And Now for Something Different: Minimalist Movie Descriptions

Can you name each movie based on its minimalist plot synopsis? Kudos to my brothers Keith, Eric, and Joel for their creative input!

• Archaeologist repeatedly risks his life to ensure that an ancient artifact is properly warehoused.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

• A whiner with daddy issues saves the day.

Star Wars: A New Hope

• World’s worst proprietor teaches motel guest that cleanliness is next to deadliness.

Psycho

• Family film glorifies a romantic relationship between two different species.

Beauty and the Beast

• Handsome wanderer spends two hours squinting.

High Plains Drifter

• After the king’s brother kills the king and marries the queen, the king’s ghost appears to his son, urging him to avenge his death.

The Lion King. Or Hamlet. Same plot.

• Bacall teaches Bogie how to whistle.

To Have and Have Not

• Faithful, competent, long-time housekeeper has little respect for her inept new employer.

Rebecca

• Poverty-stricken farm girl goes to unbelievable lengths just to get a new pair of shoes.

The Wizard of Oz

• Everyone in the entire world gets to watch TV except Jim Carrey.

The Truman Show

• Chuck Heston leads a large, uncooperative Middle-Eastern tour group.

The Ten Commandments

• Dead guy floating in a pool solves his own murder.

Sunset Boulevard

• Father encourages rebellious disabled son to follow in his footsteps.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

• Acrophobic detective falls for the same mysterious girl twice; mysterious girl also falls twice.

Vertigo

• Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

• The joke is on the food critic when rats make his supper. Yes, folks, that’s right, rats running all over the kitchen make his supper!

Ratatouille

• All, right, who’s the wise guy who equipped the lab with a self-destruct lever?

The Bride of Frankenstein

• Man walking through desert finds a suitcase full of cash. Man takes it. Man shouldn’t have done that.

No Country for Old Men

• Nicola Tesla invents the world’s first copying machine.

The Prestige

• Bogie stumbles through an inscrutable plot to find a fake dingus.

The Maltese Falcon

• In a blindingly fast-moving plot, this film starts with Sam and Frodo trying to get into Mordor; three hours later it ends with Sam and Frodo still trying to get into Mordor.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

• Grizzled Civil War veteran becomes radicalized by an insurgent group.

Dances with Wolves

• Everybody knew him. Nobody knew him.

Citizen Kane

• Audrey Hepburn’s dead husband was profligate with postage.

Charade

• Desperate underachiever finds the true meaning of Christmas when townsfolk give him piles of money.

It’s a Wonderful Life

• Quint needs a bigger boat.

Jaws

• You can take the giant monkey out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the giant monkey.

King Kong

• A lily-white Brit shamelessly profits from flagrant cultural misappropriation.

Lawrence of Arabia

• Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks in to his.

Casablanca

• Mentally challenged blue tang helps paranoid clown locate his handicapped son.

Finding Nemo

• Millions of years of human evolution from ape to man to god … shown in actual time!

2001: A Space Odyssey

• After being caught in the act, incapacitated Greenwich Village peeping tom is forcefully ejected from his apartment.

Rear Window

Want to add some? Put them in the comments or email me at herrmannfan@gmail.com!

Copyright 2024, Steven Nyle Skaggs

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 4, 2024 at 4:33 PM

    Great stuff! Thanks guys.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 4, 2024 at 8:52 PM

    Hahaha!
    -Joel

    ReplyDelete
  3. snsNovember 5, 2024 at 9:39 AM

    Another entry from my brother Eric: You have to watch this movie to the end to find out he must be a crappy child psychologist; he misses every one of his client's clues.
    -The Sixth Sense

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kristie SkaggsNovember 8, 2024 at 9:42 AM

    This is hilarious!

    ReplyDelete

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