Captain America: The Winter Soldier (film)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a 2014 movie which is the second addition in the Captain America trilogy and a sequel to Captain America the First Avenger and the ninth film in theFranchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse. It is directed by Joseph and Anthony Russo and is a film that shook the Marvel Cinematic Universe down to its core.

Set after the events of Film/, Steve Rogers is still struggling to adjust to the new times, working with S.H.I.E.L.D. to battle new global threats as Captain America. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury gets assassinated by the mysterious metal-armed assassin known as Winter Soldier, and Steve finds that are even severe dangers within, and goes on the run to discover the truth with Black Widow in tow

Stars Chris Evans as Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, SebastianStan as the Winter Soldier, AnthonyMackie as Sam Wilson, Scarlett Johansson as BlackWidow, Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Frank Grillo as Agent Brock Rumlow, and Georges St-Pierre as Batroc the Leaper.

It was followed by Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron, which wraps up the last few plot threads, along with a direct sequel, Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar, which also serves as a crossover with Iron Man, Black Panther, Spider-Man, and other superheroes.

!!This movie provides examples of:

A to C
--->Steve Rogers: Before we get started... LeaveNoSurvivors does anyone want to get out? --->Natasha Romanoff: You're not going to put me in a prison. You're not going to put any of us in a prison. You know why? Because you need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place and yes, we helped make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it. %% %% BiggerBad has been renamed GreaterScopeVillain. %% --->Natasha: You do anything fun Saturday night?\\ Steve: Well, all the guys in my barbershop quartet are dead, DeadpanSnarker so, no, not really. %%* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Sharon Carter, Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff, in that order. -->Onboard Computer: Warning: Window integrity compromised.\\ Nick Fury: You think?! --->Computer: Communication system damaged.\\ Fury: Well, what isn't damaged?!\\ Computer: Air conditioning is fully operational. /folder
 * AbsurdlySharpBlade: Winter Soldier's knife cuts through the side of a van. Then again, it could be more due to his cybernetic arm providing the necessary force that the knife's sharpness alone.
 * ActionGirl: Sharon Carter, Maria Hill, and Black Widow in increasing order
 * ActOfTrueLove: Steve stops fighting {{spoiler|the Winter Soldier]] at the end of the climatic battle, after saving everyone else from dangers knowing very well he might kill him, but he refuses to act the same way.
 * AdaptedOut:
 * Aleksander Lukin, the original BigBad behind the Winter Soldier's modern-day actions. His mentor Vasily Karpov, who was responsible for the creation of the Soldier, is ignored as well. They are replaced by other characters of the film. spoiler:Alexander Pierce for the former, resulting in CompositeCharacter, and Arnim Zola for the latter.
 * Much of the Winter Soldier's background, such as his romantic and professional relationship with Black Widow, spoiler:and in fact almost all of his Russian ties, is cut out, possibly to make him even scarier and more mysterious.
 * AdaptationalCurves: MCU Jack Rollins is much more muscular and physically imposing than his comic book counterpart.
 * AdaptationalDyeJob: In the comics, Jack Rollins is blond, as is Sitwell, who is bald in the MCU.
 * AdaptationalVillainy: spoiler:Alexander Pierce, Jasper Sitwell, and Jack Rollins work for HYDRA whereas in the comics they are loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
 * AdaptationDeviation: The STRIKE (Special Tactical Reserve for International Key Emergencies) in this movie is completely different from the comic book STRIKE. The STRIKE in comic books was the British equivalent of S.H.IE.L.D., while the STRIKE in this movie was more like S.H.I.E.L.D. SWAT, being a S.H.I.E.L.D. division responsible for things like hostage rescue and target capture.
 * AdaptationDistillation: Like the other MCU films, The Winter Soldier blends elements from various sources and continuities.
 * The basic plot is inspired by Creator/EdBrubaker's ComicBook/CaptainAmericaWinterSoldier, while elements from the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel universe (especially Creator/MarkMillar's ComicBook/TheUltimates 2) can be seen as well.
 * The Triskelion from The Ultimates makes an appearance.
 * Falcon's costume is based on his Ultimate design.
 * The idea of Sam Wilson being a former Air Force officer and having the name "Falcon" be a reference to his military service comes from the short-lived ComicBook/HeroesReborn continuity.
 * spoiler:The dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. due to its internal corruption by an outside force combines the effect the Skrull invasion had on the organisation in ComicBook/SecretInvasion with the premise of ComicBook/SecretWarriors that S.H.I.E.L.D. had also been infiltrated and manipulated by HYDRA pretty much since its origins. The basic premise of Cap fighting against fascist infiltrators within the United States government also harkens back to the famous Secret Empire arc.
 * spoiler:The idea of S.H.I.E.L.D. being infiltrated and taken over by HYDRA could also be from Creator/WarrenEllis' original plot for ComicBook/{{Nextwave}}.
 * It also draws heavily on the Nick Fury vs S.H.I.E.L.D. miniseries from 1988.
 * The idea of S.H.I.E.L.D using its considerable resources to police the world was also a major theme in The Ultimates 2.
 * AdaptationOriginConnection: Minor example, but Brock Rumlow is introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and ally of Captain America.
 * AdoptTheDog: spoiler:The [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness World Security Council.]] After spending their prior appearances being obstructive, unfriendly and just plain ambiguous, they show their true colors when spoiler:Alexander Pierce is revealed to be with HYDRA. They immediately denounce him and attempt to help Fury and Romanov take him down. spoiler:Not that it helps them much, as [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Pierce anticipated this move.]]
 * AdvertisedExtra: The eponymous Winter Soldier is actually a relatively minor character altogether. He's TheDragon to spoiler:Pierce, who steals the spotlight with his HYDRA shenanigans.
 * AffablyEvil: spoiler:Alexander Pierce and Agent Sitwell are polite and friendly HYDRA agents.
 * AirborneAircraftCarrier: S.H.I.E.L.D. is preparing to launch three new Helicarriers, with repulsor tech developed by Tony Stark, and bristling with long-range weaponry that can accurately take out thousands of individuals simultaneously from thousands of feet in the air. spoiler:By the end of the movie, all three are dropped on the Triskelion and the Helicarrier dry dock.
 * AllThereInTheManual: A few plot twists are rather anti-climactic for comic book fans.
 * When Cap gives orders to spoiler:Rumlow in the first scene, devout comic book fans will know that name belongs to the Red Skull's TheDragon dragon Crossbones.
 * The fact that Winter Soldier is spoiler:Bucky Barnes isn't a surprise to most Marvel fans. In fact, this twist was played out in the cartoon series WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes second season, and some promotional media for the movie spoil the reveal outright.
 * Heck, everyone who happens to see the cast list knows who is the Winter Soldier. By the time the final week rolled around before the movie was going to be released domestically, they didn't even bother trying to hide it anymore.
 * Though Natasha mentions that Agent 13's real first name is Sharon, her full name Sharon Carter is only known to those familiar with the comic books, who also know that she is related to Peggy Carter, which is never indicated on screen.
 * AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: Thanks to the MemeticMutation meme in which people caption images of a person whispering into another person's ear with spoiler:"Hail HYDRA", even people who haven't seen the movie know that HYDRA is the bad guys, and that's actually the TheReveal biggest reveal in the entire movie, if not the entire franchise.
 * AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: spoiler:HYDRA, after its defeat in WWII, was rebuilt. The difference this time was that HYDRA scientists, including Arnim Zola, were recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. and secretly corrupted S.H.I.E.L.D. to recreate HYDRA from within.
 * AlternateContinuity: The story line somewhat parallels the 1990 Captain America movie: spoiler:the Red Skull survived WWII and becomes leader of an international syndicate who caused both Kennedy assassinations and Martin Luther King to further their own agenda.
 * AmericaSavesTheDay: Captain America, that is.noteS.H.I.E.L.D. is not America. It's an international organization, although it grew out of an American organization. Also, one of its founders was British. /note
 * AnachronisticClue: When Natasha and Steve are investigating the old S.H.I.E.L.D. computer room, Natasha sees the modern USB hub amidst computer equipment that appears to be from the 1980s and earlier.
 * AncientConspiracy: As it turns out, much of the major geopolitical events that have happened since 1945 spoiler:were the result of HYDRA manipulating history such that the world would willingly submit to its promise of order under it. It almost succeeds.
 * AndStarring: "With Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury."
 * AndTheAdventureContinues: spoiler:Nick Fury goes underground to fight HYDRA, Steve and Sam resolve to track down Bucky and get to the bottom of the Winter Soldier project, Natasha disappears to build a new cover for herself, and Bucky goes off to discover his own identity.
 * AntagonistTitle: The Winter Soldier
 * AntiMutiny: spoiler:When the loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents attempt to stop the HYDRA infiltrators from carrying out their mission, lots of shooting goes on.
 * ArcWelding: With the Film/IronMan films -- spoiler:Howard and Maria Stark were killed by HYDRA, and Senator Stern (seen in Film/IronMan2 trying to get Tony Stark to hand over the Iron Man armor to the U.S. military) is a member of HYDRA.
 * ArcWords: "Captain's orders."
 * AnArmAndALeg: The Winter Soldier has a cybernetic left arm. We see a bloody stump from the Soldier's perspective.
 * ArrowCatch: Or Shield Catch -- the Winter Soldier catches Captain America's shield when thrown at him from behind.
 * ArtificialLimbs: Once again, the Winter Soldier's left arm. The film dodges FridgeLogic the question of how the arm stays moored to his body, as in the comics, he is an otherwise unaltered human with a cybernetic arm. spoiler:The experiments Zola conducted on Bucky in the [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger first film prior to his becoming the Winter Soldier eventually gave him SuperStrength physical SuperToughness attributes that match Cap's.]]
 * ArtisticLicenseGeography: The Potomac near the island is nowhere near wide enough to fit spoiler:the full length of a Helicarrier in reality.
 * ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Falcon can be a PJ, or an officer; he can't be both. They may have meant to say he was a Combat Rescue Officer (CRO) which is basically the officer version of the same.
 * ArtisticLicensePharmacology: spoiler:Nick Fury fakes his death with "tetrodotoxin d", claiming it lowers the heart rate to 1 beat per minute. Real tetrodotoxin has the opposite effect -- it's a stimulant and thus increases your heart rate (while also paralyzing your diaphragm, making you unable to breathe).
 * AttackReflector: Cap uses his shield to bounce bullets back at his attackers during the highway fight.
 * AwesomenessByAnalysis: Cap is able to tell the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the elevator are hostile by seeing subtle clues like excessive sweating and hands on their holsters.
 * AwfulTruth:
 * spoiler:HYDRA infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. [[EvilAllAlong at its very creation and has been waging WarForFunAndProfit with the ultimate goal of conning the world into voting against TheEvilsOfFreeWill, thus succeeding where Nazi Germany failed. Project Insight is simply the turning point; the tool with which they plan to eliminate all of their potential opponents in a single coordinated strike.]]
 * The Winter Soldier's true identity also counts as this spoiler:since he's truly Bucky Barnes.
 * BackFromTheDead:
 * spoiler:Bucky Barnes, who is revealed to have survived falling to his apparent death in The First Avenger.
 * spoiler:While Zola's physical body died, his mind was transferred into a massive array of old computers.
 * BadassBoast:
 * The captain does an incredibly low-key one in the elevator scene:
 * Then there's Black Widow at the senate hearings:
 * BadassGrandpa:
 * Despite Fury's age (never stated, but probably 50+; Samuel L. Jackson was 65 years old at the time of filming, for reference), he can kick ass, even while injured. Also, in a more literal example, Fury's grandfather was also a badass back in the day if his story is anything to go by.
 * Rogers acknowledges that he's a very old badass since ReallySevenHundredYearsOld technically, he's 95 years old. The same goes for spoiler:Bucky Barnes thanks to the cryogenic freezings.
 * Alexander Pierce, as Creator/RobertRedford plays the part while in his mid-70s.
 * BadassNormal: A lot of examples:
 * Batroc is able to go toe-to-toe with Cap despite not having a super-soldier serum in his veins. He still loses, but it is an admirable effort.
 * Both Black Widow and Falcon have brief fights against Winter Soldier and are the only non-powered humans to survive direct battles with him.
 * BadPresent: Zigzagged. Steve has trouble adjusting to the present, but he admits that there are a few good things about it such as better food, no polio, and the internet.
 * BaitAndSwitch: During the climax, at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, the female Council member spoiler:suddenly [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beats the living hell out of Pierce and his henchmen. Then it turns out she's Natasha wearing a wig and an electronic mask]].
 * BeautyIsNeverTarnished:
 * Played for laughs with Comicbook/BlackWidow. She shows Steve a bullet wound scar on her abdomen and says that she DistinguishingMark can't wear FemmeFataleSpy bikinis anymore GlamourFailure because of it. His reply? DeadpanSnarker "Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now."
 * Played with with Cap. The only times where Cap is visibly injured is when he was on the receiving end of a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown and gets a black eye. Then there was the scene just before it where Cap was successfully hit by the Winter Soldier's bullets. The reason this is played with is that, Cap is purposefully tanking those hits and every other time where he should be injured (including when he gets stabbed by Winter Soldier, which is the only injury that Cap doesn't tank on purpose) the wounds don't appear. Being The SuperSoldier, it is highly probable that Cap HealingFactor just healed the wounds between his fall to Potomac and his subsequent recovery. He has higher metabolism than normal, after all.
 * BeenThereShapedHistory: In the MCU, spoiler:the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, [[WesternTerrorists domestic terrorism and TheWarOnTerror were orchestrated by HYDRA to demonstrate TheEvilsOfFreeWill. EvilAllAlong The entire time, they've been hidden inside of S.H.I.E.L.D.]].
 * BigShutUp: The Winter Soldier gives one to Steve (along with a left hook) when Rogers tries to tell him who he really is.
 * BigBad: spoiler:Alexander Pierce is one of the leaders of HYDRA and the one pushing for Project Insight.
 * BigBadFriend: Anyone familiar with the source material would think that it was going to be spoiler:Bucky Barnes for Cap, NotHisSled but it's NotHisSled actually spoiler:Alexander Pierce for Nick Fury.
 * BigBrotherIsWatching:
 * Steve's home was filled with systems of surveillance from S.H.I.E.L.D, and the nice GirlNextDoor? She's an undercover agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well.
 * spoiler:Zola's algorithm and Project Insight. It uses things like your voting history, your bank records, your social media presence, and "your damn SAT scores" to predict if you're a threat and take action.
 * BigDamnHeroes: Several times over the course of the film, the most prominent of which is when spoiler:Maria Hill saves Falcon, Cap, and Black Widow from being executed and buried in a shallow grave the way spoiler:Rumlow plans.
 * BilingualDialogue: When Steve fights Batroc, he briefly demonstrates a high level of idiomatic French. As one of his Howling Commandos from the first film was French, and that Steve served in France (among other countries), this makes sense.
 * BitchInSheepsClothing: spoiler:Alexander Pierce, Jasper Sitwell, Brock Rumlow, Jack Rollin, Senator Stern, any HYDRA operative working as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
 * BittersweetEnding: spoiler:Project Insight is stopped, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is dissolved due to HYDRA's internal corruption of the organisation coming to light; Nick Fury continues to fake his death following every S.H.I.E.L.D. secret being leaked onto the internet, and goes underground to combat HYDRA. Black Widow's past is out in the open, but she faces no charges for her past crimes and goes away to form a new identity. The Winter Soldier saves Cap from drowning, but remains amnesiac and begins looking to find out the answers to his former life as Bucky Barnes, with Cap and Falcon setting out to track him down.
 * BlackBugRoom: From the looks of his horrific flashback, the inside of the title character's mind is this at least some of the time.
 * BlackComedy:
 * Steve tends to indulge in some dark snarking whenever Natasha tries to get him to think about something other than work.
 * Natasha casually talks about Steve's love life after throwing spoiler:Sitwell from high altitude.
 * BlackGuyDiesFirst: spoiler:Fury is the first to get shot by the Winter Soldier. spoiler:Subverted when he's revealed to be FakingTheDead.
 * BlockingStopsAllDamage:
 * It's justified by Cap having a {{Unobtainium}} Vibranium shield in addition to being a SuperSoldier. Without the shield, he blocks the Winter Soldier's metal arm with no signs of lasting damage, and at one point with the shield, he literally blocks the ground to survive falling from about 20 stories!
 * Subverted when Cap uses the shield to block a grenade explosion. The impact still launches both Cap and his shield off of a bridge and into a bus -- an impact that knocks Cap out for a minute or two. Though he's fine after that.
 * BlueAndOrangeMorality: It's somewhat difficult to put a finger on exactly how The Winter Soldier thinks with regards to morality, but "blue and orange" is the best way. He's not so much a person as he is a weapon with a human body and brain -- almost all traces of humanity have been destroyed by HYDRA's brain wipes. He thinks only in the context of completing his assigned mission (like a machine programmed to do a task), so the idea that what he's doing is wrong might not ever cross his mind. spoiler:Alexander Pierce does tell him that his work has been "a gift to mankind," so if he does have anything resembling a moral conscience, ObliviouslyEvil it might be telling him that he's actually doing the right thing.
