Film / The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

"Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!"

"People don't always show up the way you want them to, Madame President. But that anger, that anger-driven defiance, that's what we want. And we can redirect it. We need to unite these people out there that have been doing nothing but killing each other in an Arena for years. We have to have a lightning rod. They'll follow her. She's the face of the revolution."

— Plutarch Heavensbee

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 is the third installment of the cinematic adaptation of Suzanne Collins's young adult novel trilogy The Hunger Games. It was directed by Francis Lawrence and adapted by Danny Strong and Peter Craig. The film adapts the first part of the third novel, Mockingjay, and ends after the novel's twelfth chapter.

Picking up immediately where the previous film left off, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) arrives in District 13 where she struggles to become the perfect posterchild for the anti-Capitol rebellion. Meanwhile, Katniss's partner in the Games, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), is still a hostage of the Capitol, and his absence is hard on Katniss, whose emotional state has deteriorated after two consecutive Hunger Games. Soon enough, the real war begins — and as President Snow promised, it's not pretty.

New cast members include Julianne Moore as Alma Coin, Mahershala Ali as Boggs, and Natalie Dormer as Cressida.

The film was released on November 21, 2014. The followup and Grand Finale to the trilogy, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, was released in 2015.

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 contains examples of:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Inverted. It is more of a quiet drama film with a couple of action sequences.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • While Katniss spends rather more time being sedated and going in and out of the hospital ward in the book, the movie only shows two instances of this.
  • Katniss' constant hiding away is only shown twice.
  • Though Coin thanks her people for "interrupting their schedules" during one of her speeches, the District 13 wrist schedules don't appear.^note In another scene, Finnick is practicing his rope tying, and a list tattoo can be seen on his wrist, but no attention is given to it.
  • Katniss' prep team never made it to 13 in the film.
• Adaptation Expansion: As with the previous films, there is a lot of expansion on the book.
  • President Snow has a few more scenes of his own, where he is joined by his staff of Canon Foreigners: Antonius, his right hand man, and Egeria, his head of national information.
  • President Coin gets a few more scenes with Plutarch Heavensbee, which help with her characterization. She also receives a backstory: her husband and daughter died in the last epidemic.
  • The raid on the dam in District 5 is turned into an extended scene, from a simple throwaway line in the book.
  • Similarly, we get another new scene of District 7 lumberjacks bombing a team of Peacekeepers with landmines.
  • The rescue of Peeta is expanded upon in the movie, and while Katniss was sedated for most of it during the book, here she's very much following the situation.
  • Effie Trinket didn't show up until near the end of the book version, with the implication that she had been held prisoner and tortured. Here she's defected to 13 (albeit unwillingly) and essentially takes the place of Fulvia, Plutarch's assistant, along with Katniss's prep team.
  • Averted with Johanna, who appeared in promotional videos and material with Peeta and President Snow, and was declared one of the winners of the Quarter Quell. Ultimately she remains an Advertised Extra, kind of like in the first half of the book.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Though her hiding from others is not shown as much, Katniss' concern for Gale, Prim, and especially Peeta is played way up in comparison to the book. For example, when she gives her demands to Coin in exchange for being the Mockingjay, she does not include her demand that she be allowed to kill Snow personally, only concentrating on saving the victors (and keeping Buttercup). This is especially shown in the mission to save the victors. While in the book, she was concentrated wholly on Finnick's revelations about Snow and therefore developing an increasingly complex relation with him as a result in their friendship, the revelations are more or less in the background, including the fact that Finnick was a Sex Slave not even having him on screen at the time of the comment, with her focused entirely on the screens involving the secondary purpose of the reveals.
• Adapted Out:
  • Enobaria is not mentioned here.
  • Fulvia and the prep team aren't present due to their roles being taken by Effie.
• Advertised Extra: Jena Malone as Johanna. She only appears briefly at the very end. Some of her scenes appear to have been cut.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Capitol's air raid on District 13, which thanks to Peeta's warning and outdated Capitol intel, fails to actually cause any real damage or fatalities.
