History Film / Amelie

* RightNowMontage: "How many couples are having an orgasm right now?"

* PhotoMontage: The end credits feature Nino's carefully compiled photo album, now with pictures of all the film's characters added.

* FastForwardGag: This happens when Amélieelie prepares her forged letter to Madeline Welles. The action is sped up while she uses scissors to cut a letter into small pieces, before gluing them together in a different order.

* DopeSlap: In of his KickTheDog moments, Collignon slaps Lucien on the back his head.

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** Lucien. He's referred to as "slow", and seems to have a mild mental handicap.
** Amélie's shyness, which in turns brings about her passive-aggression and vivid imagination, is played as a personality quirk that can be overcome if she tries, though it could be explained as some sort of mild mental disorder.

[[caption-width-right:300: ‘’[[{{Tagline}} She'll change your life]]''.]]

[[caption-width-right:300: ''[[TagLine She'll change your life]]''.]]

''Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain'' (''The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain'' -- released as ''Amélie'' in English) is a 2001 French RomanticComedy film directed by Creator/JeanPierreJeunet, starring Creator/AudreyTautou and Mathieu Kassovitz. Creator/AndreDussollier is the narrator.

The plot follows Amélie Poulain, a lonely young UsefulNotes/{{Paris}}ian waitress with simple pleasures, as she decides to become a sort of guardian angel to those around her: reuniting a stranger with a box of his childhood treasures, gently prompting her retired father to follow his dreams of world travel, matchmaking café regulars, playing practical jokes on a greengrocer who's being cruel to his assistant, writing love letters to a woman whose husband left her, etc. During her adventures, she meets an odd young man named Nino Quincampoix, who we quickly realize is her soulmate -- but she is too shy to make direct contact. She must find the courage to fix her own life as she's been fixing those of others.

!!''Amélie'' provides examples of:

** Amélie's shyness, which in turns brings about her passive-aggression and vivid imagination, is played as a personality quirk that can be overcome if she tries, though it could be explained as some sort of mild mental disorder.

** When Amelie falls asleep, the animals in the pictures on the wall above her bed come to life and talk about her. Her pig-shaped bedside light then pulls a cord to switch itself off.

* AnonymousPublicPhoneCall: Amelie, in a nearby cafe, calls a payphone next to a passer-by to make him walk into the phone booth and find a present she's left there for him. She plays a similar trick on Nino later.

* ArtisticLicense: According to the narrator in the epilogue, "Félix Lerbier learns there are more links in his brain than atoms in the universe." If you think about it for a second, that's physically impossible. It should have been "than ''stars'' in the universe".
* AsideGlance: Plenty from Amélie.

** The last shot of the movie has Nino and Amelie on their motorbike both turn and make faces at the camera.
* AssholeVictim: Amelie takes revenge on the grocer on behalf of Lucien. He almost suffers a nervous breakdown, but he's such a HateSink that the audience enjoys it.

** The narrator announces that the following event will change Amelie's life forever. We see Amelie reacting to TV footage about Lady Di's death and it looks like this will be the driving force behind her change but then the scene goes on to show that it's her DramaticDrop that triggers the IncitingIncident.
** Nino gets one. While he is waiting for Amelie at the cafe, a beautiful girl walks in, smiling in his general direction. But then she is revealed to be somebody else's date.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Amelie and Nino are [[ShrinkingViolet quiet]] little [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} oddballs]] who are very kind but aren't all that good at making friends.
* BlitheSpirit: Amélie's mission after finding the box of trinkets is to affect the lives of those around her in a positive way.

* CacophonyCoverUp: Amelie tries to cover up Georgette's ImmodestOrgasm with the steamer of the coffee machine.
* CannotSpitItOut: Amélie's games with Nino, ostensibly designed to whet his interest in her, are in fact because she's painfully shy and terrified of approaching him. The two times she does actually set up an honest meeting to approach him, she freezes up and lets the moment slip past.

