative film endeavor with not so covert messages about global warming and the horrors of war?

  117. I’ve grown tired of seeing Will Smith although I do like him.
    Others also on my personal “sick and tired” of list:
    Ben Affleck – he just might be as dull in his movies as he is in real life;
    Katie Holmes – not that she’s got scads of film credits to her name, but even her name annoys me these days. The only thing worse could be hearing the compound (not to be confused with Scientology cults), “TomCat.”
    Matt McConaughey – The shirtless wonder has lost his is overexposed in more ways than one. Time to put a new face up on the big screen; Matt’s face (and torso) are gettin’ old.
    What’s her name – you know the one – Goldie Hawn’s daughter. The girl whose mouth just keeps on grinning (someone should stuff an apple in there the next time she opens wide for the cameras. Sheesh.)

    Besides people, what’s to love in the movies besides just about nothing? Oh, wait: there is something: Special effects. Lots of ’em. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything too special about what they’re showing at the movies nowadays.

  118. i hate that the hero always lives. i wish that they could make the heros die sometimes. the movies are always pretictable because nothing happens to the hero. like spider-man 3 the commercials was like this could be the end of spider-man u know hes not going to die. but the part when harry and venom dies was unexpected they need to have that in more movies.

  119. Here is a classic:

    Setting the scene- A loud crash and snarl is hear outside at night:

    Movie = Hay all there are 4 of us lets all split up and take no weapons and get mauled and eaten outside!! “great idea I also too want to die young”

    Reality = Stuff this , we all stay in one big group and we all have knives from the kitchen plus a chair leg to smash heads plus a broken bottle plus I have wrapped myself up with demin and also covered my neck so I dont get bitten there and we all go out find this monster and kick the crap outta him then put it on youtube and become celebrities for killing the monster.

    Or they squeel like girls and run into a public place where they dont get eaten also………

    Need to breathe now…

  120. What I really hate about almost EVERY horror movie is:
    Theres a noise in the garage or some other pretty dark spot somewhere. Light are already destroyed or the bulb just blows this very second.
    Then tension arises…. *BAM* its the neighbors cat.
    The victim turns around and gets a face-full :(
    Seen SOOOOOOOO often…

    and the classic handy thing:
    When the character needs to make a call either the batteries are low or theres no network around.
    Geez, we live in 2008….

    (sry for the crappy english… im from germany)

    BTW: great list….

  121. Here’s a number 9…
    Civilian drivers who either a) choose to drive forward like clueless zombies, or b) choose to aim their vehicle towards certain death.

    I’ll explain.

    So I’m watching Ronin (excellent film) and there’s this wicked little car chase when all of a sudden (as if it wasn’t going to happen…) the ‘chasee’ jumps the curb into oncoming traffic on the highway. You know how that goes. Anyway, when I’m driving the 401 and some moron does something stupid in front of me, I INSTINCTIVELY steer my car (by safely obeying all traffic laws ha ha ha) out of the way. But why is it that in action movies the civilian drivers don’t instinctively move out of the way. The ‘chasee’ weaves and ducks through all these oncoming vehicles WHO DON’T EVEN TWITCH! They just blindly drive into the car in front contributing to a nice twisted metal mess. The only ones who move are those who decide (somehow) to hinder the ‘chaser’, drive into a fuel tanker, or off a bridge.

    Anyway… Hi Doug. Hi John. May the Force be with you. Long live Zul!

  122. A while back,a brag mag (the dirty rumours magazone type) had this one article I foudn intriguing-aftr a long time-about things (absurdities) hapening in the movieverse.Here are some that anoy ME:

    1.”CHECK OUT CHANNEL X!”-

    Person calls another person,tells them about a news/programe afecting them personaly,or being of great importance-and when the person puts on the TV,that certain news is just beining-technicaly, if its VERY important,it COULD be after a WHILE or on another chanel-when they say “check out the news”, its POSSIBLE that the news which was just on another chanel where the news are also playing has JUST started to shown on that respective chanel.Either that or TV stations broadcast in diferent time zones at diferent moments-which just HAPENS to cross between location A where character 1A is and location B where character 1B is-or they have very fast telephones OR- THEY CAN DIAL BACK IN TIME!

    2.Elevators

    Always there when not needed and ALWAYS held up by some all knowing socipathic sadist who holds it up for others to be killed.

    3. Ridiculous/Repetitive phone conversations

    Where the person being called has to ask back about the information just recieved in the exact same form to make sure anyone around and their mother will know exactly whats going on (yeah,pressing one button on the phone device is to big a bother)

    4.Last second escaoes

    Tying up with the big countdown clocks-EVERYONE geting out 0.0000000000000000000000000001 atto seconds before IT blows up.

    5.Car gets scratched=BOOM

    Cars always blowing up when having an acident.

    6. Ridiculous stunts

    Kobra 11-apart from being imensely guilty of 5,also had this scene-bad woman escapes in car,hero jumps through building window right on top of the passing car and seconds before the car falls to its doom leaps UP and just manages to hang on a wire located conventiontaly at that VERY LOCATION

    7. The “dirty” Criminal genre

    Mostly death investigators,investigating murders by unsympathethic people -solving cases by intimidation,locking up and through miraculously fast tests-too fast for the curent most modern technological lab-im talking about DNA tests being finished very shortly after they are begun (a PRIORITY DNA test takes 24 hours,I think)-usualy by just clicking a mouse and looking on a monitor-sometimes downright ridiculous (solving murder cases by creating mathematical equatiosn,OH GOODY!)-Columbo,Monk and some others are exceptiosn,but…..

