History DramaticIrony / Film

* In ''Film/Zombieland'',

* ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'':

* ''Disney/FrozenII'': [[spoiler:King Runeard built the dam and killed the Northuldran leader out of racist views of the Northuldra and fear of their connection with the magic of their lands. Not only did this kill him, but it inadvertently led to his only son marrying a Northuldran woman and his oldest mixed-heritage granddaughter would be born with magic powers.]]

* In ''Disney/TheJungleBook'', Bagheera is trying to convince Col. Hathi to help him find Mowgli before Shere Kahn does. Hathi refuses, saying that "Shere Kahn isn't within miles of here", unaware that the tiger is eavesdropping in on the whole conversation.

* ''Disney/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'': Ariel and Melody have an explosive argument when Ariel finds out that Melody had snuck into the sea behind her back.

* Pretty much all of ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'' in between [[SweetPollyOliver Mulan disguising herself as a man to take her father's place in the army]] and the reveal of the Huns' attack, during which the movie is a more lighthearted run off of both the humor and the tension that comes from everyone around Mulan being unaware that she's really a woman. The two songs during that part, especially, show this off -- "A Girl Worth Fighting For", where the other soldiers pull Mulan into a conversation about the women they want to marry, and "I'll Make A Man Out Of You," which speaks for itself by the title alone. This lyric particularly drives it home:

* An instrumental plot element in ''Disney/TheLionKing'' is the fact that for most of the second half of the film, Simba is unaware that it was actually Scar who killed Mufasa—though the audience sees this happen onscreen—and therefore is convinced that he himself is responsible for his father’s death.

* ''Disney/SleepingBeauty'': Prince Phillip and Aurora meet each other in the forest and each assumes the other is a peasant. Both express drama over not being able to be with the other because of this, since they themselves are royalty. But the audience knows that they are both royalty and have been betrothed; not only ''can'' they be together, but they ''will'' be together.
* ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'':

* In ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', Rapunzel becomes the center of attention during the celebration in honour on the missing princesses' birthday. The audience already know she's the lost princess. There's even a short scene with Rapunzel staring at a mosaic of the royal family, particularly the baby princess, unaware she's looking at herself.

** Later on, the police convoy escorting Harvey Dent is forced to detour onto a much more dangerous route, due to the main road being obstructed by the Joker. The obstruction? ''A burning fire truck.'' It was a bad joke before, and here it's just disturbing.
* ''Film/DeepBlueSea'': It is often joked that the super sharks know what this is, because [[spoiler:one of them kills Creator/SamuelLJackson [[SedgwickSpeech in mid speech]] about what they're going to do to get through it.]]

** In relation between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, two major plot twists in the OT ''become'' dramatic irony in hindsight: [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Darth Vader was really Luke Skywalker's father]], and [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi Princess Leia Organa is Luke's twin sister]].

** Continuing off the above, Trask sees mutants as a common enemy which can unite all the human race and end the Cold War. In the BadFuture, Trask's inventions have become the common enemy that united all the mutants.

* In ''Film/HalloweenII2009'', Dr. Loomis is making a speech at a press conference for his new book saying that Michael Myers is dead and will never come back, when at the moment, unbeknownst to him, Michael is beginning his new killing spree.

* Used to ''extremely disturbing'' effect in ''Film/SawI''. Upon hearing gunshots and screams over his cellphone, Lawrence breaks down, [[spoiler:saws his foot off to get free of his shackle, and shoots Adam like Jigsaw wanted]] in order to save his family, not knowing that they had already gotten free and the screaming and gunshots he heard were from the scuffle following it.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture''

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' used this brilliantly for comedic effect. Marty and George concoct a plan wherein Marty will intentionally start harassing Lorraine, so that George will have his opportunity to come in and act as if he's intimidating Marty into leaving her alone, thus wowing Lorraine with his awesomeness. Unforeseen hitch though; Biff Tannen actually kidnaps Marty and proceeds to very seriously harass Lorraine. However, rather than torpedoing the whole plan, this ''actually leads'' to George wowing Lorraine.
** The real ironic part is that, come the time, Marty is incapable of doing this to Lorraine (she's his mother after all). But ''she'' has no problem pressing Marty for attention and flirting with him rather aggressively.
** "Biff Tannen, I wouldn't marry you even if -- even if you had a million dollars!" [[DontExplainTheJoke Which, in the alternate timeline, he had.]] Several times over. And she did.

** The entire ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' trilogy is MADE of this. It's a TimeTravel story, so we're constantly laughing at what the characters ''think'' will happen, when we already know how events unfold.
--->'''1955 Doc Brown''' ''(Marty is trying to convince him that he's from the future):'' Then tell me, future boy. Who's President of the United States in 1985?\\
'''Marty:''' UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan!\\
'''Brown:''' ''Ronald Reagan''???! The actor??! HA! Who's Vice-President, Creator/JerryLewis???[[note]]"I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady, and Jack Benny, his Secretary of the Treasury! I've had enough jokes for one evening! Good day future boy!"[[/note]]
** Also consider the scene where Goldie Wilson, the black busboy in 1955 declares he will make something of himself, and Marty, coming from the present, er, future, declares that indeed he will make something of himself. Specifically in about 30 years he'll be the mayor. What's hilarious is that initially, even the future mayor himself is stunned to hear it.

* Creator/AlfredHitchcock uses some element of dramatic irony, or suspense, in virtually all his films. The audience knows, or sees, something that the people on the screen are unaware of.
** If you learn that there's a dead body in the cupboard of the living room where ''Film/{{Rope}}'' takes place, or who put it there, then you can skip just the first 30 seconds of the film, no more. You still need to hang around in order to find out what happens next and how it is played out.

* The first ''Film/SpiderMan1'' movie has a scene near the end where [[spoiler: Harry Osborn tells his best friend, Peter Parker, about how much he wants to kill Spider-Man to avenge the murder of his father, Norman Osborn.]] Does this one need any more explanation?

*** Of course, [=McCoy=] is much less friendly and respectful towards Spock after he sentences his best friend to become [[AlwaysABiggerFish monster food]] on Delta Vega. The green-blooded hobgoblin insults start from here on out.

* In ''Film/DantesPeak'', knowing what happened to the two skinny dippers not long before builds up the tension well as the kids think about jumping in themselves.

* In ''Film/DantesPeak'', knowing what happened to the two skinny dippers not long before builds up the tension well as the kids think about jumping in themselves.

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* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' used this brilliantly for comedic effect. Marty and George concoct a plan wherein Marty will intentionally start harassing Lorraine, so that George will have his opportunity to come in and act as if he's intimidating Marty into leaving her alone, thus wowing Lorraine with his awesomeness. Unforeseen hitch though; Biff Tannen actually kidnaps Marty and proceeds to very seriously harass Lorraine. However, rather than torpedoing the whole plan, this ''actually leads'' to George [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome demonstrating REAL awesomeness]].

** In the 2009 ''Film/StarTrek'' film, Kirk and [=McCoy=] meet Spock for the first time. In the original continuity, [=McCoy=] was the id of the PowerTrio that opposed logical Vulcan Superego Spock and on times called him a pointy eared, green blooded bastard. Now:

** Just in case it does, consider that Music/WeirdAlYankovic's song "Ode to a Superhero", a re-telling of the movie set to Music/BillyJoel's "Piano Man" lampshades it:
--->It's a pretty sad day at the funeral\\
Norman Osborn has bitten the dust\\
And I heard Harry said he wants Spider-Man dead\\
Aw, but his buddy Pete he can trust

DramaticIrony in film.