History Film / Gandhi

* BaldMystic: as in real life, Gahndi's shaved head symbolizes his enlightenment.

* HighClassGlass: Mohammad Jinnah, an educated, sophisticated man, wears a high-class glass. He rather dislikes Gandhi who is also an educated, sophisticated man, but lives and dresses like a simple peasant. See SkunkStripe below.

* SkunkStripe: Mohammad Jinnah has both this and a HighClassGlass. Not coincidentally, he is a semi-antagonistic character. He has little regard for Gandhi's habit of dressing and living like a peasant. Later, and more importantly, he opposes Gandhi's desire for a united India, and insists on the partitioning of the subcontinent between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
** By the end of the movie, when his break with Gandhi becomes final, though, he’s old enough that all of his hair is white and not just the stripe.

* HighClassGlass: Mohammad Jinnah; see SkunkStripe below.

* EveryoneHasStandards: While most British colonial officials aren't exactly paragons of tolerance, they were horrified by Dyer's brutality toward Indian protestors. This is TruthInTelevision; even Winston Churchill and H.H. Asquith, staunch defenders of British imperialism, was horrified by the massacre.

* BaldOfAwesome: Gandhi himself.

** One the hand, Gandhi lives to see India break free from British rule and is lauded throughout history as a luminary.

* ShamingTheMob: Gandhi fasts as he sees his followers act violently, leading them to stop every time.

* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: It's a masterpiece of cognitive dissonance, though, to see the Hindi militants hitting the opposition over the head with signs reading "Long Live Gandhi".
** When meeting with the heads of the Raj after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Gandhi tells them that all people would prefer a bad government of their own choosing over a good government of an "alien power". The Brigadier says that India is British and they are not an alien power. Gandhi and Patel get amused little smiles while the others are internally [[{{Facepalm}} facepalming]]. Even the British Viceroy recognizes how stupid this was to say and tries to get back on topic.

* SceneryPorn: India's landscape is shown almost like a tourist promotion film. At one point, Gandhi remarks that he could spend the rest of his life traveling around India, and still see only a small portion of her.

* SceneryPorn: India's landscape is shown almost like a tourist promotion film.

** By the end of the movie, when his break with Gandhi becomes final, though, he’s old enough that all of his wear is white and not just the stripe.

* MoneyIsNotPower: As Gandhi learns in South Africa, Mr. Khan's status as an Indian outweighs his status as a wealthy businessman, and even this doesn't afford him the right to travel in first class or walk down the street with his white Christian attorney.

* GilliganCut: A non-comedic example. While on a train in South Africa, Gandhi is told that, as a non-white, he must be traveling in third class. He protests, saying he always travels by first class. The scene then cuts to him being thrown off at the next station.

* {{Brownface}}: Creator/BenKingsley, despite being half-Indian with parentage from the same region as Gandhi, is fair-skinned in real-life; he darkened it for the role.

* BluntYes:

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/12308343_gal_2025.jpg]]

* TheMeanBrit: Gandhi has to face a lot of them, including probably the meanest of them all in India then: Reginald Dyer.

* SameLanguageDub: John Ratzenberger's voice is dubbed in his single, brief scene.

* OneSceneWonder: Several renowned film and stage actors make a strong impression in one or two relatively brief appearances. Some of the most noteworthy:
** Creator/JohnGielgud as 1st Baron Irwin
** Creator/TrevorHoward as Judge Broomfield
** Creator/EdwardFox as General Dyer