• Apathetic Citizens: Subverted during evacuation of the District 13 citizens when the Capitol committed an air raid against the district and Katniss trips and falls over on the stairs. At first, it seems that no one stops to help, but on closer inspection, that's because there's still lots of people coming down and no one can safely stop. They step around Katniss until the people at the back of the group help her up.
• Arc Words: "If we burn, you burn with us!"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Katniss has conditions for agreeing to be the mockingjay. They are as such: Peeta, Johanna, and Annie will be rescued at the earliest opportunity; they will receive full pardons for any crimes they have been forced to commit by the Capitol, and Primrose gets to keep her cat. (In the book, the cat was her first demand and even that set off a flurry of heated discussion.)
  • Josh Hutcherson sums up his character Peeta's trials and tribulations as such:
  Hutcherson: I've been captured. The Capitol has me. And I'm being tortured. And I'm blonde.
• Attentive Shade Lowering: After being introduced to President Coin and while Coin and Plutarch are discussing the speech Coin just gave, Effie lowers her glasses and eyes Coin up and down. Once Coin leaves she remarks how much Coin could also use a stylist. (Some viewers also interpret the look she gives Coin as feeling Coin is shadier that she looks).
• Award-Bait Song: "Yellow Flicker Beat" by Lorde.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Katniss is, as Haymitch notes, horrible when given lines to deliver in front of a greenscreen.
  That, my friends, is how a revolution dies.
• Badass Boast: The page quote, which Katniss gives via propaganda interview after shooting down the bombers that blew up the District 8 hospital, which gets taken up as a Battle Cry by other rebels.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Both Peeta and Johanna are visibly malnourished and beatenfollowing their rescue from the Tribute Center. Katniss' eyes are also considerably bloodshot, probably due to ruptured blood vessels and is also wearing a neck brace after Peeta attacks her.
• Big Bad: Once again, President Snow.
• Big Blackout: The lights in the Capitol go out after rebels in District 5 blow up the hydroelectric dam.
• Bilingual Bonus: ASL speakers got an added bonus as the ASL-speaking Avox Pollux is signing to his brother Castor. After meeting Katniss, Cressida explains to Katniss that Pollux can't speak because the Capitol cut out his tongue. He turns to his brother and signs, "She's pretty, don't you think?" and his brother signs a very enthusiastic "Yes". Considering that ASL takes facial expression into account quite a bit, the conversation could be translated as "She's really hot, isn't she?" "YEAH SHE IS."
• Blinded by the Light: During the raid on the Tribute Tower, the lights suddenly come back on, blinding the team and alerting the audience that something is horribly wrong.
• Bombers on the Screen/Sensor Suspense: During the bombing of District 13, President Coin and her staff watch the radar to know what's going on on the surface, while the bunker rocks from each missile hit.
• Book Ends: The film opens with Katniss waking up in a District 13 hospital after her rescue from the Arena. The movie ends on Katniss waking up in the same hospital after Peeta almost strangles and beats her to death.
• Bowdlerise: In-universe, Plutarch edits "necklace of rope" to "necklace of hope" when using Katniss' rendition of "The Hanging Tree" over a propaganda piece.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Peeta has been tortured and conditioned to associate Katniss with mortal danger, so upon seeing her he immediately attacks her and tries to kill her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The propaganda ad shot right after the hospital bombing looks very similar to the trailers.
• Call-Back:
  • A woman in the field hospital asks Katniss about her fake pregnancy. Katniss explains that she miscarried.
  • Snow whispering to himself "Moves and countermoves", a line from Plutarch in the previous film.
• Childless Dystopia: Because of an epidemic years prior, District 13 has very few children. While not stated in the film, the book reveals this is why District 13 welcome refugees from other districts with open arms, as this would increase the population's genetic diversity.
• Civil War: Panem officially experiences this. District 8 are in open rebellion against the Capitol, Districts 5, 7, and 11 are experiencing unrest, and District 13 take a more active stance and film propos to encourage the other districts to rebel.
• Cliffhanger: The film ends with a visibly-shaken Katniss visiting the hijacked Peeta, who acts like a wild animal in his restraints, while President Coin congratulates the rebels for the successful rescue of the Victors though reminding that the worst has yet to come.
