Adaptation Displacement: You bet your ass that re-releases of Q & A feature Slumdog Millionaire much more prominently than the original title.
Cliché Storm: For Bollywood viewers. Directly caused its poor reception in India.
Complete Monsters: Any thug that appears in the movie, including the kidnappers and the guy that blinds kids so that they can rake in more money.
Crowning Music of Awesome: A.R.Rahman, India's leading composer, explores a great variety of music in the film, both traditional and modern, sometimes even a mixture. The result? One hell of a soundtrack.
Establishing Character Moment: When we first meet Jamal, he's trying to catch a ball playing cricket. Salim is yelling at him to catch it, then Jamal fails from no fault of his own. Salim yells at him. They high five a few seconds later.
Funny Aneurysm Moment: Almost to the day when the film is being released worldwide — the platforms of the CST, where much of the film (e.g. the "Jai Ho" dance sequence) takes place, is the scene of a particularly bloody terrorist attack.
Harsher in Hindsight: Life Imitates Art to a small extent for the slum-dwelling child stars. One of their houses (still a shack, their limited compensation being tied up in a trust fund) was bulldozed by the government, and another faced allegations that their family tried to sell them for adoption to a wealthy couple.
Hype Aversion/Hype Backlash: It won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And that is all we shall say on the matter.
Informed Flaw: Jamal's supposed lack of education and knowledge as a slumdog is lampshaded so many times, despite all evidence to the contrary it goes beyond Book Dumb into this. (heck, with their smarts the brothers could get jobs working in the Bollywood equivalent of a spy film. Or an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Kim)
Knowledge and intelligence are two different things. That's likely the point. And remember, no one expects much from a "slumdog". Neither brother is dumb, but everyone thinks they are unless they prove otherwise.
Shown Their Work: The movie star in the beginning who Jamal gets an autograph from is played by a double of the actual actor. Both the real actor and double sign with their left hand. The director mentions it in the commentary.
When She Smiles: It's one of the earliest, most memorable shots in the film, and it's not given context until about two-thirds through.