History Film / Titanic1997

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. There is the Unsinkable Molly Brown, Captain Smith and the rest of the officers, Ismay, Andrews, Gracy, J.J. Astor, the band, the Countess of Rothes... Pretty much everyone who's named but not a main character, with only two or three exceptions.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: {{Invoked}} by Molly Brown -- "What's the matter with you? It's your men out there! There's plenty o' room for more!" Also see DoubleStandard, above.
* MissedHimByThatMuch: [[spoiler:After the survivors are rounded up and they're picked up by the passenger ship. Cal comes down to the lower deck in search of Rose. He's mere inches from finding her (She has her back to him and in a cloak) but ultimately gives up, assuming she died in the ocean. In a deleted scene, he finds another red-haired woman and initially thinks it's her; this is what alerts Rose to the fact that Cal is nearby so she can turn away.]]

* MurderTheHypotenuse: Quite literally, Cal's plan to get Rose back.

*** Debatable. [[spoiler: Cal was going to leave Jack to die on the ship (or even alternately have had Lovejoy quietly kill /knock Jack out just to be sure). There's no guarantee Jack would have taken refugee on the stern during the final sinking, that he'd had survived long enough to make it into the water, or if he'd have been able to find the floating door or another piece of debris.]]

** It also helps that only one of her breasts is exposed, with the other being covered by [[SceneryCensor Jack's drawing board]].
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: After seeing the iceberg collision and overhearing the officers discussing the damage, Rose decides they need to tell Cal and Ruth out of genuine concern. When they return to the cabin, Cal frames Jack for stealing the diamond, sending him to the lower decks.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Nearly every steward Jack and Rose come across falls into this. Somewhat justified in that many of them have no clue as to what's happening.
** Best example would be the steward who tries to chew Jack and Rose out for breaking a door.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: How many of the crew members featured in the film survived aboard the overturned lifeboat. [[http://www.paullee.com/titanic/jc1997goof_pics/perchedonboatbdark.jpg This was shot for an extended version of the rescue, but was cut from the film.]]

* [[OutrunTheFireball Outrun the Waterfall]]: Jack and Rose, after being forced into a lower level.

* PleaseWakeUp: "Jack, there's a boat! Jack..."

* SpitefulSpit: In Cal's face by Rose.

* StarCrossedLovers: Jack and Rose.

* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: The researchers' animation of the sinking serves this purpose for the audience.

* TalkingDownTheSuicidal: Jack convinces Rose not to jump off the ship into the icy waters below.

* [[ThatManIsDead That Woman is Dead]]: Rose identifies herself as "Rose Dawson" to a customs agent in New York after being rescued.

* TrashTheSet: The set was actually sunk for the final moments of the film.

* UpperClassTwit: A ''lot'' of them. Special mention goes to Rose's mother, who, as the ship is sinking, lets it be known that she expects a cup of tea when she returns to her room (in her defense, she doesn't know the ship is sinking yet) and asks if the lifeboats are to be seated according to class.

-->'''Andrews:''' From this moment on, no matter what we do, ''Titanic'' will founder.\\

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Florry Lewis is responsible for Usefulnotes/JackTheRipper not mutilating the body of Liz Stride after he murdered (and, by extension, the second murder of the 'double event') when she witnesses the attack and screams "FIRE!", bringing others running and forcing the Ripper to flee.[[note]]It is generally accepted that someone disturbed the Ripper before he could mutilate Stride's body and he fled. However, no one actually witnessed the killing.[[/note]]

* AfterlifeWelcome: One of the interpretations of the ending is that Rose dies and is welcomed into the afterlife by everyone she knows who has predeceased her.

** Speaking of Scotland Road, E Deck is already flooded by the time Rose gets there. Later, Jack and Rose make it to Scotland Road, which is identified as such in the script, and it's not yet flooded, suggesting it is one deck above where it should be.

** Being a movie coping with the changing of Edwardian era to the horrors and delights of the Twentieth Century, their love-making in the backseat heralds the use of cars as make-out places. In fact, one of the Edwardians' nicknames for automobiles was "brothels on wheels".

