History Film / Anthropoid

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fate of Ata and his father is not shown: [[spoiler: the last we see of Ata is him being dragged back to his cell after the Gestapo are done with him[[note]]Historically, Ata only cracked under torture when, after being shown his mother's severed head, the Gestapo threatened to kill his father and do the same. Ata and Alois Moravec were executed at Matthausen concentration camp on 24th October 1942, along with Ata's girlfriend and her entire family[[/note]].

* TheCavalry: Played with, in that Opalaka, Bublik and Cudra are sent in to help as the mission is underway rather than in the crisis-filled aftermath. The presence of the former two does help a lot but Cudra turns out to be worse than useless.

* LesCollaborateurs: The two Czechs at the beginning of the movie, who try to turn Jozef and Jan in to the Germans. Later, Karel becomes a collaborator by selling out his fellow resistance members. In real life, Karel continued to act as a Gestapo informant throughout the war and was executed for treason afterwards.

** It's also the reaction of everyone on the day of the assassination when Josef's Sten machine gun jams and their entire plans goes to hell.

-->'''Vanek''': [Anthropoid] is about impressing the Allies?! It was the Allies who gave us to the Germans in the first place!

-->'''Jozef''': We are here to assassinate SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. ''[everyone else in the room is in shock]''

* FurnitureBarricade: After fending off the first Nazi attack on the church, Jan, Bublík and Opálka blockade the stairway upto the prayer loft they're making their last stand in with chairs, lecterns, benches and other bits of furniture on hand.

** During the final battle when the Nazis storm the church, [[spoiler: Jozef Bublík, one of the Resistance fighters is caught by a grenade blast and left dangling from a balcony. Jan [[TakeMyHand tries to pull him to safety]], but before he can, Bublík gets shot from behind and falls to his death]].

* TrueCompanions: Jan, Jozef, Opalaka and Gabik, by the final act.

* ((Fingore)): The Gestapo [[spoiler: break Ata's fingers with a hammer while torturing him]].

* KillEmAll: Nearly every member of the Czech resistance involved in the plot dies in the aftermath of Heydrich's assassination. A ForegoneConclusion, given that the film is about historical events.

** Jan and Josef being immediately taken in by collaborators and then killing them is invented to provide an ActionPrologue.

** Josef's girlfriend Liběna Fafková (called Lenka in the film) was not killed while resisting arrest. Both she and Jan's girlfriend Marie Kovárníková were killed on the same day in Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1942.

* BlatantLies: After betraying them, Curda tries to get the surviving fighters in the church to surrender, claiming they'll be humanely treated as [=POWs=]. [[ScrewYourUltimatum Josef answers him with a spray of bullets]] and tells him [[DefiantToTheEnd they're not surrendering to the Nazis]].

* HollywoodHealing: Josef suffers a grievous wound to his foot that will require stitches. After one scene of limping, the wound is never brought up again.
* HopeSpot: During the final shootout, first we have [[spoiler: the hope that the Nazi's won't find the hiding place of Josef and the three men with him after Jan, Opalka and one of the paratroopers not involved in the mission are killed]] and then we do get a brief hope that their [[spoiler: chipping away at the wall to try and escape into the tunnels as they fight off the Germans]] might work.

** During the final battle when the Nazis storm the church, [[spoiler: Josef Bublík, one of the Resistance fighters is caught by a grenade blast and left dangling from a balcony. Jan [[TakeMyHand tries to pull him to safety]], but before he can, Bublík gets shot from behind and falls to his death]].

** Josef has this response when he learns [[spoiler: Lenka has been killed]]. Jan consoles him otherwise.

* ItsPersonal: When Josef offers Lenka a chance to walk away, she refuses, insisting her work with the Czech resistance is personal; [[YouKilledMyFather her father was a Czechoslovak Army captain who was executed in the same week that Heydrich took power]].

* ProperlyParanoid: Josef and Jan are put through an extensive interrogation when they first meet the Czech resistance. Afterwards, Hajský apologises, but insists it's a necessity, given how effective the Gestapo have been at infiltrating and sabotaging their organisation.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Subverted. [[spoiler: Josef wants to go on one of these after he finds out Lenka is dead. Jan talks him down, insisting it would achieve nothing and just put them all in danger]].
-->'''Jan Kubis''': You're risking all our lives, Josef, and for what? To shoot a few Germans?

* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: This is pretty much the reaction of everyone in Jindra, the Czech resistance when Josef and Jan [[BrutalHonesty blunty state their mission objective]] is to assassinate Heydrich.

