Who doesn't love watching a good film on a lazy Sunday afternoon? Movies are a great form of entertainment, but they don't always accurately depict reality.
It's not surprising that even the best works of fiction fail to convey the realism we expect. Fiction is different from reality, but some of the most unrealistic things in movies are now so common that it can get a little bit hard to tell what's fact and what's not. In this list, we will explore the most common movie moments that provide us with a warped sense of reality. Some of the things on this list are so obvious that you'll wonder why you've never thought of it before!
Do you love screaming at your TV anytime your on-screen heroes do something absurdly unrealistic? Well, hop on board. We've got the best read for you! It's time we show those movie-makers how much of the real world they got utterly wrong.
That's Not How Love (Actually) Works!
In movies like 2003's Love Actually, the way romance works are so misrepresented. It's no wonder some people think relationships are all about grand, life-changing moments!
While grand gestures make for memorable movie scenes, they don't play a massive part in what makes a great love story in real life. Unlike what the movies have taught us, love is more about the steady and consistent things in life than special occasions and out-of-this-world symbolic displays of affection. You can always present your significant other with some movie-worthy surprise, but if the two of you don't get along daily while doing all the boring stuff, things will not work.
In short, movies continue to sell us the "they lived happily ever after" plot. It's an idea that's great for making exciting movies and grand stories, but that just doesn't apply to our everyday lives, wherein the most significant challenges of love present themselves once the "ever after" comes...
Money Is Never An Issue
We get it. It's not easy to keep a story going if you have to focus on details such as income, taxes, and property value. However, Friends may have taken things a bit too far.
Rachel is a particularly unrealistic character, at least if you take her finances into account. She works as a waitress in New York City, arguably the most expensive city in the world, and she still has the money to live in a nice apartment, have the fridge always full, and dress like a celebrity! We thought her wealthy parents weren't giving her any more money, but if that's the case, where is she finding all this cash to live like a superstar?
And don't even get us started on Joey! To be fair, his financial problems are sometimes mentioned in the show. But it's still hard to believe an unemployed actor can afford to pay rent every month in a place like New York City.
Bombs of Convenience
Nothing gives an action flick some flavor like a critical bomb countdown. Sadly, real-life bombs are not this cool, nor this conveniently timed.
"Surprisingly" enough, real-life terrorists and criminals don't set their bombs up with nice timers featuring LED display screens and a worryingly loud beep sound. Instead, they conceal their bombs to the best of their ability. They don't add a timer either because they're not stupid. But in pretty much every Michael Bay movie or '80s action classic, bombs always need to come with a convenient timer. We guess that's how you know they're never going to explode.
What's even more incredible is that our action heroes always get the bomb off 1 second before it explodes and blows everybody to pieces. How? Because the criminals always include some sort of colored wire that's meant to jeopardize their entire evil plan if cut.
Hacking Equals Fast Typing
There are few things Hollywood gets as wrong as hackers. If you believe the movies, chances are you think all hackers are just kids living in a basement who know how to type very fast.
Few movies are as sensationalistically unreal when it comes to hacking as the '90s dramedy Hackers. With Jonny Lee Miller and a young Angelina Jolie leading the cast, this way-too-fictional movie presents hackers as a cool skateboarding-like crew who loves to surf the web. There are scenes in which these hackers even get a 3D avatar of themselves on the computer so they can physically hack the web. Needless to say, this '90s "masterpiece" aged quite awfully...
Hacker misrepresentation in films is far from over. But back in the '90s, when the Internet was still a novelty, some scenes were so wrong that you couldn't avoid bursting a laugh. That's what happens when middle-aged producers and directors don't do their research right!
Run For Your Life... In High-Heels!
Something like this happens in the movie In Time, a dystopic action flick starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. But it's really a widespread Hollywood habit.
In the movie, Timberlake and Seyfried get into some trouble after being falsely accused of murder. But when they have to run for their lives, they do so in a tuxedo (Timberlake) and a pair of high heels (Seyfried)! Unbelievably, Hollywood thinks it's credible for viewers to watch fast-paced action scenes where female characters are running, punching, fighting, and kicking, all while wearing high heels. But guys, no matter how good a woman has mastered the art of walking in heels, no stiletto would ever survive a good run and a few explosions!
