What are your favorite tropes?

[Spring in Fialta]

Following football, I recently found myself thinking that the only trope that I seem to love and find genuinely entertaining is that of the diva wide receiver, rich in tradition from Rod Tidwell to Keyshawn Johnson to the transcendence of Terrell Owens to the idiocy of Plaxico Burress and all the way up to the wisecracking of Antonio Brown (criminal behavior aside). It made me want to start this thread. What are your favorite tropes? Which do you find most interesting, efficient and why? Could be anything from plot development to stock characters. The most disliked is also welcome.

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[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I'm not too sure it applies to your thread, but one lieu commun (commonplace) I find fascinating in film - because it is efficient like no other - is the aerial shot of the car on a road.

This is a stock shot, but it could be from a huge number of films (especially horror films, which might explain my interest, but you find it in every genre - in Blade Runner's alternate ending, or in Secret Agents, also in many comedies). This shot conveys isolation and replaces the whole "we're going to a place where we'll probably have no neighbors and bad reception" dialogue. I don't know to whom we should credit the first usage of this shot, but it now has a clear designation in common film language.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

The Wilhelm scream

 

[Osprey]

This is a stock shot, but it could be from a huge number of films (especially horror films, which might explain my interest, but you find it in every genre - in Blade Runner's alternate ending, or in Secret Agents, also in many comedies). This shot conveys isolation and replaces the whole "we're going to a place where we'll probably have no neighbors and bad reception" dialogue. I don't know to whom we should credit the first usage of this shot, but it now has a clear designation in common film language.

I don't know, either, but Stanley Kubrick might've popularized it (especially for horror films) with the opening shots of The Shining:

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I don't know, either, but Stanley Kubrick might've popularized it (especially for horror films) with the opening shots of The Shining:

Absolutely, and I thought that it might have been the original one, but I had a couple of earlier examples (can't remember them, and my notes are piled somewhere).

 

[barriers]

 

[ManwithNoIdentity]

I'm not too sure it applies to your thread, but one lieu commun (commonplace) I find fascinating in film - because it is efficient like no other - is the aerial shot of the car on a road.

This is a stock shot, but it could be from a huge number of films (especially horror films, which might explain my interest, but you find it in every genre - in Blade Runner's alternate ending, or in Secret Agents, also in many comedies). This shot conveys isolation and replaces the whole "we're going to a place where we'll probably have no neighbors and bad reception" dialogue. I don't know to whom we should credit the first usage of this shot, but it now has a clear designation in common film language.

Haha, I like this

I thought it was from Midsommar so your point about it possibly being from many different movies is true