* BattleButler: Lovejoy.

** People are still deliberating whether the ''iceberg'' counts.

* CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: 1500-ish people died when the real ship sank, so no surprise.

* ChekhovsSkill: Earlier in the film, Jack teaches Rose how to "spit like a man", and she doesn't do too badly for a first try. Much later in the film, when the ship is sinking, Cal grabs her by the arm and refuses to let her go to Jack. So what does she do in order for him to let go of her? She "spits like a man" right in his face.
** It's actually a ThrowItIn, as Rose was scripted as simply jabbing Cal with a hatpin before Cameron realized the spitting would be a neat callback.

* CrazyJealousGuy: Cal.

* DisasterMovie: Of the ship's sinking.
* DisposableFiance: Cal.
* DisproportionateRestitution: Cal has Lovejoy offer Jack a token sum of cash for his assistance in preventing Rose falling off the ship's stern.[[note]]$20 in 1912 would be equivalent in value to about $530 in 2020, so it's not quite as paltry as it sounds to modern ears, but Rose certainly finds it inadequate as a reward for saving her life.[[/note]]
-->'''Cal''': I think a twenty should do it.\\

* DomesticAbuser: Cal.

* DressingToDie: Some of the men (including [[TruthInTelevision American millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim]]) are seen returning to their rooms to change into their formal suits when they realise that they're going down with the ship. The captain also goes to put on his Captain's hat and jacket, parts of the official regalia not usually worn when actually captaining a ship but for ceremonial purposes, when he chooses to stay on the bridge.
** Guggenheim refuses a life jacket, saying [[BadassBoast "We are dressed in our best and prepared to go down like gentlemen]]. [[FacingTheBulletsOneLiner But we will take a brandy."]] This really happened, too.

** Rose is driven to ''attempted'' suicide in order to escape her ArrangedMarriage with Cal. The DeletedScene makes it look more gradual than the final cut.

* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Rose's CompensatingForSomething joke (see above) draws snickers from likable characters Molly and Thomas Andrews; while Ismay, Ruth, and Cal (all varying degrees of unlikable) are confused or appalled.

* FlippingTheTable: Cal does this the morning after Rose's "exertions in third-class"...and then immediately afterward makes himself presentable and calmly walks out. [[CrazyJealousGuy Yeah...he's not entirely stable]].

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Rose is phlegmatic, Jack is sanguine, Cal is choleric, and Ruth is melancholic.
** The present day characters -- Lizzie is phlegmatic, Brock is choleric, Lewis is sanguine, and Bobby is melancholic.
*** It can even be applied to the four most prominent surviving crew members featured in the film: Lightoller is Choleric, Fleet is Melancholic, Bride is Sanguine, and Joughin is Phlegmatic.

* HandWave: How did they get that safe out of the Hockley's staterooms and to the surface? Well, that ROV had robot arms, so that must be how they did it. Let's just ignore the fact that there's no way it had enough power to lift a heavy metal box full of equally-heavy water, or the fact that the doorways were barely wide enough for the ROV even when it wasn't carrying anything.
** The safe is later seen being hoisted from the water onto the Keldysh by one of its cargo cranes, maybe they had a long enough cable to reach the ''Titanic'' and the ROV was able to just get it into the net.

* HerHeartWillGoOn: TropeNamer.

*** Ironically, despite all the second-guessing about whether or not Jack would fit on the door -- which was actually larger than the real thing would've been, at least one (Chinese third-class) passenger survived by doing exactly what Jack did -- holding onto a piece of wreckage until rescue arrived later that morning. This is shown in a deleted scene.

** Many heroic tales are briefly glimpsed or happen entirely in the background. Notably the wireless operators who kept sending S.O.S. all night rather than evacuate and the engineers who all stayed below to keep the lights and power running for as long as possible.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Pretty much all the crew members are depicted as incompetent at best and outright negligent or cruel at worst, except Smith (who, ironically, held the most responsibility, for not understanding how to captain a vessel the size of the ''Titanic'', made even worse because he had already commanded her nearly-identical sister ship the ''Olympic''):

* HollywoodKiss: Jack and Rose.

