55 Fan Theories Worth Your Time

Apparently, Hollywood has stopped making films forever, which is too bad. But we do have 50 billion existing films, and even if you've watched them all already, watching is just the start. Long after that comes the real entertainment: reading fan theories, which make the movies much better. Or prove fans are insane. Or both.

1. Back to the Future

Marty in Back to the Future has died repeatedly, and we're just watching was happens after Doc Brown fixes things and saves him. When Doc appears and pulls him out of the tunnel? He knows to come right then because that's where and when Marty died. The band who frees Marty from that car trunk are also time travelers sent by Doc; this also explains why they have a guitar too modern for 1955. 

2. Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins is on drugs, and Bert is her dealer. That's why neither holds down a steady job. That guy who flies when he laughs is also clearly high, and drugs are the only explanation for that trip they take where they see the animated penguins. 

3. Fight Club

Tyler Durden in Fight Club isn't merely an alternate personality. He was a real person who died in a car crash caused by the narrator's company. This explains the narrator's grief at the start of the movie, his desire for vengeance, and the movie's obsession with trashing cars. 

4. More Fight Club

Alternatively, Fight Club is the sequel to the 1984 movie Cloak & Dagger. Sure, maybe, you've never heard of Cloak & Dagger, which means this theory asks a little more of you than ones that say Tyler is Joker or Hobbes or whoever, but there's a lot to this. It explains the origin of the narrator's mental issues, his obsessions with plane crashes and anatomy, his masculine insecurities, as well as his explosives expertise. 

5. Seinfeld

George in Seinfeld had a brother, but George got him to kill himself. George mentions him once in an episode called "The Suicide" (in which no one commits suicide) but never again. George is depressed after this episode, his parents blame him for unspecified wrongs, and there's always a vacant spot at the family dinner table. 

6. Beauty and the Beast 

7. Battlestar Galactica

In Battlestar Galactica, being a Cylon is a condition that's transmitted ... sexually. A bunch of humans are revealed to be Cylons, and every one of them had sex with a Cylon -- and did stuff beforehand that would make zero sense were they already a Cylon at the time.  

8. Ghostbusters 

Reginald VelJohnson has played a cop a bunch of times, in Die Hard, Ghostbusters, a couple of other '80s movies, and then for years in Family Matters. Imagine all of these are the same character. We get a story of a cop traumatized by a paranormal experience, shot, and who then finally loses his mind.   

9. The Horror Genre

All horror films are about losing your virginity. Not just because the "final girl" was traditionally a virgin but because they're all about losing innocence and things falling apart afterward. Also, this means that all the scenes with actresses prancing around in their underwear are not gratuitous, we swear. 

10. The Avengers 

Agent Coulson from Marvel is a supersoldier. Specifically, he was that kid from the original Captain America movie who picked up Cap's shield, starstruck. This explains one otherwise inexplicable scene in which he shows superpowers, as well as his possible resurrection. 

11. The Dark Knight

Joker has a subplot where the character thought he might be Bruce Wayne's brother. Well, we had that idea years ago, and it actually makes more sense if you consider every Batman story EXCEPT for Joker.

12. The Dark Knight Rises

Brother or not, Batman actually ends up killing Joker. This explains Joker's absence and Batman's madness at the start of The Dark Knight Rises. And the famous ending of the comic book The Killing Joke, where Bats and Joker share a laugh? Batman kills him there too, only no one noticed. 

13. Batman v Superman 

14. Inspector Gadget

 Dr. Claw is the real Inspector Gadget. His hand is metal, and his voice sounds mechanical. He's part machine, and there has to be more than coincidence between that being true for both characters. Idiotic Gadget also appears to be a terrible candidate for augmentation. Clearly, Claw was the one who received the augments after an injury, Gadget is his faulty robot replacement, and Claw vows revenge on the synth impersonating him. 

15. The Flintstones

The Flintstones takes place after an apocalypse. It's right in the theme song: They're a modern Stone Age family. This explains why they have so many industrial-age conveniences (but now powered by animals), and why they celebrate Christmas. 

