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  • In 68 Kill, Chip leaves the motel owner bound and gagged when he knocks him out and steals his car to go after Monica.
  • Frank Hart, the "sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot" boss of 9 to 5, gets this treatment from the three leading lady secretaries (Violet Newstead, Doarlee Rhodes, and Judy Bernley) that work for him. Judy's ex-husband Dick sees her with Frank in the bedroom with chains, collars, and restraints and thinks that she's Sleeping with the Boss and into BDSM.
  • The ABCs of Death: The woman in "I", who is in this position in a man's bathtub before he injects her with something that causes her death.
  • In Antigang, Kasper and his gang leave the armoured car crews bound and gagged when they take their places to hijack the funds transfer.
  • In Apache, Santos leaves his daughter Nalinle bound and gagged so she cannot interfere with his plan to hand Massai over to the troops.
  • Appointment with Venus: After the heroes capture Sergeant Vogel, they leave him bound and gagged in the harbour.
  • The Archer: Michael is left gagged and tied to a tree by Lauren and Rebecca after they beat him up so they can escape.
  • Asian School Girls: When the girls are drugged and abducted from the club, they are gagged and handcuffed to chairs in the hotel. When they catch up with the two guys who abducted them, the girls drug them and they wake in the same state in a deserted warehouse.
  • Bad Times at the El Royale: Sullivan discovers Emily has Rose bound to a chair and gagged in her room. Later on, Billy Lee has most of the surviving characters bound to chairs in the hotel lounge. When Miles won't stop begging Flynn to absolve him, he has him gagged.
  • The Baker Street Dozen:
    • In Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, Holmes is bound and gagged by Moriarty before being stuffed into the false bottom of a sea chest for transport.
    • In The Spider Woman, Holmes again is bound and gagged behind a moving target in a shooting gallery. Spedding hopes that Watson would accidentally shoot him but Holmes is able to get out on time before that happens.
    • In The Scarlet Claw, the killer leaves Judge Brisson's housekeeper gagged and bound to a chair when hhe takes her clothes and disguises himself as her in order to get close enough to the judge to murder him.
    • In The House of Fear, the criminals capture Watson. When Holmes rescues him, he is bound and gagged and the criminals are planning to toss him off their ship as they make their getaway.
  • This trope happened more than once in the Batman Film Series:
    • In Batman, a guy is gagged and tied to a chair during the Joker’s commercial for Smilex.
    • In Batman Returns, the Ice Princess ends up bound and gagged during a plan by the Penguin and Catwoman to ruin Batman’s reputation.
    • In Batman Forever, this happens to the security guard at the beginning of the movie, as well as to both Robin and Chase Meridian during the climax as part of the Sadistic Choice presented by the Riddler.
  • Cameron Diaz is tied and gagged and locked in a cage in Being John Malkovich.
  • Berkshire County: Kylie finds people tied up and gagged in the back of the intruders' van. She herself ends up like this when the intruders capture her and the kids.
  • Taken to a level of hilarity in the movie Big Trouble in Little China.
  • Several characters go through this in Bingo, which includes an entire family as well as the main human protagonist at the climax.
  • Blood Widow: At one point, the killer ties Laurie's hands together, puts a gag over her mouth, and puts her in a closet.
  • Bloody Homecoming: In the final confrontation with Loren, the killer has Principal Patterson gagged and tied to a chair.
  • The Bloody Man: Late in the movie the kids find the real Kim tied to a chair behind a door, with her mouth gagged.
  • Not surprisingly, this happens to both of the female leads in Bound.
  • The Exploitation Film The Candy Snatchers is all about the kidnapping of a Catholic schoolgirl. There's a lot of emphasis on what the victim is going through, and she is shown tied up and gagged onscreen a lot. She is never freed, at all, in any point during the movie. In fact, the movie ends with her having no hope of rescue, tied, gagged and blindfolded in a box buried in the ground, trying to cry for help through her gag.
  • In the Charlie's Angels (2000) movie, Dylan Sanders is tied to a chair by Eric Knox and gagged with a wide strip of duct tape with red lips drawn on it.
  • In Cherry Falls, Sheriff Marken wakens to find himself bound to a chair and gagged with duct tape in the killer's Torture Cellar.
  • A Classic Horror Story: The movie begins with a shot of a woman cuffed to a table by her hands and feet, with a gag in her mouth. Later on, Riccardo and Sofia are seen outside the house tied to poles and with gags wrapped around their mouths.