We cannot avoid but feel sympathy for the female actresses forced to partake in this widespread Hollywood sham. It's not easy to walk 10-meters on high-heels, let alone spend hours filming scenes in which a lot of physical activity is involved.
You Don't Have to Watch the Road
The '90s classic Pulp Fiction is still a relevant movie today. The interesting conversations between Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are part of what makes it so great.
There's something about Vincent and Jules that you've probably never noticed, though. For their brilliantly-written dialogue to shine, Jules is often forced to take his eyes off the road for far too long than one should in reality. It might work in movies, but can you imagine doing the same while you're on your way to work? You'd most likely get into an accident, regardless of how compelling your conversation is.
Car scenes are a Hollywood classic since the old days of the black-and-white film. But somehow, writers and directors never seem to care about realism when their characters are on the road. We guess road safety doesn't go a long way when you're trying to sell movie tickets...
Women Don't Have to Shave
In the twisted world of Hollywood, body hair is still mostly a male thing. Unlike their female counterparts, men seem to grow hair and beards after a few days, just like the rest of us! How do we explain this?
When a man gets lost in the woods, his hair will continue to grow. That's what happened to Daniel Radcliffe's character, real-life explorer Yossi Ghinsberg, in 2017's Jungle. He got a beard as he got lost in the Bolivian wilderness. But would the same happen if the character was a female explorer? Will we ever see Lara Croft needing to shave her legs in the middle of an adventure? Somehow, we don't think so.
Hollywood writers love to give their male characters beards and body hair to mark the passage of time, but they never think about doing the same with women. Due to unfair beauty standards, female body hair is still a taboo issue in the world of cinema.
Rambo Mode
Let's face it: Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo was never meant to be a realistic character. Instead, he's a hyper-representation of an ideal American war hero.
Rambo's unlimited stash of bullets and God-like accuracy is unrealistic even by Hollywood terms. When the memorable John Rambo finds himself in "Rambo mode," he will change into a ridiculous sharpshooter. On top of that, his loyal automatic rifle will upgrade to the point of not needing any new bullets for 10 to 20 minutes of continuous shooting. And to make it all even less believable, Rambo's not even wearing a shirt! Is all of his spare ammo in the pockets of his trousers?
Another detail you might find annoying in the Rambo saga is that Rambo is way better at shooting people than all of his enemies combined. Rambo will quickly kill one man per bullet, but the bad guys shooting back at him seem to miss their shot 99% of the time.
Does Anybody Even Live There?
We bet you've noticed this one before. In television and movies, all of the character's houses look like the cleanest and tidiest place in the world. Yet, you never see them cleaning!
Instances like this are super unrealistic, especially when you consider characters like Jay and Gloria, who live with a young child and a teenage boy. Are we supposed to believe Jay and Gloria's baby doesn't turn their house into a whole mess? And where is their cleaning lady? Why hasn't she showed up in a single scene of Modern Family? There's never a dirty plate in the kitchen, any dust on the tables, no toys on the floor. It's as if their house is... fake.
To see a great example of what a real family home should look like, watch the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle. Like it or not, they do a great job depicting what a family house looks like in the real world. It's messy, unorganized, and filled with debris—as it should be!
Scientists Know Science
In the Sci-Fi movie Annihilation, the biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) is supposedly an animal expert. Yet, she has no problem with making scientific assumptions about plants and other stuff.
Why? Well, in movies, it's merely convenient that scientists know science. In the real world, scientists are always the first to admit their ignorance on some issues. After all, scientists have pretty narrow areas of expertise, and they don't like to make assumptions they don't understand completely. Not in the movies, though, where a scientist is a scientist, and a scientist knows the science of things, period. Can you imagine how boring it'd be if our favorite film scientists constantly asked for an expert's opinion?
Nevermind knowing all kinds of science. If you believe movies, academics are not only always good looking and fit, but they also know how to use weapons and defeat the bad guys. And yes, we're talking about you, Dr. Indiana Jones!
Food Will Always Be Ignored
Have you noticed this movie blunder before? The whole family sits on the table to have breakfast, and there are lots of delicious things there, but then...
Then, the plot moves on, the kids get up to go to school, and all the delicious bagels and pancakes are just left there for nobody to eat. The same happens when people have to rush out of cafés and restaurants, always leaving behind their pricey drinks and meals. In real life, you don't even have to be stingy to finish your whole meal before thinking of getting up. Yet, in movies like Cameron Diaz's and Jason Segel's 2014 rom-com, food is (literally) just a prop.
