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Monologuing, a.k.a. Plot Exposition. This is where a villain feels compelled to disclose plans in detail to the hero, or to make a lengthy speech to the hero. Any plans that the villain discloses will invariably be of use to the hero, and time that the villain spends yakking is time that the...

How could I forget this one … disposition of the hero. This applies largely to spy movies, and comic book movies, where a villain has imprisoned the hero and wishes to kill him or her. E.g., Mr. Goldfinger has been lucky enough to capture Mr. Bond, and to strap him to a sturdy metal table...

The scene in one of the Evil Dead movies where a disembodied hand gives its former owner "the finger".

Perhaps there is a shortage of actors and stunt doubles willing to have their heads rotated enough to actually cause paralysis or death. "What do you mean, this is going to be the most realistic death scene I've ever portrayed, whether I realize it or not?" ;)

Cops or criminals pulling over to use pay phones. These days, to find a pay phone, you'd need to go to a museum …

Villains often make their Evil Lairs very easy to destroy. For example, an "invulnerable" Death Star capable of blowing up a planet will be completely vulnerable to a single hit on an obscure chute. A Bond villain style lair might have a centrally-located Big Red Button. In the first Captain...

On police chase shows, suspects will try to get away from cops by engaging in high-speed, reckless, and often hit-and-run driving. Eventually a suspect will crash. Now, capture has become virtually inevitable. But does the suspect realize this and give up? Of course not. He flees on foot...

Animals speaking to each other, in English, whenever humans are not around.

In a non-superhero TV show or movie, aliens who come to Earth will: 1. Try to do something very nefarious, such as killing or enslaving everyone, 2. Act benignly and get persecuted by heavily-armed black-ops types, or 3. Become the stars of TV sitcoms

White-hat hackers break into computers in five minutes, even when the computers belong to the military or the NSA. The targeted agencies sometimes have alarms telling them that an incursion is in progress, but rarely have controls to instantly lock down their network connections and cut off the...

Superman breaks in on a group of mobsters or bank robbers. They immediately try to machine gun him to death. Even though any criminal who has more than an ounce of brains, and wasn't born last night, should know that this is an exercise in futility.

The Evil Overlord list has rules reflecting a number of tropes: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html "One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation."

How about movies and TV shows where people fire guns endlessly with no attention paid to reloading. ("Reloading? What's that? New bullets will 'magically' appear!")

There's Roger Ebert's "idiot plot" – as in, "if the characters weren't all idiots, there wouldn't be a plot." This is seen in movies where a serial killer is hunting teenagers. Eventually the teenagers take shelter in a house. They can board up doors and windows; find weapons; protect each...