 * BondOneLiner: After Cap's team rescues Sitwell and a group of hostages from the hijackers, Sitwell quips, "I told you; S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't negotiate."
 * BookEnds:
 * Cap jumps into the sea at the film's start as part of a rescue operation, a confident man with a plan. In the final fight, spoiler:he falls into the Potomac from a destroyed Helicarrier, battered and nearly dead. S.H.I.E.L.D. is destroyed, and everything he fought for is put into question. However, it is a familiar friend who saves him in this time of need -- Bucky.
 * Steve repeatedly tells Sam "On your left," while running laps past him. At the end, Steve says the same thing while spoiler:lying in a bed to the left of Sam. Also, the Music/MarvinGaye song "Trouble Man", that Sam recommended, is playing over the ending montage.
 * Steve's first and last (not counting the part after where he doesn't fight back) fights in the movie end with him putting his opponent in a ChokeHolds sleeper hold.
 * Also, in Steve's first major confrontation, against spoiler:Batroc, he intentionally drops his shield and then takes off his mask. In his last major confrontation, against spoiler:Bucky, he takes off his mask and then drops his shield. In both situations, he is doing so in order to prove that he is more than just the shield.
 * Natasha starts and ends the movie trying to find Steve a date.
 * BottomlessMagazines: Shows up a lot, but is notably averted at one point when the Winter Soldier pulls out a Skorpion submachine gun and holds down the trigger. It is empty in under two seconds. He then tosses it away.
 * BoxedCrook: Zola was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. along with other Nazi scientists. spoiler:They used this opportunity to rebuild HYDRA.
 * BusFullOfInnocents: Cap is blasted through a bus during the freeway battle. The occupants escape just before HYDRA agents fire on it. Earlier, a HYDRA assassin shows his callous disregard for innocent bystanders by shooting through a bus at Nick Fury.
 * BrainUploading: spoiler:Dr. Zola uses this method to survive into the present day and continue aiding HYDRA.
 * BrainwashedAndCrazy: This is the method that spoiler:Pierce uses to keep the Winter Soldier in line.
 * BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: spoiler:Steve eventually switches into his WWII Cap suit, after recovering it from the Air and Space Museum. Creator/StanLee gets to be the security guard who realizes that he's going to get fired for it.
 * BrickJoke:
 * At the start of the movie, Steve is seen lapping Sam constantly as they both run around the Reflecting Pool, with the former calling out "On your left!" as he passes the latter each time. spoiler:Steve repeats this line when he regains consciousness at the film's end, with Sam standing vigil on the right side of his hospital bed.
 * Sam recommends that Steve take up "Ultimate Fighting". Later Cap uses a textbook rear naked choke (a common [=MMA=] maneuver) against Winter Soldier.
 * In the same scene, Sam recommends the "Trouble Man" soundtrack to Steve. spoiler:Sam has the soundtrack playing while Steve recovers.
 * Natasha suggesting potential dates to Steve in the middle of missions.
 * BridalCarry: Steve to an unconscious Natasha.
 * TheBrute: spoiler:Brock Rumlow serves as the muscle to the BigBad. Likewise, spoiler:Jack Rollins serves as Rumlow's own.
 * CaliforniaDoubling: Cleveland doubles for UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC You see a lot of Cleveland landmarks during the police chase that Fury is lured into early in the movie (even a directional sign for US 6 appears). Furthermore, there are a lot of tall skyscrapers seen during the police chase and in other parts of the movie. You will never find such buildings in real Washington, D.C. because the Height of Buildings Act of 1910 prevents any building in D.C. from being any higher than 20 feet more than the width of the street that said building sits on. The buildings seen in the chases are much too tall for this city to actually be Washington, D.C.
 * CallBack:
 * In the first movie, Steve tells the recruiter how his parents died. A flashback from this one picks up after his mother's funeral, he mentions she's buried, "... next to Dad."
 * Midway through Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}, Steve discovered HYDRA tech on the original Helicarrier. spoiler:That plot thread goes [[TheConspiracy much EvilAllAlong further than anyone at the time could have guessed.]]
 * The events of Film/{{The Avengers|2012}} (namely Loki's arrival and the Chitauri invasion of New York) are used as the major justification for why S.H.I.E.L.D. has extended its influence and now takes a much harsher stance against threats.
 * TheCameo:
 * Senator Stern from Film/IronMan2 shows up again spoiler:this time as revealed as a member of HYDRA. During his conversation with Agent Sitwell, he even compliments the pin on the latter's lapel, reminding us of something he's forced to do at the end of that film.
 * Peggy Carter shows up in three scenes, once in the present, once in stock footage, once as a portrait displayed in the first S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker.
 * We see pictures and stock footage of the Howling Commandos, Howard Stark, and General Phillips from the first film.
 * Arnim Zola and a picture of ComicBook/RedSkull (before and after he took the serum) appear in a scene.
 * Creator/StanLee shows up as a security guard at the Air and Space Museum spoiler:right after Steve steals his WWII Captain America duds from there.
 * Danny Pudi of {{Series/Community}} fame plays a S.H.I.E.L.D. technician in a brief scene spoiler:wherein he is held at gunpoint by Sam and Maria.
 * Creator/EdBrubaker, who originally created the Winter Soldier in the comics, pops up as a nameless scientist.
 * spoiler:When HYDRA begins Project Insight, one of the crosshairs their satellites focus on is Stark Tower.
 * Series/{{CSINY}} Gary Film/ForrestGump Sinise does the voiceover at Cap's Smithsonian exhibit.
 * spoiler:Baron von Strucker, ComicBook/ScarletWitch and ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} all appeared in TheStinger.
 * Creator/JossWhedon has cameo as a visitor in Smithsonian.
 * CanonDiscontinuity: spoiler:Baron von Strucker being a modern times character seems to rule his appearance as a WWII-era HYDRA leader in the video game Captain America: Super Soldier non-canonical. Also, Steve is shown to have recently lost his mother while both are adults, with Bucky's parents mentioned as still being alive. This seems to rule the tie-in comic to the first film, Captain America: First Vengeance (where Steve and Bucky meet as orphans 6 years after Steve's mother's death), non-canonical.
 * CaptainGeographic: Starring the TropeNamer, CAPTAIN AMERICA!
 * CaptainObvious: When the police ambush Fury's car, they first attempt to get past his car's defenses by shooting up the windows, riddling the windows with bullets. When that fails, the SWAT team deploys their tripod-mounted pneumatic battering ram and sets it up.
 * CarFu: Nick Fury gives a master class with how he exploits traffic and road signs to defeat his would-be assassins.
 * CasualDangerDialogue:
 * The [=AI=] in Fury's car is naturally calm, since it's a computer, but the contrast with the situation is hilarious.
 * Being in the middle of dangerous missions doesn't stop Natasha from suggesting girls for Steve to ask out, to the point of it being a RunningGag, including when performing HighAltitudeInterrogation on spoiler:Sitwell.
 * Maria Hill also does this when she's operating the radio, casually pushing her chair back from the table, firing a couple of times, then pulling the chair back again, all without interrupting her dialogue at all.
 * CatchAndReturn: Winter Soldier catches Cap's shield and tosses it back at him.
 * CelebrityParadox:
 * According to Steve's notebook, both Franchise/StarTrek and Franchise/StarWars exist in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, implying Film/{{Thor}}'s actor Creator/ChrisHemsworthnotewho appears for a few minutes as Captain Kirk's father in the beginning of Film/StarTrek/note and Jane Foster's actress Creator/NataliePortmannotewho plays Padm&eacute; Amidala in the prequel trilogy/note both exist in this universe, too. Then there's Creator/SamuelLJackson, a.k.a. Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequels. Presumably a lot of people commented on the resemblance Nick Fury has to Master Windu, which explains why spoiler:Fury quotes [[Film/PulpFiction Ezekiel 25:17 on his fake gravestone]].
 * The makers of WebVideo/HonestTrailers [ask]noteStart at 5:08/note WordOfGod the Russo Brothers, "In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is it just a coincidence that Mace Windu looks like Nick Fury, or is it like in Film/LastActionHero where Sylvester Stallone plays all the Arnold Schwarzenegger parts?"noteStallone appears on a Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay poster in Last Action Hero/note Anthony Russo ShrugOfGod simply responds, "I'm getting a headache."
 * Also with Creator/BenedictCumberbatch, who will be the MCU's Doctor Strange, and who was also part of Star Trek. The UK version comes with another paradox; the list also includes Series/{{Sherlock}}, one of Cumberbatch's more signature roles. In addition, his costar Creator/MartinFreeman has a role in Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Civil War.
 * Steve has a copy of Film/AllThePresidentsMen on his bookshelf. The film adaptation of the book stars Creator/RobertRedford (who plays Alexander Pierce) as Bob Woodward. At one point Pierce even stares out of his office window at the Watergate complex.
 * Pierce has a bottle of Newman's Own spaghetti sauce in his fridge, named for the late Creator/PaulNewman. Robert Redford costarred with Newman in Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid and Film/TheSting.
 * CerebusRetcon:
 * Gives a minor one to Film/IronMan2 with the revelation that spoiler:Senator Stern is an agent of HYDRA, since this implies that the real reason he was after the Iron Man suits was so that HYDRA could make their own. And makes Tony's humiliation of Senator Stern at that hearing much more awesome once you realize he trolled a HYDRA agent on international television.
 * Another comes with spoiler:Agent Sitwell, who was a really minor character in the movies and a close friend to Coulson in the few S.H.I.E.L.D. shorts (and was a protagonist in one of them, and also appeared in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), turns out to also be a HYDRA agent. Damn. We almost liked that guy too.
 * In Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger spoiler:HYDRA's catchphrase of "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place" was largely treated as a joke. This movie shows that it was far from it and more true than anyone would have ever guessed after they have all but spoiler:taken over S.H.I.E.L.D.. Also, the whole business with how they captured Arnim Zola and he supposedly caved under Col. Phillips. spoiler:Zola did it all just to use S.H.I.E.L.D. to further HYDRA's agenda.
 * ChekhovsGun:
 * Fury's laser cutter spoiler:that he used to escape the Winter Soldier has a role later on in the hands of spoiler:Maria Hill, who uses it to save Natasha, Cap, and Falcon from their then-certain death.
 * The shock disc device Natasha used to temporarily disable the Winter Soldier in the highway confrontation spoiler:is used once again by her on herself to short out Pierce's leverage on her, allowing Fury to grab a gun and shoot Pierce. (These discs were previously used in Film/IronMan2.)
 * The holographic display technology that Pierce uses to communicate with the World Security Council establishes that technology exists to present an image of a person who isn't really there. spoiler:Natasha uses this technology to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. disguised as one of those Council members, and in the same room no less.
 * If the leaked concept art as well as a few trailers hadn't revealed it earlier, then Cap's Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger WWII uniform, which spoiler:Steve dons at the climax of the movie, being prominently displayed at the Smithsonian exhibition certainly would count.
 * The biographical information on Bucky Barnes at the Smithsonian's Captain America exhibit. spoiler:At the end of the movie, after Bucky goes WalkingTheEarth trying to learn about his past life, he sneaks into the Smithsonian and begins reading it.
 * Throughout the climax Pierce keeps checking his cell phone. spoiler:It turns out to have a program on it to kill the WSC members wearing the access badges they didn't know were dangerous.
 * Fury's EyepatchOfPower spoiler:is covering his intact but blind eye, which has a back-up alpha-level access in case his default was deleted.
 * ChainsawGripBFG:
 * One of the gunmen in the highway ambush uses a minigun with this setup.
 * Some of the spring-loaded launchers in the toyline have this prominent feature.
 * ChangingClothesIsAFreeAction: During the climax, Black Widow manages to go from spoiler:a modest business outfit into her usual SpyCatsuit after a scene transition, even though she and her associates are rushing to board a rescue chopper during the same cutaway and probably couldn't take the extra time to let her run to her locker and change. She's just that good, folks.
 * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Although the character is expected to return in later movies, the absence of Hawkeye here is glaring, given the circumstances. According to DVD commentary, the character was originally to have been shown pursuing Steve, [but this was cut due to Jeremy Renner being unable to fit it in his schedule].
 * ClarkKenting:
 * At the Smithsonian Steve hides his identity by wearing a big jacket and a baseball cap. Only one awestruck kid recognizes him, but is convinced to keep it secret.
 * Steve uses this again when he's on the run, wearing a hoodie and thick-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. An Apple employee gives him a querying stare, but it turns out he just recognized that they own the same kind of glasses.
 * Natasha just relies on a hoodie. She shows her experience with this trope by giving advice to Steve on how to remain nondescript, including not running and pretending to be conversing (FakeOutMakeOut and kissing).
 * In the second end-credits stringer, spoiler:Winter Soldier/Bucky visits the Smithsonian disguised, wearing a jacket to cover his metal arm.
 * ClassifiedInformation: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system of clearance levels appears again. Steve's a little unhappy with how Nick Fury continues to hide information from him.
 * ClipItsWings: The Winter Soldier rips one of the wings off Sam's Falcon flight suit during the climax.
 * CoDragons: spoiler:Rumlow and the Winter Soldier serve as this to the BigBad.
 * ColdSniper: When Winter Soldier isn't a OneManArmy, he's this because his target is always singular and he rarely has to get up close and personal to kill them.
 * CombatPragmatist:
 * Throughout the entire movie, Winter Soldier prefers efficiency over showiness, though he will bust out some martial arts moves on occasion. As an assassin trained specifically to eliminate his target quickly and entirely, he will take the simplest and fastest approach possible.
 * spoiler:Alexander Pierce is this as well, taking careful measures to make everything go smoothly.
 * ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames:
 * Crossbones and Batroc the Leaper are referred to by their civilian names. The former instance is probably to a purpose -- spoiler:Brock Rumlow is shown at the end of the movie as having (barely) survived the collision of the Helicarrier into the Triskelion, albeit with horrific burns all over his body, hinting at his return in a future installment. He may explicitly bear the codename "Crossbones" when he returns.
 * Black Widow is only referred to as such once. Throughout the rest of the movie people refer to her as "Natasha" or "Romanoff".
 * Averted with the Falcon -- Maria Hill outright refers to him by his codename in the climactic battle. Falcon is also the codename for the flight-harness operation he was involved in.
 * Naturally averted frequently with Cap. Lots of people refer to Steve by his codename.
 * The Winter Soldier is called that because no one knows what else to call him.
 * Also averted for the absent Red Skull. When he's mentioned, he's openly referenced as Red Skull, not as Johann Schmidt (the trope was in full force for him in the first film).
 * Inverted: Sharon Carter is referred to as Agent 13 in all but the movie's last scene; even then, only her first name is revealed.
 * CommieNazis: The Winter Soldier wears the Soviet red star, and uses Soviet ammo spoiler:but was created and works for HYDRA, a splinter Nazi faction. This is an homage to the comics, where the Winter Soldier was a Russian assassin.
 * CompositeCharacter: spoiler:Alexander Pierce [[AdaptationDeviation has almost nothing in common with his comic book counterpart, and instead has much more in common with Aleksander Lukin, the original mastermind behind the Winter Soldier plot in the comics, and Dell Rusk, the Red Skull's cover identity from GeoffJohns Avengers run.]]
 * ComputerEqualsMonitor: {{Subverted|Trope}} when Steve smashes the screen of the monitor that spoiler:Arnim Zola is using to address him -- spoiler:Zola simply switches to another monitor with a snarky "As I was saying..."
 * ComputerEqualsTapeDrive: The aforementioned computer also features this function. {{Justified|Trope}} as the equipment dates back to the early 70s.
 * ConcealmentEqualsCover: Averted. The walls of Steve's apartment do nothing to stop the Winter Soldier's bullets from shooting spoiler:Nick Fury. Bullets come right through the undercarriage of a tipped-over bus that Steve runs through during one highway firefight.
 * ConservationOfNinjutsu: Applied to nearly every fight that either Cap or the Winter Soldier are in. The battles against multiple opponents are easy, while the ones against a single opponent are much harder, especially when the two face off against each other. This is justified in that both Cap and the Winter Soldier are the only characters in the entire movie that are physically enhanced -- the rest of the cast rely on weaponry and pure physical skill.
 * ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination:
 * The initial assassination attempt that HYDRA carries out on Nick Fury's life has the subtlety of a Creator/MichaelBay movie. It involves, in order:
 * 1) Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers wall in Fury's SUV with squad cars, and
 * 2) open fire with submachine guns. They succeed at riddling the windows with bullets.
 * 3) Failing that, the SWAT team grabs a hydraulic battering ram from their van and uses it to pound the driver's side window until the armor on it gives way. Fury gets a minigun in time to kill most of the cops.
 * 4) Then as Fury makes his escape, after successfully tricking the police cars that did manage to chase him into getting t-boned by a box truck, the Winter Soldier launches a smart mine at him to flip the SUV over.
 * Averted with spoiler:the second, more successful attempt, which is simply the Winter Soldier sniping Fury thrice through a wall and vanishing into the night.
 * Later on spoiler:Steve, Black Widow, and Sam are attacked on the highway. Their assassination attempt involves Winter Soldier jumping on top of their car and ripping out its steering wheel, being rammed from behind by a Hummer, and then MoreDakka being unloaded upon with assault rifles, grenades, and a minigun. RealityEnsues when the ruckus attracts news copters, forcing spoiler:Rumlow to postpone any actual execution of spoiler:Steve and his allies.