Don't even get us started with those actors who never put food on their mouth, but moves the spoon around while looking at their plates! We get it; actors don't like to eat stuff while on a scene. However, realism should be a priority.
Mexico is Orange
Movie-makers are accustomed to applying all sorts of visual effects to their scenes. But as countless memes on the Internet have pointed out, there seems to be a somewhat prejudiced practice of making Mexico look orange.
We believe it's a way of helping the viewers to quickly tell that they're no longer watching a scene in America. Since the way things look is different, viewers can assume right away that they're watching a scene from a foreign country. This, of course, doesn't apply in real life. Even though Mexico looks like Mexico, there's nothing particularly orange about the whole country.
The same color filter can be used to point out different locations around the globe. Russia will always look more like Russia when viewed through a grey filter. On the other hand, "Mexican" orange can also be applied to places like Africa and South America.
Explosive Cars Everywhere
Explosions in movies make for a great action scene. But if you think about it, that's not how cars work in real life.
In films, cars tend to explode even after minor impacts. All it takes for a vehicle to blow-up entirely is to crash against a wall at a moderate speed. A bullet to the gas tank can also do the trick. But real-world traffic is, fortunately, not that unstable. According to mechanic experts, car explosions are rare. They typically consist of a small fire, caused by things like oil leaks, loose wires, rapid changes in engine temperature, or electrical problems.
Almost everything in action movies seems like it comes from an alternate universe where the laws of physics don't mean that much. But sometimes, movie-markers are forced to ignore the facts to make for some quality entertainment—especially in the action genre!
Get Well Soon!
From getting shot to suffering a nasty fall, injuries in films always seem to have one thing in common: a record recovery time.
When our heroes get fatally hurt, the poor guys and gals don't even have the right to a proper recovery. Instead, they get unrealistically well after a couple of days or even hours. We know that it's because the plot needs to move on. Writers are not very interested in stuff like physiotherapy or post-traumatic treatment. These moments make for some illogical scenes, but can you imagine if action flicks tried to be realistic? How much of the movie would be spent in the waiting room of some hospital?
To be fair, action heroes are generally young and fit, which adds some realism to their recovery. But even though The Rock looks like he could survive all kinds of accidents, we don't think it's cool that movie writers and directors keep treating him as if he's literally made out of stone.
Ultra-Ultra-Ultra Definition
It's a movie cliché, especially when it comes to cop dramas like CSI and NCIS. The cops crack the case after zooming in on a surveillance picture that seems like it's low-definition, but it's not.
Somehow, movie/TV cops have access to crazy tech that allows them to make perfect high-definition zooms that work all too ridiculously well. That's how they spot little details that enable them to move their case forward. The same happens with sound. Sound engineers in the movies always find a way to "clean" the soundwaves and listen to the background noises. Naturally, things are not that easy in real life.
Fortunately, not all cop dramas are unrealistic. To see how hard it is to do actual police surveillance work, try the first season of the 2000's classic The Wire. You'll be impressed to see how many rules and real bureaucracy cops have to deal with every day.
Parking Is Always Easy
The 1995 thriller Se7en is a great film, but even this Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman masterpiece makes some crass offenses to reality.
While looking out for a mysterious killer in Manhattan, detectives Somerset and Mills never have any issue with finding a parking spot! And the most impressive thing? They always get to park right in front of where they need to be, even if it happens to be rush hour in one of the world's busiest cities. We wish getting around town was this easy in real life. But no, unlike Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, we're doomed never to find the ideal parking spot.
We have to admit that watching people look for a parking spot in movies doesn't seem that exciting. Still, we would be happy if there was just one movie that focused on this issue. An action flick about a man trying to find an open parking spot during the Christmas holidays? We'll get one ticket, please!
Waking Up With the Perfect Look
This one is so common that we don't even need to reference a movie for you to understand it. This happens in almost every wake-up scene there is!
It's early in the morning, and our favorite character has just woke up. There's something strange about her, though. She seems to be fully made up, with perfect eyeliner, lipstick, and blush. But how? Did she sleep with that on her face? But how did it not get all messed up during the night? The answer, of course, is very simple. The actors need to look pretty even when they're waking up in bed. Yes, it's great for their self-esteem, but not so for realism in cinema.
