As any insider knows, Hollywood is a dog-eat-dog place. With financiers and bullish studios twisting artistry into cold hard dollars, the dreams—and careers—of many an actor are regularly chewed up and spat out. But the few big-screen performers who make it don’t always have the full picture, even at the top of their game. Friends, agents, writers, directors, producers, and studios all go out of their way to pull the wool over actors’ eyes, landing the glitterati in performances they didn’t realize they had signed up for and often would love to get out of…

Related: 10 Films That Were Rescued by the Editor

10 Tyler Perry—Gone Girl (2014)

A master craftsman of the novel adaptation, director David Fincher aimed his lens at Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl in 2014 and delivered an icy-cold psychological thriller for the ages. While pretty much everyone involved was thrilled to be on the project, not least because of the impact it had on their respective careers, there was one cast member who wasn’t pleased when he found out what he’d signed up for.

A minor yet crucial role in the movie, Tyler Perry plays Tanner Bolt, a lawyer known for representing men suspected of killing their wives and who represents Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunne. Despite being involved in the industry as a filmmaker in his own right, Perry was unaware of the kinds of films Fincher is in the business of making. If he had known, he would have turned the part down.

But Perry’s agent knew this and so spun him a line, keeping his client in the dark about the kind of movie it would be—and that it was an adaptation, something Perry was equally perturbed about making—long enough to get him over the line.^[1]

9 Linda Blair—Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

While The Exorcist (1973) is recognized as one of the greatest horror movies of all time on pretty much every front, the undeniable star of the show is Linda Blair, the young actor who played possessed child Regan MacNeil. Nonetheless, after being overexposed at a young age, she wasn’t keen to hop back on board with a sequel.

Despite this, Exorcist II: The Heretic plowed ahead just a few years later, using an impressive, exciting, well-written script to get Blair signed on. Excited to work with Richard Burton and a host of Academy Award-nominated actors (all of whom also thought the movie was going to be a big deal), Blair was willing to return to a movie franchise that had taken over much of her life.

Unfortunately, the script she was given at the beginning of production was not the one they shot. Blair and all her castmates just had to roll with the blows, adapting to the new material as it got progressively worse. It was rewritten five times in total, and the movie they made was a disaster, leaving all the cast’s hopes in ruin.^[2]

8 Chris Rock—Bee Movie (2007)

The subject of a near-infinite number of memes, Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie has lived far beyond its original premise as a family-friendly animation in the years since its release. And while its voice cast—which includes Seinfeld himself, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, and Chris Rock—is stacked with enough talent to have made it immortal, it wasn’t easy getting all of them on board.

Indeed, Seinfeld himself had to make the case directly to Rock to get him on the cast. He had a tough time of it, with Rock initially being resistant about joining what he saw as the next Shrek. But Jerry had one ace up his sleeve: Steven Spielberg.

Seinfeld talked up the apparent involvement of the legendary filmmaker to get Rock to sign on the dotted line. However, when Rock turned up to record his part, there wasn’t a trace of Spielberg to be found. While the Jurassic Park director had helped Seinfeld get his foot in the door with Dreamworks and featured in a couple of live-action trailers to promote the film, that is where his involvement ended.^[3]

7 Paula Abdul—Bruno (2009)

Despite having enjoyed a successful career as a singer, dancer, and actress in her own right, Paula Abdul was better known in the 2000s for judging American Idol. This is what put her in the crosshairs of prankster Sacha Baron Cohen, who followed up his hit mockumentary Borat (2006) with another, less successful outing in the genre.

Starring as gay Austrian fashion journalist Bruno, Cohen travels to the U.S. in the hopes of becoming a Hollywood celebrity. Along the way, he interviews and irritates a host of famous faces—Abdul included. The only thing is, Paula didn’t know she was starring in the movie until after the fact.

Having been told she was receiving the International Artist of the Year award, the American Idol judge arrived for an interview with Bruno. Cohen’s team kept all of Abdul’s stylists and entourage out to maintain secrecy and put the star in an interview that included sitting on and being served sushi from the bodies of live men. Abdul didn’t realize the full extent of what had happened—or the German-language agreement her publicist had signed—until the media called asking what it was like to work with Cohen…^[4]

6 Bill Murray—Garfield: The Movie (2004)

The first major Garfield feature arrived two decades before the most recent one, inserting a CGI fat cat into the real world, with Bill Murray providing a sardonic voice to match the comic strips. Despite this ingenious casting, Garfield has been the bane of Bill Murray’s career ever since he agreed to do it—but it’s his own fault.

When Murray received the script for the movie, he mistook writer Joel Cohen for Joel Coen of Fargo (1996) and Big Lebowski (1998) fame. Thus, the actor signed up on name recognition alone, figuring the guy who made some of the smartest, funniest films of the past decade would steer him right.

Nobody was quick to correct his mistake, not least because it meant they got to keep one of Hollywood’s funniest men on an otherwise run-of-the-mill production. It wasn’t until Murray turned up to record his lines that he realized something was wrong—namely, a lack of gags and good writing. He watched the film to get a feel for what had gone awry, and this was when they told him who was behind it, but by that point, it was too late.^[5]

5 Bill Murray—Ghostbusters II (1989)

Garfield was not the first time Murray had been stung on the run-up to a film. While some would say he should have known better, somehow, his experience with Ghostbusters II didn’t leave him with any lasting vigilance.

After the success of the first movie—itself essentially a series of skits by SNL cast members that nobody expected to be so big—Murray was reluctant to do a sequel. But given not just the nine-figure box office numbers but the infinite merchandise and branding potential, nobody else involved was going to let this stand. Someone (possibly director Ivan Reitman) rounded up the cast, got them laughing and having fun again, and pitched a sequel story idea that made Murray think it might just work.

As these things go, however, the film that was pitched, and even the one that was written, was not the film they shot. Murray figured that as the ink was dry and they were already shooting it, there was nothing to do but grin, bear it, and try to make the most of things.^[6]

4 Halle Berry—X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

X-Men: The Last Stand is nobody’s favorite X-Men movie, having brought the franchise to its knees. This fate would last five years before Matthew Vaughn set it back on its feet with prequel/reboot X-Men: First Class (2011). But for all the film’s more obvious failings, its worst ones happened behind the scenes.

Vaughn was originally in 20th Century Fox’s sights as the director for The Last Stand. However, one fateful meeting, in which he uncovered the studio’s plan to trick Halle Berry into returning, made him walk away.

Berry was lured back to the franchise with a padded, false script that put her character—Storm—front and center rather than (as things turned out) a much smaller part of a large ensemble. While Berry never found out about this before the contract was signed, Vaughn did. While visiting an executive’s office in Tinseltown, he saw the fake script. When he discovered what they were doing with it, he washed his hands with the project altogether. Thus, the studio went with Brett Ratner, and the rest is history.^[7]

3 Sylvester Stallone—Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)

The 1990s saw a lot of ’80s action stars turn to comedy, pivoting with a new decade and trying to broaden their appeal. And while results varied wildly, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot—in which Sylvester Stallone stars as a police sergeant whose mother (Estelle Getty) tags along on a brutal murder case—is a certified dud.

Why, then, did Stallone put himself up for it? It has everything to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had been Sly’s cinematic rival during the ’80s action era and was gunning for him in the ’90s.

Schwarzenegger was offered the script first and recognized it as a flop. Still, knowing the part was being offered to Stallone, he decided to lay a trap. Certain Stallone would want the role if he heard Arnie was interested, Schwarzenegger called his agent and director Roger Spottiswoode feigning interest. They reported back to the Rocky star, and true to form, Stallone jumped at the opportunity. It wasn’t until years later, after the film had bombed and the two stars had become friends, that Sly found out he had been duped.^[8]

2 Ryan Reynolds—X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

When Fox was trying to breathe life back into the X-Men franchise with their Origins series, they presented Ryan Reynolds with an ultimatum. If he wanted to play Deadpool, he’d have to be in this one.