* CatScare: Inverted. When Amélie daydreams about Nino coming in through her beaded doorway and the beads rustle, she turns around and rather than relieved to see a cat, is understandably disappointed to find her cat.

** Amélie's air stewardess friend Philomène, who is introduced just as one of the other regulars of Café des Deux Moulins. [[spoiler:She's the one who's been taking the pictures of the gnome in different parts of the world. She jokingly tells Amélie she got the name "Snow White" for it.]]

* TheChessmaster: An unexpected example. Amélie is the less-common benevolent version of this trope, manipulating people and events in such a way as to bring them happiness without ever revealing her intentions (or sometimes even her involvement).
* ChoosyBeggar: Amélie wants to [[NiceToTheWaiter give some change to a beggar]] hanging around at a Paris train station but he declines since he doesn't work on Sundays.
* ChoreCharacterExploration: In the sex shop where they work, Nino and Eva casually discuss Amelie, while busily putting prices on sex toys. Madeline Wells is seen dusting banisters while Amelie talks to her.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Amélie is very shy, so she mostly lives in a world of her own imagination. Much of the supporting cast are also a bit quirky.

* CompartmentShot: We see Amelie reaching for that treasure box from inside the wall.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Amélie pays back cruelty with cruelty throughout her life. When she is a child, a neighbor fools her into thinking that her camera causes accidents, so as punishment she sits on his roof, listening to the football game on the radio and unplugging his TV connection at vital moments. As an adult, she plays pranks on the grocer to torment him for his mean-spirited treatment of his assistant.
* CoolOldGuy: Raymond Dufayel, the shut-in in Amélie's building. He serves as a mentor to Amelie and delivers the monologue begging her not to follow his example that finally breaks her out of her shell.

* CreativeClosingCredits: The main characters are seen as photos in Nino's album, including the face of the unseen narrator. The opening credits are also very subtly creative: the young Amélie is seen doing quirky things related to the credits, including:

* DeathByLookingUp: Amelie's mother meets this fate, courtesy of a suicidal Canadian tourist jumping off a church roof and landing on her.

* DramaticDrop: The movie uses this to [[IncitingIncident get the plot started]], as Amelie reacts in shock to hearing news of Princess Diana's death and drops the lid of her perfume flask.
* DriverFacesPassenger: One of the things Amelie does not like are drivers in American films who don't watch the road. Cut to a scene from the American film ''Father's Little Dividend'' where the actor drives a desk and looks at his passenger 99% of the time. In the DVD director's commentary, Jean-Pierre Jeunet comments on how difficult it is to find a clip exhibiting this trope when you're specifically looking for one.[[note]]If he only had TV Tropes available at the time...[[/note]]
* EmpathicEnvironment: It starts raining when young Amelie's goldfish gets dumped into the creek.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The film's French and English titles tell you what to expect from Amelie herself and what she does.

* ForgedMessage: One of Amelie's neighbor is bitter that her husband left her for another woman, then died in a plane crash. So Amelie creates a fake letter to convince the neighbor that the husband wanted to reconcile with her, had left his mistress, and was on his way home when the plane crashed.
* ForHappiness: Amélie's acts of kindness to make those around her happy.
* TheFreelanceShameSquad: The laughing crowd in front of Collignon's shop after Amelie delivers her imagined joke about him not having a heart.
* FrenchAccordion: Though actually a French film, ''Amelie'' features a lot of musette in the soundtrack to evoke a timeless mood, befitting a story set in a MagicalRealism SugarBowl version of Paris.
* FriendlessBackground: Both Amélie and Nino. Amélie was [[HomeschooledKids homeschooled]], while Nino was bullied by the other children.
* {{Gaslighting}}: Amélie sneaks into her grocer's apartment and subtly messes with his stuff, changing the size of his slippers, the numbers on his speed dial, etc., to punish him for mocking his ambiguously-handicapped and one-armed employee.