  • In A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs improvise ball gags out of rubber super balls and cellophane tape when they break into Frank Alexander's house. Works real horrorshow, too.
  • Clown Kill: Jenny ends up tied to a chair with a gag over her mouth at one point in the movie, courtesy of Charlie Boy.
  • In Craving Desire, Sonia knocks Luigi out. When he wakes up, she has tied up and gagged him.
  • Deadtime Stories: Volume 2: In "The Gorge", Craig wakes in hospital to find himself gagged and bound hand and foot to his bed with surgical tape as Donna advances on him holding a fork and a scalpel.
  • Death Rides a Horse: After being captured by Walcott's gang, Ryan is kept bound and gagged in the back of a wagon. After they rob the bank, the gang cuts him loose and dumps him unconscious out of the wagon to be caught by the Posse.
  • In Death Spa, Catherine captures Laura and leaves her bound and gagged on a tanning bed to cook.
  • Death Walks on High Heels: When the killer confronts Nicole in her apartment, her cuts her dress and pulls it up around her head before using it to bind and gag her.
  • Diamonds on Wheels: Charlie is bound and gagged after being knocked out by Jock at the castle. He spends a good chunk of the final third of the film tied up, until Bobby and Susan manage to rescue him.
  • In Dick Tracy, Detective, Splitface keeps the captive Tess and Junior bound and gagged in the boiler-room of the abandoned steamboat he is using as hideout.
  • In The Disappearance of Alice Creed, the title character is stripped naked, tied to a bed, gagged and blindfolded.
  • In Dobermann, Rabid Cop Christini takes Oliver's family hostage and has them bound and gagged to chairs in order to force Oliver to cooperate with him.
  • Draw!: After he abducts The Alcoholic Sam Starret, Wally transports him back to Bell gagged and bound on a travois.
  • A not-so-common, non-villainous example occurs in the exorcism scene from The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The title character allows herself to be tied to her bed posts at one point to keep the demon possessing her from hurting herself or anybody else in the room. It doesn't work.
  • In Even Lambs Have Teeth, Sheriff Andrews is holding the two girls kidnapped to replace Sloan and Katie bound and gagged to chairs in the old bed and breakfast.
  • In Exam, Black does this to White when he decides he's finally heard enough out of him, tying his hands behind a chair with his own tie and using another tie and White's socks to make sure that he wouldn't be able to speak.
  • Fresh Meat: After their initial difficulties with the Crane family, the gang ties them up in the living room. When Hemi and Glenn start praying, Johnny gags the whole family with duct tape to shut them up.
  • In The General, Buster Keaton's love interest Annabelle gets discovered by the union spies in a train they're trying to steal, and gets quickly overpowered, bound and gagged.
  • In The Gentlemen, Coach delivers Phuc to Ray as peace offering, bound and gagged with duct tape in the boot of his car.
  • Gentlemen Explorers: When Charles and Burt come to rescue Agent Rodriguez in Goldfield, they find her gagged and bound with an absurdly huge rope.
  • In Girl House, Loverboy binds Gary to an office chair with cable ties and gags him with tape. He then stabs him several times and leaves him to bleed to death.
  • In Goldfinger, Goldfinger and Pussy leave the real crew of the presidential jet bound and gagged in a hanger while they play Not My Driver with Bond.
  • In the final scene of Graduation, Jackson has the bank manager bound and gagged with duct tape under the counter as he robs another bank.
  • In Head Above Water, Nathalie gets tied to a chair with a ton of rope and gagged, tied up and gagged and carried over a shoulder, and later even tied up with her feet in cement.
  • In Hellzapoppin', Louie winds up binding and gagging his girlfriend in the projection booth with the unspooled film.
  • In Home Alone 3, Alice Ribbons (one of the movie thieves) ties up and gags Mrs. Hess (a grumpy old lady) to a lawn chair with white duct tape, in a garage.
  • How to Rob a Bank: Jessica starts the film taped to a chair and screaming abuse at Jason. He then tapes her mouth shut till she agrees to behave. This pattern repeats itself several times over the course of the film.
  • The Invitation (2022): Evie is gagged and tied to a chair after resisting becoming Deville's new bride inside his cellar.
  • In It Happened in Hollywood, Slim and Pete do this to Joe Stevens to keep him from ruining the party Tim is throwing for Billy.
