-> ''I hope this movie never has a sequel, because Jon and Sara are destined to become the most boring married couple in history. For years to come, people at parties will be whispering, "See that couple over there? The Tragers? Jon and Sara? Whatever you do, don't ask them how they met."''
-->-- '''RogerEbert's''' review of ''[[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20011005/REVIEWS/110050304/1023 Serendipity]], a movie consisting only of Meet Cutes.

Two characters, a man and a woman, meet. The circumstances are none of the typical ways couples meet. There's something cutesy about it. Possibly they have an [[WhenAJerkLovesATsundere instant dislike]] for one another. Maybe they [[CrashIntoHello crash into each other]] in a hallway and papers fly about. Perhaps mistaken identity or other wacky misunderstanding is involved. Sometimes someone is [[NakedFirstImpression naked or in an otherwise embarrassing situation]].

There is no clear cut definition of what constitutes meeting cute. One criterion is that it's not any way you or anyone you've ever known has met a significant other. A crucial indicator is that it makes you roll your eyes and wonder if there's a viewer alive who doesn't see where this is going.

Meeting Cute is the #1 dead giveaway for any audience who has seen TV before that these two will be a couple. It usually indicates that the writers are invested in this couple, have big plans for the relationship, and won't be willing to let go if the fans don't care for the pairing.

Television writers should probably take note that the most popular TV [[{{shipping}} 'ships]] generally do not meet cute. They develop more naturally as characters who interact organically are found to share chemistry. Couples that meet cute tend to develop [[StrangledByTheRedString forced-down-your-throat, inauthentic, and annoying relationships]].

Any time you read that a character is being brought in as a love interest for another character, chances are they will meet cute.

It's also used in Films due to time constraints, while on television you can have a relationship develop over many episodes, that luxury doesn't exist in film as the whole thing has to be resolved in around 2 hours

Also a staple of romantic comedy movies and most ''{{shojo}}'' anime and manga. A subtrope of BoyMeetsGirl.

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'''Examples:'''

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Pick a [[SoapOpera daytime soap]], any [[SoapOpera daytime soap]].
* Even during the aftermath of a deadly plane crash, Jack and Kate on ''{{Lost}}'' managed to meet cute; she sewed up his stitches while they bantered about drapes and spinal surgery.
**However, it was somewhat subverted in flashbacks: Jack met his wife, Sarah, when he operated on her following a near-fatal car accident. He promised her that she would be able to dance at her wedding, despite the prospect of paralysis; when her fiancé left her and she miraculously recovered, Jack married her. However, his devotion to his work ended up destroying their marriage.
* Though technically they already knew each other, Ross and Rachel met cute in the first episode of ''{{Friends}}''. Later in the series, Phoebe and Mike met cute.
*Riley and [[BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] meeting in "The Freshman."
** "So, in all the concussion, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself..."
** This has most of the elements, including the fact that Riley was brought in especially as a love interest for Buffy and that most fans didn't care for him.
** They actually get to meet cute again (when they discover each other's secret identities) in ''Hush''.
* Dean and Jo in ''{{Supernatural}}'': they first met when she was holding a gun on him and after he disarmed her she punched him in the nose. In the minority as after the creators realized that the new character didn't work as intended (coming off more AnnoyingYoungerSibling than potential love interest) and that roughly 98% of the fans hated the pairing with a passion, the whole idea was called off and never progressed past her having a slight crush. The casting sides for Jo actually included the words "sparks are flying" in the notes though. Yikes.
* Although there were no plans for the two to get together at the time, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran had an interesting first meeting in ''StargateSG1''. In an attempt to hi-jack the ''Prometheus'', Vala disguises herself as a Kull Warrior, which are normally disgusting artificially grown humans encased in armour. After tying Daniel up to a chair and asked why she chose him, she tells him that she finds him very attractive. Keep in mind at this point, she is still disguised and her voice has been digitally altered to sound deep and masculine.
* How about Lois and Clark on ''{{Smallville}}''? [[spoiler:He's amnesiac and naked in a field.]] She even teases him about it later.
* Subverted on ''GossipGirl'', where Dan meets cute a girl early in the second season, by bumping into her, books falling, and you know the drill. So definitely a love interest, except that by the end of the episode they show you that the girl was hired by Chuck and he pretty much orchestrated everything from the get-go.
*Also subverted on ''Gilmore Girls'' when Rory meets Marty, naked in her hallway. [[spoiler: He falls for her but she chooses Logan]]
* Named by Charlie in ''TwoAndAHalfMen'' when he flirts with a nurse who is prepping him for a vasectomy.
** And a second time when he is flirting with a doctor checking out his back pain. He tells her not to ruin the 'meet cute thing' they've got going on.
* ''{{Coupling}}'': Steve meets Susan in a ladies bathrooom, in the middle of having sex with his ex.
* In the ''{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk makes a friend", Monk meets the friend by bumping into him in front of a supermarket. Their groceries fall down and get mixed up. Then they go on to have a relationship that's [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything oddly similar to a romance]].
* ''{{Farscape}}'' was somehow able to pull it off ''perfectly'' via LoveAtFirstPunch(Pentak Jab?)- right at the start. John Crichton, meet your dream girl. She's ''not'' happy to see you.
-->Aeryn Sun: "Name your rank and regiment!"
* In the ''{{Doctor Who}}'' episode "Blink", Sally Sparrow drops in on her friend Kathy Nightingale and runs into her brother Larry. Who is naked.
* The entire run of ''HowIMetYourMother'' seems to be a setup for a huge MeetCute.
* Done in HannahMontana where during a time-travel/ItWasAllADream episode Miley and Jackson are trying to intentionally recreate the meet cute of their parents to make sure they're actually born.
* Done on WizardsOfWaverlyPlace the movie (noticing a Disney theme here?) after Alex's wish rewrites reality so that their parents don't meet Max spends much of the movie trying to engineer a meet cute. He fails rather miserably.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