* AssassinationAttempt: A reenactment of the most famous assassination attempt of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (with perhaps the exception of the July 20, 1944 plot against UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, although Anthropoid was successful, if costly in lives).

* DwindlingParty: Largely averted, with the group getting ''bigger'' as the movie goes on, first with Opalaka and his reinforcements joining them, and later with the other three paratroopers who hide in the church with them.
* Fingore: The Gestapo [[spoiler: break Ata's fingers with a hammer while torturing him]].

* InTheBack: [[spoiler: Lenka is gunned down from behind by a Nazi soldier while trying to run for her life. She chose to run rather than be rounded up with the Czech civilians taken hostage in retaliation for Heydrich's assassination]].

* ItsAllMyFault: Josef has this response when he learns [[spoiler: Lenka has been killed]]. Jan consoles him otherwise.

* LesCollaborateurs: The two Czechs at the beginning of the movie, who try to turn Jozef and Jan in to the Germans.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: That insanely lopsided, purely Hollywood LastStand in the climax, where seven Czech partisans with small-caliber sidearms hold off 750 SS soldiers and policemen, armed with machine guns, submachine guns, and grenades, for '''six hours'''? [[DyingMomentOfAwesome Yeah, it actually happened]].

* ThisIsUnforgivable: The epilogue states that after the sheer scale of the brutality inflicted on the Czechs in retaliation for Heydrich's assassination, Winston Churchill declared the Munich Agreement of 1938, which had allowed Nazi Germany to annex Czechoslovakia, null and void.

* CommanderContrarian: Ladislav Vanek, one of the two heads of Jindra is definitely this compared to the ReasonableAuthorityFigure that is Hajský. He merely complains about the futility of the plan and is implied to have forged a stand-down order from London to try and prevent the assassination. He's a more sympathetic example than most, as Vanek admits he's genuinely afraid of what the German retaliation for an assassination attempt on Heydrich would be, successful or not.

* CommanderContrarian: Ladislav Vanek, one of the two heads of Jindra is definitely this compared to the ReasonableAuthorityFigure that is Hajský. He merely complains about the futility of the plan and is implied to have forged a stand-down order from London to try and prevent the assassination. He's a more sympathetic example than most, as Vanek admits he's generally afraid of what the German retaliation for an assassination attempt on Heydrich would be, successful or not.

** During the final battle when the Nazis storm the church, [[spoiler: Josef Bublík, one of the Resistance fighters is caught by a grenade blast and left dangling from a balcony. Jan [[TakeMyHand tries to pull him to safety, but before he can, Bublík gets shot from behind and falls to his death]].

** The assassins have a collective reaction of this when they're informed of the massacre at Lidice. Father Vladimir Petrek, the priest shelters them, insists they are not to blame.

* ShowSomeLeg: When two German soldiers are conducting a search inside the café where the commando and Uncle Hajský discuss the operation in the backroom, Lenka lets her cup of coffee fall on the ground on purpose to distract them. One of the two soldiers is [[DistractedByTheSexy very pleased at the view on her legs]], and both soldiers then leave without insisting.

* BlatantLies: After betraying them, Curda tries to get the surviving fighters in the church to surrender, claiming they'll be humanely treated as [=POWs=]. Josef answers him with a spray of bullets and tells him [[DefiantToTheEnd they're not surrendering to the Nazis]].

* ItsPersonal: When Josef offers Lenka a chance to walk away, she refuses, insisting her work with the Czech resistance is personal; [[YouKilledMyFather her father was a Czech Army captain who was executed in the same week Heydrich took power]].

* BlatantLies: After betraying them, Curda tries to get the surviving fighters in the church to surrender, claiming they'll be humanely treated as POWs. Josef answers him with a spray of bullets and tells him [[DefiantToTheEnd they're not surrendering to the Nazis]].

* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler: One of the tortures used to try and break Ata was to show him his mother's severed head (she having taken her cyanide pill when the Germans arrested her and her family). This actually happened in real life]].

* RealityIsUnrealistic: That insanely lopsided, purely Hollywood LastStand in the climax, where seven Czech partisans with small-caliber sidearms hold off 750 SS soldiers and policemen, armed with machine guns, submachine guns, and grenades, for '''six hours'''? [[DyingMomentOfAwesome Yeah]], [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome that actually happened]].

* AssassinationAttempt: A reenactment of the most famous assassination attempt of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (with perhaps the exception of the July 20, 1944 plot agains UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler).

See also ''Film/TheManWithTheIronHeart'', a 2017 French film about the same historical events, with a {{biopic}} focus on Heydrich's life.