• Cold Ham: In the first two films, President Snow was The Stoic, and generally spoke very calmly in his interactions with Katniss. When he speaks to Katniss here, he is much more openly evil, with a continuous Psychotic Smirk that borders on Slasher Smile, and he is clearly letting himself enjoy toying with her. Despite this, though, his voice remains soft, and his courtesy remains constant.
• Composite Character: Effie's character is given the role(s) played by Fulvia and Katniss's prep team in the story and some of their dialogue from the book, while all four of those characters are Adapted Out. This is reportedly because Suzanne Collins liked Elizabeth Banks's portrayal of Effie in the first two movies so much that she didn't want to see her Demoted to Extra like she was in the final book.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Snow is giving a speech outlawing anything associated with the Mockingjay, his granddaughter can be seen undoing the Katniss-style hair braid he noted her sporting in Catching Fire. Creating some Fridge Horror when one remembers that the punishment for any symbol associated with Katniss or the rebellion is death.
  • The lethal venom stings from the first film are brought up again as part of the Hijacking brainwash method used on Peeta.
• Crisis Point Hospital: The hospital in District 8 that Katniss visits before it's bombed by the Capitol.
• Darker and Edgier: So much so compared to the previous film. With the bombing of District 12, people being gunned downed onscreen rather than using cutaway shots, a hospital being destroyed, and torture and Mind Rape in the case of the rescued victors.
• Dark Is Not Evil: District 13 looks decidedly more ominous and militant than the Capitol, but are presented as the good guys.
• Death by Adaptation: Katniss's prep team from the games didn't make it to District 13.
• Death from Above: The Capitol bombs their targets if they want to kill in mass numbers.
  • Due to Katniss destroying the Arena's barrier, the Capitol retaliated by obliterating District 12. First clearing out all the Capitol Peacekeepers, then dropping bombs from planes. Gale realized quickly what was going on and tried to evacuate as many people as he could before the bombers came, getting 915 out of 10,000 out. Later Katniss visits the district and is horrified at the aftermath at all the burned corpses and rubbled buildings.
  • When Snow's surveillence finds Katniss in another district, the hospital she visited in District 8 is destroyed with its wounded citizens inside.
  • The Capitol tries this on District 13. Due to Peeta giving them an early warning on broadcast, District 13's preparation in case of such an attack, and the Capitol working out outdated information, there were no casualties.
• Defector from Decadence: Cressida and her team deserted the capitol to join the rebels.
  Plutarch: She was one of the most up and coming documentors in the capitol.
  Cressida: Until I up and left.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Johanna only appears for a few seconds, having spent the movie being tortured in the Capitol off-screen. Fittingly, her part in the book wasn't really expanded on until the events that take place in the chapters associated with Part 2. Promotional material and videos seemed to indicate it was going to undergo Adaptation Expansion but it was ultimately kept just like in the books.
  • Finnick. Most of his character moments are cut or passed on to others (the "kiss you, kill you, or be you" line was originally his, not Effie's), and his big moment of plot relevance, when he tells the story of his own forced prostitution and Snow's rise to power, is massively downplayed. While it was a huge character-defining moment in the book, causing Katniss to completely rethink her opinion of Finnick and was given the full focus of the narrative, in the movie, it's going on in the background as Katniss and the camera focus on the rebels' mission.
  • In terms of going from the book to the film, Plutarch's role is slightly downplayed due to the death of his actor - some scenes where he delivered important lines were re-shuffled to other characters.
  • Averted with Effie, for whom this trope was true in the book (she appeared in only one scene near the end), but who still plays a major part in the movies.
• Death of a Child: The bombing of District 12, which claimed thousands of lives, including children. Also the bombing of the District 8 hospital, which contains some kids inside when it happens.
• Divided for Adaptation: The movie ends about halfway through the book, with a second movie adapting the rest.
• Doomed Hometown: Though she's told in the previous film that District 12 was destroyed, Katniss is brought to visit what remains of District 12 for the first time after the Capitol's bombing. She goes into a horrified Heroic BSoD at the rubbled former buildings and road of burned corpses. Her own home in the Victor's Village however is left intact.^note  The book explains that the Capitol possibly spares the Victor's Village, their creations, as a reminder of the triumph of the Capitol against the districts. Later for a propo Gale walks through how it played out after Katniss destroyed the game arena.
