# Movies that are anti-trope? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [May 23, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718 "2025-05-23T18:19:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/1 "2025-05-23T18:19:48Z")
What are movies that contradict the cliches? Like, a buddy movie where two people are paired up as partners, hate each other, but then after they go through tough times, stressful situations, maybe save each other’s lives, they end up…still hating each other. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/2 "2025-05-23T19:22:41Z")
Maybe the movie [Broadcast News](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_News_(film))? Although it is sort of like a romcom, one of the main themes is that journalistic integrity is more important than love. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/3 "2025-05-23T21:43:29Z")
In Gone With The Wind the guy doesn’t end up with the girl. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/4 "2025-05-23T22:01:54Z")
_War of the Roses._ ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/5 "2025-05-23T22:10:02Z")
Damn. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/6 "2025-05-23T22:10:24Z")
Never saw, just the previews. I’ll check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/7 "2025-05-23T22:29:31Z")
I remembered Little Miss Sunshine until the very end as pretty anti-trope or undermined cliches. But my memory was faulty…There’s really only one scene I think that does it- A scene takes place next to a pool of two people arguing…framed perfectly for one to get angry enough to push the other in… never happens. Them I thought the “cool grandpa” trope…most movies would probably stop at him smoking pot…Nope, let’s go to heroin so that’s a bit different… and then he dies of an overdose. My memory was that upon learning that dealing with all the paperwork and everything would make them miss the beauty pageant…they’d just leave the body, but they actually steal the body which I pretty much the cliche. War of the Roses is a great example. Also, “Last American Virgin”'s ending is anti-cliche. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/8 "2025-05-23T23:45:39Z")
_No Country for Old Men_, there is no big confrontation between the Sheriff and the hitman. The Sheriff shows up late and it’s all over. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/9 "2025-05-23T23:59:24Z")
So you’re watching a superhero movie where the guy who flies around doing bulletproof stuff has a ready-made secret-identity story to pitch to the press, and, yeah, okay, the truth is, I _ **am** _ Iron Man. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/10 "2025-05-24T00:13:54Z")
[_The Third Man_](https://www.criterion.com/films/236-the-third-man) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/11 "2025-05-24T00:22:06Z")
Can you elaborate? I actually saw this, and really enjoyed it, but I never remember movies and I’ve already forgotten all about it. Except that scene from the top of the Ferris wheel. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/12 "2025-05-24T00:44:28Z")
In _The Third Man_, Holly Martins shows up at the request of his friend, Harry Lime, who has just died in a suspicious traffic accident. He is told by British authorities that Lime was involved in shady dealings and encouraged by friends of Lime and even Lime’s long suffering girlfriend, Anna, to let the matter go, but he doggedly investigates, certain that there is some conspiracy framing his erstwhile friend for dealing diluted penicillin on the Vienna black market and also becoming infatuated with Anna. In a more conventional movie he would prove his friend’s innocence and walk off with the girl, but in this movie, which is a synecdoche of post-war malaise and disillusionment, he not only achieves neither but also ends up entrapping and then killing Lime.. This film is basically the anti-_Casablanca_, a movie which despite all of the adoration heaped upon it (justifiably so for the dialogue and the well-crafted supporting characters, no so much for the nonsensical plot and the cheery optimism upon which it concludes) is basically the source of so many tropes, imitations, and oft-misquoted witticisms that its history as an only moderately well-received B-picture is essentially forgotten among the throngs of enthusiasts loudly proclaiming it to be the best screenplay ever written, while _The Third Man_ was neglected for decades by most except for the small minority of devotees of British ‘Kitchen Sink’ era cinema and the early work of director Carol Reed. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/13 "2025-05-24T00:49:19Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > _War of the Roses._ Unfortunately they are remaking it. Fortunately it has a great cast so maybe it will be good. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/14 "2025-05-24T01:39:59Z")
Thanks! I never considered it within the context of _Casablanca._ ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/15 "2025-05-24T02:06:29Z")
_Manchester by the Sea_ starts out like a conventional rom-com, with cynical, embittered Lee having a standard-issue “meet-cute” with Sharon when she accidentally spills her beer on him. But instead of striking up a conversation that blossoms into the relationship that helps him enjoy life again, he just sits there sullenly, leaving Sharon to finish her beer in confused silence and then disappear from the movie. Later, the screenplay seems to be going into Hallmark movie mode, with Lee returning to his rural-ish hometown and meeting his nephew’s girlfriend’s single mother. Instead, he…just sits there sullenly again. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/16 "2025-05-24T12:12:39Z")
_Donnie Darko_ certainly uses an overarching trope of disaffected-teen-with-mysterious-super-powers-saves-the-world-because-of-love, but not many standard tropes beyond that one. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/17 "2025-05-24T12:31:10Z")
Catch 22 is an inverted trope fest. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/18 "2025-05-24T13:23:34Z")
_La-La Land_ Guy does not end up with his soulmate. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/19 "2025-05-24T14:53:28Z")
_Rocky_. He loses at the end. _Funny Games_. The killers get away clean, the “final girl” doesn’t survive. Even when the victims do gain the upper hand, the killers literally just rewind the film and re-do it so they don’t get caught. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2025, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718/20 "2025-05-24T14:55:00Z")
So there are romances and there are love stories. Love stories are, for lack of a better term, more literary. Your happily ever after is not guaranteed, and you might be missing several key elements of a romance. So when two people don’t end up together, I wouldn’t say it’s a violation of a trope, just a different kind of story. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-are-anti-trope/1018718.md?page=2)