History Main / LostInACrowd

In Islamic settings, this can be accomplished by HidingInAHijab.

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'':

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Charmed}}'', the sisters cast a spell that made every male everywhere look like Leo, hoping to outsmart [[TheGrimReaper the angel of death]] that way. (Of course, it doesn't work; nothing stops Death!)

Not to be confused with AloneInACrowd. See also MobstacleCourse, when you're not trying to hide in a crowd so much as merely get through one in a hurry.

*** In the climax, dozens of hostages are dressed in clown masks, their mouths duct taped shut (so they can't indicate that they're not bad guys) and guns duct taped to their hands. The impending SWAT team doesn't see anything amiss, but fortunately Batman is smarter.

* Sonny, the title character in the film version of ''Film/IRobot'', pulls this by hiding in the ranks of hundreds of similar models, making this a crossover with NeedleInAStackOfNeedles.

[[folder:Music]]
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p87G6fSQzpc Australia version]] of Music/LinkinPark's "What I've Done" music video involves this; a scientist at a corrupt pharmaceutical company does a HeelFaceTurn and steals a sample of TheVirus the company is developing to control the populace, handing it to a member of what's presumably a resistance fighter in a black hoodie with the band's logo on it. When the company's agents give chase, they're cockblocked by several ''other'' people in black hoodies with the band's logo on it. In a subversion, however, the purpose of this wasn't just to delay the goons long enough to get the sample to the appropriate authorities; they ''goaded'' the goons into following them, in order to expose to the company [[IAmSpartacus just how large]] the resistance against them is and intimidating them into backing down from their schemes.
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* In the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Headband" -- after Aang [[Film/{{Footloose}} throws an illicit dance party]] for a bunch of Fire Nation schoolchildren, the kids help him escape from some soldiers by donning their belts as headbands, as Aang has done to conceal his Airbender tattoos. Since the soldiers have been told to go after the boy wearing the headband, this creates enough confusion that Aang and his friends are able to escape unnoticed.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Headband" -- after Aang [[{{Footloose}} throws an illicit dance party]] for a bunch of Fire Nation schoolchildren, the kids help him escape from some soldiers by donning their belts as headbands, as Aang has done to conceal his Airbender tattoos. Since the soldiers have been told to go after the boy wearing the headband, this creates enough confusion that Aang and his friends are able to escape unnoticed.

* In [[TheMovie the film version]] of ''Film/TheSaint'', Simon Templar hides in plain sight from the Russian mobsters who are chasing him by putting on a homeless man's coat and hat, swigging from a bottle of vodka, and acting drunk... just like the dozen or so homeless drunks around him.

** Reused and subverted in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', when Bane and the three mercenaries who help him in the stock exchange heist for the hostages to walk out of the doors into the police. Foley and his cops are GenreSavvy enough to get ready to issue orders to detain everyone while they figure it out... suddenly Bane and his crew burst out of the crowd on motorcycles.

*** This can become even more ridiculous if you're using the unlockable [[MetalGearSolid4 Raiden]] outfit, [[SarcasmMode because nothing says 'inconspicuous' like a cyborg ninja in 16th century Rome.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E25TheCutieRemarkPart1 "The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1"]], Starlight Glimmer isn't easy to locate among the audience for Twilight's lecture, even for those viewers who were expecting her, since she's an ordinary-looking unicorn in a crowd entirely composed of unicorns. Even Twilight isn't quite sure of what she saw after catching a glimpse of her.

[[AC:{{Anime}}]]
* In ''CodeGeass R2'', Zero makes a deal with Britannia to let him be exiled to an island off of China instead of killed... and then [[IAmSpartacus dresses up all his followers as him]] who, because they are all "Zero", all get exiled to that same island, which they were planning to build a base on.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* One of the uses of Queen Amidala's ImpracticallyFancyOutfit in ''StarWars Episode I'' is that if all her handmaidens are dressed the same, it's hard to tell who's the real Queen and who's a [[BodyDouble decoy]].
** To take this trick even further, the handmaidens were often chosen for their physical resemblance to the Queen.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'':
** In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'':