16. Lucy

Lucy is a prequel to Her. In Lucy, the character becomes so smart that she finally merges with the internet. In Her, she waits for more intelligences to become like her, and then she ascends even further, into the outernet. 

17. Frozen

The true villains of Frozen are surely the trolls. Hans makes no sense as a villain -- he is nice even when no one's watching him and constantly works against his supposed ultimate plan. That's because the trolls only later turn him evil, using their troll magic. They even admit in song their scheme to "get the fiance out of the way." 

18. More Frozen

Speaking of Frozen songs, "Let It Go" is a suicide note. Many have noted that Elsa represents mental illness, but here's that taken to its exaggerated conclusion. "The cold never bothered me anyway" isn't just about her ice powers. It's about death. 

19. Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice is Batman's crazed ghost. He's overdosed on Scarecrow's gas and become everything he fears. Beetlejuice clearly lives in the same universe as Tim Burton's Batman series, anyway. 

20. Harry Potter

21. More Harry Potter

That's if Harry Potter isn't just all in Harry's head, that is. We're not suggesting that because its world is filled with unbelievable magic -- magic exists, even in our world. We're suggesting that because fantasy coping theory is very much a real thing and because all the first characters he meets are clearly projections inspired by his home life.  

22. Snow White

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. "Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone." Coincidence? Clearly not. Snow White is a sequel to Lord of the Rings. Snow White has elven blood and is Gondorian royalty. And the magic mirror is Sauron -- this takes some explanation but is undeniably true.  

23. Jurassic Park

The more we learn about dinosaurs, the more we know that the ones we see in Jurassic Park weren't what dinosaurs actually looked like. This must mean they aren't dinosaurs at all, just guesswork that InGen cobbled together from random DNA and altered to look however Hammond wants. 

24. Jurassic World

By Jurassic World, they aren't animals at all. They're robots. The characters played by Chris Pratt and Bruce Dallas Howard are almost certainly robots as well. They don't express human emotions at any point. 

25. Full House

Funny that Full House goes out of its way to make all three girls blonde though their dad has dark hair, as does their mom's brother (the mom is unseen, at first). Conclusion: Joey is the girls' real father. Sure explains why he was willing to move in and take care of them. 

26. Avatar

In Avatar, connecting your tail to an animal lets you override them and control them. And Jake connects his to the planet itself. So this means Eywa, the planet goddess, must have overridden him. That's why he's so willing to betray Earth. 

27. Titanic

28. More Titanic

Jack is also a time traveler. The movie is really Jack Dawson's mission to protect the timeline, ensuring Rose stays alive and that the ship sinks. As proof, Jake slips up and mentions a lake that didn't exist till years after 1912. 

29. Monsters Inc.

When someone in Monsters Inc. brushes against kids, they swab him down and shave him because they're scared of infection, but they don't quarantine him. That's because they're not afraid of germs exactly. They're afraid of fleas (which carry germs). Fleas on kids will give monsters the black plague -- as they did, once before. 

30. Spongebob Squarepants

Spongebob Squarepants is a tampon. He's a sponge that lives in Bikini Bottom. As for everything else you might find in a bikini bottom, we have Patrick the starfish (clearly an anus), Sandy Cheeks ... and, of course, the Krusty Krab. 

31. More Spongebob Squarepants

If they're not talking about the clothing known as bikini bottoms though, they must be referring to the Bikini Atoll, where America tested its first nuclear weapons. That means all the characters in Spongebob are the results of mutations from nuclear radiation. 

32. Star Wars

Luke is a ghost in The Last Jedi. His disappearing at the end doesn't mean he dies from expending all his energy. He moves on because he has finally finished his business in this world. 

33. More Star Wars

If anything from Star Wars sounds nonsensical though, we've got the perfect explanation: It's all just R2D2 delivering testimony to defend the rebels' various crimes. The midichlorians, of course, are just a droid's flawed attempts at rationalizing the mystical. 

34. Forrest Gump

35. The Shining

Danny in The Shining is behind everything. He uses his powers to drive Jack mad and kill him, taking revenge for his abuse. Dick Halloran almost stops him, so Danny kills him too. 

