Books or Movies With Capsule Titles?

Where by “Capsule Titles”, I mean the title alone serves as a capsule summary of the movie.

Some works cannot be easily summarized even in a single sentence. My favorite “On-Screen Menu Guide” capsule summary of a movie was for Les Miserables, which read: “French policeman hounds bread thief for life.” Well, yes… And yet, no.

Then there are works with titles that give no clue as to what the plot line is about. To quote Homer Simpson: “I only ever read one book, To Kill A Mockingbird, and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds!”

On the other hand, there are those movies where the title pretty much sums up the whole plot. The most recent and obvious example is Snakes On A Plane. There are snakes. They are on a plane. What do you think is supposed to happen in this movie?

There’s also Eight Heads In A Duffel Bag: no big surprises when the movie deals with a luggage mix up where one of them is a duffel bag with eight human heads in it. 'Cause eight squirrel heads just wouldn’t be worth freaking out over.

Similarly, there’s Alien vs. Predator. Assuming you recognized the references to the Big Baddies from the other movies Alien and Predator, a movie pitting the one against the other is pretty straightforward, though it is a bit off in that it should have been Predators as there’s a group of them to start with. Ditto for Freddy vs. Jason.

Can you name any other ones? I’m sure you can!

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. The title says it all, folks.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

Godzilla vs King Kong.

As does Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.

Silent Movie

Movie Movie

Film

I think The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover fits the OP. The title definately suggests complicated and unsavory (ha!) interpersonal relationships among people who may not always behave in ways that we find socially acceptable. Which, after all, is exactly what the movie is about.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe All in the title you have your hero, your villian, and the primary mode of conveyance.

The original title of It Could Happen to You was Cop Gives Waitress Two Million Dollar Tip. A much better title, in my opinion.

The Simpsons Movie

**Surf Nazis Must Die

Godzilla Raids Again

A Guide for the Married Man

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Hitler – The Last Ten Days

Another Teen Movie**

The Bible

Or any of the movies based on it, e.g. Samson and Delilah, The Ten Commandments, The Story of Ruth, etc.

I thought of another one.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

That about says it all.

The full title of Moll Flanders comes to mind: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent.

Stop or my mom will shoot.

I think that title needs to be put in a spoiler box.

The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down

The full and real title of Gulliver’s Travels is:

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships
The original edition doesn’t even credit Jonathan Swift, which is probably a good thing. Some of the satire hit too close to home, and they cut it for subsequent editions.

You can kind of guess how The Death of Artemio Cruz is going to end.

Debbie Does Dallas

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain