Movie Cliches That Drive Me Nuts (I) 

"They're standing right behind me aren't they".

In many rom-coms, the white female main character's best friend is either a sassy black girl or swishy gay guy.

Cliche: When a child is narrating parts of a movie and said child is wittier and more intelligent than any of the adults around him/her.

"I know who the killer is, but I can't tell you on the phone."

This was so much fun, Maggie. It was like a present day addendum to “Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary: A Compendium of Movie Cliches, Stereotypes, Obligatory Scenes, Hackneyed Formulas, Shopworn Conventions, and Outdated Archetypes” published in 1994. And as far as I’m concerned, this is the quote of the year so far: “Uma Thurman is a great actress but nothing about her makes me think she can kick anybody’s ass - I don’t think she could kick my ass.” I want that emblazoned on the front of a yellow sweatshirt with black stripes along the sleeves.

The guy trying to get some unattainable girlfriend and enlisting the help of his female tom-boyish best friend eventually discovering that they have been in love with each other "all this time."

The most annoying cliche is when a person is introduced on screen with a lot of exposition that goes over the characters backstory. Happens a lot in action movies, where one of the cops or military persons reads the file of the protagonist to the character. As if the character doesn't know his own life.

Now I want to see a catfight between Uma and Maggie.

Major horror trope: When trying to escape monster, the car won't start. This was fun, Maggie, hopefully you can make more vids on cliches!

Cliche: Evil business man says "it's just business" after doing something unrealisticly evil

One cliche that drives me nuts is the moment where a character appears to be dead to set up a false "emotional moment" and then they spring back to life

I don't love the "person thinks that they are dead and they're crying over them until they actually are not dead and/or come back to life" cliche. I can be effective but it's been done so many times.

The biggest cliche that absolutely annoys me, is in horror movies when peoples legs are made out of twizzlers and they trip over everything.

And the number one cliche that appears everywhere. Two characters are talking, but one faces the camera while the other talks to the back of their head!!

So happy to watch this, 100% agree with most of what was said. I'll my top hated 3: * a character trying to choose clothes (usually a female) taking the clothes out of the closet and into the floor * someone trying to write a letter, and ripping and tossing the entire leaf at every attempt: dude! write a draft! those things are made of trees! and the worst: * setting up a fire by throwing the entire lighter into the gas. Seriously? You won't have it later! That's what matches are for!

“I’m not going to train you kid, I’m retired”.

I think it’s so interesting that you pointed out the “hello/goodbye” cliche. I did my undergrad in film and when I took writing in television, I remember vividly our professor telling us in our scripts to not waste time with mundane patterns or speech like hello/goodbye or when a character says another character’s name repeatedly throughout the script. I always wondered why this was a no no. I guess when you’re sitting in a theatre as a regular audience member you notice those things more?

People tripping over something when running from a threat, be it a murderer, monster, animal... and then they turn around and sit and look at them whilst slowely moving backwards instead of directly f*ing standing up and running away... so annoying. If that happens now i'm like, it's your own fault, you get what you deserve for tripping over that unmissable object haha.

Many episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond take place in a pizza parlor and EVERY damn time a character is shown eating pizza, you can tell they’re simply bringing it up to their mouth and not actually eating it. Drives me crazy lol

The not saying goodbye on the phone has ALWAYS been my #1!

When the person we thought was the killer, ends being innocent and the real murderer is actually a potato. Too many times , I'm sick of it.

When people say "CAPICHE" !! When gangstas hold their guns sideways. A guy kills someone, then to appear as if he is insane, he stares at the body and tilts his head sideways!

1. "It was all a dream..." 2. Characters not using the bathroom 3.Getting in the car with information you need to share with the other passenger(s), but you don't talk until you get to the destination.

The cliche I hate the most is probably: A police has uncovered a conspiracy but they can't prove it and therefore none in the police force believes them and they take a lot of shit for it. This especially bugs me when the police who is onto the conspiracy has proven to be a great and respected cop earlier in the film

Stunningly beautiful actress given grandma sweater and glasses and we're magically supposed to perceive her as a plain Jane dork.

