10 Best Fake Movies Within Other Movies

As fulfilling as it must be to create an actual feature film, there has to be a lot of fun involved in developing the fake films that sometimes appear in movies. Think about it. You don't have to deal with all the finicky details and logistics of turning this brief concept into a fully-fledged picture — you just get to come up with an idea, execute the best bits of it, and move on. 

Whether they add to the narrative or simply serve as an excellent punchline (or, in an ideal scenario, manage to do both), fake movies can pack an out-sized punch, considering how we often only see a few minutes of them within a larger narrative. But it speaks to their quality that despite the small amount of time they're shown on screen, they tend to lodge themselves into the mind of the viewer, giving audiences a stand-out moment. And the very best of these make us all think, "Wow, I would definitely watch that movie."

Rarely has a made-up movie been so well-integrated into the narrative of an actual film. Not only does "Angels With Filthy Souls" give us one of the best lines of "Home Alone" — "Merry Christmas, you filthy animal!" — but it also serves multiple plot points with only a moment or two of screentime. First of all, this is a movie that Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) has been absolutely forbidden from watching, on the grounds that it's too violent for an eight year old — so naturally, as soon as he realizes that he's got the house to himself with no adult supervision, the VHS tape of "Angels With Filthy Souls" is the first thing he busts out. 

But it also gives "Home Alone" the chance to demonstrate Kevin's ingenuity, as he uses the recorded dialogue to trick both the pizza delivery guy and even the Wet Bandits to think that there's an adult man in his house, armed with a tommy gun and not afraid to use it. In "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," they upped the stakes, giving us the fictional sequel "Angels With Filthier Souls."

In "Singin' in the Rain" — long considered to be a near-perfect movie musical — the evolution of "The Dueling Cavalier" is a reflection of the rapidly-changing nature of the entertainment industry in the late 1920s, when sound was first launched on the scene. When Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) begin filming "The Dueling Cavalier," it's just another one of their paint-by-numbers silent period dramas. But when they're shut down in the middle of production to turn it into a talking picture, that's when the real problems start.

Not only are the technical difficulties of a hastily converted production (including a hilarious synchronization issue) made obvious to test audiences, who laugh it off the screen, but Lina Lamont's less-than-appealing speaking voice threatens to destroy the entire film. But "The Dueling Cavalier" — soon to be retitled as "The Dancing Cavalier" also reflects the can-do attitude of Don and his friends, who transform the staid period drama into an exciting time travel musical, saving all of their careers in the process. Who wouldn't want to watch that?

When "Scream" was first launched on the '90s horror scene, it grabbed the attention of audiences with just how meta it was. This was a horror movie filled with characters who actually seemed as though they had seen a horror movie before, giving "Scream" a winking sense of self-awareness that was a perfect fit for the cynical, ironic tastes of '90s viewers. So when "Scream 2" came out a year later, hot on the heels of the original's success, they had to up the ante. The solution was to create an in-universe horror franchise called "Stab," inspired by the "real-life" events of the Woodsboro massacre that took place in the first "Scream" movie. 

The end result is like looking at a picture of a person holding a photograph of a person holding a photograph that goes on essentially forever. When we see Heather Graham performing a slightly worse version of Drew Barrymore's iconic scene at the beginning of "Scream," it becomes clear that the goal for this franchise is not just to be in conversation with the horror genre but to comment on its tendency to hastily produce sequels and remakes, often with diminishing returns. For what it's worth, "Scream 2" breaks this trend, and many consider it to be a top-tier entry in the horror franchise.

"For Your Consideration," similar in some ways to Christopher Guest's earlier film "Waiting for Guffman," revolves around a group of actors making art together. "Home for Purim" is a period film about a family reuniting for the Jewish holiday in the South, complete with all the family drama that you might expect. And to the surprised delight of the cast members, it's receiving comically early Oscar buzz that they, predictably, blow out of proportion and start to get a little bit too big for their britches. 

Part of the fun of "Home for Purim" is its hokey melodrama, but "For Your Consideration" also manages to get some solid digs in at the studio system along the way. Although the film very clearly relies on Purim as the centerpiece of its narrative, anxious studio execs suggest that they change it to "Home for Thanksgiving" to cast the widest possible net. Their argument, it would seem, is that it's inconceivable for non-Jewish audiences to watch a film that involves a Jewish holiday, even though its themes are presumably fairly universal. Sounds like Hollywood to us!

To be fair, there are about five fake films from "Tropic Thunder" that deserve a spot on this list. Even the "Tropic Thunder" film that they're making within the movie is something that we would absolutely watch. But while we're obsessed with Jeff Portnoy's (Jack Black) flatulent take on "The Nutty Professor" in the form of "The Fatties: Fart 2," and Kirk Lazarus' (Robert Downey Jr.) Oscar-baiting queer monk drama alongside Tobey Maguire as himself, "Simple Jack" stands out for a lot of different reasons.

"Simple Jack," a film about a sweet farmhand with intellectual disabilities, is Tugg Speedman's (Ben Stiller) bid to prove himself as a serious actor. The clips we see of it are clearly making fun of actors who take on roles of characters with disabilities in the hopes of winning critical acclaim, especially since the in-universe audience sees through his cynical performance immediately. Although this element of "Tropic Thunder" hasn't aged particularly well, considering the conversation between Lazarus and Tugg about where an inappropriate term for people with disabilities is dropped more than once, it still works as a cutting satire of Hollywood and the often tone deaf pursuit of awards glory.

