A body of films feature fictional films as part of their narrative. These are also called films within films.
| Film | Fictional film | Year | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Movie Star | Big Hearted Jack | 1916 | In the silent comedy film, Mack Swain stars as a fictitious movie star who attends one of his latest movie screenings at a local Nickelodeon. He attempts to sway the audience, and the attending critic, into liking the film. It was the world's first film to utilize the technique of featuring a film within a plot. | ||
| Adaptation | 2002 | In the comedy drama film, one of the twin brother protagonists adapts the 1998 book The Orchid Thief into a film and draws the jealousy of his brother. | |||
| After the Fox | 1966 | In this comedy film, crooks attempt to smuggle gold through an Italian village by pretending to make a neorealist film about gold smugglers. Facing delays, they wait by filming more scenes. The resulting footage is screened as evidence at their trial, where a film critic in attendance proclaims it to be a masterpiece. | |||
| 2011 | In the romantic comedy-drama film, Jean Dujardin is an actor who plays the hero in the film A Russian Affair in which he is rescued from a Russian villain by his dog. | ||||
| Be My Cat | 2015 | In the found footage horror movie, an aspiring Romanian filmmaker shoots a demo film to send to actress Anne Hathaway to convince her to star in his upcoming film. Moreover, the demo film is about the making of another fictional film.[1] [2] [3] [4] | |||
| Berberian Sound Studio | 2012 | In the horror film, a sound engineer is tasked with working on the Foley effects for the never seen film. | |||
| Big Fat Liar | Big Fat Liar | 2002 | Marty Wolf, the main antagonist, produces a film under Wolf Pictures. This film however, plagiarises Jason Shepherd's English assignment. In the end, the film is released with Jason getting writing credits.[5] | ||
| Blow Out | Coed Frenzy | 1981 | Jack Terry, played by John Travolta, works for a film production studio as a sound editor for cheap horror films, including the film.[6] | ||
| Logjammin | 1998 | In the comedy film, the Dude watches a pornographic film with Maude and sees Bunny Lebowski starring in the film. | |||
| Boogie Nights | Brock Landers: Angels Live In My Town | 1997 | In the period drama film, Mark Wahlberg plays a rising porn actor. In part of his acting career, the character stars as a cop in a series of pornographic action films, with the partner played by John C. Reilly. | ||
| Bowfinger | Chubby Rain | 1999 | In the comedy film, film producer Bobby Bowfinger, played by Steve Martin, aims to produce his dream science fiction thriller film Chubby Rain and uses shots of an unsuspecting person, played by Eddie Murphy for the film. | ||
| Bowfinger | Fake Purse Ninjas | 1999 | In the comedy film, characters played by Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy infiltrate a factory where Chinese ninjas counterfeit goods. | ||
| Brief Encounter | Flames of Passion | 1945 | A film Laura and Alec see at the theatre on one of their Thursday rendezvous. [7] | ||
| Broken City | Kiss of Life | 2013 | In the crime film, a softcore romance film is featured, which The New Yorkers Richard Brody described, "flowery dialogue and poetic views of nature are followed by the actress's hot and naked sex scene with the sensitive leading man." | ||
| Burn After Reading | Coming Up Daisy | 2008 | The black comedy film features a film based on a chick lit book by Cormac McCarthy. | ||
| Chicken Little | Chicken Little: The True Story | 2005 | Action film recently released to theatres based on the events of the main film. | ||
| Clerks | Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, numerous pornographic films including The Best of Both Worlds | 1994 | A mother asks for Happy Scrappy Hero Pup at the video store for her daughter. Randal is on the phone with the distributor and after ordering a large number of pornographic movies, asks the mother the film's name again. Later on in the film, he goes to Big Choice Video and rents a hermaphroditic pornographic film entitled The Best of Both Worlds. [8] | ||
| Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles | Lethal Agent III | 2001 | Mick Crocodile Dundee investigates the filming of a sequel to a box office bomb action film franchise, which is actually used as a cover up for smuggling several paintings looted during the Yugoslavian Civil Wars. | ||
| Contempt | Odyssey | 1963 | The film follows a screenwriter's marriage to his wife disintegrating as they shoot the film Odyssey directed by Fritz Lang playing himself. | ||
| Day for Night | Meet Pamela | 1973 | The film follows the lives of the cast and crew while they shoot the film Meet Pamela.[9] | ||