    8. Entering buildings with flasglights

    Even when theres a perfectly good switch two inches of from your hand.

    9. Unexisting presidents

    People youve never heard of serving as presidents of the USA at your time or in the very near future(I know about ten)

    10. Catastrophic movies killing of the cast

    “The core”-seriously,idiotic plot-but 99% of the cast just HAPPENS to be killed by mysterious acidents/construction failures that nothing is responsbile-oh yeah,havent seen that yet.

    11. Optimistic endings

    Sometimes negative endings can make you glum,but hey,is life perfect?

    12.Characters who hate each other end in bed

    While it SOMETIMES can happen,it doesnt happen all the time.

    13.Aliens can all talk english,even to each other/all people on alien planets having one race and talking the same language

    Star Trekk-especialy Voyager-where they are at places no human ever was at-but look at damn Neelix and tell me wheres the logic?The second is people being too lazy to be realistic as well.

    14.WE MADE IT!

    Anoying optimistic yelpings.No coment

    15.LAND BEFORE TIME 1 000 000 000 000

    Seriously,14?

    16. Near future is bombasticaly diferent

    As Chesterton said-does a mouse continue to grow so big to blot out the sun?

    17. People with super powers

    Im talking about Heroes/4400 here.Its very hard to not potray this ridiculously in real life.

    18. Inacurancies

    Rather a requring phenomenon,then a cliché-but-okay,since when can the US hokey team beat our,the Czech Hokey team what 7:0 and how do they call a “typical slav type” a person with years of drinking beer and eating hotdogs (cause we all know hotdogs ws a favourit dish in the Soviet block,ESPECIALY during the cold war)-another things is Indiana Jones portraying mostly vegetarian Inds as bug and snake eaters (chineese do that)- mentioning a “sultan of madagascar”in the 1940’s too is one lesser stupidity-but on the level of saying “Emir of Germany” and in 1956.Johny nglish is a good example-the queen abdicates the throne and,insetad of several hundred people after the main ruling family-including various other family members of nobility and sovereign monarchs of other states,the throne passes to a french guy of no stated noble birth.

    19. People talking about their future plans being killed VERY soon

    ALOT of people plan ahead.Not 10% of them are killed right after they disclose their plans to someone

    20. Newspapers having one single story to cover

    You know-when someone is reading about something that is afecting them and though its covered on the first page,they learna bout it from the midle-around the place where the sports section starts

  123. How about the Taxi Cliche?

    When a character hops off a taxicab, the driver NEVER gives change. It’s either of three things:

    1) The cab fare is always exact
    2) The character wants the driver to keep the change
    3) The driver doesn’t like to give change

    It’s really a minor fixture in movies, but this ALWAYS happens. Don’t you agree?

  124. You have been set up or caught in a compromising position by someone, they will normally start acusing you of alot of things that aren’t true. BUT all is not what it looks like. Example – a mother finds a used condom in the house, she berates the son, the sone dosen’t get a word in and cops punishment.
    Instead of the son explaining in a calm and truthful tone that it was his brother or a prank or something, they will just stand there wide eyed, slack jawed going “oh, oh ahh, ahh, ohh” searching for words that would redeem them.

    IT’S NOT F*CKING HARD TO TELL THE TRUTH AND CLEAR YOU’RE NAME, BUT INSTEAD OF DOING THAT YOU JUST STAND THERE LIKE A MUTE UMMING AND AHH-ING UNTIL THE MOTHER HAS HAD ENOUGH OF BERATING YOU AND WALKS OUT.

    God, it sh*ts me.

  125. Instant car explosions.
    Hey I’m a European but our cars don’t explode if you hit something (wall or other car). We have no C4 beyond the bumpers.

    Even worse: The heros car explodes after he runs away, the villains directly, for sure.

    (haven’t I reed all, i can’t imagine that no one mentioned that b4)

  126. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)

    Two of my favorites:

    1-Finding cures for new diseases in a matter of days(even hours)-
    Antidotes, medicines, treatments, require years of careful study and millions of dollars in research.

    2- Painfully obvious expository conversations(sample conversation)-

    Guy A-“It’s great to have such a great family, so much money and great health”

    Guy B-“Yes you are a very lucky man”

    Then Guy B has an affair with Guy A’s wife.Guy A’s buisness ventures fail, he is now broke.Later Guy A gets cancer.

  127. I was an NYC paramedic for 5 years. I can vouch for #5. I think Bruce got shot 2 maybe three times in the original Die Hard.

    You might add to the mix – 5a Once someone gets beat down they stay down. Just look at YouTube under “Knocked the F*&$ Out.”

  128. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)
    …or when the hero says ” i want to take you to dinner” and the girl says “ok”. then the hero says ” alright. 8 oclock, then.” no address is given. no “see you at the light under the bridge”. no directions. but they meet at 8 and everybody knows where.
    dont you hate that?

  129. Isnt it ironic during all da endings in da movies where da hero has to save some1 that a lotta bystanders get hurt or killed even….run over…get into car accidents that cud probably kill em…have their cars stolen..have their houses or stalls blown up or smashed into..have a misfired bullet hit em etc etc etc…all those lives dn’t count anywhere as near as the person da hero has to save..stupidity…

  130. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)love-this-list.
    i hate:
    1.somebody’s mad or depressed, or something bad is about to happen, so it’s gotta be raining.
    2.nobody believes you until you say:”I GIVE YOU MY WORD”. now everyone’s on board no matter how stupid/outlandish the plan.
    3. you dont want to go along until the hero says: “TRUST ME”. aw, hell. now i have to do it. fuck! he said ‘trust me’!
    4. the hero comes to the house/apt AND THE DOOR IS UNLOCKED!! ok. i admit it. i live in L.A. but i’ve never even checked to see if a door is locked. cuz i know everybody locks their door. and even if they didn’t, i wouldnt try the door and just walk in.