* GenderBlenderName: Amelie meets a female Dominique Bretodeau who seems to take quite a liking in her.
* GlassSlipper: Amélie has a LoveAtFirstSight moment when bumping into Nino at a Parisian subway station. He doesn't notice her at all and quickly rides off with his scooter. However, a photo album falls off when he takes a sharp corner and Amélie picks it up. It helps her to get in contact with Nino, who, after noticing his loss, leaves stickers around the station with his phone number.
* GoodFeelsGood: The catalyzing moment in the film is when Amelie realizes that improving people's lives makes her feel good, so she sets about secretly meddling in others' affairs.
* GuiltComplex: Young Amelie temporarily believes she caused all misery in the world after her neighbor planted that idea in her head.
* HelpingGrannyCrossTheStreet: In one scene Amelie is helping a blind man across the street and even further.
* HerCodeNameWasMarySue: Amelie has multiple ImagineSpot moments where she watches documentaries about Lady Diana and puts herself into them. While one such spot obviously leads to Amelie getting a DownerEnding, she is nonetheless pristine in those spots as the documentary narration makes her into a [[GoodSamaritan selfless martyr]] that the world can't go on without.

* HomeschooledKids: Amélie, since her father believed she had a heart condition.
* {{Hypochondria}}: Georgette is a straight example in combination with SicklyNeuroticGeek, given all the medicine she's witnessed taking, while Amélie herself ends up an accidental example because her excitement over paternal contact is mistaken for a heart condition.
* IHaveThisFriend: Oddly, done by the advice-giver. Raymond notes that Amélie is too shy to talk about herself. He gently coaxes her into it by pretending to ask for motives behind a figure in his painting, and deliberately suggesting ones similar to what he's seen of her.
* ImagineSpot: Used a lot, like when Amélie pictures herself as Zorro, or when Nino is late and her extended train of thought leads her to believe that he'd been captured and taken hostage by the Afghan Mujahideen, whom he joins and is now living in UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}} raising goats.

** When Amélie wonders how many couples are having orgasms at that moment, we get a montage of the couples doing so.

* INeedAFreakingDrink: Collignon needs one after the shenanigans Amelie puts him through. Unfortunately, the liquor is spiked with a handful of salt resulting in him performing a SpitTake.
* InformedAttractiveness: In Nino's dream, the headshots in one of his pictures come alive and argue over whether Amelie is all that attractive. Some will only say that she's rather pretty, but another insists that she's beautiful. Interestingly, the character was written for Creator/EmilyWatson and was probably going to be somewhat HollywoodHomely before Creator/AudreyTautou was cast.

* KarmicTrickster: The role Amélie takes in dealing with the grocer's treatment of Lucien.
* KnuckleCracking: Gina, Amelie's co-worker, takes a liking to this activity.

* LeaveTheTwoLovebirdsAlone: When Amelie and Nino finally get together, Lucien keeps filming their fondling from across the street, only for Dufayel to tell him off.
* LiesToChildren: Amelie's neighbor makes the gullible young girl believe that [[CorrelationCausationGag by operating her camera she was responsible for a car crash]]. He gets his comeuppance soon enough.
* LikeYouWereDying: {{Inverted}}; it's Dufayel, old and sick, who prods young and vibrant Amélie into living her life.
* LoonWithAHeartOfGold: Amélie is a Cloud Cuckoolander with strange fantasies whose life goal is to bring people happiness (in accordance with her personality, she does it in bizarre ways).
* LoveAtFirstSight: Implied with Amelie who fell in love with Nino when she saw him by the photo machine at the metro station.
* LustfulMelt: Amelie dissolved into tears because of heartbreak after she CannotSpitItOut and Nino leaves the cafe.
* MagicRealism: ''Everywhere'', from the talking photographs to Amélie watching an old-style newsreel on her own life (arguably a ShoutOut to ''Film/CitizenKane'' and of course Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale)...
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: The metaphorical comparison of the unfinished girl in the painting to Amélie quickly disintegrates when she gets fed up with Raymond's prying.
* AMinorKidroduction: A large portion of the first act is relating to Amelie's childhood, in which she begins showing her defining characteristics.
* MissingMom: Amelie loses her mother to an accident early in her life. Her death leaves Amelie behind with an absent-minded father.
* MissingTheGoodStuff: A young Amelie gets her revenge on an unpleasant neighbor by sneaking onto his roof with a portable radio during an important soccer match and pulling the plug on his TV antenna whenever a goal is about to be scored. It drives him crazy.
* MistakenForCheating: Joseph sees Gina dropping a note into Nino's pocket and assumes that she was giving Nino her number while it actually was a note from Amelie.
* ModestOrgasm: During the sequence when Amélie is imagining how many people are in the midst of orgasm ("fifteen!"), the last woman's O sound is somewhere between a gasp and a squeak.
* ModestyBedsheet: It was more like a Modesty HumanShield. Both scenes where Amélie was naked, she had a person over her.

