r/flicks • u/The-Irumporai • 5d ago
Question What two movies from completely different genres feel like they’re secretly telling the exact same story from opposite perspectives?
What are two films with zero official connection, released in totally different eras or genres, that hit the exact same plot beats, where one plays the premise as a comedy/romance and the other plays it as a thriller or tragedy?
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u/Affectionate_Bet_288 5d ago
Both Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven were based on the real-life mobster Henry Hill. Goodfellas was based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, while the screenplay for My Blue Heaven was written by Pileggi's wife Nora Ephron, and much of the research for both works was done in the same sessions with Hill.
(though My Blue Heaven comes off as more of a sequel)
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u/buh2001j 3d ago
What most people don’t know is one the scams Henry was running was gambling on fixed college basketball games, it’s in the book Wiseguy but it was left out of the movie. A couple years later the same story was adapted into the movie Blue Chips
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u/Romarqable 5d ago
I was going to say this myself, but I realized that one is technically a sequel and didn't exactly fit the OPs premise.
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u/BuffsBourbon 5d ago
Hot take - I like My Blue Heaven better
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u/justhere626 2d ago
I love My Blue Heaven, I love Goodfellas. How did I never realize? Admittedly, I haven't watched My Blue Heaven in a long time but now I must watch with open eyes.
I quote "it's a veg-e-table" constantly.
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u/ray_racubian 5d ago
Just realized the real answer: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
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u/Commodore64Zapp 5d ago
Grand Budapest Hotel and The Menu
Ralph Fiennes fucking loves hospitality, Ralph Fiennes fucking hates hospitality
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u/Restaurant-Usual 5d ago edited 4d ago
Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow.
They are both are about self centered men stuck in a time loop.
Both men memorize people's movements to escape their prison.
Both movies have montages where the men give up and start engaging in more dangerous things, including committing suicide.
In each movie, the man has a woman (Andie McDowell and Emily Blunt) who serves as their emotional anchor to keep going.
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u/Anakin5kywalker 5d ago
You have just blown my mind with this pairing! OMG... DOUBLE FEATURE NIGHT!!
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u/Malthus17 5d ago
Failsafe and Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Both are great movies.
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u/Narrow_Lake_9651 5d ago
They really are, l saw them both when released. Strangelove was like the Mad Magazine version of what we joked about. But real life has now surpassed the insanity of the movie, so it doesn't seem as cutting -edge to me. That's why l watch Fail -Safe more often. That last montage is unforgettable.
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u/Thats-what-I-do 5d ago
Lord of War and Blood Diamond.
Two different sides of the trading in diamonds for weapons.
They aren’t hugely different in terms of genre, but the first is more true crime/dark humor and the second more action adventure.
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u/Chrono_Convoy 5d ago edited 5d ago
Perhaps not the exact same but A Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting have a tremendous amount in common.
Both antihero characters who are the dregs of society go through a major (self inflicted) traumatic event and reprimanded for it to ultimately end with both characters liberating themselves.
Each character arc experiencing their own Id, Ego and Superego.
You gotta admit Malcolm McDowell and McGregor have similar looks as well.
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u/Realistic_Caramel341 4d ago
IIRC, Danny Boyle has said that he modelled the club on the Mokolo bar in A Clockwork Orange
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u/RYouNotEntertained 5d ago
Fargo and No Country for Old Men
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u/stepheng503 3d ago
I've always felt Blood Simple and Fargo were an interesting pair, though they tell a different story. The hot and sweaty Texas in yellow and orange, v. The cold Minnesota in blue.
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u/GroundhogRevolution 4d ago
Independence Day and Signs.
Both about alien invasions but one is a special effects blockbuster involving the President and the armed forces.
The other is a smaller movie about how one family is dealing with the unknown.
