History Film / Bottoms

** The goth student that Tim throws the fruit cup at is clearly an Expy of JD from ''Film/Heathers'', going so far as to write "Blow Up School" in their notebook. [[spoiler: At the end, when Hazel's tree bomb explodes, they loudly complain "That was my thing!"]]

* ArsonMurderJaywalking: In an attempt to bond, all of the girls explain reasons they want to participate in the fight club, including stories of being stalked and fear of being killed. Sylvie, who's made constant references to her stepdad throughout the film, implying he's sexually predatory, finally reveals the reason she hates him is that [[spoiler: he subjects her family to elaborate Friday-night movie marathons]].

PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Edebiri) are dorky and unpopular queer high school seniors hoping to get lucky before they graduate. After an incident involving their school's star quarterback Jeff (Galitzine), the girls cover up their problem by telling their principal that they are starting a self-defense club for female solidarity. In reality, PJ and Josie use their "fight club" as a way to hook up with their respective cheerleader crushes, Brittany (Gerber) and Isabel (Liu).

* BelligerentSexualTension: Most of PJ and [[spoiler:Hazel's]] scenes together consist of the two insulting each other and bickering with each other. However, [[spoiler:they share a passionate kiss at the football game. They try to deny that they're into each other, claiming it was nothing more than a distraction -- though they would gladly do it again if they were asked. The ending implies [[MaybeEverAfter they might work on those hidden feelings for each other]].]]

* BelligerentSexualTension: Most of PJ and [[spoiler:Hazel's]] scenes together consists of the two insulting each other and fighting with each other. However, [[spoiler:they share a passionate kiss at the football game. They try to deny that they're into each other, claiming it was a distraction -- though they would gladly do it again if they were asked. The ending implies [[MaybeEverAfter they might work on those hidden feelings for each other]].]]

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Occasionally employed, usually [[MediumAwareness when the movie is leaning on tropes]] or to acknowledge production shortcomings. For example, PJ and Josie resolve their SecondActBreakUp by pulling out friendship necklaces ''which have not been mentioned and were barely even seen up to this point''.

* BlackRepublican: Josie drops the name of this trope when referring to Annie.

* SatelliteCharacter: Lampshaded by Brittany, who states that her being is attached to whatever Isabel is doing at any given moment (though she does have a jewelry business apart from Isabel).

* TheBeard: Parodied. Josie, panicking about the prospect of not losing her virginity to a girl, wails about losing it to their gay classmate Matthieu, getting impregnated, and two of them needing to enter an unhappy double-bearding marriage and moving to a convent to save face.

* LoafingInFullCostume: The football players all wear their full uniforms (sans helmets), including to class every day. Jeff is only seen out of costume immediately post-sex and when alone in his bedroom he wears a pink dressing gown.

* SaveTheJerk: Jeff is a cheating, dumbass JerkJock, but [[spoiler:they pull him off the field after learning that the Huntington football team was going to kill Jeff by spraying him with pineapple juice since he is allergic.]]

* DudeWheresMyRespect: Hazel eventually snaps when PJ refuses to give her credit for the work she's done to market and organize the club, as opposed to PJ and Josie, who are just winging everything. PJ later apologizes and admits Hazel deserved more respect for her role in the club.

* AssholeVictim: Even before the big game, the students complain about the Huntington football team randomly assaulting Rockbridge students. Some of the girls even join the fight club because of their fear towards Huntington. [[spoiler:On the day of the big game, the Huntington football players have emptied a whole barrel of pineapple juice -- to which Rockbridge's Jeff is deathly allergic -- and secretly put the juice in the sprinklers to, well, murder Jeff. And they try to murder the fight club too when they foil their plans to murder Jeff. The girls win, though, which results in the Huntington players all dying.]]

* AssholeVictim: Even before the big game, the students complain about the Huntington football team randomly assaulting Rockbridge students. Some of the girls even join the fight club because of their fear towards Huntington. [[spoiler:On the day of the big game, the Huntington football players have emptied a whole barrel of pineapple juice -- to which Rockbridge's Jeff is deathly allergic to -- and secretly put the juice in the sprinklers to, well, murder Jeff. And they try to murder the fight club too when they foil their plans to murder Jeff. The girls win, though, which results in the Huntington players all dying.]]