• Elaborate Underground Base: District 13, or rather what's left of it as this is how its citizens managed to survive in the first place while topside was blown up. It's implied to have undergone some upgrades as well given that even the Capitol's bombing run does only superficial damage and no casualties.
• Epic Fail: The attack on District 13. Instead of collapsing the entire complex, the Capitol only succeeds in damaging passages near the surface and possibly some surface-to-air emplacements due to outdated information. No casualties are reported.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Snow's propagandist is visibly shocked when he orders the bombing of the hospital, but he promptly shoots her down by reminding her that she wrote the speech in which he pronounced death on anyone who associated with the Mockingjay.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave:
  • District 12 had 915 survivors out of ten thousand. The burned bodies of the dead are found along the main road.
  • And again with the hospital in District 8. Katniss even says that there are no survivors.
• Evil Gloating: In a departure from the books, Katniss has a brief video conversation with Snow while her allies try to rescue Peeta, Annie, and Johanna, in which he engages in a lot of this just before he reveals he knows about their rescue operation then immediately cuts the feed.
• Evil Is Hammy: Snow's conversation with Katniss doesn't involve him shouting or gesticulating or anything like that, but now that he's dropped his facade (see Faux Affably Evil below,) his stoic expression and soft monotone have been replaced with openly evil sneering and sadism.
• Evil Is Petty: Snow had no real reason to respond to Katniss during the rescue operation and did it simply to reveal that he knew what was going on, and to make sure she remembered him saying that the ones you love are the ones who kill you. If Gale had acted on his suspicions about how the rebels got away even when it was clear they'd walked into a trap, Snow might well have blown his chance to get Peeta to kill Katniss.
• Faceless Goons: The Peacekeepers retain their white helmets with face concealing black visors from the previous film.
• Fate Worse than Death: Katniss and Finnick speculate that this is what the Victors held captive in the capitol are enduring. Finnick even comments that he wishes Annie were dead instead. From the look of them after the rescue, they were probably right. Johanna is bald and looks like she's been tortured or experimented on, Annie is possibly worse of a wreck than she was already, and Peeta has been brainwashed to see Katniss as a monster.
• Faux Affably Evil: Snow's previous interactions with Katniss were those of an extremely ruthless, but ultimately pragmatic man who really was trying to minimize bloodshed for everyone and had some level of respect for her. In his video conversation with Katniss, he drops the facade, gloating and mocking her motivations while sneering and grinning, yet remains polite and formal.
• Foreshadowing: Katniss almost loses Prim during the Capitol's bombing on District 13. In Part 2, she loses Prim for good during the Capitol's (well, District 13 carrying a False Flag Operation against the Capitol) bombing in front of the Presidential Palace.
• Gas Mask Mooks: A rare heroic example when the rescue team from District 13 arrives at the Capitol to rescue Peeta and the other captured victors. The gas masks help protect the team from knockout gas they use on Peacekeepers during the operation.
• Good Guns, Bad Guns: The Capitol uses a sleek white F2000 rifle to compliment their Light Is Not Good trend while District 13 uses skeletal black G36 rifles to reinforce their respective Dark Is Not Evil motif.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Katniss suffers several of these.
    • In what's left of District 12, because of the sheer number of casualties. 9,085 of District 12's 10,000 residents don't make it out.
    • After Snow leaves hundreds of white roses following the Capitol's unsuccessful raid on District 13.
    • When Peeta attacks and nearly kills her.
    • And before that last one, she completely breaks down when President Snow delivers a Wham Line at the end of their video conversation about being fully aware of District 13's rescue operation of the victors and effectively cuts off their communication with the rescue unit. Understandably, she has every reason to believe that she's lost both Peeta and Gale (who was part of that unit), even though it ends up not being the case.
  • Finnick also suffers from one that's bad enough to leave him in a depressive state for a good chunk of the film (although it's elaborated on less than it was in the book). It mostly stems from a combination of the Capitol having taken Annie, his one true love, captive, and guilt for not going back to save Johanna and Peeta at the end of the Quarter Quell.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The attack on District Five's hydroelectric dam for most if not all of the people involved. Even if the attackers survive charging the Peacekeepers unarmed, they probably can't outrun the wave from the collapsing dam. ^note  It's unclear if the bombs exploded and flooded the area they were in right after they set the bombs, but it's a common interpretation of the scene.