*This trope was already old and dusty when it was used in ''SingingInTheRain''. Early in the film, GeneKelly's character is running from a crowd of fans. He's jumping from the roofs of cars, taxis, trolleys, etc. until he goes flying and lands in the seat of a roofless car. The driver, played by DebbieReynolds, accuses Kelly's character of being a no-talent hack, and they yell at each other before he leaves. Needless to say, they end up romantically involved. This makes it OlderThanTelevision.
** Later on it is hinted that she was already a fan of his and said those things mostly to appear smarter.
* ''GoneWithTheWind'' could be considered a subversion. Scarlett and Rhett MeetCute several times over the course of the Civil War, eventually marry... and have a horrible marriage, because people whose only contact is bumping into each other during a war probably don't have much in common.
*KalHoNaaHo must take this to the extreme. Aman yells at the Kapoors for their awful singing, and their arguing gets Naina's attention. When he sees her, he begins singing (beautifully) what develops into a Bollywood/Hip-hop/Gospel remix of ''Pretty Woman'', in front of a giant American flag, with the entire street playing background music and joining in the dance. [[spoiler:Of course, he doesn't get her.]]
* A DoubleSubversion occurs in ''TrueRomance''. Clarence and Alabama meet cute in classic style, complete with spilled popcorn, bonding over Sonny Chiba movies, and romance in a comic-book store. Then it turns out that she's a call girl who was hired specifically to meet cute with him. However, they ''do'' eventually fall in love with each other for real.
* In ''TheTrumanShow'', Truman's hand-picked cheerleader love interest in his high school years, the woman who eventually would be his wife, was set up to meet him in an artificial MeetCute; she tripped and fell right in front of him. It didn't work, an incidental background extra who happened to be nearby at the time was the one he truly fell in love with, and after she was forcibly removed from his made-up world, he nursed a secret, almost obsessive love for her for his whole life.
* In ''Can'tHardlyWait'', the main character finds all the signs of his one true love in his freshman year, up to eating the same flavor of Pop Tart... only to get interrupted by the jock, so they never actually meet. [[spoiler: Of course they get together at the end of the movie, though.]]
* If Will and Elizabeth from PiratesOfTheCaribbean don't count, nobody does. Especially since that was a RescueRomance both ways...
** But even though they met as small children because he was fished from the sea after a pirate attack, it's implied that went through the normal steps of being childhood friends before the romance started.
* In Disney's animated ''101Dalmatians'', Pongo (the male dalmatian) [[InvokedTrope intentionally arranges]] a MeetCute for his owner and Perdita's owner by tangling his leash in their owners' legs and pulling them into a pond.
* This is a staple in many of the classic screwball comedies:
** ''ItHappenedOneNight'' - Clark Gable, playing a penniless, cynical reporter, and Claudette Colbert, playing a spoiled runaway heiress, meet on a bus. They argue over who should get the last seat, and Claudette Colbert ends up falling asleep on his shoulder overnight.
** ''BringingUpBaby'' - Cary Grant's dorky paleontologist runs into Katharine Hepburn's madcap heiress on the golf course; she mistakes his ball for her own, and he follows her around trying to convince her that it's his ball, not hers. She then drives off in his car, with him teetering on the running board.
** ''The Lady Eve'' - Barbara Stanwyck plays a femme fatale out to snag rich men so she and her father can cheat them at cards; Henry Fonda plays a naive but wealthy heir to a brewery. Wanting to make lots of money off him, she deliberately sticks out her foot and trips him, then berates him for breaking the heel off her shoe. He accompanies her to her cabin, where he puts a new pair of shoes on her feet himself as she aggressively flirts with him.
** ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' - Gary Cooper plays a naive country boy who suddenly becomes a millionaire. Once he moves to the big city, the cynical reporter played by Jean Arthur wants to meet him so she can do a big story on him -- so she pretends to faint outside his mansion, and he gallantly comes to her aid.
* In a scene from the upcoming movie ''My Best Friend's Girl'', Dane Cook's character actually talks about this trope and calls it {{Meet Cute}}, saying it's common in Rom Coms because all girls want that funny, witty guy, charming, dorky guy. He then goes on to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope by running with her on the track and falling over her then being struck by her beauty when she tries to help him up.
* The film whose review gave us the quote at the top of the page, ''Serendipity'', consists of a couple meeting cute for the entire first half of the movie, before trying to ScrewDestiny for no particular reason by testing how badly fate wants them to be together (The answer: Fate wants them to get together REALLY badly).
** The irony: It only happens once they stop trying to actively make it happen, and let things play out by themselves.
* ''The Holiday'' explicitly spells this out via an elderly screenwriter who's probably been in Hollywood long enough to name most of the tropes found in the film. One of the female leads has a meet cute with him that leads only to friendship, but she has another with Jack Black that leads to romance. It's surprisingly effective.
*Played with in ''BackToTheFuture''. In the beginning, Lorraine reveals that she met George this way and they don't have a particularly good marriage. When Marty goes back in time, he meets her the same way and she falls for him instead. So basically Lorraine would have fallen for whoever her dad's car hit that day.
** Doc Brown ''explains this onscreen'' with the same implications. Ew. Of course, once Marty gets involved, he turns it from MeetCute into a RescueRomance and things turn out to go surprisingly well from then on.
* In ''GoodByeLenin!'' Alex meets Lara when she saves him from choking at a press freedom rally.
*Brutally subverted in the movie ''Red Eye''. Lisa meets this charming guy at the ticket counter, they have a drink and flirt at the airport bar, and end up sitting next to each other on the plane. Too bad he's [[spoiler:a PsychoForHire who may or may not be a StalkerWithACrush, and is using Lisa to help him assassinate a public figure]]. She probably should have guessed as much when she found out his name was [[MeaningfulName Jackson]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Ripner]].
* Played with in ''50FirstDates'', where a woman and a guy meet in standard fashion, in a bar. Except she got a brain injury that kept her from converting her daily short-term memory to long term. The rest of the movie is him making her fall in love with her. Every. Single. Day. [[spoiler:They even marry and have kids.]] Pretty much everything in the movie counts as a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
*Rakesh and Vimmi in [[{{Bollywood}} Bunty Aur Babli]] meet in a train station after they both fail to get the jobs they really wanted. Vimmi lies to Rakesh, saying she's going to be a model. Rakesh congratulates her and then she starts bawling (in a really loud and annoying way.) [[spoiler:they then decide to [[HilarityEnsues become thieves]] and along the way fall in love.]]
*Lampshaded (and subverted, given what follows) in Disney's ''{{Enchanted}}'' after Giselle falls into her Prince's arms.
--> "And in years to come we'll reminisce / How we came to love..."
* Happens in many (if not ''most'') silent film romantic comedies.
* In ''MississippiMasala'', [[DenzelWashington Demetrius]] and Mina first meet when she accidentally hits him with her car.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Anime ]]

