Tropescilloscope: Truth in Television

When a trope actually does happen in Real Life. (read more at tvtropes.org)

Film Frequency (%) Film Frequency (#)

More Tropes The '80s Straight Gay Knife Nut The Dog Bites Back Never My Fault Chekhov's Gun Interrupted Suicide Male Frontal Nudity Manly Tears Determinator aka: The Determinator Not So Stoic Ungrateful Bastard Morality Pet Funny Background Event Bunny-Ears Lawyer Cowboy Cop Married to the Job Fainting Card-Carrying Villain Handicapped Badass Only Sane Man Adaptational Attractiveness Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Never Found the Body Batman Gambit Pragmatic Villainy "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Disguised in Drag Coming-of-Age Story Toplessness from the Back Film Noir Belligerent Sexual Tension Hell Is That Noise Retcon Historical Villain Upgrade Chiaroscuro Cluster F-Bomb Shut Up, Hannibal! Manipulative Bastard Hate Sink "Well Done, Son!" Guy Anyone Can Die Age Lift Film Series All Just a Dream Early Installment Weirdness Badass Bookworm Adaptational Badass Punny Name Darker and Edgier Christmas Movies Index Say My Name He Knows Too Much Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Roaring Rampage of Revenge Imagine Spot Bad "Bad Acting" Race Lift Amoral Attorney Cain and Abel Rewatch Bonus Berserk Button Anachronic Order How We Got Here Central Theme Running Gag Horror Comedy Brutal Honesty Artistic License – History Fourth Date Marriage Not So Above It All Military and Warfare Films Tranquil Fury Wretched Hive Maybe Ever After Naïve Newcomer Only a Flesh Wound Spared by the Adaptation Jitter Cam Every Car Is a Pinto Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome The Alcoholic Famous Last Words Hero of Another Story Actually Pretty Funny Dramatic Irony Informed Ability Badass in a Nice Suit Red Right Hand The Musical Establishing Character Moment Mad Scientist You Killed My Father Rousing Speech The Lancer Fantasy Films World of Ham Dying Moment of Awesome Punch-Clock Villain Costume Porn Insistent Terminology Broken Aesop Cool Guns The '70s Agony of the Feet Laughing Mad She Cleans Up Nicely Older Than They Look Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy The Quiet One Body Horror Arch-Enemy Fingore Dark Is Not Evil Riddle for the Ages Silence Is Golden Cool Car An Axe to Grind Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Kick the Son of a Bitch Adapted Out Worthy Opponent Names to Run Away from Really Fast Rule of Cool Better to Die than Be Killed For the Evulz Country Matters Becoming the Mask Vomit Discretion Shot Historical-Domain Character Rule of Funny Romantic False Lead Cat Fight Very Loosely Based on a True Story Genre Savvy N-Word Privileges Foil Darkest Hour Mystery and Detective Films Unresolved Sexual Tension Death of a Child Madness Mantra Real Life Broken Pedestal Small Name, Big Ego Eureka Moment Dark Reprise Driven to Suicide Beard of Evil Chase Scene Accidental Misnaming Guns Akimbo Jerkass Has a Point Unwitting Instigator of Doom Word of God Shower Scene Hypocrite Disproportionate Retribution Advertised Extra The '90s Bland-Name Product Left the Background Music On Only in It for the Money Evil Plan The Casanova Evil vs. Evil Translation Convention Bald of Evil One-Word Title Decoy Protagonist Bad Boss Malevolent Masked Men Destination Defenestration Artistic License – Physics Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Double-Meaning Title Big Brother Instinct Animated Credits Opening Accidental Murder There Is No Kill Like Overkill Chekhov's Skill Jerk with a Heart of Gold All Girls Want Bad Boys Important Haircut Cruel and Unusual Death Pragmatic Adaptation Pretty Little Headshots All There in the Manual Breaking the Fourth Wall Missing Mom In the Back Ax-Crazy Vacation Films Artistic License – Biology Outrun the Fireball Sexy Discretion Shot I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Lock and Load Montage Alliterative Name After the End Children Are Innocent Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Humans Are Bastards Adaptation Dye-Job Romantic Comedy Here We Go Again! Stepford Smiler Does This Remind You of Anything? Implacable Man Cassandra Truth Face–Heel Turn Villain Song Love Triangle The X of Y Fake Shemp Obfuscating Stupidity Abhorrent Admirer Eyepatch of Power Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Scenery Gorn Ambiguous Disorder The Un-Reveal Sir Swears-a-Lot Mr. Exposition Scary Black Man Bait-and-Switch Arranged Marriage Depraved Bisexual Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other The Load