• Holding the Floor: Finnick's broadcast serves a dual purpose—exposing Snow and jamming the signals in the Capitol to keep the rescue team from being discovered.
• Hostage Situation: After finding a blast crater full of roses, Katniss fears that Snow will kill Peeta if she does any more propaganda pieces.
• Hypocrite:
  • The Capitol condemns the violence of the rebels, while conveniently overlooking how Districts 12 and 13 were utterly destroyed and how the other Districts have been dominated and forced to send their children to be slaughtered for generations.
  • When Boggs explains to Katniss that the reason why District 13 hasn't used its arsenal of weapons against the Capitol is that they fear the resulting conflict would cost more lives than the human race can afford to spare, Katniss shoots back that when Peeta made the same argument he was called a traitor.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Gale is the first to volunteer for the Victor rescue mission. Knowing that rescuing Peeta is the thing Katniss wants most.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Gale and Katniss shoot down two Capitol bombers with nothing more than bows and arrows. Possibly justified in that the bombers are flying at extremely low altitude and are making a second strafing run effectively head-on. That is, they don't have to lead the bombers as much in order to actually hit them. When they did hit, they used the red arrows.
• Intrepid Reporter: Cressida and her crew of filmmakers defect from the Capitol to document and show what is happening in the rebellion.
• Irony: Near the end of the film when President Coin delivers a rousing speech about how the rescue team "liberated the victors", the scene cuts between her and Katniss staring in horror at Peeta tied to a gurney, writhing and sobbing. It really drives home that even if the victors are superficially liberated from the Capitol, those around them don't— and probably never will— understand how they'll never be liberated from the havoc the Capitol on their bodies and their psyches. Even more poignant is that Peeta certainly isn't liberated at that moment— he's locked and tied down in a room. For his own safety as well as Katniss' safety, granted, but the scene leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when you see President Coin's speech juxtaposed with that.
• Kick the Dog: President Snow orders the District 8 hospital firebombed for associating with Katniss.
• Killed Offscreen: Katniss's fears about Cinna are confirmed. When Effie gives her Cinna's design for the Mockingjay outfit, she sadly asks "He's dead, isn't he?" Effie whispers "Yes, dear" and shows her the message he left her:

  "I'm still betting on you! - Cinna"

• Knockout Gas: The rebel team sent to rescue the Victors uses sleeping gas bombs to clear areas before they enter. Peeta gets knocked out by the gas as well, and comes to in the hospital at District 13.
• Last Bastion: District 13 is the only district in Panem that is free from the Capitol's influence, with no Hunger Games and Peacekeepers present. That said, they have strict rules of their own, although they pale in comparison to the Capitol's brutality.
• Light Is Not Good: Compared to District 13, the Capitol has its people dressed in bright lavish colors, the President is named after white snow and its Peacekeepers wear bone white armor, but the Capitol is anything but good.
• Make an Example of Them: President Snow has people caught with the Mockingjay symbol shot publicly through the back of the head at the beginning as an example to the District uprising.
• Meaningful Background Event: Listen carefully when Katniss is singing "The Hanging Tree". You can hear the mockingjays singing around her, mimicking Pollux's whistle, but you can hear them start to sing along with Katniss.
• Meaningful Echo: When Katniss manages to make contact with President Snow, he mockingly says "Miss Everdeen; what an honor - echoing Katniss's very first words to him in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Zigzagged. The Capitol is fine bombing District 12 to oblivion, but starting an all-out war with the weapon-producing District 13 in a country where there are less than 2 million people (so say supplementary materials) is something they would not cross. District 13 have the same opinion, hence why they stayed quiet for 75 years and why they choose Katniss to inspire rebellions in the other districts rather than facing the Capitol head on.
• Mood Whiplash: Katniss seeing Peeta again in District 13. The music's very light, there's relief all around, and as broken as he is, it looks like a touching reunion is in order. And then he tries to strangle her.
