History Film / BohemianRhapsody

* ClosetKey: Surprisingly, Paul is this for Freddie who realizes he is bisexual.

* QueerColors: Fitting the film's focus on Freddie's bisexuality, one poster depicts him awash in pink, blue, and purple lighting.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: Freddie after getting over the shock of his diagnosis is relatively calm. He reconciles with his family, finds Jim Hutton, apologizes to Queen, and asks to do the Live Aid concert. The other band members are sadder than he is about his impending death.

* DepravedHomosexual: Paul Prenter, who kisses Freddie despite knowing he's already in a relationship with Mary. It doesn't get better from there.

* TheSeventies: The first half of the film takes place from the very beginning of the decade up until 1977.
* TheEighties: The last half of the film jumps to 1980 and continues from there, concluding with Queen's legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985.

* CampGay: Music/FreddieMercury was quite famously an extremely flamboyant man.

** Lead singer Freddie Mercury is the '''Sanguine''' one, being a self-professed drama queen, extraordinarily flamboyant on and off scene, both cheerful and very melancholic at the same time having deep-seated relationship problems and quite undisciplined (he improvises the lyrics on his first gig or comes late to band-related business).
** Lead guitarist Brian May is the '''Melancholic''' one, being way more stable (both emotionally and in his private life) than Freddie is, level-head, the most leader-like member of the band and more methodical in his approach to composing songs.

* NiceGirl: Mary. She's nothing but a sweet young woman who still remains very helpful, kind and supportive towards Freddie even after splitting up, until the end of his life.

* AmericansAreCowboys: When Queen performs [[Music/{{Jazz}} "Fat Bottomed Girls"]] in their USA tour, Freddie adds the line "Ride them cowboys!" after "Get on your bikes and ride!".

* RealPersonEpilogue: The film ends with a blurb about the real-life Freddie Mercury's life post-Live Aid, touching on his 1991 death of AIDS, before playing archival footage of Mercury (specifically the [[Music/{{Jazz}} "Don't Stop Me Now"]] PerformanceVideo) over the credits.

''Bohemian Rhapsody'' is a 2018 {{biopic}} concerning the life of singer Music/FreddieMercury, focusing primarily on the 15-year period from the formation of the band Music/{{Queen}} in 1970 up to their performance at UsefulNotes/LiveAid in 1985, six years before Mercury's death. It was initially directed by Creator/BryanSinger, who was fired late into production. The remaining work was handled by Creator/DexterFletcher. However, only Singer is credited in accordance with Directors Guild of America rules. [[note]]Fletcher is credited as an executive producer. [[/note]]

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Several elements from Music/{{Queen}}'s life and career were PlayedForDrama. The most notable being the band breaking up after Freddie's option to go solo comes to light, which didn't happen in real life.
* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: ZigZagged. Due to ArtisticLicenseHistory, many elements and people from Music/{{Queen}}'s life and career were either introduced much earlier or much later than they originally were in real life.

* [[IllGirl Ill Boy]]: TruthInTelevision, Freddie got AIDS towards the end of the film.

* OnlySaneMan: John is this to the band, as [[NotSoAboveItAll even Brian can sometimes be as petty and mischievous as Freddie and Roger.]]

'''Freddie Mercury:''' We're all legends.

* JerkassHasAPoint: During the Prenter tell-all interview, he defines Mercury a afraid of being alone.

" JerkassHasAPoint: During the Prenter tell-all interview, he defines Mercury a afraid of being alone.

* AdultFear:
** Finding out that the man you love, who proposed to you, can't be your husband because of his orientation. Or, from Freddie's side, learning that his admission to Mary ends their relationship, that he can't even admit he's bisexual because she doesn't believe it and ends their engagement.
** Paul gaslighting Freddie, isolating him from his friends and the one manager who actually cares about him while surrounding him with partygoers, drugs, and Yes-Men. He's not even making any money from it because Freddie's not working on his album; he just wants to control the man. Mary ends up getting through to Freddie by coming out to Germany and calling him out for being so distant.
** Freddie's diagnosis with [=AIDS=]. He learns that he has a fatal disease, and he's pushed away everyone he loves. As he tells his band, he doesn't want to be a "cautionary tale" but to be remembered for his music.

* CallForward: Freddie says without the band, Brian would be "Dr. Brian May" with a dissertation on the cosmos no one would read. Brian May actually earned his [=PhD=] in astrophysics in 2007[[note]]he had already completed most of the work toward the degree, including his doctoral thesis, but then the band began taking off and his final defence was put on the back burner for a few decades[[/note]][[note]]and it's probably safe to say at this point that many people ''have'' read his doctoral thesis ''because'' of who he is[[/note]].
* CampGay: Music/FreddieMercury was quite famously an extremely flamboyant man

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: After realizing that radios aren't willing to play their songs, Brian suggests that they start experimenting, which probably leads to "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Will Rock You," "Another One Bites the Dust" and many others of Queen's most well-known songs.
** Somewhat averted with disco music. By the early 1980's Freddie is all about branching out into the disco genre, but Roger and Brian object. Deacon, who is somewhat neutral to the dispute, writes a disco-beat song ("Another One Bites the Dust"). When his skeptical bandmates question it, he bluntly defends it, simply stating: "It's not disco. It's Queen." essentially reminding them that Queen is famous for experimenting with and sampling different genres.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[{{Tagline}} Fearless lives forever]].]]''