  131. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)Actresses that don’t do nudity because they
    don’t want to “degrade women” while taking on the role of a crackhead or prostitute

  132. MixmastaJB- In DEMOLITION MAN, Stallone eats a hamburger in the underground resistances hideout, and when he asks whats in it,and they tell him it’s made of rat meat, he just says hmmm,goood.

  133. I HATE IT…when women are considered action heroes. 5 foot 4 118 pound women running around doing kung fu shit and beating the hell out of middle linebackers from the Chicago Bears. THIS MUST STOP. IT MUST STOP NOW! I PRAY FOR THE DAY A FILM SHOWS SOME STUPID ANGELINA JOLIE TYPE GET SQUARE UP AGAINST 6 Foot 4 240 Pound MAN…and he just grabs her by the neck with one hand and CHOKES HER to death slowly…then after the movie death says…”Stupid Bitch”….

  134. I hate the villain’s henchman. Whenever the hero gets to the villain, and they send out their little henchmen to distract them for the ten seconds it takes the hero to take em out, while they make a clean getaway.

    or the nerd stereotype who lives with his mom and has no chance at a girlfriend.

    and cliches like the villain revealing his plan just make me love Watchmen.

  135. (Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)
    There should be a #9
    someone is being chased down a street or alley (chaser in car, chasee on foot), the chasee always continues to run straight ahead.Get real..who can outrun a car…a real person would run to the side or double back.

  136. The one I hate the most happens in any horror movie and lots of action flicks, walking into a dark room. I never go into a room without turning on a light if the light doesnt work i dont go in. Plus in horror movies nobody ever looks up.

  137. @dragonslayer: Normally I’d say you’re right, but you’re forgetting that Edward’s entire character was a quivering, angstful mess. He had no confidence. That right there explains his running away. I mean, isn’t that what a lot of the movie about? (Sorry, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen it in its entirety.)

  138. All movie cliches are based on some original shred of truth – especially #1. The real problem, which I don’t think anyone mentioned, is that in the chain of production, someone applies the cliche. It’s not necessarily the scriptwriter. It could be the director or producer saying, “I want this in there.” The fact is, a lot of movie goers are comfortable with familiarity – which also explains why so much shitty mainstream music does so well.

    Originality is rare because it means both stepping out an existing mindset and then convincing someone more powerful than you that what you’ve come up with is a good thing.

  139. When you’re a superhero and you get scared and run away

    Cliche: Like in Edward Scissorhands. Ed’s got frickin scissors for hands. The bad guy comes and tells him to get the hell outta the suburbs. Ed leaves and goes on a rampage.

    Reality: If you have fuckin scissors for hands, you don’t run away from the asshole, you knife the bastard, you don’t go out and start scaring the shit out of eveyone in your sight. I hated that.

    When you are invinsible and they still shoot at you

    Cliche: Superman Returns. The guy launches a shit load of bullets at Superman and as soon as he runs out and Superman is still alive, the dude pulls out a gun and shoots him in the eye. It doesn’t work.

    Reality: If you don’t kill the fucker in the 100 bullets, it proves yer fucked beyond all reckoning, and you start crying and filling your pants with some goo.

    Y’know, I don’t get why these happened. Edward Scissorhands was ruined by that. Superman wasn’t, but it was still stupid. Who the Fuck just runs away when they got fuckin sharp motherfuckin claws? Fuckin retarded.

  140. finding passwords are soooo easy yeah… they just need three times to get it. “his daughters name? hm hm.. the year he finished university.. hm hm.. his dogs sign of the zodiac? ok i’ve got it!” I’m sick of it… and why the hell is the screen always black and the letters green or grey screen and big blue typo?

    another cliche is that the good girl is between two nice guys and at least she picks one of them (of course the protagonist) and the other one just say “i wish you to be happy forever” and don’t even cry a teardrop or scream to her “you little bitch, who the hell you think you are?”

  141. I agree with all of those cliches.

    I especially agree with angryaboutbullshit.
    *cough PROM NIGHT cough*

    I don’t even watch romance movies anymore, they have become neither worth the money or worth my time. They’re so full of cliches and prediciblity that it becomes a snore. Darn the directors/producers.
    Shame on the actors who cannot bring it to life.

    And thank god for the actors who can.

  142. i really hate it when you got like 5 protagonists in a horror movie that have to search for the killer or for something like fixin the blown fuses… so they all go in different directions, knowing that a killer is waiting for them… probably not at the first dark corner,… that’s just a false jump scare… you’re like WTF? and then… the killer shows up from behind ! WHY DO THEY DO THIS SHIT? WHY DON’T THEY JUST STAY TOGETHER? 5 GUYS COULD EASILY HANDLE ONE KILLER!
    wow, that’s so cliche, fuck that bullshit…

  143. here’s one:

    somebody will eat something and really like it.

    when they ask what it is, they will get an answer like, “it’s dog food” or “it’s monkey brains,” and then they will hate it.