| Death Becomes Her | Untitled Thriller | 1992 | In this black comedy film, Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) watches a movie starring her rival Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and continuously rewinds and rewatches a scene in which Madeline's character is strangled to death onscreen. | ||
| Dirty Work | Men In Black Who Like To Have Sex With Each Other | 1998 | In the comedy film, two cinema employees (Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange) get revenge on their manager by replacing a print of Men In Black with a pornographic parody when the corporate bosses arrive to inspect the theatre. | ||
| Entourage | Hyde | 2015 | In the comedy film, Vincent Chase directs a film readaption of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and stars as its leading character, an EDM DJ. | ||
| Everybody Dies by the End | Battery Acid, Psycho Menace, Kill Time Now | 2022 | In the horror comedy mockumentary, after making a handful cult films, Alfred Costella (Vinny Curran) returns to filmmaking to make one last picture with a dark twist.[10] [11] | ||
| Evil Ed | Loose Limbs 5 | 1997 | In the horror comedy film, a newly hired film editor goes insane while editing the latest in a long running series of slasher films. | ||
| Crash Course | 1973 | In the horror film, before the mother's daughter is possessed, the mother stars in a film about student activism. | |||
| The Fabelmans | Gunsmog, Escape to Nowhere | 2022 | The films within the film are fictionalized portrayals of the real-life amateur films Steven Spielberg made during his adolescence. Gunsmog is a western film that rips off John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Escape to Nowhere is an original war film set during World War II.[12] | ||
| The Fall Guy | Metalstorm | 2024 | The sci-fi film within the film in which Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is called in to perform stunts and find the missing lead actor. A reference to Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn a real sci-fi film with which it shares a very similar tagline. | ||
| For Your Consideration | Home for Purim | 2006 | In the comedy film, the fictional film featured as a tribute to the Jewish holiday Purim. The studio executives in For Your Consideration change the film's title to Home for Thanksgiving to avoid isolating Gentile audiences. | ||
| Friend of the World | Untitled art project | 2020 | In the horror comedy film, experimental filmmaker Diane Keaton (Alexandra Slade) is filming an art project when she runs into Gore (Nick Young), who has an outlook on war and propaganda.[13] [14] [15] | ||
| Funny People | Re-Do | 2009 | In the comedy drama film, Adam Sandler plays a successful film actor who learns that he is dying of leukaemia and decides to revisit his stand up comedy career. One of the actor's featured films was the comedy Re-Do, which starred him as trapped inside an ordinary baby's body. | ||
| Grindhouse | Machete, Werewolf Women of the SS, Don't, Thanksgiving, Hobo with a Shotgun | 2007 | Fake trailers made for the film. Machete, Thanksgiving, and Hobo with a Shotgun were eventually made into real films.[16] | ||
| History of the World Part I | History of the World Part II | 1981 | A trailer for a sequel to the title film that was never planned on being made.[17] A television series with that name premiered in 2023. | ||
| Deception | 2006 | In the romantic comedy film, one of the main characters is a movie trailer producer. One of her featured works is the action film Deception starring James Franco and Lindsay Lohan in the film. | |||
| Holy Motors | Untitled monster movie | 2012 | In the fantasy film, the protagonist creates a motion capture performance with a female counterpart, which is later revealed to be two snakelike creatures. | ||
| Home Alone | Angels with Filthy Souls | 1990 | In the family comedy film, Kevin McCallister is accidentally left at home during Christmas when his family went to Paris without him. Kevin watches Angels with Filthy Souls (a parody of the film Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)) which his parents and his uncle forbade him to watch. He later uses the film to distract burglars that break into his home. | ||
| Angels with Even Filthier Souls | 1992 | In the family comedy sequel, Kevin McCallister watches the sequel to Angels with Filthy Souls. Home Alone 2s director studied 1930s and 1940s film noir to make Angels with Even Filthier Souls appear authentic. | |||
| The Icicle Thief | 1989 | In the comedy film, an Italian neorealist black and white film is broadcast on television and repeatedly interrupted by full colour commercials. The television audience, watching in their homes, are completely oblivious of the interruptions even when a model from one of the commercials end up in the nested film's universe.[18] | |||
| I'm Thinking of Ending Things | Untitled Robert Zemeckis movie | 2020 | An unnamed janitor is watching a corny film about a café waitress who gets fired after her boyfriend makes a scene while she's working. When the credits roll, Robert Zemeckis is credited as the director.[19] | ||