• Music for Courage: The resistance in District 5 sing "The Hanging Tree" before beginning their attack. As it's a guaranteed Suicide Mission that begins with them charging unarmed into gunfire and ends with the flood taking out anyone who might have escaped, it was necessary.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: What Katniss is subjected to upon seeing Peeta for the first time after he's rescued. She's thrown across the room like a sack of flour.
• Oh, Crap!: During the mission to rescue Peeta, Johanna and Annie from the Capitol, Katniss's attempts to stall Snow comes to a halt when Snow asks "You really think I don't know your friends are in the Tribute Tower?"
• Permission to Speak Freely: Used with a slight twist on the response.
  Plutarch: May I speak freely?
  President Coin: You don't seem to do anything else.
• Phony Veteran: Plutarch's original ideas for the promotional material involves Katniss standing in front of a CGI battle acting as if she's just rallied the troops. When it's pointed out that no one will believe Katniss's stilted lines and awkward delivery, she offers to actually go into the field and become the real deal.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Due to being two of the only three escaped Victors (with Beetee being the other, much older one) and their shared worry of Peeta and Annie, respectively, Katniss and Finnick have this dynamic.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: One of the secrets Finnick reveals about Snow is that his favorite method of disposing of rivals is through poison. Knowing they would expect this kind of treachery, he would drink from the same cup as them, but he had taken an antidote.
• Poison Is Evil: Snow's choice method to rid himself of rivals and dissenters is poison. Finnick presents this as a massively cowardly and evil thing to do.
• Propaganda Machine: Caesar Flickerman's airtime has fully devolved into this, given his "interviews" with Peeta in which the latter denounces violence and urges the districts to lay down their weapons. Though it's pretty clear that even he looks uncomfortable about it all.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Katniss warns Snow about this, stating "if we burn, you burn with us." Snow even acknowledges the fact that the Capitol needs the Districts to survive. That said, if it's a choice between capitulation and domination, Snow proves more than willing to slaughter as many people as it takes to stay in power.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Coin gives one near the end of the film, in contrast to her concise and utilitarian pronouncements at the start. You can see Plutarch mouthing along; clearly the one who wrote it.
  • Subverted by Katniss, who butchers a propaganda ad on a greenscreen. Played straight after the Capitol bombing the hospital in District 8.
• Running Gag: After Effie finally leaves her self-imposed isolation in District 13, she is never shown wearing her jumpsuit the same way twice.
• Sarcastic Clapping: Katniss is filming a "propo" to stir up support for the rebellion, but is doing a terrible job of it. Following her wooden, stilted delivery of "People of Panem, we fight! We dare to end this hunger for justice!", Haymitch enters...
  Haymitch: [slow clap] And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.
• Secret Test of Character: When Katniss demands that Peeta and the other Victors be rescued and pardoned in exchange for being the Mockingjay, Coin gives a flat no, which prompts Katniss to give an impassioned refusal to be their Icon of Rebellion and say they can go find another Mockingjay. When she's done, Plutarch says "this is the Katniss I told you about". Coin just provoked her to see if Katniss really was fit to be a rebel icon.
• Self-Destructive Charge: District Five's rebellion includes this; a wall of hundreds of people, rushing into gunfire so that a few could get a bomb in and blow up the dam, resulting in temporary power loss throughout the Capital. And the odds are likely that whoever survived the hail of bullets would be swept away by the ensuing flood.
• Sequel Hook: Like Catching Fire before it, the movie ends on a massive cliffhanger: Katniss re-visiting Hijacked!Peeta.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Katniss. Being in two Hunger Games and a civil war will do that to you. The very first scene even opens with her in a Troubled Fetal Position, desperately trying to calm herself before she's given tranquilizers.
• Ship Sinking: Katniss confirms out loud that she's in love with Peeta, thus sinking the Galeniss ship.
• Ship Tease: Haymitch and Effie have developed a weird and yet completely in-character flirtation, as they confess to liking each other via a series of hilariously backhanded compliments, each pointing out the absence of flaws that they disliked in one another before.
  Haymitch: I like you better without all the make-up.
  Effie: Well, I like you better sober.
• Shout-Out:
  • The ambush in District 7 resembles a scene from Red Dawn (1984).
