History Film / RainMan

* TookALevelInKindness: Charlie is short-tempered and rude at the start of the film, but as he bonds with Raymond he becomes kinder.

* DisabilitySuperpower: Raymond is the scourge of casinos everywhere, though the one in the movie is slow to figure it out - and who can blame them? [[ThisCannotBe Nobody in the world]] can count, using only their memory, into a mechanically shuffled, six-deck Blackjack shoe...

* MrExposition: Dr. Bruner, on the subject of autism. Many viewers in 1988 would have had little or no understanding of autism. The movie made it a household word.

* KickTheDog: Charlie may not start off as the most likable guy, but the way he treats Raymond at first after essentially ''kidnapping'' him from the institution he lives at (i.e. verbally abusing him when frustrated and even manhandling him at one point) is pretty jarring. [[TookALevelInKindness He becomes more tolerant of and patient with his brother as their trip goes on.]]

* SeparatedAtBirth: Not quite, but they were separated at a young age. Charlie distantly remembers his brother, thinking that he is an imaginary childhood friend known as The Rain Man, which is where the film's title comes from.

-->'''Mooney''' [''reading Sanford's letter'']: I remember, too, the day you left home, so full of bitterness and grandiose ideas, so full of yourself; and being raised without a mother, the hardness of your heart is understandable as well. Your refusal to even pretend that you loved or respected me, all of these I can forgive. But your failure to write, to telephone, to re-enter my life in any way, has left me without a son. I wish you all I ever wanted for you, I wish you the best.

* {{Bowdlerised}}: Obviously, the TV version is heavily edited, though Charlie's altered "I DON'T NEED THIS!!" manages to be nearly as impactful as the original AtomicFBomb stated above.

* CharacterDevelopment: Charlie is short-tempered and rude at the start of the film, but as he bonds with Raymond he becomes kinder.

* DysfunctionalFamily
* ExpositionFairy: Dr. Bruner, on the subject of autism. Many viewers in 1988 would have had little or no understanding of autism. The movie made it a household word.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Charlie after a while.
* KnowWhenToFoldThem: A rare double version. The casino knows that Charlie and Raymond have been counting cards but can't really prove it. They admit defeat and offer Charlie to keep his winnings provided he doesn't come back. Charlie accepts.
* KickTheDog: Charlie may not start off as the most likable guy, but the way he treats Raymond at first after essentially ''kidnapping'' him from the institution he lives at (i.e. verbally abusing him when frustrated and even manhandling him at one point) is pretty jarring. [[CharacterDevelopment He becomes more tolerant of and patient with his brother as their trip goes on.]]

* NotSoImaginaryFriend: Charlie thought that he had an imaginary friend called "Rain Man" when he was younger.

* OscarBait: Not the first to portray autism, but some say it's a cynical example of one.

* PhotographicMemory: Can you see a theme emerging?

* VerbalTic: Raymond often says "yeah", "definitely", "of course X" and "uh oh". Not to mention, he has a habit of reciting the "WhosOnFirst" routine.

* WhosOnFirst: Raymond often recites the entire Creator/AbbottAndCostello routine to himself, without even really understanding why that routine is funny.

* YouSayTomato: Rain Man comes from how little Charlie pronounced Raymond.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: In the airport scene, Charlie is correct that it's silly to avoid air travel all due to occasional fatalities, while Raymond does have a point that fatalities are a valid reason to avoid an airline.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Charlie, at the end of the movie.
--> ''"I just realized I'm not pissed off anymore. My father cut me out of his will. You probably knew he tried to contact me over the years. I never called him back. I was a prick. If he was my son and didn't return my calls, I'd have written him out. But it's not about the money anymore. You know, I just don't understand. Why didn't he tell me I had a brother? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that I had a brother? Because it'd have been nice to know him for more than just the past six days."''

** Later on, it's revealed that [[spoiler: Charlie's father did love him, but had difficulty showing it. Who knows? Maybe Charlie's father was autistic.]] It's not hard to see why Sanford Babbitt was a bad father, or, at least, a distant one. He lost his wife and then had to have his son put in a mental institution shortly after. Even the act of putting Raymond in the institution may have been somewhat against his will. Little was known about Autism or how to treat it in whatever year it was that Raymond had to go to Wallbrook (many laymen were even unfamiliar with the term "autism" when the film was released, which is why the Doctor functions as something of an ExpositionFairy).

''Rain Man'' is the first and only film to win both the UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture and the Berlin International Film Festival's highest award in the same year.

* MadnessMantra: Raymond repeats "X minutes to [[Series/ThePeoplesCourt Wapner]]" whenever stressed, and recites the comedy bit WhosOnFirst.

Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, who -- being a luxury-car dealer in his mid-20s during the 1980s -- is a self-centered, egotistical, [[SirSwearsALot foul-mouthed]] yuppie. Upon the death of his father, Charlie is told that instead of receiving a $3 million inheritance as he was expecting, he gets a convertible and some prize-winning rose bushes. This affront to Charlie's luxurious lifestyle will not be tolerated. After a little detective work, Charlie finds that the money is being sent to a mental institution in Cincinnati. It's only when he visits the hospital that Charlie finds the truth: the money is going to his previously unknown brother Raymond, who has severe autism.

