Film - Animated
- Aladdin: Iago to Jafar. Jafar was laughing uncontrollably because he had just realized that Prince Ali was Aladdin, but Iago thinks he's gone Laughing Mad. Naturally, Jafar is distinctly ungrateful for the intervention.Iago: Oh, boy. He's cracked. He's gone nuts. Jafar, Jafar! Get a grip! (grabbed around the throat) Glah! (wheezing) Good grip.
- Extra points for the hilarious clang clang clang sound when Iago knocks on Jafar's headdress to bring him back to his senses.
- In Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Beavis hits the Despair Event Horizon when he comes to realize that he's gonna get old and gray and still be a virgin after the Dallas Grimes doesn't show up to have sex with them (she was actually after the virus she hid in his pants). The bus driver gets so fed up with Beavis' rant that he snaps him out of it with a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Charlotte's Web: While Wilbur has every right to be upset that he's going to be slaughtered soon, he's so wangsty in his lamentation that the titular spider's introduction to the story is sharply demanding from offscreen that he stop whining and crying about it.
- Cinderella: When Jaq and Gus are carrying the key up to Cinderella's room to free her, Gus faints after pushing it up long flight of stairs and he sees there's still many more to go. Jaq has to slap him out of his exhausted stupor, since their friend's happiness is at stake.
- The Emperor's New Groove: A hysterical Kuzco slaps himself in the face after discovering he's been turned into a llama.
- In Fun and Fancy Free, Donald Duck starts going crazy due to the famine, Mickey Mouse and Goofy try to calm him down by restraining him. Goofy even says while spanking Donald "Pull yourself apart and get it together!"
- The Great Mouse Detective has Basil and his sidekick Dawson in the Death Trap, Basil doing nothing but bemoaning how Ratigan's outwitted him until Dawson snaps and gives him an angry verbal slap back to reality.Dawson: I know you can save us, but if you've given up, then why don't we just set it off now and be done with it?
Basil: Hehe, set it off now. (epiphany expression) Set it off now? Haha, ha, yes! We'll set the trap off now!
Dawson: Basil, wait! I didn't mean—
(Death Trap begins to run)
Basil: (rattles off Techno Babble and manages to escape from the trap and save the others) Thank you Dawson. Smile everyone! (camera goes off) - The Incredibles: Edna Mode does this to Helen after she starts sobbing about her husband's possible infidelity instead of getting out there and kicking some butt like she's supposed to do.Helen: (sobbing) Oh, what do I do? What do I do?
Edna: (incredulous) What are you talking about?
Helen: Huh?
Edna: You are Elastigirl! My God! (starts slapping her with newspaper) PULL! YOURSELF! TOGETHER! "What will you do?" Is-is this a question? You will show him you remember he is Mr. Incredible, and you will remind him who you are! So, you know where he is. Go, confront the problem, fight, win! And call me when you get back, darling. I enjoy our visits. - Subverted in Incredibles 2. When Chad Brentley, the show host that is interviewing Elastigirl, falls victim to the Screenslaver's hypnosis, Elastigirl's attempt at slapping him out of it has no effect.
- In Monsters, Inc., this is done after one of the monsters is almost touched by a little girl.Assistant: What happened?!
Pete "Claws" Ward: The kid almost touched me! She was THIS CLOSE to me!!
Assistant: She wasn't scared of you?! She was only six!
Pete "Claws" Ward: [grabs his assistant and begins violently shaking him] I COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD!! I COULD HAVE DIED!!
Assistant: [slaps Ward] Keep it together, man! - Night of the Animated Dead: When Ben tells Barbra that he's certain Johnny is dead, she slaps him for saying it. Ben responds by slapping her back, to try and bring her back to her senses. She then faints.
- Neatly done in Toy Story, when Buzz is angsting hysterically about his recent realization that he is just a toy, deciding to accept his new "Identity" as Mrs. Nesbitt; Woody orders Buzz to snap out of the hysterical laughing, picks up Buzz's own arm (which had previously become detached), opens Buzz's helmet dome, slaps him in the face with it, and then closes his dome. Buzz calms down, admits he has a problem and that he can deal with it... and immediately begins howling again.
- Extra points for the squeak when Buzz gets slapped.
- Used in Treasure Planet with the malfunctioning B.E.N.:Jim: But then you gotta know about the treasure.
B.E.N.: Treasure?
