People Share Things That Are Normal In Movies But Not In Real Life, And Here Are 30 Of The Best Insights
Don't get me wrong, movies don't have to depict reality if they don't want to. After all, we often watch them to escape it. The problem is that sometimes Hollywood intentionally tries to accurately portray the world but have no clue what they're talking about. I'm talking good guys jumping behind some furniture and the bad guys unloading hundreds of rounds into people without any going through. Or people ordering food at a restaurant and leaving before getting their meals.
In an attempt to figure out which of these cliches are the most overused, reddit user UK-NeilPatel posted a question on the platform, asking "What is something unrealistic that you often see in movies that annoys the hell out of you?" In less than two weeks, they received over 10,000 upvotes and 8,000 comments, many of which are legit. Continue scrolling and check out the best ones!
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Women in fight scenes with their hair down. Girl, tie it back I know you can't see s**t.
However, if we were to take this to the extreme, we would get camp film -- movies doing something ridiculous and over-the-top whilst being executed sincerely -- something that has been implemented in films for quite some time. Experts say this technique is central to the genre of trash film; arguably the "worst" genre of film that exists. In the best kind of way.
Fight scenes with multiple attackers. They're all so polite, waiting for their friends to get their ass kicked before engaging. In reality you get jumped by everyone at the same time.
Camp movies challenge binary "good vs. bad" thinking because they are both good and bad. They reject the principles of cinema, ultimately allowing the audience to both laugh along with the movie and at it.
So I guess just because a film reads as bad, doesn’t necessarily mean it isn't good. The Room might be labeled as the worst film ever made, but arguably one of the most enjoyable ones, too. It brings audiences so much joy and pleasure through its unrealistic "realism." What do you think?
Post apocalyptic women with clean shaven underarms.
Radioactive fallout. Your teeth fallout, your nails fallout and your hairs fallout
Can you hack this super secure server?' *ten seconds of hitting random letter keys on the keyboard* 'I'm in.
Good guy jumps behind some furniture and the bad guys unloads 1000 rounds into it and none of them go through. What the f**k is that couch made of!?
Also, bad guys shoot 1000 rounds and they all miss, yet the good guy shoots just one and kills at least three
Mom has prepared a feast that could feed half the neighborhood, but it's only for her two small children and her husband, who is already late for work and takes a single piece of toast on his way out the door.
While the kids can't even eat anything because the schoolbus has already arrived.
Cop looking at blurry CCTV image
Cop: “Can you clean up the image?”
Nerd: “Sure, computer enhance sector theta 6”
crystal clear image appears on screen
Cop: “Oh my god”
nerd: "sure" *grabs cloth and spits on screen* *crystal clear image appears* Cop: Oh my god
A part-time waitress or administrative assistant sure as s**t isn't affording a beautiful two-bedroom apartment alone in any major city. Or you get the family where only the father works at an okay 9–5 but is somehow able to afford a $1.5 million house in California and raise four kids on a single income. I want to live in that world.
It is all part of promoting the (usually) American image they just forget to tell you about the mountain of debt that goes with it.
In fires nobody dies of smoke inhalation. They’ll be in there for ages, merrily chatting away, coughing, miraculous escape (lifting a burning beam out the way maybe), they get outside and are fine! Maybe a smudge of soot on the face and a cough then on their merry way.
forgot to include how they walk out with their hair done up and a fresh manicure too
Gunfire indoors or inside cars and everyone can hear fine afterwards
Big explosions that throw people around but have no shrapnel
Windows that can be jumped through without shredding your skin
People traversing through air ducts
all i could think of while reading the last one was "did u see red vent or kill"
A: "I have something important to tell you. It's about the Jones case."
B: "What's up? What'd you find?"
A: "Can't talk now. Meet me tomorrow at 9."
B: "A! Tell me what's going on!"
A: "No, not now. Tomorrow at 9."
A is found murdered the next morning, B is haunted by conversation. Sets off on worldwide mission to solve the murder and uncover the cover-up.
LOOK AT THE ROAD WHEN YOU DRIVE! Even if you speak with your passenger, you do not look at him for 5s !