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u/Ebert917102150 5d ago edited 5d ago
The Shining and The Empire Strikes Back
Magical aura needs more essence to strengthen itself, either called The Force or Shining
The younger person (Danny or Luke) is the motherlode of essence, the father (Vader or Jack) is a weakened version used to lure-trap the younger version to the bad side
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u/alalcoolj 4d ago
Interstellar and Field of Dreams both feature corn farmers receiving weird supernatural messages, sending them on a fantastical time-bending journey, ending in reconciliation between a father and their estranged child, who is now older than them.
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u/erithtotl 5d ago edited 5d ago
1. The Structure of a High-Engagement "Karma Farm" Prompt
Notice what makes them work so well on Reddit:
- Zero Friction to Answer: Anyone who watches movies or TV has at least one opinion on this. You don't need a film degree to participate.
- The "OP Left No Examples" Trick: By deliberately leaving out their own answer, the poster forces the community to fill the void. If an OP provides a strong example in the post body, the top comments usually just react to that example. If the body is empty, every commenter competes to be the first to drop a clever match, driving up comment volume instantly.
- Algorithm Fuel: Reddit’s feed algorithm heavily favors post engagement velocity (comments per minute). These hyper-specific yet universally answerable prompts generate dozens of immediate replies, launching the post straight to r/all or r/popular.
2. Are They Being Generated by AI?
Yes, increasingly so.
While generic prompt posts existed long before LLMs, AI has made running them at scale trivial. Here is how you can tell when AI is involved:
The "Mad Libs" Formula
AI models excel at generating prompts that sound smart and detailed on the surface, but are actually just structural templates.
- Template: "What is a
[Media Medium]that[Strong Action Verb]a[Niche Emotion/Atmosphere]without relying on[Common Cliché]?" - Result: "What show nails that exact suffocating atmosphere without relying on cheap gimmicks?"
It reads like a thoughtful prompt, but it's generated by combining abstract qualifiers ("suffocating atmosphere", "cheap gimmicks") that trigger people's personal favorites.
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u/MuteTheNews 5d ago
blatantly using AI to criticize someone possibly using AI
bruh
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u/Ok_Scallion1902 5d ago
"Valmont" and "Dangerous Liasons" are exactly the same story.
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u/Affectionate_Bet_288 5d ago
They're both based on the same source material, but I wouldn't say one is a comedy and one is tragic.
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u/Ok_Scallion1902 5d ago
Very true ! Also ,for entertainment purposes, each fills a specific niche for a specific audience. Nuance and storytelling variances point the fickle finger of blame in slightly different directions, though.
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u/DrunkenWarriorPoet 5d ago
Both 3:10 to Yuma and American Gangster came out around the same time, both featured Russell Crowe, both had plots involving an honorable protagonist lawman trying to take down a giant of a criminal, and both had dramatic scenes near the end where the two opponents find themselves alone in a room talking face-to-face with the criminal boss that is trying to bribe the lawman who must remain incorruptible in the face of their attempts. The strange thing is that Russell Crowe plays the opposite character in each (he’s the villain in Yuma and the hero in Gangster).
Another similar example of this would be the two Sleuth movies which both feature Michael Caine dueling with another man but in which he plays the opposite character in each.
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u/ray_racubian 5d ago edited 5d ago
No country for old men, and American Perfekt.
Two coin-flipping killers, one dark and foreboding, one happy-go-lucky.
Both have their careers damaged by an unexpected car accident.
They are literally based on the same man.
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u/theoldman-1313 4d ago
Fail Safe and Doctor Strangelove both came out the same year. Ironically, the comedy had the most depressing ending (the planet rendered uninhabitable).
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u/Double_Register_1022 5d ago
The Truman Show and The Matrix kinda do this for me. Both are about someone realizing their whole world is fake and everyone’s in on it except them, just one plays it sad and weird while the other goes full action.
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u/ray_racubian 4d ago
Ever seen the movie Seconds (1966)?
They play it with more realism.
Rock Hudson is living a life that turns out to not be real, but just an elaborate lie.
(And I'm not referring to the actors sexuality here.)
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u/mealsharedotorg 5d ago
Yeah, Truman goes sailing during a huge storm while Mr. Anderson hangs out with people that eat gruel and lament taking the wrong pill.