"You just don't get it, do you?"

1. Character #1 calls character #2 and tells them to turn on the TV to see the news. The television is on the exact same station the person on the phone is watching. 2. Guy walks into a bar and orders a beer. Any beer will do, no specific brand name. 3. Groceries will always be paper bagged and have celery and french bread sticking out the top. 4. No one has to look for a parking space. 5. All sheriffs who are not the hero of their movies are corrupt. 6. Never share a foxhole with a character who carries a photo of their sweetheart. (Unless its Captain America or Wonder Woman) 7. Films that start with home movies are never about happy lives. 8. All Italian-American cops have a childhood friend thats in the Mafia. 9. No scene showing a class in session lasts more than five minutes. 10. In any murder mystery, the murderer is usually the person who offers the most assistance in finding the killer.

Paul Thomas Anderson has the best long takes because you don’t even realize the Sven you’ve been watching hasn’t cut in a minute because the writing, acting, and directing has built this immersive world.

This video earned you my sub. Love your takes.

The only convincing 'small girl beats up guys twice her size' character ever, is Toph Beifong from avatar the last airbender. And what a great one (8

Disney does this all the time: Pixar characters making pop culture references and speaking in "cool" hip-hop phraseology.

My mother actually ends phone conversations all the time by simply hanging up without saying goodbye. She really does do that. We're used to it by now 😂

The worst one is someone falling off a ledge or cliff and then barley hanging on, then just as they are about to slip, someone catches their hand. How many God damn times is Hollywood going to use this? Every single action movie and its so played out.

I'm glad you brought up the sopranos xD It's really appreciated when the characters actually eat a good chunk of their food

People blasting shotguns for the first time like it's nothing. Or a civilian staring down the barrel of a gun during some hostage scene and they barely seem intimidated.

One cliche that irritates me is in those action dramas when there’s an abundance of violent trauma that would make anybody under 40 incapacitated from speaking but they have a 4 y/o kid asking some incoherent question like “are the bad peepuh coming back to get us dah-dee ?” 😆

I'd agree that it's rare to see the "if you're reading this, I'm dead" cliche done well. I think a good example, though, would be in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's very effective and emotionally shocking, it adds so much more depth to a character we didn't really know until that point. I would really recommend that film.

4:50 I just watched "The Assistant", and I liked how the main character had to commute from Queens

The father of one of my nieces received 17 stab wounds to the shoulders, chest, and head, but still ended up chasing the guy for about a block before his own friends could catch up, point out that he was full of holes, and make him lie down. These things happen.

Do you ever notice how when someone's hiding out from someone in a movie pretty much everyone they know gets killed by helping them out. And it's just kind of like passed over

Cliches are often found in genre films because there are usually "genre conventions" to be followed. There are only finite ways to tell stories, and genre conventions add even more restrictions.

Thank you for this video. Now when I make my own movies, I can come back to this and the comment section in order to avoid major cliches or use them in a way that actually advances the plot.

I suppose the cliche that urks me sometimes is the car doesn't start always at the most inopportune time, then suddenly the car mechanically is fine, runs great, no problems. Like, what?

-whenever someone asks how long ago something was, it's always 6 months. -villains revealing their entire plan just before they plan to kill the protagonist (which ends up not happening ofc) -when characters act like they have an important meeting and then it's literally 1.5 minutes long p.s. omg you know thug rose!?

When the characters are at a restaurant or something and they literally never ever even the good and polite characters, say thank you or please to the waiter or waitress, i don’t know if it’s just a thing in America but in the UK we literally always say “can i have __ please” but in american films it’s just “can i have ___” like it’s just common decency...