** It's very romantic that Rose throws the Heart of the Ocean away at the end, but she could have used it to give herself, or at least her children who are supporting her, a better life.
*** The Alternate Ending does directly address in-universe ''why'' Rose never sold the Diamond: because it would mean using Cal's wealth to live. The diamond belonged to Cal, so selling it would mean Rose would be using money that belongs to Cal to help herself and her family during the point in her life when she'd left Cal and his money behind to live an independent life. Also not to mention that had she sold the diamond at any point between surviving the sinking and becoming an old woman, her true identity would've immediately been exposed to the media, and it's very clear from the way Old Rose was living, and the fact that she never told her husband, children or other grandchildren about her past life, that she did not want people knowing she was the Rose Bukater who was on the Titanic.
---->'''Old Rose:''' The hardest part about being so poor was being so rich. But every time I thought of selling it, I thought of Cal. And, somehow, I made it without his help.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: When Rose refuses to follow a steward's command and punches him in the nose, he says "To hell with you" not considering that Rose is in a life and death situation and could take these words literally.

* IWasQuiteALooker: Rose. "Wasn't I a dish?" ([[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Gloria_Stuart_ca._1930s_Twentieth_Century_Fox_headshot.png It's true!]])
* ImColdSoCold: Subverted, where Rose says "I'm so cold," and later, "I can't feel my body." It's already a foregone conclusion that she survives, as she is the narrator for the whole movie, plus she's drenched and floating on a bit of wreckage in the icy North Atlantic; she's not just mystically drifting closer to mortality.
* IconicOutfit: Practically all of Rose's outfits became iconic following the film's release, especially:
** The black and white pinstripe boarding suit with a wide-brimmed purple hat.
** The beaded and embroidered red dinner dress.
** The blue velvet dress during the "flying" scene.
** The pink embroidered coat with a pink satin and white chiffon sash dress during the sinking.
** The Heart of the Ocean diamond and necklace.
* ImpoverishedPatrician: Following the death of her father, Rose and her mother fell on hard times. This is the reason why Rose's mother wants her daughter to marry Cal.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Of all the children that we see in the film, the little girl who Cal finds by the electric winch is the only one who survives. She manages to survive Collapsible A getting swamped by the final plunge and also appears to be from steerage, where the majority of children perished.
* InTheStyleOf: Music/JamesHorner's score is largely based on the musical stylings of Music/{{Enya}}. In particular, the anthemic music heard when ''Titanic'' launches is very similar to Enya's composition "Book of Days". This was at James Cameron's request, as he used many of her recordings as placeholder music during editing.

* InstantThunder: Averted. In the DistantReactionShot where a distress rocket explodes over the ship, we see the flash and hear the explosion a few seconds later. On the DVD commentary, it's mentioned that James Cameron accurately calculated the seconds until the explosion would be heard.

* IronicEcho: The exchange between Ismay and Captain Smith.
-->'''Ismay:''' ''[over afternoon tea]'' The press knows the size of ''Titanic'', now I want them to marvel at her speed. We must give them something new to print. This maiden voyage of ''Titanic'' must make headlines.\\

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Rose collects Picasso paintings and has read the works of Sigmund Freud, of whom nobody has heard.
-->'''Cal:''' "Something Picasso"? He won't amount to a thing. He won't, trust me. At least they were cheap.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Quartermaster Robert Hitchins was in charge of lifeboat 6 (of which Molly Brown was a passenger). He was a less than heroic character in both real life and the movie, but in the movie he states that they cannot go back to rescue the people in the water because they would swarm the boats and condemn them all in the process. It sounds heartless and cruel, but rowing a boat into a crowd of over 1,000 drowning and desperate people would have caused exactly that.

* JustInTime: A fireman barely escapes through the watertight door before it seals off the boiler room -- a second later and the door would have crushed his legs.

