History YMMV / Platoon

* MemeticMutation: The CrucifiedHeroShot is parodied to [[IncrediblyLamePun death]] in Website/{{Pixiv}}.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: Edged out just barely by ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.

* AwardSnub: While walking away with Best Picture and Best Director is no small accomplishment, the film was completely snubbed in the acting awards category. With Creator/TomBerenger and Creator/WillemDafoe (Who were the only actors nominated for the movie) both losing Best Supporting Actor to Creator/MichaelCaine for the much less memorable ''Film/HannahAndHerSisters''.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: It can be argued that Barnes did care for the men in his command, but used extreme tactics to do so. All he wanted was for them all to survive, and to hell with anybody else.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Just in case we didn't get the subtle subtext involved in Creator/OliverStone placing an evil sergeant and a good sergeant in charge of Taylor as the devil and angel on his shoulder, Stone has him provide a wildly anvilicious voiceover monologue at the end of the movie. "I felt like a child born of these two fathers fighting over my soul." Alternatively counts as SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: For some incomprehensible reason, this game got an NES adaptation. It's most famous for the first stage being an impossibly complex maze that has to be solved ''three separate ways'' in order to complete it.

** Creator/TomBerenger would later mentor Creator/CharlieSheen in ''Film/MajorLeague''.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: ''Adagio for Strings'', used during and after the more intense moments in the film.

** Barnes himself is made of Nightmare Fuel. His overall appearance is unnerving and those facial scars are the stuff of nightmares. His actions in the film make him more terrifying than the Vietcong.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Just in case we didn't get the subtle subtext involved in Stone placing an evil sergeant and a good sergeant in charge of plastic-faced Charlie Sheen's raw recruit as the devil and angel on his shoulder, Stone has Sheen provide a wildly anvilicious voiceover monologue at the end of the movie. "I felt like a child born of these two fathers fighting over my soul." Alternatively counts as SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.

* HilariousInHindsight: [[spoiler:Elias' CrucifiedHeroShot during his death scene. Creator/WillemDafoe would later star as Jesus in ''Film/TheLastTemptationOfChrist'']].
** [[Film/MajorLeague This wouldn't be the last time Tom Berenger played a mentor role to Charlie Sheen]].
** As stated in other entries the film was most definitely not backed by the Pentagon and was an anvilicious anti-war movie. Then years later Keith David would provide the voice over for Navy recruitment commercials for about a decade.

* NightmareFuel: The village scene. Also the deleted scene where Taylor has a dream where the platoon stands in front of a Buddha statue. One by one the soldiers disappear until there's only Barnes.

** [[ObligatoryWarCrimeScene Bunny]] is a psychopathic scumbag who quickly graduates from a particularly nasty {{jerkass}} to a full-blown monster. When he and his squad invade a Vietnamese village, Bunny happily beats a disabled teenage boy to death, before doing the same to the boy's mother. Following this, Bunny leads the gang-rape of two [[WouldHurtAChild young girls]], mocking Taylor for not joining in. By the end of the film, Bunny giddily mows down enemy soldiers with a smile on his face, proclaiming that he feels as if he's done nothing wrong and that war is true freedom, [[ForTheEvulz enabling people like him in to indulge in whatever wicked acts their hearts desire]].

** [[ColonelKilgore Staff Sergeant Robert "Bob" Barnes]] is a sociopathic brute who believes himself to be the ideal that all American soldiers should strive to be. Already showing himself to be an unforgiving fanatic by [[DrillSergeantNasty regularly degrading his own troops]], even as they die all around him, Barnes shows his truly vicious personality when, while leading a raid onto a small Vietnamese village, he kills numerous villagers who are too slow in complying with his orders, before shooting an innocent woman in the head for irritating him. Holding an [[WouldHurtAChild innocent child at gunpoint]] in an attempt to force her father to answer his questions, Barnes develops a seething hatred toward [[OpposingCombatPhilosophies Sergeant Elias]] for halting his crimes, and later guns him down to eliminate the only one who would incriminate him for his murders. In the end, Barnes ruthlessly attempts to murder the only other man willing to stand up to him, [[TheProtagonist Chris Taylor]], and goads Taylor into killing him to prove his point that war and conflict is the true state of humankind.
** [[ObligatoryWarCrimeScene Bunny]] is a psychopathic scumbag who quickly graduates from a particularly [[{{Jerkass}} nasty prick]] to a full-blown monster. When he and his squad invade a Vietnamese village, Bunny happily beats a disabled teenage boy to death, before doing the same to the boy's mother. Following this, Bunny leads the gang-rape of two [[WouldHurtAChild young girls]], mocking Taylor for not joining in. By the end of the film, Bunny giddily mows down enemy soldiers with a smile on his face, proclaiming that he feels as if he's done nothing wrong and that war is true freedom, [[ForTheEvulz enabling people like him in to indulge in whatever wicked acts their hearts desire]].