1./ Cars that explode after being shot once. 2./ Vehicles that don't sustain any damage after jumping from a high distance. In the next scene, they just keep driving. 3./ Shooting more bullets out of a gun than that gun is designed to hold without ever once reloading. 4./ Cops that are right back on the street and working the case just after shooting someone in the previous scene. 5./ When a character is shot, they react like it's an inconvenience rather than an extremely painful and serious emergency. 6./ When a phone number starts with '555'. 7./ When two characters are talking on the phone and one hangs up, you hear the dial tone right away. (even more annoying when it's a cell phone) 8./ When a student overcomes the big final exam just by cracking down at the last minute and really studying hard (usually shown in a montage sequence). 9./ The main hero always has to drive around in a vintage muscle car, a vintage convertible, or a vintage motorcycle. 10./ The main hero always has to wear a distressed leather jacket and distressed leather boots. 11./ The main hero always has to wear sunglasses. (The actual reason for this is so the actor's stunt double can be concealed by covering his/her eyes) 12./ Whenever a group of characters are in a setting with loud music playing, they are talking to each other at normal volumes rather than screaming at each other. 13./ Characters that just came out of a shower but have dry hair. (or in a female's case, perfect makeup) 14./ Characters that get out of bed with neatly-combed hair. (Jack Nicholson is the exception to this) 15./ The lines, "Are you okay?" or "Let's get out of here." 16./ When driving a car, characters that stare too long over at the passenger instead of looking at the road ahead. 17./ When a character is running (either on flat ground or up the stairs), they rarely ever sweat or are short of breath. 18./ When in a cold environment, you never see the characters' warm breath coming out of his/her mouth when speaking. 19./ A gun being out of bullets when that one critical shot has to be taken. 20./ Characters never have to excuse themselves to use a restroom. (John Travolta is the exception to this) 21./ A character walking away from an explosion without looking back to check and confirm the damage. 22./ A character not being harmed after being near an explosion. The true destructive force of explosions are never hinted at in the movies. It is an expanding wave of considerable energy that when passing through a person can cause quite a bit of damage to the human anatomy (concussions, organ-shifting, internal tears, internal hemorrhaging, broken bones, hearing damage, etc.) A character outrunning or outdriving an explosion also grinds my gears. An explosion is almost instantaneous. 23./ Whenever a car chase is taking place in a foreign land, a fruit cart or a herd of animals always has to get in the way and slow things down for heightened suspense. 24./ Whenever a character emphasizes that there's absolutely no possible way they're going to do something, in the very next scene, they're doing it. 25./ Whenever a vehicle is accelerating to leave from somewhere or slowing down to arrive somewhere, the tires squealing on the pavement must be heard. Also, if the vehicle is an older model, the obligatory backfire 'bang' must be heard. 26./ The villains not hitting anything with their fully-automatic weapons. The hero hitting everything with his/her single-action weapon. 27./ When firing a fully-automatic weapon at a character that's running away, the bullets always have to hit the ground and follow one or two steps behind. 28./ Characters speaking to animals or infants in a manner and with the intention that the animal or infant understands them perfectly. 29./ Whenever the hero enters a quiet and creepy environment looking for the villain, a flock of birds must all of a sudden become spooked and take off suddenly for unexpected shock value. (very prominent in John Woo films) 30./ Turning on a television or radio and instantly getting the news bulletin that's needed to automatically advance the plot.

When the bad guy or monster picks someone up by the neck and the camera cuts to their feet coming off the ground. The same identical shot EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME... arrrgh

Would fit under not eating: when a character makes another character breakfast and the character takes one bite of toast and says I’m late and rushes out the door. Also can’t stand when they use that almost empty cup slurping sound effect when someone is drinking through a straw.

I don't know if this counts as a cliche. But in action movies, when the protagonists are running from enemies, getting shot at, driving all over the place, but you never see them drink water or rest in order to recover from their wounds.

Out of place British accents. When it's a movie set in pharaonic Egypt or something and everybody sounds like Peter O'Toole. Drives me up the wall.

Miss? .... as far as a movie critic, you are really truly talented 👍👍

I don't know if this this a cliché but it is a more or less prominent occurrence in movies: people knocking on doors by banging the absolute shit out of them where there is no urgency or any reason for them to do that and it drives me absolutely nuts.

That was a fun video!

