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Best Cliché Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of cliché cinema — measured across 2,543 indexed frames from 28 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Cliché films over-index on blonde hair, smoke and foliage — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Hanna (2011)

    Joe WrightDP Alwin H. KüchlerIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a teenage girl. Uniquely, she has the strength, the stamina, and the skills of a soldier. These come from being raised by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana), an ex-C.I.A. man, in the wilds of Finland. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescence is a sharp one; sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by ruthless intelligence operative, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), who has secrets of her own. As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence and unexpected questions about her humanity.

  2. 2

    Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021)

    Adam WingardDP Ben SeresinIMDb 6.3TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash on the big screen in a spectacular battle for the ages. As a squadron embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans' very origins and mankind's survival, a conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.

  3. 3

    Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

    Adam WingardDP Ben SeresinIMDb 6.0TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Following their explosive showdown, Godzilla and Kong must reunite against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence – and our own.

  4. 4

    A Cinderella Story (2004)

    Mark RosmanDP Anthony B. RichmondIMDb 5.9TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Samantha Montgomery (Hilary Duff) or "Sam", has a rough childhood with her father dying in an earthquake and a new stepmother with two awful daughters. But on the bright side, Sam has an awesome best friend named Carter (Dan Byrd) and an e-mail relationship with a guy named Nomad. One day, Sam gets an e-mail from her Nomad saying that he wants to meet her in the middle of the dance floor at their high school Halloween dance. She accepts the invitation and glides into the room wearing the best outfit ever. Her Nomad takes her outside where they share a romantic dance together and Sam realizes that her e-mail friend is the most popular guy in school, Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray). She runs back to her stepmother's diner before she knows she went to the dance and drops her phone on the way. Austin finds it and starts a search for his Cinderella.

  5. 5

    Lucy (2014)

    Luc BessonDP Thierry ArbogastIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    It was supposed to be a simple job. All Lucy had to do was deliver a mysterious briefcase to Mr. Jang. But immediately Lucy is caught up in a nightmarish deal where she is captured and turned into a drug mule for a new and powerful synthetic drug. When the bag she is carrying inside of her stomach leaks, Lucy's body undergoes unimaginable changes that begins to unlock her mind's full potential. With her new-found powers, Lucy turns into a merciless warrior intent on getting back at her captors. She receives invaluable help from Professor Norman, the leading authority on the human mind, and French police captain Pierre Del Rio.

  6. 6

    The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)

    Thurop Van OrmanDP Tom Bruno Jr.IMDb 6.4TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    After saving Bird Island from an all-out green-pig invasion in The Angry Birds Movie (2016), the isle's always cranky local hero, Red, still finds himself doing battle with Pig Island. As the prank war between pigs and birds is raging, massive icy projectiles coming from the feathery tyrant Zeta's ice-capped Eagle Island threaten the security of both havens, unless Red and King Leonard agree to form a difficult but honest truce. Now, Red, Bomb, Mighty Eagle, Chuck, and his brilliant sister, Silver, have to join forces with Leonard's mighty porcine team to thwart the megalomaniac Zeta's bold schemes for world domination. However, is Red capable of change?

  7. 7

    The Hustle (2019)

    Chris AddisonDP Michael CoulterIMDb 5.5TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In this remake of 1988's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," 2 con-women hustle in a small French Riviera town - one for small amounts from average men, and one for higher amounts wealthier men. They bet on what looks like an easy target. Winner gets $500K from him, and the loser leaves town forever.

  8. 8

    Holland (2025)

    Mimi CaveDP Pawel PogorzelskiIMDb 5.0TMDB 5.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Teacher Nancy's life with her husband in Holland, Michigan, tumbles into a twisted tale when she and a colleague become suspicious of a secret.

  9. 9

    Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

    Michael DoughertyDP Lawrence SherIMDb 6.0TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    The new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient superspecies, thought to be mere myths, rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.

  10. 10

    Sentimental Value (2025)

    Joachim TrierDP Kasper TuxenIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    After the death of their mother, Estranged sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their once-famous director father, Gustav(Stellan Skaarsgard). He tries to revive his career with a personal film project, casting a Hollywood star (Elle Fanning) When Nora (Renate Reinsve) refuses a role, it leads to confrontations about art, legacy, and family trauma, in this humorous and heartbreaking film.

What cliché films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a cliché frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — blonde hair is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • blonde hair2.7×
  • smoke1.9×
  • foliage1.9×

How cliché films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate cliché from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 18%high keyvs 12% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,543 frames from 28 films carrying the cliché label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/clich

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