I love this kind of plot device - I’m trying to compile a list of these types of movies. I’ll list a few I think would fit, but I haven’t seen every movie and there may be a lot more.
"The Matrix "
“The Thirteenth Floor” (excellent movie - my favorite of this genre)
“Dark City”
“Existenz” (Interesting idea but I didn’t particularly like the movie)
I didn’t see any of these, do they fall into this category:
“Jacob’s Ladder”?
“Vanilla Sky”?
“The Game”?
“The Sixth Sense”?
This one was totally ruined by the previews, but Terminator 2 was one. There was no indication anywhere in the movie that Ah-nold was a good guy until he protected John Conner from the other Terminator. Until then it seemed like there were 2 terminators coming to kill him.
Well, with your modification to the premise I would agree that Clue and RHPS (and the others I mentioned) don’t meet the criterion but The Wizard of Oz most certainly does. As do any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies or any other film that’s largely dream sequence or hallucination-based.
Hmm. Good point, but the revelation that the world “was a dream” in the Wizard of Oz is not central to the movie. Besides, in the original stories, it *wasn’t * a dream. Oz was a real place. The movie makers threw that in as an afterthought and it kind of shows.
This thread probably should have “spoiler” in the title, since in many of these movies the fact that the revelation that the world is not as it seems comes rather late in the film.
“The Sixth Sense” doesn’t fit, “Jacob’s Ladder” is debatable.
In TSS, the protagonist doesn’t realize an important fact about himself, but the action does take place in the “real” world. Most of JL takes place in the protagonist’s imagination, so if you rule out WofO, you have to exclude this one too. Also, the world he imagines is much like the one he lived in, sprinkled with bizarre, nightmarish elements. It is a much less-different reality than, say, Oz compared to a Kansas farm.
Jacob’s Ladder - Yes
Vanilla Sky - Yes
The Game - Possibly
The Sixth Sense - Yes
If you include The Game, you may also have to include other movies where the main character is the victim of an elaborate conspiracy or hoax:
OK, I guess anybody reading this thread should realize the spoiler potential. I still don’t think “The Sixth Sense” fits; once you learn the ghosts are real, which is fairly early in the movie, there’s nothing else surprising about the film’s world. It’s the protagonist’s perception of himself that’s off.
Rusalka, maybe you should define precisely what you’re looking for. The list of movies where something is not as it seems to someone is probably nearly endless.
If you count hallucination- or dream-based movies (and in a sense that’s what “The Matrix” is), then you should count “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, “Fight Club” and some versions of “Alice In Wonderland”.
If you mean movies where discovering the real nature of the hero’s world is a major part of the plot instead of just a twist at the end, how about “Zardoz”?
Because: Harrison Ford’s world is definitely not what it seems. He’s dead! Noone else (except the boy) is aware of his existance, and it’s not until the very end of the film that he realizes this.
Total Recall is an interesting case. It might be real, or it might be a fantasy that Arnold purchased from the Memory Implant guys. We never find out which.