 * ContinuityNod:
 * Steve still has trouble controlling his momentum when chasing someone. This time, he's leaving dents in the walls with his shield.
 * When Natasha makes a reference to Film/WarGames, Steve quickly assures her that he understands the reference, referencing his "I understood that reference" joke from Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}.
 * In a rare preemptive example, an episode of Series/AgentsOfSHIELD name-dropped the Triskelion well ahead of the movie's release. In addition, "Level Eight" access being a minor plot point was introduced in the first season.
 * Agent Sitwell is seen on the Lemurian Star. Episode 16 of Series/AgentsOfSHIELD has him be called away to board the ship part-way through the episode.
 * The Falcon's flight gear sports a Film/IronMan Stark Industries logo.
 * Peggy Carter and Howard Stark are shown to have been the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., as established in the Film/AgentCarter Film/MarvelOneShots one-shot.
 * Pierce brings up Fury's association with Iron Man (Film/IronMan1, Film/IronMan2, Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}) while asking if Fury could get the hero to appear at his niece's birthday party.
 * This HYDRA faction targets Film/IronMan3 President Matthew Ellis, among many others, as part of Project INSIGHT. He's also given a quote in Cap's Smithsonian exhibit.
 * It's mentioned that Tony Stark oversaw the creation of the repulsor engines on the new Helicarriers after getting a "close look" at the old version -- referring to the incident where he got stuck in one of the turbines during Loki's attack on the Helicarrier during The Avengers.
 * "Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk Banner's condition" is brought up once.
 * spoiler:The newly rebuilt Stark Tower, now dubbed "Avengers Tower", is seen as one of the targets of Project Insight.
 * The Stinger reveals 2012}}'' in his possession.
 * The plasma cutter spoiler:that Fury uses to escape from his ruined car into the sewer/metro has the same blue beam as the one used to access the plane buried in the ice in the previous movie. The episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that aired directly after the film's release revealed that they were invented by Fitz.
 * ContinuityOverlap: The events of the movie have large repercussions for Series/AgentsOfSHIELD (the two episodes that aired before and after the US release of the film are literally set within the film's timeline), far more so than Film/IronMan3 or Film/ThorTheDarkWorld previously did.
 * ContrivedCoincidence: Steve makes friends with a random Air Force veteran on a jog... who turns out to be Sam Wilson, the former pararescueman with the equipment that allows him to become Comicbook/TheFalcon.
 * CoolCar:
 * Fury's armored SUV, complete with AI, a Gatling gun, and med-kit. FlyingCar Flight capability is also mentioned.
 * Black Widow has a Corvette, too.
 * CoolPlane: S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjets, complete with gun turrets, cluster bombs, and the ability to hover, are featured quite a bit.
 * CosmopolitanCouncil: The World Security Council consists of an American man, a British woman, an Indian man, and an unidentified East Asian man. None of them wear ethnic costumes.
 * CrazyPrepared:
 * Who but Nick Fury would think to have spoiler:the retina scan from his blind eye encoded into the S.H.I.E.L.D. security system, in case his regular security access was ever deleted by a hostile force? There's also his plan to spoiler:[[FakingTheDead fake his own death, correctly assuming that no-one would bother wasting time or resources spying on a dead man, as well as ensuring that he doesn't have to worry about any more assassins being sent after him]].
 * When Cap is attacked in the elevator, three groups enter to make sure he's outnumbered, they're armed with tasers and magnetic handcuffs that even he has trouble prying off the walls, and spoiler:Sitwell sends additional backup before the fight is even over. After he's won and cuts the elevator cables for a quick escape, he finds that more backup is already moving on the floor the elevator stops at. No one but the "greatest soldier in history" could survive that.
 * CreativeClosingCredits: The monochrome, symbolism-packed closing credits are reminiscent of the credits for a spy thriller such as one of the Franchise/JamesBond films.
 * CreatorCameo:
 * Creator/StanLee (of course) is an elderly security guard working at the Smithsonian.
 * Creator/EdBrubaker appears as a scientist attending to the Winter Soldier.
 * Joe Russo, one of the directors for the film, appears as the doctor that treats Natasha spoiler:and Nick Fury.
 * CriticalExistenceFailure: Nick Fury's bulletproof windows are presented as this; their integrity can be measured in percentage.
 * CruelAndUnusualDeath: The Winter Soldier pulls spoiler:Sitwell out of a moving vehicle and then throws him into the path of a passing truck that obliterates him. He also punts a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent into the engines of a moving Quinjet, causing it to explode. He RuleOfThree also shoots another agent in the neck, and the man gives a choking scream of pain.
 * CulturalTranslation: Captain America's "catch up" list. The list for the US audience includes Series/ILoveLucy, the UsefulNotes/BerlinWall, Creator/SteveJobs and Disco. The UK cut of the film changes those items to Series/{{Sherlock}}, Music/TheBeatles, the [World Cup final of 1966] and Creator/SeanConnery, Franchise/StarWars (Trek?), respectively. Other countries' versions can be seen [here].
 * CurbStompBattle: Nearly every fight that either Cap or the Winter Soldier are in, including those against multiple opponents. Fittingly, the only fights that avoid this are the ones where they are facing against each other.

folder:Tropes D to L -->Fury: Wanna see my lease? %%** {{Downplayed| Trope}} between spoiler:Pierce and Nick Fury, then Cap, and later the World Security Council. -->spoiler:Hill: Ugh, that helmet was squeezing my face. -->Steve: Before we get started, does anybody wanna get out? -->Natasha: Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable.\\ Steve: [uncomfortably] Yes, they do. %%* FreudianTrio: With Steve as TheKirk, Natasha as TheSpock, and Sam Wilson as TheMcCoy. -->Natasha: Bye-bye, bikinis.\\ Steve: SarcasmMode Yeah, I'm sure you look terrible in them now. --->spoiler:Pierce: Oh, Renata. I really wish you'd knocked. [shoots her] -->Captain America: MeaningfulEcho I'm with you to the end of the line. -->spoiler:Steve: I'm with you to the end of the line. /folder
 * DaChief: Both Fury and Pierce are this to S.H.I.E.L.D., but only Fury has the typical gruff and angry personality associated with the role. Pierce is grandfatherly in comparison.
 * DangerouslyGenreSavvy: spoiler:Zola {{exploit|edTrope}}s TalkingIsAFreeAction in order to spoiler:kill Natasha and Steve.
 * DareToBeBadass: Cap to the loyal operatives left in S.H.I.E.L.D. at the end of the film, which spoiler:delays the launch of Project Insight for a few precious seconds. If there was ever a time the world needed them, this is it.
 * DarkerAndEdgier: From an optimistic WWII TwoFistedTales Pulp-inspired adventure movie to a morally ambiguous modern espionage thriller, much like what happened to Cap's comic transitioning from the TheSixties to TheSeventies. This can even be seen through how Rogers uses his shield: in The First Avenger, he primarily uses it for defense; here, he gets much more creative with it offensively.
 * DarkestHour: Invoked by Cap. At the climax of the film spoiler:HYDRA has taken over S.H.I.E.L.D., and are moments away from TakingOverTheWorld along with killing everyone who could possibly resist. Cap tells everyone in the Triskelion that there are mere moments left before spoiler:HYDRA's victory is complete, and it's do-or-die time. Possibly the darkest hour humanity has had in the entire MCU saga thus far; the bad guys came that close to total victory. Considering Film/TheAvengers2012 a previous movie involved a large-scale alien invasion that very nearly saw New York obliterated, that's really saying something.
 * DarkIsNotEvil: Black Widow wears an all-black sneaking suit and Nick Fury is absolutely in love with the color black. Captain America himself also wears a less colorful version of his usual attire (including the paint on his shield), possibly because his mission at the start of the film relies somewhat on stealth.
 * DatelessGrave: spoiler:Nick Fury's tombstone has dates, but the later two digits of both his year of birth and year of death are obscured by flowers. We assume his death year is 2014, and his birth year is roughly 1948.
 * DayOfTheJackboot: The mission of Project INSIGHT spoiler:is to convince humanity at large to voluntarily submit to HYDRA in order to be safe in a chaotic world. To accomplish this, they infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D., stir up some chaos, and then offer the Gun-To-The-Head solution.
 * DeadpanSnarker: While many people get moments to shine, Steve and Natasha fight it out for first place.
 * DeathByAdaptation: spoiler:Alexander Pierce, who is killed by Fury.
 * ADeathInTheLimelight: The film does this to an entire organization. spoiler:This is the first feature-length film in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse to focus on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s practices and internal politics. The organization is disbanded at the end of the film due to internal corruption by HYDRA, with many of its personnel dead or missing.
 * DebateAndSwitch:
 * The story begins with conflicting views over terrorism and superhuman threats such as alien invasions, and the classic conflict between civil liberties and a strictly ordered society. Then it turns out that spoiler:most of those who supported the second option were actually HYDRA agents.
 * It is also carried over from Film/IronMan2. Senator Stern's speech at the Senate Subcommittee, in which he criticized Stark for privatizing a weapon of mass destruction, has a whole new light once it's revealed that spoiler:he's a HYDRA mole.
 * Is it good to trust allies, or not? The story is all over the place to the point where it's hard to tell where it falls on the issue. Cap almost quits S.H.I.E.L.D. due to a lack of trust both in how missions are completed and how Project Insight will operate in the future. After Fury spoiler:is shot, Cap withholds secrets and information from S.H.I.E.L.D., and he and Natasha have a discussion on trust being essential between friends and allies. In the end, spoiler:Natasha and Nick dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on the internet and Project Insight is stopped before HYDRA can control it, but the only way either was accomplished was because Nick Fury made a backdoor behind his superiors' backs.
 * DemotedToExtra: Sharon Carter is prominent throughout the Cap mythos, but gets less than four minutes of screentime.
 * {{Determinator}}:
 * Cap exhibits this on multiple occasions. He takes down ten {{mooks}} in an elevator single-handedly (literally, after one of his arms was pinned to the wall with a powerful magnetic restraint), and then jumps from the elevator, which had to be at least 20 stories high, crashes to the ground, winces for a few seconds, and then keeps running (spoiler:Jasper Sitwell, watching remotely, responds with a "YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe" look). He later gets thrown off a bridge, bounces off a windshield, and hurtles through the window of a Metrobus which then flips over, but still manages to continue fighting. The climax then has him suffering even worse, getting shot twice in the abdomen and a few times on the back, and at one point appearing to (almost) go into shock, but that doesn't stop him.
 * The Winter Soldier combines this trope with TheDreaded, utilizing all of his formidable skills in order to complete his mission.
 * {{Deuteragonist}}: Natasha, who becomes something of a NumberTwo to Steve throughout the film.
 * DiscOneFinalBoss: Batroc is the villain for the first twenty minutes or so of the movie.
 * DiscriminateAndSwitch: The cops that try to assassinate Fury pull up next to him and stare at him. Fury initially assumes they're racists who think he might've stolen the car.
 * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Given Film/{{The Avengers|2012}} was "supervillainous 9/11", this is the equivalent of the PATRIOT Act, plus the NSA SinisterSurveillance controversy starting from Edward Snowden's leaks of NSA documents in 2013. spoiler:Complete with [=WikiLeaks=], as Black Widow uploads S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA's databases online. Additionally, the Insight Helicarriers are essentially Predator drones on steroids.
 * DoNotAdjustYourSet: Audio-only example -- Steve broadcasts over the Triskelion that spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by HYDRA.
 * DontMakeMeDestroyYou: Cap to spoiler:Bucky at the end of the movie before the final battle. spoiler:After all, he doesn't want to be forced to kill his best friend.
 * TheDragon: spoiler:Pierce has two, the Winter Soldier and spoiler:Brock Rumlow. The first one is the heavy duty problem solver while the latter is more his daily hammer.
 * DramaticIrony: Perhaps an unintentional case, but even so, Marvel had already decided to roll with it. By the time the movie premiered, almost everyone knew that the Winter Soldier was spoiler:Bucky. The tension and drama surrounding his identity doesn't come from the audience not knowing, but from Steve not knowing.
 * TheDreaded: The Winter Soldier's reputation is such that even the Black Widow is obviously afraid of him. His first appearance in the film plays on this nicely -- while Fury is being chased and shot at by ImpersonatingAnOfficer phony cops, a tall, shadowy figure suddenly emerges, standing directly in the line of Fury's SUV. spoiler:He takes Fury and his vehicle down without breaking a sweat or so much as taking two steps.
 * DressingAsTheEnemy: Steve, Sam and Natasha have been captured and are in a van on the way to a private spot to be executed. One of the two guards with them -- wearing exactly the type of face-concealing helmet the Evil Overlord List recommends against -- turns out to be spoiler:Maria Hill, who proceeds to bust them out.
 * DroppedABridgeOnHim: spoiler:Agent Sitwell is taken out very quickly by the Winter Soldier as he was explaining the situation to the heroes.
 * DungeonBypass: Falcon tries to enter the second Helicarrier the hard way, but gets attacked by a Quinjet before he can land and get through the hatch. Rather than evade it and go back to the top of the ship, he {{Wronski Feint}}s its MacrossMissileMassacre into blasting a hole into the Helicarrier's underside, enabling him to fly in, place his targeting chip, and fly right back out again.
 * EarlyBirdCameo:
 * Agent Sitwell refers to ComicBook/DoctorStrange Stephen Strange by name when spoiler:listing people that HYDRA consider potential threats to their overall goals.
 * spoiler:ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} and ComicBook/ScarletWitch appear in TheStinger spoiler:as prisoners of HYDRA's new leader, Baron von Strucker.
 * ElevatorActionSequence: Cap defeats an entire squad of goons inside an elevator in one sequence, even getting in a good PreAsskickingOneLiner.
 * TheElevatorFromIpanema: {{Discussed|Trope}}. During a quiet elevator ride with Nick Fury, Cap comments that the elevators had music in his time.
 * ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The genesis of Sam's flight abilities is he was part of a USAF spec ops unit.
 * EmpoweredBadassNormal: spoiler:Bucky was already a badass in WWII, but whatever was done to him since allows him to fight Captain America to a standstill.
 * EpicFail: TheReveal that spoiler:HYDRA was responsible for UsefulNotes/NorthKorea is just utterly hilarious, because Zola implies that every failure the country has had is because spoiler:HYDRA told them to do it. And since North Korea is crazy personified, this theoretically means that if Kim Jong-Un painted a tunnel black and dubbed it a "coal mine," spoiler:HYDRA told him to do so.
 * EqualOpportunityEvil: This film and their subsequent appearances in later Marvel releases indicate that spoiler:HYDRA, despite its former Nazi ties has become a racially inclusive organization with people of all ethnicities among its ranks both as mooks and as named agents.
 * EstablishingCharacterMoment: WordOfGod [says]noteStart at 4:00/notethat Captain America's CurbStompBattle against everyone on Batroc's boat, including Batroc, was designed to demonstrate that Cap TookALevelInBadass since Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger and Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}.
 * EverybodyOwnsAFord: Well, a Chevrolet anyway. Cap himself only BadassBiker rides a Harley, but he and Natasha "borrow" a Chevy truck while on the run.
 * EvilAllAlong: spoiler:Agent Sitwell, Senator Stern and Alexander Pierce are all HYDRA moles -- and S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated by HYDRA since its very creation.
 * TheEvilsOfFreeWill: spoiler:HYDRA was created under the theory that people could not be trusted with their own free will, and so have made their plans to make the world so dangerous that people would willingly give it up in return for safety.
 * EvilGloating: A rare justified version where spoiler:Zola is mostly just distracting Steve and Natasha and playing for time until the missile strike hits them.
 * EvilWearsBlack: The Winter Soldier. His attire is all black, save for any exposed skin/hair, and his bionic left arm. When we see him for the first time, he's a grim-reaper-esque figure (especially against the backdrop of broad daylight) who spoiler:seemingly kills Nick Fury on a busy downtown street without a hint of remorse.
 * ExactWords: Sam, when asked about his friend Riley getting shot down, points out that he never said he and Riley were in planes.
 * ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow: Although his actor insists that it's actually "black camouflage war paint," the Winter Soldier still falls under this trope for his one scene wearing it. Could also be an extension of his general EvilWearsBlack black wardrobe.
 * ExtremityExtremist:
 * Batroc focuses primarily on kicks, though he is more than willing to throw a few punches. As well he might, because he is a master of Savate, a French kickboxing style (which, yes, does feature a few hand strikes).
 * The Winter Soldier tends to favor his cybernetic arm during melee combat, both offensively and defensively. He uses his right arm more for shooting.
 * EyeScream:
 * Nick Fury finally removes his eyepatch, and the camera opts for a closeup so the audience can see what his bad eye really looks like.
 * Averted for Winter Soldier, when he gets shot in the eye by Black Widow. He's saved by his bulletproof goggles, but the lens is now ruined, forcing him to throw them away. Later, it does happen when his handlers realize that spoiler:he's starting to remember Steve. The re-conditioning process to wipe his memory seems to involve a contraption wrapped around the Soldier's head, including a plating covering his left eye, leading to ElectricTorture.