36. More Shining

On a more figurative level, The Shining is all about racial genocide. It's why the hotel is filled with indigenous art. Even Dick's death is supposed to depict racial violence. 

37. Pirates of the Caribbean

Jack Sparrow became a pirate because he refused to transport slaves for the East India Company. This, unfortunately, couldn't be spelled out in the final films because it would pretty firmly plant morally ambiguous Jack on the side of good. 

38. Shawshank Redemption

Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption really did commit those murders he was sentenced for. Well, why shouldn't we think he's guilty? A trial found him guilty. Our only source on him being not guilty is Andy Dufresne, a convicted criminal. Plus, he was a banker, which should be proof enough of his guilt.

39. Groundhog Day

The cause of the loop in Groundhog Day? Ned Ryerson. He traps Phil in a loop until he agrees to buy insurance from him -- which is why, as soon as Phil does buy insurance, the loop ends. 

40. Wall-E

Wall-E killed every other robot on Earth. His motive: They keep crushing and destroying all the garbage, while Wall-E wants to sort through it all for treasures. Wall-E is clearly capable of empathy, and yet he shows no pity looking at the bodies of his fallen comrades. 

41. Game of Thrones

42. More Game of Thrones

The Game of Thrones books have a prophecy about the weapon Lightbringer, tempered first in water, then in a lion, then in its master's wife, before saving everyone. The series seemingly ended without any mention of it. Or maybe Lightbringer is Winterfell, which saves everyone from the White Walkers after facing the watery Greyjoys, the Lannister lions, then Lady Bolton of Winterfell dying. 

43. Entourage

HBO always attracts top-tier talent, but for Entourage, Mark Wahlberg picked the four worst actors he could find. Conclusion: It's really a prank show, intentionally bad. The four leads are the prank's victims, doomed to act badly, and have no success post-show, even as everyone else involved in the show gets rich. 

44. Shrek

Most of the characters from Shrek come from fairy tales. What about Donkey? He's from Pinocchio. He's one of the boys transformed into donkeys on Pleasure Island. 

45. Pinky and the Brain

"They're Pinky and The Brain. Yes, Pinky and The Brain. One is a genius. The other's insane." But which is which? Maybe Pinky is the genius, and the Brain is insane. This really might be true. 

46. The Muppets

There's a Muppet Christmas movie in which Kermit gets to see what the world would be like had he never existed. The year is 2002, and he sees that the World Trade Center still stands. We can only conclude one thing: The Muppets caused 9/11. 

47. Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit is a modern British class struggle story. Gromit is a beagle, which symbolizes the lower classes. Though brilliant, he is voiceless and must serve. Landowner Wallace, meanwhile, is hilariously incompetent. But together, they keep England going. 

48. Thor: Ragnarok 

49. Us 

In Us, the boy Jason is really one of the Tethered, having switched places with his doppelganger at some point. That's how he's able to control his doppelganger, which was what the Tethered were originally designed to do. 

50. Spider-Man: Far From Home 

Spider-Man: Far From Home is all about school shootings. Taken literally, the plot is about the world recovering from Thanos' snap and from Tony's death. But it really tells us about kids quickly adapting and moving on in a world of constant tragedy. 

51. Halloween 

Through much of the Halloween series, Michael Myers is a cyborg. The third movie doesn't have Myers or any returning characters, but it does have cyborgs that leak yellow fluid. Then after Myers returns to the franchise, he too leaks yellow fluid. 

52. The Happening

The plants aren't really killing people in The Happening. The film is really about mass hysteria. Large groups of people die, but when characters triumph over fear and face the outside, they survive fine. 

53. The Santa Clause 

Santa fakes his death in The Santa Clause. This explains why, even though the sequel reveals Santa must have a wife, we see no grieving widow in the first movie -- Santa and Mrs. Claus have slipped away together to Jamaica.  

54. Toy Story

In Toy Story, Andy's parent's divorce. We don't hear about this since the toys pay no attention to it, but Andy and his mom move to a different, smaller house in the same town for no stated reason. 

55. James Bond