  144. Here are some more…

    *The guy and girl are just about to kiss and… they get interrupted by some irritating person. What, can you not see that they’re trying to kiss? And where’d you come from, anyway?

    *If you can’t see it, you can’t hear it. Helicopters that pop up from behind a tree or building… I guess they had the silencer on those rotors.

    *When someone’s using a computer and it’s not a Mac, and it’s also not running Windows… hey, what the hell is this operating system? The letters are all really huge and there are tons of beeping noises.

    *To save the world we have to sacrifice a couple of people. The guy who wants to sacrifice them is considered “evil” for this, and he will eventually get his comeupance. (Of course, if you don’t sacrifice those people, and the world ends, they’ll die anyway.) Luckily, the people will decide to sacrifice themselves, which is okay. And then half the time, they somehow escape death anyway!!!

  145. There may be a little more truth to #1 than we want to concede. Sorry, “hero”. If your love interest is in a committed relationship with an abusive man, she’s got bigger problems than you’ll ever solve with your tenderness and charm. Run for your life and find a woman who cherishes a good man, ‘cuz this one won’t.

    Here’s another for the list, though. The villain is rich, and we hate him because we know that significant wealth is never gained through perseverance and shrewd strategy, but always by manipulation and treachery. The hero struggles financially, and we love him because we know that those in such positions have no moral shortcomings, especially greed.

    As much as this set-up is already a caricature, we’re supposed to cheer when everything wraps up nice at the end, and the hero is lifted out of his poverty by a freakish windfall. Wait a minute: Now that our hero is rich, doesn’t that make HIM evil?

  146. In a movie where there is a closeup of a computer screen where someone is typing (usually some computer geek with a typing speed of 120 words per minute or more), have you ever seen the typist make a mistake?

  147. First of all what you said was ignorant, and good guy is probably looking for personality and not just the looks. Ok moving on. The number one thing that bothers me in sci-fi and action films is when there is a whole bunch of people and there is a monster or something coming to kill them and the people just stand there and stare at the thing while it is killing people. Like in War of the Worlds.

  148. oh and cars that do radical jumps 20 feet or so off the ground and still drive at high speeds with little or no damage.

    this applies to the car also being shot the fuck up by machine guns and have thousands of bullet holes in the hood and still run…no fucking way.

  149. …Kristina, do you secretly want a dog?

    ok,
    1) Scottish rolls with british actors, british rolls with scottish actors

    2) Major shootouts, bad guy has revolver that holds 6 shots and he shoots 9 or 10, sometimes more the older the movie
    3) During major shoot outs, (where cars are involved) no one thinks of shooting the other persons feet or legs from under the car.
    4) In horror movies the victom is running like a cheeta through the woods that are dark and deep, from a killer that is mutated or shot, hurt, stabed – limping or on one leg – but is always 20 feet behind the person RUNNING (and screaming, just in case the killer gets lost)
    5) The hero or main star sacrifices themself – that got old after ARMAGEDON – its a new one that is now happening TOO often.
    6) Someone told not to make any phone calls as to not give away where they are, and they do it any way
    7) Ben Stiller movies
    8) Secret labs or bases that would take thousands of people to build….not so secret base
    9) Tom Cruse movies
    10) Someone mentioned this before, but getting from point “A” 30 miles away to point “B” in ten minutes
    11) Hero getting away in HIGH SPEED CHASE – let me say this – NEVER GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN EVVVEEERRRR!!!!! YOU CAN’T OUT RUN POLICE RADIO!

    One last thing…about women with the jerk boyfriend(s) women want to get FUCKED like a porn star! Nice guys don’t know how or incapable of doing so! Thats why they stay with the asshole! Nice guys need to learn how to smack that ass right and kill this cliche…fuck…

  150. 1. Right on John! This fromula has been run into ground. However I disagree anyone being more handsome then me.

    2. Too true.

    3. I wouldn’t know about doing it in public places… hmmm would care to tell us who she was John.

    4. :(

    5. Right on again. If you get shot in the shoulder kiss full movment of that arm good-bye.

    6.Not true in Short Circuit 2.

    7. Rule #7 can also lead to hilarity.

    8. Not all info is for the publics ears. Finding a secluded area to divulge information is sometimes a smart idea. Also it can lead to rule #3.

  151. 1. Right on John! This fromula has been run into ground. However I disagree anyone being more handsome then me.

    2. Too true.

    3. I wouldn’t know about doing it in public places… hmmm would care to tell us who she was John.

    4. :(

    5. Right on again. If you get shot in the shoulder kiss full movment of that arm good-bye.

    6.Not true in Short Circuit 2.

    7. Rule #7 can also lead to hilarity.

    8. Not all info is for the publics ears. Finding a secluded area to divulge information is sometimes a smart idea. Also it can lead to rule #3.

  152. @Naught

    I ADORE the Butler and I LOVE Love Actually. That moment with the videotape of Keira put a tear in my eye. And man, Billy Mack….
    “It’s a terrible mistake, chubs, but you turned out to be the fucking love of my life.”

    sigh………………..

  153. Nowadays you just have to look at a picture of Paris Hilton and you can get herpes, my dear.
    That Scot accent on a Spartan was hot. I don’t kid and I don’t give a shit.
    My fave rom-com is still Love Actually. Lots of cliches, but it made me smile and feeling the fuzzies after wacthing it, and I don’t get fuzzies except after orgasms.

    Question:
    In Movies, when the wife and husband have the same job or work in the same line (i.e Mr&Mrs Smith), why is it always wife does better than husband? Are we women so fragile we can’t admit that some things are done better by men?