He wrote and ad-libbed every line of his own dialogue, as the script had nothing prepared for him. Still, even this couldn’t save him, as Fox decided to destroy the character, sewing his mouth shut and making him unrecognizable. Despite promising that if Reynolds didn’t play the character, they would have someone else play him, this is what happened anyway. When Reynolds’s shooting time was up, they had Scott Adkins play the transformed version of the character in the film’s final sequence.

Despite this ostensibly being the first step on Reynolds’s path to a standalone Deadpool movie, the studio then shelved this idea. Had it not been for test footage being leaked five years later—confirmed via lie detector to have been assisted by Reynolds himself—it might never have been made at all.^[9]

1 The Entire Cast—Movie 43 (2013)

An anthology comedy that everyone would rather forget, Movie 43 took all the excesses of gross-out filmmaking from the preceding decades and wrote them across an excruciating 94 minutes. Featuring an ensemble cast of, among others, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Emma Stone, this is a rare occasion where the entire cast was duped into starring.

Halle Berry dumps her breasts in a bowl of guacamole; Hugh Jackman has a pair of testicles on his chin; and Gerard Butler is a foul-mouthed leprechaun—these are just a few of the scenarios these Hollywood A-listers found themselves in throughout Movie 43. However, they didn’t realize it would be like this.

Most of the cast were convinced in small, casual pitches at parties and weddings by producer-director Peter Farrelly and his producing partner Charlie Wessler. Few of the stars knew what they would be shooting—and neither did the filmmakers, clobbering the movie together as they went. When the time came, Farrelly knew the actors wanted out of the project, and while a few slipped the net, he wouldn’t let most of them go.^[10]

Though unthinkable for those of us in the present day, with our ability to digitize everything, there was a time when movies could only be saved in physical form. Because of this, coupled with production companies’ shortsightedness and the frailty of early film, many of the earliest movies have been lost to us. Here 10 of the most sought-after lost films.

SEE ALSO: 10 Surprisingly Awesome Things From History That We Somehow Lost

10 The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays

Starring: L. Frank Baum

Conceived by L. Frank Baum as a travelogue of sorts, designed to take you to the Land of Oz, The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays debuted on September 24, 1908. As a whole, it could be best described as a mixture of a live-action play, a slideshow, a lecture and a film presentation. One of the earliest attempts to translate Baum’s vision to the silver screen, it was produced by the Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago.

Though some of the film scenes are said to have been incorporated in to later movies which Selig produced, it is widely believed everything is lost. Critically acclaimed during its two-month run, the performance was just too expensive to turn a profit, even with the tickets as pricey as $1 per show. Faced with the prospect of a failed show and creditors banging down his door, Baum sold the rights to three of his books to the Selig Polyscope Company, who managed to make another lost film: The Wonderful World of Oz.^[1]

9 Jail Birds of Paradise

Starring: The Two Stooges (Sorry Larry)

More of a short than a full-length movie, with a running time of only 18 minutes, Jail Birds of Paradise was released on March 10, 1934. One of the earliest depictions of the slapstick comedy for which they would become world-famous, the film takes place in a prison, one in which the warden’s daughter had begun to run amok. While her father was gone, she turned it into a luxury hotel of sorts, with the prison guards forced to perform any number of menial tasks.

We’re introduced to Moe Howard first, playing an axe murderer coming from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. A toupée-wearing Curly Howard shows up a little later, the mastermind of a bald cure scam amongst the other prisoners. By the end of the movie, a fight breaks out between the prisoners, with gunshots echoing throughout the jail.^[2]

8 The Story of the Kelly Gang

Starring: Elizabeth Tait, John Tait

While not entirely lost, as 17 minutes of its runtime exists as of today, The Story of the Kelly Gang still belongs on this list. Recognized as the world’s first feature-length narrative movie, more than 40 minutes from this infamous Australian film remains missing. Incredibly successful right from the start at its release in 1906, it tells the story of Ned Kelly, an infamous Australian criminal, and his merry band of miscreants.

Various small fragments, some only a few frames’ worth, were uncovered over time; however, the largest single piece was brought to the light in 2006, during research performed by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. In another lucky break, programs which contained scene-by-scene breakdowns were provided at showings of the film; these provided researchers with valuable information with which to order the few bits of film available to them.^[3]

7 The Oregon Trail

Starring: John Wayne

Having appeared in over one hundred and seventy films, John Wayne was one of America’s biggest box office draws of all time. However, even with that level of stardom, he is not immune to the vagaries of film history. One of his earlier films which was lost to us is The Oregon Trail. Released in 1936, it tells the story of John Delmont, a veteran who, upon realizing his father was murdered, vows to hunt down his father’s killer.

Though Wayne would eventually be propelled to being a household name, that wouldn’t happen until 1939, in John Ford’s Stagecoach. So, after its theatrical run, all known copies of the film just disappeared. In a silver lining of sorts, a fan of Wayne’s ordered some memorabilia in 2013. Included in his purchase were the negatives of 40 photographs known as movie stills, presumably sent by mistake. For movie buffs, they provide insight into the early career of one of Hollywood’s most famous cowboys.

Who knows? It might turn up someday as another of Wayne’s film was believed lost as well. A copy of Baby Face turned up in the US Library of Congress in 2004.^[4]

6 Alam Ara

Starring: Master Vithal, Zubeida

Most likely unknown to most Western countries, Alam Ara holds a significant place in the legacy of Indian cinema: released on March 14, 1931, it was the first “talkie” in the country’s history. A love story between a female gypsy and an Indian prince, Alam Ara introduced the basic structure which seems to dominate Bollywood to this day. The songs featured in the film became widely successful hits, as did the film itself.

As early as 1967, there were no known copies of Alam Ara left in the world; although, there may have been a copy lost in a 2003 fire at the National Film Archives of India, a tragedy which claimed copies of other landmark films of Indian cinema. Luckily, those movies could be found in private hands; Alam Ara would not be so lucky and all that is left of it are a handful of movie stills and posters.^[5]

5 Saved from the Titanic

Starring: Dorothy Gibson

A relatively nondescript actress during the silent film era of American cinema, Dorothy Gibson is best known for a weird coincidence. She starred in Saved from the Titanic, a film released a mere 29 days after the tragic sinking and, unsurprisingly, the first one about the event. The coincidence: Gibson herself was on the Titanic and was on the very first lifeboat launched after it struck the fateful iceberg.

Co-writing the film at the behest of her employer, the French film company Éclair, Gibson was seemingly forced to relive a lot of the tragedy she had just narrowly survived. In fact, she allegedly wore the same clothes she had been wearing when the Titanic went down. Playing a fictional version of herself, Gibson is set to marry a Navy ensign named Jack. Faced with a traumatized daughter, Gibson’s mother tells Jack he needs to choose either the Navy or her daughter. Choosing the Navy, Jack is surprised when Gibson’s father gives him her hand anyway.

With the last known copy destroyed in a fire at Éclair Studios in 1914, Saved from the Titanic will probably be lost forever, with only a few production stills remaining. As for Gibson, she purportedly suffered a mental breakdown and retired from acting shortly after.^[6]

4 The Carpet from Bagdad

Starring: Kathlyn Williams, Guy Oliver, Wheeler Oakman

Produced by the prolific silent film company the Selig Polyscope Company, The Carpet from Bagdad tells the story of a precious, even sacred, Iraqi carpet. A group of international thieves plot to steal it from the mosque which houses it and sell it to an antique dealer, who ends up falling in love with the daughter of the head of the crooks, played by Kathlyn Williams.

