“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark… and Hamlet is taking out the trash.”
Weird Al Yankovic’s UHF might qualify, but it was much more of a TV show inside of a movie.
Yeah, some pretty nifty stunt flying, driving his plane down suburban Dallas streets and holding his arm out to signal lane changes, pulling up to the home and his ‘plane horn’ playing La Cucaracha. Truman was a keeper.
There’s also The Truman Show, which might qualify, as it was a TV show within a movie.
If you want to include TV shows…
Robocop “I’d buy that for a dollar!”
101 Dalmations watching the show about Thunder the dog.
Dumbo has a nifty opening sequence. It’s dark and stormy but then the stork flies out of the cloud and everything is OK. It’s basically a mini-version of the movie you’re about to watch. Bad things-fly-good things
The greatest cartoon-within-a-cartoon-ever: Itchy & Scratchy on The Simpsons.
Definitely. I was very disappointed that the Simpsons movie didn’t include the Itchy & Scratchy movie, just another short.
Pineapple Express 2 in This is the End.
Oh, does the Fruity Oaty Bar ad count?
All of the small clips of McBain from The Simpsons, when put together, make up a movie. See here.
I’m also a huge fan of The Scary Door. (I would love to see them all in one video, but can’t find such a thing)
I don’t think many people saw it but I liked it. Living In Oblivion is the title of a low budget movie being made by an indie film maker (Steve Buscemi).
The vampire opera in Forgetting Sara Marshall
I saw Fistful of Yen years before Enter the Dragon - I hadn’t known Yen was a parody of a specific film, and was a lot more entertaining to boot.
The opening scene of WarGames could be a tense short film by itself, though by the more conventional usage of “film-within-a-film” (and I think most people opening the thread have the same idea), I’m fond of Mant!, the background subject in 1993’s Matinee.
The landlord’s stage production in The Big Lebowski.
Oh, hey, actual films or TV spots inside a films are OK too.
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
The “Escape From Prison” sequence in “The Last Remake of Beau Geste.”
And Peter Dinklage in his first film role…
A great scene between Nucky Thompson and Tyrion Lannister, arguably two of the biggest stars on HBO at the moment.
“Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me…”
The Brooks Hatlen sequence as Andy Dusfresne reads his letter in The Shawshank Redemption.
I mentioned this before, but Pan’s Labyrinth would have been a much better movie if it had been a 30 minute long story of the girl’s encounter with the supernatural.
As for TV shows within TV shows I always hoped they would put out a collection of the Brown Hornet cartoons that they used to show on The Fat Albert Show.