Top 10 Misleading Movie Titles of Popular Films
These are not literal movie titles. Sweet a movie about a ghost dog?! That's what you might expect when renting Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai but that's not what you'd get. This movie list is about movie titles you should not take so literally. Speaking of dogs, Reservoir Dogs is not actually about dogs in a reservoir. Other movies that fit the bill include Free Willy, Million Dollar Baby, the Constant Gardener, Pineapple Express, 12 Monkeys, Ghost Dog, Cinderella Man and the Silence of the Lambs
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Top 10 Misleading Movie Titles
Yet Another Top 10 Misleading Movie Trailers
We’ve never felt so betrayed. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Not So Literal Movie Titles. For this list, we’ll be looking at movie titles that, for all intents and purposes, didn’t feel exactly accurate. They can’t all be as straightforward as “The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford.”
#10: “12 Monkeys” (1995)
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What could this be? Perhaps a family friendly, Pixar-type movie? Maybe something like “Madagascar”? In all fairness, no title could have prepared audiences for the strange tale of dystopian, time-travelling, neo-noir madness that was 12 Monkeys. This is filmmaker Terry Gilliam at his strangest. Scratch that, “Brazil” is Terry Gilliam at his strangest, but this is a close second. Charged with collecting information on a deadly virus that nearly wiped out the human race, James Cole, played by Bruce Willis, is sent back in time with little to go on, apart from the fact that a group known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys may have been involved. Don’t worry if you couldn’t guess that from the title; we’re pretty sure no one can.
#9: “Pineapple Express” (2008)
When you see the title, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Is it “Hey, I bet that’s referring to a particularly potent strain of marijuana that will entangle a couple of slackers in an action-packed adventure involving murder, intrigue and a whole lot of drug consumption”? No? Us either. Is “Pineapple Express” hilarious? Undeniably. And we all wish we could get more of a sequel than the brief teaser we got in “This Is the End.” But based on the title alone, we expected this to be about a tropical commuter train and the wacky hijinks of the passengers and crew. Or possibly a more sober, reflective sequel to Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited.” Basically, we expected a train.
#8: “Reservoir Dogs” (1992)
Whatever you expected going into this, if you hadn’t seen the trailer, we can pretty much guarantee you didn’t see this plot coming. Maybe we’re at fault for thinking every film title with an animal in it is a family friendly comedy… but “Reservoir Dogs” makes us think of a bunch streetwise dogs who live in an abandoned reservoir, venturing into the city to stir up trouble and steal meat from the surly butcher. Think “All Dogs Go To Heaven” or “Homeward Bound”. Whatever your guess was, you probably didn’t think it was a crime thriller about a jewellery heist gone wrong. And you DEFINITELY didn’t expect… this. Dark, gritty, violent, and unapologetically offensive.
#7: “The Constant Gardener” (2005)
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With ambiguously titled films, you’re not really given much to go on, so you can’t be too upset to discover your expectations were off base. But when straightforward descriptive titles mislead us, how can we not feel betrayed? If you call a movie “The Constant Gardener,” you better give us a character who constantly gardens, or at least does gardening-related activities way more often than a normal person. If that plot seems boring, throw in a twist; like he’s constantly gardening because he’s actually a hitman who buries all the bodies of his victims in his immaculately maintained garden. But no, the actual movie is about a man trying to solve his wife’s murder, and Ralph Fiennes’ character gardens sporadically… at best.
#6: “Million Dollar Baby” (2004)
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Here’s a great, award-winning film, and a snappy title to grab your attention. Unfortunately, the two seem incredibly mismatched. It’s the story of an aging boxing trainer and an amateur female boxer who come together to help one another realize their dreams. It’s a heartbreaking, wonderfully crafted story that… seems totally unrelated to the title. Million Dollar Baby could be the dramatic story of a couple that spends a fortune to clone the infant child they tragically lost. It could be an awful spin-off/reboot of the “Six Million Dollar Man” about a cyborg baby who fights crime. It could be about a baby kidnapped for a million dollar ransom. Sure it wouldn’t be as good of a film, but at least the title would fit.
#5: “Free Willy” (1993)
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Hey, will you look at that! We finally get a film that actually is a kid’s movie about an animal. Except… that title looks all wrong. We’d love to find out what this movie is actually about, but there’s no way we’re typing “free willy” into Google. The likelihood of getting a screen full of unsolicited photos seems way too high. In reality, the narrative follows a boy’s relationship with an orca named Willy and his fight to free him from captivity. Free. Willy. We get it - it makes sense. You know what doesn’t make sense? Naming the whale Willy. You are just asking for trouble.
#4: “The Squid and the Whale” (2005)
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There’s no better way to pass the time and have a laugh than throwing on “Sharknado” or one of those equally hilariously terrible “mockbuster” movies. However, about 30 minutes into this movie, we were troubled by the lack of squid versus whale combat. In fact, not a single member of this “family going through divorce” had been devoured by a whale or torn apart by a squid. Wait, this is an indie family comedy-drama? No squid versus whale carnage? It turns out that the film is actually named after the squid and whale diorama at the American Museum of Natural History, which is shown in the film. But seriously– way to trick people into watching a respectable film.
#3: “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
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While this movie may not be our number one pick, it definitely takes the title for most hilariously misleading. The second movie released in the Hannibal Lecter film franchise, it shocked viewers by presenting not one, but two of the most memorable, depraved psychotic villains in film history. How could anyone use skin lotion again after hearing Buffalo Bill’s instructions? And Anthony Hopkins’ role as Hannibal Lecter was nothing short of masterful, in the most terrifying of ways. “The Silence of the Lambs,” however, sounds like a quaint period piece about a family of sheep farmers, carving out a life for themselves in the pastoral hillsides of New Zealand... Not a dude carving the flesh off young women.
#2: “Cinderella Man” (2005)
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Hollywood loves reinventing fairy-tales, and who can blame them? Why pay for the rights to a new intellectual property when all these classic stories can just be reinterpreted in new, modern ways? So what’ve we got here? A gender role reversal in an otherwise overdone story - great! Let’s get a big name in the role of Cinderella, like Russell Crowe. Sounds like a hit! Oh wait, it’s a boxing movie. Why do boxing movies have such misleading titles? Cinderella Man was the nickname given to real-life boxer James Braddock after he beat Max Baer, so you know, just your classic rags-to-riches tale. That’s a Cinderella story, all right; just not the one anyone expected. Before we unveil our number one pick, here are a few honorable mentions. “The Crying Game” (1992) “Rain Man” (1988) “Warm Bodies” (2013) “Romancing the Stone” (1984) “The Human Stain” (2003)
#1: “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” (1999)
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First off, let’s get the big disappointment out of the way: there is no ghost dog in this movie. But that’s okay, legit martial arts films always invoke animal imagery, like “Enter the Dragon.” We’d even say that the title fits perfectly with true samurai cinema classics like “Lone Wolf and Cub” or “The Throne of Blood”. But no; it’s a surreal crime drama starring Forest Whitaker. The titular “Ghost Dog” does live “by the way of the samurai”, but it’s while working as a hitman for the Italian mob somewhere in the United States. He uses guns, drives a fancy car, and listens to rap. It’s a good film for sure, but this title is pure trickery. Do you agree with our list? What film has the most misleading title in your opinion? For more top 10s with honest titles published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