Relatively well received upon its release, the movie nevertheless fell victim to the same fate as nearly all of Selig’s films: it disappeared. Out of the hundreds of movies they produced, very few managed to survive and The Carpet from Bagdad was not one of the lucky ones. Perhaps the oddest twist involves the only surviving reel we have: it was salvaged from the wreck of the infamous RMS Lusitania in 1982. As for why it was on the ship, it was probably being brought to the UK for a potential release.^[7]

3 The Betrayal

Starring: Leroy Collins, Verlie Cown

Directed by one of the earliest black American directors, a man named Oscar Micheaux, The Betrayal was his final film and, unfortunately, it was also one of his worst, being widely panned by nearly everyone. Seen as the Tyler Perry of his day, Micheaux released at least one black-centric film a year for over two decades.

The Betrayal was adapted from his own novel, a book which itself drew from Micheaux’s first film The Homesteader. Telling a well-worn story of self-sufficiency, love and treachery, it was a big-budget movie, largely financed by Micheaux himself. When it flopped, it was so financially devastating he was forced to go on a book-selling tour, a decision which eventually led to his death.

One small piece of alleged trivia: the reason we don’t have any copies of The Betrayal is that Micheaux’s wife, Alice Russell, destroyed all the copies because she was distraught over his treatment at the hands of the press.^[8]

2 Peludópolis

Starring: N/A (Animated)

Widely considered the first animated feature film with sound, Peludópolis is an Argentinian film from 1931, a satirical look at the political atmosphere of the time. Quirino Cristiani, the director and main animator, had a target in his eyes: Hipólito Yrigoyen, the president of Argentina at the time production began on the film. However in 1930, with the movie nearly three-quarters complete, Yrigoyen was deposed in a military coup, an event which sent Cristiani scrambling.

The film was changed, mainly the ending, and it was premiered in 1931, with the temporary president installed by the military in the audience for the showing. The old president was still shown as a corrupt politician and the generals were featured as liberators. Though critics received it relatively favorably, the public did not care for it, often finding the situation too serious to laugh at. Faced with financial difficulties of such a failure, and with Walt Disney’s reach finally making it to Argentina, Cristiani retired from full-length animated filmmaking.^[9]

1 The Miracle Man

Starring: Lon Chaney, Thomas Meighan, Betty Compson

Though Thomas Meighan and Betty Compson were stars in their own right, the biggest star to emerge from this film was Lon Chaney, the “Man of a Thousand Faces”. In The Miracle Man, Chaney played a con man known as The Frog, pretending to have a crippling physical disability in order to con a blind faith healer. However, prolonged exposure to the man known as the Patriarch changes Chaney and the other members of the gang, causing them to go straight.

Despite being an incredible success, costing $120,000 to make and grossing more than $3,000,000, no copies of The Miracle Man have made it to the present day. A few small clips survived, with the scene where Chaney is “healed” of his affliction being chief among them.^[10]

+ Something Good – Negro Kiss

Thanks to our reader Gu who commented below, I wanted to add a bonus item to this list. This film was directed by William Selig (the director of item 4 above) in 1898 and was lost. But in this case it was recovered in 2018! The film is particularly interesting historically as it is the first film featuring black Americans in a non-caricatured form, though Selig had previously filmed a number of minstrel shows.

The two actors, Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown (both born 150 years ago!) do a brilliant job conveying a sense of passion for each other. They actually performed as dance partners but were not a couple. What an amazing bit of luck it is that this historic work was recovered, and what amazing quality it is!

Would you ever expect a government to ban a family film from release? Since they are based at a young audience, family films usually do not contain content that would anger film censors. But these films—which certainly look “kid-friendly” on the surface—were prohibited from being screened in certain countries for surprising reasons that don’t always make sense. Is it true that you can find a controversy in everything? Or were these films banned for legitimate reasons? Let’s find out.

SEE ALSO: 10 Beloved Children’s Books Banned For Stupid Reasons

10 Every Marx Brothers Movie (Germany)

The Marx Brothers are a comedy staple. Between 1905 and 1949, they made thirteen feature films, several of which are considered the funniest movies of all time. But between 1933 and 1945, you couldn’t watch any of their films in Germany for one simple reason—the members of the famous comedy troupe were Jewish. However, Germany wasn’t the only country to ban the Marx Brothers’ films. Italy banned their 1933 film “Duck Soup” because Prime Minister Benito Mussolini viewed the film as a personal attack, and Ireland banned their 1931 film “Monkey Business” for appearing to promote anarchism (although they later permitted a cut version of the film).^[1]

9Beauty and the Beast, 2017 (Kuwait and Malaysia)

Controversy found its way to the 2017 “Beauty and the Beast” remake when, prior to the film’s release, director Bill Condon mentioned a “gay moment” in the film. Kuwait and Malaysia (both primarily Muslim countries) banned the film for its homosexual undertones, although the only “gay” activity actually appearing on-screen is a three-second clip of two men dancing. However, Malaysia later gave the green light to an uncut version of the film, released with a P13 rating, with the Malaysia Ministry of Home Affairs saying that “the gay elements in the film are minor, and [do] not affect the positive elements featured in the film”.^[2]

8 The Barnyard Battle (Germany)

Germany censored the 1929 Mickey Mouse short “The Barnyard Battle”, which features an army of cats fighting an army of mice, because the cats’ headgear resembles a German military helmet known as the “pickelhaube”. Both the United Kingdom and Germany banned another Mickey Mouse short, “The Mad Doctor”, for its horror elements.^[3]

7 Little Women (Manila)

In 1998, actress Claire Danes described Manila as “smell[ing] of cockroaches, with rats all over”, and made several other disparaging remarks about the city. Because of this, the Philippine government declared her “persona non grata” and Manila placed a ban on all films starring her, even “Little Women”, one of her best-reviewed films of all time as well as an established family classic. Although Danes later apologized for her comments, the ban on her films remains in effect.^[4]

6 Barney’s Great Adventure (Malaysia)

This one is a bit of a mystery. Malaysia banned the 1998 film “Barney’s Great Adventure” for being “unsuitable for children to watch”. Parents and educators have long criticized Barney for offering children “a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy”, leading to several offensive parodies of the franchise, some of which resulted in legal cases. However, while Barney is one of the most hated franchises of all time, no reason was ever given for why exactly the movie was “unsuitable”.^[5]

5Abominable (Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia)

Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia all banned “Abominable”, a DreamWorks Animation film featuring the adventures of a Yeti and an adventurous girl. Why? Because the film uses a map which features a variant of the “nine-dash line”, a controversial demarcation line used to claim total Chinese ownership of a section of the South China Sea that multiple countries (including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia) have territorial claims over.^[6]

4Back to the Future (China)

China banned “Back to the Future” for depicting—of all things—time travel. The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television explained the ban by saying that time travel in media treats “serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore”. The ban might not make very much sense, but, then again, neither did “Back to the Future”.^[7]

3 Wonder Woman (Arab League)

You probably would not be able to guess offhand why the Arab League banned “Wonder Woman”. Lebanon pulled the film from distribution because Gal Gadot, the lead actress, served for two years in the Israeli Defense Force and has expressed support for Israel on social media. Because of their history of conflicts with Israel, Lebanon bans the purchase of Israeli products (although Lebanon did allow the release of the film “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice” featuring Gadot, despite a movement to boycott it). Rania Masri, a member of the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel—Lebanon, said releasing “Wonder Woman” in Lebanon would be “normalizing relations with an enemy state”, something they refuse to do. Tunisia and Qatar also banned the film, for much the same reasons.^[8]

2 Shrek 2 (Israel)

While Lebanon banned “Wonder Woman” based on its lead, Israel banned a film for a completely different reason. Israel blocked the sequel to DreamWorks Animation’s popular film “Shrek” for a joke in the Hebrew dub about popular Israeli singer David Daor. Apparently because of the singer’s famed falsetto, a character threatens to emasculate another by saying “Let’s do a David Daor on him”. “This film intends to present me, in perpetuity, as a eunuch, a man with no testicles, and turn me into a laughing stock,” Daor said to an Israeli newspaper. A Tel Aviv District Court had the film removed from a handful of theaters before the distributors of the Hebrew dub decided to change the line to “let’s take a sword and neuter him”, satisfying Daor’s lawyers.^[9]

1 Christopher Robin (China and Taiwan)

This incident takes the number-one spot because it remains the only case in which a country blocked a film from release because of an Internet meme. That’s right, after a slew of memes spread by PewDiePie (banned for the same reason) in July 2017 comparing Chinese leader Xi Jinping to children’s book character Winnie-the-Pooh, China blocked references to Winnie on social media. This led to “Christopher Robin”, a film adapted from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, being denied a release in China.^[10]

About The Author: Izak Bulten is an animator and amateur film historian who loves writing articles about conspiracy theories, pop culture, and “crazy-but-true” stories. He’s created logic puzzles for World Sudoku Champion Thomas Synder’s blog, “The Art of Puzzles“, and the e-book “The Puzzlemaster’s Workshop”. More recently, he’s been writing animation news for his blog, “The Magic Lantern Show“.