* A funny ''unintentional'' version occurs in the movie ''Film/The51stState'': Creator/SamuelLJackson is flying into London, and he's taken to wearing a kilt. A CorruptCop hoping to intercept him tells a subordinate to wait at the airport for a dark-skinned man "wearing a dress." It's the henchman's bad luck that just as Jackson arrives, so do several flights from African and Asian countries where men still wear robes, sarongs, etc....
* Sonny, the titular character in the film version of ''Film/IRobot'', pulls this by hiding in the ranks of hundreds of similar models, making this a crossover with NeedleInAStackOfNeedles.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* ''Literature/{{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}'' features this, with multiple Harrys created via polyjuice potions to protect the real one.
* One of the ''WheresWaldo'' books (''The Great Waldo Search'') features, on the last two-page spread, Waldo standing among members of "The Waldo Fan Club"... [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles all of whom are wearing his trademark outfit]] (blue trousers, red and white sweater with matching bobble hat).
* In ''TheDarkswordTrilogy'', Simkin helps Mosiah escape from the SecretPolice by casting a mass illusion spell that makes an entire crowd of people look like him. The crowd doesn't even suspect Simkin of anything underhanded, since his {{Cloudcuckoolander}} credentials are already firmly established; they just think he's attempting to start a new fashion trend.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Insiders", all the Ba'al clones present claim to be the real Ba'al (thus also creating an IAmSpartacus moment. (Colonel Mitchell even refers to them collectively as "Spartacus" during a HurricaneOfPuns prompted by the name "Ba'al" and the word "ball").
* ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'''s holographic Doctor has an episode where he's coerced to act against the ship (actually a few, but stay with me here). Eventually he's found out and on the run, and ducks into the holodeck. In a couple seconds, he conjures up an entire room full of... himself. A bunch of copies of his appearance. While the crew figures out how to determine which one's the real one, he's already escaped into a jeffries tube.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the cops drop off the ransom in a certain bag. Then they try to take down anyone with that bag. Naturally, everyone is carrying an identical bag as a part of a 'performance art' piece.

* In an episode of ''TheMentalist'', the MonsterOfTheWeek dresses up as a clown to kill their victim (who has a clown phobia) and puts out a casting call on the internet for clowns. When the CBI shows up and tries to find the killer, based on the 'clown' description, there are more clowns there than you could shake a slapstick at. Meanwhile, the killer clown has vamoosed.
* [[spoiler: David Robert Jones]] uses this trope [[MagnificentBastard magnificently]] in ''{{Series/Fringe}}''. He draws a crowd by throwing wads of money around. Turns out each banknote has a microchip that imitates the signal of the tracker implant Fringe division put in his body. By the time Fringe agents realize what is happening, he has already disappeared into the crowd he summoned to begin with.
* In one of the later Dune novels, swarms of Face Dancers try to assassinate a ghola by making themselves look like him. His AmazonBrigade was trained to kill anyone other than him in combat, and now they couldn't protect him because he was lost in a crowd of lookalikes. [[spoiler: The ghola evaded the ambush by ''stripping!'']]
* In the ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' episode "Legacies", a group of masked bank robbers subvert this by sending out their hostages in painted hockey masks similar to their own. While the police are trying to round up the hostages to figure out if any of them is in the gang of robbers, they tunnel out through the vault floor.

[[AC:{{Music}}]]

[[AC:{{Real Life}}]]
* Embroidered jeans and overly large white tee-shirts aren't a cause of urban crime, but when half the people on any given block are wearing basically the same thing...
* [[http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_100108WAB_monroe_robber_floating_escape_TP.ce3930c1.html This case]] involves a guy who robbed an armored truck, then escaped into a crowd of people dressed exactly like him (that he had set up using Craigslist).
* The Swedish police was put under heat when a murderer out on a day long permission (under surveillance) managed to flee by waiting until the Christmas Crowd was especially dense and then... started to run like hell. He was picked up within 48 hours with no drama, but still -- bad police work.

