Your nominees for misleadingly or absurdly mistitled movies?
Asked by
Jeruba (
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February 27th, 2012
As a spinoff of this question, I’m wondering what movies you can think of whose titles were way off base—either failing to capture anything about the movie or downright misrepresenting it.
How about including a brief synopsis and/or an IMDb link to remind us what the movie was really about?
In addition to The Straight Story (in the linked question), here are a few others that I’ve found notable:
Hideous Kinky – A free-spirited mother with her two young daughters in tow travels to Morocco in search of whatever seems to be missing in her life. The girls’ word game that supposedly accounts for the title is a minor theme that seems irrelevant to the story. It’s just a meaningless grabber.
Sexy Beast – A “one last heist for the old gang” bank robbery storyline, with a main character whose violent nature made him beastly, but who certainly didn’t seem sexy. Another meaningless grabber.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? is all about eating, all right, but the title sounds like a joke, right down to the alliterative food name of the main character, instead of the sensitive and touching story of a young man who is trying to have a life while looking after his strange family, including a morbidly obese mother who is eating herself to death.
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38 Answers
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars
Lester and Orville accidentally launch a rocket which is supposed to fly to Mars. Instead it goes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They are then forced by bank robber Mugsy and his pal Harry to fly to Venus where they find a civilization made up entirely of women, men having been banished.
They Shoot Horses Don’t They
Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill (not a mouse in sight.)
No Country for Old Men. I thought the old men in the film suited that country quite well.
Goodfellas. Those fellas were some very bad fellows.
Modern Times. It came out in 1936! That is OLDEN times. Nothing modern about that movie.
Das Boot. Not about a boot at all. It’s a bunch of Germans in a submarine. Those guys probably weren’t even wearing boots.
A Beautiful Mind. The guy was, sadly, nuts. I didn’t find that beautiful at all.
To Kill a Mockingbird. I watched that whole movie and I STILL don’t know how to kill a mockingbird.
Law Abiding Citizen – Clearly not one character was wholly law abiding.
What Dreams May Come (which I heard as “Wet Dreams May Cum” every damn time).
The Dark Knight. It is not about a knight at all. It is about a pervert in a fursuit.
@filmfann
You can go either way and still get there.
@ragingloli – yeah but that’d be a long and boring film!
Star Trek (2009)
It was not Star Trek.
Hillary and Jackie., those were the names of the main characters. But with names like that, I thought the movie was going to be about famous first ladies. WTF? A movie about a cellist?
Babes in Toy land. Some actors go to a land full of living toys… I didn’t see any babes anywhere. It Disappointed me every time I watched it as a teenager and forgot what the story was.
“Free Willy”—Sounds like a movie about a dirty old man who gets arrested for indecent exposure.
“Brazil”—did anyone even go to Brazil in this movie?
“Candyman” – NOT a sequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Oh dear lord…
The French Connection – Although a damn fine movie, I see no sign of the fashion store at all.
FCUK me sideways.
Lord of the Rings – & where exactly are Sir Elton John & George Michael…hmmm?
@ucme Sirs aren’t Lords. You got your British titles mixed up. But I am positive you could find some Lords that fit your little joke nicely if you did some research.
@cazzie I was referring more to their sexual prowess dear. George ain’t no knight of the realm anyway.
The Phantom Menace
No phantom No menace
Benny and Joon. It was really a love story between Sam and Joon. Benny was the brother.
The Black Dahlia. The majority of the movie didn’t seem to focus on the title character.
It Happened One Night – It happened over several nights, actually.
The Breakfast Club – I’ve seen this movie about a million times, and have no idea why it’s called that.
Hearts in Atlantis – The title is taken from a different story in the same book, and the story presented in the movie had zero to do with a card game causing college students to flunk out and get drafted to go to Viet Nam.
I always found Legends of the Fall confusing.
@6rant6 In fairness, didn’t you find “Snakes On A Plane” confusing?
there was no plane in that movie. A plane is a 2 dimensional object.
House MD It has nothing to do with houses, apart from the fact that junior doctors break into houses illegally to find medical clues (I know a lot of doctors, but none of them is a burglar surprisingly).
Hook which sounds like a horror movie if you don’t know it, but is in fact the story of Peter Pan.
Ocean’s ## which has nothing to do with the sea.
12 Monkeys. I didn’t even see ONE!
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. If I hadn’t read the book first, I’d never watch a movie about birds.
…and of course the notorious Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas’ story about FOUR musketeers! :D
and they did not even use muskets
St Elmo’s Fire yeah ok, now we know what it meant, but when I first heard the title, I was wondering what caught fire.
A movie called Superman which had absolutely nothing to do with the famous superhero. All I remember was some wild cat scratching a guy’s face.
there’s a bunch actually, I’ll think of more and post tomorrow…
Reservoir Dogs—Not about a bunch of dogs living by the river… I don’t remember a single dog in the movie.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape—I kept waiting for him to get eaten (by his mom?) but he never did.
The Untouchables—Nothing to do with the dalit caste in India. Nothing at all.
Honey I Blew Up the Kid—Disappointingly lacking in exploding children.
Pink Flamingos—Sounds like a great movie to take grandma and the kids to.
Funny People—- The tell is that Adam Sandler is in it.
Blow-up——there were no explosions.
Thor – It wasn’t about global warming or anything!
poor I know
@filmfann Without having seen the movie, I thought “fall” might mean descent or undoing. So “Legends of” could mean stories told rather than heroes, __smart ass__.
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