| Inglourious Basterds | Stolz der Nation | 2009 | The war film features a Nazi propaganda film called Nation's Pride (German: Stolz der Nation) that is a key plot element in the film's climax. | ||
| Invasion Force | Untitled action movie | 1990 | This film's plot starts with the shooting of an unnamed action film. Additionally, as the film itself ends, it is revealed to be a film shooting of its own.[20] | ||
| Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back | Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season, Bluntman and Chronic | 2001 | In the comedy film, the duo Jay and Silent Bob encounter the making of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season, a satirical sequel to Good Will Hunting. The making of the sequel also featured the original film's director Gus Van Sant and its stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Bluntman and Chronic is a fictional movie based on Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards' comic from Chasing Amy, where Mark Hamill plays a villain named Cocknocker, and fights the titular characters. | ||
| Jingle All the Way | Turbo Man: The Motion Picture | 1996 | In the festive comedy film, whilst Arnold Schwarzenegger is driving all around toy stores around the area to find the doll of the fictional super hero Turbo Man, he is seen driving past the town's cinema showing Turbo Man: The Motion Picture on the day. | ||
| 1977 | In the comedy film, the spoof film combines elements of exploitation film, television commercials, pornography, and the martial arts film Enter the Dragon (1973). | ||||
| Last Action Hero | Hamlet / Jack Slater III & IV | 1993 | In the meta-action comedy film, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character is featured as playing both Hamlet and Jack Slater, the latter being a parody of the actor's own action-film characters | ||
| Living in Oblivion | Living in Oblivion | 1995 | In the independent black comedy film, Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi) is the director of the movie of the same name. | ||
| The Man Who Killed Don Quixote | The Man Who Killed Don Quixote | 2018 | A comedy about a director, Toby Grummett (Adam Driver), who is in production on a commercial about Don Quixote. He reencounters his student film project sharing the title of the movie and subsequently reunites with its actors, including one (Johnathan Pryce), who now believes himself to be Don Quixote. | ||
| Matinee | Mant! | 1993 | In the period comedy film, an independent filmmaker produces a creature feature called Mant! that shows the combination of a man and an ant. | ||
| My Dinner with Andre | Violets are Blue! | 1981 | About murders on a submarine.[21] | ||
| Mr. Bean's Holiday | Playback Time | 2007 | A pretentious drama film by Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe) shown at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. | ||
| Notting Hill | Helix | 1999 | In the romantic comedy, the actress played by Julia Roberts is in London to promote her new science fiction film Helix.[22] | ||
| Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Operazione Dyne-O-Mite, Nebraska Jim, Tanner, Kill Me Quick Ringo, Said the Gringo, The 14 Fists of McCluskey | 2019 | In the period comedy film, Rick Dalton, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, moves to Italy to star in Spaghetti Westerns.[23] | ||
| Paris When It Sizzles | The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower | 1964 | Richard Benson is writing a film and only has two days to finish it so he hires Gabrielle Simpson to type it for him.[24] | ||
| Planet Terror | Machete | 2007 | Preceding the zombie film is a trailer for Machete that features Danny Trejo as a former Mexican federate who seeks revenge on those from both sides of the border who betrayed him. It was later made into a full length feature film, also called Machete. | ||
| Double Bind | 1997 | In this psychological thriller, the main character has a minor role filming a fictional drama named Double Bind, which closely parallels her real life . | |||
| Habeas Corpus | 1992 | In the comedy film, a depressing film about a woman on death row is pitched, and it eventually becomes produced but changed to have a feel good ending. | |||
| The Purple Rose of Cairo | The Purple Rose of Cairo | 1985 | A character in the fictional film steps out of the screen. | ||
| Reboot Camp | Sects Sell | 2021 | In the mockumentary comedy, the main characters are shooting a fictional documentary. | ||
| Scary Movie | Amistad II | 2000 | In this horror parody film, Brenda Meeks and Ray Wilkins go to a theater to watch Shakespeare in Love. Before the start of the movie, a trailer for a fictional sequel to Amistad is shown.[25] | ||