 * FaceHeelTurn:
 * spoiler:Former good guy Bucky returns as the antagonistic Winter Soldier, albeit he's been forcibly brainwashed into villainy.
 * While spoiler:Zola was never a Face, he was more a ForScience PunchClockVillain, but spoiler:now he's gone and reconstructed HYDRA inside S.H.I.E.L.D., fully believing in its fascistic ideals.
 * spoiler:Alexander Pierce underwent one sometime before the movie, from a former diplomat who turned down a Nobel Peace Prize in the past, to a loyal HYDRA agent. [[UnreliableExpositor He claims that part of the reason was because he became disillusioned with how often diplomacy can fail, compared to how TheExtremistWasRight effective Nick Fury's IDidWhatIHadToDo methods at securing peace were, a mentality that HYDRA shared]].
 * FacelessGoons: The police officers that ambush Fury's car early in the movie. The regular patrol cops have peaked caps and SinisterShades sunglasses lowered over their eyes, while the SWAT officers have their helmets on and their goggles lowered.
 * FakeOutMakeout: At a mall, Steve and Natasha act like a couple several times as part of their cover and in order to throw off the people tailing them, which includes the mandatory kiss. At one point Steve is prepared for a fight while Natasha continues the couple act instead. While it may seem odd that they can throw off highly trained operatives by doing one of the oldest tricks, the way it is portrayed and discussed in the movie almost counts as a {{Reconstruction}}.
 * FakingTheDead: spoiler:Nick Fury fakes his death and takes S.H.I.E.L.D. underground.
 * FalseFlagOperation: This is the Winter Soldier's modus operandi. spoiler:The Soviet branding on [[ArtificialLimbs his arm and the old Russian ammo he uses are meant to disguise his allegiance to HYDRA. It's implied the assassinations HYDRA had him carry out in this guise are the cause of the tension between America and Russia during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar.]]
 * FemaleGaze:
 * There are a fair number of shots of Steve showing off his tight shirts and broad shoulders. MaleGaze While Natasha's behind gets some attention, only a few scenes later Steve is the one getting camera attention to his rear when he's talking to Fury.
 * The Winter Soldier's shirtless scene might count too, if it weren't in such NightmareFuel terrible circumstances.
 * FightingYourFriend: How Steve sees fighting spoiler:the Winter Soldier. The sentiment does not seem mutual spoiler:at first.
 * FireForgedFriends:
 * Steve initially doesn't trust Natasha, but after fighting alongside her for a while he comes to be able to trust her (when asked if he could trust her, he says "I could now"). Falcon also becomes this to Steve as rainwashedAndCrazy}}ucky to try to save him.
 * Steve and Sam get along quite well when they first meet, but once Sam gets roped into the action, the two become a close pair, with Sam even saying, "I do what he does. Only slower."
 * FirstNameBasis: Steve, Natasha, and Agent Hill all sometimes call Fury "Nick". When Natasha spoiler:electrically shocks herself to remove herself as Pierce's leverage so Fury can shoot him, Fury calls her "'Tasha."
 * FishOutOfTemporalWater: Rogers slowly tries to get out of this, with increasing success. He has a list of things to "catch-up" on, which seems to be working; he recognizes a Film/WarGames reference made by Natasha, and says that the internet has been very helpful. Other benefits he cites are no polio and better food ("We used to boil everything").
 * FiveBadBand:
 * BigBad: spoiler:Alexander Pierce as the leader of HYDRA and pushing Project Insight.
 * TheDragon: The Winter Soldier spoiler:as the chief enforcer of Pierce's EvilPlan.
 * EvilGenius: spoiler:Arnim Zola as a scientist who created the algorithm that finds and predicts HYDRA's enemies.
 * TheBrute: spoiler:Brock Rumlow as Pierce's second enforcer and leader of the STRIKE EliteMooks.
 * DarkChick: spoiler:Jasper Sitwell makes for a great patsy, like he did on the Lemurian Star. Doubles as NumberTwo for Pierce as the infiltrator with the topmost authority within S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * FlashbackWithTheOtherDarrin: The newspaper spoiler:Zola shows reporting Howard and Maria Stark's deaths uses a picture of Dominic Cooper as Howard, rather than John Slattery.
 * FlyingCar: Series/AgentsOfSHIELD Just like Lola, Fury's car is capable of this. Unfortunately, by the time he's in a position to make use of it, the police have shot up the car and damaged the flight system beyond usability. So he has to resort to CarFu instead.
 * {{Foil}}:
 * The Winter Soldier and Captain America, as fellow spoiler:OlderThanTheyLook UsefulNotes/WorldWarII super soldiers.
 * Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, as fellow agents (and Avengers) with issues adjusting to their current lives. Another contrast is that Nat is a spy who never sticks to one identity or cause for long, while Steve's a soldier whose personality and values haven't changed in 70 years; they have to reconcile those differences.
 * Natasha and Winter Soldier: spoiler:she's a former villain, now a hero, and he's a former hero, now a villain. They're also both closely associated with the Russians, and are presumably byproducts of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar.
 * ForceAndFinesse: Played with Captain America and the Winter Soldier respectively. Cap is the GeniusBruiser making clever use of his shield while the Winter Soldier is a blunt instrument that steamrolls most opponents with his great strength and heavy weaponry. And medium weaponry. WalkingArmory And any other weaponry that's hanging around. However, he's also really good at ambushing people.
 * ForegoneConclusion: For comic readers, the identity of the Winter Soldier.
 * TheForeignSubtitle: A strange example occurred with some of the Europe's releases, such as Finland, Sweden and Germany, where the movie was marketed as "Captain America: The Return of the First Avenger", but it wasn't translated in any way.
 * {{Foreshadowing}}:
 * A brief one with the line "I'm multitasking!" What starts as a joke about Black Widow being TheMatchmaker turns out to tie in with Black Widow's real mission aboard that ship.
 * "To build a better world sometimes means tearing the old one down." This is exactly what happens to spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. by the end of the movie. Also, Peggy telling Steve, "Sometimes the best that you can do is to start over." (see ItIsBeyondSaving below).
 * HYDRA's destruction at the end of the first film spoiler:and its subsequent covert rebirth is mirrored by spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D's downfall and the organization going underground to hunt down HYDRA.
 * On the merchandise side, one of the additional figures filling out both the Marvel Legends Winter Soldier line and the smaller Super-Soldier ones (second wave) is UsefulNotes/WW2-era Cap as he appears in First Avenger. spoiler:Technically, it DOES appear in this movie.
 * Natasha's very first line is a crack about the Smithsonian and "picking up a fossil". spoiler:See BreakOutTheMuseumPiece.
 * FreezeFrameBonus:
 * Steve's "catch up" list is only shown for about a second. Depending on what region you're watching the movie in, he has different items listed.
 * Numerous familiar places and names can be seen during the Insight targeting sequence, including a few non-MCU ones like the Fantastic Four.
 * When Steve enters the elevator after his meeting with Pierce, the curved apartment buildings framed in the view through the glass wall behind him are the Watergate complex. Which means there's an actor allusion hidden in there, since Pierce's actor Robert Redford portrayed Bob Woodward in Film/AllThePresidentsMen.
 * Just when the police car is about to ram Fury's car from the side, you can see the police car that's going to box Fury in from behind sitting in the background.
 * According to the Smithsonian exhibit, Bucky is a year or two older than Steve (his year of birth is given as both 1916 and 1917 on one panel of his Smithsonian exhibit, while Steve's was established in dialogue as 1918), compounding the AgeLift from his KidSidekick comicbook counterpart.
 * FugitiveArc: Cap and Black Widow go on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. for a good part of the movie. spoiler:Then it turns out they're actually on the run from HYDRA forces that have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * GatlingGood: A mercenary tries to kill Captain America with a M134 minigun, which is an extremely bad idea against a super soldier with a shield.
 * GenreShift: The film heavily gravitates towards the grittier varieties of SpyFiction and political drama. WordOfGod is that they were aiming for a modern day superhero take on the classic ConspiracyThriller films of the late Seventies.
 * GodzillaThreshold: Given how completely spoiler:HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., from the top brass to the grunts, Steve demands that they spoiler:take S.H.I.E.L.D. down in its entirety -- total disclosure of its resources, from its databases of stored intelligence to the identities and locations of operatives throughout the world. Though it leaves a lot of chaos in its wake, it also robs HYDRA of the cover it had hidden itself under for decades. ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure.
 * GoThroughMe: Literally -- Natasha describes how the TheDreaded Winter Soldier assassinated the person she was protecting by shooting the target through her body. She has the scar to prove it.
 * GoodIsNotSoft: Steve stabs someone through the hand with a thrown knife to non-fatally incapacitate him and prevent him raising the alarm.
 * GovernmentConspiracy: spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by HYDRA, who is using the intelligence agency's resources to establish a NewWorldOrder.
 * GrapplingHookPistol:
 * Black Widow uses one to swing under a bridge in order to escape from the Winter Soldier and his goons.
 * The Winter Soldier is similarly equipped, and during the climactic battle he uses it to catch Falcon mid-flight and bring him down.
 * GreaterScopeVillain:
 * spoiler:Arnim Zola is the one who recreated HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D., but he has a small role in this film and is only one part of spoiler:Project Insight.
 * spoiler:Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, who appears in TheStinger, would count as well since it's implied he has the same level of leadership as spoiler:Pierce.
 * GrenadeHotPotato: The Winter Soldier grabs a grenade that was rolling his way and tosses it into a quinjet that's about to take off.
 * GreyAndGrayMorality: Compare and contrast Captain America's and Nick Fury's spoiler:and HYDRA's view on how to protect the world, in terms of both means and ends.
 * Captain America – Willing to do what is needed and expected in war-like conditions (as he did in the previous two films), even if it affects his sleep. He does this so people can be free to live their lives. He never punishes the guilty, and only removes a threat when and if it is needed.
 * Nick Fury – Willing to take extra steps to ensure people are safe, creating a world where people are less free, but safer, as he eliminates threats before they become a danger. These steps, as seen in previous movies and in the opening act of this one, often come back to bite him in the butt. His paranoia, and ability to think like the enemy, helps him as much as hurts him. He is willing to get his hands dirty, with minimal collateral damage (i.e. he doesn't avoid killing innocents, but won't take down a building full of them if there is a better way to eliminate a threat).
 * spoiler:HYDRA – Willing to go the extra mile, produce a mass murder and completely take over everything. People will be safe from all threats (except for them). No one would be free, regardless if they are guilty or innocent of anything.
 * GreyingMorality: A major theme of the movie is Captain America, a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 1940s soldier, adjusting to the modern ages of surveillance and spies. S.H.I.E.L.D. itself turns on him, further confusing matters. spoiler:Ultimately inverted, as HYDRA comes to light and is revealed to be behind almost everything bad since the end of World War II, manipulating the world into the surveillance-heavy state it is today.
 * GunKata: The Winter Soldier displays a bit of this in his climactic fight with Cap as he draws GunsAkimbo twin pistols on the latter, and tries to bob, weave, and melee to get past the LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe indestructible, AttackReflector bullet-reflecting shield.
 * HandOrObjectUnderwear: After spoiler:Captain America steals his old uniform back from the Smithsonian, the centerpiece of the Howling Commandos exhibit is a naked mannequin with a shield in front of its groin.
 * HeelRealization: All of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the members of the World Security Council receive one when Cap spoiler:lets them know that HYDRA has compromised them and explains what Project Insight is really for.
 * HeKnowsTooMuch:
 * The Lemurian Star data marks anyone who has it for death.
 * spoiler:Pierce's maid walks into the room and sees her employer talking to the Winter Soldier.
 * HelicopterBlender:
 * The Winter Soldier pitches a man into the turbine of a quinjet, which then explodes.
 * Averted when Falcon jumps from a higher floor toward Nick's helicopter; Nick rolls the helicopter so that Falcon doesn't get blended.
 * HellIsThatNoise: [The awful screeching noise that acts as the Winter Soldier's] {{Leitmotif}}.
 * HeroOfAnotherStory: Falcon had his own adventures as part of an elite group of special ops before the events of the story.
 * HeroStoleMyBike: Black Widow and Cap steal somebody's EverybodyOwnsAFord Chevy pickup at one point. Steve insists they're just borrowing it.
 * HeroicBSOD:
 * Once the mask is knocked off the Winter Soldier's face and Cap sees that it's spoiler:his old friend Bucky, Cap is frozen in place. He doesn't even put up a fight when spoiler:the STRIKE team arrests him. Given that Steve's usually TheDeterminator, it's kind of disturbing to watch.
 * Even Nick Fury undergoes a brief one upon Steve telling him spoiler:that in order to stop HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D. must be destroyed. He only accepts this when it's clear that Cap will accept nothing less and everyone is on his side.
 * HeterosexualLifePartners:
 * Sam and Steve quickly become this, with Sam noting on two occasions that he's unsure why people are asking for his input on the situation at hand, since he's just going to side with Cap.
 * Steve and Bucky are also this. The Smithsonian exhibit describes them as "inseparable", and a flashback showing more of their past in pre-WWII Brooklyn displays a close bond between the two. This bond is highlighted in spoiler:the climactic IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight, where Steve outright refuses to fight Bucky once the Helicarriers have been reprogrammed.
 * HighAltitudeBattle: The climax involves Falcon dodging not only gunships and jets but also Helicarriers blasting each other out of the sky spoiler:thanks to Maria Hill changing the Helicarriers' targets.
 * HighAltitudeInterrogation: spoiler:Sitwell is convinced to talk by having Black Widow pitch him off a building. Sam catches him on the way down and brings him back to the roof, after which he's much more forthcoming.
 * HijackedByGanon: spoiler:HYDRA, the villains from the [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger the first Captain America film, return as the main antagonists in the sequel, with its NumberTwo from that movie now the GreaterScopeVillain.]]
 * HistoricalRapSheet: spoiler:The resurrected HYDRA was responsible for most (if not FridgeHorror all) major terrorist events (along with [=WikiLeaks=] and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea) since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, as part of their "force people to give away their freedom" EvilPlan.
 * HoistByHisOwnPetard: As it turns out, the easiest way to spoiler:knock three Helicarriers out of the sky is to have them target each other.
 * HoldingTheFloor: spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain Arnim Zola]] exploits JustBetweenYouAndMe to keep Steve and Natasha in place long enough for the missile to arrive.
 * AHouseDivided: After Steve's DoNotAdjustYourSet speech, spoiler:the Triskelion explodes into a gunfight between S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists and HYDRA infiltrators.
 * HumanPopsicle: spoiler:After being experimented on by Zola, Bucky was cryogenically frozen until his first assignment as the Winter Soldier. After his mission was complete, he would be retrieved, given some basic maintenance, memory-wiped and frozen again. Rinse and repeat, almost literally.
 * IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Captain America's fight with the Winter Soldier in the climax is this trope, what with Steve trying to remind him that spoiler:before he was Winter Soldier, he was Steve's friend Bucky. Also the reason why Steve puts on his old uniform for this fight: he's trying to jog Bucky's memories as much as possible.
 * ISurrenderSuckers: Rumlow does this to Sharon. He drops his gun and pretends to give up, then pulls out his knife and slashes her arm, causing her to drop her gun.
 * ImminentDangerClue: Steve is joined in the elevator by a group of STRIKE team guys who greet him but otherwise seem to be just catching a ride... except one of them is keeping his hand on his gun. And then each time another group of guys gets in, he notices something off about them as well. Nobody is surprised when, after he pointedly asks if anyone would like to get out, they all attack him.
 * ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy:
 * During the freeway chase, one of the fake cops has a clear shot into Nick Fury's smashed window while his car is stopped later on, but he somehow misses.
 * spoiler:Rumlow can't hit Agent 13 while standing a little over ten feet from her in the Insight control center during the FinalBattle.
 * ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Nick Fury is targeted for a ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination -- agents impersonating the D.C. police first CarFu box him in from all four sides. Then a SWAT van pulls up discharging a team with assault rifles who open fire on him, then try to force their way into his bulletproof car with a hydraulic ram. The intent is two-fold -- to get close to Fury (when he sees the police officers in the car on his shotgun side staring at him, he assumes it's because he's a black man driving a very expensive, very fortified SUV) and to delay anyone calling the real police given the time they need to get past Fury's defenses.
 * ImplacableMan: The Winter Soldier doesn't show up often, but when he does, he destroys everything in his way. The only times he doesn't complete the mission is spoiler:because of resurfacing memories of being Bucky, or Fury FakingTheDead.
 * ImprobableWeaponUser: The Winter Soldier openly wears a custom holster on his thigh that holds a 4-shot derringer, mounted above a second 2-shot derringer. Derringers are traditionally last-ditch weapons, designed for concealment and not used as a normal sidearm.
 * InsistentTerminology: Steve claims that he "borrowed" a stolen car when he and Widow are on the run spoiler:from S.H.I.E.L.D..
 * InvulnerableKnuckles: Played straight with every character that isn't Steve Rogers or the Winter Soldier, because as normal human beings, they're able to punch other people (and enhanced people) with little signs of adverse effects. Steve and the Winter Soldier, on the other hand, are enhanced people with more durability than the average person. The Soldier also has a cybernetic arm that further justifies this trope. Steve is able to punch and block blows from that metal arm with no signs of bruising or blunt trauma, and he punches a computer monitor with no signs of injury as well.