“I’ve got a plan”
“Great. What is it?”
“No time. Just trust me.”
Doctors doing everything in medical settings. Scanning the patient, setting up IV’s, interpreting brain MRI’s. Nurses who? Radiographers what?
People can talk and hear each other in clubs or loud bars without any issues.
Women waking up in bed with a full face of makeup.
I'm talking winged eyeliner and fuchsia lipstick. I seriously want to know who makes those decisions in the makeup department smh.
Punching four people in the face and not feeling anything. I've been in a fight and won. Even then it hurts like hell. No one 'wins' in a fight, they just get injured the least.
Or making kicks like they learned during their taekwondo-lessons. You don't try to kick people using these kind of tricks. You need to be balanced, or you will get your ass handed to you.
In a fist fight or mugging the participants fight clean. In a real situation there would be biting, gouging of eyes, grabbing and twisting of the (male) genitals , hinting the opponent's head with anything harmful that came to hand etc to incapacitate the attacker. The Marquis of Queensberry Rules are for Boxing Rings only.
This. Every fight I've been in I always felt like I was run over by a bus the next day.
In "Enough", J-Lo puts on gloves and large rings and wraps them in fabric to protect her hands while beating her hyper-abusive ex husband's ass.
Well, if you're in a big fight usually adrenaline takes over and you don't notice the pain until it's all over. Also, if you train in most kinds of martial arts, your hands and feet get used to hitting hard surfaces.
And the long pronounced pre-punch like seen in this photo, yet the punchee doesn't move a muscle, just takes it.
The scientist is an expert in multiple fields of study. Don’t get me wrong, most PhD scientists I know have a solid foundation in chem/physics/bio, but it’s not super common to find a person who has a PhD-level of understanding in all of those fields. I hate it in movies when the ecologist somehow develops a vaccine, or the meteorologist manages to predict an earthquake . Like, a PhD is so narrow in scope. A biologist who studies fish probably can’t answer s**t about snakes... let alone create a vaccine for a novel virus.
Also many times they are super young, super sexy people who aren't even aware of their sexiness
College professor here. Pet peeves about how college is depicted:
- Every class is in a medieval European-style amphitheater classroom
- Professors are all living in giant 6,000 sq ft houses, even if they teach literature or sociology
- Professors only address students by their last names, and all students call professors "sir"
- Students or professors strolling down the quad with a leather courier bag worth a month's pay, for some reason always eating an apple
- NO F**KING TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOMS
Someone being hit in the head, loses consciousness, and two minutes later getting up as if nothing happened.
Big breakfasts that no one eats because the characters are in a hurry and running out the door. Me personally, I'll be late to whatever for some pancakes/waffles.
Lava does not let you melt slowly into it. Even at close proximity the heat is enough to evaporate the liquids in your body and make you explode... They tested it by throwing dead pigs into a volcano, the corpses just bounce and skitter until the liquids are gone and the meat has burned up.
Clean houses where there are 3 to 4 chaotic children.
I haven't had a fully clean and tidy house since having kids. My youngest is 26 and she left home seven years ago, and the place is still a mess.
10 trained soldiers with automatic weapons, a couple of snipers and a helicopter gunship are all shooting at the fleeing heroes.
The only thing they manage to hit is the ground just behind their feet.
Stop waving that empty cup around, it's supposed to have hot coffee it in.
Put some water in it, or if you are worried about spills, fill it halfway with elmer's glue.
It needs to have some weight, especially when you set it down
...just like carrying suitcases. Grab a big suitcase, you're leaving your boyfriend. Throw angrily random things in it, don't you dare to fold them. Take the suitcase with one hand, wave it around it's light like a feather. Get out, slam the door after yourself, take a deep sigh of releaf and call a cab. Perfect.
Women in sex scenes always wearing matching bra and panties. And keeping the bra on the whole sesh
When people order food in a restaurant and then leave before it arrives. At least get it to go.
People yanking their IV away from their arm. B**ch that will tear up you vein and f**k you up.
Physician here. Patients do that all the time. It bleeds for a while and ruins the beedsheets, but that's it. They're veins, not arteries.