  154. And with all the sex going on, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen somebody stop to put a condom on in a movie, yet none of these people ever get herpes. Miraculous, I tell ya!

  155. When people have sex in movies, they cover themselves up with sheets during and after the act. The woman’s legs are sticking out, and the sheets cover the guy from the waist down. How convenient. Either that, or they rush to throw their clothes back on. They are never sweaty and the woman’s makeup is still perfectly intact. When they wake up in the morning, NO ONE EVER HAS BAD BREATH OR DROOL OR THE PILLOW. Birds are chirping, the lighting is perfect, and nobody looks like hell.

    1. Agreed. In the movie Dreamcatcher (which has plenty of its own cliches) Jason Leigh’s character mentions this point(about the morning breath), as well.

      “In the movies, when people wake up together in the morning, they immediately start kissing, nuzzling and going at it, but what they never do is get up first, take a leak and brush their goddamn teeth, which I don’t think I’m alone in feeling is pretty much necessary when you wake up.”

      Then he tells his buddies the ONE movie that gets it right, Promised Land with Kiefer Sutherland and Meg Ryan

      They wake up in the morning….

      Meg: Where’s the cat?

      Kiefer: What cat?

      Meg: The cat that shit in my mouth.

  156. When people get married in movies, the wedding is almost always interrupted somehow, by somebody objecting to the marriage, or one of them realizing at the last moment that their heart is really with someone else.

    1. Yeah, how many people in real life actually go through with the whole thing then change their mind at the last minute? I know the whole point is to make it more dramatic in the film but come on!! If you are having doubts about the wedding-CALL IT OFF!!! Don’t drag everyone down to the freaking church in their dress clothes and then just send them home.

    2. I absolutely despise when the wedding is interupted, but what especially annoys me is someone turning up half way through, shouting “I object”….AND THEN fucking realise that it’s the wrong fucking wedding! so they’re all like “whoops! dreadfully sorry!” and walking off. Everyone else there breathes a sigh of relief, and it’s forgotten as the couple gets hitched. Why why why why why? Why would that person turn up at the wrong fucking place? GRRRRRRR

  157. @ Kristina with gun fights the hero is always an awesome shot UNTILL he has a clear shot and the main villian oh no! he missed so they have to have a hand to hand fight instead… GRRR

  158. Running from a maniac and screaming the entire way, especially when there are plenty of areas to duck and hide, because is it’s really dark out and the only thing said maniac can tell about where you are are the noises you make: You should shut up and stay low for a long time. Instead of running in one straight line (screaming) through a thick forest when all you’ve got is one saw-wielding maniac following you.

  159. In shootouts, the bad guys can’t shoot worth shit, but the good guys rarely, if ever, miss their targets. It kills me to see the bad people unload their ammo and not hit a damn thing.

    1. I know right. And even if the bad guy has good aim, the main character has a metal flask in his pocket! Did I forget to mention that if the good guy misses the bad guy, it will either ricochet or cause some kind of catastrophe that will kill him.

  160. Guys that get kicked in the balls grab their stomachs for two seconds and then keep on going. Trust me ladys: kicked in the balls = end of fight. Guys that get kicked in the balls grab their stomachs for two seconds and then keep on going. Trust me ladys: kicked in the balls = end of fight. <- PERIOD. I'm getting a little sick just thinking about it...

  161. Heres 2 more for you;

    “We should split up.” No you fucking shouldn’t!

    I love these giant shootouts that go on for 5 minutes in an action scene and the cops just never show. If there was a shoot out of that size thats all that would be on the news for weeks.

  162. @JENNY

    I always hate that they instantly get the news they were looking for, but what I hate more than that is when they turn off the TV right after the story. I mean come on!! You know if the news is big enough, they’ll be talking about it for another 30 minutes, or break-in with ‘this just in…’

    1. Ha! I know, that always annoyed the hell out of me, too! There’s actually this clip of Arrested Development where they set it up to do that cliche, but don’t. They’re having a meeting, and the “bad” lawyer says something, “Yeah, it’s all over the news!” and they flick on the TV, and it’s some obscure story. The lawyer’s like, “Oh, hold on, it should be on right after this…” and they end up waiting for like a half hour to see the 30-second news clip. Then the lawyer says something like, “Now imagine how dramatic it would have been if that had been on right when we turned the TV on!”

  163. The one that always gets me is when people are watching an important announcement on TV – like the world is going to end – and they watch about 10 seconds of the announcement and then turn the fucking TV off!

    Come on! when 9/11 happened everyone was glued to the TV all day…..

    At least get your characters to discuss how they are going to save the world with the TV still on in the background.

  164. Serena’s has to be my favourite! It’s so true, but none of these cliches are going to stop until we get off our arses and start writing the movies ourselves.

    Just imagine if it were possible to create a film which contains all the situations we’ve mentioned but avoids every single cliche we’ve pointed out……..what a fucked up mess that would be, ha!

  165. Another one….in disaster movies, the whole world will go to shit, millions will die…..but the cute kid and the dog will ALWAYS survive. I will NEVER forgive that fucking dog outrunning the fireball in Independence Day, or the homeless asshole and his dog in Day After Tomorrow. Fuck kids and fuck their dogs. The best thing about Pirates 3 was that they had the balls to hang a fucking bastard kid in the opening sequence. Fuck kids. Fuck dogs. FUCK THEM ALL!!!!!!!!