Everyone loves a conspiracy, don’t they? Hollywood, especially, thrives on them. Sometimes they make them up, and sometimes they’re even part of the conspiracy itself, but when there are so many great conspiracy theories and cover-ups to choose from in real life, it’s easy to see why they don’t often bother.

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories That Were Actually True

Conspiracy movies always involve a “Good Guy” and some “Dark Forces”—usually represented by corrupt businesses and/or self-serving and secret government agencies with far too much autonomy and far too little regulation. In other words, the alphabet agencies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and anyone who deals with money.

In the interests of Truth, Transparency, and standing against the latest attack on free speech from Google, which is now banning all conspiracy related content, we have put our feet up, watched a load of films, and come up with the ten greatest conspiracy movies based on real-life conspiracy theories.

Pass the popcorn and enjoy.

10 The Lincoln Conspiracy
1977

In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head whilst watching a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington. Coming as it did just at the end of the Civil War, the assassination caused intense feelings across America. John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was trying to start a new war, in which Lincoln’s assassination would be the flash-point, thus resurrecting the Confederate cause.

This, at least, is the authorised version.

In The Lincoln Conspiracy, director James L Conway put forward a different theory. Instead of being the work of a few fanatical Confederates who could not accept defeat, The Lincoln Conspiracy proposed that the assassination was engineered by powerful government and business forces that opposed Lincoln’s programme of reconstruction in the South.

It even suggested that the man who was so famously shot dead at Garrett’s Farm, Virginia, was not John Wilkes Booth at all, but James William Boyd, a recently released Confederate soldier who had the misfortune of having a similar sounding name to Booth.

The film, which starred Bradford Dillman as the unfortunate Booth, was largely ignored on its release in 1977 but has helped to increase the speculation on the death of a president ever since, and it continues to spark debate.^[1]

9 Capricorn One
1978

In 1969, America sent Apollo 11 to the moon, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on a different planet (yes, we do know that the moon is not an actual planet, but you know what we mean). The world stopped spinning, and for a brief moment, everyone looked towards the stars (no, not a star either) and watched Armstrong descend that ladder and leave his footprint in the dust of a planetary satellite.

Or did he?

In 1973, a self-published book, written by a man with no experience of space travel, aeronautical engineering, or well, anything, first cast doubt on Man’s Greatest Achievement. The theory that the whole moon landing was a giant hoax gained popularity in 1978 with the release of Capricorn One. The plot of that film was, ostensibly, about a faked space mission to Mars, but conspiracists soon noted that Capricorn One bore an uncanny resemblance to Apollo 11. The movie explained just how a sufficiently motivated and well-funded space agency might have pulled the hoax off.

In the movie, bewildered astronauts are removed from the shuttle just as the countdown begins and driven in secret to a military airbase in the desert. The empty shuttle is launched into space, and news briefings keep the public in the dark while the astronauts fake footage of themselves in space and landing on the Red Planet.

The Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy gained much ground after the release of the movie, which starred Elliot Gould and Josh Brolin (with OJ Simpson as a rather unlikely astronaut), even though, in the film, the hoax is quickly uncovered by technicians at NASA and just as quickly leaked to the press.

That point seems to have been missed.^[2]

8 Z
1969

On May 22, 1963, Greek politician and activist Grigoris Lambrakis was struck over the head with a club by two men after delivering an anti-war speech to hundreds of supporters. His death in the hospital five days later sparked an intense protest against the right-wing Greek government and inspired thousands of Greek youths to form leftist political organisations.

The investigation into Lambrakis’s death revealed a to the army and the police. Investigators and attorneys who looked into the death were relieved of their position or even jailed for a time. Eventually, under extreme pressure, the Prime Minister resigned. In 1974, the military dictatorship in Greece finally ended.

Greek director Costa-Gavras used this premise for his 1969 film Z, which he offered as a modern political thriller. In the movie, an unnamed deputy is killed after a political rally—struck in the head by a passerby in a truck, dying five days later—and the subsequent investigation reveals a conspiracy that the military police and army were involved in the murder.

With charges filed against several officers, it appears that justice will be served. But, alas, that is not the case. The military is ultimately able to overthrow the government in a successful coup and then proceeds to ban modern art, pop music, and even the letter “Z,” a symbol of the young Greek protest movement.

Z won an Oscar in 1969 for Best Foreign Language Film.^[3]

7 Nixon
1996

Like his political nemesis, John F Kennedy, Richard Nixon has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories. And the conspiracy theories about Nixon seem small in number compared to the vast number of conspiracies that Nixon himself believed were being orchestrated against him.

No matter how you look at it, Richard Nixon was a paranoid man.

Having scrutinized the madness surrounding the death of President Kennedy, it seemed inevitable, perhaps, that Oliver Stone would turn his attention to Nixon.

Which was difficult because Nixon was a private (paranoid) man. Stone’s movie opened with a warning that the movie was “an attempt to understand the truth … based on an incomplete historical record.”

The film opens with the break-in at The Watergate building then documents his strange relationships with his staff, his growing secrecy (paranoia), recordings of conversations in his office and over the phone, which he obsessed over and which, in the end, caused his downfall.

Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins, was portrayed as a brilliant if not a strange (paranoid) man, slowly succumbing to his delusions induced by all the scheming he had done to obtain high office and by the conviction that others were now scheming against him.

While JFK had received mixed reviews from critics, Nixon was considered a tour de force and was nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Actor for Anthony Hopkins.

Hopkins lost out to Nicolas Cage’s Leaving Las Vegas.

Had he still been alive, no doubt Nixon would have been paranoid about that too.^[4]

6 The China Syndrome
1979

Timing is everything, they say, in the movie business. It certainly was for James Bridges, who directed The China Syndrome, the story of a journalist who discovers that the nuclear power station, which has just had a meltdown, had repeatedly breached its safety procedures.

While that story was entirely fictional, 12 days after the movie’s release, a nuclear disaster occurred at 3 Mile Island. Not only that, but it soon became clear that the nuclear plant had been breaching its own safety procedures for several months. Operators repeatedly manually overrode the faulty cooling systems, which should have been impossible to do.

The parallels between the movie and the “incident” were chilling. The incident no doubt helped the film’s success, with both its stars—Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon—being nominated at the 1980 Oscars. Unfortunately for The China Syndrome, that was also the year of Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now, and while a nuclear meltdown is interesting, it just can’t compete with a “three-sided” love story or “the horror” of Marlon Brando in eye makeup.^[5]

10 Outlandish Conspiracy Theories About The USA

5 The Constant Gardener
2005

John Le Carre is best known for his spy novels, but when he wrote The Constant Gardener, he shifted his focus to the pharmaceutical industry to find the machinations of such companies every bit as brutal as any secret service.

The novel was made into a film, starring Ralph Fiennes, in 2001. Fiennes plays a British diplomat trying to solve the murder of his wife, who had been investigating a drug company that had been testing their TB drugs on poor African women.