Person 1: Hey, did you hear about X?
Person 2: No, what is it?
Person 1: It’s all over the news, lemme show you. (Proceeds to turn on the TV while every news channel is playing EXACTLY what he was talking about)
When people walk in the front door of a house or apartment and don’t close it behind them. Gets me irrationally pissed off every time
Every grocery shopping bag is paper and has a loaf of French bread sticking out of it. Never a janky looking plastic bag filled with random canned goods.
In labor and birth scenes, the woman is pissed off, the baby is clean, and they never delivery the placenta.
People walk around their houses fully made up, in outside clothes and shoes. Even if their character is not going anywhere or doing anything that involved leaving the house, they always look ready to go. Who wears skinny jeans to chill? Get some sweats or pyjamas, good lord.
Gun silencers. There’s no such thing, it’s a muffler at best but you can’t mute the sound out
Falling into ice water in winter, getting out soaking wet, not dying of hypothermia.
Action movies where the good guy's car gets rammed or gets in bad wreck and it's still driveable and the airbag doesn't deploy.
Jumping into a cab and yelling, “Follow that car!”, and the cabbie just readily complies.
Hanging up without saying good bye or anything
yes but how to hang up anyway without having the "no, u hang up" conversation
Couples having romantic baths together. What’s more relaxing than stuffing two full sized adults in a tiny tub?
One character has never fired a gun in their life, so the badass gives one shooting lesson. That character misses every shot until the badass tells them "You need to feel the path of the bullet...", and they get a single bullseye. Now that character is one-handing Desert Eagles and hitting targets 200 yards a way directly between the eyes from a spinning vehicle.
How everyone's password is a single word directly tied to something on their desk. No numbers or special characters either.
The Protagonist always seems to get a reserved parking spot everywhere. Manhattan is just like the suburbs when it comes to parking spots.
(Unless it’s a gag in the plot) no one ever has to go to the bathroom. Like does Captain America ever take a poop?
CPR. I’ve never seen anything remotely close to good technique. Stresses me the hell out.
You don't have unlimited ammo.
Someone must've turned on sv_cheats and forgot to turn it off.
After sex scenes, women cover themselves with the sheets up to the neck while men are uncovered and wearing boxers. Or women getting out of bed and dragging a sheet covering their chest to walk around.
Well, what actress wants to do nude scenes for some stupid tv show or movie!
Non billionairs renting a huge appartment in a big city such as New York or San Francisco
People punching each other in the face like it's no big deal
Totally. Anyone who has actually been punched in the face can tell you... it's difficult to recover.
Women making minced meat out of waves of bad dudes twice their size.
While wearing high heels.
As if all the other fight scenes are in any way realistic. Size is hardly the most important thing in fights, as any martial arts expert will tell you.
Law student here: Every courtroom scene is a disaster.
Snapping peoples necks with a quick twisting motion at the jaw.
The best place to go is with a sharp object at the temple of the skull.
Scenes with AA meetings or where people "share stories". Everyone is a master storyteller and has a way with words.
Writers forget that in real life, people tend to ramble.
Surviving explosions with nary a scratch.
I recently got a black eye , when I fainted and hit the floor - It took over two weeks to go!! I love it when protagonist has a couple of well placed scratches that disappear over a couple of days - if they drag it out.
Unless it’s an extremely flammable place such as a fireworks factory, the vast majority of fire sprinkler systems aren’t deluge.
When a militsry person says over and out. YOU NEVER SAY OVER AND OUT. They mean two completey different and contradictory things.
Over: transmission completed, waiting for a response/confirmation. Out: Transmission completed, call ended. Over and out: Transmission completed and call ended, but expecting a response.
40 shots from a six shooter without reloading.
Or reloading once before the battle scene and not reloading ever regardless of the gun being used...except the opening scene in Deadpool where he counts the bullets he uses. Very funny!
Every kid in a movie has to be a genius for some reason. They cant just be a normal 10 year old. They also always own a rubiks cube.