* BadassMustache: Near the end of the movie, Freddie grows his iconic mustache with slicked back hair. Roger comments that it looks "gayer", although he's been asked his opinion about the decor of Freddie's new house, not his personal appearance.

* TheLancer: In true FiveManBand fashion (though Queen only has four members), Brian May plays this perfectly to Freddie. He's far more level-headed and reasonable, and when the band as a whole has a problem with Freddie, he leads the group in confronting Freddie about it. He's also clearly leading them during the reconciliation meeting with Freddie.

''Bohemian Rhapsody'' is a 2018 {{biopic}} concerning the life of singer Music/FreddieMercury, focusing primarily on the 15-year period from the formation of the band Music/{{Queen}} up to their performance at UsefulNotes/LiveAid in 1985, six years before Mercury's death. It was initially directed by Creator/BryanSinger, who was fired late into production. The remaining work was handled by Creator/DexterFletcher. However, only Singer is credited in accordance with Directors Guild of America rules. [[note]]Fletcher is credited as an executive producer. [[/note]]

* TheEighties: The last half of the film takes place from 1980 concluding with Queen's legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985.
* ActorAllusion: Creator/MikeMyers plays a fictional EMI executive who doesn't think "Bohemian Rhapsody" will sell - specifically that teenagers won't crank it up in their cars and bang their heads to it. In ''Film/WaynesWorld'' there's a famous scene where he and Creator/DanaCarvey lip-sync to the song in a car and start headbanging.

** No mention is made of the soundtrack for ''Film/FlashGordon1980'' and its eponymous album released in 1980. Nor of doing music for ''Film/{{Highlander}}'', though "Who Wants To Live Forever," written for that film, plays at a dramatically appropriate moment.
** As mentioned below under ArtisticLicenseHistory, several albums are skipped out. In particular, ''Music/QueenII'' and ''Music/SheerHeartAttack'', making it seem like ''A Night at the Opera'' was their second album.
** The film doesn't cover their collaboration with Creator/DavidBowie and the writing of ''Under Pressure''.

* AdaptationalSexuality: John Reid is gay, and was actually in a relationship with Elton John for several years. There is no hint of that in the film.

* AmericansAreCowboys: When Queen performs "Fat Bottomed Girls" in their USA tour, Freddie adds the line "Ride them cowboys!" after "Get on your bikes and ride!".

* DomesticAbuse: Paul Prenter, Freddie's manager and lover, takes several pages out of the standard domestic abuser handbook. This includes isolating Freddie from his friends (and intentionally never telling him when they call), {{Gaslighting}} him ("I did tell you, you forgot!"), freely spending his money by convincing him he "needs" it, blackmailing Freddie when he threatens to leave him, and being a MoodSwinger who says he never meant it when the latter doesn't work.

** Freddie counts as this in the earlier parts of the movie when he had long hair and was clean-shaven, before he adopts his iconic ManlyGay short-haired and mustached look.
* MatchCut: While showing a chicken in the farm, once it opens its beak the caw is instead Roger performing the "Galileo!"

* RealityEnsues:
** Paul, the band manager, kisses Freddie on a whim, while Freddie is engaged to Mary. Rather than reciprocate, Freddie tells him firmly that they only have a business relationship and his heart belongs to Mary, and that the manager dating the lead singer would be an inappropriate power balance. Sure enough, when Paul has Freddie under his grasp, he abuses that power.
** When Freddie first meets Jim Hutton, the latter tells Freddie his name in the hopes that he'll find him later on. When Freddie does decide to find Jim, it turns out that there are ''dozens'' of Jim Huttons living in the UK, prompting Freddie to put off finding Jim until years later.
* RealPersonEpilogue: The film ended with pictures and facts about the real-life Freddie Mercury, and then footage of an actual Queen performance.

* YourNormalIsOurTaboo: After the filming of the "I Want to Break Free" video, the band is angry that the American audience and critics act outraged at them going in drag (a more popular joke in Great Britain than in the United States)[[note]]it didn't help that the scenes of the band in drag were a parody of ''Series/CoronationStreet'', a show most Americans were unfamiliar with[[/note]], with Freddie also pointing out that of course he's the scapegoat because of his flamboyancy while it was Roger who introduced the idea of dressing up to the band in the first place.

* NotSoDifferent: When Roger proposes "I'm In Love With My Car", nobody in the band can take it seriously... not even Brian, who, as Roger points out, wrote the line "You call me sweet like I'm some kind of cheese" (for the song "Sweet Lady").

!!"It's ''my'' party, and I demand you dance!"