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''TenchiMuyo'': Under the misguided impression that ''{{shojo}}'' manga are actually a realistic guide to teenaged relationships on Earth (an impression fostered by a mischievous Sasami), both Ayeka and Ryoko engineer classic CrashIntoHello meetings with Tenchi -- months after they first met him.
*Kaoru and Aoi MeetCute at the start of ''AiYoriAoshi''. They bump into each other at the station, he fixes her shoe, walks her to her destination (taking a round trip on the train because he didn't want to wake her up) and then they discover they are childhood friends... Aww.
*Yuuichi meets every available girl in ''{{Kanon}}'' in an odd manner.
* Shuichi and Yuki in ''{{Gravitation}}'' meet cute ''twice:'' the first time, Shuichi's lyrics blow away in the park into the hands of Yuki who insults them, much to Shuichi's shock; the second happens a few days later when Shuichi jumps in front of Yuki's car in the rain and Yuki, after deprecating him again, drives him to his home to dry him off.
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and subverted in ''LuckyStar'': two random characters of no importance whatsoever accidentally tangle their bag keychains, and Konata (witnessing this) notes that they are now on the way to being a couple, while Kagami snaps that real life does not work that way.
** How do we know it's subverted? Do we ever see them again?
* In EdenOfTheEast, Akira Takizawa and Saki Morimi meet in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., with the former carrying a cell phone, a gun...and completely naked.
* In ''{{Basilisk}}'', during their first meeting, a hiccup causes Oboro to stumble and spill a tray of tea she was serving all over Gennosuke.
* Subverted and lampshaded in ''HunterXHunter'' during the Greed Island arc with "Love-Love, The City of Romance" which is "famous for its easy meetings": various MoeMoe-looking characters [[CrashIntoHello crash into]] the main characters, [[BlindWithoutEm lose their glasses]], and generally [[DistressedDamsel need rescuing]], but the main characters ignore them because they've got a mission to complete.
*Most of ''LoveHina'' is filled with this trope... Keitaro and Naru get it most often, particularly in the episode wheree they both decide, separately, that they need to go on vacation, bump into each other, both break their glasses, and have to spend the day together, doing romantic stuff, only to find out when they've regained their glasses who they are, and spend the rest of their trip escorting an anemic girl back to her home island.
* Makoto in ''TheGirlWhoLeaptThroughTime,'' after several failed matchmaking attempts, uses her time-leaping ability to forcibly arrange a MeetCute for Kousuke and Kaho by putting them in just the right positions for Kousuke to get [[CrashIntoHello involuntarily tackled into Kaho]] by another student. [[spoiler: This ultimately leads to Kousuke and Kaho dying in a train accident, and Makoto later undoes her meddling in favor of a much simpler approach.]]
* In ''CodeGeass'', how Euphemia and Suzaku first met. With her jumping out of a window several stories above ground and landing in his arms. Then again, everything about Euphemia tends to be played as being MoeMoe.
* In KareKano, Yukino's parents were childhood friends who bumped into each other on her mother's first day in middle school.
*The way Sena and Suzuna meet...so...very...MeetCute...(mixed with some CrashIntoHello.) Seriously, the artist should have put a big fat "Love Interest" label on her forehead.
** The sad part is, ''{{Eyeshield 21}}'' being a shounen sports manga, ''nothing was ever done with them.'' Not even in the DistantFinale.
* DoubleArts reveals in a side comic that Kiri's parents met this way. When a super-tall boy and a super-tiny girl trying to enroll in a seamstressing school misestimate the "normal" sizes of their trial garments...
* Subverted hard in ''DarkerThanBlack''. Li ends up saving Chiaki several times just by being in the right place at the right time, including once with a FakeOutMakeOut, and eventually promises to help her escape the country. [[spoiler:However, "Li" is just the civilian alias of Hei, a.k.a. "The Black Angel of Death". He was stringing her along purposefully in order to learn what she knew. And on top of that, it wasn't even the real Chiaki- it was a Doll programmed with her personality as a decoy to draw him out.]]
* In ''SaiunkokuMonogatari'', Shuurei and Ryuuki met when she was trying to get some [[CherryBlossoms cherry blossom petals]] to float in her tea, but couldn't reach any. Ryuuki stopped to help her out, but a strong wind made him accidentally break the whole branch off. They ended up having tea and Shuurei's home made sweet bean buns together.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Brutally subverted in ''AmericanGods''. [[spoiler:Mister Town]] meets Laura by the side of the road and offers her a lift. Within the span of less than an hour, they make playful banter and run through the rain with newspapers held over their heads, laughing. The character is convinced that he's found true love for the first time in his life. Then Laura [[spoiler:kills him just like she killed his friends. Of course, if you've read the novel faithfully up to that point, you already know that Laura is Shadow's undead wife who's willing to murder others to help him, so you know from the start that it isn't going to end well for the hapless guy.]]
* In the Newbery Award-winning children's book ''Ginger Pye,'' the children's father (Mr. Pye) met their mother (the soon-to-be Mrs. Pye) when, [[JustForFun for kicks and giggles]], he decided to run "up" the "down" escalator in what he thought was an abandoned subway station. Naturally, he ended up running down their mother-to-be, who was riding "down" it. [[HilarityEnsues Romance ensued.]]
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and referenced in ''Gravity's Rainbow'':
---> It was what Hollywood likes to call a "cute meet," out in the neat 18th-century heart of downtown Tunbridge Wells, Roger motoring in the vintage Jaguar up to London, Jessica at the roadside struggling prettily with a busted bicycle, murky wool ATS skirt hiked up on a handle bar...
* A [[TheGrotesque dwarf]] boy and his athletic older brother [[RescueRomance run into a girl pursued by bandits]]. The older brother fights off the thugs and the younger brother comforts the girl. Boy and girl like each other and get married. This is how Tysha and Tyrion Lannister (with the brother being Jaime) meet in ASongOfIceAndFire... [[StarCrossedLovers And]] [[PrankDate then]] ItGotWorse.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Theater ]]