  166. Here’s one that always pisses me off: An evil secret is revealed/something ominous is said….LIGHTNING STRIKES RIGHT AFTER HE/SHE SAYS IT. Not only that, but the thunder sounds SIMULTANEOUSLY!

  167. I would like to see one movie where a parent actually believes their child about something f*cked up going on. Children and animals in movies always seem to sense bad shit going on….I just want to see a movie where a kid goes to his parents and say something like “I think our next door neighbour is a vampire/werewolf/serial killer etc.” and the parents go, “Well then let’s get the f*ck out of here!”

    1. Serena, that’s awesome! I know, they always take the kid to a psychiatrist and usually the parents have to actually get killed in order to believe the kid!

  168. In car chases, people use up all their ammo shooting at each other. AIM FOR THE FUCKING TIRES!! Blow the tires out, chase over, done deal. Hell, if you’re going at high speeds, a blown tire could theorectically flip the bad guy’s car over multiple times, badly injuring or even killing him. Just shoot out the damn tires.

    In romcoms, the people can’t figure their shit out until the VERY END where they chase down their love in a car, or race to the airport to stop them from moving to France or some shit. I HATE when they have stupid disagreements and storm off, followed by the typical montage set to sad emo music. I HATE it in movies like Hitch or How to lose a guy in 10 days when they have the BIG FIGHT over some misunderstanding, but if they sat down for two minutes and actually TALKED about the shit, they’d figure it out and everything would be fine. That’s why I LOVE Lost in Translation. There is no contrived plot device that drives the two of them apart.

  169. Man, you are so right about #7! I’d never really thought about it before, but it’s a total rom-com staple. Usually, though, they try to legitimize it, so it’s not so much a ridiculously inconsiderate interruption but a WACKILY COINCIDENTAL phone call (with the one-sided conversation hilariously breaking down the guy’s resolve– Meet the Parents, I’m thinking of), or the exactly wrong person coming in with big overshadowing news, so afterwards the person will turn back and say “Sorry, weren’t you going to tell me something?” but the moment’s gone.

    And on that note, I think the most ridiculous part of the cliche is when the guy pretends he was talking about a car or whatever and the parents JUST ACCEPT IT. Like “Sorry, honey, what were you trying to tell me?” “Oh… just that… I love you.” “Oh, OK.” NO! Obviously they were building up to something big! NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE THAT.

  170. Something to expect when your watching war films:

    When a character looks at her girlfriend/wife/son/daughter’s picture they always gets killed and it seems like a really big deal to the main character.

  171. Here’s one

    Little Penny is looking for Little Johnny but is scared. Little Penny eventually looks in the scary dark basement. Calls out, “Hey Johnny! You in there?” Doesn’t get answered. Hesitates…then goes in to see if he’s there…

    Why would anyone do that?

    The heroes and villains have to attack each other at the apex of their sentence. Like this:

    “Well, how do you like THIS.” and “This is where you DIE!” accompanied by a gradual loudening. But if the hero is going to be saved then they say, “This is where you die.” calmly, then stand there and wait to be foiled.

  172. Perhaps this is slightly off topic but a formula that I’m sick and tired of seeing is animated films featuring family-friendly, cartoony, anthropomorphic, talking-animals. There is too damn many. Why can’t animation be percieve as something more than just for kids?

  173. One of my biggest pet-peeves is in Romantic comedies.

    the main character always has one friend/relative who is the “sane” one and gives them the correct advice.

    The main character then ignores them the whole film, screws up their entire life in every way possible in one day, then has to crawl back to that friend/relative and follow their original advice.

    The other worst offender to me is Hollywood’s recent free pass with cheating. This is the main plot of the new Ben Stiller movie and we have seen this 100 times before.

    Main character gets engaged to absolute jerk/bitch who treats them like complete dirt. Main character meets love of their life while on trip, starts affair with new love, then convinces nasty fiance that they should let them go and all will be happy if main character ends up with new girl.
    Nasty fiance suddenly turns into nice person, agrees, then gives main character a hug and wishes them well!

    Anyone who has watched ONE episode of Judge Judy or Divorce Court will know that this is complete BS!!! Hell, people have been KILLED for pulling that kind of crap in real life!!!

  174. Great John! This topic is one of the main reasons I come to this site! Nowhere else can i vent my movie frustrations and feel validated like this site!

    I agree with all of those! Too many movie cliches are a sign of lazy writing!

    The really sad thing is that some of the oldest ones in the book STILL get used way too much, like “i’ll be right back” in horror movies, still used a lot.

    The ones i hate are where someone original tried to turn a cliche on its ear and change it and then Everyone else adopts it.

    For along time in horror movies the main hero ALWAYS lived so recently some films tried to change it by introducing a false hero in the beginning and then killing them unexpectedly.
    Already, more than a few films have copied this and tried to make us think characters were important then killed them off. I almost expect it now…almost.

  175. “Yeah, that girl you dig… well her boyfriend 9 times out of 10 is better looking, funnier, smarter, richer and all round a better person that you… loser.”

    HAHAHA
    …soo true

  176. I hate this cliche: Love Interest gets captured by bad guy and hero must save her…….”just in the nick of time!”

    I hate when one of the good guys joins the enemy just to reveal that he was there to hack the organization from the inside at a crucial moment.

    The whole “life lesson” at the end of the movie.

  177. I liked the morse code cliche a lot…

    The thing that bothers the hell out of me is that there is never any traffic. Ok, you’re on the other side of LA? No problem, I’ll just hop in my ride and be there in 10 minutes – which is possible because there’s no traffic!