Jim: Yeah, Flint's trove? You know, loot of a thousand worlds?
B.E.N.: (breaking up at places) It's-well, it's... it's all a little-little-fuzzy. Wait! I-I re-re-remember! I do. I-Treasure! Lots of treasure! Buried in the centroid-centroid-centroid of the mechanism! And there was this big... door... opening and closing and opening and closing... And captain Flint wanted to make sure nobody could ever get to his treasure... so I helped him... (sputtering) Naaah! Data inaccessible! (loses it) Reboot! Reboot! Reboot!
Jim: B.E.N.? B.E.N.! (slaps him)
B.E.N.: And you are...?
Jim: Wait, wait, wait! What about the treasure?
B.E.N.: I wanna say Larry. - In Turning Red, when Mei chastises herself for not raising as much money as she hoped by that point, Miriam calms her down.Miriam: Mei, breathe. It's in the bag.
- In Wreck-It Ralph, when trapped in Nesquik Sand with Calhoun, Felix realizes he can't jump, freaks out and begins flailing nearly causing himself to drown. Calhoun then smacks some sense into him. She even says "get a hold of yourself." This also ends up saving them as it attracts the Laffy Taffy to them.
Film - Live Action
- Advance to the Rear: Downplayed and Played for Laughs. One of the soldiers suffers from chronic hiccups and it's implied to get worse whenever he's nervous. Heath solves this on one occasion by slapping him on the face. On another occasion as they're preparing to attack, he orders his fellow soldiers to strangle the soldier if he hiccups again.
- Spoofed in Airplane!, when virtually everyone on the plane lines up for a chance to slap a hysterical woman, with increasingly violent means, with people waiting their turn with weaponry ranging from boxing gloves to a gun.
- Specifically, this parodies the identical scene played straight in the source material, Zero Hour! (1957).
- In the sequel, she testifies about it in court. After the flashback, she goes into hysterics from the memory. Three guesses what happens (and the first two don't count).
- Subverted in film noir Angel Face. The hero slaps the Femme Fatale to bring her out of a fit of (probably-feigned) hysterics; she stares at him indignantly and slaps him right back.
- Played straight in The Apartment, with the protagonist even looking uncomfortable witnessing a woman get slapped into consciousness. It was a doctor slapping a woman who had just taken half a bottle of sleeping pills.
- In Avengers: Endgame, when Thor starts freaking out in 2013-Asgard, Rocket smacks him across the face. It doesn't quite work out.Rocket: Are you crying?
Thor: No...yes. - Played for Drama in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when the Soldier has started to remember that he's actually Bucky Barnes and won't give Big Bad Alexander Pierce the standard mission report. Pierce does this as, essentially, Percussive Maintenance of his Sympathetic Sentient Weapon.
- In both the original Carrie (1976) and the remake, the female gym teacher slaps Carrie due to the latter's hysterical reaction to getting her period (her mother hasn't told her anything and she thinks she's bleeding to death). Later, as the chaos begins at the prom, she slaps a female student who's panicking, trying to calm her.
- Played somewhat straight in Clue, when Mr. Green uses it to calm a hysterical Mrs. Peacock.Mr. Green: Well, I had to stop her screaming...
- Inverted during Wadsworth's final recap of the film, when he re-enacts it by slapping an otherwise calm Mr. Green. The slap actually drives Green to hysterics. It does, however, lead to one of Tim Curry's many great line deliveries in the film.
Wadsworth: Well, I had to stop her screaming... - In Cube 2: Hypercube, Kate does this to Jerry when he starts to ramble too much while he's explaining the physics of the hypercube.
- The Dragon Family, a Heroic Bloodshed gangster film, has Lung, the eldest of three adopted sons, slapping his youngest brother to snap him out of a Heroic BSoD after learning of their mother's death in the hands of their enemies, so that the three brothers can compose themselves in time for the revenge-driven final shootout.
- Dr. Monica: Anna slaps some sense into Monica when she finds out about John and Mary’s affair. She doesn’t want to deliver Mary’s baby, so Anna tells her that her professional career and the life of that baby and mother matter more than their marital squabbles.
- In Drums Along the Mohawk, Gil slaps his wife when she's freaking out, and actually says "You've got to get ahold of yourself!".
- Glorious: When Wes starts to lose it after discovering he's trapped in the restroom, Ghat has to shout directly into his mind to tell him to get a grip on himself.
