Your Favorite / Most Clever Movie Titles

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Female assassin extraordinaire.
So I was in the theater watching the latest Resident Evil and during the previews a movie came through titled "30 Days of Night." And the trailer was well constructed, not giving much away or being overkill, which is rare.

I thought, I REALLY like that title. I know it's based off a graphic novel and the graphic novel was the source, but it made me feel RIGHT.

Have you ever seen an adaption from a novel and then the movie is named something else but it's like, the worst possible choice?

Or an original screenplay based off a "new" idea but the title is the dumbest thing you ever heard/saw?

So, I know there's a thread about renaming movies, but how about celebrating those titles that made you feel that little "clicks in to place" moment of satisfaction? Where you'll always feel they "did right by that one?"

Titles that aren't too trite, dumbed down, "easy" or obnoxious ...

Titles that truly capture the movie, its plot, characters, "mood" ... titles that are truly clever, sound amazing AND matched the movie they were paired with perfectly.

Titles that are clever, or require a little "extra thought" or carry extra meaning than the surface words.

These wouldn't generally be one-word titles (because that's too easy) ...

Titles I like ....

North by Northwest
30 Days of Night
A Fish Called Wanda
All About Eve
Dances with Wolves

There are probably more but I wanted to start this thread before I forgot about it.
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Funny how the first titles that spring to mind are the silly ones.

Good titles...

Blade Runner (because it sounds cool and exciting, and so is the film)
In the Mood For Love (because the film really is all about mood, and love. And yet because it is an actual saying, it doesn't sound trite.)
Boys Don't Cry (probably because it reminds me of the Cure song)

Pointlessly changed titles...

Gegen die Wand (Means against the wall, an appropriate title, but renamed as Head-On)
Open Your Eyes (Pointlessly remade and renamed as Vanilla Sky)
****ing Amal (Renamed as Show Me Love. Ok, this one I can see why it was changed, but I like both titles.)



I know Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil was based on a book by the same name… but I don't think they could have named the movie anything else that would have nailed the plot, characters, etc. as well….

And, to me, The Nightmare Before Christmas is an awesome name that fit the movie perfectly...
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So many good movies, so little time.
Some Like It Hot

Dr. Strangelove or : How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Rashomon because its name can be used to describe a certain set of circumstances.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
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Off the top of my head, here are a few of my favourite movie titles...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Being John Malkovich
I Was A Male War Bride
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Do the Right Thing
Snakes On a Plane
The Thing
The Empire Strikes Back
A Hard Day's Night
How I Won the War
O Brother Where Art Thou?
A Fistful of Dollars
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Once Upon A Time in The West
Bang, Bang! You're Dead!
Goodfellas
(much better title than Wiseguy)





There are loads of great movie titles out there, and I think Do the Right Thing is one of the best. It sounds different, and is very meanigful too.
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Ar3d's Avatar
BANNED
for me i find horror movie more clever title than any other...



fbi
Registered User
Back to the future. Scream. Rush hour. But in general, i think movies with fancy titles are mediocre or not good at all. The good films are the ones with basic titles that instantly tell u what the story is.

Sixth sense. rocky. robocop. signs. e.t. terminator. braveheart. ransom. the illusionist. butterfly effect.



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
i think movies with fancy titles are mediocre or not good at all. The good films are the ones with basic titles that instantly tell u what the story is.

braveheart.... butterfly effect.
Yeah, Braveheart and the Butterfly Effect are really obvious titles that tell you exactly what the movie is about

Just wanted to add The Postman Always Rings Twice. Haven't seen it yet, but it's a great title.



Female assassin extraordinaire.
ooo, i like these.

yeah fbi, I was saying generally one word titles don't do it because they're too easy/obvious, and don't convey much meaning. like, they convey the meaning of the word but not necessarily the movie.

like "rush hour." we know it's got cops from two different countries and a lot of martial arts, running, chasing, shooting, and fighting. but "rush hour" brings to mind everyone rushing to work or being stuck in traffic. they chose it because it sounds fast paced and "action" oriented, but it really doesn't match and it really doesn't "mean anything."

but, braveheart, wasn't that a real name applied to a real man in history? wasn't that name applied in that storylike way older cultures gave names, very very heavy with meaning? Like Dances With Wolves says SO many things about the movie and the man you're about to see - a man who dances with wolves. What kind of man would "dance" with wolves? What does it mean to dance with wolves? The title alone makes you think about it.

The title "The postman always rings twice" makes you think - why's the postman ringing twice? Why's he ALWAYS ringing twice? Why's he ringing at all, and for whom is he ringing?

"the butterfly effect" has a whole world of meaning - literally. what's the effect a butterfly going to cause, there's a whole connotation there of a scientific theory, and in the movie it's applied to a story, how one tiny thing affects everything else until at the end of the thread of circumstance it's a huge major impact you never conceived of.

sometimes movie titles perfectly capture the nuance and core complication in the movie, or the key character, itself.

example - i totally avoided "little children" regardless of reviews, nominations, kate winslet, or reading the synopsis. I knew it was something i should watch and wanted to but that name was driving me crazy. i was like, i dont' want to watch a movie about grown people behaving like little children.

then i watched it. and it was good ... and it was exactly about grown people acting like little children. it drove me mad. but that was me. in the end, that movie title perfectly captures the very raw essence of that movie.

i'm an etymology and linguistic freak. the meaning of words and why people choose them and the meaning of labels and why people chose them ...

the beauty of a phrase and how it fits something, what it carries with it, what it represents.

some of these titles you guys bring up, it's like, they're so evocative. you may or may not have ever seen teh movie but the title alone is intriguing.

i knew because of the title "the three burials ..." that I wanted to see that movie, even though it's a "modern western" (my term) and i'm not really into those. the title alone was mysterious. who gets buried. why? why is a mexican man getting buried 3 times, and by who, for what?

and even for "non serious" fare ... "The Devil Wears Prada" ... that is SO evocative. yeah it's fluff, yeah the book reads in a couple hours, yeah it was a quick sell for mainstream markets. but the title alone is oozing razors, wit, arrogance, style, excess, class differences, ego and seduction. who's the devil? why do they wear prada? why do we care that the devil wears prada, why are we learning/observing the devil in the first place ...

so much meaning behind such brief clever little strings of words.

someone says "Silence of the Lambs" and there's just so much intense history there. that movie rocked the movie watcher world. it turned horror/suspense on its head. took it to a whole new level.

can anyone hear or look at that title and not think all kinds of creepy, uncertain, slinky, cold, foreboding, and dangerous things?



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Entrapment

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How about ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES! Kiss Kiss Bang Bang cause it is so NOT A TYPICAL BUDDY COP MOVIE. I didn't like The Queen. Just so plain. Definite article plus noun. Changing Lanes , Garden State and closer are my faves.
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Face/Off (shown in listening classes)
Girl,interrupted (saw it years ago,love it)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (brilliant)
50 First Date (funny and novel)
Just My Luck (LOL)
A World Without Thieves (Chinese,touching)
Killing Me Softly (Drama/Mystery/Romance/Thriller)
Catch me if you can (I have the book)
I Know Who Killed me (confusing)



I find a movie title good if it expands on the themes explored in the movie. I know what I just said may have come out pretentious or meaningless, but some movies actually succeed at doing that.

For example, Unforgiven makes you wonder about the movie a bit more. What's not forgiven? By whom? Maybe it’s about destiny, and how it didn’t forgive or allow Eastwood character to become good. Or, it couldn’t forget about his bad deeds, and wanted to punish him? Or was it his conscience? An excellent title. Made me think.

Bad titles, for me, are those which give wrong impressions, like Fight Club, it sounded like another excellent Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren movie, and it was stupid post-modern man stuff and anti-establishment crap. What the heck!



My favorite would have to be Tears of the Sun
other notables are: A Sound Of thunder (new movie is crap but i like the title), I am Legend, True Lies, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The Way of the Gun, Equilibrium (sorry, one word) and of course, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATERS


ive got some others but i cant remember them so this will do for now... I'm not gunna bother explaining why i choose them because I am too lazy and don't want to. They are also all good movies except a sound of thunder
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Bad titles, for me, are those which give wrong impressions, like Fight Club, it sounded like another excellent Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren movie, and it was stupid post-modern man stuff and anti-establishment crap. What the heck!
I'm not sure how to comment on this statement! You'd have to ask Chuck Palahniuk, who probably wasn't even thinking his novel would become a movie to begin with. And if you found the film to be stupid, well I can't imagine a different title is going to help.

Personally I think it's an excellent book, and the current printing adds a very entertaining author-foreword which illustrates birth of concept, thoughts on the film adaptation and more. But I can't imagine anyone who dislikes it so will end up picking this up, so umm...yeah.