  178. The cliche that really bothers me is when they say a line of what’s gonna happen in the end, ala X-Men 3, when Xavier says to Storm “One day you’ll take over the school.”, and I’m sitting in the theater going “Oh god, now I know what’s gonna happen.”, it makes the story too predictable.

  179. John, though I usually agree with 99% of your posts, I must say, #1 isn’t always a cliche. In fact, it’s usually true. You and I are both GIANOMOUS GEEKS. We can both attest to the fact that women much rather date the jerks/assholes who demean them, rather than the little nice guy. Well, girls around my age group do…

    So #1 isn’t 100% false. :)

  180. The one that gets me every time is in a childrens movie with talking dog Who Let The Dogs Out has to play atleast once.

    Or Within a horror movie the good old fasioned fake out scare, followed by the real scare you always know when its coming too like when someone opens a medicine cabinet to look in and when they close it someone else is behind them….but yet people still continue to jump at this

  181. one thing that really bothers me is the killer no matter how mutated and crazy they are,they are so into their work that they have collected every newspaper clipping of every crime they’ve done and they have posted them on the wall for the victoms to find.then the idiots take the time to stand there and read them while a killer is after them.
    another one is the good guy/girl has stunned the killer but instead of hacking him to little pieces or shooting him 20 times to make sure he’s dead,they just walk away and assume he’s finshed.

  182. lol@ Darren! Yeah, the dog always gets to live. Example: Independance Day.

    Alien uberweapon is tearing major cities a new one, THOUSANDS of people dying in a fiery blaze of destruction. Oh shit we forgot the dog in the car while running for cover in this access door no one is using! Hey dog! and we all cheer when the dog miraculously escapes harm in an impressive leap to safety.

    Did you see the dozen people dematerialize in the background while you were cheering?

    In Jurassic Park 2 the dog is barking at the dino, and I was SO happy to see him get eaten.

  183. in horror movies, woman is running from the serial killer, she trips, drops her keys, can’t find the right keys to start her car. the killer isn’t near her car, until the shot pans out and is either standing in front of the door or the sudden “peeka boo I see you” scare.

  184. Ok, i can add two bad guy cliches here for starters:

    “I’ve been very impressed that you got this far…….why not join me”

    “I know you better than you know yourself”

    People who have never held a firearm before, will be as good as Robocop within 10 seconds of touching one (this includes being able to hold, load, and cock it as if it were made of cardboard instead of being the rather heavy piece of metal that it actually is).

  185. #8 bothers me the most. Especially when someone takes forever to explain that they have something important to say, “don’t forget this”, “I’ve got to tell you”…..just tell them already…dammit.

    This is the one thing that takes me out of ANY movie.

  186. Adding/amending to Gio’s #1’s reality: The guy is still an abusive jerk and treat her like his property. He will stand her up, knock her up, knock her down, and she will still love the idiot because his car is better than yours :( But, be of good cheer. Most of the time the idiot has to make up/exagerrate his own inadaquadicies.

    Anyway…

    1) Love at first sight can happen. GETTING LAID ON THE FIRST DATE (or even random occurance)…that’s another story.

    2) On a related note, hookers will always be smoking hot, work out at least twice a day, and, most importantly, you don’t have to pay her for sex. She’ll charge others, of course, but you are ‘special’.

    3) Strippers in a strip bar. And not one of the main/supporting characters is watching them.

    4) “I want your badge and your gun. You are on vacation/suspension”.
    Oddly, maverick cop will have another gun/have access to one. In addition, he gets best (revenge) results when off-duty and on vacation. They also will be fully re-instated.

    5) For those underlings who came closest to capturing/killing the hero but, due to chance, the hero gets away: the crime boss will knock them off because of thier “failiure”.

    6) The difference between cats and dogs: in a global disaster, the cats sadly never make it. Our dog Fido? No problem! Dogs are faster than all fires and floods, domestic, foreign AND especially extraterristial.

    7) In times of peril, it is best to drive motorcycles…because the car battery dies and/or gas line floods as the killer approaches.

    8) Self-awareness jokes/fourth wall abuse…characters “know” they are in a genre film.

  187. What I would add:

    THE CLICHE: Whenever the weather reflects the character’s mood. i.e. it rains whenever someone is grieving, eather from a character’s death or from a breakup, but if someone is crying, the rain’s gotta fall.

    THE REALITY: The world isn’t affected by your mood and it is likely a beautiful day outside when you feel like shit.

  188. Amen to the sex one.

    Everything seems unrealistic to me in movies because I’m Australian and most of the movies I watch are American. The Accent doesn’t translate very well.

    “You had me at ‘Hello'”

    This translates to …

    “Love, if I could have, I woulda stuck me dick in ya the first time I seen ya”

  189. Hahahaha, love the list. So true. I never thought of the no spunk after the hump before!

    Here is a few that annoy me.

    1. Horror movies-When the first character dies, everyone is upset. Second character dies to the last, no one really gives a shit or they are not meantioned anymore once dead.

    2. There is always a taxi when someone needs one.

    3. Black people saying CLICHE words says as ”Damn woman”.

    4. Bad guys shooting off a 100 rounds of gun fire and missing the hero.

      1. You should see early Philippine movie, where the Hero always wears Blue Jeans Jacket, whatever the weather is & kills all the bad guys WITH-OUT changing the magazine & of course shot in the shoulder.

  190. 1.)
    I HATE it when two characters are about to face off and one of them does the “come get some” hand motion.Uggh.

