Movies where main character thinks its fake, but it isn't

Cafe Society
1

I’m looking to come up with any additions to this list. Specifically movies where the main character thinks he’s involved in a charade/movie/etc. but it is actually real.

What I have right now are:

**The Three Amigos **(they think they’re in Mexico to make a movie)
**The Last Shot **(director thinks he’s making a movie but it is an FBI sting operation)
**The Man Who Knew Too Little **(Bill Murray thinks he’s in a piece of street theater but it is a spy thing).

Anything to add to the list? Similar but not really qualifying would be:
**Galaxy Quest **- The aliens think the show is real when it is fake.
Bowfinger - Same, Eddie Murphy doesn’t realize he’s being incorporated into a movie.
Truman Show - Truman doesn’t know his life is a TV show.

2

Tropic Thunder–they all think they’re just in a movie because they are making a film initially and then get taken out to the jungle.

3

Is it too early to nominate Ender’s Game?

4

D’oh. Can’t believe we didn’t think of Tropic Thunder. Pre-emptively putting Ender’s Game on the list seems fair.

5

I recall a movie with Michael Caine and (I think) Pierce Brosnan where Caine plays an old, washed up, Hollywood has-been actor who thinks he is getting a break, a role starring in a big-budget movie, that turns out to be a front for money laundering/kiddie porn…

I saw this several years ago on a broadcast TV weekend “midnight movie” showing, and cant recall the title or many other details.
(I really remember enjoying “The Man Who Knew Too Little”— It was no classic or anything, but cute and endearing, and (to me) better than many of Murray’s other recent movies)

6

How about Rocky 4, with the staged fight between Drago and Apollo Creed?

7

This also makes me think of a Twilight Zone ep–“A World of Difference,” but it’s about a guy who suddenly realizes his life is a TV show/he’s an actor, but he thinks it’s really his life and he starts freaking out. We’re not sure if he’s crazy or if everyone else is just…I don’t know, not real or something.

8

Not EXACTLY what the OP asked for but… what about “Shadow of the Vampire,” which asks us to imagine that Max Schreck, the scary star of “Nosferatu,” was a real vampire who was really killing his co-stars?

9

I wonder if Life Is Beautiful would qualify? Guido convinces his son that the Concentration Camp they’re in is really a game?

How about Shadow of the Vampire, where Nosferatu is really a vampire, but the rest of the cast doesn’t know that?

10

In Galaxy Quest, Tim Alan’s character initially believes it it fake until proven otherwise.

11

Total Recall, sort of. There’s some ambiguity about which events in the movie are actual experiences and which are false memories.

12

Would the Last Action Hero count?

Ah’nuld “thinks” that 1 shot will blow up the car. etc.

probably doesn’t qualify.

13

In My Name is Bruce, Bruce Campbell (playing himself) thinks he’s in a movie shoot when he’s actually been kidnapped and brought to a small town to fight a vengeful Chinese ghost.

14

In “12 Monkeys” there is so much ambiguity/time shifting going on that all of the main characters are unsure of reality at one point or another…

15

Apparently wasn’t Brosnan. The only movie they’ve made together involves a nuclear bomb and spies.

Haven’t seen it, but it certainly seems to fit from the point of view of the cast.

Yes, I’ll add it.

I know, but in the end it is such a brief part of the movie I give most of the weight to the aliens thinking it is real when it isn’t rather than Allen thinking it is fake when it is real.

I’d put it in the “thinking it is real when it’s fake camp” though that isn’t quite right either.

16

Both of these don’t meet the criteria of the OP, but in them, the public thinks they are real events.

Wag The Dog - fake war based on footage produced in the White House basement.

Capricorn One - Similarly, a faked trip to the moon, produced in a desert studio.

17

Malibu’s Most Wanted, eventually. B-Rad finds out that his kidnappers are actors, so when he eventually gets embroiled in a real firefight, he thinks it’s all an act and is utterly fearless.

18

Delta Farce–Three Army reservists think they’ve landed in Iraq, but they’re really in Mexico.

19

On second thought, that seems more like another “thinking it is real when it’s fake.”

20

In Sixth Sense the protaganist thinks he’s a child psychiatrist.