  • The jumpsuits they wear in District 13 appear to be a visual reference to the film version of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• Slave Collar: A variant of sorts. Peeta's collar during his first interview has a very noticeable edge to it that buries into his neck, not so subtly holding a knife to his throat if he does not perform. Katniss does not seem to realize this until later, but it is also a warning for her not to participate in the revolution.
• The Song Before the Storm: "The Hanging Tree" becomes this to the rebels at District 5, who sing it as they move towards their suicide attack against the hydroelectric dam
• Suicide Mission: There is no way the members of the assault on the District 5 dam had any illusions they would escape before the water came.
• Take Me Instead: When Katniss contacts President Snow as a means to try to serve a distraction from the rescue mission to free Peeta and the other Tribute hostages, she offers herself, telling him "release Peeta and take me instead." He replies that they're long past the point for noble sacrifices.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • The movie doesn't shy away from going deep into the tactics of image manipulation, video virality and propaganda, which can be considered ironic since as a Hollywood movie, it employs these very tactics itself, and the audience is being made aware of how they are manipulated.
  • invoked There's also some level of Reality Subtext since a lot of what Plutarch (in particular) describes as Katniss' appeal to people could also apply to her actress.
  • The propos sure seem to look a lot like the trailers...
• Taking You with Me: Katniss tells Snow that this is what would happen to him, "If we burn, you burn with us". This is quoted in District 7 when they ambush the Peacekeepers. Later District 5 literally does this by destroying a hydroelectric plant that kills power at the capital on a suicide mission.
• Tap on the Head: Sort of. Peeta gets knocked unconscious and seems no worse off for it than he was already, but the circumstances of administering the blow would have justified lethal force anyway, and nobody pretends that it's a safe or harmless way of incapacitating someone.
• Unexpected Character: The soundtrack, curated by Lorde, features mainly mordern female electronic/pop vocalists such as herself along with CHVRCHES, Charli XCX, Tove Lo, Ariana Grande, Bat For Lashes, Tinashe, HAIM, and... Grace Jones? Also rappers Q-Tip and Pusha-T appear in Stromae's "Meltdown" alongside Lorde and HAIM for an odd-yet-compelling collaboration.
  • However, none of the above (with the exception of Lorde) are heard anywhere in the movie itself.
• Voice of the Resistance: Katniss ends up as this. As the Mockingjay, she's called on to unite the districts and star in propaganda pieces for the cause.
• We Have Reserves: The rebel attacks shown in Districts Five and Seven don't have the finesse of a trained army, nor are they particularly well-equipped. What they do have is a lot of people fully willing to die if it means sticking it to the Capitol. This is especially true of District Five, whose rebels don't even have weapons. The entire plan was a suicidal Zerg Rush at a hydroelectric dam in order to destroy it, which took out everyone who managed to charge through the gunfire.
• Wham Line: President Snow delivers one to Katniss at the end of their video conversation, and by extension, to the audience and everyone else from District 13 watching it. Specifically, it reveals that he knows full well about District 13's rescue operation of the victors, despite initially making it seem like he was still oblivious to it.
  President Snow: Don't you think I know your friends are in the Tribute Center? [to his crew] Cut them off.
• Wham Shot: After the bombing on District 13, Katniss and the film crew discover the ruins covered in White Roses, and Katniss finally has a realization. The Capital wasn't attacking District 13, Snow was retaliating against Katniss.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Katniss is shown the District 13 hangars, fully stocked with modern weapons, she asks Boggs why District 13 abandoned the other districts during the first war. And why didn't they try to defend District 12 earlier from being destroyed by Capitol bombers. Made more apparent when District 5 attacks the hydroelectric dam. They charge the Peacekeepers guarding the dam unarmed. A lot more of the attackers could have survived if they had basic small arms. At least until the plan succeeds when it's very apparent that there would have been no survivors no matter what.
• Zerg Rush: How the District 5 bombers assault the power plant. Enough of them run at the guards until they overwhelm them. If the ones carrying the bomb fall, those behind them pick it up and continue to run.

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♫ We rip the start, the colors disappear
I never watch the stars there's so much down here
So I just try to keep up with them
Red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart! ♫