* KarmaHoudini: Both played straight and subverted at the same time. [[spoiler: Cal, Ruth and Ismay, the three least likeable main characters all survive the sinking, but not only have they all lost what they valued the most, the latter two are clearly struggling with SurvivorsGuilt whilst Cal commits suicide a few years later.]]
** Subverted with Ismay. In real life, he received a fair amount of harsh criticism from William Randolph Hearst and the rest of the American press for surviving and was labelled by most as a coward. Lord Mersey, who was a judge in the British inquiry, shielded him from harsh treatment and blamed ''Titanic's'' body count on Captain Stanley Lord of the ''Californian''.
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: [[spoiler: Although Cal makes it off of the boat safely despite the expectations of the audience, we learn in the epilogue that he lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash and committed suicide, plus, as far as he knew, Rose was dead and the diamond, which could've saved his wealth was lost forever. Karma moves slowly, it seems.]]

* LettingHerHairDown: Rose, big time!

** According to research by James Cameron, corsets were going out of fashion by 1912 and most girls of Rose's age didn't wear them, so Rose's mother forcing her to wear one at all is also symbolic of their relationship.

** Jack, seeing the first water start seeping into the cabin where he's been left alone and handcuffed to a pipe:

*** Doubles as a CallBack to Jack saying the exact same thing earlier when they were being chased through the lower decks by Lovejoy, though the context then was far more light-hearted.

* StraightToThePointe: During a party below decks that Jack takes Rose to, she demonstrates how tough she is by going up en pointe. She does this while only in her stocking feet without the support of toe shoes. According to DVDCommentary by the film crew, there was some debate as to whether such a feat would actually be believable (for the scene, Creator/KateWinslet was hoisted up with wires). Rose even lampshades its difficulty beforehand.

* TechnologyPorn: Who gets more screen time, Kate Winslet or the ''Titanic''?
** Well, the film ''is'' named after the most vital participant, the ship herself.
*** And the fact that every 1912 frame Post-Southampton and Pre-''Carpathia'' has ''some'' part of the ship in it. Yes, lifeboats count.

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Rose returns to the master-at-arms' office with an axe to cut Jack free. He suggests that she do some practice swings at the cabinet. Poor Jack is clearly terrified after he tells her to hit the same mark she just made, and she misses by six inches.
-->'''Jack:''' Okay, that's enough practice.

* TwoActStructure: Neatly divided in half by the ship hitting the iceberg. The first part is Jack and Rose's StarCrossedLovers romance and the efforts of both Cal and Rose's mom to put a stop to it. Then at the midpoint the ''Titanic'' strikes the berg, and it's all about the ship sinking. (In this way it follows the grand tradition of epic disaster movies such as ''Film/TheToweringInferno''.)
** One of the DVD releases takes this quite literally, with the first disc featuring the film up to Captain Smith's CliffHanger style line "I believe you may get your headlines, Mr Ismay," then cutting to a title card saying "Insert Disc 2."
** When the film came out, some cinemas had an ''interval'' around that same moment.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Averted; the fate of a surprising number of minor characters and extras can be known either by [[AllThereInTheManual reading the script]] or ''really'' paying attention to the background in the movie, or by being a ''Titanic'' nut and looking at books documenting the passengers and crew who were on the ship.

** A deleted scene explains this a bit more. After Cal realises Rose has the Heart of the Ocean, he turns to Lovejoy and tells him he can have the stone if he can retrieve it. While Cal returns to the boat deck, Lovejoy decides to go after the stone. However, Jack and Rose manage to get away, which is why he's still on the ship. He was looking for them.