* This troper is unsure how it plays out in the original novel, but in the musical of ''LesMiserables,'' Marius and Cosette play this perfectly straight, randomly running into each other in the street, he apologizing and stooping to help her up, and then ''they make eye contact''. Emphasis added because the musical score emphasizes that precise moment with a {{sting}}.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* A flashback in ''[[KatamariDamacy We Love Katamari]]'' reveals that The Prince's parents - The King of All Cosmos and his wife - met cute to a ridiculous degree, in a CrashIntoHello involving a cut-off Pompadour and a half-eaten bread accidentally forming a heart shape. The result: love at first sight. Awww...
* ''FinalFantasyVII'' had Aerith meet Cloud when he fell through the ceiling of her church into a flowerbed - ''from a terminal height, mind you''. Also, [[spoiler:''Crisis Core'' reveals she met previous love interest Zack in the exact same way]]. Ironically, Aerith and Cloud's ''real'' first meeting was a subversion of the CrashIntoHello where she was knocked over - by a random NPC - before calmly asking Cloud if he wanted to buy a flower as he wandered past.
* Deconstructed (maybe even [[InvokedTrope invoked]]) in ([[DeconstructorFleet surprise]], [[TropeOverdosed surprise]]) ''MetalGearSolid 2''. We learn that Raiden and Rose met over a [[GeekyTurnOn pedantic argument over which building King Kong was climbing in the movie]]. It later turns out to have been [[spoiler: all a big set-up to ensure Raiden would fall for her, allowing her to spy on him as part of the set-up for a XanatosGambit]].
** Non-romantic (but HoYay) example - when Snake first meets Otacon, Otacon [[BringMyBrownPants wets his pants]]. Snake teases him about it in ''MetalGearSolid 2'' (in a jokingly flirtatious, 'I remember the day when we first met' kind of way), Otacon jokes about it in ''MetalGearSolid 4'', and in ''MetalGear Mobile'' it's actually a plot element when Snake asks Otacon what happened when they first met in a SpotTheImpostor situation.
* Chrono Trigger features one of these as the the main character runs into (or gets run into by) Marle, and causes her to lose her pendant, which Crono then helps return. Shortly afterwards, Crono goes after Marle when she gets sent into the past.
* {{Lampshaded}} in ''KatawaShoujo''. The scene in which Emi [[CrashIntoHello slams into]] the protagonist Hisao is actually titled "Meet Cute."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