  • Jawbreaker opens with a group of teen girls playing a prank on their friend by "mock" kidnapping her - a stunt that still involves tying her up and gagging her with the titular candy. The latter proves fatal when it lodges in her windpipe.
  • Julia X: When Jessica initially abducts Sam, she leaves him bound to a kitchen chair and blindfolded. However, when The Stranger escapes, he takes the blindfold off Sam's eyes and stuffs it into his mouth, thereby transforming him into being bound and gagged.
  • Killer Under the Bed: Sarah finds the receptionist at the dentist's office unconscious on the floor, her hands tied behind her back and a cloth tied around her mouth. Then Dr. Dryer tazes her from behind.
  • When Nick and his cronies rob the jewellery store at the start of Kiss of Death, they leave the clerk bound and gagged. He manages to squirm his way over to the counter and activate the alarm.
  • Lady in Cement: After being discovered at the hotel, Tony leaves the pool boy gagged and bound to chair in the cabana.
  • In Lady Ninja Kaede, Koharu is bound and gagged with strips of cloth before being raped.
  • In A Life Less Ordinary, Celine Naville is tied to a chair as part of a somewhat faked kidnapping, then later seen tied up and gagged at a table while trying to play a card game, before she is blindfolded.
  • In Lone Hero, King has Sharon bound and gagged on the bridge when he meets with John to discuss swapping her for Bart.
  • In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Frodo and Sam are bound and gagged by Faramir's lot when he finds out they have the One Ring.
  • Machete. During the final battle, Torrez brings out Sartana, bound and gagged. She's clearly protesting through the gag, and he asks if she has something to say, brandishing his katana at her. She remains silent, so he politely slices the gag open.
    Torrez: Now you have something to say?
  • Peter Ames, from The Mad Miss Manton, is bounded and gagged twice by a horde of angry debutantes.
  • The indie comedy Manalive features a scene at a southern boarding house where several tenants trick a wealthy snob named Rosamond into accepting her own comeuppance. Rosamond is asked to participate in a game called "Knights in Shining Armor" (where two knights fight over a princess). She refuses to play until they let her be the princess. Of course, that was their plan all along. The narrator says, "What she doesn't know is that this princess is a damsel in distress." It then cuts to Rosamond tied to a tree and gagged, looking angry. Her predicament is made worse when a toad hops onto her foot. A female tenant picks it up and holds it in Rosamond's face, saying, "Oh come on, it's a fairy tale. If you kiss it, it'll turn into a prince!" Rosamond squirms and protests through the gag.
  • In The Man in the Iron Mask, King Louis XIV (played by a young Leonardo DiCaprio) is bound at the wrists and gagged by the Musketeers, who are attempting to abduct him and replace him with his identical twin brother.
  • In The Man Who Came Back, Reese Paxton is bound, gagged and locked in a cage as he is being transported to prison, and can watch helplessly and grunt in frustration and anguish as he watches Billy Duke murder his wife and son.
  • In The Mask, Tina Carlyle is tied to a post. Stanley is also bound and gagged by the bad guys while they keep him hostage in their car.
  • In Masquerade, Rose knocks out Olivia in the kitchen and leaves her bound with zip ties and gagged with insulation tape.
  • Men at Work: A pizza delivery guy brings a pizza to Carl's and James' apartment, where they and Louis are hiding Jack Berger's dead body. When he sees it, the trio have no choice but to keep him silent. To that end, they tie him to a chair and stuff a cloth in his mouth.
  • Mission: Impossible Film Series:
    • Mission: Impossible II: Ethan binds the villain's head henchman and tapes his mouth shut before disguising him with a Latex Perfection mask and handing him back to his boss.
    • Mission: Impossible III: The film starts with Jules bound and gagged at the mercy of the villains, who are questioning Ethan. They then kill her, and the plot picks up several days prior to show how things got to that point.
    • Mission: Impossible – Fallout: Ilsa ends up tied to a chair and gagged by the villains, and manages to escape to defeat them when they then walk away in order to hang Benji.
  • Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears: When she escapes from Montague's office, Phryne leaves a young British officer gagged and bound to a chair with items of her clothing.
  • The crooks who pull the Armed Blag at the start of Money Movers leave the guards bound and gagged in the back of the van, except for Martin who resists and gets knocked out with a shotgun butt to the back of the head.