* BloodlessCarnage: When the Titanic splits in half, the stern falls on the helpless victims in the ocean. When the stern rises, the rotors are clean and lack any blood on them.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Jack freezes to death in the ocean water while supporting Rose on a makeshift raft, but his sacrifice is not in vain as Rose is rescued by one of the lifeboats. Once Rose arrives in New York, she adopts the name "Rose Dawson" and leaves the group of survivors to live her own life, with her mother and Cal never knowing she survived. Keeping her promise to Jack, she goes on to live live a happy, fulfilling life of adventure and love with her husband, children, and grandchildren. In the present, Lovett decides to end his expedition now that he fully understands the tragedy's scope while Rose secretly takes the Heart of the Ocean, which has been in her possession all these years, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site as closure. The film ends with Rose lying in bed surrounded by photos taken throughout the years of her life before transitioning to a scene of young Rose reuniting with Jack at the Titanic's grand staircase surrounded by all of the passengers and officers that died on the ship, implying that [[AmbiguousSituation she may have passed on and joined them in the afterlife if she's not dreaming]].]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Jack freezes to death, but not before he makes Rose promise to live a happy, fulfilling life of her own. Her fulfilling of this promise is made clear in the scene of Rose's death, where she passes away satisfied with her life surrounded by photos taken throughout the years of her life of happiness. Rose meets him again when she finally passes away. If you pay attention to her dream, she enters a room filled with passengers and officers (Captain Smith is visible) that died on the ship, and they all look at her as if to say "nice of you to join us" -- evidence that she dies and joins the rest of the dead on the "ship of dreams"]]. If you want to see it that way.

* CallBack: At a first-class dinner, Jack Dawson describes life as being based on luck, prompting a response from Cal Hockley that "A real man makes his own luck." During the sinking, [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney when Cal is filling his pockets with money to potentially bribe his way into a lifeboat]], he comments, "I make my own luck." His valet, Lovejoy, responds "So do I" while revealing a concealed firearm.

** The cabin that Jack and Fabrizio stay in is numbered G-60, which is entirely fictional. There were only 40 cabins on G deck.

* AsYouKnow: Played for drama.
-->'''Ruth:''' This is not a game. Our situation is precarious. You ''know'' the money's gone.\\

* IncrediblyLamePun: Subverted. When Brock is talking about the sinking of the ''Titanic'', he says "I never let it in."

* InsistentTerminology: During dinner, Ruth asks Jack how the accommodations are in ''steerage''. White Star Line had done away with using the term, which carried connotations of cramped, unsanitary, and squalid conditions. They referred to their lowest class exclusively as Third Class, and granted modest luxuries by ensuring their facilities were clean, serving three hot meals a day, and housing passengers in cabins with doors that were just as nice as Second Class cabins on other ships. Ruth's usage of the term is a subtle jab at Jack's background, while Cal's usage of "third class" demonstrates an attempt to be diplomatic and respectful (which he fails at).

** J.Bruce Ismay establishes himself as one fairly quickly (" When can we get underway, damn it!?"), and doesn't grasp how serious the situation is until Thomas Andrews pretty much has to spell it out for him.

*** The Alternate Ending does directly address in-universe ''why'' Rose never sold the Diamond: because it would mean using Cal's wealth to live. The diamond belonged to Cal, so selling it would mean Rose would be using money that belongs to Cal to help herself and her family during the point in her life when she'd left Cal and his money behind to live an independent life. Also not to mention that had she sold the diamond, her identity would've immediately been exposed to the media, and it's very clear from the way Old Rose was living, and the fact that she never told her husband, children or other grandchildren about her past life, that she did not want people knowing she was once Rose DeWitt-Bukater.

* EnormousEngagementRing: Rose tells Jack that Cal is worse than her boyfriend and shows him the engagement ring from him. He tells her that if she had jumped off the boat, she would have gone straight to the bottom.

*** The Alternate Ending does directly address in-universe ''why'' Rose never sold the Diamond: Because it would mean letting Cal 'win' and Rose couldn't bear that.

* ForeignLanguageTirade: After Jack bets all of his and Fabrizo's money and [[BaitAndSwitchComment makes it sound like they lost the bet before revealing that they won]], Fabrizio starts yelling at him in Italian

* LaserGuidedKarma: Downplayed. [[spoiler:While Cal does survive the sinking, the two things "most dear to him" -- Rose and the Heart of the Ocean -- are presumably lost forever. As mentioned above, the full dose of karma comes years later, when he loses his money in the stock market crash and kills himself.]]