| Schlock | See You Next Wednesday | 1973 | John Landis’ first film includes two references and a poster for this fictional movie, which then turned into a running gag for most of his career and has been referenced in many other movies and television shows. | ||
| Scott Pilgrim vs. the World | You Just Don’t Exist | 2010 | In the comedy film, Scott Pilgrim confronts one of his girlfriend’s ex boyfriends, who is a skateboarder and actor producing the action film You Just Don’t Exist. | ||
| Scream 2 | Stab | 1997 | The slasher film Scream 2 features Stab, a film produced based on the events that took place in the first film Scream (1996). | ||
| Sherlock Jr. | Heart and Pearls | 1924 | In the silent comedy film, the protagonist dreams that he appears in a melodrama and solves the mystery as Sherlock Jr. | ||
| The Simpsons Movie | Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie | 2007 | There was an Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie movie on The Simpsons television show in an episode from November 1992, and at the beginning of The Simpsons Movie, the Simpsons are watching this or the possible sequel to the movie.[26] | ||
| Singin' in the Rain | 1952 | The musical film’s couple star in the musical film that ends in a modern day Broadway ballet. | |||
| Terrance and Phillip: Asses of Fire | 1999 | The musical comedy based on an obscene cartoon within the musical comedy based on an obscene cartoon serves as a self reflexive cautionary tale regarding censorship. | |||
| Strange Brew | 1983 | In the comedy film, the fictional film is a post apocalyptic thriller that copies Mad Max 2. | |||
| Barbed Wire Frontier | 1980 | The film features a World War I film in which a British prisoner of war escapes a German camp. | |||
| Sullivan's Travels | 1942 | In the comedy film, the fictional film is a serious commentary on the working class that the protagonist intends to make after having made numerous lightweight comedies. | |||
| This Is the End | Pineapple Express 2: Blood Red | 2013 | In this apocalyptic comedy film, Seth Rogen and James Franco discussed a possible sequel to the Pineapple Express, where Red wants Dale and Saul to assassinate Woody Harrelson because he’s going to give a speech making weed legal ruining Red. The footage from the April Fools trailer was used in the film and was mentioned again when Franco plans to sacrifice himself. [27] [28] | ||
| Three Amigos | , Dueling Cavelier, Shootin’ For Love, Little Neddy Grab Your Gun, Those Darn Amigos!, Little Neddy Goes to War, Amigos | Amigos! Amigos | 1986 | In the comedy film, the three protagonists feature in a silent film called The Three Amigos that defies the conventions of films of its genre. A rival actress Miss Rene (her character was deleted from the movie), is shown on a billboard in the film. The others are all movies some or all of the amigos starred in.[29] | |
| Top Five | Uprize! | 2014 | The film centers around the main character, an actor, trying to make the transition from silly comedy films to serious films that comment on society. The actor is frustrated that more people are not excited by or interested in the historical value of a film about the Haitian Revolution.[30] | ||
| Tropic Thunder | Tropic Blunder | 2008 | The action comedy film features the production of a film based on a Vietnam War veteran’s memoir. The actors that are involved in the production are also shown to be in other fictional films, such as Ben Stiller in Simple Jack and Jack Black in The Fatties: Fart 2. Another fictional film featured is Satan’s Alley with two gay priests at a medieval church. | ||
| Trouble in Tahiti | Trouble in Tahiti | 2001 | The 2001 TV film production of the Leonard Bernstein one act opera about an housewife in a failing marriage who seeks solace one afternoon by watching a technicolor movie musical about a WWII flier pilot who is lost from his squadron and downed in Tahiti where the chieftain intends to sacrifice him to a volcano deity. The film is a parody of South Pacific and also is reflective of Bernstein's own qualms with the film production of On the Town.[31] [32] | ||
| UHF | Gandhi II | 1989 | The comedy film features a sequel to Gandhi with Gandhi portrayed as tough and streetsmart. | ||
| Variety Girl | Romeow & Julicat | 1947 | A George Pal Puppetoon is a cartoon being sound and voice recorded in this movie.[33] | ||
| Who Framed Roger Rabbit | Somethin’s Cookin’, Pistol Packin’ Possum, Babes in Arms, Herman’s Shermans, The Wet Nurse, The Little Injun That Could, Roger’s Baby Buggy Blunder | 1988 | Somethin’s Cookin is a live action/animation hybrid features the filming of a theatrical short starring Baby Herman and Roger Rabbit. It parodies golden age cartoons such as Looney Tunes. The others were all seen on movie posters in R.K. Maroon's office.[34] [35] | ||
| Zelig | The Changing Man | 1983 | In the comedy mockumentary, there is a movie about Leonard Zelig. |