Greetings, reader!
Here's a fun idea I had: combing through all 1000+ movies I've seen, and picking out the ones with the absolutely most misleading titles, as well as the most exceptionally accurate ones. This week's post is the first half of the project, and we'll get to the accurate ones with next week's post. So, today's list is all about movies where, regardless of how good the movie is, the name does not tell you the full story (or goes even further and gives you a set of false expectations). These are the top 15 movies with the most remarkably misleading titles!
Here are my honorable mentions: Reservoir Dogs (1992), The King of Comedy (1982), The Piano (1993), The Room (2003), Trainspotting (1996).
15. The Emoji Movie (2017)
The "Emoji" part is accurate, but I take issue with this disasterfest's use of the word "Movie", as it creates an illusion that the art of cinema is somehow involved in the project.
14. The Girl Next Door (2004)
I actually have no issue with this title, no matter how objectively misleading it may be, because it's a genius marketing strategy. Together with the aesthetic in the film's poster, the cute title creates a carefree vibe, with viewers maybe expecting a summer romance or a hilarious crush - which makes the film's true nature as a surprisingly dark exposé about the adult film industry hit quite hard.
13. The Rock (1996)
Despite the immediate imagery conjured up by any viewer's mind upon hearing the title, Dwayne Johnson does not, in fact, appear in the film.
12. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Over half of this slasher sequel takes place on a ferry, en route to Manhattan. And even when the titular killer finally arrives on the promised island, all that ensues is so tame that he hardly "takes" the place.
11. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Using a phrase from the original Star Trek show's opening sequence monologue as the film's subtitle is a pretty cool move, but here's my thing: out of all FOURTEEN films in the franchise, this particular title would've been more fitting for any other instalment than the one it was used for. This title is the promise of something epic, and something deep in the vein of the franchise's premise, and what we got was certainly not that.
10. Goodfellas (1990)
I gotta tell you, those fellas are morally grey at best.
9. Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
SPOILER ALERT: Much like the entire first hour of the film, the title delivers a promise of something pure and magical, therefore making that gut-wrenching twist all the more traumatic. The mislead may be the key to why the film is so powerful, but it's a mislead nonetheless. Honestly, anything else than "WARNING: THIS UPSETTING PIECE OF CINEMA WILL HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE" would be a dishonest title with this one.
8. The Deer Hunter (1978)
If you go into this film expecting it to be about a person who hunts deer, you're in for a wild ride.
7. Inside Man (2006)
To this day, I have no idea who the titular inside man was. It's a heist flick, as one might guess from the title - and a damn good one, thanks to Spike Lee's directing and the dynamite performances by Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster. But, the thing is - in this particular heist, unless you over-interpret the plot and go into conspiracy theories, there is no man on the inside! Therefore, this title would be more fitting for almost any other heist flick than the one where it was used.
6. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Leave it to the most bleakly unimaginative, thoroughly generic film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to have the coolest, zaniest name. How dare they give such a promise of fun.
5. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Between the New Nightmare pseudo-sequel, the Freddy Vs. Jason crossover and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, this film isn't even close to being the franchise's last, despite the inherent promise of finality in the title. Also, Freddy isn't dead at the beginning of the film like one is lead to believe, and I'm pretty sure he's not dead at the end, either!
4. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Once again, marketing a film that now exists in the "early days" of a film series as the franchise finale is a pretty hilarious move. Furthermore, my other issue with this title is that it sounds much too dramatic and high-stakes, for what ended up being a fairly cruddy and unremarkable instalment.
3. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
Once again, a slasher sequel with a title that promises to end things for once and for all, only for the franchise to keep churning out sequels afterwards like nothing happened. Also, "Jason Goes to Hell" is very misleading in itself, as the title is barely accurate on a highly interpretational level at best. If you're expecting to see Jason Voorhees in the fires of the underworld with a bunch of demons, you'll be sorely disappointed.
2. Back to the Future (1985)
They travel to the f**king past. That's the movie. At the very end, they return, back...to the present. They only ever visit the future in the sequel.
1. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Yes, this same f**king franchise has called two different instalments "final", only for neither one to be anything of the sort. In my view, The Final Chapter gets even more merit as an outrageously misleading title, because as the fourth film out of thirteen, it's even less final than Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, which is the ninth. Also, the film after this one picked up as a very direct sequel, following the same hero and everything, so this isn't final even in a "end of an era before a soft reboot" way. Christ.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for a fun companion piece - the top 15 movies with the most remarkably accurate titles.
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