Saying woke is the cliche that drives me up a steep incline (notice how I deftly avoided THAT cliche!).

Similar to the phone cliche, I get hot when people start talking about someone who JUST left (1 second ago). They're literally still on the other side of the fuckin' door and the people left in the room confidently talk behind their backs. It never backfires.

You should draw a graphic novel about you watching movies and reviewing them, Maggie :) Thank you for your videos, they are always splendid.

I hate when a character sits down to eat something then gets called away urgently and never takes a bite. I have hated that all my life as an enjoyer of food.

An artist and a piece.

When a character looks disbelievingly at the phone after someone hangs up on them....yeah, that'll help.

When people in movies and Tv reference the situation they're in is like something from another movie or Tv show. E.g, Avengers Endgame - Back to the future reference. *hangs up the phone.*

"There's a storm coming, [Protagonist]."

The cliche I hate the most is how about 95% of the time a character is offered food or drink, they decline. I don't know what the hell it is in movies about all these characters who are hydrating extremely well off screen and have always just eaten a meal somewhere else. I think this is mostly done because of the hassle of filming eating scenes and the fact that many actors might be self conscious about monstering down a plate full of spaghetti on camera and getting marinara smeared on their chin or what have you. But I still hate it.

When the bad guy has the side character or love interest of the hero as a hostage, holding them in a choking position and also has a weapon pointed at them

I live in NY. It wouldn't be $2k a month for someone's basement, or a two hour commute. Let's say you'd probably have to live half hour away from Manhattan and pay around $1,200 for a studio.

mine happens a lot in action movies, when the character gets hurt in a fight it's almost always forgotten in the next fight.

Hey, I got an idea for one of your videos. Best Crime Noir films of 40's and 50's. Just saw a great one with Bette Davis called Another Mans Poison. Too Late For Tears with Lizbeth Scott is cool too. I'm digging that genre so much. I can tell David Lynch watched a lot of it too. Could be a cool video that not everyone touches on

Don't know if anyone mentioned this before but the best "if you are reading this I am dead" was from The Mechanic (1972). If you've seen it you know. One of the best endings of all time.

Some lines are used too often in movies and need alternatives: "You don't get it, do you?" "We've got company!" "Let's do this!" "Showtime!" "Are you sitting down?" "You better be on the level with me!" "Are you (f_____) kidding/s___ing me?" And many more I'm sure.

Getting shot just below the collarbone in one million movies.

OmG, thank you! I did not like the fight scenes in Kill Bill at all, but I keep hearing people praise them on the level of fight scenes by Jackie Chan and Jet Li, which is crazy.

When characters take a tumble from a height or smashed in an accident or any number of traumatic events and they get up and shake it off. NO BROKEN BONES???

In horror movies: the car won't start.

Bugs me in the old timey westerns when the hero wants to be a good guy and shoots someone in the hand in which they are holding a gun to merely disarm them. This is so wrong, yet it's been done thousands of times. It's nearly an imposssible shot. Furthermore, shooting someone in the hand would cause devatating injury. But in the movies the characters simply drop the gun, and react like they were stung by a bee or something.

Cliche in period drama: bad corsets/corset behavior. Not wearing a chemise underneath. Tight lacing...even though not many women did it. Calling it torture within the film even though every single woman was wearing them.

I don't think I've seen you review any Fosse before. You definitely should! (Would love to hear your opinion on All That Jazz or Lenny).

One that has annoyed me for as long as I can remember is when people can have a quiet chat in a nightclub and sometimes the music fades down so we can hear the conversation. I can barely hear myself think in those places A movie that avoid this cliche is Trainspotting where the characters are shouting over the load music like you have to when in a nightclub

In many horror movies one of the investigators of a murder happen to have psychic powers

When police/detectives are looking for something/one in the woods and one of them sees something and says "[leader of the group], you should see this", and then the camera remains focused on their alarmed face until the others join him to look at the thing

@5:35: I feel dumb now, as I've actually gifted copies of "The Devil wears Prada" to several people without even having thoroughly watched it!