The worst kind of wake-up scene is where we are led to believe that the character is waking up from a long night out or waking up abruptly to an alarm clock. You'd expect them to look terrible, but they always look like they're ready to go out for a job interview.
One By One, Boys!
In the real world, it's hard enough to win a pillow fight against a single opponent. But in movies, our heroes take on tenths or even hundreds of enemies at the same time and get away with it!
This instance can be seen in the final scene of Kill Bill: Vol. 1. In the film, Uma Thurman's character takes on the Crazy 88, a group of 88 skilled swordsmen. How can one woman win a fight against an entire gang of criminals? Well, it's easier if they all strike one at a time. For framing and plot reasons, the villains in the movies have illogical respect for the rules of a fair fight.
We do not advise you to try it, but we're sure that not even the most skilled fighter in the real world would be able to beat 5 to 10 opponents simultaneously. When a group of people gets together against one enemy, they will most likely win.
Got Shot? Play It Cool...
It's just like Neo in the Matrix trilogy. Getting shot in the movies is so typical that many characters don't even seem to mind it.
We know that Neo is supposed to be a man of undisputed power and wisdom, but even he shouldn't be able to get shot without at least saying "ouch." But the Sci-Fi masterpiece Matrix isn't the worst example of this film folly since there are countless movie heroes and villains who don't lose a bit of their wittiness, charisma, and braveness after getting hurt. Instead, they do or say something utterly cool, which is not how people who are about to die function in reality.
Our favorite ridiculous movie death is when the hero is lying down and still finds the strength to comfort those around him. He's so cool about dying that he cracks a joke to lighten the mood, ignoring stuff like his last will and testament completely.
Serial Stupidity
In movies, serial killers always act as if they like to give the main characters a chance before assassinating them. But is this even believable?
In the real world, serial killers are obsessive people who often spend hours planning and executing their murders. Also, they get better and better as their list of crimes piles up. But in the world of cinema, serial-killing is a way more nuanced art. It mainly involves a lot of staring, lots of scares, and lots of suspense. Killing someone without even giving him/her a chance is not how serial killers in films enjoy doing their business.
A serial killer revealing themselves before all the killing is a great way to add excitement to any horror flick. But for the killer, doesn't it seem like the dumbest thing he could do? Well, maybe they like the chase better than the catch.
Comas Are Just Like a Big Nap
There are only two possible outcomes for a coma in cinema: either the character suffers from amnesia or nothing happens at all.
Real-life comas are tough. Nobody goes into a coma and simply wakes up to live another day. It's a life-changing experience with permanent health consequences. But in films, comas are often treated as being one big nap. The character wakes up after weeks, months, or years, and gets immediately better after 5 to 10 seconds of feeling slightly confused. Of course, sometimes, the character wakes up with no physical consequences except not remembering anything that has happened before. It depends on the scenario that's more convenient for the filmmakers.
In Kill Bill: Vol. 1, there's a memorable scene in which Uma Thurman's character wakes up from a coma. Even though she cannot move her legs (which is realistic), she immediately gets on a killing rampage and escapes the hospital by stealing a car.
Heavy Document, Light Read
We need to get back to David Fincher's masterpiece Se7en to talk about large documents in movies. We bet you've already found this one quite unrealistic, too.
One police office enters the room with a large paper document containing the information on the case. The other police officer receives the document, opens it on one page at random, and acts as if he's suddenly aware of everything going on. We get it: Writers and directors don't want to have to deal with all the actual reading it would take for a character to get informed. However, these scenes always make for some laughably, unrealistic moments.
Don't you wish things were this easy in real life? Can you imagine opening a heavy manual on one random page and suddenly knowing everything about it after a relaxing 10-second read? That's a world we wouldn't mind living in!
No GPS? No Problem!
An abandoned warehouse in Brazil? A lost hut in the middle of the jungle? Make no fuss about it! The characters of your favorite movie will get there without any problem.
It has become such a regular part of movies that we tend to see past it. Unlike real-life, fictional characters don't need coordinates or GPS instructions to meet on secluded and off the radar locations. Not to mention those occasions in which a character appears suddenly to save another character, but there's little to no explanation of how he found the place. It's a big world out there, but in movies, it sure feels like people always stumble upon each other.
We haven't even talked about how easy it is to find some old friend who doesn't want to be found. It happens in every heist movie. There's a member of the crew who's unwilling to join, but he's somehow spotted living in a shed in the middle of the Balinese jungle.
