# Movies where reality is in doubt **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275 "2012-02-09T04:51:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/1 "2012-02-09T04:51:10Z")
Now YMMV as always and I welcome discussion but I’d like to limit this to movies where the doubt about reality is explicit in the film and not fan theories(for example in The Matrix Neo is schizo and the whole film is a hallucination etc). Return To Oz - This LOOSE adaptation of Frank Baum’s books takes a totally new perspective, Dorothy is in a brutal mental institution and we never learn if Oz is real or the fantasies of a troubled girl. Existenz - Its unclear when the game started and when it ended, if it ended. Total Recall - Its unclear whether the events are real or happening in Recall. A Nightmare On Elm Street - Its unclear if the film happened or was a…nightmare on Elm Street 😛 Inception - This is heavily contested but the end is open ended and much dialogue is ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/2 "2012-02-09T05:44:38Z")
_Minority Report_ - there’s a good case to be made that the ending is all in Tom Cruise’s mind. I tend to agree. Of course, the classic _The Innocents_, based on Henry James’ _The Turn of the Screw_ - ghosts or insanity? ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/3 "2012-02-09T05:45:30Z")
How about **Dark City**? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/4 "2012-02-09T05:54:42Z")
_Shutter Island_ _The Sixth Sense_ ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/5 "2012-02-09T07:56:37Z")
I think \*American Psycho \*qualifies. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/6 "2012-02-09T08:28:16Z")
_Donnie Darko_ _Angel Heart_ _Rashomon_ _The Usual Suspects_ ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/7 "2012-02-09T08:36:38Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > I think \*American Psycho \*qualifies. Yes, I agree. **The Machinist** is another that can be added to the list. ---
**Author:** ![canterburyales](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@canterburyales](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/canterburyales)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/8 "2012-02-09T12:17:16Z")
_Memento_, though the doubt mostly concerns past events. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/9 "2012-02-09T12:51:30Z")
This is often the issue in Virtual reality stories, and it’s one I don’t patrticularly care for. On the whole, I’m gladc that _The Matrix_ mostly avboided it. Except for a few brief and well-circumscribed events (like the Training Program with the Woman in the Red Dress), you always knew if you were in Reality or a Virtual Reality. But the point of the two VR movies that came out at the same time was the confusion between VR and Real Life (RL). David Cronenberg’s **eXistenZ** spends the whole film switching between different realities, as you try to figure out which one is Real. I really liked **The 13th Floor** , which did a great job of the “Is it Live or is it VR?” theme. It’s based on what has been claijmed to be the first VR novel, _Simulacron-3_ by Daniel F. Galouye, which came out in 1964 (!). The works of Philip K. Dick have been cited as cases of “Is this Reality?”, and Hollywood has made much more of this aspect than Dick himself did. The “Is it Reakl?” ending of **Minority Report** that **needscoffee** (and others) like is, for instance, wholly lacking in the original story. I, for one, don’t think Spielberg intended it in the film, either. In **Total Recall** , the “Am I in a Dream or Not?” theme that seems to be the core of the film isn’t at all the same as in the original story _We Can Remember it for you Wholesale_, where the point is that they implanted _memories_, not VVR experiences (although that would not have made for as exciting a film). I didn’t particularly care for the rreality-shifting of **Vanilla Sky**. I think I may jusdt dislike ambiguos reality movies with Tom Cruise in them. Then there are the movies with individuals whose minds seem to be slightly tipped, and who make their own rreality. **Fight Club** and **Black Swan** come to mind And then there are the daydream/dream/imagination played out as reality, and then we’re yanked back to reality at the end. Ambrose Bierce’s _An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge_ is the classic in this case. The recent episode of _The Big Bang Theory_ that did this handled it extremely well, I thought. But the “It was Only a Dream” meme has been done to death in sitcoms, and has become a disliked cliche. Even ages ago, they played with the idea and had multiple levels of dreaming. I liked the riffs they played on this (at least twice) on the old _Dick Van Dyke Show_ (especially the Kolak of Twilo episode). Speaking of which, the whole “stories-within-stories-within-stories” meme is a pretty old one. as TVtropes says, it’s _older than dirt_. In the original _Arabian Nights_, there are places where the “stories-within-stories” goes at least seven levels deep. Douglas Hofstadter played with this (nefariously not emerging back up to the level of “reality”) in one of the “Fables of Achilles and the Tortoise” in his book _Godel, Escher, Bach_. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/10 "2012-02-09T13:47:29Z")
**The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari** (1919): Who is crazy? Who is the villain? Where is this even taking place? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/11 "2012-02-09T13:50:25Z")
_Last Year at Marienbad_, surrealist cinema at either its best or worst, depending on who you ask. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/12 "2012-02-09T14:10:42Z")
_Jacob’s Ladder_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/13 "2012-02-09T14:23:35Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > **The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari** (1919): Who is crazy? Who is the villain? Where is this even taking place? As I understand it, in the original script the whole _It’s All a Dream/Madman’s Fantasy_ aspect was missing, and was imposed by the studio so that the surrealist film would have some sort of rational ground to it. Bourgeois audiences , they thought, can’t take their surrealism straight. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/14 "2012-02-09T14:34:55Z")
No, the change was imposed because it was disrespectful to authority, implying the leaders were madmen. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/15 "2012-02-09T15:25:12Z")
**Mulholland Drive** qualifies. Although it’s never stated explicitly, it’s hard to understand what the hell is going on if you don’t know that part of it is a dream. ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/16 "2012-02-09T15:28:08Z")
Although it gets resolved relatively early in the movie, I would think The Matrix qualifies. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/17 "2012-02-09T15:33:29Z")
Not a movie, but the _Buffy_ episode “Normal Again” threw everything in the series into doubt. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/18 "2012-02-09T19:50:50Z")
Some more I thought of in terms of “it was all a dream/in someone’s mind”: Season 8 of _Dallas_. The entire series of _St. Elsewhere_. The entire series of _Newhart_. **High Tension** is another movie where much of the “reality” we see on the screen takes place in the mind of a character. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/19 "2012-02-09T20:24:49Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > _Jacob’s Ladder_. That was my first thought too. There was also _A Beautiful Mind_. I almost wanted the delusions to be real. ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275/20 "2012-02-09T20:32:51Z")
_Time Bandits_. Is it all an imaginative boy’s dream or did it really happen? “Mom, dad, don’t touch it! It’s evil!” Also the episode “Back to Reality” from _Red Dwarf_ had some fun with this. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-reality-is-in-doubt/612275.md?page=2)