 * ItIsBeyondSaving: Steve declares this of spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D., since spoiler:decades of HYDRA infiltration make salvage impossible. Nick Fury objects at first, but ultimately goes along with it when it's clear Steve won't settle for anything less (plus Maria Hill, Natasha and Sam all side with Steve).
 * {{Joisey}}: In this movie, we learn that Camp Lehigh -- the US Army base where Steve trained in the first movie -- is located in Wheaton, New Jersey. It's also spoiler:the home of the secret S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker that was built post-war, and houses Dr. Zola's consciousness.
 * JustBetweenYouAndMe: A JustifiedTrope. spoiler:Zola lays everything out as a means to keep Steve and Natasha where they are until it's too late for them to escape. It almost works.
 * JustInTime: Cap's M.O. from the first movie hasn't changed. spoiler:He manages to take down the Project Insight Helicarriers literally one second before they were set to kill some 700,000+ people.
 * KickTheDog: spoiler:Pierce slaps the Winter Soldier, who is in no state to defend himself. Unlike spoiler:electrically shocking him to erase his memories, which he does afterwards anyway, it doesn't even serve any purpose. He's just acting on the frustration you'd feel when performing PercussiveMaintenance on a piece of glitching technology that has inconvenienced you, not a confused and scared human being asking questions spoiler:about his returning memories. It's bad enough for even spoiler:Brock Rumlow to feel EvenEvilHasStandards uncomfortable with the treatment of the Soldier.
 * KnightTemplar: spoiler:HYDRA post-Schmidt (who could charitably be called [[TakeOverTheWorld megalomaniacal) has moved to this, helmed by Arnim Zola. Project Insight is the final step in which all of HYDRA's enemies will be simultaneously wiped off the map and everyone left standing will fall into line at S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier gunpoint.]]
 * LaserSight: Sam blackmails spoiler:Agent Sitwell into lunching with him by threatening to have him killed through this.
 * LateArrivalspoiler:The Series/AgentsOfSHIELD Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E17TurnTurnTurn episode that came out following the film's debut has a plot basically parallel to The Winter Soldier. Thus, watching the show before leads to finding out early that spoiler:HYDRA is alive hidden within S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury is (seemingly) dead, and Captain America takes down a helicarrier.
 * LatexPerfection: Natasha wears some kind of hi-tech holographic mask, complete with voice-changer, to impersonate spoiler:Hawley of the World Security Council in order to get close to Pierce.
 * LegendaryInTheSequel: Captain America has a permanent Smithsonian exhibition in his honour, and is generally perceived as a LivingLegend.
 * {{Leitmotif}}:
 * Winter Soldier gets a high-pitched metallic shriek that is highly unnerving and appropriately creepy and cyberpunk-ish.
 * Falcon also gets one that sounds similar to the Avengers theme.
 * Steve's leitmotif from Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger the first movie also makes its return early on.
 * Steve gets a new leitmotif as well. The melody sounds similar to his old one, but darker and more electronic/modern/epic. Kind of a like a cross between his old theme and a Batmanish one.
 * LeParkour: Cap's picked up some fancy new moves after studying modern techniques. Combined with his enhanced strength and his shield, he can pull off some really impressive combos against his enemies. For that matter, the fight with Batroc is a showpiece of a more acrobatic and agile BadassNormal going up against an immovable object in the form of Cap and his shield.
 * LockedOutOfTheLoop: One of the issues Steve has with Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. is that they don't give him all the information regarding the missions he is sent on (including separate jobs that his squad might have during those missions). Fury insists that this is necessary to keep someone from spilling the beans. No one knows all the secrets, except Fury himself, as Steve retorts. spoiler:It turns out that Fury didn't know all the secrets either.
 * LonelyPianoPiece: Used to devastatingly saddening effect during and following the Winter Soldier's spoiler:NoHoldsBarredBeatdown of Steve. As the music climaxes, Cap falls into the river below. Then the scene goes completely silent, save for this simple tear-inducing music.
 * LongGame: spoiler:HYDRA spent seventy years shaping the world to be more receptive to its fascist message.
 * LookBothWays: Fury takes out the last two police officers trying to assassinate him this way, by luring them into trying to box his car from either side, then hitting the brakes just before they reach an intersection. The cops' cars keep rushing forward and are subsequently hit by a box rental truck.
 * LooksLikeCesare: The Winter Soldier/spoiler:Bucky fits this to a T. Interestingly enough, this trope is used here to serve the dual purpose of setting him up as TheDreaded and as spoiler:TheWoobie -- usually it's used only for one or the other.

folder:Tropes M to R --->Natasha: [referring to Steve, who is disguised as a [hipster], and the Apple employee having the same glasses] Wow, you two are practically twins.\\ Apple employee: Yeah, I wish! [gestures at Steve] Specimen! --->Rollins: Was he wearing a parachute?\\ Rumlow: [smiles] No. No, he wasn't. -->spoiler:Rumlow: Whoa there, big guy. I just wanted you to know Cap, this ain't personal! [lunges at Steve with his taser stick]\\ [cue Steve kicking his ass for his trouble]\\ Steve: ItsPersonal It kind of feels personal. --->Falcon: Man, shut the hell up! -->The Winter Soldier: [tackles Rogers] You're my mission. [PunctuatedPounding punching with each word] YOU'RE! MY! MISSION! -->Steve: Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, this is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. spoiler:It's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury. And it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, spoiler:HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot. But the price of freedom is high. It always has been. And it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not.\\ Sam Wilson: Did you write that down first, or was it off the top of your head? /folder
 * MacrossMissileMassacre: A quinjet launches a barrage of missiles at Falcon, who evades them by flying close around a Helicarrier WronskiFeint so the missiles crash into its hull. He even gets one to blast a hole in the ship's underside DungeonBypass as a convenient entry point.
 * MadeOfIron:
 * spoiler:Brock Rumlow manages to survive a building collapse caused by a Helicarrier crash. RealityEnsues to a certain extent in that he is badly injured and very heavily burned.
 * Cap falls from buildings, dives from a plane into the sea without a parachute, and is told that he ran 13 miles in 30 minutes.note The top human footspeed (think Usain Bolt) is just over 23 miles per hour, which means Cap sprinted for 13 miles, faster than the Olympic record holder the entire way, without feeling the effects of fatigue./note He gets grenade-propelled off a bridge and crashes into a bus beneath it, and more or less walks it off. During the climax, Cap spoiler:takes a major beating from the Winter Soldier (including his metal arm), is stabbed in the shoulder, and is shot at least three times (once in the leg, at least twice in the torso), and is still functioning until he falls into the Potomac.
 * Black Widow gets shot in the shoulder, yet several hours later OnlyAFleshWound fights like nothing happened.
 * MagicFloppyDisk: spoiler:Zola's brain was uploaded to "two hundred thousand feet of databanks", with the ability to read and rewrite itself. You could feasibly pull this off in the 21st century with digital tape, but in the early Seventies when the mainframe was built it wouldn't have enough space to hold the estimated 2.5 petabytes for a spoiler:human brain.
 * MaleGaze: Early in the movie, Black Widow knocks out a Mook with a crowbar. The next shot shows us Black Widow from behind, with her rear taking up most of the shot as she sexily struts off.
 * MarqueeAlterEgo: Cap makes a point of removing his mask/helmet when he is taunted by Batroc on the Lemurian Star. The Winter Soldier also spends a significant of time unmasked after his mask gets knocked off halfway through the movie.
 * TheMatchmaker: Black Widow keeps trying to find dates for Steve. Even CasualDangerDialog during the heat of battle. She's multitasking.
 * MeaningfulEcho: "I'm with you to the end of the line." spoiler:Said first in a flashback to represent Steve and Bucky's friendship, and said again by Steve during his IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight with the Winter Soldier in the climax.
 * MetaCasting: The creators have said that they saw the film as being a Seventies-style political thriller, only with superheroes, and you can't get much more "Seventies political thriller" than Creator/RobertRedford the star of Film/AllThePresidentsMen and Film/ThreeDaysOfTheCondor.
 * MenAreTheExpendableGender: Averted. The film deserves points for having both genders in spoiler:HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. rosters as mooks and background agents.
 * MexicanStandoff: spoiler:After Steve announces that anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. could actually be working for HYDRA, everybody has a gun pointed at someone else. Unsurprisingly, it ends in a BlastOut.
 * MilitarySuperhero: Army Captain Steve "Captain America" Rogers, as always. Also Sam "The Falcon" Wilson, a member of the Air National Guard.
 * MishmashMuseum: The Captain America display at the Smithsonian is inexplicably placed in the National Air & Space Museum, which is exclusively for aviation-related artifacts, when it would have been more logical to put it in the Museum of American History.
 * MisplacedAccent: Batroc is said to be Algerian, but French-Canadian Georges St-Pierre speaks with a clearly Quebecois accent. This would be the equivalent of someone supposed to be from South Africa but speaking with an American accent.
 * MissingTrailerScene:
 * The TV spots show a scene where Steve tells Sam that Natasha can be dramatic.
 * The film ends with Sam asking Steve when do they start searching for Bucky. The TV spots included an extra line where Steve responds "We just did."
 * MissionControl: Maria Hill has this role in the climax spoiler:where she directs Steve and Sam's missions to the Helicarriers from a dispatch room in S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ.
 * MistakenForRacist: Fury assumes the cops checking him over are about to start hassling him for being a black man in a nice car... which means the other assassin cops gets the drop on Fury.
 * MistakenNationality:
 * When he encounters spoiler:Arnim Zola, Steve says he's a German scientist who spoiler:worked for [=HYDRA=]. "First correction: I am Swiss." It's easy to assume that spoiler:Zola could come from the more Germanic regions of Switzerland.
 * When a member of the security council calls Batroc a "French pirate", Pierce states he's actually Algerian and asks if the councilman could find Algiers on a map.
 * MoreDakka:
 * The squadron of police officers and SWAT team do this to Nick Fury's car. Fury's Chevrolet is armored like a tank and requires nothing less than lots of bullets and accumulative damage. In the end they resort to a pneumatic battering ram to break the window.
 * The guy who brings an [=M134=] minigun to try and kill Cap.
 * When regular guns don't help much against Winter Soldier, Black Widow uses a grenade launcher.
 * MovieSuperheroesWearBlack:
 * The Falcon and Black Widow both wear dark, practical outfits, though Widow wears one in the comics as well.
 * Steve's new outfit is noticeably darker than any previous version, with only blue, white, and black in its color scheme, referencing his time in the comics as a Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. BreakOutTheMuseumPiece He later wears his old red, white, and blue costume.
 * Notably averted with Batroc. He lacks a yellow mask and curly mustache, but still wears a purple outfit with a yellow stripe like his comic counterpart.
 * MrFanservice:
 * The Winter Soldier, of all people, can be considered one. He [wears] a FormFittingWardrobe rather tight outfit and has a [shirtless] ShirtlessScene scene in which he looks [toned and attractive] spoiler:(although the fact that he's strapped to a chair and undergoing a clearly painful brainwashing procedure may lead it to be more of FanDisservice).
 * Steve also invokes this sporadically throughout the movie.
 * MsFanservice: Natasha Romanoff, again. She even BareYourMidriff flashes her belly button to show Cap her scar from the Winter Soldier, who shot her through her abdomen, which also killed the scientist she was protecting. It's downplayed compared to previous films because despite the above, she spends most of her screen time fully dressed in baggy clothes and wears her costume in only two scenes.
 * MythologyGag:
 * The scene where Cap jumps out of a plane without bothering to use a parachute is a reference to a similar scene from the first issue of The Ultimates.
 * Like in the first film, spoiler:Bucky makes use of Cap's shield as a reference to his time as Captain America in the comics.
 * Batroc uses a very acrobatic fighting style in reference to his origins as an acrobat who took up crime. He's also wearing a yellow and purple top, in subdued tones compared to the goofy outfit he wears in the comics.
 * Though he's largely influenced by his Ultimate counterpart, Sam Wilson is a VA counsellor who helps soldiers with PTSD as a nod to his 616 background as a social worker.
 * Natasha's Tiffany & Co. necklace happens to be the Comicbook/{{Hawkeye}} arrow one.
 * The freighter Batroc hijacks in the beginning is named the Lemurian Star. This is a reference to Lemuria, the sunken continent that was home to the Deviants, a race of superhumans created by Creator/JackKirby.
 * Captain America's new costume is the same one Steve Rogers wore in the Heroic Age arc in the comics, after he stepped down from his role as Captain America. Except, in the comics, Steve's outfit didn't have the cowl.
 * ComicBook/DoctorStrange Dr. Stephen Strange is named at one point as one of the targets of spoiler:Project Insight.
 * We see an old S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem, which is identical to the original logo from the comics.
 * Natasha uses camotech to disguise herself. The technology is a favourite of Bobbi Morse/Comicbook/{{Mockingbird}}, a fellow spy in the comics, who at one point in Comicbook/SecretAvengers used it to pretend to be Natasha as a prank.
 * After being defeated by Falcon and left for dead, the burns and injuries spoiler:Rumlow sustains to his face cause him to more closely resemble his comic book counterpart, spoiler:Crossbones.
 * When Rumlow takes off his vest to fight Falcon, the straps across his chest resemble the crossbones on the costume of his comics equivalent.
 * S.H.I.E.L.D. had been spoiler:infiltrated by Nazis in the first arc of ComicBook/TheUltimates as well. Also in that story, Captain America took control of a system to address all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at once, warning them of the infiltration and that the big thing going on served the bad guy's goals.
 * While not humanoid in form, this incarnation's upgraded version of spoiler:Arnim Zola retains the traditional spoiler:monitor "body" and one-eyed "head" from his comic book counterpart with the computer monitor and the camera.
 * "When did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" This moment is possibly a shout out to the Film/CaptainAmerica1990 1990 film, where Cap's constant carjacking was an unintentional RunningGag.
 * The Baxter building, headquarters of the Comicbook/FantasticFour, is seen as spoiler:one of the targets of the Helicarriers in a blink-and-you'll miss it scene. Doubles as an ActorAllusion, as Chris Evans played the Human Torch in the Film/FantasticFour2005 Fantastic Four films. invoked
 * The spoiler:"Who the hell is Bucky?" line is straight from the comics.
 * spoiler:Baron von Strucker in TheStinger is spoiler:experimenting on [[Comicbook/{{Quicksilver}} twins with Comicbook/ScarletWitch superpowers]]. In the comics, spoiler:Strucker actually subjected his own twins to a treatment which gave them superpowers.
 * Scarlet Witch's debut appearance in the MCU shows her levitating shaped blocks. The X-Men debut comic shows Jean Grey doing the same.
 * The phrase "Operation: Zemo" can be seen in the Cap's Smithsonian exhibit. Baron Zemo is one of Cap's deadliest longtime foes in the comics.
 * Creator/EdBrubaker having a cameo as one of the scientists working on Winter Soldier works as a meta-textual instance: In the real world, ComicBook/CaptainAmericaWinterSoldier he created the Winter Soldier in his writing. In the film, he plays a character who creates the Winter Soldier physically.
 * Cap's list of the things he missed includes the Moon Landing. Towards the beginning of the Winter Soldier comic arc, Cap regrets that he was not around in the 1960s to go into the space program because his body was made for those risks. In Comicbook/HouseOfM continuity, Cap was the first man on the moon.
 * During the final fight between Captain America and Winter Soldier, the latter shoots him in the same spot from ComicBook/TheDeathOfCaptainAmerica.
 * Nick Fury's spoiler:blind eye playing an important part calls back to the Creator/DavidHasselhoff portrayal of Nick Fury, where spoiler:his eyepatch concealed a bunch of emergency tools, including plastic explosive. Which is also amusing, since both of them involve cracking open a door!
 * The Winter Soldier spoiler:unsuccessfully assassinates spoiler:Nick Fury in an almost identical way to how he assassinated the Red Skull in the original Winter Soldier story.
 * Nick Fury mentioning he has a wife, who he claims kicked him out of the house. ComicBook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate Nick Fury did indeed have a wife, Monica Chang (the second Black Widow), and she did kick him out.
 * spoiler:The patch of STRIKE and the Insight crew is colored in green and yellow, the same colors ComicBook/{{HYDRA}} uses in the comic books.
 * NearVillainVictory: Terrifyingly, the climax is spoiler:the closest the bad guys have come to winning in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse yet. Captain America spoiler:retasks the Helicarriers with one second to spare. During his RousingSpeech, Cap makes it clear to S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel spoiler:that the world as they know it is moments away from coming to an end.
 * NeckLift:
 * The Winter Soldier lifts Steve using his metal arm in the highway fight.
 * spoiler:Bucky also does it in a flashback during a failed attempt to escape from spoiler:the HYDRA base he was captured at before they began the brainwashing process. After he realizes he's got a metal arm, he uses it to grab a HYDRA scientist by the throat and hoist him while still lying in bed. Unfortunately, spoiler:Zola immediately tranquilizes him.
 * In a rare hero-to-major-villain example, Cap attempts to choke-out the Winter Soldier this way with one hand during the climax.