Settling For Less is Okay
In the 2007 rom-com Knocked Up, Alison (Katherine Heigl) is a successful and attractive young woman who gets pregnant after a casual meeting with the bonafide loser named Ben (Seth Rogen).
In reality, this would be the story of a drama. But in Hollywood, there seems to be nothing wrong with settling for less. Even though Alison looks like she deserves a lot better, she ends up falling in love with Ben, a grown man who still lives like he was in his first year of college. As it turns out, Ben is a loser with a great heart. But are we supposed to believe Alison will live happily ever after with this kind of guy?
We don't always get to choose the ones we love, but movies make us feel as though some ridiculous relationships would be possible in the real world. We guess love can be mysterious and unpredictable. Still, you're pushing way too hard, Hollywood!
Graves Are Easy
Horror films can be so unrealistic yet still make us feel scared, particularly when the villain seems to have an unbelievable talent for digging graves.
In horror films like It, the one with the scary clown, graves are so easy to dig that the writers and directors don't even care about mentioning the digging. Are we supposed to believe that a skinny clown who lives in the sewer has the upper body strength needed to dig these five graves in less than a day? We'll let it pass, though. Horror films would be a lot less scary if every logistical difficulty were to be taken into account.
A great example of this is the movie series Saw. Can you imagine how different Saw would be if the writers explored the way the traps were built? It would look more like an arts and crafts tutorial than a horror movie.
Looking Pretty At The Warzone
In the 2005 action flick Sahara, Penélope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey go through a rough couple of days during a desert adventure.
No worries, though! Cruz still found the time to get her eyebrows perfectly done, throwing a little bit of eyeshadow and foundation on her face along the way. It's a capital mistake of the movie business. They go through a lot of effort to make their characters look like they've been through a lot, but they never really commit fully to the task. In this scene from Sahara, Penélope boasts some messy hair and dusty clothes, but she still looks like she had the time to retouch her make-up.
We guess there's an obsession with good-looking movie characters since the days of the old Hollywood Golden Era. But there's nothing wrong with making stars look ugly for a couple of scenes. Realistically, even the most statuesque men and women in the world would look horrible after a couple of days in the desert.
Rudeness at The Phone
It's a classic: characters in movies who hang up their phones without saying "bye." It's so common that it has even led to some hilarious memes on the Internet!
Once again, action films are the main culprit. Here's a typical scenario: the hero requires some vital information, so he calls one of his friends. He goes through hell and beyond to get access to a secluded piece of intelligence and communicate it to the hero. The hero hears about it and hangs up without saying "bye" or "thank you." This typically happens because the hero is too busy doing something dangerous. But even a man on the run should have enough time to be polite.
Who still calls people anymore? A one-on-one conversation makes for a more satisfying movie scene, but people usually text these days. We'd like to see a little bit more text-messaging in our favorite films from now on. At least, people don't have to say "bye" when they're texting.
Rich and Successful at 21
The movies always make us feel that, by the time we're in our early 20's, we can have access to lots of money, lavish apartments, and a life worthy of a rockstar. The reality, though, could not be any more different.
At 20-something, most of us will be living with our parents, counting the change to go out at night, and struggling to find a minimum-wage job. There are exceptions, of course (we're thinking about you, rich heirs and heiresses!). But for the most part, people in their 20's are so poorly represented in films that they always feel like totally unrelatable characters.
There's a big chance that unless you're a movie star or a famous singer, you will have nothing in your name by the time you turn 21. If you're able to afford rent, you can consider yourself lucky! Unrealistic movies cannot stop creating unattainable standards for young men and women under 30.
Having a Nice Chat in the Bar
In the movie Mercenaries, a bunch of action heroes gets together at a noisy bar to have an important conversation. But is this even believable?
If you've ever tried to have a conversation at any bar, you've probably realized there's too much noise in that space for you to communicate. Yet, in the movies, background music is conveniently muffled by sound engineers whenever the characters speak. This is even more ridiculous in shows like How I Met Your Mother where Ted and his friends always get together at the same bar in New York City, which seems to be the quietest bar we've ever seen!
The sound technique that makes all of it possible is called side-chain compression. It's a special audio effect that allows for the background sound to be ducked anytime a character or host speaks. It's been used effectively by every radio MC out there to make the volume of the music go lower anytime he speaks.