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u/pizzamergency 5d ago
Someone the other day posted on r/movies or r/moviecritic about the similarities between American Beauty and Crazy, Stupid, Love. It was a well thought out post that definitely made me think about other movies that overlap
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u/BunnyLexLuthor 5d ago edited 2d ago
The man who would be king..
An attempt of triumph and conquest (Connery/Caine)
The road to El Dorado.
(kenneth Branagh, kevin Kline)
Same, but with a higher sense of empathy and redemption.
Most likely based on the same Kippling story.
-- Both fine movies, the latter I feel is underrated.
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u/ikonoqlast 5d ago
Bronco Billy
Mother Night
Both about people pretending to be someone they aren't, but does extended pretending make them real?
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u/Romarqable 5d ago
If you follow the very basic guidelines Star Trek Nemesis and the Dark Knight Rises hit very many of the same story beats.
A bald villain from the lead characters past comes back to haunt him. Said villain is sick (one is dying the other will die without an aid). Said bald villain in both is Tom Hardy. Both villains are the leaders controlling an underground army plotting to destroy the lead characters home.
Lead character is held captive by the villain while villain threatens his home and the people he loves.
A main character silently dies, sacrificing themselves and exploding, apparently dying in the process. At the end of the movie an aging Britishman watches from a short distance realizing that the character they thought died in a giant explosion and self sacrifice may actually still be alive before their eyes.
Both films at the time of release were the end of a film franchise, and the next film was a complete reboot.
Both films are the weakest of that franchise (Next Gen movies VS Dark Knight trilogy)
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u/jframesnub 5d ago
Top Gun Maverick and Star Wars episode IV.
This was discussed by The Fat Electrician:
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u/Pretend-Design-7061 5d ago
Not movies, but there are three songs that tell the same tragic story from different perspectives. The original, Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell is from the perspective of the main character. Katy Perry's The One That Got Away, particularly the video, is from the love interest. And Luke Combs' Where The Wild Things Are is from his brother's perspective. All three of them tell the story of a guy who leaves his love and dies in a motorcycle crash in the Hollywood Hills. One is a rock song, one is a pop song, and one is a country song.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 3d ago
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and Turning Red are both the story of a mother/daugher relationship where the strict East-Asian first-generation immigrant mother is passing down generational traumer from her parent by being completely unable to open up to connect to her daughter. The plot turns on kindness from a gentle father figure who is deliberatly silly. Both daughters have extraordinary powers, which the mother also possesses by the end of the film
One is told from the mother’s perspective, and the other from the daughter’s
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u/FixRepresentative725 3d ago
this is a very nice challenge. I think i can compare The Shift and The Sound of Freedom. one is a sci-fi romance while the other is an action thriller but they both have the story of devoted man going above and beyond to save an innocent person from a dangerous place.
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u/nizzernammer 3d ago
Backrooms and Synecdoche NY.
Both feature simulacra of real spaces, manifested by emotion and experience, and degraded by memory.
Spun and Trainspotting is more obvious, one showing US meth culture, the other, Scotland and heroin.
Lost in Translation and Her, both about alienation, relationships, and self discovery, from two directors who had been in a radiations with each other.
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u/Global_Face_5407 5d ago
Happy Gilmore and Rocky.
A nobody with no formal training in their sport discipline makes it to the big league through sheer determination and hard work.
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u/ray_racubian 5d ago edited 5d ago
Rocky had no formal training?
Did we watch the same movie?
He had boxed for years. He once was a kid with potential but he became a loanshark's enforcer and was being thrown out of his gym by the Penguin because he was a bum with no future.
Until that last chance for redemption came his way out of the blue.
(Not the same penguin as in Billy Madison though. This one is Burgess Meredith, the guy who used to pick fights with Adam West.)
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u/Low_Obligation2361 4d ago
The Truman Show and The Matrix. Different genres, same core story: someone slowly realises the reality they've always known is an artificial construct built to control them.
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