  • Mongolian Death Worm: Patrick ties Mr. Bixler up in Genghis Kahn's Tomb.
  • The Night They Knocked: The killers manage to catch of of the protagonists and ties her to a chair with a cloth over her mouth on the front porch of the house.
  • In Nightworld: Lost Souls, the killer binds and gags Jesse and leaves him in the cave, where Victor finds him.
  • All of the captives at the start of their imprisonment in Nine Dead. Their captor then removes their gags.
  • Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight: After getting knocked unconscious by the priest at the church, Bartek wakes up tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth.
  • A rare example where the good guys do it, at the end of the martial arts film Outlaw Brothers. The heroine, a Cowboy Cop (played by Yukari Oshima), had defeated the villainess, a drug ring's leader (played by Michiko Nishiwaki), and had her gagged up afterwards while waiting for police backup.
  • In the first episode of silent film The Perils of Pauline, Pauline is bound and gagged and kidnapped by the bad guys, who want to claim her inheritance. She's rescued by her faithful boyfriend.
  • Playing With Dolls: In the prologue, we see the killer has tied his victim to a tree with a gag in her mouth.
  • In Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the real Roger was tied and silenced with duct tape while his father had Ditto impersonate him.
  • In Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, Michael is handcuffed and gagged with a strip of duct tape by Violet/Ivy.
  • Ball-gags are used in Pulp Fiction in the scene where Butch and Marsellus are captured by Zed and Maynard.
  • A Recipe for Seduction: Harland is tied to a chair and gagged with duct tape during the climax, where Bunny and Billy plan to kill him.
  • It happens enough in Red that it borders on being a fetish. The filmmakers clearly had a thing for using duct tape as well. There are numerous shots of men and women bound and gagged, with a seeming emphasis on wide, silver, tape gags.
  • Redwood Massacre Annihilation: Near the start of the movie, we see Pamela, the Final Girl from the first movie, tied by her hands to a chair (with nails through her wrists), and a gag around her mouth.
  • The Retreat: Renee wakes up in this position after being knocked out.
  • Rovdyr: When Roger, Camilla and Jorgen wake up in the forest, they are bound and gagged and their first task is to get themselves free. Later, Camilla finds Jorgen bound and gagged and tied to a tree. In a sadistic tough, he has been gagged with heavy rope that making his mouth bleed, and his wrists and ankles have been bound with barbwire.
  • Rush Hour 2: Tape is used to tie Lee's hands together and gag his face.
  • Like in the show this movie is based on, Daphne is bound and gagged by a villain at the beginning of Scooby-Doo. Oddly enough, she starts off only bound, allowing her to complain about being kidnapped, only to gain a gag off-screen. This latest experience inspires her to become stronger in order to stop being a damsel in distress.
    • The movie was originally going to have a different credits opening, one that would be animated and have the main characters drawn with their classic designnote . In it, Daphne is kidnapped by classic Scooby-Doo monsters, with the other members of Mystery Inc. unaware of it. She ends up bound and gagged and is forced to hop around in order to reach her friends, but she's caught by the monsters again. She shows up again, still bound and gagged while hopping around, after the rest of the gang are made aware of the monsters' presence and start running away.
  • Early on in Scream, Ghostface holds Casey Becker’s boyfriend Steve hostage by having him duct taped to a chair and gagged. He’s murdered not long after.
  • In Serial Killing 4 Dummys, Sasha is bound and gagged by the Serial Killer and strapped into his murder machine.
  • In Sherlock Holmes (1932), Moriarty kidnaps Alice and Billy and keeps them bound and gagged in the cellar of the pet store as insurance.
  • In Sherlock Holmes (2009), Irene Adler gets this treatment midway through the movie.
  • In Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, Holmes is bound and gagged by Moriarty before being stuffed into the false bottom of a sea chest for transport.
  • Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend: When Devlin breaks into Nell's bedroom to steal her jewellery, he leaves her bound and on the bed.
  • Mary is bound and gagged when she is kidnapped from the funfair and bundled into a car in The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes' Greatest Case. She stays that way until untied by Watson at the end of the film.
  • In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, the Big Bad kidnaps Inspector Lestrade and is holding him gagged and chained to massive throne in his castle hideout.
  • Slaughter High: Skip is bound and gagged when Marty leaves him to hang himself in the gym. Precariously balanced on a stack of tables, Skip's efforts to free himself are almost guaranteed to cause him to fall off and slowly strangle.