Ten trained soldiers with automatic weapons, a couple of snipers, and a helicopter gunship are all shooting at the fleeing heroes. The only thing they manage to hit is the ground just behind their feet.
When the "Hero" ploughs through the baddie's base killing hundreds of troopers and henchmen that probably had families and were brainwashed and manipulated by the ACTUAL PSYCHO MASTERMIND but when his sword is at the villains throat he stops and goes "But killing him will make me just as bad"
Have only noticed this in US shows but why does every single person leave their car windows down and the car UNLOCKED. Every. Dang. Time. It takes what two seconds to lock your car, and who leaves their car windows down constantly??
Modern cars lock when you can take a few steps away from them, but I get your point. This was always the thing in the movies.
Load More Replies...I always get shitty when characters fight or have a car chase or whatever and then next scene they are at home, not injured, no consequences, no police, no charges, blah blah blah. Like come on, police notice that stuff.
I get annoyed when the hero/villain cause massive structural damage to the city infrastructure, but no one seems to care... although up to Avengers for mentioning it.
That’s how I came to dislike Steven Segal movies. He could be helping out a convenience store from getting robbed, but by the time he’s done not much of the store is left.
Load More Replies...The most ridiculous things I've seen are : A. Beautiful young woman falls in love with alcoholic obese smelly private detective. B. 10 000 people telling a person not to enter that house. Person enters that house. C. Parent tells kid to stay inside because there's a zombie apocalypse / pedophile / serial murderer outside. Kid walks of to the playground. D. Politicians who can form coherent sentences without lying all the time.
That it's OK for the main guy to be morbidly obese and ugly but the main woman had to be like a freaking supermodel.
This is missing my favourite pet peeve: people who are "good at poker". For some reason, being good at poker always means having a straight flush, or generally better cards than the opponent's. As if this is something you could control...
Oh my absolute biggest peeve is when you watch a "soap" and there is this BIG secret that will destroy your marriage or life or whatever if it "gets out." And the two people who are involved stand there and discuss it EVERY SINGLE TIME they are together with the FREAKING DOOR AJAR, talking loud enough that they can hear you in the next country.
Or they are on the phone talking about the secret and without fail have their back towards the door where someone can stand and listen.
Load More Replies...People using inhalers the wrong way: stick one end in your mouth, two puffs, that's it. No breathing the medication as deep as you can into your lungs, no head tilted back, no waiting between two puffs. Irritating. See Le Chiffre in Casino Royal.
Bombs attached to countdown timers. Every bomb in Every. Single. Movie.
People getting into their beds in boots or shoes directly from outside. It's so unhygienic! There are poops outside you probably step into or spits or who knows what and you are getting it into bed???
Simple street dust is already bad enough. It's everywhere outside and it's what makes your carpeting go grey with time if you keep your shoes on inside the house. Yet everybody seems to do it...
Load More Replies...The dorky/nerdy guy/girl always ends up with the hot popular character at the end. Life doesn’t work that way hardly ever.
One of my biggest pet peeves in movies, this one happen more often in horror than anything else. Is when they finally incapacitate the bad guy/slasher for a short time and they just run away and allow him to recover and never take his weapon. Like he is unconscious and his weapon is right there, just kill him already.
I always loved old Italian movies of Hercules -- he could bend iron, hurl boulders, hold back and entire army with a marble table . . . but throw a net over him and he was HELPLESS!
People on mobile phones that are lit up, CLEARLY on chrome browser. My phone, like everyone else's, locks up when put to my ear.
They don't have my pet peeve, people holding ranged weapons on another inside arm's length so that it can be grabbed or deflected. It's just lazy writing.
Also - people falling asleep straight after having sex. You all don't need to drink some water, wash your hands, shower or go pee?
Cops on a stakeout/surveillance of a suspect's home, parking directly across the street, and yet they *still* use a camera with a telephoto lens.
This is true, goes back many years, and why I stopped watching soap operas. I was pregnant when a new soap started. I'll leave out the name. One of the women on the show gave birth to a baby about the same time I had mine. Fast forward one year. My son is now one, and hers is off to school. Must be something in the water.