The film, after a well-publicized production cycle that overran its budget and schedule with the film ending up costing $200 million to produce, casting doubts on its box office chances, was released in theaters on December 19, 1997. Its original theatrical run lasted more than nine months, not ending until October 1, 1998. It was number-one at the American box office for a still-standing record of fifteen consecutive weeks[[note]]''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' is the record holder for cumulative weeks at number one with a nonconsecutive 16 weeks[[/note]], finally knocked off by ''Film/LostInSpace'' on the first weekend of April 1998. Many of its longevity weekend records still stand today, even with over a quarter century of inflation. It was the first film in history to gross over $1 billion; in the quarter-century since, it has been joined in that lofty club by over 50 other films. But it's still one of only a handful of billion-dollar grossers to not be a sequel, or part of some pre-established franchise.[[note]The only others being ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'', ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', and notably all three ended up with franchises of their own while Titanic is completely Stand-alone.[[/note]]

The film, after a well-publicized production cycle that overran its budget and schedule with the film ending up costing $200 million to produce, casting doubts on its box office chances, was released in theaters on December 19, 1997. Its original theatrical run lasted more than nine months, not ending until October 1, 1998. It was number-one at the American box office for a still-standing record of fifteen consecutive weeks[[note]]''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' is the record holder for cumulative weeks at number one with a nonconsecutive 16 weeks[[/note]], finally knocked off by ''Film/LostInSpace'' on the first weekend of April 1998. Many of its longevity weekend records still stand today, even with over a quarter century of inflation. It was the first film in history to gross over $1 billion; in the quarter-century since, it has been joined in that lofty club by over 50 other films. But it's still one of only a handful of billion-dollar grossers to be stand-alone, as opposed to being part of a series, franchise or cinematic universe.[[note]]The only others being ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'', ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013''.[[/note]]

The film, after a well-publicized production cycle that overran its budget and schedule with the film ending up costing $200 million to produce, casting doubts on its box office chances, was released in theaters on December 19, 1997. Its original theatrical run lasted more than nine months, not ending until October 1, 1998. It was number-one at the American box office for a still-standing record of fifteen consecutive weeks[[note]]''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' is the record holder for cumulative weeks at number one with a nonconsecutive 16 weeks[[/note]], finally knocked off by ''Film/LostInSpace'' on the first weekend of April 1998. Many of its longevity weekend records still stand today, even with over two decades of inflation. It was the first film in history to gross over $1 billion; in the quarter-century since, it has been joined in that lofty club by over 50 other films. But it's still one of only a handful of billion-dollar grossers to be stand-alone, as opposed to being part of a series, franchise or cinematic universe.[[note]]The only others being ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'', ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013''.[[/note]]

As such, ''Titanic''[='=]s story [[GenreMashup leaps and bounds across genres]], combining a historical docudrama, a ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''-esque romance, and a {{disaster movie}} with the scope and resources of an {{epic|Movie}}, fueled by cutting-edge technology ahead of nearly any film that came before it. The result was the most expensive movie ever made at the time, costing more money when adjusted for inflation the the actual real life ship, before turning into the highest-grossing film ever made at the time, going on to dominate the awards season and become one of the biggest cultural touchstones in cinematic history.

As such, ''Titanic''[='=]s story [[GenreMashup leaps and bounds across genres]], combining a historical docudrama, a ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''-esque romance, and a {{disaster movie}} with the scope and resources of an {{epic|Movie}}, fueled by cutting-edge technology ahead of nearly any film that came before it. The result was the most expensive movie ever made at the time, turning into the highest-grossing film ever made at the time, going on to dominate the awards season and become one of the biggest cultural touchstones in cinematic history.

* DigitalHeadSwap: The film had one of the first examples of this as Leo and Kate's faces were superimposed onto their stunt doubles in the scene where they are running down a flooded hallway. It's noticeable as the scene is done in slow motion.