  • The Sleeping Cardinal: After Watson is snatched from Godfrey's cellar, Holmes and Lestrade find him gagged bound to chair under a rug in the house next door.
  • Some Guy Who Kills People: In his Flashback Nightmare to being tormented by the Jerk Jocks on the basketball team, Ken is bound to a chair and gagged with duct tape.
  • Stag: After Dan tries to release Serena, Pete has the pair of them dragged downstairs to the living room and bound and gagged on the couch, while the remaining party-goers decide what to do with them.
  • In the 15 part Superman serial from about 1948 or 1950, Lois Lane gets captured in every episode and tied up. She's never just tied at the wrists and ankles but with about 30 feet of rope that goes up and down her body from chest to feet. It looks very ritualistic.
  • Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: After abducting Mr. Baek, Geum-ja keeps him bound to a chair and gagged in the abandoned school. When the families of his victims confront him, some chose to ungag him so they can hear what he has to say (or hear him beg for mercy), while others leave him gagged because they have no interest in his excuses or justifications.
  • This seems to be part of Ray's standard operation in Take Me, although Anna's initial escape suggests that he generally does not focus as much on keeping the victim immobilized as he does them feeling like they got the full kidnapping experience.
  • Tales from the Darkside: The Movie: In "Lot 249", Andy ties Bellingham to a chair and gags him with duct tape while he tortures him to find out the secret of Lot 249.
  • Talon Falls: Sean ends up strapped into a chair with a gag wrapped around his mouth.
  • It happens to both Raphael and Professor Jordan Perry in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, both of whom are rescued during the assault on the Foot headquarters.
  • Ten Dead Men: After beating Bruiser into submission, Ryan binds and gags him to chair that has been nailed to the floor. He inflicts more punishment on him until he removes the gag in order to cut his tongue out.
  • In This Gun for Hire, Willard has Ellen Graham bound and gagged after he sees with Raven on the train, and then when he realizes she knows about the fact he's involved with selling illegal arms.
  • In The Hunt, Crystal wakes up with a gag in her mouth. This also happens to other people in this scene.
  • The Three Stooges shorts tended to do this a lot. Often to the Damsel-In-Distress of the day, but the Stooges themselves weren't inmune to it:
    • In Who Done It?, the Stooges first appear bound and gagged in their office. Victims of a robbery, of course.
    • The climax of Crime on their Hands has Shemp bound and gagged on a table by the villains as they're about to perform open surgery on him.
    • In "Scotched in Scotland", Larry is bound, gagged and hidden in the closet by the mysterious villain.
  • Tiger House: Except when they need them, the gang keeps their hostages bound and gagged with zip ties and duct tape.
  • Parodied in Tongan Ninja, with the constantly kidnapped Miss Lee:
    "I'd like to see you escape now you've got tape on your mouth Miss Lee!
  • The first half of the film The Transporter (starring Jason Statham) featured Shu Qi's character exclusively in this state.
  • The unfortunate couple in the boot of Irina's car at the start of Triple 9. Irina is not a woman to be messed with.
  • The Undertaker: Roscoe kills one of his female victims by tying her by her hands between two trees, and puts tape over her mouth. He then proceeds to gut her to death.
  • When first encountered in Vampires vs. Zombies, Julia is keeping Tessa bound and gagged in the back of her car as part of a trap for the General.
  • In Violent Saturday, Shelley and the Amish family are left bound and gagged and locked in the hayloft.
  • In the climax to Viva Maria!, this happens to Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau's charcters (who are both named Maria).
  • In What's the Worst That Could Happen?: Kevin's crew binds and gags the wait staff and the auction staff at the bankruptcy auction so they can take their places.
  • Lampshaded in What's Up, Tiger Lily? - villain Shepard Wong has the hero and his two girl assistants bound up. Several henchman walk out of the room as Wong mutters "Everyone shows up when we have girls to tie up!"
  • In Who's Harry Crumb?, Elliott winds up tied to a chair, gagged with duct tape, and then suspended in mid-air so that all he can do is get the chair to swinging. The lipstick mark left on the duct tape right over his mouth adds a bit more humor to the situation.
  • Most of the female captives in The Woman Hunt are bound and gagged during some point in their abduction, and Tony and the girls leave Magda bound and gagged in one of the bedrooms when they escape the mansion.

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