* The anime-inspired ''MegaTokyo'' naturally has this happen several times. Of particular note is the main couple, Piro and Kimiko, who've managed to meet cute 'bout 3 times so far... Largo and Erika probably also qualify, albeit ''only'' twice.
** Yuki and Kobayashi's Meet Cute is almost a parody; their first interaction within the strip involving her falling on him from a great height (immediately after he unintentionally distracted her) and giving him three broken ribs, a concussion, and a broken arm.
** Don't forget the exact details of Largo's first meeting with Erika. His near-fatal error of thinking her breasts weren't real and that she padded her Kasumi outfit was followed by his being asked in Japanese "Want me to break your other arm so you have a matched set?" most definitely didn't point at 'cute', rather 'keep your distance, you perv.'
* ''LastResort'' pulls a MeetCute almost right out of the gate with Slick pulling a CrashIntoHello onto Jigsaw as he's trying to evade his guards. Granted, Slick and Jigsaw aren't a couple yet, but being [[TokenShipping the only other of her species on board so far]] leaves little to the imagination.
* They don't meet any cuter than [[http://sordidcityblues.com/archive.php?chapter=001&page=008 this]].
* This [[http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/retro/20040929.shtml Checkerboard Nightmare strip.]]
* F'ga in [=~Ghastly's Ghastly Comic~=] likes to tell people he and his boyfriend Bobby met through a glory hole. Bobby insists that it wasn't what it sounds like; "F'ga was just reaching through to borrow some toilet paper because his stall was empty and that weird guy with the [[JackChick Chick tracts]] wasn't in the bathroom that day."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* [[AvatarTheLastAirbender Aang met Katara]] by running away from home, getting in a massive storm, ended up frozen in an [[HumanPopsicle iceberg]] for a century, and having her face to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. The result: {{love at first sight}}.
* Although the romance angle is limited to {{subtext}}, in ''Series/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' "Legacy" Superman hits it off with Alexis, [[RichBitch richest girl in the galaxy]], when he saves her [[HumongousMecha out-of-control mecha-suit]] from plummeting out of the sky.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fan Fic ]]

* In ''DeptHeavenApocrypha'', flagship couple Milanor and Nessiah first met up having to wash dishes together as a punishment for falling asleep during the school's opening ceremony. They got into an argument, after which Nessiah wound up hospitalized due to using too much magic, and the two of them became friends there. They didn't actually become a couple until a bit later on, though.
** Meria and Seth first met while the latter was on the run from some teachers after destroying one too many precious objects. [[spoiler:Their relationship didn't last too long, unfortunately.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life (Somehow) ]]

* Martial artist Wong Fei Hung met his fourth wife, Mok Gwai Lan, when his shoe flew off during a martial arts demonstration and hit Mok Gawi Lan in the head. She then leapt up on the stage and berated him. Impressed by her spirit, he asked her parents for her hand in marriage, and they accepted.

[[/folder]]


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<<|RomanceArc|>> [[romance]]
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