[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/683290_413.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: Hmmm, that resident evil is a looker.]]

->My name is Alice, and I remember everything.

The '''''{{Film/Resident Evil}}''''' films, a series of live-action films based loosely on the video games of [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the same name]] and developed by Paul W.S. Anderson, includes the following films:
* ''{{Film/Resident Evil}}'' (2002)
* ''[[Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse Resident Evil: Apocalypse]]'' (2004)
* ''[[Film/ResidentEvilExtinction Resident Evil: Extinction]]'' (2007)
* ''[[Film/ResidentEvilAfterlife Resident Evil: Afterlife]]'' (2010)
* ''[[Film/ResidentEvilRetribution Resident Evil: Retribution]]'' (2012)

None of these films should be confused with ''Anime/ResidentEvilDegeneration'' or ''Anime/ResidentEvilDamnation'', a series of CGI films that explicitly follows the canon of the games.

In the first film (which this page covers), a young woman named Alice (Milla Jovovich) awakens to find herself in an empty mansion with little-to-no memory of her past. After soldiers burst through the doors and take her with them into the Hive -- an underground bioresearch facility beneath the mansion -- Alice discovers an unspeakable secret the Umbrella Corporation wants hidden away for good. As the hours tick away and Umbrella's response unit hunts for the cause of the devastation within the lab, the result of that devastation soon becomes clear: the dead have come back to life, and they hunger for fresh flesh...

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!! For tropes related to the sequel films, please visit their individual pages; the first film contains examples of the following tropes:

* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: Alice does this at the end of the movie.
* ActionGirl: Alice is the standout example, but there's also Rain Ocampo.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Subverted. The team is told Red Queen has gone homicidal for no reason, but this is a lie. It is Red Queen's ''job'' to contain possible outbreaks, which she did perfectly. True, she killed a couple of hundred people but that was specifically part of it; to kill everybody in the facility. And it's ''nothing'' to the destruction that follows in the sequels as a direct result of Umbrella breaking quarantine.
* AirVentPassageway: At one point, the surviving team members go through air vents to evade the zombies.
* AliceAllusion: Alice, the Red Queen, and in later movies, the White Queen. Even more, by WordOfGod on the commentary:
** The Hive is located behind two mirrored doors (through the looking glass).
** Kaplan constantly worries about time (as the White Rabbit does).
** A white rabbit is used to test the T-virus.
** The Red Queen orders Alice to kill Rain by chopping off her head, and she succeeds by chopping off the Medic's head.
** When the first zombie is seen, Matt is sitting on a high ledge (supposed to be a reference to the caterpillar).
* [[MemoryTropes Amnesia tropes]] that apply to Alice and Spence Parks:
** EasyAmnesia.
** IdentityAmnesia.
** LaserGuidedAmnesia.
* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: One, the leader of the soldiers.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Alice makes it through the entire ordeal without getting cut up or bruised and is only wet by the end of the film. Illustrating how much this trope is in effect, Milla Jovovich talked about being covered in lesions and bruises after shooting the brief moment where Alice is dragged across the grille in the train. Rain also looks very good for someone who has been bitten by multiple zombies and only merely looks like she's got a bad hangover.
* BigRedButton: Opens and closes the subway car's floor door.
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Subverted.
* BloodlessCarnage: When the commandos are sliced to pieces by the LaserHallway. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that the lasers cut by burning, so the wounds are being cauterized even as they're inflicted.
* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Rain's machine gun fire sends a zombie flying about 20 feet.
* BottomlessMagazines: Bullets run out only when the film demands it. Otherwise even the ''revolvers'' can shoot non-stop with no need to reload whatsoever.
* BraidsOfAction: Rain as the Vasquez of this film has her hair sensibly tied back in a braid.
* BulletProofFashionPlate: Spence spends most of the film wearing a tight T-shirt that doesn't get torn and he doesn't even get a scratch on his exposed arms. In contrast, Matt and Kaplan get plenty messed up.
* CanonImmigrant: The Red Queen.
* CompanyTown: Raccoon City was under the thumb of Umbrella.
* DisposablePilot: Kaplan becomes this as soon as he gets behind the controls of the train for the ride out.
* DeadpanSnarker: Spence Parks, as the following exchange:
--> '''Rain:''' (covered in gore and bites) When I get out of here, I am getting laid!
--> '''Spence:''' (beat) You may want to clean up first.
* DoingItForTheArt: Paul W.S. Anderson wrote the script for the first film specifically because he wanted to ensure that ''Resident Evil'' got a decent cinematic adaptation, and the films are loaded with winking little references to the games.
* DwindlingParty
* DuelingHackers: Kaplan has a hacking duel with the Red Queen AI to bypass her defenses.
* DyingLikeAnimals: A possible explanation for how everyone died.
* EvilElevator: In the opening sequence, when [[spoiler: the Hive's employees get wiped out.]]
* EvilInc: Umbrella.
* {{Expositron 9000}}: The Red Queen.
* FaceHeelRevolvingDoor: The Red Queen. Her sole purpose is to keep the virus contained and she won't help the team if it means the virus has any chance of escaping. All things considered, that's her job and she's got a point.
* FastRoping: The soldiers engage in this when they enter the mansion. Why they went on the roof first, or why they simply didn't just go in through [[ThereWasADoor the open front door]] is never explained, but it's probably RuleOfCool.
* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: One, though Alice replaces him as soon as he is killed.
** TheLancer: Matt.
** TheBigGuy: Rain and JD.
** TheSmartGuy: Kaplan.
** TheChick: The Medical Officer. Alice is one but only at the start.
** [[spoiler: SixthRangerTraitor: Spence.]]
* FromBadToWorse: Every film has more than a few examples. For example, the team shut down the Red Queen, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero only to release what she was trying to keep locked up]].
* GoryDiscretionShot: [[spoiler: Kaplan]] is seen putting a gun in his mouth and it then cuts to a reaction shot of Alice hearing the gun being fired. [[spoiler: Subverted when it turns out Kaplan just shot a zombie and looks for another way out]].
** One is literally ''diced'' by a grid of beams, but we only see the blurry image of his reflection as he's falling to bits.
* HandSignals: Rain and the team leader.
* {{Hologram}}: The Red Queen's projected image.
* IdiotBall:
** As ''Cracked'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18781_umbrella-most-wasteful-movie-corporation-ever.html notes above]], the highly-trained tactical team spends twenty minutes somehow ''not'' landing a headshot on the zombies. [[ATeamFiring They hit the walls, the floor, and the locks on the containment units.]]
--->[They] shoot so badly they actually ''increase the number of zombies''.
*** Speaking of said locks, they are designed to contain some of the most dangerous viruses known to man. Which, when damaged, unlocks instead of staying shut. There's ''no'' kind of manual lock backup, like actual biohazard vaults might have in addition to the electronics. Who designed that syst- oh, right, Umbrella.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Rain.
* KillItWithFire: How the Licker meets its end, though admittedly all Alice was hoping to do was crush it under the train. The fire was just an added bonus.
* LadyInRed: Alice.
* LaserHallway: The Red Queen's main defense. It takes down several of [[spoiler: Umbrella's elite investigation squad before being shut down.]]
