Great movies that need better titles

Lots of movies have terrible titles, but this thread is specifically about really good movies which have terrible titles. So, for example, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies is a terrible title, but it’s also a terrible movie, so it doesn’t belong in this thread. Your job is to nominate a great movie with a terrible title, and propose a better title.

My nomination is It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Indisputably a great movie, but a title that requires you to mentally count to four while saying it is a loser. It’s also a bland, generic title that could be applied to almost any goofy comedy. Here’s what it should have been called: The Big W. It’s an intriguing title that draws you in and makes you wonder what it means. The term is introduced in first 5 minutes of the movie, and since the whole movie is about the quest for the Big W, it’s totally appropriate.

What other great movie needs a better title?

No Country for Old Men

Im not sure what would be better…maybe ‘Greed’ or ‘Vengeance’?

“Edge of Tomorrow” is probably the poster child for bad titles. It sounds like a cross-over between “Edge of Night” and “Search for Tomorrow”.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a pretty good psychological horror movie but its title sticks in no-one’s memory. Features the always excellent Elizabeth Olsen.

North by Northwest needs a better title. I understand that one of the working titles was The Man in Lincoln’s Nose. I like that one better.

Naked Lunch

  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly*. What the hell does it even mean? It isn’t a particularly accurate description of the three leads.

They could have chosen a title that fits the pattern of the first two. A Grave Full Of Dollars. A Coffin Full of Dollars. A Tomb Full Of Dollars.

So is this supposed to be like a joke topic?

There were four movies that came out in the late 1980s that are all good to excellent, but they have such bland, generic, and vaguely similar sounding titles that I have trouble remembering which title goes with which movie:

Stand by Me (1986) should have been called The Body like the novella is was based on.

Stand and Deliver (1988) should have been called The Calculus Teacher or The Math Teacher, or maybe taken its name from the nonfiction book it was based on, either the title Escalante or the subtitle The Best Teacher in America.

Do the Right Thing (1989) probably should have been called Bed-Stuy or Bedford-Stuyvesant after its setting.

Lean on Me (1989) probably should have been called The Principal.

Why do you think I’m joking? I’m serious. It’s a great film, but a terrible title.

It doesn’t require any mental counting. It has a natural rhythm that trips on the tongue like song lyrics, in a way that fewer or more “mads” wouldn’t. The opening number of The Mad Show (“It’s a World, World, World, World, Mad”) illustrates this pretty well.

In Spain it was titled Con La Muerte En Los Talones, meaning With Death At His Heels. Not the worst choice.

I hear it’s a good movie, but I’ve never watched it because the title is so bad.

Being John Malkovich

What’s wrong with the title?

Maybe it just went over my head. I don’t get it. And when it came out, I had no idea who John Malkovich was.

I think it’s one of the best titles of all time.

I think that a good title doesn’t need to explain what the whole thing is about, but at least fit the tone of the story and make sense withing the narrative. Except when the author purposefully writes a paradoxical title for contrast, like calling your horribly depressing movie “Happiness”.
For instance, I love the movie Baby Driver. And there’s certainly a character named Baby who is a getaway driver, so it’s quite explicit… but it kinda makes it sound like a silly comedy for children. Doesn’t fit the noir tone. I think that something like “Roll in the Dirt” would have made it more successful.

Have you seen it, or even read a description? It should be perfectly obvious what the title means.

It’s about some people that discover a portal that leads into the mind of John Malkovich. People can spend a few minutes experiencing life as JM, seeing though his eyes, feeling whatever he feels. JM is not happy when he finds out.

I’m with Peter Morris here. I think it follows a certain Italian tradition of just putting a bunch of nice sounding words together, frankly. And even then Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo, that would have been more accurately translated as The Good One, the Ugly One, The Bad One has got a bit more of a simplistic charm.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.