 * NeverBringAKnifeToAFistFight: Three separate times throughout the movie, the Winter Soldier uses a knife against Captain America. Only in the last one does he manage to land a single hit with it.
 * NeverTrustATrailer:
 * Pierce's line to Steve, "Your work has been a gift to mankind. You've shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time..." is actually said to spoiler:the Winter Soldier in the movie.
 * Likewise, Pierce's line to Steve, "Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?" is actually said to spoiler:the Black Widow in the movie.
 * The Senate subcommittee's line about how a man has dismantled the US's major intelligence organization is framed to look like it's about the Winter Soldier spoiler:when it's actually about Rogers.
 * The trailers did show one of the Insight Helicarriers crashing into the Triskelion, but the context made it look like a major attack on S.H.I.E.L.D. by the bad guys, like when Loki's men tried to do the same thing in Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}. spoiler:The heroes are actually the ones making the Helicarrier crash because they're full of HYDRA personnel about to use the Insight ships to murder twenty million people in the name of "bringing order".
 * The ElevatorActionSequence is intercut with Fury addressing Steve, making it look like S.H.I.E.L.D. attempting to detain him was on Fury's orders. In the actual film spoiler:Fury is presumed dead at this point, and Pierce is calling the shots.
 * Steve's "The Price of Freedom Is High" speech sounds a lot more vocally subdued in the final film than in the trailer, where it sounded loud and righteous. The effect is largely the same, but the tone does hone in how much grimmer the situation is than one would have originally thought.
 * Fury's "You need to keep both eyes open" line is edited in the trailer so it looks like he's berating Steve for maintaining his idealistic worldview in an era where such thoughts are naive and foolish (something that would make sense, as he does give the Captain such a speech during the film). spoiler:The line is instead directed at Alexander Pierce in a moment of ShutUpHannibal, showing that Fury had registered his blinded eye to access S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database as a potential response to a betrayal within the agency.
 * In general: while the Winter Soldier is an important supporting character, he isn't nearly as prominent as the trailers and promo material initially seemed to suggest. The primary conflict in the movie isn't Steve's battle with the Winter Soldier, it's spoiler:HYDRA's secret takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D..
 * The Captain's DramaticUnmask is played up with some kind of importance in the trailers. In the finished product, this actually happens during his bout with Batroc, and is irrelevant.
 * NiceJobBreakingItHero:
 * S.H.I.E.L.D recruited Dr. Zola and a bunch of other Nazi scientists to work for them. Turns out they used this opportunity to spoiler:rebuild HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * spoiler:Alexander Pierce claims that part of the reason for his FaceHeelTurn was a reflection on Fury saying ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight. There was a hostage situation where Nick Fury's methods of cutting through political red tape and adopting an IDidWhatIHadToDo attitude TheExtremistWasRight worked, where his own attempts at finding a diplomatic solution failed. This caused him to re-evaluate PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower how best to accomplish his vision for UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans achieving world peace.
 * NoodleIncident:
 * How Nick Fury lost his eye, aside from it being due to misplaced trust in someone.
 * While several characters hint at Natasha's murky past spoiler:and point out that releasing all of S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA's secrets onto the internet will make that past widely known, what precisely she did is never revealed to the audience. In a deleted scene, spoiler:Alexander Pierce seems to reference a few of the same events that Loki did during Film/{{The Avengers|2012}} -- the hospital fire may have involved a children's ward.
 * Most of the Winter Soldier's activities over the past several decades, aside from being so top secret that he's become ShroudedInMyth as a result.
 * NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: The Winter Soldier does this to Captain America, when Cap states he won't fight spoiler:Bucky.
 * NoNonsenseNemesis: spoiler:HYDRA in general. No SortingAlgorithmOfEvil (they send their best shot at you immediately). No "WhyDontYouJustShootHim" (they will do that the moment the opportunity arises). No EvilGloating (that doesn't have another purpose). No "NoOneCouldSurviveThat" (they will immediately send heavily armed platoons to ensure that you didn't). When they want you dead, they send entire platoons, snipers, gunships, a SuperSoldier, and a local ballistic missile to take you out. SlaveToPR Though it might help to keep news cameras handy.
 * NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Averted. After the missile hits the bunker that Captain America is in, spoiler:HYDRA still sends an entire armed platoon backed by about 4 or 5 quinjets to ensure he's dead. The second a piece of evidence comes up that he's not, they immediately call HQ to tell them to unleash the Winter Soldier on him.
 * NothingIsTheSameAnymore: spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. has been dissolved, Fury is now working from the shadows and HYDRA is back and more dangerous than ever. While the other post-Avengers films have played with the status quo, this film has made the boldest and most dramatic changes to the MCU yet.
 * NothingPersonal: Said by spoiler:Rumlow after Cap (in a tight cramped elevator) has flattened his entire team of agents. Cap doesn't buy it for a second.
 * NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Played with. Falcon was a member of an entire special ops unit with flying harnesses. The plans for the harness still exist, but the heroes don't exactly have the resources to build one. Instead they have to go steal the last one from an Army base, the implication being that all the others were destroyed in action.
 * NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Batroc is said to be a Francophone Algerian, but the actor clearly speaks with a French Canadian accent. The rest of the crew do a slightly better job of hiding their accents.
 * NotHisSled:
 * Fans worldwide assumed spoiler:following Robert Redford letting slip that his character was a villain, Alexander Pierce would turn out to be the Red Skull, as Aleksander Lukin was (kinda) in the Winter Soldier's introductory storyline. The popular rumour turned out to nothing more than a rumour.
 * spoiler:Black Widow having been a past lover and student of the Winter Soldier. He shot her once, and that's it.
 * Played with in the movie's very title. spoiler:Anyone who's been reading the comics would know that the Winter Soldier is Bucky. But they included that in the title to distract from the real twist: that S.H.I.E.L.D. is going down.
 * NotSoDifferent:
 * When Steve criticizes S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new strategy, Fury is quick to point out that Cap's generation also did questionable things. Steve does not deny this, but he points out that they never attacked someone unless they attacked first.
 * When spoiler:Fury confronts Pierce about his methods, Pierce states that he drew his inspiration from Nick's own past procedures, taken to their seemingly logical conclusion. [[ShutUpHannibal Fury calls bullshit, noting that all his compromises and MilitaryMaverick maneuvers were meant to save lives and under very specific circumstances, neither of which ever approached the scale or ruthlessness of murdering twenty million people in a blink in the name of perfect global security.]]
 * NotWearingTights: Cap, Black Widow, and Falcon spend a significant portion of the film outside of their uniforms. Justified because spoiler:Pierce has Rogers declared as a fugitive, and Natasha sides with him out of a desire to avenge Fury. Falcon doesn't suit up for real until shortly before the final battle.
 * NumberTwo: Jack Rollins of STRIKE serves in the second in command for Rumlow, who is its leader.
 * ObsessedAreTheListmakers: Steve Rogers has a "catch up" list, things that took place between 1945 and 2011 that he missed by being a HumanPopsicle. The precise list varies according to the country where you see the movie, see Cultural Translation. The four final items always remain the same, though: "Thai Food", "Franchise/StarWars/Franchise/StarTrek Trek", "Music/{{Nirvana}} (band)" and "Film/{{Rocky}} (Film/RockyII?)". Steve also adds a fifth item, "Troubleman Music/MarvinGaye (soundtrack)", when Sam recommends it to him.
 * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Falcon says that the last remaining wingsuit is stored under guard at Fort Meade. We never get to see the break-in needed to get it. Then again, Steve's and Tasha's reaction to the security measures for it makes it sound like it would be a banal matter for them.
 * OhCrap:
 * There is one that occurs when spoiler:the HYDRA Helicarrier gunners prepare to fire on their targets. At the last moment, Cap manages to reprogram the Helicarriers' targeting computers. Cue the gunners' faces when they realize the hijacked Helicarriers start targeting each other.
 * A subtle example happens when spoiler:Cap reveals HYDRA's deception to entirety of the S.H.I.E.L.D. staff who aren't HYDRA agents. Pierce, when hearing Cap's voice, has a quick "Oh, Crap" look pass through his eyes, though he quickly recovers.
 * Pierce also gets a brief one when spoiler:Natasha shocks herself to keep from being taken prisoner, thwarting his hostage insurance by messing up the device on his phone that could kill her and giving Nick time to grab a pistol and gun him down.
 * OlderThanTheyLook: Both Cap and the Winter Soldier were soldiers in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII who still look like they're in their twenties in modern day; Steve even points out to Natasha that he's 95 years old. spoiler:The latter's appearance is due to being cryogenically frozen multiple times.
 * OncePerEpisode: Captain Rogers once again has a brief conversation with a female colleague before jumping out of an airplane, as in Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger and Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}.
 * OneDimensionalThinking:
 * Averted when the Winter Soldier places a grenade under Nick Fury's car while it's barrelling right at him. When the grenade goes off, he calmly sidesteps the flaming, airborne SUV.
 * Played straight in Captain America's fight against Batroc. Both stick to a single one-dimensional line with no side-stepping, but TropesAreTools it makes for an awesome fight.
 * OneManArmy: Quite a few of them. Captain America and the Winter Soldier are the obvious ones but Natasha, Falcon, and Nick Fury get moments where they solo against platoons of enemies. Falcon even takes down an entire flying fortress.
 * OnlyAFleshWound:
 * Subverted when Nick Fury is shot early in the film spoiler:and dies, but DoubleSubverted when he returns for the finale. While he rolls off a list of injuries he suffered from his crash and shooting, he's still able to use a firearm and pilot a helicopter with little to no trouble.
 * Black Widow is shot in the shoulder and loses somewhere between a pint or two of blood, but is still capable of kicking the ass of trained STRIKE agents and shows absolutely signs of injury hours later.
 * Justified with Steve. He's shot three times and stabbed in the shoulder, but is still capable of fighting and defeating the Winter Soldier, and then acrobatically climbing back up to a high platform to complete his mission. The gunshots slow him down, and he needs intense medical attention after the missions over, but he was still able to lift a heavy girder to save spoiler:Bucky.
 * OnlyOnePlausibleSuspect: Steve Rogers sets out to discover who has ordered the attacks on both him and Nick Fury. Only one plausible suspect is shown, and spoiler:Alexander Pierce does indeed turn out to be behind it all. Perhaps in awareness of this, the film doesn't really attempt to make him look anything but shady.
 * OrderVersusChaos: A major theme of the film, and displayed in a multitude of ways. spoiler:The movie comes down on Chaos's side.
 * Captain America and his allies represent Chaos. Steve is declared a criminal early on in the film and spends much of it running from S.H.I.E.L.D. with the Black Widow, who mentions her variety of masks and aliases -- a shapeshifter in the figurative sense. His allies spoiler:are all people fighting the government themselves -- Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and the Falcon once he ends up on Cap's side -- and they all use non-orderly methods -- Nick Fury fakes his death and hides out in a tunnel, Maria Hill pretends to be a loyal HYDRA goon to sneak in and save Steve, and the Falcon is using a stolen military flightsuit. Steve makes a speech early on in the movie about freedom versus fear, and spoiler:ends up tearing down the surveillance apparatus that promotes HYDRA's goals, removing a lot of control from the system.
 * S.H.I.E.L.D., as a military and police arm of multiple governments, is Order. spoiler:HYDRA personnel, from Zola to Pierce, make a multitude of speeches in praise of order, and against freedom, with Zola stating the entire goal of all their manipulations over multiple decades is simply to get humanity to give up their freedom willingly -- and the only reason the "willing" part is involved is because it's too hard to do it unwillingly. The Winter Soldier is another good example of the Order aspects of HYDRA: a totally emotionless, completely controlled superhuman, slavishly obedient to superiors whom he could tear apart with his fighting skill, to the point that they can slap him and he barely reacts. It should be noted that this symbolism is even present in their icons; S.H.I.E.L.D.'s icon of the eagle is reminiscent of Roman symbolism and, more worryingly, Nazi Germany; spoiler:HYDRA's icon is a skull with tentacles, choking the freedom out of the world.
 * OrbitalBombardment: Project Insight is a small-scale version of this: three self-sufficient S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers packing dozens of pinpoint-accurate guns that can eliminate any target below them at a moment's notice -- thousands at once, potentially. spoiler:Under HYDRA's control, they could have potentially killed hundreds of thousands of people in just a few minutes, and millions inside of a day.
 * OutsideRide: Winter Soldier hops on the heroes' car in order to get to a target. What's impressive is that Cap, Black Widow, and Falcon are all in the car and none of them realize that he's there until it's too late.
 * OutOfFocus: Sharon Carter, perennial leading lady in Cap's stories, is more or less a named extra.
 * PaperThinDisguise:
 * Steve and Natasha's undercover civilian clothes seem to fool most people, with the exception of a kid in the museum. Natasha talks Steve through using body language to help throw people off.
 * The Winter Soldier also manages to pull this off spoiler:while standing in front of a picture of himself as Bucky Barnes.
 * PatrioticFervor: Downplayed compared to the previous film and much more subdued. Steve still sticks to his ideals and sense of duty, though it's clear that the murkiness of what's happening in S.H.I.E.L.D. makes him question whether it's all worth it.
 * PlatonicLifePartners: Steve and Natasha, which might surprise audiences considering they share an onscreen kiss, pose as lovers when running from S.H.I.E.L.D., and open up emotionally to each other, but end up nothing more than close friends. She even spends most of the movie attempting to get him to ask out other women.
 * PlayingWithSyringes: While it's not shown in any great detail, the Winter Soldier's backstory-flashback has enough of this implied to count as NightmareFuel for anyone with a decent imagination.
 * PlotIrrelevantVillain: Ironically, the Winter Soldier. He is essentially a highly competent Mook who does almost nothing to drive the plot, which is pretty surprising since he is the AntagonistTitle Title Antagonist. His most significant acts are spoiler:killing Nick Fury—[[PlotArmor which is then reversed—and stopping Captain America from disarming the last helicarrier, which he fails to do but only adds a little extra drama by slowing Cap down a bit]].
 * PoirotSpeak: Batroc's man who passes his orders to the other mercenaries clearly isn't accustomed to his boss's language yet, which gives us gems like "Startez les moteurs" or "La line est morte".
 * PoliceAreUseless: Cops (that is, legitimate ones) show up a grand total of once in the film: a single police car reports to the overpass ambush and is immediately blown up by the Winter Soldier. Justified during the first ambush on Nick Fury, as the attackers themselves ImpersonatingAnOfficer were not real D.C. police officers, which would fool the majority of bystanders enough to deter them from calling the real thing (although bystanders know real police officers don't shoot at someone unless that someone provokes them or engages them first). In real life, many of these incidents other than the "police" ambush would warrant heavy police response.
 * ThePowerOfFriendship: The Winter Soldier has been brainwiped and re-programmed repeatedly since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, but seeing spoiler:Steve's earnest face, and hearing him call the name Steve knew him by, is enough to cut through it, and help him overcome his programming enough to spare Cap's life.
 * PreAsskickingOneLiner:
 * When Cap realizes a bunch of guys who have joined him in an elevator are there to try and subdue him, he asks, "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?" None of them do. They should have.
 * Black Widow greets one of Batroc's goons with a "Hello, sailor," before wiping the floor with them.
 * Rumlow tries to talk down Sam Wilson before engaging on a one-on-one.
 * PrecisionFStrike: The only word in the film stronger than "damn" is Sam's, when the Winter Soldier reaches through the windshield of the car Sam's driving and plucks out the steering wheel.
 * PrecrimeArrest: Nick Fury shows Steve "Project Insight," three new Helicarriers designed to "eliminate a lot of potential threats before they happen." Steve is less than thrilled and replies, "I thought the punishment usually came after the crime." Fury replies that they can't afford to wait that long. Steve counters that that sort of attitude "isn't freedom. It's fear." spoiler:He turns out to be right, as Project Insight is actually a HYDRA program, driven by an algorithm developed by Arnim Zola which mathematically calculates the "potential threats". Contrary to what Nick Fury was led to believe, these aren't so much threats to world peace, but to HYDRA's absolute control.
 * PredecessorVillain: Midway through the film, spoiler:Arnim Zola is revealed to be the first HYDRA mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D. and the original mastermind of Project Insight. However, at the time of the film's events, Zola is dead (or at least his body is) and the main BigBad is Alexander Pierce.
 * ProductPlacement:
 * Steve sports S.H.I.E.L.D. workout clothes with a visible Under Armour logo.
 * Captain America rides a new Harley-Davidson Street 750 motorcycle, while Black Widow drives a 2014 C7 Corvette. Both vehicles were heavily promoted in publicity materials for the film.
 * Sam wears a shirt with a prominent Nike logo at one point.
 * EverybodyOwnsAFord Every vehicle is a Chevy. Unless it's a Harley.
 * Natasha and Steve visit an Apple store to use a computer spoiler:and determine where the data on the Lemurian Star was encrypted. They're even greeted by an employee who wears the standard work uniform. Later, an iPod Touch playing Music/MarvinGaye is featured spoiler:at Steve's hospital bedside.
 * Agent Sitwell and Nick Fury's phones are from [=HTC=].