** Josie and cheerleader Isabel are having a sweet moment in a diner, unsubtly titled [[Film/ButImACheerleader But I'm a Diner]]. To drive it home, the camera briefly focuses on the waitress's name tag, which says "Natasha" in honor of [[Creator/NatashaLyonne that movie's star]].

* SaveTheVillain: Jeff is the girls' main antagonist, but [[spoiler:they pull him off the field after learning that the Huntington football team was going to kill Jeff by spraying him with pineapple juice since he is allergic.]]

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Occasionally employed, usually [[MediumAwareness when the movie is leaning on tropes]] or to acknowledge production shortcomings. For example, PJ and Josie resolve their SecondActBreakUp by pulling out friendship necklaces ''[[AssPull which have not been mentioned up to this point]]''.

* CoolTeacher: Zig-zagged with Mr. G. At first, PJ and Josie only enlist him because he's so checked out that he won't look too deeply into their club, but he slowly becomes a genuine supporter of the girls' cause. However, he turns on them so quickly following the LiarRevealed plot that it's clear he's just a strange man going through his own shit.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Occasionally employed, usually [[MediumAwareness when the movie is leaning on tropes]] or to acknowledge production shortcomings.
** PJ and Josie resolve their SecondActBreakUp by pulling out friendship necklaces ''[[AssPull which have not been mentioned up to this point]]''.
---> '''PJ''': Wow, pulling out the friendship necklace in the final hour.

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: The film implicitly takes place in present day (c. 2023), but the internet, modern smart phones, modern cars, etc. are sparsely featured. Email is referenced, but the only cell phone featured is a mid-2000s flip phone, and at one point a character relies on a physical phone book, which is all but defunct in present day. The songs in the film (outside the score provided by XCX and Birenberg) are also songs that were either released in the 2000s ("Complicated" by Music/AvrilLavigne) or released ''by'' the 2000s ("Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Music/BonnieTyler), making the time period even murkier. The exception is "party 4 u," which was released in 2020, but it's only used in the very last scene.
* AttentionWhore: Tim works to undermine the girls and their Fight Club because their camaraderie and confidence is drawing attention away from the upcoming football game. Even before they do anything to actually threaten Jeff and the football team (confronting him for cheating and blowing up his car) Tim can't stand the Fight Club's existence. Apparently the offense was just being happy for reasons other than supporting the team.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Josie notes that Annie is their smartest member when asking for the other girls to help them. True enough, Annie's instrumental to [[spoiler:saving Jeff's life]] by quickly figuring out that [[spoiler:the Huntington players put a whole barrel of pineapple juice in the sprinklers]].
* AxCrazy:
** Sylvie appears quite aggressive, seemingly wanting to kill her stepdad just for enforcing Friday movie nights and gleefully wielding a sword (or at least trying to do so) during the final battle.
** [[spoiler:The Huntington football team, who have a tendency of murdering their football rivals at homecoming every so often.]]

* BlackRepublican: Annie is black and says some pro-religious and pro-life comments. Josie, who is also black, laments that she might be a black Republican, but Annie is one of the smartest members of the club.

* CovertPervert: Annie is a very Catholic Republican, but gets so hype over homecoming that she flashes her breasts at the team.

* DidNotGetTheGirl: [[spoiler:Unlike with Josie and Isabel, who make up at the ending, PJ doesn't score with her own crush, Brittany, who's [[IncompatibleOrientation not into girls]] and gently turns down her advances. Josie implies during their fight that PJ's crush on Brittany was only ever a case of LovingAShadow to begin with, and she instead gets a MaybeEverAfter with Hazel.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution:
** Sylvie wants to kill her stepdad. It's assumed she has a dark reason for doing so, but all she complains about is his obsession with making her watch movies with him every Friday night.
** The club pulls a ToiletPaperPrank against Jeff for cheating on Isabel with Hazel's mom, but some of them are quite alarmed when Hazel escalates it by ''blowing up Jeff's car.''

* TheHeart: Hazel. PJ and Josie put the group together, but Hazel goes along with the motive of having solidarity among the girls in the school and is the one responsible for turning it into a genuine group of friends. And when she gets injured, the others rally around her and take care of her.
* HiddenDepths: Invoked. Brittany complains that everyone only sees her as a hot popular girl and nobody wants to talk about how she's actually a driven, book-smart business owner. [[LovingAShadow PJ is heavily implied to be one more such person.]]