Although the film was not a reference to one particular drug scandal, many drug trials were undertaken in Africa, especially for diseases such as meningitis and HIV, where dubious consent was obtained. There are also allegations that even less ethical drug trials were conducted, where subjects were infected with polio and HIV to test vaccines, although this has never been conclusively proved. The film also resembles the plot of the recently released Dark Waters, which highlights the duplicity of an international chemical company and their careless dumping of dangerous chemicals, suggesting that the big companies are still polluting at will and infecting customers and employees with impunity.

The Constant Gardener did win multiple awards, however, including an Oscar for Rachel Weisz.

So there’s that.^[6]

4 The Insider
1999

Michael Mann’s 1999 film, The Insider, told the true story of one whistle-blower’s exposé of the tobacco industry. Russell Crowe played the real-life whistle-blower, Jeffrey Wigand, while Al Pacino co-starred as the documentary maker who broke the story, despite the NDA agreement that protected the company.

Wigand worked as a research chemist for a tobacco company, researching cigarette production with lower levels of tobacco. He claimed that while the company was reducing the amount of nicotine, they also added other chemicals, such as ammonia, to increase the effects of nicotine, thus keeping the customer hooked. As a result of his whistle-blowing, Wigand was harassed by his employers and even received anonymous death threats.

Michael Mann’s film was very well received and was nominated for 7 Academy Awards. Including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Russell Crowe), and Best Screenplay. Crowe was beaten out by Kevin Spacey and American Beauty, as was Michael Mann.

American Beauty scooped Best picture and Best Director too.^[7]

3 The Big Short
2015

Not so much a conspiracy theory as a conspiracy, The Big Short documented the way that banks, stockbrokers, and all-round shysters all got in on the sub-prime mortgage gravy train and bankrupted the entire world in the process.

A film about mortgages would normally be a hard sell and an even harder watch. Mortgages are not interesting.

So, Adam McKay directed it like a slick heist movie.

Which, in a way, it was.

Like Oceans 11, but with less sex appeal and better acting (Don Cheadle’s accent. That’s all we’re going to say), The Big Short managed to explain exactly how sub-prime mortgages worked, why it was inevitably going to crash, and more importantly, how everyone in the banking world knew but were too busy getting their snouts in the trough to care.

The film won multiple awards and was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning 1 for best-adapted screenplay. No bankers were harmed in the making of the movie.

Unfortunately.^[8]

2 The Manchurian Candidate
1962

The Cold War during the 1950s had created a deeply hostile and suspicious atmosphere in international relations. Intelligence agencies of every nation spied on their enemies and their allies alike. John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, released in 1962, summed up this atmosphere of mutual distrust.

The film starred Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey as captured soldiers in the Korean War, subjected to brainwashing through hypnosis. Whilst Harvey returns to his dysfunctional and ruthlessly ambitious family, Sinatra begins to have strange dreams.

Realizing that he has been implanted with false memories, Sinatra fears that Harvey has been brainwashed as an assassin and is being manipulated to make him shoot a presidential nominee.

The film heavily references the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, the uneasy international situation, and the distrust of secret government-backed organisations, which seemed to be making up their own rules of engagement, without regard to the Geneva Convention or any other convention, for that matter.

The film even hinted that disreputable foreign governments might seek undue influence in the affairs of other nations by spreading disinformation.

Surely not.^[9]

1 JFK
1991

There are almost as many films about the death of John F Kennedy as there are conspiracy theories about who killed him.

By far the best, however, is Oliver Stone’s JFK. Stone himself described his film as “counter myth,” countering the Warren Commission’s myth about who killed the president.

Stone’s film suggested that, far from a single shooter acting alone, the assassination of JFK was facilitated and encouraged by the CIA. New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, suggested that there were 3 shooters and 6 shots fired from the grassy knoll.

The film was not received well by critics, though the public loved it. Many reviews focused on the conspiracy theories rather than on the merits of the film, and Stone himself was severely criticized. An Op-Ed in The Washington Post called him “a man of technical skill, scant education, and negligible conscience.”

Despite the poor reviews, JFK had great popular success. However, far from settling the question of who killed Kennedy, Stone’s film merely added one more theory, or counter myth, to the very large pot.^[10]

If you think we’ve left any great movies off the list, let us know in the comments below!

10 Creepy Pop Culture Conspiracy Theories

There are lots of films that celebrate money. People finding money, making money, even stealing money. Films about losing money are less popular, for obvious reasons. Who wants to think about that, right?

10 Fascinating Economic Collapses Through History

There have been many documentaries about economics. From those serious documentaries with lots of graphs showing downward trajectories and long tracking shots of silent streets, to reality TV shows like The Queen of Versailles, following the building of a mansion by a spendaholic wife and a husband whose business is on the brink of disaster, which makes compulsive viewing. Like a car crash in slow motion.

Great movies about losing money are much rarer. But here are 10 movies that we think are worth a watch.

10 Rollover

Perhaps not one of the greatest movies in the world, after all Kris Kristofferson did win a Razzie for Worst Actor for his role as the president of a bank. Jane Fonda co-stars as the widow of a chemical company owner, whose husband died suddenly after discovering a secret slush fund with the ‘sinister’ account number 21214.

Kristofferson’s bank is doing badly. So badly, in fact, that if he cannot find a single customer with a lot of money to invest, they will go broke. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they could achieve the same end from a lot of customers investing a small amount, but hey.

In walks Fonda. If only they can get their hands on the secret slush fund, they will both be saved. There’s a lot of guff about finders fees, and other pseudo-financial rubbish that makes us think that maybe the screenwriter wasn’t that clued up on the world of finance.

When the pair traveled to the Sahara Desert in order to negotiate with some Bedouin financial investors, our suspicions were confirmed. Even back in 1981, millionaire sheikhs had phones and held meetings in offices.

The film’s real interest is in gold. The secret slush fund is actually a massive big pile of gold, hoarded against the possibility of financial collapse. When its existence is made public, people around the world begin to riot when they discover their money is now worthless (OK this link is not very clear in the film and most countries’ currencies are not, in fact, tied to gold). But the scenes of the breakdown of civilization are interesting.

The final scenes make it worth the effort. We see Fonda’s chemical factory standing idle, its workers laid off, and Kristofferson’s bank is the same. And this is mirrored around the world as the catastrophe of financial collapse rolls over the world like a sandstorm in the Sahara.

9 Rogue Trader

13 years before the global financial meltdown, 1 single trader gave the financial world a foretaste of what was to come, and, as with all disasters, the story was made into a movie. Rogue Trader starred Ewan McGregor as Nick Leeson, a derivatives trader for one of the world’s oldest banks.

Leeson is the manager of their Singapore arm, where no one actually checked what he was doing.

Or how much he was losing. Which was a lot.

He viewed the stock market as ‘one giant casino’. After an initial winning streak, Leeson began to lose money, and hid the losses in a secret account.

And no one noticed. Until the bank was down £830 million and the bank went bust, almost bringing down the London Stock Exchange with it. The story was gold dust, but the movie was not so well received, and, like its subject, lost a lot of money.

8 Boiler Room

“Anyone who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any”. So says Ben Affleck, who runs his own brokerage firm, JT Marlin. Really?

Giovanni Ribisi is the inexperienced new trader sucked in by the promise of easy money.

The brokers are all young and ambitious. They can all quote lines from Wall St, and see Gordon Gekko as a role model. After some time selling shares, and enjoying the spoils, Ribisi begins to feel that something is not quite right at JT Marlin. Apart from the name.

The firm employs sharp practices to inflate demand for penny stocks. They even create fake companies and sell shares in them too at inflated prices.

Ribisi finally realizes that real people are being hurt by their scams when he persuades one of them to invest his meager savings in stocks which then tank. He begins to work with the FBI to bring Affleck and his company down, copying all their files, and in a small act of atonement, he persuades his boss to repay the investor who Ribisi had conned.

The film showed just how exciting the world of finance can be when everyone is making money.

And why, when there is so little control over what they do, some people don’t know where to draw the line.