This may come as a shock to a lot of you out there, but Quentin Tarantino is a pretty big movie fan. (We know, it's not like he ever mentions it!) Although a lot of his films have references, both textual and visual, to the movies that inspired Tarantino as a budding director, "Inglourious Basterds" has cinema woven throughout its entire narrative. Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent) owns a beautiful Parisian cinema house (which she then burns to the ground, but hey, at least it's for a good cause), one of our other main characters is a famous German actress, Michael Fassbender's Archie Hicox is a film critic, and the entire Allied plot — Operation Kino — revolves around a movie premiere. 

Of course, there's also the film released within "Inglourious Basterds," "Stolz der Nation." A German propaganda film, it takes full advantage of sharpshooter Fredrick Zoller's (Daniel Brühl) newfound hero status in the Third Reich, as he reenacts the battle where he singlehandedly held off an Allied advance while holed up in a church tower in Sicily for several days. After sniping 250 soldiers, they eventually gave up on capturing the Nazi-held city. Although it shows Zoller in a positive light, he can't bring himself to watch the film, the trauma of his war experiences made far too real on the big screen. The nuance of this depiction — placed right before a cartoonish theater massacre, no less — is one of the reasons "Inglourious Basterds" might just be Tarantino's best film.

The Woody Allen-ness of "The Purple Rose of Cairo" aside — he directed the film but mercifully does not appear in it — this endearing fantasy captures the magic of the movies so well that it doesn't even feel like a cliche to say it. Mia Farrow stars as Cecilia, a moony waitress trapped in an unhappy Great Depression-era marriage whose only opportunities for escape are her frequent trips to the cinema. There, she watches "The Purple Rose of Cairo," a glamorous drama featuring an archaeologist who gets mixed up with a crowd of Manhattan socialites. The archaeologist is Tom Baxter, played by fictional actor Gil Shepherd, who was in turn played by real actor Jeff Daniels. 

As Cecilia watches Tom over and over again in repeat screenings, pouring her infatuation for him back into the film, something unexpected happens — Tom begins to reciprocate her feelings, subtly altering the film until he steps off the screen entirely (to the bewilderment of all the other characters, who now appear to be sentient as well). Their romance is sweet and endearing, and although it's the most important part of the film, we still get a lot of mileage out of this quirky little 1930s picture that has been utterly transformed by the sheer force of love.

By the time we meet Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," the once-famous actor's career isn't what it once was. He's reduced to making brief appearances on television shows as the villain, a former A-Lister recognizable enough that his on-screen defeat makes the audience subconsciously respect the show's hero a little bit more. But once upon a time (in Hollywood), he was one of the biggest names in show business, headlining gritty war films like "The 14 Fists of McCluskey." 

In it, he plays Sgt. Mike Lewis, who takes on the entire inner circle of the Nazi elite — complete with a flamethrower, in a gleeful moment of foreshadowing to the film's fiery finale. Two aspects of the film make it immediately stand out as a winner: Firstly, Leo's showstopping line, "Anybody order fried sauerkraut?" is just this side of brilliant. If you don't believe us, you can take it from Al Pacino's Marvin Schwarzs, who says of "The 14 Fists of McCluskey," and we quote, "What a picture." The immense impact a film like this has on its viewers despite being objectively goofy speaks to a larger mood in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which is both silly and melancholy at the same time.

There's an art to typecasting — you have to know when to lean into it, when to push against it, and most importantly, when to realize you're taking on a role that's completely out of your wheelhouse. This is a lesson that Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich in one of his best roles) learns in "Hail, Caesar!," arguably the most underrated film in the Coen brothers canon. Hobie is a bright, shining Western star, full of folksy charisma and all-American values. But when studio fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is in a bind and needs to find a new lead for the sophisticated comedy of manners "Merrily We Dance," he has no choice but to throw Doyle into the deep end.

Here's the thing: You can put a cowboy in a tuxedo, but he's still going to walk across a drawing room like he just got off a horse. Doyle gives 110%, but he's tragically out of his depth trying to deliver erudite dialogue to a flirty socialite. No matter how much he tries, the line, "Would that it were so simple," is as far beyond him as heaven is from earth. Still, we would pay a not insignificant amount of money to watch this charming hillbilly fumble his way through a film like this.

Pour one out for the mother of all fake films. "Argo" is basically the fake film that all the other fake films get together and talk about in admiration, a legend within its own community. After all, it is responsible — if the actual film "Argo," directed by Ben Affleck, is to be believed, the veracity of which the CIA has actually weighed in on — for saving the lives of a small group of employees at the U.S. embassy in revolutionary Iran.

As the hostage crisis unfolds, these diplomatic staff members manage to escape the embassy and are holed up in the home of the Canadian ambassador. But their lives are still in peril, and they live in fear of being found out. Tony Menendez (Ben Affleck) is tasked with coming up with an exfiltration plan to get them out of the country safely — and the one that he comes up with is simply too incredible to be believed. 

With the help of Hollywood insiders, he creates an entire fake science-fiction film in pre-production, giving the embassy staff new identities as scouts, screenwriters, and various other crew members supposedly on site in Iran assessing the country's viability as a potential shooting location. But for this to work, he has to make "Argo" real: We're talking concept art, publicity, staged readings, even a functioning production office in Los Angeles. By the time Menendez is done with it, "Argo" feels like an actual film — and one that we would totally want to watch.