11 Movie Cliches You Couldn't Live Without

The Cliche: The bad guy has set a bomb to go off and kill a ton of civilians, and better yet, it's got a timer read-out so any potential have-a-go-hero knows how long they've got until they've vaporised. Typically the protagonist defuses the bomb without about two seconds to go.

This one's ridiculously prevalent, but some especially memorable examples include Speed, Lethal Weapon 3 (with a novel twist), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Face/Off and many, many more.

Why It's Awesome: We all know the hero is almost certainly going to diffuse the bomb, but adding a time limit makes things inherently more tense, especially if the movie in question actually keeps track of the time rather than speeding up or slowing it down (as so many in fact do).

The ticking bomb scenario is almost as old as cinema itself, and while it's a cliche today, it remains effective because it places a ceiling on the action in the best possible way.

Which movie cliches are you most in love with? Shout them out in the comments!