* HilariousInHindsight: [[spoiler:Elias' CrucifiedHeroShot during his death scene. Creator/WillemDafoe would later star as Jesus in ''Film/TheLastTempatationOfChrist'']].

** Barnes himself is made of Nightmare Fuel. His overall appearance is unnerving and those facial scars are the stuff of nightmares. His actions in the film make him more terrifying then the Vietcong.

** [[ColonelKilgore Staff Sergeant Robert "Bob" Barnes]] is a sociopathic brute who believes himself to be the ideal that all American soldiers should strive to be. Already showing himself to be an unforgiving fanatic by [[DrillSergeantNasty regularly degrading his own troops]], even as they die all around him, Barnes shows his truly vicious personality when, while leading a raid onto a small Vietnamese village, he kills numerous villages who are too slow in complying with his orders, before shooting an innocent woman in the head for irritating him. Holding an [[WouldHurtAChild innocent child at gunpoint]] in an attempt to force her father to answer his questions, Barnes develops a seething hatred toward [[OpposingCombatPhilosophies Sergeant Elias]] for halting his crimes, and later guns him down to eliminate the only one who would incriminate him for his murders. In the end, Barnes ruthlessly attempts to murder the only other man willing to stand up to him, [[TheProtagonist Chris Taylor]], and goads Taylor into killing him to prove his point that war and conflict is the true state of humankind.

** [[ColonelKilgore Staff Sergeant Robert "Bob" Barnes]] is a sociopathic brute who believes himself to be the ideal that all American soldiers should strive to be. Already showing himself to be an unforgiving fanatic by [[DrillSergeantNasty regularly degrading his own troops]], even as they die all around him, Barnes shows his truly vicious personality when, while leading a raid onto a small Vietnamese village, he kills numerous villages who are too slow in complying with his orders, before shooting an innocent woman in the head for irritating him. Holding an [[WouldHurtAChild innocent child at gunpoint]] in an attempt to force her father to answer his questions, Barnes develops a seething hatred toward [[OpposingCombatPhilosophies Sergeant Elias]] for halting his crimes, and later guns him down to eliminate the only one who would incriminate him for his murders. In the end, Barnes ruthlessly attempts to murder the only other man willing to stand up to him, [[TheProtagonist Chris Taylor]], and goads Taylor into killing him to prove his point that [[BloodKnight war and conflict is the true state of humankind]].

** [[ColonelKilgore Staff Sergeant Robert "Bob" Barnes]] is a sociopathic brute who believes himself to be the ideal that all American soldiers should strive to be. Already showing himself to be an unforgiving fanatic by [[DrillSergeantNasty regularly degrading his own troops]], even as they die all around him, Barnes shows his truly vicious personality when, while leading a raid onto a small Vietnamese village, he kills numerous villages who are too slow in complying with his orders, before shooting an innocent woman in the head for irritating him. Holding an [[WouldHurtAChild innocent child at gunpoint]] in an attempt to force her father to answer his questions, Barnes develops a seething hatred toward [[OpposingCombatPhilosophies Sergeant]] [[OpposedMentors Elias]] for halting his crimes, and later guns him down to eliminate the only one who would incriminate him for his murders. In the end, Barnes ruthlessly attempts to murder the only other man willing to stand up to him, Charlie Taylor, and goads Taylor into killing him to prove his point that [[BloodKnight war and conflict is the true state of humankind]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The fat soldier in the FinalBattle who appears for a few seconds before dying.

* EpilepticTrees[=/=]EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Some have interpreted the Elias-like guy who asks Taylor for a light from a DeletedScene as Death himself.

* SignatureScene: See DyingMomentOfAwesome.

** Barnes crosses it firmly by [[spoiler: shooting the village chief's unarmed wife and taking their child hostage]].