 * The scene where Steve hides the USB drive in a vending machine has plenty of Doublemint, Starburst, and Orbit gum.
 * When Fury is driving in his car, the stereo's Bose logo is clearly visible for an extended period.
 * {{Profiling}}: When Fury notices some cops eyeballing him in his SUV, he asks if they want to see his lease. But then they turn out to be assassins, and he's their target.
 * PromotionNotPunishment: Pierce mentions Fury once ignored his orders in a hostage crisis, skipping negotiations to take the hostages in secret from underground. As it turned out all the hostages were about to be executed, and this trope came into effect. spoiler:Pierce brings this up later, presenting it as evidence that diplomacy is only a temporary solution to problems HYDRA will solve with Project Insight, retroactively making this a case of YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame.
 * PsychoStrings: When the Winter Soldier launches a surprise attack
 * {{Pun}}: Project Insight has nothing to do with gaining insight on anything, it's spoiler:meant to put a thousand potential (and ten times as many innocent) targets in their targeting sights. How many people saw that coming?
 * PunctuatedForEmphasis: The Winter Soldier at the end of the film, when Steve spoiler:tells him "You're my friend."
 * PuttingOnTheReich: spoiler:While the reborn HYDRA was the product of Nazi scientists and Schmidt associates like Arnim Zola, it's largely jettisoned this trope in order to distance themselves from the defeated Third Reich. They've also played a major role in making S.H.I.E.L.D. increasingly authoritarian and sinister without being too overt about it. On the other hand, the targets of Project Insight as well as the presence of von Strucker suggest that HYDRA does still maintain some ties to their Nazi heritage.
 * RaceLift: Machete, a South American in the comics, is made a Ugandan.
 * RealAwardFictionalCharacter: Nick Fury cites Alexander Pierce as having turned down the Nobel Peace Prize. Pierce said peace is a goal that must be continuously striven for and such a worthy goal does not need prizes. spoiler:By this point in the film he's already been revealed as the head of HYDRA, and Nick is suitably disgusted when he says the line.
 * RealityEnsues:
 * Falcon has been redesigned to sport a pair of goggles, which he would need to protect his eyes while flying. His wings are also larger than they are in the comics, making them closer to the size needed to hold a human aloft, and the backpack sports a small afterburner.
 * When Cap gives his rousing speech about spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. being taken over by Hydra, many of the rank and file are quick to try and back him up. Sadly, they are unfortunately unable to provide much in the way of backup, as they are mostly composed of desk agents, paper-pushers, and regular security guys up against the Insight and STRIKE team agents, who have way more experience and training in violent situations... along with an enhanced assassin with a cybernetic arm. As a consequence, they get slaughtered in droves.
 * RedHerring: Film/{{Clue}} Communism. spoiler:Winter Soldier's red star on his bionic arm and use of Soviet bullets serve to throw off those who read the comics and to hide the fact that he's created by HYDRA here. On the freeway ambush, he also speaks Russian to his mooks, but nothing happens beyond that.
 * RedShirtArmy: S.H.I.E.L.D. agents valiantly try to fight back during the climax, but are easily mowed down by the spoiler:Insight and STRIKE crews, and the Winter Soldier.
 * TheRemnant: Played with. The spoiler:new HYDRA, recreated by Arnim Zola and other surviving HYDRA agents that emigrated to the US after the end of WWII, is even stronger than it used to be in the 40's.
 * TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: Inverted. There is a WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue telling the fate of most secondary characters. But if you want to know about the actual consequences of the big reveal of the movie (which, as you may suspect, are not limited to the events of the movie), then follow the Series/AgentsOfSHIELD TV series. "Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E16EndOfTheBeginning End of the Beginning" and "Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E17TurnTurnTurn Turn, Turn, Turn" are the crossovers with the movie, and the episodes afterwards are the aftermath of the movie.
 * {{Retcon}}:
 * The tie-in comics to the last movie depicted Steve and Bucky as meeting when they were both orphaned in their childhood. In a flashback scene, Steve is shown to have recently lost his mother while both are adults, with Bucky's parents mentioned as still being alive.
 * A fairly minor one. In Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger, Steve is hailed for saving 400 [=POWs=], including on a clear newspaper headline. The Smithsonian shows it as only 163. A possible explanation is that 163 was the number of [=POWs=] who were actually saved, but the newspapers artificially inflated the number saved to make Rogers look more badass. Or 163 was just the number at the camp where Bucky was found, and the whole montage leading up to Red Skull's ChewingTheScenery "YOU ARE FAILING!!" raised the count to 400.
 * The World War II costume Steve dons in the third act is slightly different from the one he actually wore in The First Avenger, with the most noticeable difference being a third red stripe on the stomach.
 * ReusableLighterToss: Nick Fury tosses a Zippo to light up the remains of some evidence.
 * RippedFromTheHeadlines: Subverted. While the plot does touch on relevant issues like terrorism, mass surveillance, and increasingly complicated geopolitics, spoiler:it's revealed that much of what happened from the end of World War II was manipulated by HYDRA.
 * RousingSpeech: After discovering that spoiler:HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve hijacks the Triskelion's public announcement room and gives a speech to every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the building, convincing them that it's worth putting their lives on the line to preserve freedom. spoiler:Cue all the non-HYDRA agents doing everything they can to prevent the Helicarriers from launching. Alas, they fail, and many of them die in the process.
 * RuleOfThree:
 * Three heroes (Captain America, Black Widow and Falcon) have to place data cards in the control centers of spoiler:three Helicarriers secretly controlled by HYDRA in order to get them to target each other. In a neat twist, instead of each hero inserting a card into one base, Falcon takes one while Cap takes the other two, and Widow goes undercover at the Triskelion to confront spoiler:HYDRA mole Alexander Pierce and unload all of HYDRA's ([[TakingYouWithMe and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s) dirty laundry on the internet]].
 * Done for laughs at the very beginning of the movie, when Sam Wilson is running laps around the Smithsonian campus, and Steve Rogers repeatedly passes him, saying, "On your left." By the third time, Sam groans, "Don't say it, don't you even say it!" Steve says it anyway.
 * RunningBothSides: spoiler:HYDRA has been instrumental in manipulating major crises throughout history on both sides of the conflicts, most notably the Cold War and the resulting Cuban Missile Crisis. This is part of their attempt to show TheEvilsOfFreeWill to the general populace, hoping that they would voluntarily accede their own freedoms for a more stable world. Presumably, this also applies to 9/11 and the War on Terror.
 * RunningGag:
 * Throughout the film, Natasha keeps playing matchmaker for Steve. Even in the middle of combat operations.
 * Steve running past Sam. "On your left!"

folder:Tropes S to Z -->Fury: Well what's not damaged?\\ Car A.I.: RhetoricalQuestionBlunder Air conditioning is fully operational. -->Falcon: You're gonna go around a corner to your right. There's a gray car two spaces down. You and I are gonna take a ride.\\ spoiler:Sitwell: And why would I do that?\\ Falcon: Because that tie looks really expensive, and I'd hate to mess it up.\\ [spoiler:Sitwell looks down, where a sniper's laser pointer is currently over said tie] -->spoiler:Rumlow: This is gonna hurt. There are no prisoners with spoiler:HYDRA. Only order. And order only comes with pain. You ready for yours?\\ Falcon: Man, shut the hell up. -->Steve: You know me...\\ Winter Soldier: NO, I DON'T! [floors Steve with a left hook, despite having to go through his shield as well]\\ Steve: You've known me your whole life...\\ Winter Soldier: [responds with a backhand punch]\\ Steve: Your name... is spoiler:James Buchanan Barnes...\\ Winter Soldier: [drops Steve again with a left hook] VillainousBreakdown SHUT UP! -->Nick Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be.\\ Steve Rogers: This isn't freedom. This is fear. --->spoiler:Zola: spoiler:HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite, inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed. [...] HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life: A zero sum. --->Steve: spoiler:...Bucky?\\ The Winter Soldier: spoiler:Who the hell is Bucky? --->Nick Fury: Director override, Fury, Nicholas J.\\ System: Override denied. All files sealed.\\ Nick Fury: On whose authority?\\ System: Fury, Nicholas J. -->spoiler:Nick Fury: Well, looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain. /folder
 * SacrificialLion: Subverted with spoiler:Fury faking his death, but played straight with spoiler:the three World Security Council members Pierce executes when things begin to go downhill.
 * SamusIsAGirl: One of the mooks that guard the arrested Cap, Black Widow, and Falcon turns out to be spoiler:Maria Hill in disguise, about to save them. She makes a snarky comment about the helmet being uncomfortable.
 * SceneryGorn: One scene has a pair of massive S.H.I.E.L.D. AirborneAircraftCarrier Helicarriers smashing into each other, bursting into flames and disintegrating into a thousand pieces as they fall out of the air into the Potomac River below them. The force of the impact destroys the barrier keeping the Potomac out of the launch bays beneath it, and water rushes in. The third careens out of control due to heavy damage and crashes into the above-ground portion of the Triskelion.
 * SchizoTech: In the secret bunker, Steve and Natasha find a large, clunky computer mainframe made in TheSeventies... with a very modern flash drive attached (though it's clearly a later addition). Once spoiler:Zola comes online it's shown performing functions that would be way beyond the capabilities of the computers of that era (such as speech synthesis) or even the computers of today (such as spoiler:perfectly emulating a human brain; there's a reason that the TuringTest is considered one of the ultimate goals of computer science).
 * SenselessSacrifice: Played for drama during the climax. As spoiler:HYDRA agents prepare to board the helicarriers, several ordinary security guards try to stop them... and are killed without even slowing their enemies down.
 * SequelHook: Several:
 * Cap and Falcon set out to track down spoiler:Bucky, who vanished after saving Cap from drowning and is trying to learn more about his past self.
 * spoiler:HYDRA have recovered and begun to study Loki's staff, with ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} and ComicBook/ScarletWitch as their prisoners.
 * spoiler:With his death faked, Nick Fury goes on a one-man mission hunting down HYDRA's remnants, while Black Widow disappears to form a new identity.
 * spoiler:Brock Rumlow also survives one of the Helicarrier explosions, but has been left horribly disfigured through burns, leaving him open to return and take up his identity as Crossbones from the comics.
 * ServileSnarker: Ambiguous. One would almost think that Fury's car is run by Film/IronMan J.A.R.V.I.S.'s cousin or something... Or Fury may have just AskAStupidQuestion walked into this one with a completely LiteralMinded machine.
 * ShameIfSomethingHappened: When Sam Wilson threatens spoiler:Agent Sitwell into coming along as their prisoner.
 * SheatheYourSword: Captain America lets his iconic shield fall into the Potomac below to illustrate that he doesn't want to fight the Winter Soldier.
 * ShellShockedVeteran: Cap and the Falcon are "wounded warriors" who become friends through their mutual trauma of losing a close friend on the battlefield.
 * SherlockScan: Done by Cap, allowing him to deduce he is about to be attacked inside a crowded elevator, via clues such as one agent keeping his hand on his gun and another sweating profusely.
 * ShieldBash: Cap's shield is just as good on offense as defense, especially when the Winter Soldier picks it up and uses it against him. Steve also damn near wrecks an entire floor of an office building chasing after the Winter Soldier by bashing down doors and windows.
 * ShipperOnDeck: Natasha apparently ships Steve/Sharon, given she suggests he ask Sharon out a few times. Other girls get a single suggestion, but not this one girl.
 * ShipTease:
 * Most mainstream outlets focused on the chemistry-possibly-UST between Captain America and Black Widow. Entertainment Weekly even [dedicated an article to the pairing's potential.]
 * Curiously enough, for a pairing of which only one of the characters appears: Natasha wears an Comicbook/{{Hawkeye}} arrow necklace.
 * Steve is attracted to Sharon before discovering who she is, eventually comes around, and Natasha is a ShipperOnDeck for them from the beginning.
 * ShootTheHostage: Done by Natasha spoiler:on herself -- when at the bad guy's gunpoint, she shocks herself into unconsciousness to leave him empty-handed.
 * ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: The Helicarriers are designed to be flying artillery, able to eliminate threats from miles away. In the end, spoiler:they shoot each other at point-blank range when Maria Hill changes their targeting coordinates.
 * ShoutOut: See in ShoutOut/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier this page.
 * ShownTheirWork: The scenic jog Steve and Sam take at the beginning is a [real route] that one could follow in downtown Washington. Further, it's about 4 miles long, meaning that Steve (who lapped Sam RuleOfThree three times), would actually have run about "thirteen miles in thirty minutes," as Sam complains afterwards.
 * ShroudedInMyth: The Winter Soldier is considered a myth by most of the intelligence community, and is specifically called "a ghost" by Natasha.
 * ShutUpHannibal: This one between Falcon and spoiler:Brock Rumlow.
 * ShutUpKirk: The Winter Soldier (having had multiple memory wipes that have turned him into more of a literal killing machine than a person) does this to Steve IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight as he attempts to tell the Winter Soldier who he isnote(see Fridge Brilliance on Fridge page for more details about this scene)/note:
 * SignatureStyle: The Winter Soldier's theme music bears strong resemblances to "Why So Serious?", the Joker's theme from Film/TheDarkKnight. This isn't surprising since Henry Jackman worked under Music/HansZimmer as a synthesizer programmer on that film.
 * SinisterSurveillance: The bad guys' plan takes full advantage of the miracles of the 21st century, where EverythingIsOnline.
 * SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer:
 * Despite having fairly large roles in the Super Bowl spot and the second trailer, the Falcon isn't featured at all on the theatrical poster, though he is featured on the Japanese theatrical poster.
 * Maria Hill doesn't appear in any of the trailers (except for the back of her head while looking at spoiler:Fury in surgery), only appearing in a few pre-release publicity stills.
 * spoiler:Arnim Zola is this, for understandable reasons.
 * SlaveToPR: Upon capturing Captain America and his allies, spoiler:a HYDRA agent prepares to shoot him right then and there (in broad daylight and out in the open), but Rumlow spots a news helicopter and whispers "Not here!" in his ear. A JustifiedTrope, since spoiler:they want to make it easier to take control, and you can't publicly execute Captain America and then tell everyone you're the good guy. Steve would have become a martyr.
 * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Part of the film's conflict involves the idealistic Steve having to cope with the cynical spy world.
 * SoftGlass:
 * Happens quite a lot throughout the movie, in a somewhat justified example as the person doing it is usually Cap, who also usually jumps shield first. He punches spoiler:Zola's computer screen with his bare hand to no ill effect, but only cracks it -- and besides, it's Cap.
 * Winter Soldier does this a few times, but always with his metal arm/hand.
 * The most egregious example is Falcon jumping through a window on the 41st floor of the Triskelion. Windows in high rise buildings are usually purpose-built to keep people from doing just that -- though, when he does so, the entire floor/walls/ceiling are a second-or-less away from complete collapse, spoiler:due to an entire Helicarrier crashing into them.
 * SoftWater: Invoked when Captain America leaps out of a Quinjet into the ocean for a stealthy insertion -- nope, he doesn't have a parachute. The movie is pretty clear that the only reason Cap can do it is because he's a SuperSoldier.
 * SomethingWeForgot:
 * When the Winter Soldier attacks the three heroes on the highway, Captain America and Black Widow fall to the street below, so the Winter Soldier goes down in pursuit. His henchmen fire on the heroes below. Then Sam, who was still up there and forgotten by those guys, attacks them from the back.
 * When Captain America, Sam, Black Widow, and Maria Hill begin their attack on S.H.I.E.L.D., did you notice that Black Widow is suddenly missing? No, she did not take a break: spoiler:she disguised herself as a member of the Council.
 * SovietSuperscience: Downplayed and, unlike in the comics, spoiler:subverted. While the Winter Soldier does have some Soviet trappings, uses Cold War-era rounds and even speaks Russian at one point, spoiler:it's all to obscure his real HYDRA-based origins.
 * SpiritualSuccessor: In the DVD commentary, the directors explicitly cite Film/ThreeDaysOfTheCondor as one of the inspirations for this film, even saying that they could have called it "Three Days of Captain America."
 * SpoilerCover: The Blu-Ray and DVD releases show the Winter Soldier unmasked right on the back cover, showing that he's spoiler:Bucky Barnes. This is hardly a revelation to comic fans, but might still come as a surprise to viewers who hadn't read the source material.
 * SpoilerTitle: To those familiar with Winter Soldier's character and identity (or even people who have stumbled upon his trope page). spoiler:Though, as it turns out, the real spoiler has nothing to do with the Winter Soldier or Bucky Barnes at all.
 * SpottingTheThread: When Steve and Natasha trace the clues to Camp Lehigh -- the base where Steve underwent basic training -- he quickly notices an [ammo dump] that wasn't there seventy years ago. As he's such a RulesLawyer, he knows that Army regulations state that weapons are not allowed to be stored within 500 feet of a barracks (y'know, so it doesn't NoOSHACompliance kill any soldiers if it blows up). spoiler:It's a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. installation, where Arnim Zola's [[BrainUploading uploaded brain is stored.]]
 * SpyFiction: Winter Soldier plays up the SpyFiction Stale Beer Flavored espionage aspect of S.H.I.E.L.D. and questions whether TheCape Captain America can play ball with them. spoiler:Verdict: at least in the MCU, he's better suited to it than anyone else, as he's literally the [[OnlySaneMan only person who gets that the entire spy era along with its tropes and GreyAndGrayMorality was a lie created by HYDRA to conquer the world.]]