* HypercompetentSidekick: Jeff, the quarterback of the football team, is the most popular guy at Rockwood Falls High School and arch-enemy of PJ and Josie, but he's too childish and idiotic to come anywhere close to threatening. His best friend and right-hand man Tim on the other hand actively works against the girls for most of the movie [[spoiler: and successfully exposes PJ and Josie's lies at the pep rally]]. He's also more attentive to threats towards Jeff in general, stopping him from eating a fruit cup that has pineapple in it, which Jeff is deathly allergic to.

* IntergenerationalFriendship: Josie has two. She is friends with Rhodes, an older lesbian. (PJ is also friends with Rhodes, [[spoiler:but we don't see the two interacting because PJ and Josie are fighting when Rhodes appears]].) She also seems to consider Ted, the school janitor, to be her friend.

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Josie's reaction to Jeff's insults:
-->'''Jeff:''' Don't talk to me, you ugly bitch. Okay, I do not talk to girls in overalls.\\
'''Josie:''' Okay, I may be ugly but these aren't overalls.

* LGBTAwakening: Parodied and subverted. [[spoiler:Stella-Rebecca]] realizes that she's gay after witnessing [[spoiler:PJ and Hazel]] make out, while [[spoiler:Brittany]] (standing next to her) states that she isn't gay but she really likes gay porn."

* LikesOlderWomen: Jeff cheats on Isabel with Mrs. Reilly (a teacher) and [[spoiler:later cheats on Isabel with Hazel's mom]]. Downplayed in that he seems plenty attracted to girls his age too, but he believes it "doesn't count" as cheating "if they're not in high school" and that's why he cheats with Isabel on older women.
* LiteralMinded: Hazel takes Josie's comment that she "ate shit" (i.e. "fell down") literally.

* MentorInQueerness: It's implied that PJ and Josie's shared childhood babysitter Rhodes, whom they describe as a "gay Yoda", is part of the reason they're both out-and-proud in high school.

* NervousTics: Isabel appears to make uncomfortable laughing and crying noises upon learning unfortunate news (Jeff cheating on her and [[spoiler:hearing that PJ and Josie lied to the girls about their intentions with the fight club)]]

* PlotAllergy: Jeff is established to have a serious pineapple allergy. [[spoiler:The Huntington team's climactic murder attempt is to spray the field with pineapple juice to kill him.]]

* SarcasmBlind: Hazel.
** She asks if it's true that Josie and PJ went to juvie, and when the latter sarcastically "confirms" it, genuinely believes them and is shocked that they "lied" to her when they later clarify it wasn't true, even though, as PJ points out, Hazel was the one who brought up juvie in the first place and she just didn't bother to correct her.
** Apparently, neither of them learn their lesson from this encounter, as the club later plans to go egg Jeff's house after his breakup with Isabel, and Hazel offers to put a bomb in his car. PJ once more gives a sarcastic reply of "Yes, we're going to do terrorism," meaning the opposite, and again, Hazel takes her response seriously and really ''does'' bomb his car.

* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: Jeff lets out a high shriek after seeing [[spoiler:his car explode.]]

* SexySoakedShirt: Parodied. The cheerleaders' routine at the big homecoming game mainly consists of dumping water on the hot Stella-Rebecca.

* SkywardScream: Jeff collapses in the fair parking lot in Tim's arms; Tim screams revenge at the sky. [[MinorInjuryOverreaction This is despite Jeff having only been gently hit in the knee.]]
* SlowClap: [[spoiler:After the fight club, with help from the Rockbridge football, defeat the entire Huntington team, Tim gives the club one of these, and soon the entire audience is applauding them.]]
* StacysMom: Jeff is hooking up with his schoolmate Hazel's glamorous mother, cheating on his girlfriend Isabel in the process.

* ThrowingOffTheDisability: After Josie's car gently hits Jeff's knee the footballers act like he's essentially been murdered. Jeff shows up to school the next day in crutches, gaining everyone's sympathy, only to "heroically" throw them away when it's time for practice.

* WomanScorned: After Jeff publicly admits to cheating on Isabel, the club bands together to egg/TP his house and blow up his car in revenge. Everyone finds it quite cathartic.
* YourMom: Jeff blurts out "I fucked your mom" to Hazel. He's too stupid to realize until after he's said it that this means he's admitting to cheating on Isabel in the process, just as Hazel and Isabel hoped.