This film is the original “Wolf of Wall Street” with both movies being loosely based on the life of Jordan Belfort.

7 Margin Call

Margin Call tries to put a human face to Wall St. It’s probably fair to say the final film doesn’t quite meet the brief. It follows a fictional firm over the course of a single day, and shows how their actions in dumping their stock precipitated the crash.

Stanley Tucci, a risk management guy, is made redundant and passes on his concerns about the impending financial crisis on his way out the door. Jeremy Irons plays the CEO of the bank, who decides to cut and run.

At the emergency board meeting, Irons says, “There are 3 ways to make a living in this business. Be first, be smarter or cheat.” Being bankers, not criminals, they decide to go with option 1. Irons orders his staff to sell off their shares, thus precipitating the stock market crash.

Kevin Spacey, as the COO, makes a big speech to his brokers that is just a little hard to swallow. He says he is ‘very proud’ of the work of his brokers, who have “dedicated a portion of their lives” to making themselves lots of money. Or, as Spacey put it ,“our talents have been used for the greater good”

In fairness, his trader’s did look devastated at the thought of the impending worldwide financial collapse, at least until he promised them a million-dollar bonus if they managed to off-load their worthless shares onto unsuspecting schmucks before the markets caught on.

Heroes, all of them.

Stanley Tucci heroically returns for the final day’s trading, in order to say, ‘I told you so’ and negotiate hard over his severance package. Kevin Spacey is disgusted with the behavior of his firm, and devastated by the effects of Corporate Greed, but, in a touching moment of genuine pathos, he is eventually persuaded to stay in his very well-paid job, because, ‘I need the money’.

That’s OK then

6 99 Homes

Most movies about the financial crash are centered on Wall St, and the money makers, which is understandable. 99 Homes looked at the situation from the other end – all those people whose homes were repossessed when the housing bubble burst.

While the Wall St films were all frenetic energy, champagne and billion-dollar deals, 99 Homes looks at what desperate people will do to put food on the table and keep a roof over the heads of their kids. Andrew Garfield stars as a first-time buyer who loses his home after he is made redundant.

The real-estate developer who evicted him, played with chilling coldness by Michael Shannon, offers Garfield a job evicting 99 other people from their homes.

And Garfield sold his soul to the devil, and evicted his neighbors, until one of the neighbors fought back.

99 Homes is not a feel-good movie, but does put a human face to the sub-prime mortgage scandal.

10 Famous Props And The Actors Who Stole Them

5 Too Big to Fail

What would government do when banks fail? This was the premise of Too Big to Fail, the story of the US Treasury’s response to the financial collapse of 2008.

Starring William Hurt as the Treasury Secretary and Paul Giamatti as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve trying to save the world in a Gucci suit.

(Spoiler: They failed)

If Hurt and Giamatti are the superheroes, who are the villains? Well, there’s James Woods, who plays the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, who refused to acknowledge the end of the world was nigh, and kept right on hustling until the collapse. In one excruciating scene, the Lehman brothers staff maneuver to keep Fuld away from the negotiating table as they work with a Korean consortium to fund a buyout, only for Fuld to crash the meeting and try to drive up the price.

The Korean’s walked, and Lehman’s folded.

The film had a good go at making the difficult subject of finance interesting. It’s not easy to inject drama into what is, essentially, an endless round of meetings, and there are an awful lot of shots of men in suits striding purposefully down corridors, but the film does manage to convey the seriousness of the financial situation, even if it doesn’t quite manage to explain how we got there.

The film’s end carries a note of warning, when William Hurt points out that the billions of dollars in bail out funds is simply being handed to the same people who caused the crash, without any restrictions on how they will use it. Which is disturbing.

Even more disturbing, the film said, is that as a result of mergers following the crash, the top 10 financial institutions in America now hold 77% of US banking assets, making them, once again, too big to fail.

And don’t even get me started on the massive bailout bill that just got passed by Congress and the Senate under the cover of saving us from the Coronavirus.

4 Wall St (1 and 2)

Gordon Gekko made finance sexy in Wall St. The Oliver Stone film captured the 1980’s zeitgeist of ‘Greed is Good’. Starring Michael Douglas as seasoned financier, Gekko, and Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox, a newly qualified stockbroker not yet wise in the ways of the stock exchange, the film examines the way Wall St often blurred lines and traded off inside information in order to line their own pockets.

In a ridiculously naïve move, Bud persuades Gekko to buy an airline, and hopes that the famed destroyer of companies will expand this company, and make Bud its new CEO.

Gekko breaks it up and sells it for parts. Which is kind of awkward for Bud, given that his dad works there.

Although both Gekko and Bud are arrested for insider trading at the end of the film, the enduring message of the film was, indeed, that Greed is Good, and many stockbrokers subsequently credited the film as the reason they went into finance.

Oliver Stone took another look at Wall St almost 25 years later, and focused on the stock market crash. Gekko, now released from prison, is making a living by warning of an impending economic disaster. He is a changed man.

And Shia LeBeouf is the newbie stockbroker. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

The sequel didn’t capture the spirit of Wall St in the crash quite so well as it had done during the champagne and cocaine years, perhaps because a repentant
Gordon Gekko just didn’t play well, but no list of films about Wall St would be complete without Wall St, so we’ve included the sequel, just so we can include the original.

3 The Damned

La Caduta Degli Dei (The Fall of the Gods), also released under the title The Damned, was a pretty strange 1969 Italian-German made movie, in English, about a rich industrialist family who start doing business with the Nazis, despite their opposition to the Nazi ideology. After a murder and an arrest, the family business is passed to relatives with even fewer scruples.

The film demonstrates the incestuous relationship between business and politics, as well as quite a few other types of incestuous relationships, and how control over one can affect the other.

It also shows how narrow is the void between success and disaster. In only a few months the family go from lavish, not to say excessive, living, to losing their home, business and even their lives.

Better than no other, this film depicts the transition from life under a failed bankrupt Weimar Republic to the powerful Nazi state. Director Luchino Visconti illustrates this masterfully through the central character, Martin, who starts out dressed in drag performing burlesque, and ends in a full Nazi uniform giving the Heil Hitler salute.

If you ask yourself where our current society sits on the scale of Weimar to Nazidom, the answer may frighten you.

2 The Big Short

Hands down the best film about the financial collapse, The Big Short concentrated not so much on what was done to try to prevent the collapse, but how we got there. It manages to explain complicated, and rather dull, financial concepts in ingenious ways. Such as Margot Robbie sipping champagne in a bubble bath, while explaining what a sub-prime mortgage is. “Basically, whenever you hear ‘sub-prime’, think ‘shit’.”

There are a lot of bad guys in this movie, but very few good guys. Steve Carrell plays Mark Baum, a fictional character based on Steve Eisman, the man who shorted Collateralized Debt Obligations (see Selina Gomez at the blackjack table for explanation) or Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, who recognized early on that the market was unsustainable, and bought Credit Default Swaps as a result.

But they both profited from the collapse, so hard to picture them as actual superheroes.

The movie is pretty entertaining, for a finance movie, and has cameo appearances by the dozen, including Brad Pitt as a bearded trader-guru passing on his ancient financial wisdom to the young bloods. It won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay, and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor, for Christian Bale.

Which is not bad for a film about mortgages.

1 The Grapes of Wrath

Long before the 2008 banking collapse, there was the Great Depression. John Steinbeck wrote the defining novel of the era, The Grapes of Wrath, which was made into a film by John Ford in 1940. The film was rather less bleak than the novel, and tried to end on a note of hope, when Ma Joad says, “We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out, they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, cos we’re the people.” Which has a flavor of Gone With the Wind about it.

I swear, I’ll never be hungry again.

Despite its rather upbeat ending, the film, which starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, is still considered not only one of the best films about economic depression, but one of the best films ever.