My biggest peeve is no consequences for drinking and driving in US shows/movies. You watch the characters drink all night long, or party all night and then drive and go to work next day as though nothing is wrong there, but in other countries if that is a scene the scene ends with a major accident, a killing of someone, a death to a main character or real consequences resulting in jail time or some kind of penalty. I have seen it so often in US stuff that it has really started to make me much angrier that no one can seem to hit the side of a barn with an machine gun. Drink and drive sure, but make it a teachable not just have it be the same as them stepping out of the shower or changing their shoes.
People wakes up from months in coma but are able to do walk away from hospital after beating the idiot, abuser nurse.
Another one, where the villain explains his plan to the hero only for it to be foiled at the last minute because he told the hero previously unknown details. Watchmen does this well by already enacting the plan and then telling the hero's so there is nothing that can be done to stop it.
So many idiots, expecting fiction to be like reality. So many idiots for whom fiction itself is too high a concept. So many f*****g idiots.
Military maneuvers in movies. I stopped watching Game of Thrones after the episode where they PUT THEIR F*****G ARTILLERY IN FRONT OF THEIR INFANTRY!!! LIKE WHO DOES THAT?!?!?!
Also why in the hell didn't they use caltrops to naturalize the Rohan calvary charge. Or hell just wait out the city instead attacking it. Just wait until supplies get low and they get desperate, use incendiaries and rotting bodies to burn out the city and infect them and just steam roll the reinforcements. and ffs guard mount doom.
Load More Replies...Yawn. Done better by Roger Ebert in his Little Book of Hollywood Cliches published over twenty tears ago. Most of these were in his book and, of course, were written with greater wit and style.
Apparently this is for people who don’t enjoy movies. Perfectly realistic movies...particularly action and sci-fi movies would be UNWATCHABLE. Quit being a know it all dork and enjoy the movie.
No, for people who don’t enjoy negligent writing, fast-food directing, formulaic clichés and lazy special effects. Fine for the knuckle-dragging goons in the audience who lap up most of this nonsense, but some of us don't appreciate the assumption that we're all stupid. Or 8 years-old.
Load More Replies...When the "Hero" ploughs through the baddie's base killing hundreds of troopers and henchmen that probably had families and were brainwashed and manipulated by the ACTUAL PSYCHO MASTERMIND but when his sword is at the villains throat he stops and goes "But killing him will make me just as bad"
Have only noticed this in US shows but why does every single person leave their car windows down and the car UNLOCKED. Every. Dang. Time. It takes what two seconds to lock your car, and who leaves their car windows down constantly??
Modern cars lock when you can take a few steps away from them, but I get your point. This was always the thing in the movies.
Load More Replies...I always get shitty when characters fight or have a car chase or whatever and then next scene they are at home, not injured, no consequences, no police, no charges, blah blah blah. Like come on, police notice that stuff.
I get annoyed when the hero/villain cause massive structural damage to the city infrastructure, but no one seems to care... although up to Avengers for mentioning it.
That’s how I came to dislike Steven Segal movies. He could be helping out a convenience store from getting robbed, but by the time he’s done not much of the store is left.
Load More Replies...The most ridiculous things I've seen are : A. Beautiful young woman falls in love with alcoholic obese smelly private detective. B. 10 000 people telling a person not to enter that house. Person enters that house. C. Parent tells kid to stay inside because there's a zombie apocalypse / pedophile / serial murderer outside. Kid walks of to the playground. D. Politicians who can form coherent sentences without lying all the time.
That it's OK for the main guy to be morbidly obese and ugly but the main woman had to be like a freaking supermodel.
This is missing my favourite pet peeve: people who are "good at poker". For some reason, being good at poker always means having a straight flush, or generally better cards than the opponent's. As if this is something you could control...
Oh my absolute biggest peeve is when you watch a "soap" and there is this BIG secret that will destroy your marriage or life or whatever if it "gets out." And the two people who are involved stand there and discuss it EVERY SINGLE TIME they are together with the FREAKING DOOR AJAR, talking loud enough that they can hear you in the next country.
