History Film / TheGreatestShowman

* SecretTestOfCharacter: [[spoiler:Phillip and the "freaks" test Barnum's commitment to them, knowing that Phillip can restart the circus even without Barnum, having stored away a rainy day nest egg. Barnum realizing how special and loyal they are to them, and vowing to rebuild at any cost passes their test, and Phillip reveals the nest egg.]]

* HateSink: The men who start a brawl in the circus and end up [[spoiler: burning it down.]] These men are quite clearly not meant to be liked.

* TheFreakshow: The performers in Barnum’s show are a bearded woman, a 22 year-old dwarf, a VERY tall man, a dancer with tattoos all over his body, the ''original'' Siamese twins, a three-legged man, a dog-faced boy, a 500+ pound man, a giant, and two African-American trapeze.

* BigShutUp: Lettie half-jokingly gives one to Barnum before her PatrickStewartSpeech about FamilyOfChoice[[spoiler: after Barnum has lost the museum to fire and Charity to his obsession with fame]].

!!Ladies and gents, these are the tropes you've waited for:

!!''The Greatest Showman'' contains examples of:

* ConspicuousCG: No real animals were used in the film. The ones that move fast were not particularly wonderfully animated. The horse Tom rides and the lions that jump through the hoops stand out.
** Tom Thumb/Charles Stratton in general. Whenever he walks, it becomes pretty obvious he's walking on his knees and his real legs have been replaced by digitally inserted ones. The CGI lips to make another actor's voice come out of his mouth are also pretty obvious.

* AnAesop: "BeYourself" and "family comes first", whether biological or FamilyOfChoice.

** It's implied that Carlyle is well on his way to becoming this if he's not toeing the line already.

*** Incidentally, the real Barnum was a self-described alcoholic for a while. After giving up the drink, he joined the Women's Suffrage Movement and became a DryCrusader and started inserting temperance propaganda into his show. In fact, this probably should have happened during the course of the film, but it's hard to say for sure due to the messed-up timeline.

*** Jackman's no stranger to playing [[Film/ThePrestige a showman chasing ever greater fame and fortune]] either.

* UnreliableNarrator: Considering the movie itself is supposed to be the sort of story Barnum would tell about himself, it is questionable that the whole movie are actually events Barnum altered himself to fit his favor.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Being a dwarf and having a baby face, Charles looks like he could pass for a child despite being in his early 20's (not helped that the character WAS a child [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory in real life]]. The movie even implies that Barnum mistook Charles for a child when they first met by showing him holding his Mother's hand.

* FlatCharacter: No one in the circus troupe, besides maybe Anne and her brother, really has any personality outside of "outcasts from society who learn to accept themselves".

[[caption-width-right:350:''"No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else."'']]

* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: "Never Enough" in the context of the film hits on multiple threads. For one, Barnum bonds with the song, because it explains his motivations perfectly as an IWantSong. For Phillip and Anne, it expresses Anne's frustration at Phillip's half-measure romance, holding her hand (after Jenny sings about holding hands) and not keeping in there (after Jenny sings it's never enough), and for Jenny herself, who despite her fame is really lonely.

* ZebrasAreJustStripedHorses: Barnum and his family are shown riding in a coach driven by a pair of zebras when he takes them to their new mansion. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], because the zebras come from his circus.

** Speaking of Tom, in RealLife, he was the one to give Barnum the money to re-build the circus as opposed to Carlyle. Considering this movie is supposed to have a self-acceptance message about accepting people, even those who look different, it's weird that the movie gave something a physically disabled man did and give his part to someone who is definitely not physically disabled, therefore taking their story away from them.

** There is an entire scene where Tom Thumb mopes about people laughing about him and it's clear the audience is supposed to sympathize with him. Later on, when The Queen and the rest of the court laugh at him, it's clear we're supposed to feel sorry for him there too but the movie itself makes him the butt of short jokes a few times during the movie (i.e. when Barnum picks him up and puts him on the horse, when he walks on the bar and sits on Barnum's hat, and when he rides the baby elephant at the end, all of which are played for laughs).

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Rather drolly referenced in the closing moments of the film, when P.T. sagely muses that real estate in Manhattan is a terrible investment. Justified considering what [[Film/GangsOfNewYork the Five Points]] were like.