Tropescilloscope: Film Noir

A film genre involving detectives, Chiaroscuro lighting, crime, and a 1940-60s setting. (read more at tvtropes.org)

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