Or they are on the phone talking about the secret and without fail have their back towards the door where someone can stand and listen.
Load More Replies...People using inhalers the wrong way: stick one end in your mouth, two puffs, that's it. No breathing the medication as deep as you can into your lungs, no head tilted back, no waiting between two puffs. Irritating. See Le Chiffre in Casino Royal.
Bombs attached to countdown timers. Every bomb in Every. Single. Movie.
People getting into their beds in boots or shoes directly from outside. It's so unhygienic! There are poops outside you probably step into or spits or who knows what and you are getting it into bed???
Simple street dust is already bad enough. It's everywhere outside and it's what makes your carpeting go grey with time if you keep your shoes on inside the house. Yet everybody seems to do it...
Load More Replies...The dorky/nerdy guy/girl always ends up with the hot popular character at the end. Life doesn’t work that way hardly ever.
One of my biggest pet peeves in movies, this one happen more often in horror than anything else. Is when they finally incapacitate the bad guy/slasher for a short time and they just run away and allow him to recover and never take his weapon. Like he is unconscious and his weapon is right there, just kill him already.
I always loved old Italian movies of Hercules -- he could bend iron, hurl boulders, hold back and entire army with a marble table . . . but throw a net over him and he was HELPLESS!
People on mobile phones that are lit up, CLEARLY on chrome browser. My phone, like everyone else's, locks up when put to my ear.
They don't have my pet peeve, people holding ranged weapons on another inside arm's length so that it can be grabbed or deflected. It's just lazy writing.
Also - people falling asleep straight after having sex. You all don't need to drink some water, wash your hands, shower or go pee?
Cops on a stakeout/surveillance of a suspect's home, parking directly across the street, and yet they *still* use a camera with a telephoto lens.
This is true, goes back many years, and why I stopped watching soap operas. I was pregnant when a new soap started. I'll leave out the name. One of the women on the show gave birth to a baby about the same time I had mine. Fast forward one year. My son is now one, and hers is off to school. Must be something in the water.
My biggest peeve is no consequences for drinking and driving in US shows/movies. You watch the characters drink all night long, or party all night and then drive and go to work next day as though nothing is wrong there, but in other countries if that is a scene the scene ends with a major accident, a killing of someone, a death to a main character or real consequences resulting in jail time or some kind of penalty. I have seen it so often in US stuff that it has really started to make me much angrier that no one can seem to hit the side of a barn with an machine gun. Drink and drive sure, but make it a teachable not just have it be the same as them stepping out of the shower or changing their shoes.
People wakes up from months in coma but are able to do walk away from hospital after beating the idiot, abuser nurse.
Another one, where the villain explains his plan to the hero only for it to be foiled at the last minute because he told the hero previously unknown details. Watchmen does this well by already enacting the plan and then telling the hero's so there is nothing that can be done to stop it.
So many idiots, expecting fiction to be like reality. So many idiots for whom fiction itself is too high a concept. So many f*****g idiots.
Military maneuvers in movies. I stopped watching Game of Thrones after the episode where they PUT THEIR F*****G ARTILLERY IN FRONT OF THEIR INFANTRY!!! LIKE WHO DOES THAT?!?!?!
Also why in the hell didn't they use caltrops to naturalize the Rohan calvary charge. Or hell just wait out the city instead attacking it. Just wait until supplies get low and they get desperate, use incendiaries and rotting bodies to burn out the city and infect them and just steam roll the reinforcements. and ffs guard mount doom.
Load More Replies...Yawn. Done better by Roger Ebert in his Little Book of Hollywood Cliches published over twenty tears ago. Most of these were in his book and, of course, were written with greater wit and style.
Apparently this is for people who don’t enjoy movies. Perfectly realistic movies...particularly action and sci-fi movies would be UNWATCHABLE. Quit being a know it all dork and enjoy the movie.
No, for people who don’t enjoy negligent writing, fast-food directing, formulaic clichés and lazy special effects. Fine for the knuckle-dragging goons in the audience who lap up most of this nonsense, but some of us don't appreciate the assumption that we're all stupid. Or 8 years-old.
Load More Replies...