    2.)
    When a character is having a a meltdown or is on drugs I hate the camera angle that follows them on a steady cam in front of their face.
    I usually check out roll my eyes and wait for the stupid scene to be over.

    1. Or they are German. I think if you need a cultivated and sadistic, real bad guy, everybody thinks German first.
      Die Hard I and III for example…

  191. I hate it when a character gets shot (or something fatal happened to him/her) and he’s dying, he knows he’s dying, everybody knows he’s dying, and by all facts and logic and common sense he should’ve died 5 minutes ago, but what does he do instead of dying? Launch into some kind of monologue (a stilted one of course, because he’s dying oh it hurts so much to talk but no..not..yet..i..must…say..this) telling heroine he how much he loves her or to tell hero buddy what he needs to do to cure the zombie disease or how to disarm the bomb or a secret the hero needs to know to end the movie.

    CASE STUDY: Trinity, Matrix Revolutions
    Trinity : “Neo.. This is as far as I go.. My journey ends here.. You brought me back once.. but there’s no bringing me back now.. I want you to know.. how much I love you.. blah blah blah.. (dying pause) blah blah blah.. (swallow excessive saliva) blah blah blah.. Kiss me.”

    YOU’VE GOT STEEL CABLES SLICING THROUGH YOUR BODY! DIE ALREADY!

  192. 9. when you look for an information, just turn tv on and it will be on the news, exactly on the first channel you will be on, and exactly at the moment they are speaking about it.

    1. And even though they don’t turn up the volume until after they see what it’s about, they still get all the information they need. Or when one character calls another one and tells him/her to turn on the TV, the segment is just starting. This can only work if you have psychic friends.

  193. what I hate

    Affirmitive action in movies. I hate it when they (for no reason) have the need to have an international cast. By this I mean EVERY nationality has to be represented and its obvious that’s the on;y reason they’re there.

    side note: no, I’m not racist, I believe are many Talented actors of all races, so why don’t we cast them instead. I.E. Don’t show us a black, arab, chinese, hindu character, give us a character who is black, arab, chinese, hindu, etc.

  194. Number 1 for me is the false scare then the real scare. God I hate that convention,Just the prinicpal of well we’re going to play with the audience expectations so let’s do it in every god damn movie. It may just be me,But for a while there that was ALL I SAW IN HORROR MOVIES.

    1. I think I know what you’re talking about here, and totally agree. I don’t want some loud scary music and a fast camera shot to make me jump, I want a movie who’s plot and idea gets under my skin and gives me those genuine chills.

  195. I hate it when at the end of the film you don’t actually SEE the villain die then they pop up again in the sequel with some bullshit explanation of how they escaped the huge air strike etc.

    1. How about when a character comes back to life even though we all saw him die (like in 24)? Can anyone still make a movie that doesn’t require devine intervention, or some other unlikely scenario?

      1. Another film that acknowledges sex is a messy business is “Lords of Flatbush”.

        One of the main character’s is doing the deed with his girlfriend (who later tells him she’s pregnant), at the end of the act she tells him none too happily, “You made a mess!”.

  196. “And if you are a supervillain, DON’T TALK. Just shoot the hero point-blank in the head and be done with it. You can tell his bleeding corpse your brilliant master plan, okay?”

    Hahaha that reminds me of The Incredibles lol.

    A lot of those really bother me too espcially number 1 but just because they are in the movie doesn’t make the film bad or any weaker although it can lol. I mean come on John you would always that Wedding Crashers should have been nominated for an Oscar or something and yet it had the cliche of the current boyfriend/husband of the main character’s would be love interest is a total jerk.

    How about the cliche of the good guy winning at the end of a movie. Or perhapes giving you the sense that the bad guy didn’t completely win like in The Departed (which I loved) but I mean it did leave the audience with the sense that the bad guy didn’t really win in the end the good guys won.

  197. YOu know what I hate about rom coms…you brought up the “jerk boyfriend”,but I have seen tons of other rom coms..with characters getting with “MR./MRS perfect. They’re funny, charming, better looking than the protagonist in the film…and they end up dumping them in the end for the hero/lead in the film. I hate seeing that…because in real life…No ONE is going to dump the perfect person! Maybe that’s why I liked My Best Friend’s Wedding so much…it went against the cliche…

  198. Number 1 ALWAYS gets on my damn nerves. We already know how a romcom is gonna end, but at least make it SOMEWHAT interesting.

    And if you are a supervillain, DON’T TALK. Just shoot the hero point-blank in the head and be done with it. You can tell his bleeding corpse your brilliant master plan, okay?

    1. haha I so Agree with the just killing them already part! I mean it is just like in every scary movie when the villian is knocked out and the hero is standing over them with a gun waiting to see if they wake up or not, why wait? Just put a couple security bullets in their head and be done with it!

    2. I agree, # 1 happens more often however when they can pull it off, it’s going to be 10x funnier when the boyfriend is a jerk.
      ex. Wedding Crashers- I thought that Bradley Cooper, who played the bf literally stole the show. he was the funniest character in the movie and also the biggest prick in American cinema.
      But then there’s a movie like Cast Away where Chris Noth was the new husband and played a nice guy. Or Liar Liar where the bf was Cary Elwes not a jerk, a moron dildo maybe but not a jerk.

    3. I really hate this one. No matter how good things are going between a couple in a romantic couple it will always end with the guy chasing the girl through an airport, train station, etc. to prevent her from leaving him.

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