The X-Files

When aliens are living out their lives on earth disguised as humans. Often used in sci-fi comedies and usually involves them having to prevent others from discovering them

Turns out that all the events which just transpired in the story were a mere dream. This can be incredibly frustrating for the audience if done poorly.

The Chief of Police is always angry. He hates the protagonist and yells at his subordinates. Nothing will ever make him happy. Everything has to be done by the book or the mayor is going to have his ass.

"The bad guys are always lousy shots in the movies. Three villains with Uzis will go after the hero, spraying thousands of rounds which miss him, after which he picks them off with a handgun." --Roger Ebert

The villain stands over the hero with his gun pointed menacingly at him. We cut to the hero who has closed his eyes waiting for the inevitable, there is a bang - but wait! The hero is okay?? He opens his eyes to see the look of surprise on the villains face as he crumples to the floor, and behind him is SOMEONE ELSE with a smoking gun - they actually fired the shot and killed the villain!

In many movies with fight scenes, rain will fall from the sky to add drama to the battle, even if no indication of rain appeared before. Bonus points if rain falls during the final battle.

Often used as a plot device to bring two, often conflicting, characters together.

Sure, they made mistakes. This list is reserved for movies that blame them for things it is impossible they would have done.

Just when the cops have almost cracked the case, the FBI swoops in and takes over.

The Eves.

Sometimes a woman needs a hero to save them.

These protagonists have a dark history that they just rather not talk about -- but will often think about.

A plot device in which a character switches allegiances at the last moment. Most double crosses end badly for the double crosser.

In S1E4, "Conduit", the mother screams for her daughter while gazing skyward.

People in movies and tv always choose, impractically, to wait until the last minute to cock their gun. When that *click* comes, you know things just got real.

Deep throat: "trust no one".

When a crap-tastic image from that bank robbery shows up on the computer, all you need to do is press two buttons.

Plenty of them.

If you're a good guy and you have a twin... there's a good chance it's an EVIL twin.

The room is dark, a high pitched screech alerts the audience to imminent danger and the character pulls back the curtains to reveal...nothing. Of course there was nothing, because the killer was up hanging from the chandelier instead! Gotcha!

If a side character shows off a photo of his family just before some sort of dangerous event, chances are he's never going to see them again.

Where one of the few or only sources of light becomes unreliable, intermittent or ceases entirely. Often used to create tension or for the purposes of a reveal.

The hero is framed for a crime he didn't commit, and now must escape the police and the villain...all while trying to prove his innocence.

Nothing says "I'm a badass" like holding your gun sideways. Unless, of course, you actually want to hit anything, in which case it will merely throw your aim off significantly and eject hot spent casings into the general vicinity of your face.

Whenever somebody is escaping from underground, they always have a dramatic shot where they show the hand breaking out from the ground.

Often of the serial killer variety, these villains will leave behind helpful clues and hints at the scenes of their crimes for the heroes to unravel. They treat their crimes as an opportunity to play mind games with the protagonists, and get a power kick out of flaunting their absolute control of the situation, leaving the heroes helpless to stop them.

A Heroic Sacrifice is when a character makes a sacrifice for the benefit and well-being of others. This is quite possibly the most prevalent cliche in cinema today.

Bad guy's cornered, so what does he do? Why, point a gun at some innocent person!

In nearly every film featuring aliens every said alien seems to be the exact same height and weight. Do you really mean to tell me that there are not tall, short, fat, or skinny people on your world? Not to mention different ethnicities on Planet Whatever.

The stock character - a fallen woman, who despite her profession is a charming, wholesome character with good intentions, often falling in love with the hero or helping him.

In movies (99 percent of the time in horror movies),when someone is being chased, they trip. A trip never results in a temporary loss of balance, but a complete fall. Also, the person will never get right up, but instead crawl around like they just had their legs chopped off.

If someone knows more information about you than they should, red flags should be going up everywhere.

Death was not the end! This person had died but came back, possibly as a vampire or simply because time had reset itself.

For those characters that look human and act human and later turn out to be an alien, robot, demon, monster or something else.

The Smoking Man basically personifies this cliche in every way. Every languid puff he takes only serves to drive home how evil this guy is. Frequently smokes just to send a signal, like lighting up at gunpoint to show how manipulatively in-control he is.

The rare occasions in which Mulder breaks down are usually quite heart wrenching.

Adding a massive and impossible amount of rain to a setting adds to the feeling of despair and foreboding nature. Combined with an urban setting and you have instant noir and depression!

There are a times when the hero is convinced, in spite all contrary evidence, it wasn't a suicide. All he/she has to do now is prove it.

You've stepped over the line one too many times, and I've got the commissioner breathing down my neck.

You see the protagonist looking down a hallway, the music begins to lower, just as she's about to open the door at the end of the hallway BOOM a cat jumps out followed by a loud stinger.

Scully wears a red cocktail dress in the episode "Triangle"...coincidentally, this is the first episode in which Mulder finally kisses Scully.

Lots of the pre-credit sequence characters exist solely to discover some horrific secret, only to die moments later.

A character is feared/attacked solely due to appearance, i.e. because he/she is ugly and/or scary in some other way. But in the movie it turns out that the character redeems himself/herself by doing good deed(s), and the final consensus is that the character is basically good, just a bit misunderstood. May also be referred to as the "Frankenstein" cliche.

Mulder has a brief thing going with a vampire-but-not-vampire hottie in one episode.

Roland.

Mulder: "You'd be surprised at what's not on the map."

A character is calmly in the middle of a sentence when suddenly they are shot or stabbed by something off-screen. Examples of this are Wash from Serenity or the Doctor from 3:10 to Yuma.

Only bad things happen in parking garages.

Krycek gets some of this going after he goes rouge.

We all remember "those" parts of movies where someone falls off of a bridge or something equally horrific and everyone assumes that the person is died, yet they come back later.