* MaleGaze: There are many shots of Alice's legs throughout the film. The camera is kept down as low as possible to view them.
* MegaCorp: Umbrella Corporation.
* MortalWoundReveal: Two of the commandos' deaths in the LaserHallway.
* MsFanservice: Alice.
* MurderousThighs: Alice does a NeckSnap of a zombie this way.
* NecessarilyEvil: The Red Queen qualifies big time. [[spoiler:Yes, she did murder the entire Umbrella research facility staff but she was only following her main directive to prevent a T-Virus outbreak.]] In all fairness, her actions are probably the most sensible out of anyone in the entire series in containing the outbreak. Her actions are brutal but effective [[spoiler:at least until Umbrella unseals the facility and lets all the zombies loose.]]
* NeckSnap: Rain and Alice to zombies.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Averted when Kaplan tells the rest of the party to keep going after he's cut off from them by zombies. [[spoiler:[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Then he makes it out alive and comes back to save everyone]]. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Then he dies at the last minute anyway]].]]
* OhCrap: The [[FamousLastWords famous last word]] of One, right before he gets sliced into chunks by the LaserHallway trap: "''Shit''".
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Aritifical Intelligence]]: The Red Queen.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: These ones are activated through science - a virus that is injected into the bloodstream. There's a cure but it has to be administered quickly and isn't that reliable. These zombies move slow and don't only need a shot to the head to be killed, just any old head trauma will do. Alice kills a zombie dog by kicking it in the head and another by hitting it with a paperweight. Rain also kills another by snapping her neck.
* PullTheIV: At the end of the first film and start of the second.
* RuleOfCool: Liberally invoked throughout the series, but special notice goes to the LaserHallway in the first movie. No real reason why it couldn't have just killed everyone right away by using the "laser grid" on its first pass, other than because watching it adapt to the victims' attempts to avoid it and take them down one by one makes for a much more awesome scene.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Alice walks out of the hospital to find that she's in a deserted [[ZombieApocalypse (except for zombies)]] Raccoon City]].
* ShesGotLegs: Alice.
* ShootOutTheLock: [[spoiler:Spence]] shoots out the lock on the lab door.
* SinisterScrapingSound: The first zombie limps in dragging an axe across the floor.
* SlowElectricity: When the Red Queen (and the power) are shut down and restarted.
* SpicyLatina: Rain.
* StabTheScorpion
* StatOVision: How the Red Queen [[RoboCam sees the world]].
* {{Stripperiffic}}: As Jovovich pointed out on the "Making of" feature for the second film, they had to find a way to make Alice be sexy since "in real life, she just wears a security uniform and of course no one pays to see that". Thus Alice dons the red dress and black short shorts. Admittedly, the dress doesn't give her too much trouble since she's wearing a jacket over it for most of her action scenes.
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Happens ''four times''. Once in the laser trap scene, once with the "dining room" attack scene, and twice with the Licker.
* TakeAThirdOption: The Red Queen gives Alice an ultimatum - kill Rain and escape or else stay in the Hive and die. [[spoiler: Kaplan pulls off a BigDamnHeroes moment by frying her completely and unlocking the door]].
* TakeMyHand: Rain to JD. It doesn't work so well.
* TemptingFate: JD after entering the door code.
* ThirdOptionAdaptation
* VasquezAlwaysDies: Played straight with MichelleRodriguez.
* VillainBall: The UBCS team sent to investigate the Hive reveal that there is a timer running from the Red Queen, and given that TheVirus broke loose and infected everything, when the timer hits 0, every entrance into the Hive will be permanently sealed below Raccoon City. nothing gets in. nothing gets out. Seems pretty smart so far. [[FlatWhat Umbrella does not agree with this.]] Not only is there a built in override for said system, but the team sent to do so contains 5 people. 5. ''[[ZombieApocalypse Guess what happens when they override the containment system]]''.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: Rain vomits [[spoiler: hours after being bitten by a zombie.]] On the DVD commentary, Michelle Rodriguez asked Paul W.S. Anderson "Why didn't you do a close up on the throw up?" Ugh.
* WallCrawl: The Licker.
* WallSlump
* WhatADrag: Rare heroic example, when the Licker gets dumped out the cargo hatch and dragged beneath the train.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[NightOfTheLivingDead George A. Romero]] was originally slated to write and direct the film, but was taken off the project due to apparent creative differences.
* XanatosGambit: The Red Queen, you know, being that she's a terrifyingly intelligent supercomputer, pulls one when the protagonists are trying to escape the labs to get out of the Hive before it seals, trapping them. In addition, a Licker is at the window of the lab slowly breaking through. The choice? Kill Rain, thereby invoking VasquezAlwaysDies, who was infected with the T-virus insuring zombification or let her live and be trapped in the lab and be killed by the Licker. Either way the Queen wins as the virus is contained regardless. At least until Kaplan [[TakeAThirdOption takes option three]] by frying the Red Queen, unlocking the door and allowing everyone to escape. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero This goes badly]].
* YouKeepUsingThatWord: Despite the T-virus being called a protean virus and mentioned as being airborne, no one ''ever'' wears gas masks and are apparently fine for doing so? After the intial infection of the Hive scientists, apparently by an airborne variant, even in that film, afterwards, bites seem to be the ''only'' way for anyone to actually become infected.
** In the books at least, it is stated that the T-Virus has an airborne variant with a hot zone, and this is the deployment method. After that though, the virus reverts to the non-airbourne variant with all the people-eating that entails.
* ZombieApocalypse
* ZombieGait: Averted, subverted, inverted, played straight, played for laughs and everything in between.