Romani / Live-Action Films

• Borat: Along with his many other cartoonishly bigoted statements, the title character calls himself a "Gypsy catcher" and claims to have run them over in a Hummer. In spite of Sascha Baron Cohen's arguments that a major point of the film is testing whether people would accept or endorse such hate speech, the European Center for Antiziganism Research still objected and filed a complaint against him.
• Brotherhood of the Wolf starts with the two heroes defending a Romani woman and her father from being persecuted by thuggish soldiers. The Romani woman, who suffers from seizures, is teased as a possible love interest for Mani. However, the Romani community as a whole is rather violent and confrontational. Ultimately, it's revealed that they're working for the villains, which results in a rather brutal comeuppance.
• Chocolat: The arrival of "river gypsies" causes outrage among the people of the town, except for the rebellious protagonist Vianne.
• Carmen y Lola: Set in the Roma community of Madrid's suburbs, it centers on two girls from there who fall in love, having a clandestine relationship.
• Doctor Sleep: Dick implies that Rose the Hat's band of psychic vampires are Romani, saying that their kind used to travel by camel in the Middle East (a reference to the apocryphal belief that Romani are descended form Egyptians) and traveled by caravan in Eastern Europe (coinciding with later Romani traveling habits). The band travels by a convoy of R Vs in modern times. Rose herself wears a top hat and a lot of beaded jewelry, which coincide with typical Hollywood portrayals of Romani. It's not clear whether Rose herself is the only ethnic Romani or not, since the others appear to belong to a wide range of ethnicities, and they gain new members by recruitment.
• Dracula: Dead and Loving It: A stereotypical old Rom woman warns Renfield that Dracula is evil and gives him a crucifix to protect him. When he tries to go, she asks him to pay for it. The early Dracula films were among the Trope Makers for stereotypes applied to both Romani and Eastern European people in general.
• Drag Me to Hell centers around a banker who's cursed by an elderly Romani woman after she forecloses on her house.
• The Elusive Avengers: Yashka is a fairly stereotypical roguish, conniving Roma boy, but this is played positively, as he's a Guile Hero who uses trickery against enemies of Soviet Russia. Other Roma also appear in New Adventures of the Elusives, and are portrayed similarly to Yashka after he convinces them to help the Avengers free Danka from the White Guard Secret Police prison.
• Ever After: A quite stereotypical "Gypsy" band appears initially attempting to steal Danielle's dress and hold the prince hostage, but after she impresses them with her quick thinking, they give everything back and invite the couple to their revelries.
• Golden Earrings: Sneaking into Nazi Germany on a secret mission to steal the formula for phlebotinum, Ray Milland runs into a band of movie gypsies, including Marlene Dietrich, and Murvyn Vye as the leader, Zoltan. They disguise him as one of them, teach him their ways and save his life. After the war, of course, he returns to them.
• House of Frankenstein: A beautiful Romani girl is the love interest of the hunchback Daniel but is herself more interested in Talbot, the Wolf Man.
• I Even Met Happy Gypsies is about life in a non-nomadic Romani community in Yugoslavia; apparently, the main business is picking and selling goose feathers. The title is a misnomer as their life seems brutal and violent and not very happy.
• The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies: A Romani fortune teller hypnotizes the Designated Hero into murdering for her. She also keeps a collection of acid-burned (and probably acid-tripping) mutants in her carnival tent.
• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum reveals that John himself is of Ruska Roma (from Belarus) descent. He doesn't remotely fit any Romani stereotypes: formerly a dreaded mob hit-man, retired to a classy upscale house for a while, mild-mannered and frequently a Badass in a Nice Suit.
• Korkoro chronicles the lives of a band of gitan (French Roma) during the Vichy France era.
• The Man Who Cried: The central character falls in love with a Romani man, played by Johnny Depp, who later chooses to remain with his family through the Nazi invasion of France. In this case, the Romani characters are depicted as outsiders, but the difference, in this case, is that the main character, Suzie, finds solidarity with them as she is also seen as "Other" due to being Jewish, and both are persecuted by the Nazis.
• The Promised Land: There is a band of Romanisael in the Danish Jutlands who live as bandits. Our hero Kahlen hires them as farmhands, which is illegal, but the local authorities find out, forcing them back into vagabondry. Kahlen ultimately adopts Anmai Mus, a young girl from their number who is persecuted even by them for being dark-skinned. She peppers her speech with swear words and Romani terms.
• The Red Violin: A Romani band is implied to have broken into a grave and made off with the titular instrument. However, they don't appear to suffer any ill effects as the other owners have, as they're shown enjoying playing and sharing the violin's music through several generations.
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: A Romani camp provides Holmes and Watson with some important clues on an anarchist cell tied to Moriarty's plot. They take Watson's luggage, his coat, and his scarf;, though it's implied that they are simply playing up the stereotype in order to mess with Watson when one of them gives the scarf back.
• Thinner features a modern band of gypsies whose leader curses the main characters and who fulfill the stereotype fully.
• Train Of Life, although mostly about the Jewish genocide, features a group of Ashkenazi Jews getting into a friendly music competition with a group of Roma during World War II, seen here.
• The Vagabond: The Tramp liberates a beautiful woman from a vicious Romani couple that kidnapped her years ago.
• The Valley of Gwangi: Roma appear as primitive, stupid antagonists, insisting that the characters should stay away from the titular Lost World for fear of the titular Tyrannosaurus Rex, which they fear as an evil deity. They ultimately cause the chaos at the film's end when they sneak in and free Gwangi from his cage, getting eaten in the process.
• Van Helsing:
  • Anna and Velkan Valerious, the Romani princess and prince of Transylvania. While this film includes many tropes from old monster movies, it also inverts the stereotype of the evil Romani helping the monsters, with Anna and Velkan being monster fighters, sworn enemies of Dracula, and (in Anna's case) an ally/love interest of Van Helsing. They do have campy foreign accents, though this stereotype is somewhat justified by the story's setting; parts of Anna's attire also fit the stereotype of the colorful Romani clothing.
  • It should be noted that this film's Dracula is technically a Roma as well, since he is part of the Valerious family. According to her actress, Dracula's middle bride, Marishka, is also a Roma. This would explain her strange Sultry Belly Dancer outfit.
• The Way (2010): A Romani boy steals Tom's backpack, which happens to contain his son's ashes. Tom's friends tell him there's no point in reporting the theft to the police, as they would never be able to track the boy down. However, later that night, the boy's father comes to the bar where the main group is commiserating over the loss of the backpack to return it, incredibly ashamed at what his son had done; he lectures the boy on not reaffirming everyone's stereotypes. To make up for it, he invites them to a party that night where the expected music and dancing occurs.
• The Wolf Man (1941): A Romani fortune teller explains Lawrence Talbot's curse to him (who also appears in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man). Its portrayal is Fair for Its Day: when prejudice against Romani comes up, it's portrayed as narrow-minded and ignorant, and Maleva (the gypsy fortune teller) is an outright heroic figure who tries to help Lawrence Talbot and protect the people around him.

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