Large Ham Adorkable Book-Ends Logo Joke Psychopathic Manchild Psycho for Hire Extreme Doormat Off with His Head! As Himself Slasher Movie Drowning My Sorrows Japanese Films As You Know Tempting Fate Does Not Like Shoes Too Dumb to Live Fiery Redhead Big-Bad Ensemble Thriller Make It Look Like an Accident Title Drop Science Fiction Films "Shaggy Dog" Story Ascended Extra Bloody Hilarious You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Super Strength Sacrificial Lion Race Against the Clock Posthumous Character The Place Leave the Camera Running Friend to All Children Shell-Shocked Veteran Chewing the Scenery The Ghost Despair Event Horizon Fun with Acronyms Obstructive Bureaucrat Taking the Bullet May–December Romance Our Vampires Are Different Cool Old Guy Off-into-the-Distance Ending Black Best Friend Plucky Comic Relief Shoot the Shaggy Dog And Starring Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Flashback Armor-Piercing Question Pimped-Out Dress Action Genre The Remake Beta Couple Karma Houdini No-Sell Canadian Movies Kids Are Cruel Hollywood Law The Hero Babies Ever After Woman in White Conspicuous CG Overly Long Gag Refuge in Audacity Guile Hero The Cavalry Apocalypse How Victoria's Secret Compartment Moment Killer Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" Suspiciously Similar Substitute Yandere German Films Badass Grandpa Unusual Euphemism The Film of the Book A Minor Kidroduction Sole Survivor Parental Abandonment Kubrick Stare The Chessmaster Rated M for Manly Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism Needs Wiki Magic Love Faking the Dead Facial Horror Aluminum Christmas Trees Dual Wielding Not So Different Mr. Fanservice A Father to His Men Not Even Bothering with the Accent Oh, Crap! Catapult Nightmare The Ace The Atoner La Résistance Throwing Your Sword Always Works Greater-Scope Villain The Reveal Evil-Detecting Dog The Cameo Idiot Ball Recycled IN SPACE! Epic Fail Gainax Ending Slap-Slap-Kiss Death by Adaptation NO INDOOR VOICE Rule of Symbolism Four-Temperament Ensemble Undying Loyalty It Will Never Catch On Improbable Weapon User Heroic Sacrifice Those Two Guys Slashed Throat Disappeared Dad Improbable Aiming Skills Hong Kong Films Would Hit a Girl Random Events Plot Stealth Hi/Bye Sequel Escalation Expository Hairstyle Change Bullying a Dragon Anachronism Stew Peek-a-Boo Corpse More Dakka Bowdlerise Abusive Parents Bring My Brown Pants Camp Gay Mighty Whitey Creator Cameo Casting Gag Call-Back Danny Peary Cult Movies List Deliberate Values Dissonance Catch-Phrase Flipping the Bird Dark and Troubled Past Alpha Bitch Last-Name Basis Gorn Wrong Genre Savvy Calling the Old Man Out Reasonable Authority Figure Eye Scream Unreliable Narrator Soft Glass Sinister Minister Rule of Three Hair-Trigger Temper Fatal Family Photo Department of Redundancy Department Crapsack World Creative Closing Credits Corrupt Corporate Executive Sanity Slippage Drill Sergeant Nasty All for Nothing Bond Villain Stupidity Suddenly SHOUTING! Authority Equals Asskicking Killed Mid-Sentence Evil Is Hammy Time Skip Scare Chord Insane Troll Logic Black Dude Dies First Closed Circle Shirtless Scene Adults Are Useless Foreshadowing Frame-Up Woman Scorned Insult Backfire Dramedy Redemption Equals Death Cool Old Lady Awesome, but Impractical Heterosexual Life-Partners Femme Fatale Didn't Think This Through Storming the Castle Gender Flip Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie Once More, with Clarity! B-Movie Line-of-Sight Name Smug Snake Ms. Fanservice Eiffel Tower Effect Animal Title Index Fanservice Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Knight Templar Mundane Made Awesome Heroes Want Redheads Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Meaningful Background Event Camera Abuse Failed a Spot Check Comically Missing the Point Artistic License – Law I'm a Humanitarian Half the Man He Used to Be Psychological Thriller Love at First Sight Retirony Jump Scare A.I. Is a Crapshoot Dramatic Gun Cock One-Man Army '80s Hair Butt-Monkey As Long as It Sounds Foreign Spiteful Spit Double Entendre The '60s Truth in Television Curse Cut Short Brick Joke Fan Disservice Annoying Younger Sibling Anguished Declaration of Love British Films Celebrity Paradox Death Glare Dutch Angle Arc Words Character Development Combat Pragmatist Continuity Nod Author Avatar Badass Longcoat Ass Shove Martial Arts Movie Crucified Hero Shot He Who Fights Monsters Pre-Mortem One-Liner I Need a Freaking Drink Deal with the Devil Damsel in Distress Silent Movie Deus ex Machina Exactly What It Says on