3:54 This one I remember from one episode of Screen Junkies' Movie Fights, where Alicia Malone brought up how much she hated that cliche. Thought it was oddly specific, but I have since realized just how common it is.

1. Restaurant/bar scene were the main characters are involved with raised voices or an emotional scene...and no one in the area recognizes their existence at all! 2. Interrogation scenes where the interrogator has superpowers to extract information and the interviewee has no ability to resist or ask for a lawyer. 3. Phone dialing (in older movies) the last four digits are always 1-4 to get through the dialing faster!

The unbelievably intelligent child that people dont listen to.. like that kid in The Poseidon Adventure.

In journalistic shows the interviewee is filmed walking up to the building they work in & then they cut to them typing on a computer, as if they're JUST NOW making the discovery they're gonna be talking about.

Another one is someone (cop) just gets some food like a hot dog and just throws it away when they have to go solve the case

More than the fact that a child can connect with the ghosts or the supernatural realm, what really pisses me off is that the child is not afraid, specially when the kid is like 7 year old and acts as an idiot and interacts with a demonic entity calling him by a stupid baby name as “Toby”. At least it would be slightly more believable if it was a 2 year old toddler who’s not fully aware of the surrounding world.

Child abuse backstories is one that irks me to no end. Don't get me wrong, parental abuse/neglect is a terrible thing, and many troubled people do in fact come from that sort of upbringing. But it's definitely not the ONLY way a person can become bad and in movies, far too often it's used as a crutch to create forced drama and superficially tragic characters we're meant to feel sorry for (Joker, Good Will Hunting, Rob Zombie's Halloween). Movies like Taxi Driver, Five Easy Pieces, Raging Bull, and There Will Be Blood do more than enough to show how you can create complex, three-dimensional characters who are tragic and not always likable, yet are still somewhat sympathetic without resorting to the tired, old child abuse cliche.

One I used to not stand is when characters eat breakfast, I looks like it was catered. And who eats cereal in a bowl but has the open box and more milk at the center of the table? I know I don’t.

The one that’s always peeved me is a mid-conversation location change. Like a character will literally respond to something another character just said, only now they’re somewhere else.

"I consider myself a semi-intelligent woman" I appreciate your humility, but your commentary is compelling because of - 1. your intelligence (you're well above the median) 2. your knowledge of the subject matter. 3. your (rather dry) sense of humor - and it's all delivered without the expository clips or other visual enhancements that too many other youtubers think are necessary to their... "content". Yes. A thoughtful explanation/argument will do just fine, thank you.

7:20 scenes that bother me but I’ve mainly seen it on LAW AND ORDER where they urgently need to talk and could get the information at the door but the person brings them in and serves them tea

I didn't think this channel could get any better, but then you started talking about MMA.

Cliche: When an important character dies, only to be brought back almost immediately. The movie that solidified this cliche for me was "Star Trek: Into Darkness." It's such a cheap, manipulative ploy. It's the movie equivalent of having your cake and eating it too.

Cliche: character in a horror movie goes into a creepy house and always goes down into the creepy basement, ultimately leading to danger! NO CRAP!

Here is a cliche. Just about every night scene is movies has a full moon. Every. Night.

Characters looking amazing with great makeup and groomed eyebrows while in a shitty situation. I just watched Those Who Wish Me Dead (terrible movie but great with weed) yesterday and Angelina Jolie and Jon Bernthal always look dolled up even while in the middle of a forest fire. That’s one that drives me nuts.

@deepfocuslens have you ever seen or considered watching Jackie Brown (1997)? It's free on HBO Max, btw.

3:55 I actually knew a guy who never said goodbye on phone calls. A retired politician. When he was done talking to you he just hung up. No good byes. A real jerk.

Tough, bad-ass woman in a movie: I thought Charlize Theron was believable in "Atomic Blonde" Good choice with Michelle Rodriguez.

When you have nothing to say I guess dancing around with camera is all one has.

Mostly older movies such as westerns but . . . QUICKSAND? Has anybody ever died as a result of quicksand?