- The Godfather: Johnny Fontane, the Don's godson who was turned down by a "pezzonovante" film producer for a role he'd be perfect for, breaks down in the Don's office while relating this. The Don, disgusted by Johnny's hysterics, slaps him across the face and yells, in response to his "What can I do?", "You can ACT LIKE A MAN!"
- Grandmother's Farm: Late in the movie, Yasser finds Abdulla sitting in the chicken coop, unresponsive. Yasser talks to him to try and snap him out of it, then slaps him when that doesn't work. Slapping Abdulla brings him out of it, but causes Yasser to experience something VERY freaky.
- Green for Danger: After Inspector Cockrill warns the suspects not to trust any of the others as one of them is the murderer, the highly strung Esther Sanson breaks out into hysterical laughter and keeps laughing until Nurse Woods slaps her across the face.
- Heart of Dragon has Ted finally crossing his Rage Breaking Point and slapping his autistic younger brother, Dodo, for throwing a tantrum and trying to kill himself."Do you think I choose this life? If I wanted to abandon you, I would've abandoned you years ago! Why do you think I'm still here by your side, you retard?"
- Ichi the Killer features a straight example of this. The title character has retracted into a blanket shell and is slapped in order that he faces reality.
- In The Ladykillers (2004) remake, the Vietcong slaps the Jock to bring him to his senses, because the latter was freaking out over one of their party members losing a finger and bleeding all over the place.
- In Maverick, the title character comes unglued because he thinks all of his money has been stolen. His friend Chief Joseph slaps him and says "Pull yourself together! Everyone's looking!"
- The iconic scene from Moonstruck is Cher slapping Nicolas Cage and yelling at him to "Snap out of it!" when he says he loves her.
- Used in Night of the Living Dead (1968). As Ben is trying to fortify the house that the main characters are trapped in, Barbara is trying to get Ben to help her go out and find her brother Johnny so he can join them in the house, safe from the zombies. Meanwhile, Ben is trying to persuade Barbara to give up Johnny for dead. Eventually, Barbara screams at Ben and slaps him. Ben punches her back to get her to snap out of it and also in retaliation.
- Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight: After fleeing from the killer twins' house after they kill Ms. Iza, Julek starts freaking out that they probably won't get any help and will die in the woods. Zosia shouts at him to calm down and slaps him.
- Panic in the Streets: When Poldi is delirious with fever and babbling, Blackie slaps him several times across the face. It doesn't help.
- Subverted in The Producers, where a glass of water to the face just adds "I'm wet!" to the list of Leo's complaints, and slapping him makes it worse still: "I'm in pain! I'm in pain and I'm wet and I'm still hysterical!" He calms down after Max gets out of his face and smiles at him for a little bit.
- Red Hill: When what is left of the police and the posse gather to regroup in Earl's barn, Barlow starts babbling that Cooper is right and that they need to call in backup. Old Bill slaps him across the face and sarcastically asks if he could make any more noise.
- The Sadist: When Doris snaps and starts yelling at Charlie to just shoot them already, Ed grabs her and slaps her a couple of times until she shuts up.
- Parodied in Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed when Scooby and Shaggy are under attack by monsters. After Shaggy hysterically yells at Scooby, Scooby slaps him ("I needed that") twice ("I needed that too"), then punches him in the face ("You're pushing your luck, Scoob!").
- The film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, as Steven Stills begins freaking out about the crowd their band is about to play for, Scott realizes that the two girls he's balancing at the moment are beginning to converse. At this point, he slaps Steven, telling him: "We need to play now, and loud."
- The Thing from Another World. A soldier is is hysterical after seeing the eponymous "Thing", and is brought back to reality with a cold glass of water to the face.
- Used as a Running Gag in the indie film To Die Is Hard, where one character slaps another — often saying the trope name verbatim. Even if the person that was slapped was calm in the first place.
- Undercover Brother. When Lance panics over the impending detonation of a Self-Destruct Mechanism ("We're gonna die! We're all gonna die!"), the title character repeatedly slaps him to bring him to his senses.
- Warlock (1989). When Kassandra becomes overwhelmed by what Redferne is telling her, he slaps her to try to snap her out of it.
- When We Leave: Kader's words to his daughter Umay after she insists her son Cem's place is with her instead of his father, an abusive husband in Turkey.