In a brilliantly concise explanation, one ‘labor agitator’ explains why bosses encouraged mass migration to join the California labor force. ‘Maybe he needs 1000 men, so he gets 5000 there, and he’ll pay 15 cents an hour and you guys will have to take it because you’re hungry.’

The film won Best Director Oscar for John Ford, and was nominated for 6 more.

10 Movies You Had No Idea Were Filmed In The Wrong Locations

It’s been a tough few weeks. It’s time to feel better. What better way to do that than by watching a heart-warming movie? Films that will inspire you, move you, or just make you laugh out loud.

Here we have gathered together a selection of movies guaranteed to make you forget your troubles. So just sit back with some popcorn, and a box of tissues, and start to feel better.

10 Historical Events With Hilarious Forgotten Details

10 Amélie

Probably the happiest film in world, Audrey Tautou plays Amélie, a lonely Parisian waitress who decides that she will make those around her happy. Amélie has a vivid imagination, and manages to find happiness in everything.

When she finds an old box with a child’s treasures in she decides to return it to its owner, and makes herself a promise. If the return of the box makes him happy, she will spend her life bringing happiness to others.

Not only does the box make him happy, though, it makes him want to be a better person and make others happy too. And so the happiness spreads . . . like a virus. (No, we’re not going there.)

Amélie isn’t just a happy film. It’s a beautiful film, too. Watch it.

9 As Good As It Gets

As Good As It Gets stars Jack Nicholson, which is probably reason enough to watch it. He plays Melvin, a curmudgeonly writer with OCD/ASD tendencies, who likes to be served by his regular waitress, Carol, played by Helen Hunt. Is that too much to ask? Well, Carol thinks so. She has other priorities.

As Good As it Gets is essentially a road trip movie, with Jackson as a misanthropic writer who cannot stand change, Hunt as a waitress whose son is chronically ill and Greg Kinnear as Nicholson’s neighbor whose life is falling apart.

The plot, however, is largely immaterial. The joy of this film is in the relationship between Melvin and carol, and in Kinnear’s glorious performance as an artist with money issues (among other things).

The film is funny but also honest. Carol refuses to allow Melvin to hide behind his mental health problems, and insists that he is accountable for his actions, which are usually thoughtless and occasionally cruel. And Nicholson learns to be a better man.

8 Up!

Probably Pixar’s finest film, Up is the story of a friendship between a lonely old man and an eager boy scout. The old man, voiced by Ed Asner, is about to fulfill his dream to visit South America when a boy scout, Jordan Nagai, knocks at his door, eager trying to earn his Assisting the Elderly badge.

Up is too good to be just a kids film. It is a movie about loneliness, unfulfilled dreams, and the paralyzing power of grief, which, on the face of it, doesn’t sound too cheerful. But it is also about love and friendship, and awesome bucket lists. There are more than a few surreal moments, but the themes of friendship and fulfillment are beautifully handled.

Asner’s character is said to be modeled on Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and he has just the right amount of grumpiness disguising his broken heart. The movie won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and it remains one of Pixar’s most loved films.

7 Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands is a Christmas fairy tale, that isn’t just for Christmas. The story of a beautiful relationship between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton—I mean Edward Scissorhands and Kim, as played by Winona Ryder—the movie has a beautiful fairy tale feel to it.

Edward is a kind of Frankenstein creature, made by his creator, played by Vincent Price, who runs out of time before he can make the hands, leaving Edward with only a selection of scissors for hands. Which is the sort of thing that can isolate a kid.

Like all the best fairy tales, Edward Scissorhands is a little bit dark, but it is also beautifully poignant. Depp is fantastic, Ryder is bearable, and Diane West as Kim’s mother is sublime. Edward Scissorhands is a film about belonging, and not belonging, and a cautionary tale that the crazies are not always the ones with scissors for hands.

Best scene in the movie – Diane West, who has a side job as an Avon lady, trying to cover up Edward’s scars with foundation. And we blend and blend and blend.

6 Mrs Doubtfire

A movie about a man losing custody of his children doesn’t sound like a feel-good movie, but it is. Robin Williams stars as the irresponsible father, and Sally Fields plays his wife, who has had enough of being the only adult in the marriage.

The reasons why Robin Williams has to dress as an elderly Scottish (or possibly Irish, the accent wavers a bit) woman are unclear, and who cares anyway. Just be glad that he does, because the film is a joy to watch.

The movie also features Mara Wilson, the child star with the cutest lisp in the world, in her first role, as William’s youngest daughter. The film is about the importance of family, in all its forms, and about taking responsibility. It’s also about Robin Williams doing silly voices in a wig.

Best scene in the movie is, undoubtedly, Williams’ dancing to Dude Looks Like a Lady, but let’s also give a shout out to that time he lobs fruit at the back of Pierce Brosnan’s head. Who hasn’t wanted to do that?

Top 10 Funniest Movies Of All Time

5 Dead Poets Society

The ultimate sappy teenage movie, Dead Poets Society can still bring a tear to the eye of any adult. You only need to whisper the words, O Captain! My Captain! and strong men, (and stronger women), will weep.

Also starring Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society is a coming of age movie, with added poetry. Who doesn’t want to see that? Thankfully though, it’s not just about the poems. Or the teenagers either. It’s about inspiration. And beauty. And letting yourself feel your emotions. It’s about friendship, and making your lives extraordinary. And, yes, it’s about poetry too.

So, what are you waiting for? Carpe Diem, and watch it now.

4 A Night At the Opera

Guaranteed to cheer you up if you are feeling blue, A Night At the Opera, is a Marx Brothers classic.

If you can’t find this movie, almost any Marx Brothers film will do, but only this movie has the Contracts Scene in it. As far as comedy goes, this scene is pretty much perfection.

The film features all the usual players – not just Groucho, Chico and Harpo, but also Margaret Dumont, who, as usual, bears the brunt of the Groucho’s humour. She is a rich socialite, and Groucho is looking for investors in an opera company. That is all the set up you need. Leave the rest to Groucho, Chico and Harpo.

Groucho Marx is on fine wise-cracking form in this movie, which is often considered one of their best. Though the Contract Scene is worth watching on a continuous loop a special mention should also go to the Stateroom Scene, which is the movie version of the “How Many People Can You Fit in a Mini?” game.

3 Scent Of a Woman

Al Pacino has made a lot of great movies, but this one, from 1992, is a standout. It co-stars a young Chris O’Donnell as a high-school boy who takes a job looking after a blind veteran with anger issues.

Pacino plays Lt Colonel Frank Slade, who is miserable, as well as being blind, and who is on the verge of killing himself. O’Donnell is Charlie, the Good Kid who just can’t catch a break. Frank teaches Charlie about women, and love, and life, and Charlie shows Frank that his life isn’t over just because he can’t see.

The film certainly has its darker moments, but they just make rest that much more joyful. Charlie and Frank go on a road trip that opens Charlie’s eyes in more ways than one.

Highlight of the movie isn’t Pacino’s tango, although that is great. It is his speech to the school board near the end of the movie. Out of order? I’ll show you out of order.

2 Fermín Glorias del Tango

If you enjoyed Al Pacino’s tango in Scent of a Woman, take a look at The Glories of Tango. Hector Altiero plays Fermin, an 85-year-old mental patient with shell shock who has been locked in a mental institution for decades. Only when a new psychiatrist arrives does anyone wonder why Fermin only communicates through song lyrics from the tango. Fermín Glorias del Tango tells the story of the old man’s life through the tango.

The music transports Fermin back to Buenos Aires in the 1940s and his passion for, among other things, dance. The movie has great music and great cinematography, and is a glorious reminder that the old were not always old. As Fermin’s psychiatrist explores the tango, in order to better understand his patient, he discovers a few things about his own life too.

Not a blockbuster, perhaps, but Fermín Glorias del Tango will certainly warm your heart.