[[AC:{{Video Games}}]]
* Being LostInACrowd is a crucial part of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI''. Not only does the end of the opening movie shows this exact thing, but in-game Altaïr can use Scholars (who are all dressed similarly to him) as "mobile hide points." He can "blend" on his own by making a praying pose and walking slowly, but he needs the Scholars to bypass guard posts... not least because he openly carries a longsword, short blade, and throwing knives, and he needs the Scholars to block the guards' view of his weapons.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]

[[AC:WebOriginal]]

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Headband" - after Aang [[{{Footloose}} throws an illicit dance party]] for a bunch of Fire Nation schoolchildren, the kids help him escape from some soldiers by donning their belts as headbands, as Aang had done to conceal his Airbender tattoos. Since the soldiers had been told to go after the boy wearing the headband, this created enough confusion that Aang and his friends were able to escape unnoticed.
* This happened to the Joker twice in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''. First came when a millionaire built a casino themed after the Joker, which naturally led the Clown Prince to decide to blow it up. When the Joker showed up to do the job though, he soon found all the card dealers and much of the staff were dressed in his clothes and wearing make-up and wigs to resemble him. This not only helped him escape Batman for a little while (Bats kept chasing down Jokers to find they were just casino employees), but also let him march right up to a Blackjack table and start dealing. A later example game when he decided to set off a bomb on New Year's, he handed out Joker-Masks to the crowd so he'd be tougher to find. Didn't work so well that time, though.

* In one episode of ''{{Lupin III Red Jacket}}'', Lupin successfully convinces an entire crowd of attendees, children included, to dress as himself and his accomplices. While the police are being overwhelmed trying to arrest everyone to sort it out later, the real Lupin and company make off with an entire exhibit of things belonging to the original Arsene Lupin, as well as a model of him. This is done not only under the noses of the (heavily overwhelmed) police, but of his archnemesis Inspector Zenigata, plus a special guest antagonist, the descendant of Inspector Ganimard, who was the only man to ever arrest the original Arsene Lupin.

* Part of KansasCityShuffle that Clive Owen's team implements in ''Film/InsideMan''. Everyone in the bank is (forcibly) dressed in the same outfit, making a proper SWAT Team siege impossible [[spoiler: and allowing the robbers to escape undetected]].

* Thomas Crown does this in the remake of ''Film/TheThomasCrownAffair''. He clearly shows himself to the security cameras wearing a trench coat and bowler hat, and carrying a valise. Then he walks off - and about two hundred confederates break out trench coats, bowler hats, and valises and start walking around the museum, switching valises many times. At some point, the real Crown ditches his own trench coat and bowler hat, slipping out a side entrance while everyone is looking for trench coats and bowler hats.

* Thomas Crown does this in the remake of ''TheThomasCrownAffair''. He clearly shows himself to the security cameras wearing a trench coat and bowler hat, and carrying a valise. Then he walks off - and about two hundred confederates break out trench coats, bowler hats, and valises and start walking around the museum, switching valises many times. At some point, the real Crown ditches his own trench coat and bowler hat, slipping out a side entrance while everyone is looking for trench coats and bowler hats.

* The climax of ''SisterAct'' where Sister Mary Clarence's fellow nuns disperse throughout a Reno casino to confuse Mary Clarence's [[TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily ex-boyfriend's]] henchmen. However, they don't fully succeed because [[spoiler:the henchmen later see all the nuns running out the back way single file, leading them to where the whole group was hiding.]]

* A funny ''unintentional'' version occurs in the movie ''TheFiftyFirstState'': Creator/SamuelLJackson is flying into London, and he's taken to wearing a kilt. A CorruptCop hoping to intercept him tells a subordinate to wait at the airport for a dark-skinned man "wearing a dress." It's the henchman's bad luck that just as Jackson arrives, so do several flights from African and Asian countries where men still wear robes, sarongs, etc....

* In the film version of ''MinorityReport'', Anderton and Agatha (the [[PsychicPowers Precog]]) get out of the mall as it starts raining, and he simply holds up a black umbrella ([[ChekhovsGun which Agatha had]] ''[[ChekhovsGun insisted]]'' [[ChekhovsGun on grabbing]]) as the cops run out on the roof overhead, and look at the sea of black umbrellas. Ironically, Anderton and Agatha didn't move after putting up the umbrella, so the cops were literally right over them, and never saw them.

* [[spoiler: David Robert Jones]] uses this trope [[MagnificentBastard magnificently]] in {{Fringe}}. He draws a crowd by throwing wads of money around. Turns out each banknote has a microchip that imitates the signal of the tracker implant Fringe division put in his body. By the time Fringe agents realize what is happening, he has already disappeared into the crowd he summoned to begin with.