the Tin Nice Hat Tap on the Head Get Out! Credits Gag Hidden Depths Drugs Are Bad Almost Kiss Bolivian Army Ending Even Evil Has Loved Ones No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Ship Tease Put on a Bus Russian Films Bi the Way Major Injury Underreaction Self-Deprecation Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Anti-Hero Dumb Blonde Bittersweet Ending "Awesome McCool" Name Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Fanservice Extra Up to Eleven Stealth Pun And I Must Scream BFG Deconstruction Homage Foregone Conclusion Big Applesauce Index of Film Westerns Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Re-Cut Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Biopic Television Movie Index Fish out of Water The End... Or Is It? Captain Obvious Mama Bear Car Fu Australian Movies Unspoken Plan Guarantee Male Gaze Paper-Thin Disguise Affably Evil It's Personal Revenge Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass The Lost Lenore Villain Opening Scene Precision F-Strike Funny Foreigner Bottomless Magazines Cat Scare Market-Based Title Based on a True Story The Great Depression Badass Boast Reality Has No Subtitles Beware the Nice Ones I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Honor Before Reason Boom, Headshot! Parental Neglect Really Gets Around Mooks Happily Married Adaptation Distillation Never Trust a Trailer Loophole Abuse An Arm and a Leg Did Not Get the Girl Adaptational Villainy Humiliation Conga Pretty in Mink Freudian Excuse Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Spiritual Successor Chuck Cunningham Syndrome Made of Explodium Deliberately Monochrome Manchild All There in the Script The Stinger An Aesop Broken Bird Framing Device The Vamp Attempted Rape Police are Useless Vampire Fiction Nice Guy Disney Villain Death It Can Think Downer Ending Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Training Montage Blatant Lies Bond One-Liner You Have Failed Me Not Quite Dead Bloodier and Gorier Those Two Bad Guys Defiant to the End Bar Brawl Superhero Lighter and Softer Protagonist Title Grey and Gray Morality Same Language Dub Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Only Known by Their Nickname Gone Horribly Right The Hero Dies Kill 'em All She's Got Legs Even Evil Has Standards Shout-Out Naked People Are Funny Beauty Is Never Tarnished Historical In-Joke Big Eater Dull Surprise Spanner in the Works Animal Motifs Tagline Action Girl Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Captain Ersatz The Ditz Action Survivor The Dreaded Slasher Smile The Dragon Corpsing Heel Realization The Smurfette Principle Stock Footage Dirty Coward The Mafia Took a Level in Badass Evil Counterpart Not What It Looks Like Serial Killer Take a Third Option The Voiceless Air-Vent Passageway Motor Mouth Immune to Bullets What You Are in the Dark Improvised Weapon Instant Death Bullet Rasputinian Death Anti-Villain Ambiguously Gay Demoted to Extra Karmic Death Aside Glance Earn Your Happy Ending No OSHA Compliance Pet the Dog Pay Evil unto Evil For Want of a Nail Room Full of Crazy The Bad Guy Wins From Bad to Worse Black Comedy Auto Erotica My Beloved Smother Big Bad Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality Diabolus ex Machina Dissonant Serenity Freeze-Frame Bonus Daylight Horror Daddy's Girl Hollywood Darkness Black and Gray Morality Dogged Nice Guy Everyone Has Standards Canon Foreigner Dirty Old Man Amusing Injuries Death by Sex No Ending Let's Get Dangerous! Meaningful Name Genre Shift Hypocritical Humor Gory Discretion Shot Faux Affably Evil The Stoner Spell My Name with an "S" Final Girl Man on Fire My God, What Have I Done? Skewed Priorities As the Good Book Says... Wounded Gazelle Gambit Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Grievous Bottley Harm Mercy Kill Properly Paranoid Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene folderlabel Deadpan Snarker Sassy Black Woman Whole Plot Reference Gold Digger Empathic Environment Adaptational Heroism Creepy Child timeperiod Vomit Indiscretion Shot No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Fat Bastard Retired Badass Dirty Cop The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Kick the Dog From Nobody to Nightmare The Big Guy Brother–Sister Incest Mythology Gag Villain Ball Zombie Stories Bury Your Gays Action Prologue Parental Substitute Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Rich Bitch Police Brutality Horror Films Defrosting Ice Queen Ambiguous Ending Demonic Possession Red Eyes, Take Warning Soundtrack Dissonance Ripped from