 * SpySpeak: Fury at Rogers' apartment. He tries to warn Steve via typed messages that BigBrotherIsWatching Big Brother Is Listening and so has to explain what's happened recently while trying to make it sound as a SeinfeldianConversation. So, Fury, TalkAboutTheWeather how's the weather?
 * StaringKid: One catches Steve at his own Smithsonian exhibit. Steve seems to be amused by it but motions for him to keep quiet.
 * StealthHiBye: The chase between Captain America and the Winter Soldier screeches to a halt when the Soldier drops down from a building. When Steve reaches the spot, the Soldier is long gone, even though the area below is an open road.
 * StealthPun:
 * Cap laps Sam repeatedly while jogging, making it literally a RunningGag.
 * Sam Wilson's military rank is Captain, meaning that if you pair it with his codename, it becomes VideoGame/FZero Captain Falcon.
 * Steve spends most of the elevator fight with one hand in a magnetic handcuff attached to the wall, which means he beats up his opponents literally single-handed.
 * StateSec: With its worldwide jurisdiction, deep and constant surveillance, and the army of agents, S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the way to becoming this. spoiler:Just as HYDRA planned.
 * TheStinger:
 * Much like Film/{{The Avengers|2012}} and Film/ThorTheDarkWorld, there are two post-credits sequences -- one setting up for Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron, and one providing closure to the film's events.
 * The first stinger features spoiler:Baron von Strucker discussing the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. and revealing that HYDRA operations in Europe go undamaged. He's studying [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Loki's staff, and the scene closes on the debut of ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} and ComicBook/ScarletWitch in the MCU, as prisoners of HYDRA]].
 * The second stinger shows spoiler:Bucky, looking to discover the truth of his identity, at the Captain America Smithsonian Exhibit standing in front of the memorial to his past life.
 * StillWearingTheOldColors: The Winter Soldier still has a Soviet star and gear even after the fall of the Soviet Union. spoiler:More importantly, when Cap gets ready to fight HYDRA, he acquires his WWII gear from the Smithsonian exhibition rather than use the suit that he was wearing when he fled S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * SuperheroPackingHeat:
 * The Falcon wields GunsAkimbo two SMGs. Comicbook/BlackWidow wields two Glocks.
 * While he's not a superhero, the Winter Soldier uses an impressive amount of projectile weaponry.
 * Averted with Steve; in this one, unlike his previous two appearances, he never uses, or more than incidentally touches, a firearm.
 * SupernormalBindings: The attackers in the elevator have a set of manacles with very powerful electro-magnets. They get one on Cap, securing his hand to the elevator wall and forcing him to fight the rest of them one-handed. Then he's able to wrench the manacle off the wall. Later on, he's confined in what looks like a cross between a set of handcuffs and a straitjacket.
 * SuperWindowJump: After the ElevatorActionSequence in the Triskelion, Cap jumps through the glass wall of the elevator all the way to the lobby using his shield. He does another version when chasing The Winter Soldier, jumping across the street and through a window. He has the advantage of his vibration-absorbing shield to protect him from the kinetic energy involved in doing something like this.
 * SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Doubly surprising given it's recurring character spoiler:Jasper Sitwell; evidently AnyoneCanDie. spoiler:He's ripped from a car and tossed in front of a truck by the Winter Soldier after barely finishing a sentence.
 * TemptingFate: Those loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. pilots just have to point out that they're the only air support Captain America has coming. spoiler:Seconds later, the Winter Soldier takes them out before even one can get airborne.
 * ThreePointLanding: The Winter Soldier does it after flying off a braking car. Sparks are flying when he brakes with his metal arm.
 * TrailersAlwaysSpoil:
 * The trailers show loads of footage with spoiler:Nick Fury that don't show up in the movie before spoiler:his apparent death, thus allowing for audiences to easily deduce that spoiler:he'll reappear later in the movie.
 * Trailers also show spoiler:one of the Helicarriers crashing.
 * The fact that cast interviews included spoiler:Sebastian Stan might've been enough for audiences to deduce the Winter Soldier's identity, but seeing him credited as spoiler:Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in interviews kind of sealed the deal.
 * TalkingIsAFreeAction: spoiler:Arnim Zola uses this trope in order to distract Cap and Natasha to make sure that the missile strike he ordered kills them.
 * TakingYouWithMe: Cap's plan to destroy (or at least cripple) spoiler:HYDRA involves the dismantling of S.H.I.E.L.D..
 * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
 * An entire team of police officers riddles Fury's crashed SUV with assault rifle fire. Given how ridiculously armored the thing is, anything less wouldn't have even been a bother. When they get tired of their bullets bouncing off the glass, they go to Plan B: the SWAT team deploys a pneumatic battering ram to break the window. Fury responds with a minigun that takes out most of the SWAT team and some of the patrol cops, and blows up the SWAT team van and a squad car. This means they resort to Plan C: try to shoot at him during the resulting police chase. And when Fury manages to trick the police cars into getting T-boned by a box rental truck, they resort to Plan D: the Winter Soldier fires a sticky bomb that attaches itself to the underside of Fury's car and flips the car on its roof.
 * Another entire team of bad guys are sent to capture Rogers in an elevator. Notably, the elevator stops twice so that more guys with guns can get on. spoiler:It still isn't enough.
 * After spoiler:Zola calls in a missile strike, S.T.R.I.K.E. teams, backed by several gunships, arrive within minutes to sift through the wreckage.
 * When the Winter Soldier is sent to take out Cap, he has five guys with automatic weapons and grenade launchers, plus a GatlingGood minigun.
 * ThereWasADoor: There probably isn't a window in this movie that Rogers doesn't go through at one point or another.
 * TooCleverByHalf: Nick Fury is the greatest spy in the world, leader of the greatest spy network in the world... and yet spoiler:he doesn't notice the infiltration by HYDRA until it's almost too late to stop them.
 * TruthInTelevision: Natasha mentions "[Operation Paperclip]", a real-life effort program by the OSS spoiler:(replaced with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the movie's universe) to recruit Nazi scientists.
 * TVHeadRobot: While not a humanoid robot, the film recreates spoiler:Arnim Zola's mainstream appearance as an old supercomputer that houses his preserved consciousness. spoiler:Zola can project a representation of his face through the monitor(s), while a single surveillance camera atop the center console serves as his eye.
 * UndercoverAsLovers: While hacking at a mall, Natasha tells the Apple Store employee that Steve is her fianc&eacute;. He pretends their screen tracking a program to New Jersey is merely their honeymoon destination search.
 * TheUnreveal: Throughout the movie, there are some hints that Agent 13 is Peggy Carter's niece, but when Steve asks Natasha her name, she simply says it's Sharon, without mentioning the surname.
 * VillainousBreakdown:
 * The Winter Soldier loses it after spoiler:Steve continues to call him Bucky and insists that they know each other. This can largely be blamed on HYDRA frying his brain to wipe his memories over and over. The Soldier is obviously conditioned only to think in terms of what will complete his mission and of himself as a weapon, with deviation resulting in pain, leaving him unable to conceptualise having a name or a friend. It only gets worse when Steve willingly drops his shield into the Potomac and refuses to fight him on the basis of a friendship that the Winter Soldier has no memory of -- these are totally outside his parameters, eliciting something frighteningly close to a mental breakdown as his memories resurface and the inside of his head gets broken apart. Again.
 * spoiler:Agent Sitwell clearly HighAltitudeInterrogation doesn't want to repeat his bungee-jumping experience again, even if it means Pierce YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness will kill him.
 * VillainousValor:
 * spoiler:Zola keeps Captain America and Natasha talking in his bunker to ensure they'll be there when a missile hits it.
 * spoiler:Pierce's final line before the Helicarrier brings the Triskelion crashing down around him is "Hail HYDRA!"
 * WalkingSpoiler:
 * Not that he does any real walking, but spoiler:Arnim Zola's return was kept tightly under wraps and his appearance is the WhamShot that shows the real stakes of the film; discussing his role in any length gives away the HYDRA aspect of the plot.
 * The Winter Soldier himself counts, but that's only if you were hell-bent on making sure you didn't know his identity until after you saw the movie. spoiler:Though the fact that HYDRA created him instead of the Soviets is a bit of spoiler in itself, if your source material is the comics.
 * WarriorTherapist: Sam Wilson works at the VA counselling veterans and soldiers who come back from wars with PTSD, and he's also an elite soldier.
 * WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Rogers' Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. outfit incorporates some of the stars-and-stripes imagery of his previous costumes, only without the red. For the final act, spoiler:he [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece steals his WWII outfit from the Smithsonian and wears that]]. Also, a prominent poster shows Cap's shield with the paint scratched off, which emphasizes the RedIsHeroic moral ambiguity of Cap's current position with S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * WellIntentionedExtremist: spoiler:Zola and Pierce try to sell the new HYDRA as this, being severed from its original Nazi roots and essentially having the same values as S.H.I.E.L.D., but being willing to go one step further to ensure peace and order. It's severely undermined by the fact that their primary targets are threats to their own political power (even the current president of the United States), and not (as Pierce tries to claim) people who are mathematically likely to become the next Bin Laden or even the next Julian Assange or Bernie Madoff. And a shot during the targeting sequence reveals they're targeting families with giant cannons that will no doubt cause collateral damage.
 * WesternTerrorists: Batroc's men. Granted, Batroc is Algerian, but he's white and speaks French. spoiler:Subverted. They're not terrorists at all, they're mercs hired to act like terrorists for purposes of Fury's FalseFlagOperation.
 * WhamEpisode: spoiler:HYDRA is back and stronger than ever. It infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. at its creation and has been influencing the world since the end of World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. is dissolved at the end of the movie, and all of its secrets are made public. Fury has faked his death and gone underground to fight HYDRA. Baron Strucker has both [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Loki's staff and Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The S.H.I.E.L.D. part even more given Marvel had just started an Series/AgentsOfSHIELD series. The cast and crew of that were given an early screening... and their reaction was "are our jobs still safe?"]]
 * WhamLine:
 * spoiler:HYDRA's 'cut off one head' motto was previously presented as a slightly silly thing in The First Avenger. In this film, it takes on a horrific tone once you realise exactly just how far their reach has extended since the "head" fronted by the Red Skull was eliminated.
 * spoiler:Zola's "I am not a recording, Fr&auml;ulein" also qualifies.
 * spoiler:Senator Stern: "Hail Hydra."
 * Steve: spoiler:"We're not salvaging anything. We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're [[ItIsBeyondSaving taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."]]
 * This scene, imported verbatim from ComicBook/CaptainAmericaWinterSoldier:
 * Early on, the security system at the Triskelion immediately flags Rogers as having too low a security clearance for the destination Fury gives to the elevator they've entered. Without skipping a beat, Fury overrides the system with a simple voice command. A few minutes later, he uses the same voice command to access the files on the recovered thumb drive; the system refusing his override is a major indicator that something is very wrong.
 * WhamShot:
 * When returning to his apartment, Steve chats pleasantly with a nurse living down the hall from him. A few minutes later spoiler:Nick Fury has been shot in his room, and Steve sees the same nurse now wielding a rifle, claiming she's his undercover bodyguard.
 * Steve is ruthlessly mobbed in an elevator by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents he thought were friends. Cut to a control room where an official is directing the attack, spoiler:and it's Jasper Sitwell, the agent Steve saved on the Lemurian Star and a regular ally in previous Marvel movies.
 * A mysterious voice coming from an old computer appears to know who Steve and Natasha are, spoiler:and on one of its screens it displays a photo of thought-deceased HYDRA scientist Dr. Arnim Zola.
 * Shortly after that, a major CerebusRetcon to the MCU is implemented with the single line "Accidents will happen," displayed over spoiler:a headline about [[Film/IronMan the death of Howard and Maria Stark]].
 * A recap shot of the Helicarriers precision point-guns. The first time they're seen, they don't panic the viewer and are quickly forgotten about. The second time they're shown, though, is in the middle of a rant about spoiler:HYDRA using it them to "purify" millions and create a new world order, revealing their horrifying potential.
 * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Steve's new costume disappears as soon as he escapes the Triskelion, and when he needs to don a costume for the finale, he chooses his WWII combat gear instead. A deleted scene shows that he ditched his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform (which contained a tracking device) at a basketball court in order to throw off his pursuers.
 * WhatTheHellHero: Captain America gets to give quite a few throughout the film.
 * When Natasha jeopardizes the attempt to rescue the hostages by retrieving data for S.H.I.E.L.D., he calls her out on endangering the mission and the hostages' lives.
 * When he meets with Nick Fury, Rogers calls him out on having Natasha do what she did, saying that military operations are dependent on trust. After seeing Project Insight, he tells Fury that he's disturbed about its implications.
 * Captain America pointedly raises the question of how many people died because of the secrets S.H.I.E.L.D. kept.
 * WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: One of the final scenes of the movie shows glimpses what happened to several of the surviving characters after the events of the movie:
 * spoiler:Natasha is HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee. She is acquitted of all charges and looks for a new identity.
 * spoiler:Agent 13 a.k.a. Sharon Carter is seen taking target practice as she applies for a field agent position with the CIA.
 * spoiler:Maria Hill is getting interviewed for a job at Stark Industries.
 * spoiler:Rumlow survived getting a Helicarrier dropped on his head, but he's badly burned.
 * spoiler:The FBI arrests HYDRA mole Senator Stern for numerous corruption and conspiracy charges.
 * spoiler:Fury throws all of his S.H.I.E.L.D. gear into a storage unit, including his eyepatch, then sets it on fire, and decides to head to Europe to hunt down the rest of HYDRA.
 * spoiler:Post-credits, Bucky is seen in civilian clothing at the Smithsonian's Howling Commandos exhibition looking around to find out more about his background.
 * WhereItAllBegan: An important plot point is revealed at Fort Lehigh, the boot camp where Steve Rogers started his military training all the way back in the '40s.
 * WholeCostumeReference: Rogers' new uniform takes cues from the "Super-Soldier" outfit his comics counterpart wore when he served as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * TheWorfEffect:
 * The Winter Soldier does this to resident Badasses Nick Fury and Black Widow, as well as the Falcon. In Nick's case, Nick had been successfully evading the police officers who were trying to kill him (albeit with some degree of difficulty) up until the Winter Soldier completely shuts him down. Even when spoiler:Nick escapes, the Winter Soldier tracks him down and delivers a near fatal blow. In Natasha's case, his combat ability overwhelms her; she is showing visible signs of stress as she struggles to stay alive and one step ahead of the Winter Soldier. And in Falcon's case he had successfully taken down spoiler:a Helicarrier all by himself, but as soon as he goes up against Winter Soldier he gets yanked out of the air and nearly falls to his death. All of this is to display that the only person capable of matching him and stopping him is Steve, which is distressing because spoiler:the Winter Soldier is Bucky.
 * Helicarriers are considered sort of the ultimate "Worf" in Captain America/S.H.I.E.L.D. mythology. From the moment that Helicarriers were revealed to exist in the movie, it was such a foregone conclusion that someone or something would show off by bringing them down that they didn't even try to pretend otherwise -- they're shown crashing on the posters. spoiler:In a twist, the three carriers are turned on each other and take each other down.
 * WorfHadTheFlu: Invoked but ultimately averted in Cap's fight with spoiler:Rumlow. He makes sure Cap is surrounded in a cramped elevator, taken by surprise, tasered, and restrained at least partially before going in to fight. Cap still beats him.
 * WorldOfSnark: Practically everybody has some snarky comments to drop. The World Security Council even tells Pierce to "make any snappy remarks" now, LampshadeHanging so as to get them over with.
 * WrestlerInAllOfUs: Cap uses a brutal German suplex on the Winter Soldier during their 2nd encounter. He also puts him in a sleeper, or rear naked choke, if you prefer MixedMartialArts terms (complete with the proper positioning and joint "hooks" for applying the hold as one would in MMA, judo or jiu-jitsu) to knock him out for a few seconds.
 * WronskiFeint: Falcon evades a MacrossMissileMassacre by flying close enough to a Helicarrier that they all crash into it.
 * YouAreInCommandNow: Towards the end, Cap is effectively in command spoiler:over the S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists against HYDRA.
 * YouAreNumberSix: Marvel's official synopsis of the film lists Sharon Carter under her codename of "Agent 13".
 * YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: This is Sitwell's reaction to Cap's SuperWindowJump from the elevator.
 * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: spoiler:HYDRA does this with spoiler:Sitwell, who moans a lot about how he's so dead before it happens.
 * YourOtherLeft: When Sam is trying to get Sitwell's attention, he tells him to look to ten o'clock. He looks right, so Sam says "your other ten o'clock."
 * YouWouldntShootMe: spoiler:Sitwell is unconvinced Cap is willing to pitch him off a building and remains defiant. Cap confirms his theory, SubvertedTrope then adds that Natasha has no such scruples. She does pitch him off the building, spoiler:[[DoubleSubversion and then Falcon shows his wings, catching him in the air and CantKillYouStillNeedYou returning him to the rooftop]].