** On the other hand, it's also obvious that Raymond's ability to grow is severely limited by his disability, and he is utterly incapable of dealing, in the long run, with the vicissitudes of the Real World. It worked out best for both of them - Charlie had the freedom to continue his life, and Raymond had the safety and 24/7 care of the institution. Charlie could come back and visit at any time (and probably did).

%% InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Raymond

* BothSidesHaveaPoint: In the airport scene, Charlie is correct that it's silly to avoid air travel all due to occasional fatalities, while Raymond does have a point that fatalities are a valid reason to avoid an airline.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Getting fed up with his scheme of only using Raymond just to get his share of his inheritance, Susanna walks out of Charlie after an argument with him in a hotel. She comes back later in the film when the duo went to Las Vegas, and Charlie has changed his ways towards him.

* ShownTheirWork: Creator/DustinHoffman's acting as autistic is very close to how some autistic people are in real life. Since classification of autism has always been very difficult, it may be that the movie has changed who gets classified as autistic instead of other similar disorders like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rett_syndrome Rett syndrome]], thus making it seem more accurate than it really set out to be (the movie only had 3 weeks of research, all of which is thoroughly cited during the end credits). Proof of the difficulty of classification is that if a child cannot be pigeon holed into a disorder, they are often classified as PDD-NOS or atypically autistic.

* ShownTheirWork: Creator/DustinHoffman's acting as autistic is very close to how some autistic people are in real life. Since classification of autism has always been very difficult, it may be that the movie has changed who gets classified as autistic instead of other similar disorders like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rett_syndrome Rett syndrome]], thus making it seem more accurate than it really set out to be (the movie only had 3 weeks of research, all of which is thoroughly cited during the end credits). Proof of the difficulty of classification is that if a child cannot be pigeon holed into a disorder, they are often classified as PDD-NOS or an atypical autistic.

* ShownTheirWork: Creator/DustinHoffman's acting as an autistic is very close to how some autistics are in real life. Since classification of autism has always been very difficult, it may be that the movie has changed who gets classified as autistic instead of other similar disorders like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rett_syndrome Rett syndrome]], thus making it seem more accurate than it really set out to be (the movie only had 3 weeks of research, all of which is thoroughly cited during the end credits). Proof of the difficulty of classification is that if a child cannot be pigeon holed into a disorder, they are often classified as PDD-NOS or an atypical autistic.

* RoadTripPlot: The brothers travel from Cincinnati to Los Angeles by car because Raymond refuses to fly with any other airline but Qantas. (You can fly from Cincinnati to LA with Qantas...via Melbourne. Raymond is correct about Qantas never having had a jet crash, but they have had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas#Airline_incidents several fatal incidents and some near misses]].)

* RoadTripPlot: The brothers travel from Cincinnati to Los Angeles by car because Raymond refuses to fly with any other airline but Qantas. (You can fly from Cincinnati to LA with Qantas
.
via Melbourne. Raymond is correct about Qantas never having had a jet crash, but they have had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas#Airline_incidents several fatal incidents and some near misses]].)

* RoadTripPlot: The brothers travel from Cincinnati to Los Angeles by car because Raymond refuses to fly with any other airline but Qantas. (Raymond is correct about Qantas never having had a jet crash, but they have had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas#Airline_incidents several fatal incidents and some near misses]].)

The film's focus is on the bonding power of family and how when you take care of someone else it teaches you not to be so self-centered; Raymond can't change, but Charlie can, and does. It is also quite notable for being one of the first films to have an autistic main character, and is often credited with introducing the topic of autism to a wider population.

[[caption-width-right:350:The BuddyPicture, {{Inverted}}, and one of the greatest [[RoadTripPlot Road Movies]] of all time.]]

''Rain Man'' is a 1988 drama film by Creator/BarryLevinson, starring Creator/DustinHoffman and Creator/TomCruise. The main character is loosely based around real-life savant Kim Peek (1951-2009), who in reality had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_syndrome FG syndrome]], not autism (though nobody realized it until after he died).

''Rain Man'' is a 1988 Oscar-winning film by Creator/BarryLevinson, starring Creator/DustinHoffman and Creator/TomCruise. The main character is loosely based around real-life savant Kim Peek (1951-2009), who in reality had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_syndrome FG syndrome]], not autism (though nobody realized it until after he died).

Charlie decides to whisk (read: kidnap) Raymond away and meet with his attorneys in Los Angeles so he can get -- in his view -- what is rightfully his. Charlie discovers multiple things about Raymond, one being that no matter how much he screams and shouts Raymond does not and cannot change (he has to watch ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' and [[Series/ThePeoplesCourt Wapner]], ''has'' to have the syrup on the table ''before'' the pancakes arrive, etc.). The other is that Raymond has near perfect recall and mathematical skills to rival any calculator. Seeing this, it leads Charlie to use Raymond to help his own financial problems and (in an oft parodied / replicated scene) takes Raymond to UsefulNotes/LasVegas to count cards.

The film's focus is on the bonding power of family and how when you take care of someone else it teaches you not to be so self-centered. Raymond can't change, but Charlie can, and does. It is also quite notable for being one of the first films to have an autistic main character, often credited with introducing the topic of autism to a wider population.

* PersonaNonGrata: The casino pit bosses can't figure out how Raymond can count cards so accurately. Nevertheless, they tell him and Charlie to collect their winnings and leave -- not just that casino, but the ''state'', since the bosses will use what they've learned to get the brothers blacklisted everywhere in Nevada.