1 Groundhog Day

If you are looking for a heart-warming movie, nothing could be better than Groundhog Day. Even if you’ve seen it a hundred times before. An asshole is doomed to repeat the most boring day ever until he gets it right. It’s a simple concept, but a great one. And Bill Murray makes it brilliant (but let’s face it, Bill Murray could make the phonebook seem brilliant!)

Murray stars as Phil Connors, the full-of-himself weatherman, and Andie McDowell is his naive producer. Quite how long Phil Connors has to relive Groundhog Day before he gets it right is unclear, but it is a long long time – long enough for him to learn to play the piano, speak French and make friends with just about everybody. It’s amazing what a difference a day makes.

+ Little Miss Sunshine

If you have watched all 10 of these movies, and your heart is still a little frosty, have a look at Little Miss Sunshine and its star-studded cast.

Olive is a kid from a pretty dysfunctional family who has won a place in The Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The entire family want to support her, so they all climb into in a decrepit yellow camper van to make the 800-mile trip. In some families this would be the hook for a horror movie, but, not here.

During the trip, Olive’s family learn to help each other and rely on each other, which is nice. They learn how to start the van, which is more complicated than you might think. And they learn to celebrate each other’s differences—which is just as well, because they are all pretty different. The road trip is long, but it is worth it because the beauty pageant is pure joy, and Olive’s ‘dancing’ is super freaky.

Oh, and this is a favorite of our dear leader, JFrater, so it must be good!

10 Heart-Warming Tales from the Worst Places on Earth

The horror genre has a long and fascinating history, going hand-in-hand with the very history of film from almost the very start. As long as people have been using film to tell stories, they’ve also been using those stories to scare people senseless. From innovative camera tricks to impressive makeup wizardry, the films listed here all have their place within film history for good reason. So turn off the light, get comfortable, and get ready for ten silent horror films that’ll give you the chills. 

10. Nosferatu (1922)

You can’t have a discussion about classic silent horror without vampires, more specifically one of cinema’s earliest versions of the classic folktale. When most people think about classic vampires, they usually think about Bela Lugosi’s legendary portrayal of Count Dracula in Tod Browning’s 1931 Universal adaptation. However, it was director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and actor Max Schreck who introduced cinema to vampires just 9 years earlier with Nosferatu.

The film was developed as an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a task that proved difficult when Florence, Bram Stoker’s widow, refused to allow for a sanctioned adaptation. So Murnau, ever the rebel, decided along with his crew, to simply change some key details and go ahead with the film anyway. The film now only barely resembles an adaptation of Dracula, the biggest change being the titular vampire, Count Orlock, played by Schreck. 

Schreck just exudes an unnerving vibe, enhanced by the still-impressive makeup and the way the film is shot. From Orlock rising from his coffin to his demonic shadow ascending the staircase, the film is dripping with timeless and creepy imagery. Despite Stoker’s best efforts to sue the filmmakers and destroy all existing copies, the film would survive and go on to be hailed as an influential masterwork. Countless filmmakers have been inspired by Nosferatu, including director Rob Eggers whose big-budget remake will be hitting theaters in December 2024. 

9. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

When going through the history of classic silent horror films, it’s important to understand the trend of German expressionism. Starting in the late 1910s and lasting until the 1930s, German expressionism was an artistic movement that prioritized the artist’s feelings and imagination over portraying realism. This meant movies could follow suit and push boundaries with their visuals and storytelling they’d previously been unable to. So a film like Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari could run wild with its surreal storytelling, especially with its art direction. 

The entire film, told entirely via flashbacks, tells the story of the titular Doctor Caligari and his somnambulist, Cesare. It soon becomes clear that Caligari is using Cesare to carry out moonlight murders, and even goes after Jane, the main character’s love interest. The story is a bizarre and disorienting one, helped in major part by the visuals which are perfectly in line with German expressionism. Shadows are painted across the floor and background, often contorting into offputting spirals and patterns, as well as defying any physical logic. Additionally, things like doors and windows are anything but normal looking, frequently looking more like something you’d see in a child’s drawing. The whole film feels like a very creative nightmare and still stands out as a classic to this day. 

8. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Long before he was belting out showstopping ballads on Broadway, the Phantom was gracing movie screens with his macabre presence. Adapted from Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, the film tells the story of a deformed murderer known as the Phantom who is haunting the Paris Opera House. Amidst his rampage, the Phantom takes an interest in Christine, a singer whom he wants to see become a star. This leads Christine down into the sewers beneath the opera house where she soon uncovers the truth of the Phantom, as well as his horrific true face.

The Phantom is played by Lon Chaney, often referred to as the “Man of a Thousand Faces,” due to his incredible makeup talents. Chaney had previously played Quasimodo in the screen adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so he was more than prepared. The makeup for the Phantom is simple yet effective, giving him a horrific pig-like nose, as well as piercing and demonic eyes. These enhancements work beautifully in tandem with Chaney’s performance which, given the film’s silent nature, is completely physical. Every second he’s on screen you can’t take your eyes off of him and he perfectly embodies the Phantom’s foreboding yet alluring presence. If your only knowledge of the character is the musical, definitely give the original silent horror film a watch, it’s more than worth your time. 

7. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages is an oddity of a film, even amongst other silent films of its time, especially due to its unique format. Long before the likes of The Blair Witch Project or Hell House LLC, Häxan was utilizing a faux-documentary format to tell its story. It would be more accurate to describe the film as an early example of a video essay with dramatized sequences about the occult and witchcraft. 

This means several sequences dedicated to the history of witchcraft, often explaining aspects of it with models and illustrated diagrams. Despite its dry tone, the film is quite enthralling, almost as if you’ve been transported back in time to a 19th-century lecture on occult history. 

This doesn’t mean the film is without any artistic merit, as the dramatization sequences showcase some truly memorable visuals. For a film from 1922, it definitely pushed boundaries, including depictions of satanic worship, female nudity, and even horrific demons brought to life through impressive makeup effects. While it doesn’t get brought up as much as the likes of Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the film still has its appreciators. So this Halloween, if you need something a bit different to set the mood, check out Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. 

6. The Golem (1920)

Jewish folklore has a rich assortment of legends, myths, and fables, many working their way into various pieces of different media. One of the more famous among these tales is the Golem of Prague, a clay being sculpted by a 16th-century rabbi. 

The Golem: How He Came into the World from 1920 is very much in line with the aforementioned legend, doing ample justice to the Golem’s cultural context. Rabbi Loew, a rabbi in the ghetto of medieval Prague, creates the titular Golem out of humble clay to protect his fellow Jews from an impending disaster. The film, directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese, sets many impressive precedents for horror cinema, especially when it comes to the presentation of the Golem. This is most evident in the Golem’s makeup, worn by Paul Wegener himself, which is still an impressive use of prosthetics even now. The design is imposing and a bit offputting which, given the nature of the film, is more than appropriate. 

One could easily see this film as a precursor to the likes of Frankenstein, especially with the angle of a man creating a monster. The Golem is a great watch, especially if you are interested in seeing a key piece of Jewish folklore brought to life. 

5. The Cat and the Canary (1927)

The horror genre, like many other genres, has countless sub-categories that encompass a wide range of styles and subjects. Horror comedy is by far one of the most widespread, with countless films that possess both great humor and horror simultaneously. Films like Night of the Creeps, Shaun of the Dead, or Freaky are all perfect examples of this. But long before any of those films hit the scene, The Cat and the Canary was balancing chills and giggles as far back as 1927. 

The film concerns Cyrus West, a wealthy man who has ordered that his last will and testament go unread until the 20th anniversary of his death. This brings his greedy, conniving family out of the woodwork, all looking to acquire his West’s vast fortune. However, on the night the family arrives to hear the will’s contents revealed, an escaped lunatic called the Cat breaks into the house! While the film boasts quite a fair bit of comedy, it never forgets to lay on the thick eerie atmosphere of an old dark house film. 

The Cat and the Canary isn’t brought up as much as other famous 20s and 30s horror films but deserves its roses for being such a unique outing. 

4. The Man Who Laughs (1928)