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Robert: Is this a habit of yours, falling off of stuff?
Giselle: Well, usually someone catches me.
A woman literally falls into a man's arms. It's a dramatic and romantic scene, so it's naturally a common setup for Meet Cute.
It's also such an old trope that it has standard subversions and parodies. Played straight, it's almost always a man successfully catching a woman. It can be subverted by having the falling woman squash her would-be hero, or by having her miss him entirely, especially with animation's Amusing Injuries or if the girl was deliberately trying to invoke this trope by pretending to faint or something.
Because Falling Into His Arms is so romantic, it can be easily parodied by having a man fall into a man's arms, for a bit of comedic Ho Yay. That can also be combined with one of the standard subversions.
Another old variation is for a man to be the waiting arms beneath the windows of a burning building, when a mom decides that her baby would have a better chance of surviving if she tossed it. More intense drama, no romance (unless the mom survives, is single, and is sufficiently impressed).
The baby Falling Into His Arms has two standard subversions too. One is for the man to miss the catch, and the other is for it to turn out to be something else wrapped up in swaddling clothes, such as an ugly pet. Or an ugly baby, for that matter. Maybe he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to save that face.
A standard parody of the baby toss is for the woman to toss an ever-growing number of increasingly large and heavy objects into her hero's waiting arms, until eventually — wait for it — he gets squashed. Because it's funny!
In all such cases, it's Not the Fall That Kills You.
Compare Catch a Falling Star and Diving Save.
Examples of falling adults:
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Anime & Manga
Film
- Life Is Beautiful, though it was a short fall into hay and she probably would have been fine without him.
- Played straight AND subverted to good effect in the movie Enchanted — in the fairy tale world Prince Edward easily catches Princess Giselle in his arms in a straightforward fashion. Later, in "real world" New York, Princess Giselle falls on Robert and knocks him over. (Which is probably what would really happen if a woman fell on a man.)
- If you've seen the ending of the film, this trope gets inverted! After Robert wakes Giselle with True Love's Kiss, Narissa transforms into a dragon, kidnaps Robert and goes to the top of the Woolworth Building. Later, she falls down to her death, and Giselle, who chased after Narissa, catches Robert and both managed to stay on the roof, away from sure death. To add effect to the scenes, they pulled an ironic echo of the "Is this a big habit of yours, falling off stuff?" question.
- Done for laughs in the in the live-action film of Little Women with Winona Ryder. Meg, Jo, Laurie and John Brooke return from an evening at the theater, and as they exit the carriage, Jo raves about the lead actress being "a wonderful swooner."
Jo: If only I were the swooning type! [dramatically falling from the carriage]
Laurie: [sardonically, watching her fall] If only I were the catching type.
- Used in 9, when 9 rescues 7 from The Seamstress.
Live Action TV
- Variation on Pushing Daisies: Due to Ned being Blessed with Suck, when his love interest trips right in front of him he has to step out of the way to avoid touching her, leaving room for someone else to swoop in and be the hero. He gets the girl anyway, but not before he nurses his inferiority complex for a while.
- In Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin catches Belle when she falls ripping down curtains. 'Cause they're falling in love.
- Subverted in "The Frogs and the Lobsters" of Horatio Hornblower. Horatio escapes through a window and climbs down a wall, running away from a frenzied mob of French villagers who might want to behead him as he's a British Navy officer fighting for French Royalists. He persuades his Love Interest Mariette to go with him, and tells her to jump. He fails catching her, though. She hurts her leg, which makes their escape much harder. And surprisingly, Horatio averts another logical romantic gesture — Bridal Carry. He doesn't carry her and Mariette must keep hopping, leaning on his shoulder.
Video Games
Webcomics
- In this strip
 of Mystic Revolution, a catgirl falls off a cliff into a mighty summoner's arms, complete with a "Hello, beautiful."
- The webcomic College Roomies from Hell!!!... repeatedly. People fall out of that building a lot. Sometimes wearing a bungee jumping cord.
- Well, the page title IS "A webcomic about defenestration," so...probably justified?
- Occurs in Questionable Content here with appropriate Lampshade Hanging.
- Occurs after a biking accident in Wapsi Square here. However, in this case, it is purely comedy, and it is not played for romance in any way.
Western Animation
- Happens a lot in Teen Titans with Robin and Starfire, usually with Starfire getting knocked out of the air by something and Robin rushing to catch her.
- This is how Will and Caleb meet on W.I.T.C.H..
- Well, they're kids, but Phineas and Ferb inverts this in one episode where Phineas is falling to his near-death, gets saved by an impromptu trampoline his love interest Isabella comes up with and bounces off of it into her arms.
- Inverted twice in Avatar The Last Airbender, where Katara catches Aang.
- An absolutely fantastic subversion is in Justice League Unlimited when Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman are all turned into eight year olds and while they're fighting giant toy soldiers, Batman gets dropped and Wonder Woman catches him. He then crawls out of her embrace with his patented Bat-Scowl, insisting, "Leggo, I'm fine!" while she glares at him for being ungrateful. It bears mentioning that grown up Wonder Woman has a bit of a thing for grown up Batman.
- In a Gender Flip episode of Adventure Time, Fionna and Prince Gumball are both falling, then Fionna somehow manages to land first and catch Gumball.
Examples of tossed babies:
Literature
Live Action TV
- Parodied (in a skit based on an old joke) on The Benny Hill Show. Benny plays a soccer goalie who assures the woman in the burning building that he can easily catch her baby. Which he does. And then, ever the goalie, he follows up by kicking the baby into the crowd.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Spoofed in the Ren and Stimpy cartoon "Firedogs!", where a fat, middle-aged housewife in a burning building tosses various heavy objects onto Ren, including a comically oversized baby ("Save my baby! Save my horse! Save my walrus! Save my elephant!"), then shrieks "Save me!" as Stimpy sends Ren up the fire truck ladder at high speed.
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