the Headlines Take That! Green-Eyed Monster Sci-Fi Horror The Oner Alas, Poor Villain Leaning on the Fourth Wall Blood from the Mouth Reality Is Unrealistic Death by Irony Artistic License – Geography Nothing Is Scarier Laser-Guided Karma Bare Your Midriff Chekhov's Gunman Asshole Victim Loads and Loads of Characters Dark Action Girl Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping Product Placement Eagleland Death Seeker Papa Wolf Jerkass Big Bad Duumvirate Author Appeal Dressing as the Enemy Evil Brit Real Life Writes the Plot Bloodless Carnage Cold-Blooded Torture Red Shirt Sadistic Choice Taking You with Me Would Hurt a Child Henpecked Husband Adult Fear Contrived Coincidence I Have Your Wife Offscreen Moment of Awesome Extremely Short Timespan Suspiciously Specific Denial Plot Hole Mind Screw The Power of Love Early-Bird Cameo Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Big Damn Heroes Groin Attack The Bully Historical Hero Upgrade Screw This, I'm Outta Here! Black Comedy Rape Bound and Gagged Wicked Cultured Betty and Veronica Shown Their Work Wham Shot Politically Incorrect Villain Ghost Fiction All Men Are Perverts Dies Wide Open Works Set in World War II Documentary Those Wacky Nazis Smoking Is Cool Drives Like Crazy Break the Cutie In Medias Res Reckless Gun Usage Developing Doomed Characters Kill It with Fire The Stoic Only One Name Back from the Dead Our Zombies Are Different Impaled with Extreme Prejudice Trailers Always Spoil Disney Death Irony Music Stories I Did What I Had to Do The '50s Token Minority Obviously Evil Gratuitous English Enemy Mine Curb-Stomp Battle Poor Communication Kills My Greatest Failure Twist Ending Film Noir Index Face Death with Dignity Offscreen Teleportation Manic Pixie Dream Girl Adaptation Name Change What Happened to the Mouse? Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Sealed Evil in a Can True Companions Sequel Hook Due to the Dead Leitmotif Red Herring Unusually Uninteresting Sight Fatal Flaw Red Oni, Blue Oni Star-Crossed Lovers You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Antagonist Title Bavarian Fire Drill Fate Worse than Death Dwindling Party Wham Line Intergenerational Friendship Stalker with a Crush Domestic Abuse Mood Whiplash Five-Man Band The Sociopath Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience The Chick Redshirt Army Covers Always Lie Reality Ensues Composite Character Visual Pun A Date with Rosie Palms Narrator "The Reason You Suck" Speech Your Cheating Heart Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Blackmail Bilingual Bonus Stylistic Suck The Starscream Dropped a Bridge on Him Jerk Jock This Is Gonna Suck It's All About Me Playing Gertrude Neck Lift Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Blood Knight Mexican Standoff Vitriolic Best Buds Ironic Echo Public Domain Feature Films Epic Movie Meet Cute Exact Words Your Head A-Splode Hero Antagonist Heroic BSoD Distracted by the Sexy Easily Forgiven Mugging the Monster Good Is Not Nice What the Hell, Hero? And the Adventure Continues Totally Radical Determinator Scenery Porn Fantastic Racism Ominous Latin Chanting O.O.C. Is Serious Business Call-Forward War Is Hell Overprotective Dad Stuff Blowing Up Actor Allusion Eldritch Abomination Non-Indicative Name Light Is Not Good Heel–Face Turn Video Credits Monumental Damage Cloudcuckoolander Italian Films Have a Gay Old Time 20 Minutes into the Future The Faceless Serious Business Made of Iron Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies Hope Spot French Films Artistic License – Gun Safety Badass Normal Villain with Good Publicity Getting Crap Past the Radar Noodle Incident Crazy-Prepared Shipper on Deck Men Are the Expendable Gender Expy Hooker with a Heart of Gold No Name Given Intrepid Reporter The Smart Guy Evil Laugh Not Using the "Z" Word Brainless Beauty Big Fancy House Setting Update Show Within a Show Cool Shades Hoist by His Own Petard Took a Level in Jerkass Genre Throwback Meaningful Echo No Antagonist Artistic License – Military Well-Intentioned Extremist Break the Haughty Villain Protagonist Evil Is Petty Be Careful What You Wish For Adaptation Expansion Crazy Jealous Guy Big "NO!" Parental Incest Fire-Forged Friends Neck Snap Match Cut Novelization Evil Cannot Comprehend Good The Brute Pyrrhic Victory MacGuffin The Mole Affectionate Parody Together in Death Villainous Breakdown In Name Only Gilligan Cut The Alleged Car Sports Stories One Steve Limit Rape as Drama A God Am I Award-Bait Song No Celebrities Were Harmed Lampshade Hanging Mistaken for Gay Evil Sounds Deep