* MountaintopHealthcare: In one ImagineSpot, Amelie sees herself as a red-cross nurse in the Alpes pushing Dufayel around in a wheelchair.
* MsImagination: Amelie has created an imaginary world to make up for the lack of friends.
* NarrativeFiligree: TheMovie. ''Amélie'' frequently delves into irrelevant events, such as marking Amélie's conception occurring at the exact time that a fly is crushed, that wine glasses "dance" on a moving tablecloth unseen, and that an elderly gentleman erases his deceased friend from his notebook of phone numbers. Additionally, almost every named character (or animal in the case of Philomène's cat) is noted as liking or disliking something in order to give detail to the world. The minor subplot about the death of Princess Diana also qualifies.

* NiceToTheWaiter: Amelie gives to the beggars and is nice to the handicapped.
* NotListeningToMeAreYou: Amelie's father is distracted because his favorite gnome went missing and sent him pictures from various cities around the world. So he fails Amelie's test of attention:
-->'''Amélie:''' I had two heart attacks and had to have an abortion because I did crack while I was pregnant. Other than that, I'm fine.\\

* OverlyLongGag: Amélie's imagined second reason as to why Nino is late.

* ParentalNeglect: A non-malicious variation. Amélie's father was so distant that, when he gave her occasional check-ups, the rare contact with her father would make her heart race; since he believed this was a result of a heart condition, he had her home-schooled by her neurotic mother, forcing Amélie to hide in her imagination.
* PhotoBoothMontage: Played with. The film has a montage of Amelie looking through other people's discarded photos from such a booth, which her love interest has collected into an album.

* ProtagonistTitle: Both the French and English titles of the movie are named after Amelie herself.
* PublicSecretMessage: When Amélie and Nino are described as the childhood friends that never were, the young Amélie and Nino are seen flashing lights out of their windows at each other.
* RaceForYourLove: Aborted. In the final act when Amelie can't spot Nino outside her house, she rushes for the door to chase after him but he is already standing in front of her door.
* RavenHairIvorySkin: Amélie, especially on the poster.

* RightThroughTheWall: Georgette and Joseph in the café bathroom, making all the cups and crockery rattle. Amélie covers up the sound of TheImmodestOrgasm by running the espresso machine.
* RomanticRideSharing: This happens in the end sequence of the movie, when Nino and Amelie are shown riding down the streets of Montmartre on a motorcycle, teasing one another playfully and generally being so deeply in love that they are completely oblivious to the world around them.

* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: When Collignon causes a dramatic short circuit thanks to Amélie's prank.
* SeparatedByTheWall: Amelie and Nino being separated by the apartment door towards the end of the movie.
* SexMontage: In one scene, Amélie amuses herself by wondering "how many couples are having orgasms right now?" She correctly guesses "Fifteen!" after a montage of every single one.

* ShipperOnDeck: Amélie for [[spoiler:Georgette and Joseph. It goes poorly.]]

