# Directors who made films in the style of another director
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [April 28, 2023, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332 "2023-04-28T23:42:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2023, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/1 "2023-04-28T23:42:37Z")
I don’t remember where I got that notion, if it was my original thought or I got it from some book, but I’ve always thought of Billy Wilder’s “Witness For The Prosecution” as his “Hitchcock” film. A murder mystery and psychological thriller with a twist ending and a big reveal, just like from Hitch’s playbook. Hitchcock returned the favor with “The Trouble With Harry”, a black comedy in Wilder’s vein that even shared an important actor with Wilder comedies, Shirley MacLaine. I have another Hitchcock homage by another director in mind that I won’t tell because I’m curious if someone else will mention it.
What have you?
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### Author:  [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2023, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/2 "2023-04-28T23:58:51Z")
Would you consider “High Anxiety” to be an homage, or do spoofs not count?
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2023, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/3 "2023-04-28T23:59:51Z")
Isn’t is fairly common that usually when a new original megahit arrives that you see a number of directors try to copy the success?
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/4 "2023-04-29T00:16:55Z")
> [@JeffB](#):
>
> Would you consider “High Anxiety” to be an homage, or do spoofs not count?
Nah, I really didn’t mean spoofs, but rather serious homages.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/5 "2023-04-29T00:23:00Z")
> [@PastTense](#):
>
> Isn’t is fairly common that usually when a new original megahit arrives that you see a number of directors try to copy the success?
I really don’t know or ever have noticed, do you have examples? I know bad exploits of megahits that copied the subjects, like tons of shark and other critter horror films after the success of “Jaws”, rather than copies of the directional style.
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### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/6 "2023-04-29T01:45:40Z")
When Brian DePalma’s _Body Double_ came out everyone noted the homage to Hitchcock. Here’s Roger Ebert’s review
> **[Body Double movie review & film summary (1984) | Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/body-double-1984)**
>
> "Body Double" is an exhilarating exercise in pure filmmaking, a thriller in the Hitchcock tradition in which there's no particular point except that the hero is flawed, weak, and in terrible danger -- and we identify with him completely. The movie is...
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/7 "2023-04-29T01:56:53Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> When Brian DePalma’s _Body Double_ came out everyone noted the homage to Hitchcock. Here’s Roger Ebert’s review
Well, the movie I hinted at in the OP was DePalma’s earlier “Dressed To Kill”, which IMHO is even a more blatant homage to Hitchcock.
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### Author:  [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/8 "2023-04-29T02:12:33Z")
For more Hitchcock resemblances, I’ll mention _Charade_, _Diabolique_, and _Marathon Man_. I’ve seen discussion of the first two in regard to being Hitchcockian. And for the recurring Hitchcock theme of a guy who gets caught up in dangerous intrigue he doesn’t understand, MM is the movie for you.
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/9 "2023-04-29T02:25:22Z")
Every heist film everywhere basically follows in the footsteps of the brilliant French film _Rififi_.
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### Author:  [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/10 "2023-04-29T02:36:18Z")
_[Interiors](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077742/)_ is Woody Allen’s homage to Ingmar Bergman.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/11 "2023-04-29T02:42:30Z")
I mean, I feel like much of what Guy Ritchie does is an homage to Quentin Tarantino…
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### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/12 "2023-04-29T03:36:22Z")
…“in the style of” is really a very subjective thing. I’m not sure “murder mystery/psychological thriller/twist ending/big reveal” are really what one would call “stylistic choices.” Homages are a different distinct thing, and it seems like more what the OP is talking about? Because Tarantino, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, Hitchcock, those are all directors that have distinct styles. You can watch a scene from one of their movies and often can pick who directed it just from the way the scene has been shot. But I’m not sure that this is what you mean here.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/13 "2023-04-29T05:12:22Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> Hitchcock returned the favor with “The Trouble With Harry”
Nitpick: Hitchcock’s film came first, by a couple of years. If you didn’t mean “returned the favor” to include a temporal relationship, then never mind.
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### Author:  [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/14 "2023-04-29T11:59:18Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> I have another Hitchcock homage by another director in mind that I won’t tell because I’m curious if someone else will mention it.
[Gus Van Zant’s shot for shot remake of Psycho?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1998_film)) Maybe that shoots right past ‘homage’ into straight-up ‘rip-off’ territory though.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/15 "2023-04-29T13:17:49Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> Nitpick: Hitchcock’s film came first, by a couple of years. If you didn’t mean “returned the favor” to include a temporal relationship, then never mind.
Well, I looked it up because I wasn’t sure, and imdb says that “Witness For The Prosecution” is from 1957 and “The Trouble With Harry” from 1960.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/16 "2023-04-29T15:21:15Z")
_Sleeper_ was originally conceived as a silent film in the style of Charlie Chaplin, whose influence is still visible in the final cut.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/17 "2023-04-29T16:36:27Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> When Brian DePalma’s _Body Double_ came out everyone noted the homage to Hitchcock. Here’s Roger Ebert’s review
>
> [Body Double movie review & film summary (1984) | Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/body-double-1984)
DePalma’s _Blow Out_ was an homage to Antonioni’s _Blowup_ (and possibly _The Conversation_.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/18 "2023-04-29T17:34:37Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> Well, I looked it up because I wasn’t sure, and imdb says that “Witness For The Prosecution” is from 1957 and “The Trouble With Harry” from 1960.
Interesting. IMDB says it was 1955, in fact they list it as Shirley MacLaine’s first movie, well before any of her film work with Billy Wilder.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/19 "2023-04-29T17:58:57Z")
Sorry, you’re right, I must have had a brainfart or optical problem (my eyesight isn’t what it used to be) when I looked that up yesterday.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-who-made-films-in-the-style-of-another-director/983332/20 "2023-04-29T20:59:42Z")
> [@solost](#):
>
> > [@EinsteinsHund](#):
> >
> > I have another Hitchcock homage by another director in mind that I won’t tell because I’m curious if someone else will mention it.
>
> [Gus Van Zant’s shot for shot remake of Psycho?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1998_film)) Maybe that shoots right past ‘homage’ into straight-up ‘rip-off’ territory though.
Nope, like I said above I had Brian DePalma’s “Dressed To Kill” in mind. I didn’t even think about Van Zant’s “Psycho” and never had the urge to watch it anyway because I find the idea of a shot for shot remake tedious and pointless.
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