* ShrinkingViolet: Amelie and Nino. They are both shy, quiet, and friendly but have a hard time making friends.
* SignificantReferenceDate: The film begins on the morning of August 31, 1997 - the date that Diana, Princess of Wales, died. Amelie learning this news is what sets off the plot.
* SmashToBlack: After Amelie's mother is hit by the suicidal tourist, the scene cuts to black.
* StageWhisper: Parodied. A prompter from a cellar window provides Amelie with a punchy comeback to Collignon insulting Lucien.

* TricksterGirlfriend: Amélie begins as this for Nino, since she plays cat-and-mouse with him without even revealing her face; it's mostly due to shyness, though.
* TunnelOfLove: Played with. Amélie's first meeting with her future love interest Nino is on a ghost train, where Nino is dressed as a ghost, and strokes her face while saying "Whooooooo!"
* TwiceShy: Amélie and Nino: both very shy and introverted people ([[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} and also more than a little quirky]]) which makes them perfect for each other, but alas, they CannotSpitItOut (until the very end of the movie, that is.)
* TwitchyEye: Amélie's mother, cited as the sign of a nervous person.
* UndignifiedDeath: Amélie's mother is leaving Notre-Dame de Paris, having just prayed for the conception of a second child, when a Quebecois tourist committing suicide lands on her, killing them both.

* VehicleVanish: Amelie finally gathers her courage to face Nino at the train station, but then a luggage car blocks her way. After it passed, Nino has disappeared from the phone booth.
* WeatherReportOpening: Inverted. The weather report is the final line of the film: "...Meanwhile, at the Sacré-Cœur, the nuns are practicing their backhand. The temperature is 24 degrees, humidity 70%, atmospheric pressure 990 millibars."
* ZorroMark: In an ImagineSpot, Amelie sees herself as Zoro leaving a Z mark on Collignon's apartment door.

* RealityEnsues: When Amélie sets up Georgette with their other coworker's obsessive ex, things go well at first but he turns out to be still as jealous and controlling as ever, making Georgette miserable.

* RomanticRideSharing: Happens in the end sequence of the movie, when Nino and Amelie are shown riding down the streets of Montmartre on a motorcycle, teasing one another playfully and generally being so deeply in love that they are completely oblivious to the world around them.

* PayPhone: Amelie, in a nearby cafe, calls a payphone next to a passer-by to make him walk into the phone booth and find a present she's left there for him. She plays a similar trick on Nino later.

In 2015, the film got a Broadway adaptation starring Creator/PhillipaSoo as the title character.

** At the end, Nino and Amelie are shown riding down the street on a motorcycle, teasing one another playfully and generally being so deeply in love that they are completely oblivious to the world around them. Then, for a second, they both turn and make faces at the camera.

* RomanticAsexual: Possibly Amélie. She shows an interest in striking up a relationship with Nino, but it's told and shown via flashback that she tried out sex a few times and didn't find it particularly interesting or worthwhile.

''Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain'' (''The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain'' -- released as ''Amélie'' in English) is a 2001 French film directed by Creator/JeanPierreJeunet, starring Creator/AudreyTautou and Mathieu Kassovitz. Creator/AndreDussollier is the narrator.

* HerCodeNameWasMarySue: Amelie has multiple ImagineSpot moments where she watches documentaries about Lady Diana and puts herself into them. While one such spot obviously leads to Amelie getting a DownerEnding, she nonetheless becomes a MarySue in those spots as the documentary narration makes her into a [[GoodSamaritan selfless martyr]] that the world can't go on without.

[[quoteright:242:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Amelieposter.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:242: [[ManicPixieDreamGirl She'll change your life]].]]

''Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain'' (''The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain'' -- released as ''Amélie'' in English) is a 2001 French film directed by Creator/JeanPierreJeunet, starring Creator/AudreyTautou and Mathieu Kassovitz.